Second Chances (18 page)

“How is that cheating?  All of my ships are on the board.”

“But you stacked them on
top
of each other!”

Allison sat back with a smug look on her face.  “Show me the rule that says that’s cheating.”

“I would,” Reagan huffed, “but the rule booklet is missing.”

“It’s not cheating if there’s no rule book.”

“But…” Reagan couldn’t come up with a clever retort.  Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and pouted.

Why is she so adorable when she pouts?
Allison mused to herself. “We should go to sleep.”

“But the game…”

Allison shook her head. “Is over.” She picked up a red peg and tossed it back onto the duvet. “There’s pieces all over, Rea.”

Reagan wrinkled her nose. “Fine.  It’s a tie.”

“A tie?” Allison scoffed.  “You didn’t even get
close
to hitting my boats.  I clearly won.”

“If the game isn’t completed, then it ends in a tie.”

Allison stood up and walked toward the head of the bed to pull back the covers.  She ran her palm over the top sheet and pieces of the game fell onto the floor. “And where’s the rule that says that, Murphy?”

Reagan slid under the covers on the right side of the bed and fluffed up her pillows. “In the absence of a rule book,” she said, wiggling and getting comfortable, “I make up my own.”

Allison laughed and shook her head.  She climbed into bed and tried to not focus on the fact that she was
climbing into bed
with Reagan.  She let out a shaky breath. Maybe masturbating in the shower hadn’t been such a good idea. Instead of calming her, it had only awoken her libido – like her body had forgotten what an orgasm was and now craved more. She rolled onto her side and turned off the bedside lamp closest to her.  The room was swallowed by darkness.

Allison rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.  Even though they were in a king-sized bed, she swore she could still feel the heat of Reagan’s body beside her.  She was like a tiny radiator. 
It would be so easy
, she thought,
just to roll over and kiss her. 
She sighed.  No, she was wrong. There was nothing
easy
about that at all.

“Ow!”

“What’s wrong?” Allison tried to make out Reagan’s body in the dark.

“Nothing. But I think I finally found your battleship.”

+++++

CHAPTER Eleven

The next morning, Allison sat i
n one of the stuffed chairs of their hotel room, looking out the window with her journal and pen in hand.  Even though she rarely left her house without the leather-bound book, she hadn’t been able to put pen to paper since visiting Reagan in New York.  Every time that summer she had picked up the journal, she had put it away. She was too afraid that the ink might betray her confidences.

Her Muse itched at the base of her brain, urging her to take advantage of all the emotions and thoughts that currently troubled her.  And a part of her hoped that if she could just write them down, maybe they would go away.  If she spilled the contents of her brain into her journal, maybe she could control them. 

But the last time she’d written something about this…No.  She couldn’t write about this.  She’d just push this down.  Shove it down deep so she could focus on something else.  Anything else.  Writing it down only made it more real.

The shower turned off in the next room and after a few minutes, Reagan emerged from the bathroom.  The white fluffy towel wrapped tightly around her torso made her olive skin-tone seem even more exotic than usual.  In a city like New York,
she fit right in.  But in a small town in Northern Michigan, it had only served as another reminder of how she didn’t quite belong.

“It’s so nice not having to shower with other people,” Reagan beamed.

Allison snapped her journal shut.  “You make it too easy, Murphy.”

Reagan
self-consciously pulled her towel tighter around her figure. “Too easy for what?”

“For me to make pervert comments.”

The paranoia fell from Reagan’s face. “Or maybe your head is just permanently stuck in the gutter, Hoge,” she countered.

Allison shook her head. “I never used to be like this.”

Reagan grinned. “Maybe I just bring it out of you.”

Allison stood suddenly. 

“What are you…”

Allison brought her hands up to rest on Reagan’s toweled hips.  The material was damp and scratched her palms.  “I’m tired of this, Reagan.  I’m tired of us tiptoeing around.”

Reagan’s mouth twitched. “Tiptoeing around what?”

“I’m not very good with words.
” Allison visibly swallowed.  “You’d think as a writer, I’d be better at expressing emotions.  But if I don’t have a pen in my hand, I get tongue tied.”
And I’d rather get my tongue tangled with you.
“Oh, fuck it.”

