Chapter Text
Lottie Matthews is not one to be late.
It is not a rule she has ever needed to announce. People simply learn it about her. If Lottie says seven, she means seven. If she needs to bring something, it is prepared. If she promises to be somewhere, she shows up.
Yet here she is, fifteen minutes past the agreed meet-up time, standing outside Taissa Turner’s apartment door with a still-warm baking tray pressed awkwardly against her chest.
The foil crinkles against her sweater. Heat seeps through the thin layer of metal and into her palms. She balances the tray on one hand just long enough to free the other, lifting her knuckles toward the door.
Before her skin touches the wood, the door swings open.
Lottie stills, eyes widening in surprise before narrowing at the figure standing in front of her.
Natalie Scatorccio leans against the doorframe like she has been there for hours.
There is something deeply irritating about Nat looking that comfortable while Lottie is standing there with a tray of brownies slowly burning a rectangle into her forearms.
Lottie lets out a small, frustrated huff.
“Please don’t tell me you watched me struggle with this the entire time,” she groans, grasping the tray firmly with both hands.
Nat grins, folding her arms across her chest. “I didn’t watch you struggle the entire time.”
“Thank God, I-“
“Only the last thirty seconds or so.”
“Natalie.”
“What?” Nat says. “I didn’t want to damage your pride.”
“My pride is fine.”
“Sure. I won’t bring up the three times you almost dropped the tray.”
Lottie adjusts her grip on the foil-covered brownies, giving Nat a playful but pointed look.
Nat holds her gaze for exactly two seconds before stepping forward and taking the tray from her hands.
The relief is immediate. Lottie flexes her fingers once, resisting the urge to shake out the warmth from her palms.
“You’re late,” Nat says, peering under the foil. “Tai said she’s adding a twenty dollar late fee to the next gathering. Should’ve done it today. Easy sixty bucks.”
“I would ask her to charge your card, since it’s your fault.” Lottie folds her arms across her chest.
“My fault?”
“You can’t just ask me to bake you brownies thirty minutes before an event, Natalie.”
“I mean, here you are with the goods.” Nat’s grin widens. “I’d say my plan worked out.”
“I’d say you alone owe me twenty bucks for the stress you just caused me.”
“Twenty?” Nat looks up, mouth quirking. “Think more highly of yourself, Matthews. You should charge more for your services.”
“You could never afford my services, Scatorccio.” Lottie tilts her head. “Now, are you going to let me in?”
Nat stands there for a moment, pretending to consider it. Her eyes flick from the tray to Lottie and back again.
“I suppose you’ve paid the toll.”
“Spoken like a true goblin under a bridge.” Lottie teases as she steps past her into the apartment.
Behind her, Nat mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “Long ass legs,” but Lottie chooses to ignore it.
Taissa’s apartment smells like warm popcorn, expensive vanilla candles, and the floral laundry detergent Tai uses on everything she owns. There is a pile of shoes by the door, several coats already thrown over the back of a chair, and the low murmur of familiar voices spilling out from the living room.
Lottie removes her shoes, sets her coat down neatly, then follows the sound of bickering.
There is comfort in it, she thinks. In the noise. In the shape of them.
“Barbie is not a retro movie,” Van argues from the couch, flicking through Netflix with clearly no intention of letting anyone else choose a movie.
“It came out years ago,” Mari protests from the floor, already halfway through a large bowl of popcorn.
“So did Van,” Nat says, appearing behind Lottie with the brownies in one hand and a beer in the other.
Van catches the beer when Nat tosses it to her, then points at her with it. “That was a good one.”
Nat holds up a hand and Van high-fives her without hesitation.
Tai looks up from her phone briefly. “No throwing drinks in my apartment.”
“It was a controlled throw,” Nat says, flopping down into the middle of the sofa beside Van.
A warmth passes through Lottie’s chest before she can do anything about it.
It has been at least two months since they had all managed to get together like this. Properly, anyway. Sure she sees Jackie and Tai often enough and she meets Natalie every Friday for coffee, but this is different.
All of them in the same room.
