The Wrong McElroy

by K L Hughes

  “Finally.” Lizzie curled the blanket over Fiona. “My arm was getting tired.”

  “Are you always this dramatic?”

  “You’ve met my family. Are you really that surprised?”

  Fiona glanced back at the pillow once more. “He’s not going to pop out and claw my face off, is he?”

  “Nah. He mostly just hates everyone with his eyes.”

  “I can relate.”

  “Same.” Lizzie lay her head back against the couch. “So, do you want to make boring small talk and pretend like what happened in the theater never actually happened?”

  Fiona pursed her lips. “I would have liked to do that without acknowledging it at all.”

  “Too late.” She grinned and poked Fiona’s shoulder. “So, you and Michael met in Calculus class. Sounds boring.”

  “It pretty much was, yeah.”

  “I thought about being a nurse once, but unlike Michael, I pretty much loathe all things math-related.”

  “It’s not for everyone.”

  “I think it’s not for most people.”

  “Probably.” Their legs rubbed briefly together. “You’re a film student, right?”

  “Yeah. Figured I’d try that whole struggling-Hollywood-wannabe thing for a while since I wasn’t doing anything around here.”

  “How’s that going for you?”

  “Totally fine. I eat dollar tacos from the food truck by the grocery store and film mundane things with a cheap camera I bought at Target and argue with my mom when she tries to send me rent money through Western Union.” She shoved her feet under Fiona’s thigh, startling her. “Sorry. My toes are freezing.”

  Their gazes met, the reflection of flames dancing in the dark pupils of Lizzie’s different-colored eyes. Fiona melted into the back of the couch. “You’re just one of those people, aren’t you?”

  “One of what people?” Lizzie wiggled her toes, tickling the bottom of Fiona’s thigh. “Annoying people? People who talk too much? Beautiful people with charming personalities?”

  “One of those people who makes everyone feel comfortable. Like you know them even when you don’t.”

  “Maybe you just like me.”

  Tingles erupted along Fiona’s spine, then rushed out over her limbs until she buzzed with the feeling. She didn’t think when she responded. She just leaned closer and watched as Lizzie did the same. “Maybe I do.”

  “Well, at least we’re finally being honest.”

  “We shouldn’t be.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Lizzie said, voice dropping to a whisper.

  Fiona’s gaze shifted to Lizzie’s mouth a second before Lizzie’s hand peeked up from under the cover to touch her face. Fiona closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Are you going to kiss me?”

  Lizzie’s thumb brushed Fiona’s bottom lip, then ran along its length. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  When Fiona opened her eyes again, Lizzie’s gaze was locked on hers, and it was no longer playful. It was bright and intense and beautiful and close, and it left Fiona breathless. She nodded against Lizzie’s hand and gave in to everything bubbling up inside her, everything she’d been trying so hard to rein in and tamp down, everything she so desperately desired. “Right now,” she said, “that’s pretty much all I want.”

  The first touch of their lips was a soft zap of friction. It was brief but electric, and Lizzie wasted no time. When Fiona opened her mouth to her, they both took shaky breaths and began again, melting into each other just as they’d melted into the couch. The deeper the kiss, the more they pulled at one another, hands gripping at each other. It was the slowest sort of frenzy, wild but measured, silent but eager. They couldn’t get close enough, until Lizzie shifted onto her knees, crawled onto Fiona’s lap, and straddled her.

  “Is this okay?” she whispered against Fiona’s lips, to which Fiona could only offer a guttural moan from the back of her throat. Lizzie laughed, the sound a hot puff of air between them. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Fiona tucked her hands under the hem of Lizzie’s shirt, fingers cold against her skin, and sighed into their kiss. “You’re so warm.”

  Leaning back, Lizzie pulled her shirt over her head, exposing a gray bra barely covering her large breasts and a tiny ribcage tattoo of a rainbow-colored sparrow. “Is that like the medium place between ugly and hot?”

