“Great,” said Fiona, her grin widening.
“Why don’t you get headed out now, Max?” asked Vera from up the line. “The crowds have dispersed, and we’re having lulls, so five minutes ahead is just fine.”
“Thanks,” she said, nodding to Vera as she took up her purse and coat from under the table. Max came out from behind the table, and together they strolled toward the line of children curving out of Santa’s Kingdom.
It was so strange how Max could feel such strong, opposite things at the same time. On the one hand, nervousness was doing its best to flood her body, and she felt more than a little frightened about how much like a date what they were doing actually was. Going for coffee with a woman she found incredible attractive? A woman she’d fallen in love with who could never know that fact? It was so hard. On the other hand, Max was currently strolling through a tightly packed mall overflowing with holiday cheer with the woman she loved.
And she would bear any hardship for that.
“I love the mall at Christmas,” Fiona sighed happily as a couple walked past them, hand in hand. They were both carrying bags and trying not to let the other one see what they were carrying, the woman peering around the man’s shoulder as he chuckled and tried to maneuver the bags around his body. A group of kids ran past ahead of their mothers to get in line for Santa. “There’s a lot more good will towards everyone during the holidays,” Fiona explained as they walked up to the little coffee shop, located at the end of the food court.
They went inside and both ordered hot chocolates. Max felt so strongly that she should pay for Fiona’s drink, too, but she didn’t. That would be too date-like, she realized, and she needed to make absolutely certain there was nothing about this that felt like a date because, truthfully, Max wanted it, so much, to feel like one. So they paid separately, and went to sit on the plush chairs located right outside of the shop, within the waist-high bright metal fencing that surrounded the “outdoor” area of the little coffee shop.
Max wanted to ask Fiona about how things were going with Jo. She wanted to ask this desperately, but at the same time, she didn’t want to pry. But as Fiona sunk into the deep, plush chair, as she held her hot cocoa in her hands and glanced at Max through the steam curling out of the top of the cup, Max watched Fiona’s gaze flicker. Again, Max could not read Fiona’s features, but just as soon as that gaze had come over her face, the mysterious look vanished, and Fiona blew down on her hot cocoa.
“This just wasn’t how I imagined it would be,” said Fiona softly, then. “I’m sorry. You’re Jo’s best friend,” she said, glancing down at her hot cocoa and not looking up at Max. “This is a terrible position to put you in, I just needed someone to talk about this to. Is this all right with you?”
“Yes, of course,” said Max softly, a lump growing in her throat.
“Things are just hard between Jo and me right now because she’s working so much. Actually,” Fiona said, blowing out on the hot cocoa again as she chose her words with care, “it’s not so much that she’s working a lot. It’s that she’s working a lot and not making any sort of time to see me. That must sound so needy to you,” Fiona sighed, setting the hot cocoa down on the little table between them. “I’ve tried to be supportive of her work, obviously, but the beginning hours of a relationship are usually spent getting to know someone. I’ve always been the type of person who just jumps completely into the relationship, and Jo was that way, too, at the very start, but then things shifted. And we’re both working hard. But I try to reach out to her, and she has plans, or she’s too busy, and I keep getting shot down. I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head slowly as she looked at Max from hooded eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she said then, softly.
Max knew that phrase only too well.
Max’s heart was beating too hard, and she had to swallow before she could form an even half-hearted coherent response. She said the only thing she knew: “what do you want to do, Fiona?”
Fiona breathed out, still holding Max’s gaze. “I want to be happy.”
Max’s heart thundered inside of her as she sighed. She could so easily slide forward and place a hand over Fiona’s, could lean forward and kiss her. Everything in her fantasies was so easy, but she knew that in real life that was never the case. Nothing about this was easy.
Her best friend’s girlfriend was currently telling her that her best friend was not being a very good girlfriend.
That wasn’t simple in the slightest.
Neither were her current feelings.
