Emily scampered off the couch, tossing aside the magazine she'd been reading, when she heard Paige's key in the front door. Her expression changed from excitement to maternal concern when she saw Paige, soaked, dripping water in the entryway.
"Honey!" Emily had never used that word before, with anyone, and it surprised when she heard it coming out of her mouth. But she couldn't help it. She worried about Paige. She tried to get Paige's jacket off, but Paige kept swatting her hands away. Emily finally slapped her on the shoulder. "Would you just let me help you?" she bellowed, irritated. Paige never said a word. She just stood there, scowling, obviously in a bad mood. "How did you even get this wet, between the sidewalk and the front door?" Paige heaved her shoulders and sighed, and Emily realized that she hadn't heard the roar of an engine before Paige turned up in the door way. "Paige!" Emily screeched, slapping Paige's shoulder again. She realized that Paige must've parked in her uncle's garage and walked home, to protect the car from the rain. "I swear, if you took as good care of your body as you do of that car…" Paige tilted her head at Emily and scowled, and Emily threw her hands up in surrender, knowing she'd never win a discussion with Paige about the way she babied her car. "Go," she told her, as though she were talking to her nine-year-old daughter. "Go get out of those wet things and take a shower."
Paige glared at her, defiantly. She wasn't a child. Emily glared back. Paige's shoulders drooped and she slunk past Emily, towards the stairs. "And put your robe on," Emily called behind her. "That new one. The warm one!"
Emily followed Paige with her eyes until she was out of sight in the hallway on the second floor. She groaned in frustration as she picked up Paige's wet jacket, stretching it out and looking it over with a deep, frustrated sigh. "What am I going to do with you?" she said into its empty shell, shaking it up and down with each word. Of course, her words weren't meant for the jacket, but for its owner. She carried the jacket into the basement and tossed it into the dryer, being careful to leave as small a trail of water behind her as possible. She retrieved a couple of paper towels from the kitchen and wiped up the puddle in the entryway. When she heard the water start to run upstairs, she let out a relieved sigh and relaxed back onto the couch, knowing that Paige would be in a better mood on the other side of a nice, hot shower.
Paige came down the stairs slowly, like a guilty puppy, wondering whether she was going to get the annoyed-Mommy treatment from Emily again. Emily turned her head in Paige's direction with a slight smile and Paige, encouraged, joined her, plopping herself down on the couch beside Emily, letting her hands fall between her knees as she landed.
"I didn't start dinner yet. I'm sorry. I… I just…" Emily wasn't sure why she hadn't started dinner. Ordinarily, she would have had it going long before Paige got home, but, for some reason, it had completely slipped her mind.
"Good," Paige said, cutting her off. "I just need to chill for a while."
Emily smiled and stretched out her arm, inviting Paige to lean against her shoulder, but Paige curled her legs up on the couch and lay down in Emily's lap, her hands underneath her face, and settled in. Emily undid Paige's loose bun and started stroking her fingers through Paige's hair, which was still slightly wet. It was soothing, and Paige moaned contentedly from time to time. All at once, her body tensed and she moved to sit up. "I need to walk Shana!"
Emily gently pressed Paige's head back into her lap. "She went out earlier, in the backyard."
"Backyard" was a bit of an exaggeration. There was only the tiniest patch of land behind their row house, and it was only used as a last resort for taking Shana out.
"She doesn't like being out in this rain," Emily explained, as Paige well knew. "Especially when there's thunder."
Paige nodded her head in Emily's lap and started to relax again. Before long, Paige's intermittent moans faded away and her breathing eased out. Emily smiled to herself and leaned over, kissing Paige's temple.
When Paige woke up and her eyesight cleared, she saw that Emily, apparently bored, had begun painting her toes. Her toes. Paige's toes.
"This is… different…"
Emily giggled, putting her hand over her mouth, guiltily. "I… uh… I just thought…"
Paige sat up and examined Emily's handiwork, realizing that she must really have been out of it, if she could sleep through the entire process - including the part where Emily put cotton balls between her toenails. She had created the most fantastic, girly, unicorns-and-rainbows designs on Paige's nails. It was, with almost no exaggeration, the last thing in the world that Paige would've chosen for her toes. As Emily well knew.
