Zazzalil cracked an amused grin as Jemilla darted in and then back out of their bedroom for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes. The ankle she had sprained in an unfortunate skateboarding accident was propped up on some throw pillows and was as well wrapped as could be. Jemilla had made sure to make her apply ice and heat on a rotation for an appropriate amount of time since they’d gotten home. After Jemilla spent a good amount of time scolding her for still riding ‘that deathtrap’ like she was a teenager, of course. There were benefits to having a nurse for a partner, Zazzalil supposed.

When the door creaked open once more moments later to reveal Jemilla with a tray table filled with food held in her hands, Zazzalil couldn’t hold back a short laugh. “Babe, what is all this?,” she asked, even as a huge smile spread across her face. 

Jemilla quirked an eyebrow at her, “Dinner, of course,” she answered, as if she really had thought that was what Zazzalil had been getting at. While Jemilla got the tray settled carefully over her legs, she tried to hold back a smile, though she knew she’d been caught when Jemilla looked up and caught her gaze. The teasing half smile that spread across her face sent a wild blush over Zazzalil’s cheeks and down her neck. ‘Good God, get it together Zazz.’

But soon Jemilla turned and darted back out of the room as quickly as she had entered it and Zazzalil leaned her head back against the head board. She raised her voice slightly to be sure Jemilla could hear her downstairs, “You know that’s not what I meant.” The only response she received, however, was a loud, musical laugh from somewhere at the other end of the house. 

When Jemilla appeared back in the door with the other tray table, Zazzalil held up a hand to prove a point. “See,” she said, a little loud with surprise, “you’re supposed to be getting ready for the Halloween party.” Jemilla gave her a sly smile and proceeded to slip under the covers next to Zazzalil and settle the tray over her lap. “And you’re clearly not going.”

Jemilla rolled her eyes and leaned over, a little overly cautiously, to give her a slow kiss. “You can’t go,” she mumbled right up against her lips, “so why would I?”

Zazzalil let one of her hands slide up Jemilla’s neck to tangle in her curls. “I don’t want to ruin your fun,” she whispered into the tiny space between their mouths. “You love the big Halloween party.”

Jemilla shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I love you,” she said quietly, and Zazzalil saw not a hint of disappointment in her gaze. “I don’t want to go if you’re not going to be there.”

“But,” Zazzalil tried to protest only to be cut off by another slow kiss.

“No buts,” Jemilla insisted quietly as she connected their foreheads softly. “We’ve been by each other’s sides for years, you think I’m gonna leave now?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jemilla gestured to the cheeseburgers on each of their trays. “And besides, Miss Retro’s delivers now so we’ll eat just as well here.”

Through the open door of the bathroom, Linda could see out the large wall of windows in the apartment she shared with her sister. But that weekend, she was back home visiting their father, so she had the place to herself. Outside, the city of Ann Arbor stretched out in front of her, all dusted in snow. Linda liked the apartment building Daddy had bought for Lily and herself to live in while they were in school, it helped her feel above everyone, just where she liked to be. 

Near the door, the intercom buzzed faintly and Linda made quick work of rubbing the last of the lotion down her legs. She checked her reflection in the mirror lined with lights that hung in her vanity area. ‘Everything exactly where it should be’, she noted with satisfaction, and she walked quickly through to the entry way to answer the now incessant buzzing over the speaker.

“There better be a good reason for all that noise,” she snapped into the speaker with a huff without bothering to ask who it was. 

“Yeah,” a slightly annoyed, but still somehow amused voice answered back. “You weren’t answering quick enough.” Gerald Monroe. Linda rolled her eyes with a smile quirking up on one side of her mouth she was very glad he couldn’t see. “Anyway I brought your suitcases and your skis like you wanted, you gonna let me in?”

She huffed out a quiet noise of surprise, ‘He actually brought them.’ Of all the people she slept with, Gerald had always been the only one who actually seemed like he enjoyed spending time with her. No one enjoyed spending time with Linda. 

“Yes bring them up,” she barked back, unsure why she was being so short with him. “Please,” she added after a moment, a little more softly, and she pressed the button to unlock the lobby doors. 

A few minutes later, the ornate gold plated doors of the penthouse private elevator opened, and three suitcases rolled out apparently on their own and a long, thin canvas bag fell to the floor next to them. Gerald strolled out among the chaos moments later. Linda quirked an eyebrow at him where she stood next to the bar cabinet, rolling sugar onto the rim of two lowball glasses. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “Hey Linda,” he said with a slightly cocky smile that anyone else but Linda herself might have found infuriating. “What are we drinking?”

