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Felicity always ate dinner in the same pub near her office. She always went straight from work, arriving at 5:30pm on the dot. She always requested the same table, until the host came to recognize her and simply waved her past.
The blonde bartender always started work at 6pm. She would come in windblown, sometimes a few minutes early or late; obviously she didn’t need a schedule as much as Felicity did. She always wore black, and her hair was always down. She would run her hand through it when it got in her face, but otherwise left it alone, so unlike Felicity with her constant need to smooth her ponytail and adjust her glasses.
The girl would start moving around behind the bar, prepping glasses and slicing lemons and limes, focused on her work but never hesitating to joke with the other staff when they passed her. A few other office workers were eating dinner, but the real rush wouldn’t start for another hour or two.
It may have sounded like Felicity was watching the blonde bartender, but she wasn’t. It was just that the seat she always sat in had a view of the bar, and it was just that the time she ate coincided with the time the bartender was prepping, and it was just that the blonde bartender was part of her routine now, and Felicity noticed things about her routine.
If the girl felt the intensity of Felicity’s stare—not that it was an intense stare, more of a casual glance, really—she never let on. She never looked in Felicity’s direction at all. Never noticed her. That was good. Felicity didn’t like to be noticed.
Felicity always arrived at 5:30pm, set her things down at her table, and went to use the restroom. The staff knew her and her order and her things would be safe there for five minutes.
She kept her head down, eyes on her path as she walked three tables up and two to the right before entering the back hall and walking to the last door, marked ‘Ladies.’ She pushed open the door and walked in, and was halfway across the floor to the last stall on the right before she realized someone else was in the bathroom and looked up.
Black outfit. Blonde hair. Leaning over the sink to apply lipstick in the mirror. Black jeans tight over the curve of her—Felicity’s eyes widened and she looked up, meeting the girl’s amused eyes in the mirror and blurting, “You’re early.”
The girl smiled, looking back at her lips. “I had a drink before my shift.”
“With a boy?” Felicity said, and thought her heart would stop at the complete idiocy and inappropriateness of the question. She was completely frozen, barely even breathing, as the girl paused before pressing her lips together and swiping at a smudge, then turned and leaned back against the counter, her hands braced to her sides.
Not unkindly, she asked, “Do we know each other?” and Felicity blushed, lowering her head.
“No,” she muttered, turning and exiting the restroom. It didn’t occur to her that she hadn’t actually used it until she was seated and waiting for her meal. This meant she was uncomfortable physically and felt that her hands were dirty, although she’d washed them before leaving the office. Hand sanitizer would have to do; she was not going back there, and she was not going to look at the bar for the rest of the time she was there.
The next day, she considered changing her routine to avoid the embarrassment, but she really couldn’t bear the idea of trying to find a new place to eat and a new menu item she would be willing to eat. The bartender had never looked at her before, so odds were she still wouldn’t.
Felicity also considered using the restroom at a different time, but she figured the day before had been a fluke, so she followed her routine, though she opened the door cautiously this time.
Black boots. Jeans. Blonde hair. Damn it. She was facing the door this time, and when Felicity met her eyes, she smiled.
Frowning, Felicity considered turning around and going back to her table, but at this point it would be egregiously rude, so instead she took a reluctant step inside and let the door swing shut behind her.
“Hi,” the girl said, stepping forward and holding out her hand. “I’m Sara.”
Felicity eyed her, not moving, and for whatever reason Sara’s smile grew.
“You said we didn’t know each other, so I thought we should.” She motioned her hand toward Felicity, and Felicity finally took another step forward and shook it.
“Felicity,” she said, and before she could release her grip Sara had turned their hands slightly, curling her wrist and tugging Felicity a half-step closer. Felicity’s eyes widened again and she held herself perfectly still as Sara tilted her head and considered her.
“Felicity,” she echoed. “That’s a beautiful name.”
When she let go, Felicity stumbled back a step, having to work through her shock for a second before she could say, “Thank you?” like it was a question.
Felicity couldn’t proceed into the stall with Sara standing there, and she certainly couldn’t walk out again, so they were left at a brief stalemate, Felicity frozen and Sara watching her calmly.