“You deserve to be happy,” said Max quietly, realizing fully that she was echoing Sam’s sentiments about herself from earlier in the week and not caring. “And I’m sorry about Jo. The only thing I can tell you is that she always gets like this when she’s opening up a new franchise. She’s very…” She trailed off, trying to think of the right word. “Single-minded. And driven. It’s why she’s so successful, but I know how frustrating it must be, trying to build a relationship…”
Fiona was watching her carefully. Max sighed again and ran her fingers through her hair. She tugged out her ponytail holder and held it in her teeth as she tried to smooth down all of the fly aways and do up her hair in a more respectable fashion after being under that Santa’s hat for hours. “I really need to get this cut,” she mumbled in exasperation around the hair tie in her mouth as she tried, without success, to tame those dratted fly aways.
“You want to cut your hair?” asked Fiona, changing the subject smoothly as she gazed past Max’s eyes to take in her hair. “You shouldn’t,” she said with a soft smile. “It’s beautiful the way it is.”
Max couldn’t help herself—she chuckled at that, even as much as her heart beat faster at the compliment. “Oh goodness, that’s sweet, but let’s be honest: my hair is terrible. I keep threatening to chop it all off. I want to,” she said wistfully, patting it all into place after looping the hair tie over it a few times.
“You’d cut it all off, go super short? I mean...it’s gorgeous the way it is, but I can sort of see that...” said Fiona, her head to the side as she considered Max’s features. “You know,” she said, her voice rising upwards in excitement as she leaned forward, “I could cut your hair if you wanted. I used to be a hair dresser.”
“Really?” asked Max, her eyes widening.
“Yes. It wasn’t my calling by any means, but, let’s just say…I’m better at cutting hair than you are at wrapping presents,” she said cheekily as she laughed. “Were you serious about getting it chopped off?”
“You don’t know how serious,” said Max breathlessly as she leaned forward. “I’ve been dying to get it cut off, but I just keep…not getting it done. I’ve been kind of busy,” she said with a small smile.
“Well,” said Fiona quietly, her eyes shining. “I would love to cut your hair,” she said then, sobering a little as she looked at Max with those wide, shining eyes. “If you’d let me.”
Max’s heart was thundering against her ribs as she considered this offer. It was pathetic, really, but the thought of Fiona touching her gently, tenderly, even in the smallest of ways when she cut her hair, caused Max’s breath to come short, caused the ache that seemed to be a permanent part off her now, to intensify with longing.
Yes, Max very much wanted Fiona to cut her hair.
And she told her so.
“Great,” said Fiona happily, leaning back in her chair as she considered Max. “How about we do it at my place? I still have all of my old salon stuff in the bathroom, because I cut my own hair, if you’d believe me. But don’t judge my worth as a hair dresser by my hair, because it’s always messy,” she chuckled, standing from her chair. Max stood, too, and Fiona and Max walked out of the mall toward their cars.
“Here’s my address,” said Fiona, handing her a little slip of paper. “Do you have a GPS? I’m parking in another lot, so you can’t follow me. Or I could--”
“I have a GPS in my phone,” said Max as Fiona gave her a little
smile.
“Great,” she said, and even though they were heading toward Fiona’s house, which meant that Max and Fiona were certainly seeing each other again, and in probably only a couple of moments, Fiona stepped forward and embraced Max quickly and tightly.
“I’m sorry to have talked to you about Jo, Max,” she said softly, then, stepping back and away from Max to gaze up into her face with searching eyes. She was frowning softly. “I don’t want to involve you in anything that makes you uncomfortable. I know that I’ve put you in an impossible position.”
“It didn’t make me uncomfortable,” said Max, clearing her throat. The sun had already gone, but the parking lot was lit unnaturally bright with so many tall lights. Even in the sickly white light of the parking lot lights, Fiona looked radiant as she glanced up at Max. Fiona opened and closed her mouth, as if she was going to say something else, but then she appeared to change her mind.
“I’ll see you there,” Fiona said, and she turned on her heel, heading toward another direction of the parking lot.