Bickering, talking over each other. Van already half-laughing at her own joke. Mari pretending not to enjoy herself while eating snacks she did not bring. Tai scrolling through her emails like she is not listening, even though she absolutely is.
None of them ever really change.
Or maybe they do, Lottie thinks, but slowly enough that it still feels like coming home.
She makes her way over to the sofa and slots herself between Natalie and the arm. It is the only space left, but Nat still shifts slightly to make room, her knee knocking gently against Lottie’s before she pulls it back.
The contact is brief. Still, Lottie notices the absence of it after.
“You didn’t happen to see Jackie and Shauna on your way in, did you?” Tai asks, looking towards Lottie.
Lottie shakes her head. “No. Why?”
“Jackie said they were five minutes away.”
Mari snorts from the floor. “Jackie’s five minutes or actual five minutes?”
“Those are different measurements,” Van says, beer bottle halfway to her mouth.
Nat leans forward to set the tray of brownies on the coffee table. “Jackie’s five minutes means she’s either outside the building or still choosing an outfit.”
“She said she was with Shauna,” Tai says.
“Oh, then they’re probably arguing somewhere,” Van says.
There’s a chorus of agreement around the room.
Jackie and Shauna’s friendship has always been a mystery. They are impossible to separate, difficult to understand, and somehow always two seconds away from either laughing or killing each other.
Lottie has known them long enough to stop trying to explain it to people. Jackie and Shauna are just Jackie and Shauna.
A sentence that means everything and nothing at the same time.
“So,” Nat says, shifting on the sofa, turning her body slightly towards Lottie before draping her arm along the back of the cushions. “I’m going to be a world champion.”
Lottie exhales through her nose and closes her eyes, letting her head drop back.
It knocks lightly against Nat’s arm.
“Of course you are,” Lottie says, opening her eyes and tilting her head towards Nat. “What ridiculous hobby could you have possibly picked up since Friday?”
“Five finger fillet.”
Lottie stares at her.
Nat smiles.
“No.”
“You didn’t even ask what it is.” Nat whines.
“I know what it is.”
Van leans forward suddenly, invested. “For the record, she’s pretty good at it.”
“For the record,” Tai says, still looking at her phone, “she is not playing it in my apartment.”
Lottie turns her head just enough to look at Nat properly. “Natalie.”
“What?”
Lottie does not get the chance to answer.
Voices rise from the hallway outside Tai’s apartment. Familiar voices. One overly bright yet laced with irritation, the other flatter, sharper, already halfway through a sentence.
A second later, there is a knock at the door.
Tai sighs and stands. “Please be normal.”
“Directed at them or us?” Mari asks.
“All of you.”
Tai makes her way across the room, disappearing through the kitchen. Lottie hears the faint click as Tai opens the door.
Jackie Taylor steps inside first, cheeks flushed from the cold, a tote bag hooked over one shoulder and irritation written plainly across her face.
Shauna follows half a step behind her, carrying a second bag and wearing the expression of someone who has been arguing for at least ten minutes and intends to keep going.
“I’m just saying,” Jackie says, turning back toward Shauna before she has even taken her shoes off, “there was no need to make it sound like I was being dramatic.”
“You were being dramatic,” Shauna huffs.
“I was explaining.”
“You were explaining loudly. You were basically yelling.”
Jackie’s mouth falls open. “Because you weren’t listening.”
“I was listening. I just disagreed.” Shauna folds her arms across her chest.
Van grins from the sofa. “Oh, good. They brought entertainment.”
Lottie watches as Jackie sighs and turns to greet the rest of the room.
The change is immediate. Her shoulders loosen and her expression brightens. The irritation disappears so quickly that, if Lottie had not been looking directly at her, she might have believed it had never been there at all.
“Hi, everyone.”
It is convincing enough, probably, if you are not paying attention. However, Lottie is paying attention.
Beside her, Nat leans back into the sofa. Quietly, just for Lottie, she says, “Five bucks says they were fighting about nothing.”
Lottie laughs it’s soft and quiet but her eyes stay on Jackie.
