by Sean Kennedy
“And what do you think your new girlfriend would say?”
Emma had pushed that right out of her mind, because it didn’t bear thinking about. She knew Jess would think it was weird, especially as she had been so vehement about Trish and not wanting anything to do with her. Emma shouldn’t have been so stupid and one-noted—she should have known that, seeing as they were in the same course and often had practice together, they would have to interact at some stage or another. You should never overpromise, because all you did was underdeliver. That was true for life too, not just for sport.
“You can’t even come up with an answer,” Alya scoffed.
“This is a great opportunity,” Emma said, unconsciously parroting Trish’s reasoning for nominating her.
“Yeah, to make Jess jealous. Or at the very least suspicious.”
“But she has nothing to worry about on my end.” And it was true.
“That doesn’t mean she won’t.”
She knew Alya was right. But fuck, how she hoped she would be proved wrong.
“OH,” JESS said.
That was a very brief response. Emma waited for some kind of continuation, but it seemed she had finished talking. Emma waited just in case she started again, but there was nothing.
She took Jess’s hand across the table. They had met at her local for beer and spicy wedges—the students’ idea of a good meal out. Jess’s wedges were practically untouched; her beer was one gulp away from being empty. Emma’s wedges were gone, and she was now siphoning the rest of the sour cream and chilli with her finger. Nerves made her overeat, whereas they seemed to have an opposite effect on Jess. Or maybe nerves weren’t the emotion affecting Jess at the moment.
“It’s not what you think. Believe me.”
“It’s obvious you’re the ex she wants to get back with,” Jess finally said. It was exactly the same thing Alya had said to Emma when she was getting ready to meet Jess. And what Emma told Alya she now relayed to Jess.
“She hasn’t done anything to even suggest that.”
“Give it time.”
“It’s not what I want.”
“So you say.”
Emma dropped her hand. “Is that what you really think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
She seemed like a totally different person than the Jess Emma had been getting to know.
“Well, I’m telling you.”
Oh frick, that was the wrong thing to say.
Her eyes widened. “You’re telling me what to think?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know that.”
Strike two.
“Now you’re telling me what I know. Wow, I’m starting to see a very different side to you.”
“Me too,” Emma said. And she knew she was being a dick. She should be trying to placate her, convince her that she didn’t have any feelings for Trish. Instead she was feeding her suspicions by seemingly defending Trish. That’s how it would seem to Jess. “I didn’t take you for the jealous type.”
“Well, you wouldn’t. You seem to speak for me rather than ask me what I am.”
Emma sat back, wishing she had more wedges. She guessed it wouldn’t go too well if she reached over and started eating hers. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is finding out somebody you thought was becoming your girlfriend is already starting to get friendly with her ex again.”
“It’s hardly friendly.”
“Yeah, because tension between exes never leads to the obvious.”
Emma slammed her hands down on the table in defeat. “So no matter what I say, you think I want to fuck her regardless?”
“I don’t know. Do you want to fuck her? Again?”
That final word was a low blow. Emma decided in this instance not to retaliate. Smart move for once, Emma Goldsworthy. “No!”
She didn’t know how to make it any more obvious. Were they a lost cause already?
Jess stared at her for a full good minute, then got up and walked away without a word. Emma called after her, but she didn’t turn. She thought about running after her but did a Micah Johnson—Emma decided to finish her beer and make things worse.
“LESBIAN DRAMA!” cried Alya. “It’s the worst!”
Lesbian drama, Micah texted back in response to Emma detailing what had happened. Shouldn’t the third date have been moving in together?
None of you said the words “break up,” Will Deanes—a true friend, a gentleman, and a scholar—replied. So there’s still time to fix it.
You need to be in my life more, Emma replied.
Any time. Three kiss emoticons.
How she missed having a voice of reason around.
Chapter 11
EMMA DIDN’T waste any time. She caught an Uber and was on her way to Jess’s ten minutes later.
When she opened the door, Emma was surprised to see she still had on her scarf and beanie and was in the process of buttoning her coat.
“Going out?” Emma asked.
She grinned, and she wasn’t going red because of the cold. “I was on my way to see you.”
“A likely story,” Emma said, although she actually believed her.
She waved her phone at Emma. The Uber app was open, and her car wasn’t that far away.
“We shouldn’t piss them off by cancelling,” she said. “So where do you want to go?”
LAKE BURLEY Griffin may have been beautiful at night, with the fog rolling in over the water and the lights of the city being dimmed through it to give off a romantic glow, but it was fucking cold.
Even when you were wrapped up in your girlfriend.
Emma shivered, looking at the top of the National Carillon seeming to rear over the wall of fog, like some primordial monster ready to strike. It didn’t help that right at that moment it did its quarterly chime, deep in bass, sounding more like the bellow of a truly demonic creature than anything else.
“You’re really cold,” Jess said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have gone out.”