"You didn't take any pictures, did you?" Paige asked, already knowing the answer. Emily lowered her head and smiled coyly. Paige sighed, resignedly. "Hanna?"
Emily bit her lip. "But she won't tell a soul, Paige. I promise. And, besides, I told her they were my feet." Paige cocked an eyebrow. Even with those toenails, there was no way that Hanna would ever mistake her feet for Emily's. Emily put her hand on Paige' neck, stroking her cheek with her thumb. "I had to show somebody," she pleaded. "They're just so pretty!"
Paige shook her head and let out a heavy breath. Pretty feet were never a goal of hers. Still, she was smiling. Emily thanked her with a kiss, for not overreacting. Paige should have been annoyed at what Emily had done, but, on the contrary, she was kind of giddy about it. It was the realization that they had that kind of relationship; that her girlfriend would wonder what she'd look like with a "pretty" pedicure, and would decide to paint her toenails while she slept; that Emily felt secure enough in their relationship to pull off a stunt like that.
"What?" Emily said, smiling nervously. Paige just kept on staring at her. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Paige couldn't keep herself from smiling, and Emily was sure that it was because she was plotting her revenge. Instead, Paige grabbed her by the head with both hands and kissed her, harder than she'd kissed her for a while. Emily, pleasantly surprised, stroked up and down Paige's side. She subtly undid the sash around Paige's robe. "You got anything on under there?" she teased as she opened the robe wide – and opened her eyes just as wide, as though she were seeing Paige's body for the first time. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight. "Niente!"
Paige stood, shrugging off the robe, and lifting Emily off the couch. "Paige! Wait! Your nails aren't dry yet!"
There was a sense of urgency in Paige's step as she carried Emily up the stairs and off to bed. Emily landed with a thud on the mattress, the force of it sending her adrenaline into overload. She hoped that Paige hadn't heard the tell-tale clack when the bed shifted as her body hit it, but the way Paige rolled her eyes let her know that she had, in fact, heard it.
Paige's eyelids narrowed and she let out a long, deep, frustrated moan. Emily was almost sure that she saw steam blow out of Paige's ears, the way it did in cartoons when someone got angry. She leaned forward on the bed, resting on her elbows with her ass slightly elevated, and gave Paige her most seductive, pleading face. "Paige… let it go," she begged.
Paige pursed her lips, her eyes still peeking out from narrow slits. "Em, I always let it go, and it never gets taken care of."
"Please?" Emily stood up and rubbed Paige's arms. "Just one more night, and I swear I'll make you fix it in the morning!"
"Emily," Paige said as if talking to a cranky three-year-old, "if I don't fix it, it's going to be rattling against the hardwood floor all night!"
"Ooh!" Emily moved closer to Paige, pressing her thigh into Paige's crotch. "All night? You promise?"
When Emily kissed Paige, daring Paige to try to deny her tongue entry into her mouth, Paige's brain melted. But her resolve did not. She ripped at the collar of Emily's shirt, tearing it off of her body. Emily yelped in surprise and delight, jumping a bit in anticipation. Paige raised the shirt to her mouth and bit at the seam, then ripped off a slice with her bare hands. She folded the fabric over once and once more, quickly shoving it under the leg at the foot of the bed that was just a little to short. "There!" she muttered to herself. It wasn't a permanent fix, but it would do for the night – unless they really got the bed rocking.
With that task taken care of, her attention went back to much more pressing business, as she quickly stood and tackled her squealing, unsuspecting girlfriend onto the bed.
"You're still turned on, aren't you?" Emily observed as she lay next to Paige, slowly rubbing circles against her belly. Paige gave her a skeptical glare, trying her best to camouflage her lust. "I can tell," Emily giggled. "Your ears get bright red!" She brushed Paige's hair out of the way, and her fingers brushed against Paige's ear. "Holy shit, Paige! Your ears are burning up!"
"Shut up," Paige said, swatting Emily's hand away, embarrassed at the secret that her body refused to let her keep. Move your other hand a little lower, she thought, and you'll see what's really burning up!
"I'm okay," Paige said, tucking Emily's hair behind her ear, searching for an indication that she wasn't the only one who was turned on. She wasn't; Emily's ear – and the skin on the back of her neck – were unnaturally warm as well, to Paige's great relief. But she knew Emily. She knew that Emily liked to lie together and just chill after they made love. That wasn't something that Paige had been used to doing before Emily, but it was something that she had grown to enjoy. "Let's just lie here."