Jackie is smiling at Van now, saying something about the snacks, but her attention keeps pulling back towards the doorway where Shauna is still toeing off her shoes. It is not obvious. Jackie is good at not being obvious when she wants to be. But Lottie sees the way her eyes catch, then retreat.
“Alright.” Tai gently clasps her hands together, drawing the attention of the room. “Now that you’re all here, we can get started.”
The girls fall back into their old rhythm almost instantly.
Tai and Van end up curled together at one end of the sofa, speaking in low voices over the opening credits like they are not already ignoring the movie Tai had insisted everyone needed to watch properly.
Mari holds her claim on the floor, settling between Jackie’s legs with a bowl of popcorn in her lap and a packet of Nat’s M&Ms balanced on her knee. Naturally, she has brought nothing, but somehow seems to have acquired half the snacks in the room.
Jackie starts braiding Mari’s hair within the first ten minutes.
This is nothing new. Jackie has always been like that with people she loves, always fixing collars, smoothing hair, adjusting sleeves, making herself useful in ways that can be disguised as fussing. Her fingers separate and smooth each section of Mari’s hair with practised ease.
But Lottie can tell she is not really paying attention to Mari, not completely anyway.
Her eyes keep drifting.
First to the screen, then to Shauna, then back to the screen again.
Shauna sits beside her, arms folded, gaze fixed firmly on the movie.
Beside Lottie, Nat is snacking on a bag of Sour Patch Kids and providing a running private commentary meant only for the two of them.
Every few minutes, she leans in close enough that her voice brushes Lottie’s ear and whispers something ridiculous about the plot.
“That guy’s dying first.”
“He’s the lead,” Lottie whispers back.
“That’s how they get you.”
“Who is they?”
“Hollywood.”
Lottie presses her lips together, refusing to laugh.
Nat grins, obviously amused, and offers the bag of sweets and Lottie takes one without thinking.
On screen, two people stand in the rain, staring at each other. The dialogue is dramatic enough that Mari makes a gagging noise from the floor.
“Oh, come on,” Mari says. “No one talks like that.”
“You cried at The Notebook,” Van points out.
“Shut up.”
Lottie barely hears the rest of it.
Across the room, Shauna has gone very still.
It is subtle enough that maybe someone else might miss it. Her eyes stay on the screen. Her arms remain folded tight across her chest. Her mouth presses into a flat line.
Jackie’s fingers pause halfway through Mari’s braid, one section of hair caught loose between them. For a moment, Jackie is not watching the movie at all. She is watching Shauna, either an expression of either worry or guilt.
Shauna pushes herself off the sofa without saying a word.
It is not dramatic. That is what makes it worse. She simply stands, steps carefully around Mari, and disappears towards the kitchen like she has decided, all at once, that she cannot sit there another second.
Jackie stares after her.
Tai’s eyes flick up from her phone. Van goes quiet against her shoulder.
Jackie sets the loose section of Mari’s hair down.
“I’m just going to-” she starts.
No one asks where she’s going because everybody already knows.
Jackie follows Shauna into the kitchen.
For a moment, the living room is silent except for the movie still playing in front of them, all rain and dramatic music and people saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.
Mari slowly reaches back and touches the unfinished braid hanging by her shoulder. “She didn’t even finish.”
Nat drops her head back against the sofa. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Lottie turns to look at her.
Nat gestures vaguely towards the kitchen with the bag of Sour Patch Kids, irritation written across every line of her face.
“I can’t. I can’t keep watching them be this stupid. It’s starting to feel like I’m being tortured, like in Saw.”
Tai exhales, setting her phone face down on the arm of the sofa. “Natalie.”
“No, seriously.” Nat sits forward now, properly irritated. Her shoulder brushes Lottie’s as she moves, but she either does not notice or pretends not to. “How long are we all supposed to sit here and watch them be like this?”
Tai glances towards the kitchen, lowering her voice. “They’ll figure it out.”
Lottie looks towards the doorway.
From here, she can hear the faint murmur of voices. Jackie’s, an octave too high. Shauna’s, lower and sharper. The words are unclear, but the rhythm is familiar. The push and pull of it. They are arguing again.
Lottie’s expression softens before she can stop it.