“I’m fine,” Emma told her. “Besides, the Uber guy probably would have killed you.”
“Not with you as a witness.”
“Well, he probably would have killed me as well. Witnesses are the next to go.”
Now Jess shivered.
“Sorry, that’s not very romantic talk, is it?”
“Are we back to romantic talk? I mean, the last I saw you, I stormed out of the pub. I have to add, I’m quite embarrassed about myself.”
“I was embarrassed for you too,” Emma teased her.
“Oi!” she objected, and tried to turn in the cocoon they had made themselves. But they were wrapped up too snuggly for that, and all she ended up doing was moving her face closer to Emma’s. Emma took advantage of the opportunity to kiss her once again, and Jess sagged against her. Nothing of their bodies could touch except their lips. Sharing a picnic blanket can do that to you, especially when you have to guard yourself against a frigid Canberra night. Melbourne could be cold when the Antarctic winds travelled up from below, but Emma had never been as bone-chillingly freezing as she was now.
“I’m glad you came back,” Jess murmured.
“I’m glad you were coming to see me. But are we going to talk about why you reacted so badly?”
She shrugged. “Do we have to?”
“It would clear some things up.”
“It just seems like all we do is talk about Trish.”
“That’s not true. Tonight we’ve also talked about how cold it is and how we would probably be murdered by a serial killing Uber driver.”
Jess snorted. “We didn’t prove he was a serial killer. We just discussed whether he would kill me for trying to send him away and then do you in because you saw him. That’s a one-off murder incident, not a serial killing.”
“We don’t know what he’s done before tonight,” Emma reminded her.
Their laughter flew across the water, only to smash against the wall of fog.
“But seriously,” Emma said. “Why so bad?”
“It’s just her… Trish. She always manages to put me on edge. Especially around other girls. It doesn’t help when one of them is her ex.”
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t I?”
Emma stiffened against her.
“I mean, no offence, but we barely know each other.”
Emma was so ramrod straight she could have been Ben Affleck watching strippers while playing poker.
“I know that sounds harsh,” Jess continued, apparently oblivious to Emma’s reaction. “But we’ve started going out, we’re just finding out things about each other, and it hasn’t been long enough for us to really know what the other is like. We’re in the honeymoon phase. And then this whole Trish thing gets lumped in the middle of it.”
“What do you want to know about me?” Emma asked. “I’ll tell you anything.”
“But will you tell the truth?”
Emma was starting to feel just as hostile. “Well, how will you know if I do or not?”
“Please don’t be like that. I’m just trying to be honest.”
Emma knew she was right. Their time together was very much the definition of a “whirlwind romance.” And people in that kind of situation usually compared it to Romeo and Juliet, but a) they’re a fictional couple, b) they both killed themselves, and c) they’re a fictional couple. While she was thinking about it, how come whenever people tried to think of great romantic couples, they always picked the worst possible ones? Romeo and Juliet died at thirteen, Heathcliff and Cathy were a couple of arseholes who ruined the lives of everybody around them, and Darcy acted like a dick to Elizabeth Bennet until she sliced off his balls with her rapier wit.
Maybe it was because fictional couples stayed together until death or were conveniently reunited in the afterlife. Real life couples always seemed to eventually break up because their stories didn’t conveniently end once they got married.
“You’re being quiet,” Jess said. “I’ve pissed you off.”
“No,” Emma said, truthfully. “I’m just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how you’re right. We’re only just getting to know each other. But like I said, you can ask me anything.”
“Okay, I’m going to take you up on that offer.”
“Fire away.”
She studied Emma for a moment. “I feel like we need alcohol.”
“Nope. No alcohol. Fire away.”
“Are you still in love with Trish?”
Emma’s laugh was more of a bark. “Man, you bring out the gnarly one straightaway, huh?”
“You said anything.”
“No, I’m not in love with Trish. That ship has hit an iceberg, sunk two miles below the Atlantic, and been eaten by a megalodon.”
“That’s very specific.”
Emma lobbed the question back over the net. “Are you still in love with Trish?”
“No!” The answer was automatic and vehement.
“Okay. Great. Neither of us is in love with Trish. So why are we so worried?”
“Because we don’t trust her,” Jess said. “At least, I don’t. She cheated on me, you know.”
Emma didn’t. “Wow. Sorry.”
“I guess that’s why I’m getting shitty about her being back.”
“You can rest assured I won’t do that to you. I’m not happy about her being back either. And going down that path again….” Emma shuddered. She couldn’t even describe it.
“Did she cheat on you?”
“No,” Emma said. Then she thought about it. “I mean, at least as far as I know.”
“She probably did. It seems to be her thing.”
Emma wasn’t going to be stupid and come across like she was defending Trish. And Jess could be right, she might not have known. Trish could be flaky and evasive, but Emma had always put that down to her being in the closet. Maybe she had more secrets than Emma ever knew. Whatever. It wasn’t worth creating new friction with Jess over it.