Finally, Sara said, “Say hi next time you come in,” placing a hand on Felicity’s arm as she passed by to get to the door. Swinging it open, she added, “It wasn’t a date, if that’s what you were asking,” and then she was gone and Felicity had yet another three or four layers of shock to work through before she could make it into the stall.
She stayed for dinner since she knew they would have already put her order in, but spent the meal googling restaurant alternatives near her office. She could never set foot in here again, and she glanced back once mournfully at the door, but such was life.
Six days later, including the weekend, Felicity walked into the ladies’ room on her office floor and saw Sara washing her hands at the sink. Eyes widening, she was all set to spin on her heel and walk out when Sara said, “I see you there.”
Taking a step forward and fidgeting with her lanyard, Felicity said, “I didn’t think I was invisible.”
Having dried her hands, Sara turned again and leaned back against the sink. Either she found that pose extremely comfortable, or she was aware of its power as extremely flustering to poor nerdy IT girls who weren’t used to facing off with beautiful women who seemed entirely relaxed about their own beauty.
After watching her for a moment, as Felicity froze, Sara smiled and said, “You stopped coming in.”
Too many responses flew through Felicity’s head at that, and all she managed to numbly say was, “You never noticed me.”
Narrowing her eyes, Sara stepped slowly forward, linking her hands behind her back. “Hang on. You came in every day as long as I didn’t make direct eye contact, but as soon as I spoke to you, you ghosted?”
Felicity wasn’t entirely sure what ghosting was, though she could guess, so she nodded.
Sara cocked her head, smile dropping away. “Did you not want me to notice you?”
Felicity shook her head, and Sara pouted, holding her hands out to her sides.
“Are you scared of me?” She said it lightly, but as soon as Felicity nodded she dropped the teasing. “Oh,” she said, genuinely surprised, and put her hands behind her back again. “Well, just so you know, I came here to visit a friend. I didn’t know where you worked, and I didn’t follow you here. I’m sorry,” she finished, lowering her head and heading for the door.
“Wait,” Felicity said, her fingers tangled in her lanyard. She turned to face Sara where she’d stopped, so much closer now, and tried to take a deep breath. “I’m not scared of you,” she said, half-motioning with her tied up hand. “I’m scared of...” She trailed off and tried to make an all-encompassing gesture. All of it.
Sara didn’t move, not one muscle, but she asked, “Can I give you my number?”
Felicity shook her head, and Sara didn’t react except for a hard swallow, but then Felicity said, “I wouldn’t do anything with it. I can give you my number, if you want it.”
Sara grinned, her shoulders going back, and she nodded, moving to hold the door for Felicity and follow her back to her desk.
It wasn’t until an hour later that Felicity realized she hadn’t actually gone to the bathroom. Again.
The next time it happened, Felicity was the one at the sink, gripping the sides of it as she stared into the mirror, trying to get a sense of her level of inebriation—and Sara was the one frozen in the doorway.
“Hello,” Felicity said, enunciating carefully, and Sara walked up to stand next to her, leaning her hip against the counter. They’d been texting a little, but they hadn’t seen each other since the office. Felicity thought Sara might be trying to take it slow, which was thoughtful. Now here she was again.
“Hey there. Been here a while?”
Felicity stared into the mirror. Did she look drunk? “Do I look drunk?”
Sara nudged at Felicity’s shoulder gently so that she turned to face her, and Felicity wobbled a little, bracing her own hip and one hand on the same counter.
“You seem a little drunk,” Sara said, amused, and Felicity nodded.
“I am a little drunk.”
“I didn’t expect to find you in a place like this.”
“But you always find me, don’t you?” she asked obliquely, and shrugged. “Girl at work had a birthday thing, someone talked me into it... maybe they all talked me into it. Anyway, they picked a dress, and did my makeup, and here we are.” Felicity held her free hand up at her side, and Sara leaned back a little to look at her.
Felicity had her contacts in and some kind of smoky eye, her hair loose and curled. The dress was a black shimmery halter, way way way low-cut that Felicity would never have worn without the many pregame cocktails the girls had prepared. She looked good; that much was not in doubt. It was just that when she looked this good it felt like the people who actually talked to her would be disappointed.