As Emily's fingers made their way over the creases on Paige's stomach, a thought occurred to her. "Aw, crap!" Emily started to sit up. "You must be starving!"
Paige restrained her, gently guiding her back down onto the mattress. "I'm fine," she lied. "Just lie here with me." Paige put her hand on top of Emily's hand, moving it in the elliptical patterns it had been tracing before Emily remembered dinner.
"I didn't feed you today!" Emily protested.
"Didn't feed me…" Paige echoed derisively. "What are you, my nanny?"
Emily sighed, louder than she needed to, to let Paige know how annoyed she was. "Just let me make you a sandwich. It'll take two minutes. You can even eat it in bed."
"Really?" Paige asked, a leering look in her eye as she sat up on one elbow, "Because, if I'm going to eat anything in bed, I'd rather have a taco!" Paige lowered her gaze to Emily's legs, as if there were any doubt as to what she was talking about.
Emily rolled her eyes and started to get up again, but, again, Paige restrained her. "I'm not even hungry," she whined. "Don't leave me."
"Fine, whatever." Emily knew Paige. She knew that Paige had skipped lunch because she was in the middle of a job and didn't want to stop. That was how it always was when Paige came home cranky. But she also knew that, after a few more minutes of having her stomach rubbed, Paige would be fast asleep. So, rather than arguing about it, she just lay back and kept rubbing Paige's stomach. Surely enough, before too long, Paige was sleeping.
"Where are you going?" Paige whined in protest, and Emily cursed herself for getting up before she had fully tranquilized Paige.
"Two minutes," she whispered, turning back towards the bed and opening her robe, flashing the goods for Paige. It worked; with a contented smile, Paige closed her eyes and started to slumber again.
Paige was still sleeping when Emily returned a short while later, carrying a tray with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a half-gallon of milk.
"Paige?"
Paige opened one eye, annoyed at the disruption until she caught sight of the tray. She sat up in bed immediately, like a cat anticipating a treat. "Oh, my God – you're an angel!" she exclaimed.
"You're just now noticing that?" Emily said with a wry smirk.
Paige practically inhaled the sandwiches, licking stray drops of jelly off her of fingers as she did. "You know," she said through a mouthful of sandwich, "when I was a kid, I used to eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches for breakfast every day."
"Really?" Emily took a second to think about what that would taste like, and curled up her nose. "Ew!"
"I was trying to bulk up. I used to be a real scrawny kid, and I read about this football player who was really skinny in high school, so he ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches every day."
"Okay…" Emily could totally see Paige doing that as a child: Setting a goal and obsessing over it. "So, you were bulking up for field hockey?"
"Naw," Paige said, pausing to lick peanut butter off of her thumb. "This was before that. Middle school. I was bulking up because of this chick, Molly. 'Manly Molly,' they called her." Paige chuckled at the memory. "She was, like, head-and-shoulders taller than all the nuns. In middle school, mind you. And built like a linebacker." Paige flexed her muscles to emphasize the point.
"So… you… were crushing on this girl, Molly?" Emily wasn't getting Paige's motivation.
"No." Paige laughed at the suggestion. "She just had this… energy, you know? Like, whatever room she entered, she was in immediately charge. I just… I wanted to be like that. I guess."
"Wow. So, did it work?"
"No. Well, maybe. I don't know. Maybe it would've. But you know how it is on the swim team. They watch your BMI so closely, and they control everything you eat."
"Well, good." Emily, sitting next to Paige, wrapped her arms around her from behind, at the waist. "Don't get me wrong. I like a girl who can kick some ass, but…" Emily reached down and gave Paige's cheeks a squeeze. "I also like this cute little ass."
"Yeah? And how do you feel about my toenails?" They weren't exactly decorated for kicking ass.
"Sorry!" Emily said, clearly not sorry for her artwork. It had been fun, and Paige wasn't really annoyed by it. Plus, it would be easy for Paige to take it off. She kissed Paige on the neck, on her way to leaning her head against Paige's shoulder.
