Christ and you know kelley tried not to let her crush get out of hand telling herself that Hope was straight, would never date someone younger, but fuck when Hope began leaning into the touches, started reaching out on her own, interest in her eyes, how could Kelley not fall in love?
the best thing about that era was that kelley was literally the only person ever allowed to hang all over hope. like hope genuinely went along with this goofy kid getting handsy and looking at her like she hung the moon.
at first glance it makes no sense at all, but the more you think about it and the more it all fits together
Going off my last message, hope KNEW about kelleys crush and was SO FLATTERED oh my god you know that if she never thought of girls before she definitely did with kelley, whether or not she acted on it
It’s past one a.m. in New Orleans when the rain finally begins to come down.
The night has been hot and humid, the air fanning damp and warm across skin and the sky darkly threatening from where it hangs above the street. Kelley has the taste of cinnamon in her mouth, sharp with alcohol, and she grips her phone in one hand as she navigates the treacherous city streets. She’s just past tipsy, the lights looking warmer and less defined than they are and her body wired with energy.
It’s past one when the rain finally starts to come down, wet and warm and slow, and the first drop lands on her forehead. She reaches up to wipe it away and looks up just in time for the sky to fall out. The rain goes from slow, to steady, and straight into furious. Within seconds, her dress is splattered in rain drops. She feels guiding fingers on her upper arm a moment later, leading her with the gentlest suggestion across the sidewalk and into the dim overhang of a neon bar. When she turns, Hope is huddled in close behind her, just beneath the brief shelter of the balcony above them. Her face is close. Hope’s warmth radiates across the small space and into the thin material of Kelley’s dress. Her hand is still on Kelley’s arm.
“Let’s get a drink in here.” Hope says, glancing out at the thin sheets of rain that splatter the road. Rain catches Kelley’s ankles and she nods, following Hope into the bar with one hand to her lower back like an afterthought. She steps up over the doorstep and into the dark, red tinged warmth and buzz of the bar. The sound of the rain disappears behind them. Hope leads the way to the bar. She always does, her tall figure cutting through crowds that seem to part around her. Kelley sticks to her back, her fingernails curled in the material of Hope’s sweater. She’s had just enough to drink that she’s not overthinking the way she wants to lean in and put her forehead to Hope’s shoulder, then inhale.
When they reach the bar, Hope leans into a space and Kelley leans into her, sticking close in the mass of people. Her arm curls around Hope’s waist for balance, strangers passing close around her and buffeting her further into Hope. Hope doesn’t seem mind. Doesn’t even seem to notice. Kelley lets her hand drift, her middle finger catching on the rough material of Hope’s jeans, snagging a belt loop, drifting somewhat dangerously low.
They’re invisible here, tucked into the crowd, their faces blurred by the alcohol flowing through everyone’s veins. They disappear.
Hope hands Kelley a mixed drink with a cherry floating on top. They tap sweaty plastic cups together, their eyes catching briefly then turning out to the crowds.
“Where do you think everyone else went?” Kelley has to lean in close to ask, her chin brushing Hope’s jaw as she speaks, her stomach pressed to the sharp angle of Hope’s hip.
“Back to hotel.” Hope calls back. “Or…” She gestures broadly with her drink at the multitude of bars that line the streets, the multitudes of people inside them. Kelley’s phone lights up in her hand, like an answer to her question, but it’s only Ali telling her she’s headed back to the hotel. “C’mon, let’s sit.” Hope says, nudging around her. Kelley hooks one finger into Hope’s belt loop shamelessly and follows her across the bar.
They find rickety seats framing an even more unsteady table at the other side of the room. Hope sets her drink down in the middle, her fingers coming away damp and dripping. Her leg bumps against Kelley’s beneath the table and lingers. Kelley reaches out and finds herself thumbing the thin bracelet on Hope’s wrist, turning the thread between her thumb and forefinger, just brushing the skin below. She sees the goosebumps stand up on Hope’s forearm. Everything else fades away.
-
They’re in Germany the first time Hope tells Kelley she loves her. They’re in Germany and the sun is white on the water, bright spots of light that dapple in the wind-whipped waves. Hope lifts her sunglasses to her head and wraps her whole arm around Kelley’s waist, pulling her in close, and she whispers it against Kelley’s mouth. It’s the clearest sound Kelley has ever heard.
Even now, she can bring up the exact tone and volume and cadence of Hope’s voice the first time she said it -- like she’d been planning it. Like it was welling up from somewhere else.