Sara was taking it in, probably, though Felicity was staring at the faucet rather than see her reaction. “May I?” Sara asked, and her hand came into Felicity’s field of view. Tipping her head back toward Sara, implicit permission, she was ready for the feather-light touch of Sara’s fingers along her jaw, guiding her face up so Sara could get the full impression.
She just looked for a moment, breathing slowly, and then she said, “You’re beautiful,” and Felicity stepped forward and kissed her, just pressed their lips together and then dropped her chin a little so she could speak, their noses brushing.
“Wanna dance?”
“As much as I would love... love to watch you dance,” Sara said, “I think we should get you home.”
Felicity moved back a little, frowning, and Sara smiled.
“Don’t you agree?”
Stepping away from the counter, Felicity swayed in place a moment before trying to walk a straight line across the room. She got her feet tangled and nearly toppled over, and Sara leapt forward to catch her. There, before she tried to stand up again, she looked at Sara and said solemnly, “I agree.”
Sara grinned, helping Felicity back up on her feet. “I can help get you home. Do you trust me?”
Felicity nodded without thinking about it, and Sara clasped one of her hands, holding it close to her body to help Felicity balance as they headed back out into the club.
When she woke up, Felicity was on a couch, and it was not her couch. She looked around and her entire body, brain, and stomach did this awful swirling thing so she hurriedly clocked the bathroom and rushed toward it. Flinging open the door, she found Sara in front of the mirror doing something with her hair, but Felicity didn’t have time to freeze so she just pushed past her to the toilet and dropped to her knees, vomiting into the bowl. Before she could register time passing, Sara was kneeling at her side, collecting Felicity’s hair in one hand and rubbing her back with the other.
“Hey, good morning,” Sara said, and Felicity groaned. “You don’t really drink much, do you?”
Felicity shook her head and vomited again, and Sara sat quietly beside her, smoothing sweaty strands of hair away from the nape of her neck. After a while, Felicity said, “You should have left me to die,” and Sara laughed sharply.
“What?!”
“At the club, or at my place. We haven’t even gone on a date and this is gross.”
Sara reached up to flush the toilet, her other hand dragging her fingers back from Felicity’s hairline over her scalp. “I don’t mind.”
“We’re virtually strangers. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people would not help a stranger, let that stranger crash on what I’m assuming is your couch.”
“You’re not a stranger,” Sara said simply, her palm moving down over the bare skin of Felicity’s back.
Felicity turned, pressing her back to the wall beside the toilet and letting her legs sprawl out in front of her. “Practically.”
“No,” Sara said, keeping one hand light on Felicity’s shin. Off Felicity’s questioning look, Sara said, “You’re just not. Do I feel like a stranger to you?”
“No,” Felicity said, “but—“
“Are you done puking?” Sara asked, starting to get up from the floor. “I think you’ll fit in my clothes, you want shorts or pants?”
Felicity gave up. “Pants, please. I feel like I need to cover as much skin as possible.”
Sara smiled, shaking her head a little as she left the room. She came back with a stack of clothes and pointed out the toothpaste. “I don’t have any extra toothbrushes, but your finger will do fine.” She paused at that, wincing, then waved it off and left the room again.
When Felicity walked back out into the living room, dressed and slightly more presentable, she found Sara folded up on the couch, a glass of water and some pills on the coffee table. She looked up when Felicity came out, but didn’t smile.
Waving her hand toward the pills, Sara said, “You can sit down and take those or I can bring you straight home. What do you think?”
Felicity walked forward and sat down at the other end of the couch, folding herself up much like Sara and then taking the pills. After swallowing them down, she frowned at Sara and said, “Did you just poison me?”
Sara gave her a dry look. “You said you trusted me.”
“I was drunk,” Felicity countered, but her stomach immediately dropped at the look on Sara’s face. “Of course I trust you,” she said softly, and Sara shrugged. “Thank you for taking care of me. I still don’t quite understand...”
Sara shrugged again, not looking up. “If you don’t understand, you don’t understand. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Oh.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Sometimes I need a little more explaining, and that can bother people, so I understand if—“
Sara looked up abruptly and said, “No! I just don’t know how to put it into words. If I did, I would explain it to you, of course I would. Do you really think I would balk at that after last night?”
