Sharing a kiss for the first time.
Touching one another for the first time.
Kissing one last time after the graduation ceremony was over.
There was a picture of that moment, taken on a disposable Kodak camera, shoved somewhere in the depths of Ariana’s desk. She hadn’t looked at it in years, but she remembered what it looked like. Her arm around Mik, eyes squeezed shut as she happily tilted her chin toward the ceiling. Black hair in a thin ponytail creating a blur effect with the bright gym lights shining above. Mikaiya’s happy smile pressing a half-finished kiss into her girlfriend’s cheek.
It had been the last time Ariana was truly happy, let alone as her old self.
I love you. I really do. Maybe that was her downfall, her Achilles heel, the stupid thing that would end her life as early as Uncle Jake’s. At least she wouldn’t go down full of hate and vitriol. She’d rather die a fool in love.
Gleaning a single ounce of what she used to feel would make this worth it.
She made love to her ex-girlfriend as if she were proving to the universe that not only was she okay, she was thriving. A kiss to the throat was met with such a gasp that Ariana could no longer hold back from touching places she hadn’t felt in a decade. Mikaiya may have aged into a full-grown adult, but she was still much the same in so many delightful ways. It wasn’t only familiarity she offered, however. It was new, raw experiences that they couldn’t have known when they were kids.
The room was darker from the setting sun by the time Ari finally fell to one side. Mikaiya didn’t hesitate to fling herself on top of her lover, the kisses as strong and the touches as merciless as they had been on the other end. Ari’s only regret was that they were too busy kissing all the time to make enough noise to scandalize the neighbors, let alone any roommates coming home a little too early.
Ariana didn’t care. How could she give a single shit when that rush of love-infused adrenaline was coming back to her, one careful thrust at a time?
There were occasions when a woman was so drawn into the moment that she never fully came back to her senses until the fun was long over. That’s what happened to Ari as soon as she became so drunk on Mikaiya that one second seamlessly flowed into the next.
Wasn’t I throwing you down onto my bed a moment before? That’s what she thought as she sat up in her bed, naked, with another naked woman panting next to her. “Jeez,” she said, both to her own brain and to Mik, who acted as if she had finished running a marathon. “Think you might need to start working out?”
“I ain’t out of breath!” Mikaiya asserted. “I’m… sweaty… you pack a punch in your everything, okay?”
Ariana bent her knee and slung her arm over it. “Liked that, did you?” The memories were slowly returning. Not bad, Ari. Not bad. She had definitely learned a few things over the past ten years. So had Mik. Did that mean they had more to discover after their, ah… break?
Mikaiya flung herself back against the mattress. “I’d think all that screaming I did would tell you I liked it.”
“I don’t remember any screaming.”
“Huh. Must’ve only been in my head.”
Ari eased herself back down. Mik’s body heat wasn’t so far away, yet she couldn’t bring herself to snuggle up next to it. Not yet. She needed a few more minutes to decompress and come to terms with her feelings.
It was one thing to have sex. Quite another to cuddle.
“So what happens now?” Mik asked.
Ari continued to stare at her ceiling for a few more seconds, debating what words to use, the tone, how to say, “Whatever you want to happen,” without sounding too desperate or too indifferent.
She ended up saying, “We start over again.”
There were a million meanings to such a simple phrase. Ariana wasn’t in the mood to parse them quite yet. Neither was Mik, who slowly turned onto her side and buried her face into the crook of her lover’s arm. They went from politely avoiding too much sentimentality to fully embracing it in the span of a few minutes.
Starting over again might be the death of them at that rate. Then again, it finely mirrored how it all began back in high school, when a single kiss led to a little more – then much more.
Here was to hoping that they were still the same crazy kids in all the right ways. And had changed for the better in all the right ways, too. Hope was the biggest thread spinning them together now. The fact Ariana held so much hope in her heart almost made it worth it.
Chapter 17
MIKAIYA
The café door slammed shut, jostling the bells and accidentally turning the Open/Close sign around. The man sauntering in to order an after-hours decaf didn’t notice what he had done until his wife patted him on the shoulder and scolded him for being so inconsiderate.
Come on, Ari, where are you? Mik’s coffee continued to chill in her hands. It didn’t matter how high Heaven cranked the heater in her café. A recent cold snap had sheeted Paradise Valley in ice, and while many of the locals were accustomed to navigating these colder months among the Coast Range, it didn’t mean they looked forward to going out in their bundled jackets, scarves, and hats. Mik shivered in her thick gray sweater and scarf tucked deep into the collar. Or maybe those chills came from a different place. A place of insecurity.
She was supposed to meet Ariana that night, as soon as the EMT finished her shift. Whenever that would be. At five to five, Ari had texted Mikaiya to tell her she was still at the county hospital and would probably be late to their date. If they could call this a date.