Even now, Kelley can taste the way the words had felt on her tongue.
-
Kelley chooses New Jersey to tell Hope she loves her. Wet, damp, familiar New Jersey where Hope fits in at her side just as well as she does everywhere else. It’s early morning and Kelley is running her usual route, down familiar streets and on a quick jot through the park, past familiar and favorite places.
This morning is different though, because Hope is next to her dressed in full Nike gear, her cheeks red in the cold dawn air. Her breathing rate matches Kelley’s, her tall form catching some of the glare of the rising run. Kelley is always off balance the first few days they’re together- sometimes it lasts the entirety of the brief time they’re able to spend in the same city. Always put a bit caught off guard by how good it feels to have Hope at her side, how Hope’s steady yet electric presence invades all the corners of her, the way it clicks into her space. It’s not that things are bad when Hope isn’t around- it’s the way things are better.
They hit the end of the route and Kelley slows. Hope matches her pace almost instantly, coming to stop beside her. They walk the last block to Kelley’s apartment, breathing evening out. Hope’s shoulder bumps hers just once. They pass through the gate to Kelley’s backyard and their feet have barely hit the grass when Hope says, “Race you.”
Kelley catches a glimpse of Hope’s smirk and then she’s halfway to the deck. Kelley takes a shortcut, both hands on the railing of the deck to elevate over it, and she’s a single step behind Hope through the back door. They whip through the living room and Kelley gets her hands on Hope’s hips on the stairs.
“Cheating!” Hope yells, but she’s laughing and struggling up the steps with Kelley’s weight around her waist. Abruptly, Kelley lets go.
“Last one in the shower makes breakfast.” Kelley darts past Hope and hops onto the landing. Her shoes and shorts go first, thudding against the wall. She’s temporarily slowed when Hope’s shirt hits her in the face and then momentarily slowed a bit more by Hope, shirtless in her hallway and tugging off her pants.
A moment later, Kelley’s lost her shirt and is halfway out of her sports bra when she hits a snag. Namely, the sports bra, which has snagged both of her arms and trapped them at her shoulders. She falls back against the wall. She can hear Hope laughing, but she can’t see much through the tangle of her arms.
A moment later, Hope’s hands are warm and wide at her sides.
“Does this mean I win.” Hope says, her gentle fingers threatening to tickle. Kelley’s laughter spills out of her, making movement more difficult. She gives up.
She feels Hope tuck her face into her neck, feels the gentle puff of breath against her skin. The moment quiets. The rough material of Hope’s sports bra drags across Kelley’s breasts as Hope straightens. Her fingers hook into the sides of Kelley’s bra and drag it over her head. It lands somewhere in the hall.
Hope gazes down at her. Her face is still flushed from their run, hair pulled back, and Kelley slides both arms over Hope’s bare shoulders. She draws her in close.
Hope is still a handful of inches away when Kelley says, “I love you.”
It feels like exhaling. It feels the way jumping out of a plane might feel. It feels the way the back of the net sounds when it whips with the force of a shot. It feels like a breath between them.
“I love you.” Hope responds, chasing the words with a kiss that marks a particular part of Kelley’s heart.
-
Hope’s hand turns beneath Kelley’s restless fingers, trapping her movements with a gentle hand. Their fingers lace and still. Around them, the music meanders on and in between the crowd. Kelley downs half of her drink in one sip. The cherry bumps against her teeth.
“Do you think the rain’s let up yet?” Hope asks, her hand like an afterthought in Kelley’s. Hope’s pinky twitches, grazing the side of Kelley’s palm, and Kelley’s fingers squeeze slightly in response.
“No idea.” Kelley responds. “But people are looking less damp.” The drink is starting to settle heavy in her bloodstream and she runs her thumb along Hope’s palm, brushes against Hope’s skin aimlessly. The crowd picks up in volume for a moment, filling out the bar with sound, and someone jostles their table as they squeeze by.
Kelley knows this night is becoming dangerous. She knows her hand in Hope’s and the way they keep dodging eye contact is equivalent to a heavy step backwards in their story. Their boots nestled together beneath the table, a regression. She knows the way this evening ends if she wants it to. She knows what’s building up between them, tension coiled tightly like a spring and old habits rearing their head. She pretends like she hasn’t spent months trying and failing to fall out of love with Hope.
