by Sean Kennedy
And Emma jumped.
“Jesus!” she said, hand on her heart. “Don’t do that!”
“What? Wake up?”
“Just staring at me!”
“I wasn’t staring. I just woke up, and you happened to be in my line of sight.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And what a line of sight.”
Emma stupidly covered herself, even though Jess had seemed to explore every inch of her body only hours before. This made Jess sit up and laugh, and she gently prised Emma’s hands away from her chest.
“You’re beautiful,” she said.
“I’ve been told so.” Not good at taking a compliment, Emma often snarked her way out of them. “You’re beautiful too.”
“See, now.” She started kissing the hollow of Emma’s throat. “You’re just saying that because I said it.”
Emma raised her head so Jess was looking at her. It seemed everybody was cursed with the same insecurities. “You’re fucking beautiful.”
“Shit, should I have sworn too, to make it sound emphatic?”
Emma rolled her over and kissed her way down Jess’s stomach. “I’ll make you swear now if you like.”
And she did.
Chapter 10
EMMA HADN’T wanted to leave Jess’s house—especially not her bed—but she had to be responsible and go to training. She stopped off at the dormitory and had a quick shower before changing into her singlet and skirt and ran to the oval, her hockey stick slung over her shoulder.
“This is getting to be a habit, Emma!” her coach yelled over to her.
“Sorry! I had my period!” Emma yelled back. Not that it was a valid excuse when the whole team was comprised of women. And the look on her coach’s face showed that it wasn’t acceptable.
But she allowed Emma to join the others, and Alya sidled up to her.
“You had your period two weeks ago when you were late to practice as well,” she reminded Emma.
“What can I say, I have an irregular cycle.”
Alya smirked to herself. Emma knew she would be getting all the info out of her later.
“You should get that checked out,” someone said behind her.
Trish. For fuck’s sake, could Emma not spend one day without her jumping out from behind a hedge? Or in this case, a goalpost?
“My irregular cycle’s just fine, thanks,” Emma told her.
“Not if it keeps making you miss practice.”
“I haven’t missed practice,” Emma reminded her. “I was five minutes late.”
“More like twelve. But who’s counting?”
Emma imagined Trish’s nose as a ball and her hockey stick coming in to launch it. “It sounds like you are. Though I don’t know why, as you’re not the coach.”
“But I am her aide.”
Emma’s stomach rumbled. She never should have missed breakfast. “What?”
“I’m doing a little bit of extra work to gain more experience. So I am Jackie’s aide for the time being. Helping out with the younger kids.”
Younger kids? Emma wanted to remind her there was only eight months between the two of them. But she didn’t want to give Trish the satisfaction of appearing rattled.
“Well, that’s great,” Emma said, although unconvincingly. “Congratulations.”
She wasn’t fooled and looked very pleased with herself as she moved off.
Alya made her way back to Emma, apologetic. “I was about to warn you, but then she showed up herself.”
“Thanks for preparing me.”
“Well, if you had gotten here on time….”
Yes, it was Emma’s fault. Even if she had been punctual she still would have been shocked by Trish’s arrival. It didn’t make her feel any better.
“How many girls here do you think Trish has kissed?” Alya asked, leaning on her hockey stick like a Victorian gentleman upon his walking cane.
“From the way it’s turning out, I’d say half of Canberra.”
“I think that’s called slut-shaming.”
Emma knew she was being juvenile, but she didn’t care. And she was letting down the sisterhood, but hey, everybody stumbled at times. “Yeah, well all I know is that Los Angeles’s lesbian community is probably glad to see the back of her.”
“Or missing her,” Alya countered.
They both giggled, and the coach blew her whistle in exasperation. Alya and Emma immediately composed themselves and jogged over to the rest of the group.
I HOPE one day you feel as happy as I do right now.
“Oh my God, look at this,” Emma told Alya. They were back in their dorm, sitting on one of the couches in the common area. Emma’s mobile had sounded its horn with Micah’s text.
Alya peered over her shoulder. “Wow, that’s a bit condescending.”
Emma sighed. “He didn’t mean it that way. Sure, it sounds that way. But he’s actually wanting me to be shacked up and happy too.”
“Aren’t you?”
Emma ducked her head so Alya couldn’t see her face.
“Can’t you just admit you’re in the throes of early love?”
“It’s been three days!” Emma resorted to hiding behind a cushion.
“I think that’s how long Romeo and Juliet knew each other before they got married.”
Emma pulled down the cushion to give her a withering look.
“Okay, maybe not the best example.”
“Suicide and civil war. Yeah, perhaps not.”
“Still beautiful, though.”
“You’re a weirdo.”
“Maybe I’ve been single for too long,” Alya sighed.
“What, a few months?” Emma pointed out.
“I feel a bit lonely.” She murmured it, but Emma heard it.
Emma ditched the cushion and hugged her. “It’s okay.”