“They either haven’t figured it out yet,” she says quietly, “or they’re scared.”
Nat’s irritation falters, only for half a second.
Then she scoffs, quieter than before. “Yeah, well. They can be scared and still stop making it everyone else’s problem.”
Van leans back against Tai, grinning. “That’s beautiful. Put it on a card.”
“I’ll put it on a brick and throw it through Jackie’s window.”
“Natalie,” Tai says.
“What?”
Lottie turns back to Nat, amused despite herself. “You’re very aggressive today. Did you skip lunch again?”
Nat scoffs.
From the kitchen, Jackie’s voice rises.
“I didn’t follow you.”
Shauna’s reply comes instantly. “You are literally standing in the kitchen.”
Everyone in the living room goes still.
Nat points towards the doorway. “See? Saw: Jackieshauna edition.”
The conversation is cut short by footsteps approaching the living room again.
Jackie and Shauna reappear a second later, both looking even more rattled than before. Jackie’s smile is back in place, but it is too bright around the edges. Shauna sits down beside her without a word, eyes fixed on the screen like the movie has suddenly become the most important thing in the world.
No one says anything but somehow, that makes it worse.
Lottie watches Jackie settle beside Shauna again. Watches the careful inch of space they leave between them now. She watches Shauna fold her arms tighter. Watches Jackie glance sideways and then immediately look away.
Nat’s right, it is exhausting and also painfully obvious.
Lottie’s phone vibrates in her pocket, she quickly pulls it free and glances down.
A message from Nat, whose eyes are glued to the screen even though her phone now sits face down on her knee.
Nat: one more second of this and i’m going to shove mari’s hair pins into my brain
Lottie coughs to hide the laugh that creeps up her throat.
Beside her, Nat does not move. Doesn’t event look at her. Yet the corners of her mouth twitch slightly.
Lottie unlocks her phone and types quickly.
Lottie: Tai’s right. They’ll figure it out eventually.
She watches Nat pick up her phone again.
Nat: eventually when
Nat: graduation?
Nat: retirement?
Nat: we’ll get gta 6 before jackieshauna
Lottie presses her lips together in attempt to hide her smile.
The room feels suddenly smaller with this private conversation happening inside it. Everyone is watching the same movie, sitting in the same warm, crowded living room, but this part is only hers and Nat’s. A thread tethering them under the noise.
Lottie: Stop it.
Nat’s thumbs move immediately.
Nat: can’t we just tell them?
Lottie: No.
Nat: why not?
Lottie glances across the room again.
Jackie has gone back to braiding Mari’s hair, but she is doing a terrible job of it now. Shauna is “watching” the movie, her arms still tightly folded across her chest. The space between them sits there, it’s deliberate and entirely ridiculous.
Lottie looks back down.
Lottie: Because Jackie would deny it, Shauna would shut down, and then everyone would suffer.
There is a brief pause.
Nat’s face stays blank but Lottie can feel the irritation radiating off her.
Nat: we’re already suffering
Lottie’s smile threatens to break through again.
She should not find Nat’s dramatics this funny. She knows that. It only encourages her.
Lottie: We are observing.
Nat: we are hostages
Lottie looks down at her phone for too long, her eye twitches slightly as she fights another laugh.
Nat shifts beside her, arm still draped along the back of the cushions. Her fingers rest near Lottie’s shoulder, not touching, but close enough that Lottie is aware of them anyway.
Not now, she tells her brain. She focuses on her phone.
Nat: can we at least give them a little push?
Lottie: And how would we do that?
Nat: fire escape
Lottie blinks.
Another message comes through.
Nat: take them up there
Nat: stand them near the edge
Nat: threaten to push them
Nat: they confess out of fear
Lottie’s eyes flick to Nat.
Nat still does not look at her.
Nat: kidding
Nat: mostly
Lottie: Absolutely not.
Nat: fine
Nat: what about we set them up?
Lottie pauses, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
On the sofa, Jackie shifts slightly. Her shoulder brushes Shauna’s. Shauna doesn’t move away, but she does go very still.