  It took Fiona a minute to catch up with her, a little dizzy with arousal, then she rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, come on,” Lizzie said. “You think I’m charming.”

  Fiona traced over the sparrow with her thumb. “That’s beautiful,” she said, and Lizzie hummed. “I didn’t know you were…When I came here, I wasn’t expecting…” She stuttered over the words. “I mean, Michael never told me you were gay.”

  “That’s because Michael doesn’t know.” She brushed a few wild hairs off Fiona’s face. “I think, considering he’s told the whole family that you’re his girlfriend, though, the better question would be: Does he know you are?”

  Reality blasted through the haze of desire like a sharp slap to the face. Fiona blinked. “Oh God. Michael’s going to kill me.”

  “I was kidding, Fiona. Relax.”

  Leaning in, Lizzie claimed her lips again—once, twice—and Fiona nearly fell into her rhythm once more. She forced in a breath and leaned back, putting the scantest bit of space between them. “Wait,” she puffed out. “Wait, Lizzie. We need to wait.”

  Lizzie immediately ceased chasing Fiona’s lips and sat back. “Are you okay?”

  “I just… I’m confused.” Fiona took another hard breath and looked up at her. “I mean, all this time, all this whatever this is between us, you knew. I know you knew. I mean, I didn’t at first, but then the things you said in the bathroom. Then, the movies. You’ve been teasing me.” She ran her hands up and down Lizzie’s bare sides, lingering, pressing, rubbing. It was automatic, as if her body intended to continue, even if her mind had smacked into a massive roadblock. “How did you know it wasn’t real between Michael and me? Or maybe you thought it was real, but you were just okay with making moves on your brother’s girlfriend? If that’s the case, that’s seriously shady, but if it’s—”

  Lizzie suddenly grabbed Fiona’s hands and stilled them, effectively silencing her. “Okay, look. We can either have this conversation, or we can carry on with the touching, because I can’t focus well enough to do both. If you’re going to keep touching me like this, then we’re going to do the touching. If not, we can talk. So, which is it going to be?”

  Fiona bit her lip, ensnared by Lizzie’s intense gaze. It seared. When she didn’t move or say anything, Lizzie slid off her with a huff and grabbed her shirt. “All right. Fine. Talking it is.” She put her shirt back on, resituated the blanket over the two of them, and dug her frigid toes under Fiona’s thigh once more. “Yes, I knew you guys weren’t really a thing. If you really were Michael’s girlfriend, then, yeah, I would have felt bad about the way I feel about you and wouldn’t have tried anything. But you’re not really a thing, so I don’t feel bad about it in the slightest.”

  “Okay, but how? How did you figure it out?”

  “Well, first of all, I know my brother.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Lizzie looked at her for a long moment as if pondering whether or not she should elaborate. She clearly decided she shouldn’t when she skipped right onto her next point. “Then there was the way you looked at me when we first met—”

  “Oh, you mean when you tackled me in bed?”

  “The way you looked at me when we first met,” Lizzie said with a smile, “was all I really needed. I felt that look in places no one should feel a look from their brother’s supposed girlfriend. Then, when I landed on you in the snow.”

  “When you tackled me in the snow.”

  “When I
landed on you in the snow, I thought you might kiss me. The way you looked at me, touched me. I thought it was going to happen right then and there, that you were just going to lean up and kiss me right in front of my entire family, which, you know, was terrifying since I’m not out to any of them yet, but at the same time, I was like, well, hey, that’s one way to do it, right?”

  Fiona laughed and ran a hand down Lizzie’s shin under the blanket. “Would you have wanted me to?”

  Lizzie licked her lips but didn’t answer. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight. A smile still teased her lips. “Then the closet…”

  Heat flushed Fiona’s chest and cheeks, making the living-room fire suddenly feel oppressive. “Yeah,” she whispered, breath leaving her in one long, heavy stream. “The closet.”