“I missed you.” Hope says softly, and there’s a depth of complicated emotion in her eyes that’s too dense for Kelley to parse. Hope says the words like a proposition. I missed you, an open invitation. Kelley feels it in her chest, words stark in their plainness, and it’s so tempting to believe. She starts to open her mouth to reply, to echo her, but the sentiment catches in the back of her throat and never makes it past her lips.
-
Hope tells Kelley she doesn’t love her on the corner of a mostly empty street, the skies grey and cloudy above them. Her mouth is still sticky with Kelley’s chapstick, still warm and red.
She doesn’t say it in as many words, not as bluntly as she could, but the truth of it is clear. The truth of it cuts through Kelley. What she really says is:
“I’m falling for someone else.”
Kelley’s just kissed her and she still has the daze of Hope in her head -- a sort of dreamy calm that comes from the warmth of Hope’s mouth -- so the words startle her. Almost like someone stuck a foot out and caught her ankle. At first she thinks it’s a joke. Her hands stay flat over Hope’s collarbones, frozen in place, but when she leans back far enough to see all of Hope’s face, her hands fall from Hope’s chest. Her stomach falls with them.
Hope reaches to catch her hands a moment too late, her fingers grasping at nothing, and Kelley lets her flounder.
Hope says it simply and unapologetically, almost excising herself of it, but the corner of her mouth turns down in a frown and her hands hang empty. She sets her mouth a moment later, her face carefully cool, but her fingers flex towards nothing. Kelley is still trying to remember how to breath.
“Who?” Kelley gets out, but as soon as the word leaves her mouth she knows it doesn’t matter. As soon as she says it, she wants to take it back, but more words are leaving her mouth without permission. “When?”
Hope takes a short breath and sets her shoulders. Kelley hasn’t seen this kind of armor on her in years. Never thought she would be standing outside of it again. Hope takes a breath, and she lets it out, and she tears through everything they’ve built together.
-
Kelley wants to tell Hope she doesn’t love her a hundred times after that. Wants to say the words because she’s furious, or she’s hurt, or because she needs some sort of distance established between them.
She wants to tell Hope a hundred times, and a hundred times it would be a lie.
-
They don’t leave the bar until it starts to empty out, late into the night. There’s a distinct split between the handful of people still left inside – between those loud and drunk, sloshing cups that are filled to the brim, and those huddled alone at intervals in the bar, nursing the bottom of a long finished drink. The musicians play on, though they’ve dwindled in number. Kelley picks through the ice left over in her cup. She feels Hope’s foot against the outside of her leg, warm and bumping into her distractingly. There’s something safe about the two of them in this bar, something temporarily familiar and easy.
When they walk outside it’s into a heavy darkness, one that almost has weight. The clouds in the sky and the narrow streets block out any runaway light. It’s warm and wet, a tangible darkness that rests against their shoulders. On the sidewalk, Hope’s hand bumps against Kelley’s. They walk a few steps away from the bar, not ready to leave it.
When they reach the end of a half-shadowed alley, Hope peeks down into it and then laces her fingers through Kelley’s. She tugs her just into the dark shadows of the building and she leans down and kisses her, one hand splaying against the small of Kelley’s back. It’s all Kelley’s been asking for all night.
Kelley lets out a breath that turns into a soft moan, Hope’s body warm and lean against her. She bites down on Hope’s bottom lip once, then soothes it with her tongue. Hope tugs her closer.
When they part, they’re both half-panting. Kelley can barely see Hope’s eyes in the dark, but she can still feel the firm hold of Hope’s hand on her back, the warmth in her stomach and lower. Hope goes to pull Kelley back into her, but Kelley puts a hand up, braces it on Hope’s abdomen and stops her. Indecision rises between them for a second, then another.
“You’re not wearing your ring.” Kelley finally says. Hope bends her fingers reflexively. There’s the thinnest of tan lines from an engagement ring not present. It’s a question that’s been hanging all night.
Kelley doesn’t exactly have the right to ask anymore, but then again maybe she does. She can’t see Hope’s face in the dark but she can picture her pursed lips, that tense dip of her mouth. Beneath Kelley’s hand, Hope’s abs flex as she moves away.
“We’re taking a break.” Hope hesitates, then leans back into the building behind her. A dim stream of streetlight reaches her face. “I asked for a break.”