Max had been wanting to cut off her hair longer than she even remembered threatening it. And she’d been threatening it for close to a decade. She’d had shorter hair in her younger years, as a short as a boy’s, and had always felt so much more herself in short hair than in long hair. But, for some reason, about ten years ago, she stopped going to get it cut. She’d had to go so often, because her hair grew so fast, that it’d seemed more trouble than it was worth. And what was the point, anyway, she’d thought at the time. Long hair or short hair, she was still Max.
And that was true. She was always herself. She just was certainly more capable of feeling more like herself when she had short hair.
This change would do her good.
That this change was coming at the hands of Fiona…well. That was the best part of all.
It was too short of a drive to Fiona’s house for Max to really dwell on the conversation she’d had with Fiona at the mall. Or the fact that they didn’t really talk about Jo when they worked on cupcakes together, and what did that exactly mean that they’d talked about her just now?
No sooner had Max plugged Fiona’s address into her phone’s annoying GPS app that always insisted she needed to slow down than Max had followed its three or four quick turns out of the parking lot, and she was pulling up to a little blue house that struck Max as very, very much Fiona’s.
It was a pretty small house, Max realized, as she pulled her car up behind Fiona’s Jeep in the driveway. But Fiona had her own house, something that Max couldn’t say. The shutters were painted a darker blue than the house itself, and the walkway had been shoveled recently. A cat sat on the front stoop, a big black one that looked to Max to be male (though she couldn’t exactly tell from sight), meowing plaintively up at her as she shut her car door.
“Hi, bud,” she said, crouching down and offering her hand. The big feline stood up and sauntered down the walkway toward her, its tail held high, strutting regally.
“Hello,” said Fiona, opening the door and smiling softly at the scene that greeted her. The big cat had its head pressed against Max’s hand, its tail twitching and purring loudly. “That’s the neighbor’s cat, Larry,” said Fiona, crossing her arms and leaning against her doorframe, holding the door open with her foot as Max continued to stroke the cat gently. “Larry is the king of the neighborhood. Usually, he doesn’t like strangers,” she said with a grin.
Larry took that opportunity to dump himself onto the ground and roll over onto his back, beckoning Max to pet his stomach.
“Right ferocious you are,” muttered Max as she stroked his velvet-soft belly. She stood after a moment, stretching, jingling her car keys in her pocket as she approached Fiona, taking careful steps up the shoveled walkway.
“This is a pretty house,” she said softly as Fiona pushed off from the doorframe and stepped out of her way so that Max could enter.
“Thank you,” said Fiona with a small grin. “I love it very much. I’m glad you like it, too.” Fiona reached around Max to pull the outer door closed behind her, and for a moment, it seemed that Fiona’s arm was wrapped around Max, too. They stood for a moment, neither one of them moving as Fiona pulled the door closed. She remained that way for a heartbeat, then she straightened, clearing her throat and tugging at the hem of her sweater. “Come in, come in,” she said, ushering the way down the hall. Max followed her down the little corridor, which fed immediately into the kitchen.
It was a tiny kitchen, just like the one at the cupcake shop, so Max immediately felt at home. Fiona had set up a chair and had a towel and a few scissors and a mirror on the table already laid out. The walls were painted a bright, cheerful yellow, and the tile on the floor was a bright blue. It went well with Fiona’s black fridge and stove, and the bright blue countertop. These were all bold, colorful choices, but they suited Fiona’s personality perfectly.
There was a little Christmas tree sitting in the center of Fiona’s kitchen table. It was a potted baby pine tree, and it had been strung with popcorn and hung with little ornaments made out of cupcake wrappers. They’d been carefully folded to look like flowers.
“Usually,” said Fiona, gesturing to the tree as she noticed Max’s interest, “I get a big tree. But this year…I just didn’t have the heart for it.”
“But you love the holidays,” Max protested automatically. She turned to Fiona and watched her, their eyes locking.