“It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not. It’s natural to feel that way if that’s what you’re feeling.” But it gave Emma sober pause. She had never missed being in a relationship after Trish broke up with her. And she hadn’t worried about how long it would take her to find somebody else. Besides a few insignificant crushes that barely lasted a week, Emma hadn’t even pursued a potential girlfriend. It was “Mal” who had ignited that desire within her again. Maybe that was why her feelings were so intense and had occurred so quickly. The rediscovery of them in comparison to the time they were absent in Emma’s life was making her overdose.
“Maybe that’s why I let Trish kiss me,” Alya continued. “Any port in a storm.”
“If you believed that, you would have done more than kiss her.”
“I was tempted,” she admitted. At the look on Emma’s face, she backtracked. “Not that much! Not enough to start anything. Besides, I knew your history with her. Gals before gal pals, right?”
Emma burst out laughing. “I don’t think that’s a real thing.”
“I couldn’t think of the appropriate version of ‘bros before hos.’” She thought for a moment. “Okay, women before… wow, can’t think of a rhyme.”
“I think ‘pals before gals’ would have made more sense.”
Alya ignored her. “Okay, ‘she before the v.’”
When Emma didn’t say anything, she helpfully added, “V is for vagina.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Emma said.
“Well, you think of something better, then!”
“Mares before pairs?” Emma suggested.
Alya frowned. “That’s pretty good, actually.”
“Ladies before shadies?”
“Oh, that’s good too! Wait, I got it!” She paused for dramatic effect.
“Come on, spit it out.”
“Dames before flames.”
They high-fived.
“That’s pretty good,” Emma said, echoing her praise from earlier.
“Pretty good?” Alya protested. “Pretty good? It’s brilliant!”
“Okay, Virginia Woolf, calm down.”
Alya sank back into th
e couch. “Dames before flames.”
“You didn’t really want to get with Trish, did you?” Emma asked, not sure if it was a subject she should be broaching.
“No.”
“Because, seriously, if you didn’t do it because of me and you really wanted to, it doesn’t worry me.”
Alya sat back up again. “It really wouldn’t piss you off?”
“No,” Emma said truthfully. “I’m over her, and I’ve been over her for a long time.”
“But you did get funny when she first came back.”
“Okay, I did, but that was more just because I was seeing her after a long time. And really, for the first time since we broke up. It was bound to be weird. But it wasn’t because I was still in love with her or anything.”
“But you can be out of love with somebody but still feel a little bit jealous when you see them with someone else.”
Emma nodded. “Sure. But when I saw Trish with Kelsey, I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt more weird finding out Jess had been with her too. It just seemed too Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
“Or, you know, the usual lesbian dating scene.”
“That too. Anyway, like I said, if you want to, do it.”
Alya grinned. “Thanks for your permission. But I’m not interested.”
“What? Why did you let me rabbit on, then?”
“Because it’s so hard to get personal shit out of you sometimes, so I was just enjoying the ride.”
“Bitch!” Emma chucked her cushion at her.
“Watch it!” she said, raising a finger like a naughty schoolmarm. “Dames before flames.”
BEFORE EMMA fully settled down for the night, she sent Micah a text:
Maybe I am happy. Or getting there. But, congratulations.
His response was immediate, as if he had been waiting all evening for her to reply:
Give me all the deets.
Emma grinned.
Nah. This requires a phone call.
Five seconds later: I’ll call you now.
Emma snorted.
You forget living in the Wild West that you’re three hours behind me. Good fucking night.
An emoticon of a cow immediately appeared on her screen.
Dames before flames, Emma wrote. Even though it wasn’t really applicable in this scenario, as Micah wasn’t a dame he was still technically one of her dames. Whatever. Emma broke the rules; she didn’t make them.
Her mobile sounded again.
I don’t even know what that means, he wrote.
Laughing, she sent one final message.
Secret Lesbian Business. Speak to you tomorrow xxx
THERE WAS a new message from Micah when Emma woke up the next morning, but she didn’t have time to answer him. She was concentrating on getting through the day and wanted to actually devote the time to speak to him properly. Especially as they hadn’t even discussed his breakup with Todd yet and what his and Kyle’s next move was going to be.
By the time she got out of the shower, Emma only had ten minutes to get to practice, so she was not happy when Trish ran into her outside her building.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
That was the last thing Emma wanted to do. “I’m late.”
“It doesn’t matter. Coach said I could talk to you.”
Emma bristled immediately. “Well, that’s up to me, isn’t it? I’d rather get to practice.”
“You’ll want to hear this.”
It didn’t take much to intrigue Emma, so she shrugged. “You have five minutes.”
“Thank you for being so generous with your time.” Trish led her to one of the benches scattered around the courtyard.
That sounded more like the Trish she knew—or the Trish that had developed in her head ever since she broke up with Emma. Because Trish was good before then, which was why Emma was so shocked when it happened. A switch had been pulled in Trish, and her personality changed. Maybe it was just to make herself stronger for what she had to do—not just break up with Emma, but move to a different city in a different state and start her life all over again. Hadn’t Emma done the same thing? Kind of? She had hardened as well—Alya was the only true friend she had made, and she sometimes wondered if Kerri hadn’t split with her, maybe they would still only be good acquaintances.