No. It’s a date. She called it one when she texted me about getting coffee last night. Mik steadied her breathing as she pretended to be enamored with scrolling her Reddit feed. She liked keeping up with the goings-on back in Portland. Which was why she was totally reading posts and not simply scrolling endlessly in a futile attempt to stay preoccupied.
The people surrounding her, staring at her over their cups of coffee and laptops, absolutely did not help. One of the more curious patrons was the woman with a headscarf, who was often seen in Heaven’s Café clacking away at her MacBook. Piles of well-worn notebooks, library books, and print-outs surrounded her little workstation. Mikaiya struggled to see a small cup of tea in the midst of that organized chaos. By then, however, she had caught the woman’s attentions, and all Mik could think about was how this same person was there when Ariana received her bouquet of flowers.
Those roses were still going strong on the front counter, where Heaven had put them to good use as a festive decoration for her café. The few times Mik had shown her face again were marked with sarcastic, “Thanks for the donation! Everyone loves the roses, Mik!” followed with chuckles that almost ran Mikaiya out of the café. Yet she knew that was Heaven’s way of chiding her for being the Town Dumbass. Besides, it wouldn’t be a gallant return to her home turf if her old softball teammates from high school didn’t give her shit. Heaven was the upperclassman who helped “initiate” Mik and Ari’s class by leading them all into a hayfield for a “special practice” that turned into being stranded for five hours. Not bitter, Heaven. Some things never changed from college. Heaven may have bought and renovated this place while Mikaiya was gone, becoming one of the youngest brick-and-mortar shop owners in Paradise Valley, but she was still ruthless. Huh. Must be how she came into the money.
Mik politely looked away from the woman working on her laptop and caught the moment Ariana finally walked into the place.
“Uh oh,” Heaven muttered, her gaze snapping between Ari and Mik as if things were about to blow up again. Or, more likely, she was about to gain another bouquet in her café.
Yet Ari briefly said hello to someone sitting at the front window before making her way to Mik’s table. She ripped off her jacket and, without a formal greeting, plopped it on the back of the empty chair and offered her date a wink. I’d be winking, too! She was still wearing her EMT shirt beneath, and those were muscles flexing in the dim light of the cozy café.
&n
bsp; Score one for me having sex with that? Mikaiya had never felt more like the cute tomboy who was absolutely precious in her flannel and short haircut when she was next to the new and upgraded Ariana Mura. That may have been another reason her relationships in Portland never went anywhere. Not only was she meant to be romancing the locals back in her hometown, but she was meant to be with a woman who wasn’t afraid to throw her weight around!
Heaven checked her gaping mouth when Ari turned around to order her drink. To Mik’s mild surprised, her girlfriend asked for something with caffeine in it. Was she planning to stay up all night? Didn’t she have another shift in twelve hours? Oh, my God. She’s dragging me back to her place later, isn’t she? Wouldn’t be the first time they fooled around with the roommates down the hall and Ariana’s alarm threatening to go off. They had kept the hookups to a minimum that past week and a half while they “started over.”
Maybe the minimum was no longer enough?
“What?” Ari asked, when she sat down and caught the look on Mik’s face. “Do I got something on my face?”
The corner of Mik’s mouth twitched. She had to seriously refrain from quipping, “I dunno, my pussy?” They were in public, after all. Polite freakin’ company!
“No, just… you look great?”
“Oh. So it’s flattery.” She said that with a sigh, yet she leaned back, one leg angled over the other and a smug satisfaction taking her over. Ever since they rekindled their romance – and that included on the summit of Wolf’s Hill, Mik supposed – Ari had taken control of most of the flirtations, and used her confidence to her greatest advantage. There were the signs of the sweet girl Mik used to know, and she got a great view of it when their usual conversations devolved into pillow talk… but sometimes Mikaiya swore she was dating a brand-new person.
Rather exciting, wasn’t it? Maybe a role reversal was exactly what they needed now that they were almost thirty.
“I’m told I’m great at flattery.” Mikaiya looked around the room again. “Is it me, or is everyone staring at us?”
“Play it cool. Act like we’ve been married for ten years. The novelty will wear off pretty soon.”
Heaven called out Ari’s drink, and Mik was temporarily left to her own devices on the bench lining the café’s far wall. She caught a look from the woman at her MacBook again. Eventually, she would learn the stranger’s name, but for now, she was merely some woman staring at Mik as if she were a god.
Okay, maybe not a god, but definitely someone who knew what she was about, huh?
“So…” Ari sat back down with her hazelnut latte, something Mikaiya had quickly come to learn was her girlfriend’s favorite caffeinated treat. “Let’s start with how college worked out for you. Don’t hold anything back. I want to hear about every crying fit over grades and every drunken night you now regret.”
