No matter how many times Billie looked at the small map she’d been given by her resident advisor, she still found herself turned around when she walked onto the main campus. That was why she was determined to find the coffee shop today, even if it meant throwing herself at random people in the dorm’s common room until she found a partner in crime. The first girl she saw looked a bit familiar and she wondered if they’d run into each other in the university’s chat room. She walked up to her with a smiling face and spoke, “Please tell me you know where to find coffee. Or that you’re up for an adventure, if not.”
“You can share my jacket with me, since you’re shivering.” (june/maia)
Maia was too familiar with desparation, too used to the numb feeling inching up her arms, to question the offer. She looked up at Juniper for barely a heartbeat, decision already made before she looked at him to be sure of herself. But she did check before she fell back, slowing until the magnetic warmth of his arm brushed against her back. Normally, Maia was the affectionate one, but that arm of his tucked her into his side in a way someone else might call protective, pulling the side of his fashionably bulky winter coat all the way around her as she wrapped her arm around him to make walking easier.
It smelled like him. Maia had insisted on learning his smell. It was the kind of thing a girlfriend knows about her boyfriend. June liked a clean scent, unfussy, but probably expensive. She wasn’t the kind of cultured where she knew the notes in smells or whatever, but she knew it was him. It was stupid of her to let herself think this way, too close to danger for her own liking, but in a way, the smell was protective too.
So, begrudgingly, she muttered soft, “Th-than-thanks,” knowing he’d only just hear it, resenting the way the shivering that had made him worry about her also made her stutter out her thank you.
“Why aren’t you wearing a coat?” he answered, his typical short self.
“It didn’t match--match my outf-fit,” she answered. “You got thi-is dress sp-special for tonight.” She couldn’t even pretend to herself that she resented it. She loved the dress. It was pretty and soft and she liked how it swished against her thighs when she walked. She had no idea if June liked it. Probably, he did. Why would he buy dresses he didn’t like?
There was no way for her to guess what he was going to say, so his answer didn’t really surprise her. “I’ll buy you a coat.” Short. Brisk. But despite the tone, his arm tightened around her just a little. Maia smiled, squeezing him back, letting her head rest against his side. She didn’t tell him he didn’t have to do that--he would do it regardless, now--but she made a note of it, filing it away with all the other tiny things he did for her, wondering as she often did how she could possibly repay him for even one of them. She wasn’t too proud to rely on him as per the terms of their arrangement, but the small kindnesses he showed her? She wondered how she could even begin to repay those.
Maia never liked parents, so maybe she wasn’t the person to ask. She’d told Juniper, laughing to show him that her words were part joke, that it was because she barely knew her own, and her foster parents had always been more like underpaid chaperones who wanted nothing to do with her. Parents were not her area of expertise. But meeting his parents had her doubting her own words. They were dicks, both of them, and not in a good way. In the worst way. The worst dicks.
Maia also didn’t particularly care for Juniper, in all truthfulness. He was starting to grow on her, yeah, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that he’d be spending time with her if he weren’t trying to throw off his (worst-dick) mother, or that she’d spend time with him if it weren’t the best source of food and beds she’d had in a long time. And he was selfish, and out of touch, and cocky. But there was a difference. Like, he wasn’t a dick. His parents were dicks.
So when he said he was like his father, her response was immediate and sincere for once. “You’re fucking kidding, right?” she answered leveling him with her most no-nonsense stare. The kind people used to give her when she did literally anything. “You’re not like him. Not in the ways that matter.”
“You don’t know that,” Juniper replied. And, yeah, she didn’t know it. But she felt it in her gut, and she believed it, and that was what counted.
“You’re not,” she repeated. “Look. Your father, he’s...a dick. The worst kind of dick.” She sighed, sitting on the corner of the bed nearest to him. Not, like, close to him. They weren’t close like that. But near-ish. “I know it’s mostly for show and stuff but you’ve actually been pretty good to me.” Better than any guy she’d been with in a damn long time, not that she’d admit to it. The fact that her best relationship in years was fake was a level of pathetic she’d need to address later. “He wouldn’t be. You know he wouldn’t be. That’s why you got me this ridiculous dress. So you’re not like him, okay?” She sighed again and stood up, stepping away from him and from the weirdness of having a pleasant conversation .”Now, help me remember where the damn zipper was so I could get out of this thing,” she demanded, twisting herself about trying to find the exit for this outfit.
“Like, right now?” Maia asked, gesturing to her entire body. The robe more than covered all of her but without it--yeah, no. “I’d talk him down. Distract him with something until I could get to the bathroom and then stall until my clothes were dry enough to put back on. Honestly, though, if he doesn’t call the cops, he can tell me whatever he wants. If I’d wanted him to like me, I would’ve picked a totally different plan. One that involved, like, talking to him. I mean, I’m not an idiot, sheesh.”