Allison grabbed a hold of Reagan’s shoulders and pushed her back onto the mattress.  The movement was gentle, but aggressive at the same time.  As Allison fell onto the mattress with Reagan beneath her, she was acutely aware that while she was fully clothed, Reagan wore only a loosely bound towel.  She had only to reach between their bodies and Reagan would be naked. Allison groaned against Reagan’s open mouth as thoughts of Reagan naked and pressing against her slammed against her consciousness.  She bit down on Reagan’s lower lip, pulling a moan from her.

When Reagan felt Allison's fingers toy with the bottom hem of her towel and brush against her naked upper thigh, she knew they needed to stop before things went too far. "Wait," she panted, sucking in mouthfuls of air.  The combination of Allison's teeth now raking across her neck and her light, fluttering touch on her thigh was making her head spin.  "You have to stop.”

Allison looked up, annoyed. "Why?"

"Because," Reagan said, sitting up and pulling her loosening towel tighter around her, "we have to talk."

Allison released a disgruntled sigh. "What about?" She knew the answer, and she knew Reagan was right. She just didn't want to have that conversation. Avoiding talking about whatever was between them was the reason she'd kissed her in the first place. She realized now, however, it had only hastened that discussion.

"About why you were kissing me."

"I didn't hear any complaints," Allison shot back defensively.

Reagan grimaced. She knew she'd have to proceed with caution. "That's because I liked it."

The hurt expression softened on Allison's face. "Really?"

Reagan scooted a little closer. She touched her fingers to the side of Allison's face and rubbed the pad of her thumb along her cheekbone. Allison's eyes fluttered shut and Reagan could hear her quiet sigh.

"I'm sorry if me stopping you hurt your feelings.”

Allison opened her eyes, and Reagan let her hand fall back into her lap. "I'm sorry I threw myself at you and made you feel uncomfortable."

"You didn't –."

"Rea," Allison interrupted, "I kind of did."

Reagan smiled. She was unsure how to proceed now, but rather than the uncertainty and the quiet that had fallen over them making her anxious, she felt comfortable with the silence. She still had questions she needed answers to though.

"Can we talk about this?" she tried again.

Allison blew out a deep breath, ruffling the hair that framed her face. "I suppose that would be the mature thing to do."

"I should put on some clothes," Reagan said, standing up from the bed.

"Yeah, that probably would be a good idea."

Allison watched Reagan pad over to her suitcase. She picked out a few things and then let her towel fall. Allison quickly averted her eyes to afford her some privacy, but not before getting an eye-full of Reagan's naked silhouette. She tried not making any uncool noises. Now that she'd begun admitting to herself that she might actually be attracted to Reagan, her mind was taking her to inappropriate, but wholly pleasant, places.

Reagan came back to the bed, fully dressed and smiling. Allison wasn’t sure if she knew what the sight of her naked body did to her and was purposely teasing her, or if she was oblivious to it all.

"So," Reagan started.  She crossed one leg over the other and rested her hands on her kneecap. “When did you realize you were attracted to me?"

"Reagan, you don't just ask people that."

Reagan shrugged. "Why not? I think it's a perfectly reasonable question."

"Would you ask a boy that?"

"I might. Especially if I had known him for as long as we have and he had never shown any interest in me before."

Reagan had the strangest gift for making the insane sound rational. "Well I could ask you the same question," Allison deflected.

Reagan tapped her fingertips against her bottom lip and looked deep in thought. "You've always been beautiful, Allison. Even when I was terrified of you in high school I could appreciate that."

Allison leaned forward and licked her lips. "But just in a subjective way, right? You never fantasized about kissing me in high school."

"Well first, I'd argue that you're objectively beautiful. And second, we're not talking about me,” she deflected. “Why did you kiss me at the train station last year?"

Allison leaned back to her original position.
That
again. She realized it was a justified question, however. That was when everything had started to change for her. "When you came to visit me for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if we were going to have fun, or if we were going to devolve into our high school selves and fight the whole time." She took a breath before continuing. "But I honestly had a lot of fun - minus the part where I cracked my skull open on a rock - and I wanted to thank you for that."

Reagan's eyes hadn't left Allison's face the entire time. "You could have sent a fruit basket or, I don't know, said ‘Thank You.’"

Allison's lips pressed together to form a straight line. "I thought you looked really pretty, okay Murphy?"

Reagan's long eyelashes fluttered. "Really?"

Allison sighed and rubbed at her face. "It was the whole atmosphere. There were twinkle lights, and it had just started to snow, and the snowflakes were getting caught in your hair and on your ridiculously long eyelashes, and it was all so overwhelming."