Kelley can’t help the excited uptick of her heart rate, the way her and Hope’s eyes meet with unintentional meaning. The space between them seems to open up with possibility once again. Kelley moves a careful distance away on the sidewalk, out of the shadows so that she can really see Hope’s face. Her arms cross over her chest, but there’s a distinct urge to lean closer. The night sways sticky around her.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” It might be the worst lie Kelley’s ever told, and Hope doesn’t fall for it. She chuckles and looks down toward her feet for a moment. When she looks back up, she has a smile on her face. One Kelley hasn’t seen in a while.
“Somehow I doubt that.” Hope says dryly, and Kelley rolls her eyes in response, trying to quell the hurt that’s rising in her chest at Hope’s gentle teasing. She always thinks she’s over it until Hope is right in front of her once again. Always thinks there’s nothing to say until they’re both saying it. “Kell, do you ever think –”
Hope cuts herself off, standing up taller against the wall and looking slightly chagrined.
“Don’t, Hope.” Kelley says tiredly, her heart aching again. It’d be too easy to let this happen. Too easy to dive back into the depth of their feelings, to go home with her, let it feel good, but Kelley knows she’d be gone again and out of reach by the morning. Another emotional notch in the bedpost.
It’s hard though when Hope is standing there with her eyes like that, brimming with hurt and truth and trust, brimming with feeling that Kelley is trying not to delve back into. Up until this moment, Kelley really thought she could fall back into bed with Hope without the emotional baggage of it. She realizes just how stupid that was.
“I know I fucked up. I know I ruined a good thing.”
“I can’t do this. We can’t go through all of it again.” Kelley tries to halt the words before they spill from her, almost ashamed of the lingering emotion that she can’t manage to scrape out of her, but the words come anyway. “You know I still love you.” She murmurs the phrase, suddenly close to crying without anticipating the arrival of tears. She takes a few steps back and stops, needing the space as much as giving it to Hope. She’s tired and drunk and her body is still thrumming with attraction, with what should have been a physical trip down memory lane.
She should probably be expecting it, but she still stumbles when Hope crosses the space between them and kisses her, her mouth desperate, like she’s trying to get the last taste of the words love you out of Kelley’s mouth.
After a moment, Kelley puts her hands to Hope’s cheeks and holds her away. They hesitate a few inches apart, Kelley trying not to give into this easy out, Hope swaying in front of her. They’re both breathing quickly.
Kelley knows if she kisses Hope again, it’s all she’ll do for the rest of the night.
Her eyes shine in the dark, turning wet with emotion, and she lets her hands fall from Hope’s face and walks away into the glistening shine of the streetlights on the asphalt.
still thinking abt o’solo. like, WHAT were they DOING??? did they think that was heterosexual behavior because it was ABSOLUTELY NOT i’m serious what were they doing
Kelley wakes up with her face stuck to the wood floor of her living room.
Outside her front door there's a gentle ding. Through the window, she sees the postman swing one leg over his bike, adjusting the bag slung across his chest while balanced in her front walk. Kelly's left arm moves slow and heavy and asleep as she drags her elbow from beneath her chin. She struggles upwards, mouth dry and eyes squinting. The postman puts one foot on a pedal.
The sun is already bright in the panes of her living room window, laid out against the floor in even stripes. She watches the postman disappear from the bottom pane of the window, diminishing in size until her street is still.
Kelley leans back on both hands and surveys the damage. Two empty wine glasses at a diagonal across the coffee table, the last empty bottle of white, one blue tooth speaker no longer blinking red into the room. Her, half on her throw rug and half off, a throw blanket twisted across her waist, hair ratted in a bun on one side of her head and no pants. Where are her pants.
With a low groan, Kelley curls and rises to her feet. The blanket slides to the floor. The house is quiet in a way that signifies emptiness, but the detritus in the living room tells a different story. There are her jeans, shoved halfway under the couch, and she tugs them out with her toes.
A yawn overtakes her and she stretches her arms taut above her head, curving her shoulder blades, and halfway into the motion she notices the pair of sandals next to her armchair. They’re crossed haphazardly over each other like they were shucked off suddenly and left at that spot, and they're definitely not hers.
Suddenly, her stomach is curling in on itself. It’s not because of the wine or the ill-advised fourth piece of pizza last night. She's walking backwards toward the hall before her sleepy brain even realizes where she's going. Her heart rate's betraying her, fluttering gently against her chest, and her footsteps thud far too loudly against the bare floors, sounding out her path through the house.
She reaches the end of the hall and pushes her bedroom door open to exactly what she expected to see: Hope, curled in the middle of her bed, fast asleep. Hope’s arms are locked around one of her pillows. She always lets her hair down when she sleeps and it splays out in every direction, wavy and wild and tangled by morning. Her bare feet escape from the bottom of the blanket.