  “I swear to God all I wanted to do was close the door and lock us in there together.” She leaned her head against the back of the couch. “But you…” She reached out, brushed Fiona’s cheek with her fingertips, then twirled a strand of dark hair around her index finger. “You weren’t ready.”

  The Lizzie-related lump Fiona had grown accustomed to coming and going worked its way back into her throat and stuck there. This time, it hurt, like a piece of jagged potato chip caught in her esophagus. It felt as if at any moment it might tear her open and pour all her secrets into the tense space between them. The thought petrified her. At the same time, it tempted her. It teased her. There was a part of her that wanted to spill, wanted to crack wide open and let Lizzie see everything she kept so well hidden inside, let her explore.

  “You have no idea how ready I was,” Fiona whispered. “You have no idea.”

  Lizzie’s smile was gentle, affectionate, mature. There was something about it that felt young and old at the same time. Hot yet tempered. She had a way of making Fiona feel calm even amidst the storm brewing inside and between them, even as she stirred the storm with her own hands, her own words, her own unique effect. Fiona found her presence as soothing as it was tormenting, as comforting as it was dismantling. She wanted to fold herself into Lizzie’s arms as much as she wanted to pin those arms down and show her exactly how ready she had been, how ready she was right at this moment. She wanted to be near her just as much as she wanted to run away, and no one had ever made her feel that way before.

  The trembling breath Lizzie took told Fiona she wasn’t the only one tormented by such things, as confused and thrilled and terrified and wanting. “But then in the bathroom,” she said. “You looked so—”

  “Scared?” Fiona nodded. “Yeah, I was. I am.”

  “Because you want me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a hard, hot fact, so hot Fiona could feel it melting her from the inside. She shivered despite the heat, and when Lizzie moved toward her again, the shivering turned to a tremble. She vibrated under Lizzie’s wandering hand as it worked its way up from her wrist to her shoulder. “And you think it’s not okay, but it is.” Her hand disappeared under the blanket again, one finger sliding down the tank-top-covered valley between Fiona’s breasts, down to her belly button. “It’s okay to want me.”

  Fiona caught Lizzie’s hand just as it reached the top of her shorts. She held it tight, unmoving for a moment, then slowly pushed it away. “I think I need some air,” she said, tossing the blanket aside and standing.

  “It’s snowing.”

  “Even better.” Fiona rounded the couch and shot for the foyer, then the front door. She was out of the house in seconds, breath puffing out around her. She gulped down the frozen air as fast as she could and tried to let it soothe. It didn’t. The longer she stood there, the taste of Lizzie still lingering on her lips, the worse she felt. Guilt pooled in her gut and refused to budge, sloshing against her insides every time she rocked on her heels or shivered. It quarreled with the want, with the need, with the sharp spear of loneliness that had been eviscerating her for some time.

  She was supposed to be there for Michael. He was her best friend. Sneaking around with his little sister behind his back? God, as good as it felt, it sounded awful, even inside her head, and the few times she’d tested the water with Michael, his reaction had left much to be desired. It was the whole reason she’d warned herself off in the first place, but the more Lizzie talked, the more she realized she hadn’t been avoiding anything at all. She’d been developing her relationship with Lizzie in little moments, little interactions, little sparks and bursts of heat that drove the growing fire between them higher and hotter. She hadn’t avoided anything. She’d reveled in it, in Lizzie, in thinking about her and learning about her. Wanting her. And she wanted desperately to believe that it was okay to feel that way, just as Lizzie said, but the clench in her stomach said otherwise.

  She couldn’t stop picturing Michael’s expression were he to find out, couldn’t stop imagining a reaction of hurt and anger. Fiona covered her face, now chilled. She couldn’t take the cold much longer, but she managed a few more seconds, a few more breaths. A few more moments to loathe herself.

  When she returned to the living room, the fire was out and Lizzie was gone, and Fiona was left with nothing but the soft, golden glint of the Christmas tree.