Paige never did bother to take the nail polish off. She was actually sorry to see it fade as, bit by bit, her toenails grew. Nobody ever saw her toenails anyway, and she liked having the designs as a little reminder of what a great girlfriend she had.
"Thanks for this," Paige said, raising her empty plate to indicate what she was thanking Emily for. "I was really hungry!"
"Oh, really, I couldn't tell," Emily said dryly, remarking at how quickly Paige had scarfed down both sandwiches, not even thinking to ask whether Emily was hungry. Paige smiled guiltily and reached for the carton of milk. "Paige!" Emily snapped, "I brought you a…" Paige's eyes widened in guilt, in the middle of the long gulp of milk that she was taking directly from the carton. "Never mind," Emily sighed, rubbing Paige's shoulder reassuringly. Paige had had a long day. Emily wasn't going to stress over her table manners.
"So, how was your day?" Paige asked, swiping a napkin against her lips.
"Oh, you know. The usual. I wrote for an hour this morning. Tried to take Shana out, but she's such a baby when it comes to the rain. And then I read for a while, cleaned the place up a bit, and then just kind of hung out on the couch for a while." Emily planted her face on Paige's shoulder, suddenly embarrassed at how little she had accomplished since Paige left the house early in the morning. "Sorry. I know you had to do real work all day."
"Are you kidding me?" Paige kissed the top of Emily's head. "I could never do what you do. I still don't get how you can just decide that you're going to write for an hour. I mean, what if you can't think of anything to write about?"
"Yeah, trust me," Emily said with a slight chuckle, "writer's block can be a bitch!" She shrugged her shoulders. "But you just have to work through it, you know?"
Paige shook her head. "I could never do what you do," she repeated. "And I know that our jobs are different. You have your hectic days just as I have mine."
"Well, I definitely could never do what you do!" Emily shook her head dismissively.
"You'd be surprised," Paige said. "Most of what I do is just common sense." Emily looked at Paige, raising an eyebrow. Paige laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Okay, yeah," Paige admitted reluctantly. "You could never do what I do."
"Do you remember that night, when you put the dimmer switch on the light in the dining room?"
Paige snorted. "How could I forget?" She shook her head her head at the memory. "You looked So. Damned. Amazing. And I was so jealous of the guy who was going to get to be your date."
"Aww…" Emily kissed Paige's ear. Suddenly turning shy, she squeezed Paige's hand, looking away from her. "I really wanted you to spend the night." She laughed lightly, tossing her hair to the side of her face, her hand landing on top of Paige's hand in her lap. She opened her mouth, about to say something about how she knew that it would've been too soon, but she shrugged her shoulders instead. She didn't want to walk the statement back. What she had said was true: After spending that evening with Paige, she had really wanted to spend the night with her.
"I would have," Paige said, nodding her head slightly. "I mean, if for no other reason than…" Paige raised her hand and shook her head, declining to finish the thought.
"For no other reason than what?" Emily tilted her head towards Paige, her forehead wrinkled in concern tinged with curiosity. She squeezed Paige's hand when Paige hesitated to fill in the blanks.
"You know," Paige said with a shrug, taking over from Emily as the person who shyly looked away. "You… here… alone… this big old house."
"Aww – you wanted to protect me!" Emily's tone was patronizing, even though she was deeply moved by the sentiment. She placed a quick series of kisses on Paige's cheek, stopping only when Paige's hand landed on her cheek and turned her head, so that their lips met. The series of kisses transitioned into one long, deeply-felt kiss.
"So you were jealous?" Emily proclaimed when their lips parted, sitting up straight with a wriggle of fake pride.
"Yeah, I was," Paige replied matter-of-factly. "I mean, I was happy for you, of course." Paige stroked Emily's hair. "I really was." Dipping her head, she added, "I just hoped that whoever your date was, it was someone who appreciated you, and would treat you like the queen you are."
Emily pursed her lips, slightly overwhelmed by what Paige had said. "It was," Emily assured her softly. She drew Paige close for a hug and repeated, "It was."
A/N – Thanks ever so much for sticking with this "one-shot" that refused to die! :) (If I had known it would go on this long, I would've spent more time on the title!)
Special thanks to everyone who took the time to review, and extra, extra special thanks to those of you who reviewed every chapter. You don't know how much that means to me.
I honestly love you all!