“I do,” said Fiona, tugging down at the hem of her sweater again as she indicated the chair. “It’s just…I’ve just not been in the mood this time around. Something else has been more on my mind,” she said with a small shrug. “Please, sit down…I’m very excited about this.” And it seemed that she genuinely was, for her voice lifted again, and some of that old enthusiasm flooded back into her.
“Do you want coffee or tea? I think I have some Lipton around here somewhere,” said Fiona as Max settled into the kitchen chair, leaning against its back and breathing out. Fiona picked up a plastic apron, like the ones used in salons, and settled it over Max’s front. She then drew the ties to the back and proceeded to cinch the Velcro together at the back of Max’s neck. Though she was moving quickly and smoothly, Fiona’s fingers still lingered there, at the back of Max’s neck, and Max couldn’t help it: she shivered.
Fiona paused, her fingers still touching Max’s skin. “Are you cold?” she murmured into Max’s ear, drawing a finger down the back of her neck to the apron’s Velcro.
“No,” said Max, trying to keep her voice steady. She wished she didn’t love this so much. “And coffee would be great, if you have it.”
“Sure, I’ll make a pot,” said Fiona, moving away from Max and busying herself at the sink with the coffee grounds, filters and a water pitcher. She set the coffee brewing as Max tried very hard not to watch her do this, Fiona’s curves a magnet for Max’s eyes that she had to actually fight against. Max stared, instead, at the tree.
It looked a little forlorn and small in the center of the kitchen, even though the kitchen around it was small, too. Fiona had done a remarkable job with those cupcake wrappers, turning them into flower ornaments. If Max wasn’t already familiar with paper and all of the interesting ways you can fold and use it for greeting cards, she would never have known the flowers were made out of the wrappers. There was no star on top of the little tree, rather a larger flower, more elaborate than the others that caused the top of the tree to bend down a little.
As the coffee began to brew, the coffee maker making industrious gurgling sounds, Fiona came to stand in front of Max, her hands on her hips. “Look at me, please,” she said gently, and reached out with a fingertip and tilted Max’s face up towards her. Max stared solemnly into Fiona’s face, tracing every beloved curve with her eyes, every inch of skin that she wished so much to kiss sweetly, passionately, including the slightly turned up nose that wrinkled a little as Fiona smiled down at her.
“This is going to be great fun,” said Fiona softly
. “How short do you want it?”
And, just as Max had asked for it many times before, she uttered the same words now: “as short as a boy’s.”
“That short, huh,” said Fiona, stepping even closer to her. Her legs pressed against Max’s knees, and Max wondered if she should move a little, maybe spread her legs so Fiona could stand closer, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Heat flooded across Max’s face as Fiona feathered her fingers through Max’s hair, her head to the side as she considered it, her bright green eyes distant. “Your hair is so beautiful, Max. I’m going to miss it,” she said softly then, her fingers still in Max’s hair, moving softly over Max’s scalp.
There was so much pleasure to that one soft touch, that Max had to keep her eyes closed and hold her breath so she didn’t let out a sigh of release. It was a thought she’d had so many times it was as well worn as a penny, the idea of Fiona running her hands through Max’s hair. And now here she was, doing just that, pressing her legs against Max’s knees, her warmth warming Max, the softness of Fiona’s fingers on Max’s scalp almost more than Max could bear.
Fiona moved away from her then, took her hand from Max’s hair, and Max opened her eyes as she watched Fiona take up the now full pot of coffee and begin pouring it out into two mugs on the counter. She set a mug with a picture of a cartoon reindeer on it next to Max at the table. “How do you take your coffee? Cream? Sugar?” she asked, and Max shook her head.
“Just black is fine,” she said, inhaling the aroma of the coffee appreciatively.
Fiona chuckled. “See, I need enough cream in my coffee for you to question if there’s actually some coffee in my cream.” She winked and crossed to the refrigerator, opening the door with a creak as she took out a half gallon of creamer. “All right,” she said then, turning back after she’d poured a good deal of it into her coffee cup. She set the creamer back in the fridge, turned and placed her hands on her hips. “We’re going to do this! And short it is.”
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