“You’re a very nice person,” Felicity said carefully, and Sara stifled a sigh.
“Okay,” she said after a second, “let me try.” She looked at Felicity, and Felicity looked back. “I don’t believe in... anything, really. But something keeps bringing us together. Something that... I really hope will keep bringing us together. Or we can just take over, and bring ourselves together.”
“You like me,” Felicity said in the same careful tone, and Sara smiled, nodding.
“I do. Do you like me?”
“I don’t know you,” Felicity said, and Sara’s smile tightened. “I really... really want to know you,” she added, and Sara sighed in relief.
“You know you kissed me last night,” Sara said, her expression watchful, unsure, and Felicity smiled, ducking her head.
“Did I? I guess I did.”
“Do you remember?”
“I remember feeling very brave,” Felicity said down at her lap.
“Alcohol will do that,” Sara said, and they both stared down at their hands for a bit before Sara let out another sigh. “I thought I might kiss you again,” Sara said, and Felicity’s heart did a little jump in her chest. “After we go on a date. If you would like that.”
“Yeah,” Felicity said, nodding, but that indefinite time seemed very distant at the moment, and Sara seemed similarly distant but very, very much closer, so Felicity got her legs under her and crawled forward a few feet on the couch.
Sara watched her with interest, her eyebrows rising, until Felicity stopped with their knees touching and sat back on her heels. Sara smiled, eyebrows still up, and Felicity smiled back, shy.
“I was going to buy you dinner first,” Sara murmured, shifting her legs down off the couch and moving forward, one hand reaching up to slide across Felicity’s cheek and into her hair, wild and tangled from her night on the couch. She tugged gently and leaned forward, bringing their mouths together in the space between them, and Felicity sighed through her nose, pressing into the kiss and reaching forward with both arms to wrap around Sara’s neck.
Pressing gently forward, Felicity pushed slowly up on her knees, her body urging Sara’s to lean back against the arm of the couch as the kiss deepened until they were lying flat, Felicity stretched out on top of Sara. They just kissed, Sara’s other hand coming to rest at the small of Felicity’s back, for what felt like an eternity, before Felicity finally pulled away to drop her head to rest in the curve of Sara’s neck, both of them breathless.
“That rules out alcohol-induced insanity,” Sara said, and Felicity laughed into her neck. Then she hummed, pressing her lips to Sara’s skin, and started to leave a trail of kisses along her neck, until Sara shifted under her, gripping Felicity’s waist with both hands and saying, “Felicity, stop.”
“Uh-oh,” Felicity said, starting to move away, but Sara held her in place and laughed.
“No, you just, you need to stop if we’re going to take this slow.”
“Oh,” Felicity said back, settling against her once more and tucking her forehead into Sara’s neck, keeping her mouth away from it. “Yeah, okay.”
“That okay?”
“Yeah.” Felicity nodded slightly, one of her arms wrapping around Sara’s waist as they lay together on the couch. “You want to go on a date.”
“I do.”
“You want to go on a date today?”
Sara was silent a moment, her hand pausing on Felicity’s back, and then she said, “I could do that.”
“You’re very bad at playing hard to get.”
“You’re pretty good at it, so I guess we’re even.”
Felicity laughed again, butting her head softly up against Sara’s jaw. “I can’t argue with that. And I can’t say it’ll change.”
“You’re doing fine,” Sara murmured, smoothing her hand up and down over her own shirt on Felicity’s back. “Also, the universe, or whatever. Doing a stand-up job.”
“Despite my best efforts.”
“Maybe...” Sara started, and then continued in her best incredulous whisper, “Maybe you don’t control the universe?!”
“I never thought I would actually be happy about that fact.”
“You’re cute,” Sara murmured, and Felicity sighed, almost entirely relaxed. There was still a part of her that said, Run. Run now, but for once in her life she was going to ignore it and stay. At least for a while. At least long enough to be sure.
Sure of what, she didn’t quite know, but running away hadn’t worked yet.
Smiling, she breathed in, paying attention to the smell of Sara’s skin, the press of her body, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Felicity might still run, because it was what she’d always done, but for now—this was nice. This was really nice.