A few hours later, the two of them were stretched across opposite sides of one of the couches in the living room, in the marble fireplace across from them, a fire crackled softly, and the light danced off Gerald’s face as he talked about the ski trip they had only just returned from. Linda bit back a smile and looked down at the black and cream lace negligee he had yet to try to take off of her and she adjusted the matching shawl where it had slipped a little ways down her shoulder. 

Gerald cleared his throat nervously and her eyes snapped back up to his curiously. “So, Miss Murray,” he said softly, the earlier confidence apparently a little shaken. “When are you gonna let me call you my girlfriend?”

Linda huffed out a laugh into her glass. Her thoughts buzzed a little in her head, and her heart thrummed in her chest. She looked into the nearly empty glass once more, ’How many have I had? Two? Three?’

She forced her gaze up to meet Gerald’s and set him with a look that she hoped was cool and aloof, though she wasn’t sure it was, based on the sideways grin that popped up on his face. “When you can prove you’re up to the task, Mr. Monroe.”

Gerald’s hand slid further up her thigh, his thumb traced slow circles against the skin on the inside. “Oh, I’m up,” he teased in an even softer voice. And Linda rolled her eyes to hide the smile that was working its way out. 

“Don’t be crude, Gerald,” she whispered into the glass while she drained the last of the Spanish Coffee in her glass, though he only huffed out a laugh in response.

“I’m gonna be a doctor,” he said eventually while he placed his own empty glass onto a coaster nearby. “I’m up to any task, I think.” 

He met her eyes again and Linda bit down on her lip to hide the smile that kept forcing its way out. She fumbled for a joke, something to make light of the situation, and she quirked a teasing brow, “You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions.”

Gerald barked out a loud laugh and his grip on her thigh tightened just slightly for a moment, and his other hand slid to her hip just under the negligee. “Lin,” he started, and Linda’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. No one called her that, he certainly never had before. In fact, no one called her any nicknames, other than that horrid one her father was so fond of. An easy sideways grin had taken up residence on his face once again, and Linda met his eyes. “I’ve never read a fucking instruction manual in my life. I want to be yours, if you’ll be mine.”

Linda made the decision to ignore the racing of her heart and cupped Gerald’s jaw perhaps a little more roughly than was strictly necessary and pulled him in to kiss him. He huffed out in surprise before his hands slid up that much further onto her skin and he returned the kiss just as passionately. Moments later she pulled back and began to push him down by his shoulders. His legs dropped to the white plush carpet immediately. “What the fuck are you doing?,” he questioned, though a smile remained on his face.

She leaned forward slightly and pulled the glasses off his eyes and kissed him again, more softly this time around. “Well if you’re my boyfriend,” she muttered, and kept talking even as a goofy grin spread across his face, “you’ll need to show your appreciation won’t you?” 

In the days following running into Lex during the Black Friday event at Toy Zone, Tom kept finding his mind drifting back toward his former student. Lex had always had a chip on her shoulder the size of the state of Michigan, it had been one of the reasons she remained one of his favorite students he had ever taught. Most kids that rolled through his class were there for an easy credit, but Lex had a talent, a gift even. And that talent came along with a lot of hard work that proved that it wasn’t wasted or lost on her. Learning that she had dropped out had been nagging at him ever since, and he kept feeling the pull to check up on her, to make sure she was okay. 

With Tim dropped safely off at school, Tom checked his watch, 8:15. In a couple of hours, the mall would be open and he could stop by Toy Zone, for a jump on the rest of Tim’s gifts, and a chat with Lex. He dropped by a diner near the mall to kill the time with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, but when he finally made it inside the old mall, a chat with Frank Pricely told Tom that Lex hadn’t shown up for her last three shifts, and she was on the verge of being fired. 

That information led him to drive his car to the lone trailer park in Hatchetfield, where he tried his best to drive as casually as he could, in an effort to communicate that he was not, in fact, a creep. Friendly smiles and waves at the residents seated outside on lawn chairs or walking their dogs, were met with mixed reactions, and after several long minutes, he still hadn’t found her. Tom began to consider giving up the idea altogether when he he finally spotted Lex, who was throwing several trash bags into the back of a blue and white El Camino. A car he recognized as belonging to Ethan Green, or more correctly, to his dad Tony. 

Lex’s gaze flicked up to his, and the recognition in her eyes was immediately followed by an eye roll. She muttered something to herself that Tom couldn’t hear over the engine and the radio and the heater blowing in the sedan. Tom shut the car off and stood from the driver’s seat, “Hey Lex,” he started cautiously, only to stop only a few feet away from his car when she resolutely ignored him and continued tossing a few ragged moving boxes and one threadbare duffel bag in the truck bed, which she pulled a dirty green tarp over when she was done.