The night comes back in snapshots then: Hope arriving late, after dinner, suitcase dropped at the door. Her bare feet in Kelley's living room, her face focused and intense while trying to beat Kelley at Wii tennis and not spill her wine at the same time. The two of them, spaced on opposite ends of the couch, talking into the night.
Kelley's fingers linger against the flat white paint of her bedroom door. An impulse to walk in rises in her, to disrupt the status quo and how this usually goes, but she smothers it down before it solidifies. Hope always crawls into her bed without her and takes up the entirety of it, too tall and broad and lean to make room for anyone else, even someone as small as Kelley. It drives Kelley mad the next night, turning in sheets that smell like Hope's perfume and thinking of her like an indention into which she sinks.
Kelley's heart is still thudding against her ribcage. She lets the door swing silently shut.
-
By the time Hope's up, Kelley has showered and brewed them a pot of coffee and is absentmindedly chopping vegetables for an omelet. The rich smell of coffee fills the kitchen and she stares out the back window, watching the clouds move through the light and thinking. She's still half asleep, thoughts breaking through her consciousness like slow waves, one just receding as another takes its place.
She heard footsteps in the hall that stop, hesitate, and enter the kitchen.
"Good morning." Hope says, voice rough.
Kelley can picture her bare feet, her loose sweatpants, the sleepy squint of her face and the hard planes of her bare face without even turning around. Every time Hope enters a room it's like the hairs on the back of Kelley's neck stand up, almost like someone turns up the lights a little bit and everything becomes more. She knows the hard science of it, the way her brain douses her synapses in dopamine and epinephrine, crowding her receptors until she feels like this, like every molecule of her body is rising in concert, in greeting. That doesn't seem to dull its effects or the smile spreading across her face.
"Good morning." She can feel the warmth suffusing the words as she turns around.
Hope is perched on one of Kelley's old, white kitchen chairs, one foot pulled up beneath her. Her tall frame overtakes the chair and she's angled sideways to face Kelley, her face just as sleep squinty and sweet as expected.
"How'd you sleep?" Kelley asks as she turns back to the chopping board. It's too early for the way Hope's eyes pin her in place. For the sleepy warmth of her skin, tempting Kelley to touch.
“Good. Your bed is comfortable.”
Kelly smirks to herself.
“You would know.”
-
Hope visits infrequently and often unexpectedly – she’s known for calling Kelley a week before she’ll be in town, rattling off a few travel plans, and asking if Kelley has room for her on the couch. Kelley always has room for her. She never sleeps on the couch. It feels like Hope leaves as quickly as she arrives though, one minute leaving toothpaste in the edge of Kelley’s sink and the next minute on a flight back across the country. Kelley makes space inside herself for Hope – falls back into her – and then spends the next few days sweeping her out again. A predictable cycle.
-
Something about this trip breaks the cycle.
There’s nothing that points to a shift in the routine of their time together. Hope spends the day like she always does – training at the gym with Kelley’s off-season trainer, riding to the grocery store with Kelley and spending too much money on cheese, sitting on the counter and pretending she’s helping to cook. Kelley blows off plans with a couple friends to spend the night in with Hope. Not exactly unusual, just a bit indulgent. They leave the lasagna in the oven and sit on the back porch to watch the sun set. Hope opens the first bottle of wine.
They eat in the living room with a movie on the tv and a couple candles flickering in the windows. It’s quieter than last night. It’s a bit more intimate. Kelley finds herself a little too aware of the angle of Hope’s body, of the inches that stretch between them.
“That was great, Kell.” Hope stands and scoops up her plate and Kelley’s, stacking them together. She pads off into the kitchen and Kelley watches her go. A moment later, the kitchen faucet runs. It’s almost too domestic.
When Hope returns, she’s carrying the half-empty bottle of wine. She finds a spot a foot or so closer on the couch. Tucking her feet up beside her, she refills both their glasses. She reclines back onto the couch with a soft sigh, her shoulder just brushing Kelley’s.
Kelley allows herself the small gift of studying Hope’s face, the slant of her eyelashes and the slope of her cheekbone. Hope catches her looking and purses her lips, shoots Kelley a teasing glance.
“Like what you see?”
“You’ve got something in your teeth.” Kelley says, going for a large sip of wine. She stares unseeing at the credits rolling on the tv. Hope almost goes to check, but something about the blush in Kelley’s cheeks stops her.