No, that wasn’t true. Alya and Emma had been friends before the party where everything happened. Emma hadn’t really been friends with Kerri, but she and Alya were already on the road to being mates.
“So what is it?” Emma asked, as Trish didn’t seem to be continuing. Emma hated that. When people wanted to tell you something, they should just say it. Instead they play a game of making you draw it out of them when they were the one who started the whole thing in the first place.
“Wow, you really don’t like me,” Trish said.
Emma stood up again, hoisting her duffel bag over her shoulder. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Oh, sit, sit.” Trish waved at her. “Sorry. I’ll get to the point.”
Finally. Emma sat as requested but kept one leg jiggling impatiently over the other to let her know time was money.
“Jackie wants me to take a more active role in leadership,” Trish began.
Great. That’s all I need.
“I told her I was thinking of when I retire—”
“You’re, like, twenty-one,” Emma reminded her.
“So? You never know what may happen. Injury, ability, whatever. What I’m getting at is, I wanted to think about life after hockey. So I asked her about coaching or sports management. She’s agreed to let me take on some responsibilities.”
Another example of everything falling into Trish’s lap. Emma would rather Trish and the coach were fucking and this was just pure nepotism. At least then there would be a more logical reason for it. Trish wanted to get into the AIS: she did. She wanted the exchange to LA: she got it. She wanted special attention above everyone else: sure, why not?
It was hard not to be infuriated by Trish.
And jealous.
“Well, good for you,” Emma said without any truth in the meaning. “But why are you telling me this? It has nothing to do with me.”
“It does, actually.” Again with the pregnant pause, waiting for Emma to ask why.
Emma just stared at her blankly, refusing to give her the satisfaction.
Trish sighed. “Talking to you is like talking to a wall. Did it always used to be like this?”
Emma’s face remained passive even though she wanted to scream at her Stop bringing up our relationship and No of course bloody not, you made me this way.
She hated the rational part of herself that said, ever so quietly because it was scared of getting yelled at as well, But you’re only like this with her. Not with your friends.
Well, of course not with my friends, you bloody stupid brain.
Hey, stop yelling at me. I didn’t do anything wrong!
Oh God, she was seriously crazy. Maybe Emma took so long answering Trish whenever she asked a question because there was an eternal battle between her brain and her heart telling her which way to act, so instead she just sat like a stone turd in an effort to interact with Trish as little as possible.
“I don’t know, maybe it was?” Now Emma was playing psychologist, answering a question with a question.
Trish stood up. “Forget it.”
Emma rolled her eyes behind Trish’s back and decided she would have to play her game, even if it was just for shits and giggles. “While you’ve come all this way across the oval, I guess you should probably tell me.”
Trish looked a little triumphant and Emma let it go so she would think she had won the battle. There was still the war to win.
“Jackie said it would be better if two people did the job and shared the responsibilities. So I suggested you, and she agreed.”
Emma’s first response would have been Did she even know who you were talking about when you said “Emma Goldsworthy”?
She didn’t think she would have registered on Jackie’s radar unless it was to tell Emma and Alya off about something. But she said, “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Trish was losing her patience. “So do you want it, or not?”
If the coach thought Emma was responsible enough, then she did want it. But it also meant working in close quarters with Trish, and Emma didn’t think she could handle much more of this.
But her mouth said, “Okay.”
Stupid mouth. When did it start working in cahoots with her stupid brain and her stupid heart?
“That took far longer than I expected,” Trish said. “But, good.”
“Can I just ask you one thing?”
“Oh, jeebus. And we were so close to making a clean break.”
“Seriously, why did you put my name forward?”
Emma knew Alya would say, calling back to the conversation they’d had the other night, that she was the ex Trish was in love with. Emma didn’t believe it; Trish should know it would be a hopeless case with the way Emma was acting towards her. It had to be Jess. Or somebody else. Who knew how many spurned lovers there were within the Canberra area? Maybe enough to start their own hockey team. They could be called the Trish Webber Leftovers.
Trish considered her answer for a moment. “I was thinking about what you said to me—about how I didn’t support you when I should have.”
“So you’re feeling sorry for me now? I got here on my own feet, thanks.”
“No. I’ve just decided to help others like I’ve been helped. So of course I’m going to single you out first. And you can either keep holding a grudge and get nothing out of it, or you can just take what comes and benefit from it. So what do you want to do?”
She sounded sincere, at least.
“Benefit, I guess,” Emma mumbled.
“Good.” Trish stood up again. “Now let’s get to practice.”
“ARE YOU crazy?” Alya asked.
“I like to think I’m not.”
They were walking back from practice, and Emma had just told her about Trish’s offer. Alya’s suspicions had already been raised when the two of them were late to practice and had arrived together. They had immediately separated and not spoken to each other for the whole time they were on the field, but that didn’t put Alya off the scent.