"Why did you kiss me in Central Park?"

Allison made a pained expression. "Are we really going to do this? Do you want a play-by-play of every time I've kissed you?"

Reagan sat up a little straighter. "I think it could be beneficial for us both."

"I felt jealous. Territorial.”  She was tired of the lies and the deflecting.  She just needed to be honest with Reagan so she could be honest with herself. “That guy had just called you, and I felt like you were going to bail on me to hang out with him."

“You don’t have to worry about Chris.  He’s just a friend.”

Allison’s lip curled. “Well how was I supposed to know that?  And what would I be worried about in the first place?”

Reagan ignored the questions and asked another one of her own.
“What about just now? Why did you kiss me?"

Allison leaned forward and cupped the side of Reagan's face. "Can you blame me? Have you seen how good you look in a towel?”

Reagan pulled away and turned her face. A cascade of brunette hair concealed her face. "I'm sorry."

Allison's eyes flickered with intensity and her nostrils slightly flared. "It's fine." Her mouth formed the words, but her face and tense body language suggested it was anything but fine.

"I like kissing you, Allison." Allison waited for the other shoe to drop. "I'm just not sure what that means."

Allison stiffened. "I'm not asking you to be my girlfriend, Murphy."

"Right. Because you're not gay," Reagan routinely echoed.

"I don't believe in long-distance relationships. Not at our age."

Reagan bit her lip. Allison hadn't reacted to her comment about her sexuality like she'd expected she would. She hadn't confirmed that she wasn't gay, but she also hadn't disagreed with the statement.

Reagan’s phone rang on the bedside table, interrupting the moment.

“You can get that.”  Allison looked tired, like she wanted to slide under the hotel duvet and never come out.

“No.  Whoever it is can wait.”

With an exasperated sigh, Allison grabbed Reagan’s phone.  She didn’t recognize the area code and no name was associated with the number.  She answered the call.  “Hello? Reagan Murphy’s phone.”

A confused male voice came across the line. “Uh...is Reagan there?”

“Hold on.”  Allison shoved the phone in Reagan’s face.  “Take it.” Reagan shook her head, but Allison made an impatient sound.  “
Today
, Murphy.”

Reagan sighed and took the phone.  “Hello?”

"Hey, Reagan. It's Chris. I'm sorry I haven't called lately. I've been swamped with school and my part-time job."

Reagan made a face. 
When it rains, it pours
. "It's okay. I know how that is."

"I was calling to see if you wanted to hang out soon—maybe dinner and a movie?"

Reagan chewed on her bottom lip.  She couldn’t tell if Allison could overhear the content of their conversation.  Her face was maddeningly unreadable.

"I'm sorry, Chris. I'm seeing someone new. Well, they're not really new—but it's a new relationship.” The words just seemed to leap out of her mouth.  “And it wouldn't be fair to either of you if we continued hanging out."

"Oh, uh. Are you sure?"

Reagan nodded once, even though she knew he wouldn't see it. "I'm positive."

When Reagan hung up with Chris, she was afraid to look at Allison. But she felt good. She didn't feel the normal guilt that came with rejecting someone—although she didn't have much experience with that. But more importantly, she didn't feel that anxiety that comes with knowing you've put all your eggs in one basket. Allison was her basket, and she thought she was ready to give her eggs to her.  She wrinkled her nose; she'd have to rethink using that analogy though.

“So you’re seeing someone new?”

Reagan cleared her throat.   She fiddled with her phone, still unable or unwilling to look in Allison’s direction. “That’s to be determined.”

“So you just lied to that guy?”

Reagan looked up from her phone.  Allison was staring hard at her.  Instead of looking away as she was wont to do, she stared back with equal intensity.  “I don’t know.  Did I?”

+++++

Reagan climbed the bleachers, clutching her bag of unbuttered popcorn.  “I have to warn you,” she said, looking back briefly, “I know nothing about sports.”

Allison followed behind, one step at a time.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”  She was thankful for the warm weather.  It was the perfect day to watch a college football game and without the need for heavy jackets, it gave her the opportunity to admire Reagan’s tight backside as she ascended the metal bleachers.

Reagan scooted down the aisle until she found a space that afforded them a clear view of the football field, even though she didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking at.  She wasn’t kidding – she knew nothing about the rules of the game.  But with Allison, she was happy to try new things. 
Like making out. 
She tried censoring her thoughts about all the other new things Allison seemed eager to do with her.
To
her.