“Why are you here, Mr. Houston?,” she asked, eyes cast down at the neon green canvas. There was a bitterness to her voice that inexplicably made Tom wince. Why, he couldn’t have said, he had certainly been on the receiving end of more intimidating people's anger before.

Tom cleared his throat. “I just came by to check on you,” he told her eventually, chancing a few steps forward when she finally looked up at him warily. “After our conversation the other day, I got worried.” Lex scoffed slightly and his gaze fell on the truck bed that was half full. “Are you going somewhere?,” he asked her quietly when she didn’t say anything in response.

She met his eyes again and Tom could see now that her eyes were rimmed with red, a few tear tracks trailed their way down her cheeks. Her eyes traveled over his face for a moment before she dropped her gaze and heaved a heavy sigh, as if she were letting go of the weight of the world. ‘Maybe she is,’ Tom thought briefly. 

“My mom got put in jail three days ago,” Lex eventually whispered. “My sister got put in fucking foster care until I can prove I can provide a stable home, so I’m trying to clean this place up.”

Tom’s heart dropped in his chest. “Oh God, Lex,” he muttered quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Lex’s cheeks turned bright red and she tied the tarp down as best she could, she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I don’t need your pity, dude.”

“It’s not pity,” Tom insisted, and he stepped forward to grab the other length of rope to help her tie down the other side. “It’s being upset that something shitty happened to someone you care about.” He glanced over at the girl, young woman he supposed now, to his left. Her face was more gaunt than he remembered it being when she was still in school, her cheeks were hollowed and dark circles framed her sunken eyes. His heart lurched for her. “Listen, I could use some lunch. You hungry?” Lex’s gaze snapped to his face, and he could see in her eyes that he’d gotten somewhere finally.

Nearly an hour later, plates surrounded the two of them at a booth in Miss Retro’s Diner. Miss Holloway dropped off a chocolate shake in front of each of the two of them with a smile. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can get the two of you,” she chirped happily, Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen played over the jukebox in the corner.

Tom glanced back at Lex, who was dipping a handful of fries into the shake in front of her. He leaned forward a little on his elbows. “Listen Lex,” brown eyes shot up skeptically to his, and he shrunk a little under her gaze. “I want to help you get back on your feet.”

Lex’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You wanna help me?”

Tom nodded a little. Lex’s eyes narrowed at him and she stuffed the chocolate soaked fries into her mouth, She spoke around her mouthful, “You know what really would’ve helped?,” but Lex didn’t give him the chance to respond. “If I could’ve graduated. I couldn’t stay in school after they fuckin’ canceled the goddamn shop class it was what was keeping me there, I wasn’t doing well enough in anything else.”

“Lex, I…,” he started weakly but she held up a hand sporting bitten down nails and black nail polish. 

“You already weren’t there once when I needed you,” she muttered softly, she took another large bite of her cheeseburger. She swallowed it thickly a moment later, tears rimmed her eyes when she whispered harshly at him after a beat or two, “You weren’t there… why weren’t you there? I needed you! I needed you! And you weren’t there!”

Tom closed his eyes against the guilt that began to set up in his chest, “Lex it’s all really complicated.” She huffed out a breath through her nose and his eyes darted open, “My wife died it wasn’t me goofing off,” the retort came out as more of a sharp hiss than he’d originally intended. He sighed, “But I want to make it up to you,” he muttered softly, “I’ll help you get your trailer in better shape, or help you find a new place if you need it.”

The hood of Tom’s Mustang was cold even through the fabric of her jeans. It was late, probably after 11:00 and the school parking lot was down to pretty much just the cars of the coaches and the boys on the football team. And Becky herself, of course. Eventually a crowd of boys with wet hair and clad in letterman’s jackets poured out of the side door where the locker rooms let out. Their cheers and hollering echoed around the parking lot for a moment before she spied Tom walking just behind the crowd with a huge grin on his face. 

“Hey look who waited around,” she heard one of them say.

“Nice of you to wait for all of us, Becky,” another teased, and she couldn’t hold back a short laugh. 

Andy, one of the boys that was walking nearest to Tom, turned to walk backwards for a moment and shoved him lightly on the chest. “Go get your girl, Houston.”

Tom shoved him back with an amused grin, and then looked up to meet her eyes. The look on his face which had moments before been confident and cocky, turned sweet and affectionate. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Becky’s heart hammered in her chest and she pulled her heavy cheer team jacket a little tighter against the cold. 