Lottie feels the old fondness for her friends in her chest twist into something closer to frustration.
Maybe Tai is right. Maybe they will figure it out eventually, but eventually could take years with those two.
And Nat is right about one thing. Everyone has been watching them orbit each other for long enough.
Lottie looks down again.
Lottie: You want to meddle?
Nat’s reply comes almost instantly.
Nat: not meddle
Nat: just give em a push
Lottie: That’s meddling, Natalie.
Nat: alright yes
Nat: i want to meddle
Lottie turns her head slightly.
Nat is still facing forward, expression completely unchanged, as if she is not currently proposing to secretly wingwomen her friends over text.
Lottie types.
Lottie: This is a terrible idea.
Nat finally looks at her, green eyes flicker over Lottie’s face but only for a second.
Then Lottie’s phone vibrates in her hand.
Nat: but?
Lottie hates that Nat knows there is a but. She hates more that Nat is right.
She looks back towards Jackie and Shauna. Jackie is watching the movie with her arms folded now, her jaw tight. Shauna is sitting beside her mirroring her actions.
Lottie exhales slowly.
Lottie: But something needs to change.
Nat’s grin appears slowly.
Lottie feels the uncertainty forming in her chest, but her phone vibrates before she can type.
Nat: that’s my girl
The words are nothing. They are Nat being Nat. Flippant, careless and designed to irritate her, that’s all. Lottie definitely knows that. Still, her heart trips over itself.
She stares at the message for a second longer than she should, long enough for the letters to stop looking like real words.
Ridiculous.
She locks her phone.
Before she can decide what to do with her face, Mari swats at Nat’s knee.
“Pay attention,” Mari says.
Nat jabs Mari lightly in the ribs with her toes. “I am paying attention.”
Lottie looks back at the movie, though she has completely lost track of the plot at this point.
On screen, the couple are kissing now. Dramatically, of course. The rain is still pouring, their hands locked in each other’s hair.
Across the room, Jackie and Shauna are looking anywhere but at the screen or each other.
Lottie feels Nat shift beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touch.
She glances down at her locked phone, then back at the two girls sitting too carefully beside each other.
This is a terrible idea. She knows that.
She also knows Natalie’s plans tend to come with consequences and sometimes at least one possible criminal charge. And this isn’t just any plan. This is Jackie and Shauna, who have spent years turning denial and yearning into a competitive sport.
Lottie knows something about that.
The thought arrives quietly, familiar enough that she almost misses it. It slips into the space behind her ribs the way it always does when Natalie sits too close or smiles at her.
Lottie Matthews is in love with Natalie Scatorccio.
She knows that too.
She has known it for longer than she is willing to admit, in the same careful and silent way she knows not to let her hand linger too long when Nat passes her coffee, or not to read too much into their Friday meet-ups or Natalies overly flirty texts.
Knowing is not the problem but accepting it is.
So Lottie does what she always does.
She places it somewhere quiet. Somewhere manageable. Somewhere it cannot ruin anything.
Then she unlocks her phone.
Her thumb hovers over the keyboard for a second before she types out one final message.
Lottie: Fine. My house tomorrow, after your shift. We’ll start on Project JackieShauna.
Natalie’s phone lights up.
Lottie watches her read the message, watches the smile pull slowly across Nat’s face. Not the sharp one she uses when she is about to say something awful. Not the lazy one she uses when winding up her friends.
This one is smaller and private.
Then Lottie feels fingers brush her shoulder. Natalie’s fingers. Two soft squeezes.
Quick and soft enough that no one else would notice.
Warmth blooms beneath Nat’s touch before Lottie can stop it.
It would be easy to let herself turn her head. To meet Nat’s eyes and to make the moment into something it is not allowed to be.
Instead, Lottie smiles and shakes her head, caught in that familiar fondness Natalie always manages to drag out of her.
Fondness is safe, fondness can pass as friendship.
Across the room, Jackie and Shauna sit side by side in miserable silence.
And beside Lottie, Natalie’s hand slips away from her shoulder like it was never there at all.
Lottie stares at the movie.
This is a terrible idea.
But, unfortunately, it has already started.