  Chapter 10

  Christmas Day in the McElroy house started before dawn. The sounds of children squealing, bacon sizzling, and siblings teasing one another drifted up from downstairs and stirred Fiona from sleep. She cracked one eye open, afraid to let the snow-reflected sun pierce her precious pupils. But she quickly realized the sun hadn’t yet risen. The sky outside her temporary bedroom’s window was a murky gray-blue curling around the fuzzy edges of an encroaching flood of orange—the early merging of night and day.

  Fiona sat up in bed, realizing she was alone, and stretched. The clock on the bedside table read 6:23, an ungodly time to be awake when there were no classes or work demanding her presence. She grumbled to herself as she glanced around the room, briefly taking in high school pictures of a young, shaggy-haired Jack McElroy with friends and sports posters she knew nothing about.

  “Hey.” Lizzie stood in the open door in dark jeans and a red T-shirt with the words Jingle Balls printed across the front. A steaming cup of coffee sat clutched between her fingers.

  “Oh.” Fiona tried to smooth her hair down with one hand as she pulled the covers up over her chest with the other. She’d stripped off her sports bra at some point in the middle of the night, because it had been uncomfortable under her tank top, and now she felt exposed. She knew her nipples well enough to know they liked to stand up and say hello first thing in the morning, especially when there were pretty girls standing in front of her looking…well, pretty. “Hi.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “Nice shirt.”

  “I like to be festive.”

  Fiona laughed. “I see that. Seems like a shirt more suited for Brian, though.”

  “Funny you should say that.” Lizzie moved into the room, quietly closing the door behind her, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Because I took it from his room this morning.” She passed the coffee to Fiona. “It’s from Mom. Mike told her to let you sleep, but she gets antsy when everyone isn’t up by the time she finishes the bacon.”

  “Thanks.” She let the cup hover just under her nose and breathed in the comforting nutty scent of the coffee. “I guess I’ll get dressed and head down in a minute, then.”

  “Sure.” Lizzie nodded but didn’t move from the bed. “Look, Fiona, I wanted to talk to you about last night. Well, about this whole weekend, really.” Her neck and cheeks flushed an orangey-pink color that somehow made her even prettier, and Fiona melted. Maybe it was because she had only just woken up, or maybe it was that strange, quiet magic of the morning before dawn. She didn’t know, but whatever it was, it sapped away all her worries, all her resistance, and left nothing but the raw affection that had been brewing for days.

  Fiona set her coffee on the bedside table and inched herself toward Lizzie.
“Don’t,” she said, placing a hand on top of Lizzie’s. “Don’t apologize.”

  Their fingers wove together. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Oh.” Fiona chuckled. “What were you going to say, then?”

  “I was going to ask if you were done freaking out about us so we could plan our next secret Christmas rendezvous.” She squeezed Fiona’s hand. “I was thinking the kitchen counter this time. Ooh, or the laundry room. Do you like a little rumble with your tumble?”

  Fiona snorted and pushed Lizzie away, nearly knocking her off the bed but catching her at the last second. “You’re—”

  “Adorable,” Lizzie supplied, flashing her mischievous grin.

  With a sigh, Fiona relaxed and pulled Lizzie a little closer. “I was going to say you’re a pain, but I guess two things can be true.” Another gentle tug and their noses bumped. Once. Twice.

  “I have a confession to make,” Lizzie whispered against her lips. “All the things I said last night about how I knew you and Michael weren’t really together…”

  “Yeah?”

  “They were all true, but I didn’t really need any of that to tell.”

  “Oh no?”

  Lizzie stifled a laugh and nudged her nose against Fiona’s again. “You don’t really need any signs when Michael has two different pictures of you on his Instagram with the hashtag when your best friend is a lesbian.”

  Fiona’s body stiffened. She pulled back just enough to look hard at Lizzie’s face. “Are you serious?” The laugh Lizzie had been choking back burst free as she nodded, and Fiona collapsed against her. Her forehead smacked against Lizzie’s shoulder as she groaned.