“It’s probably the wine.” She laughs instead. Kelley glances at her and can just see the start of a blue tint to the tip of her bottom lip. She finds she’s staring again.
“I’ll put some music on.” Kelley says, clicking the tv off with the remote. She’s almost desperate for something to distract her from the intensity beginning to crackle between them. She hasn’t had enough wine to write this off yet. Everything feels full of potential again. It’s all old potential, the threat of something that’s hovered between them for years but will probably never go anywhere.
She rises from the couch, but Hope’s hand on her wrist stops her.
“No country music.” Hope says, her fingers light on the bones of Kelley’s wrist. Her touch is light like a sunburn. Kelley smiles, her eyes sparkling in the low lights.
“Luke Combs it is.”
-
The night breaks into blurs after their second bottle of red wine. Blurs in the shape of Hope's hand wrapped familiar around Kelley's forearm, making all the nerves in her body tingle. Blurs like Kelley's hair against Hope's shoulder, leaning close enough on the couch that Kelley's cheek brushes Hope's collarbone. That spot on her neck that Kelley's forehead always seems to find when she's laughing too hard. How they fit. The night blurs the division between all their separate molecules.
-
The night heads into the wee hours of the morning. Hope yawns more than once. Their wine glasses sit stained and abandoned on the coffee table. After the third yawn in as many minutes, Hope slides out from beneath the blanket and makes some murmurs about brushing her teeth.
Hope may leave the room with a brief good night, may throw on the air of indifference, may disappear down the hall and into the shadows, but Kelley knows -- if she followed Hope into the bedroom and laid down beside her, Hope would wrap arms around her, pull her in close. Hope would hold her like she's been doing it all her life. The desire for that embrace wages a war in Kelley's head, the sweet impulse and opposing rationale.
She cleans up their wine glasses and straightens the pillows on the couch. She blows out the candles. The throw blanket piled into the basket by the couch spills out onto the floor and she eyes it for a moment. The living room is dark. Hope is in her bed.
Kelley turns and walks silently down the hardwood hall. She reaches her bedroom and her hand finds the doorknob in the dark.
Kelley pushes open the door and walks inside.
The lights are off, but dim illumination filters in through the window. Kelley can just see the lump of Hope’s body in her bed, curled onto one side. When the door creaks open, Hope shifts slightly onto her back. A few steps forward, her eyes adjusting to the dark, and Kelley can see her face. It’s open with emotion that’s foreign to Kelley – a new expression to piece out, to examine later – but for now all Kelley can think about is the thumping of her own heart. Hope shifts again, opening up to Kelley’s approach, and Kelley takes a shaky breath.
“Hey.” Hope says softly, starting to sit up, but Kelley puts a knee down onto the comforter and Hope’s mouth closes, her movements stilling. Kelley’s hand finds the pillow behind Hope’s head and she leans towards her, her skin thrumming with anticipation and adrenaline. She hadn’t planned what to say. Hadn’t considered how far she was going to take this.
“Hey.” She repeats, dumbly. Then, with adrenaline pumping hard enough to make her dizzy -- “Thought you might be tired of sleeping in my bed alone.”
Hope’s eyes widen, just enough, then narrow slightly. Kelley is still edging forward without really thinking about it.
“It’s about time.” Hope says, and then she’s leaning up and kissing Kelley, her hand cupping the back of Kelley’s head and pulling down. Kelley follows the pull of Hope’s body down into the bed, elbows just managing to keep her propped up enough to kiss Hope back. Her body crashes into Hope’s, hard enough that they both feel it, that it becomes real, and then Hope is running rapid hands up Kelley’s back and into her hair, kissing her thorough and hot. It feels like competition.
Hope’s mouth is soft even when her kisses are firm, warming the inside of Kelley’s chest and sending a bolt of arousal straight through her. She feels Hope twisting beneath the blankets and lifts enough to let her free, to let their legs tangle in the bed, and Kelley is lightheaded with the feeling of Hope beneath her, in her bed, a hundred fantasies come to life. Hope is curling her hands beneath Kelley’s shirt and rolling them over, and Kelley digs her hands into Hope’s hair and bites at her earlobe, her mouth finding the curve of Hope’s jaw.
After a moment, Kelley’s got Hope’s shirt off and Hope is tugging at Kelley’s leggings, and the night dissolves around them.
-
When Kelley wakes up in the morning, her face is pressed to her own pillow. She’s in her own bed.