“Hey, Beck,” he muttered when he finally made it to his car. His grin widened when Becky uncrossed her legs and dangled them over the edge of the hood, leaving him a space in between. He took the silent invitation while a blush spread over his cheeks. “You didn’t have to wait for so long, you know.” 

Becky grinned and tugged him a little closer by his belt loop, she felt his smile against her lips when they met for a kiss. “I know,” she whispered in answer while more quick kisses passed between them. “But I wanted to congratulate you.”

They pulled away from the kiss but Tom leaned forward to connect their foreheads together softly. “I can’t believe next week is the Semi-Finals,” he said after a moment, and from up close, Becky could see a hint of nerves in his gaze.

“You’re gonna do so great, Tommy,” she muttered, one hand slid to his back underneath the jacket to pull him closer into the embrace. As cold as it was, she found herself just wanting to be close to him even more so than for the warmth he always seemed to exude. 

He huffed out a quiet laugh and nuzzled his face into her hair, and Becky felt a shiver race down her spine before she could try to hide it. “This has been such a great year, huh?,” he asked, and though it was hardly louder than a breath, Becky heard him loud and clear even over the roar of the cars peeling out of the parking lot behind them. 

“Not just because of the football I hope?,” she asked in a voice just as quiet, and Tom cracked a crooked grin at her. 

He leaned in to kiss her slowly, “No, Miss Barnes,” he muttered, “not just because of the football.”

Becky pulled back slightly to study his face. The lights surrounding the parking lot and building had all been turned off, the only lights that remained were the huge light poles bathing the field in light behind them. Tom’s face was half bathed in shadow and the look in his eyes sent a wave of butterflies through her gut. 

“Good,” she managed to whisper, and she reached up to push some of the more rowdy curls out of his eyes. “Because I’ve been thinking about something.”

Tom’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Have you?,” he whispered breathlessly.

Becky nodded, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Of all the things Tim had to get used to after his mom died, his baby brother had been the easiest. Becky had been a great Step Mom from the time he met her, but there were times he didn’t know how to act around her at first. He wasn’t so little anymore as to think his dad was trying to replace his mom. He knew that wasn’t true, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel guilty from time to time for feeling happy, even without Mom. It eventually got easier, feeling happy without also feeling like he shouldn’t. 

But he never felt guilty about his brother, since he’d never had one before. Tim loved his brother from the first time he saw him. There had been a lot of fuss over how big Toby was when he was born, but he seemed pretty little to Tim. Of course he had gotten a lot bigger now that he was two years old. He wondered if the other kids in middle school would sit with their brother and watch Disney cartoons. Of course he would never ask. 

Becky had given Toby a bath earlier so that his reddish brown hair smelled like strawberries and he had fallen asleep leaning against Tim’s side, his ratty brown and white stuffed puppy clutched under one arm. While Hercules’ battle montage with the mythical monsters of Greece played on the screen, Tim could feel his eyes growing heavy. He leaned his head back against the back of the couch and to his side, Toby scooted in a little closer under his arm. 

He was finding it harder and harder to open his eyes as he laid there, and somewhere behind him, probably in the kitchen, he could hear Dad and Becky talking in hushed voices.

“I think they’re out, Beck,” his Dad said, followed by a low chuckle. 

He felt a hand pass through his hair, “A long bike ride will do it to you,” Becky whispered.

Tim felt a grin quirk up on one side of his face. “I’m abouta go t’ bed,” he muttered, though he found he couldn’t make his eyes open up all the way.

“It’s okay, bud,” his dad whispered, and Tim felt one of them lift Toby away from his side. “I’ll carry you to bed tonight.”

Ordinarily Tim was way too big for all of that, he’d be 13 years old soon. But he was too tired to tell his dad that. So he just wrapped his arms around his neck when he felt his dad’s arms lift him up from the couch just like Toby had been. 

Emma’s heart hammered hard in her chest. She pressed her elbow a little harder into the wooden table top underneath it and leaned her cheek against her palm. Across the kitchen table, Becky darted this way and that between the pale blue cabinets in her small kitchen. When Becky’s pale blue eyes met her own, Emma’s heart jumped a little in her chest, but she couldn’t help but return the bright smile Becky sent her. Emma sighed and rubbed her free hand down her face in an attempt to wipe away the stray hair she could feel clinging to her skin but had yet to actually find. 

Becky’s soft, amused voice drifted over to her from across the small kitchen. “Hey,” she muttered, and when Emma’s gaze snapped to her own she was leaning against the cabinets next to her stove. “You okay over there?”