“I didn’t even find out until she broke up with me. But do you want to know the kicker? She accused me of cheating on her, and that was the reason she used for dumping me.”
Vintage Trish. “Maybe she just looks for any story to help her break up with her girlfriend. Mine was distance and trying to keep up a relationship. Plus, she claimed she was going back in the closet and concentrating on her career.”
Jess laughed bitterly. “She sure didn’t go in the closet, at least not when it came to getting some.”
“Yeah, and then she met the girl who changed everything in America.”
“And look how long that lasted.”
“Enough for her to come out of the closet, at least.”
“She must have been the one to get dumped this time,” Jess mused. “I don’t think she would have come out unless she truly thought it was love. Why else would she risk everything?”
“Publicity,” Emma suggested.
“Then she would have done it straightaway.”
“Maybe.”
“I really think it’s too cold to stay here any longer.” Jess got out her mobile, and her hands were trembling from the temperature. “I’ll order an Uber.”
Emma would have liked to have a longer conversation with her about something other than Trish and their pasts with her (and how she might affect their futures), but any talk from that point was small. But other words were unspoken, and when the Uber arrived at Jess’s house Emma followed her out of the door and upstairs to her room.
THANKFULLY, WHEN they later held each other, skin against skin, they talked about everything except Trish. Emma felt it was the first time they both really felt at complete ease with each other. Not that they hadn’t had fun together before, but there was all that pressure of the first time together… this time was better. And it could only get better as they knew each other even more.
“I don’t want to get too heavy,” Jess said, “but where do you see this going?”
“Married by October,” Emma replied, lazily running her hand down Jess’s side until it rested on the curve of her bum. “I want a spring wedding. Sperm donation to have kids. Maybe if you have a hot male friend? I don’t really want to ask Micah. I can only see too much trouble with his offspring when they get older. Kyle might do, but they would be really hairy. Oh, and you should carry the kids. You can still take photos while preggers. It’d be too hard for me on the hockey field.”
Jess looked terrified, and Emma didn’t realise how seriously she was taking her until Emma burst out laughing. “Oh my God, your face.”
“You are not funny,” she said, still pale.
“It was,” Emma said. Now her hand moved from Jess’s bum until it was between their bodies and moving towards her. Jess’s eyes widened, her lips parted, and she gave a slight moan as Emma’s fingers slid inside her and worked their magic. “How about three kids?”
Jess threw her head back against the pillow, her eyes now closed. “Keep doing that and we can have four.”
EMMA COULDN’T keep the smile from her face as she jumped off the bus that delivered her to campus. She had hated leaving Jess that morning, especially as she had lifted the sheet as Emma was trying to go to give her another glimpse of what she would be missing.
What a tease. Emma loved it.
Although her happiness was somewhat tempered by Trish approaching her when she was with the coach to ask her if they could meet at the end of the day to go over some plans for an upcoming scratch match. Since Emma was with the coach, she couldn’t fob her off, and answered in the affirmative with a plastered-on smile.
When Trish left, Jackie said she was happy Emma had taken on the opportunity. “Trish said there might have been some… personal issues.”
“She said that?” Why on earth would Trish even bring that up, unless she was trying to score brownie points with the coach just in case Emma turned her down? It would serve to make her look like
someone who was perfectly capable of being a team player and putting personal problems aside, while Emma would look like an immature little shit who shouldn’t be in Little Athletics, let alone the AIS.
“Shouldn’t she have?” Jackie’s interest was piqued, and Emma didn’t want to give her any further suspicions.
“No skin off my nose. It’s all ancient history,” Emma lied.
“Good. You have to have distance on the field, Emma.”
“There’s no problems with me in that regard, Coach. If there had been, it would have flared up long before now.”
“That’s what I like to hear. You’re good, Goldsworthy. Don’t get all bigheaded,” she added quickly just in case Emma’s head was already swelling to fill the pitch, “because you can be much better. You have great potential. So don’t let anything get in the way of that.”
“I won’t, believe me.”
She slapped Emma on the back, and she almost lost her balance. Jackie was strong. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Alya inched over as she was leaving. “Look at you, getting all chummy with the powers that be.”
“I don’t like it,” Emma moaned.
“With great power comes great responsibility?”
“No. It means I just can’t tell Trish to leave me the fuck alone.”
“It seems you’re the one,” Alya said. “You poor bitch.”
On that last sentence Emma could totally agree.
YOU’RE NOT going to like this, Emma texted Jess. I have to see Trish at the end of the day with that shit I have to help her with. Just wanted to let you know.
Emma got the shrugging emoticon in reply. You’ve let me know. That’s the important thing. Try not to kill her. I really don’t want to get a call to come help you bury the body.
That got a smile out of Emma, at last. I promise you, if it comes to that I’ll make Alya help me.
A picture of Grumpy Cat slung back, with the word Good imprinted below his unimpressed expression.