Mikaiya may have been caught off guard by how suddenly the tone shifted, but she had been prepared for the invasive questions. Part of getting back together was acknowledging that the past was in the past – but that didn’t mean they didn’t want to know everything about each other’s twenties, since they were curious to catch up now that the negative emotions had dimmed. Besides, didn’t couples talk about their pasts and what made them the people they were today? Their last date, which also happened to be their first official date since getting back together, was all about Ariana airing out her community college experience and what it was like becoming an EMT. Mikaiya had been so fascinated that she totally forgot to talk about her first major job interview and how she threw up both before and after.
They stayed until the café closed at eight, but they were far from the last couple in the place. Turned out that Heaven’s had become one of the biggest hangout spots for the local gay women who liked to have public meetups, dates, and other such get-togethers. It helped that Heaven understood them well, although Mik had always assumed her old teammate was straight. Wasn’t there something about an ex-husband? Not that it meant anything in Paradise Valley.
“Do you want to go back to Portland?”
Mikaiya was caught by surprise. Her attentions were elsewhere, such as the way Heaven started closing up shop and one girl in the corner looked an awful lot like Reese Witherspoon, but with red hair. First actress crush. Ugh. Remember when we used to watch “Legally Blonde” every weekend, Ari?
“I dunno,” Mik finally said. “It had its ups and downs, but I mostly stayed there because I had a job, and I didn’t know where else to go.” She shrugged. “Obviously I had made friends there, but it’s the kind of place that can really get you down if you’re not suited for it. Lots of problems right in your face, you know?”
Ari nodded. “So I’ve heard.”
“You’d go nuts as an EMT in Portland. Probably.” Ariana often complained about the downtime in their county, but she would burn out so quickly in the city. She was better off waiting for the occasional fall or stroke, two things the Marcotts were great at summoning. Abby was finally home from the hospital and recuperating at record pace, but Mik wouldn’t deny that she loved having an EMT for a girlfriend. Who knew when that would come in handy in their personal life? “I don’t pretend to speak for what a badass you are these days.”
“I kind of am a badass,” Ari said with a sniff. “I carried your ass to the hospital, didn’t I?”
Mik blushed. “That’s not the only place you like carrying me.”
“Hmm?” Ari checked the time on her phone. “They’re going to close up soon. You wanna head back to my place, or does your grandmother need you at yours?”
“She’s doing fine with just Skylar and the nurse there, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So then you really wanna come back to my place?”
“Depends. You carrying me back to your bedroom again?”
“Dunno. I had to lift a 300 pound man onto a stretcher three hours ago. I’m a little sore. Might need a serious soak in the tub first. Or a nice massage. You know anyone handing those out?”
Mikaiya could hardly contain her rolling eyes. “Put some food in my stomach, and we’ll see where it goes.”
Ari headed to the bathroom while Mikaiya texted Skylar to let her know she probably wouldn’t be home that night. “That’s right, slut, get it!” Not how Mik would have put it, but she appreciated the sentiment. She was very much in the business of “getting it,” but had a feeling Ariana would be in control of how that manifested tonight.
Worked for Mik!
“Ready?” Ari threw on her jacket and motioned toward the door, now rightfully saying CLOSED to the outside world. She was halfway to taking Mikaiya’s hand on their way out when she stopped, backtracked to the café counter, and grabbed the vase of flowers.
“Hey!” Heaven chided. “Those are my donations!”
“I believe they actually belong to me, thanks.” Ari offered her a wave as Mik stepped out into the frigid night. “I’ll take good care of them!”
“You better! They’ve been getting me some nice tips!”
Ari carefully positioned the vase of roses into the center seat of her truck. Mikaiya slowly shook her head as she buckled up and waited for the heater to blast into life. She needed it. Her poor knuckles were numb! “Thought you were allergic to lilies?”
The truck roared to life. “Should be fine if I stick them on the dining table.”
“Should be fine, she says…”
“You wanna get outta here or not? I hear there’s pizza back at the house, and I’m cold.”
“Me too. I swear it wasn’t this cold when I got here a month ago.”
Ari let the truck idle as she stared into the rearview mirror, chuckling. “You’ve never read King, right?”
“No. Although you’re making compelling arguments for me to join a certain book club.”
“There’s this poem in It. You know, the one about the clown?”
Mikaiya nodded. Sure. I’ll pretend I’ve seen the movies.
“There’s this kid w
ho likes this girl, so he writes a poem about her hair being like January embers. Really nice.”
“What’s that got to do with us going back to eat pizza and take a bath?”
“You ain’t cold if you’ve got a little fire still burning inside of you.”
The truck pulled out of its parking spot. I have no idea what the hell that means. Mik merely shook her head, Ariana driving as if she were the luckiest – and the warmest – woman in the world. Or, at least, in Paradise Valley.
Eventually, Mikaiya smiled. Maybe she got it, after all.
THE END
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January Embers Page 12