Just then, she felt the hair stuck to her cheek just next to her left ear, and she huffed under her breath as she pulled it away. “Yeah,” she answered as she rubbed her hand against her jeans. “Just had a hair stuck to my face.”

Becky quirked an eyebrow at her and her stomach promptly dropped, a reminder that her hair was certainly not all that was bothering her at the moment.

“Well,” Becky responded with a smile after a moment. “Since that crisis is averted, did you still want me to teach you my lasagna recipe?”

There was something a little familiar in Becky’s eyes when they met, a little bit of the same nervous energy that Emma herself was feeling, maybe. Sometimes she could hardly believe it had been nearly a year since she’d come back to Hatchetfield after an unfortunate car crash in Guatemala. Her leg was just about back to normal, though she wondered if she’d always be able to feel a change in the weather coming days ahead of time throughout her left thigh. It had ended up being a somewhat fitting end to her world wide adventures, which ended just as abruptly as they’d begun. 

When she showed up for the first day of physical therapy in Hatchetfield, due to mercifully being young enough to still be on her mother’s insurance, perhaps the last person she’d expected to see there was the woman on the other side of the room. But over the next month or two, she became less of ‘Becky Barnes that goody two-shoes from high school’ and much more of ‘Becky Barnes the badass who escaped her shitty husband and ended up needing physical therapy’. It wasn’t long before Emma was far more likely to call Becky her friend than anything else.

Eventually, one thing led to another, and she found herself in Becky’s bed several nights a week. ‘Letting off steam’ was how they’d put it in the beginning, and Emma had started out sure that it would just fizzle out, that Becky would meet some guy and it would be over. But it had been more than six months now, and the idea of sleeping with anyone else made her sick to her stomach. And worse, the idea of Becky sleeping with anyone else.  

Becky’s gaze had turned concerned and Emma realized she had been silent just a bit too long. She sputtered on her response, “Yeah, um, yes, for sure,”she muttered as she pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s make some fucking lasagna.”

Emma raced past Becky where she leaned against one of the old, mismatched chairs that sat around the oval shaped kitchen table and walked up to the counter where there was a glass pan waiting. Worry had taken up residence in Becky’s face when she turned back to look at her but she just shoved her hands into the pockets of the jeans that distracted Emma every time she wore them. She wandered up next to Emma at the counter and walked her through the recipe.

Soon they fell into a kind of easy rhythm that always seemed to win out and Emma’s fears had seemingly fallen by the way side by the time they sat down to eat. Later on that evening, the movie they had started was pretty much playing on forgotten in the background while Emma focused on the feeling of Becky underneath her, the way she sighed into the kisses that passed between them, a smile crossed her face. “I’ve missed this,” Becky muttered when Emma pulled back slightly to adjust her leg that was starting to get a little sore. 

Emma laughed and rolled to her right slightly, her arm braced against one of Becky’s pillows. “You mean in the whole two days since the last time I was here?”

Becky huffed out a short laugh of her own and threaded her fingers into Emma’s hair to pull her back in again once she was settled. “What can I say,” she muttered, and Emma felt a shiver run down her spine when Becky’s hand slipped underneath her tank top. “A girl has needs.”

Emma slipped her leg between Becky’s in an effort to get closer to her, and smiled at the racing heart she could feel against her own. “I get it, though,” she eventually muttered in affirmation. She was so caught up in the moment she went on with hardly a thought, “I think I’d do just as well to be here all the time.” 

Becky inhaled sharply and pulled away just enough to meet Emma’s gaze. Emma thought she might throw up, ‘Why did I say that?’ 

“Do you mean that?,” Becky asked, voice barely above a whisper. Emma couldn’t find the words for how much she meant it, but she found she couldn’t do anything but stare back. When she didn’t respond immediately, Becky went on. “Em?”

Words still eluding her, Emma felt a smile spread across her face as she nodded vehemently a few times and cupped Becky’s jaw to kiss her slowly again. Were it not for her position right next to her, Emma might not have heard Becky’s whispered response, “I think I love you.”

Emma’s eyes snapped open to meet Becky’s, there were fear and a fair amount of nerves held in her gaze, but not a hint of uncertainty. She felt a smile spread across her face. “You do?,” Emma asked, so softly that she was unsure if she’d even made a sound until Becky nodded softly. Emma huffed out a laugh. “You said you wouldn’t fall in love with me,” she teased softly, before she connected their lips in a slow kiss to be sure Becky knew the intent behind her words.

She felt Becky’s smile right up against her lips, and the words that followed, “I lied.”