How could someone she’d only known for months feel so much like home? She should worry about falling for an illusion, for not having enough time to know whether she could trust the coral branch not to snap. But the more Alix showed her, the more she loved. The more Grace loved her.
Eyes snapping open, Grace decided that she needed to eat something. Hunger was definitely the cause for the roiling in her stomach.
Rolling away quietly, Grace moved soundlessly. In the dark and without contacts in, she reached for the clothes she’d dropped on the floor before slipping into Alix’s bed. Before she’d had some of the best sleep of her life.
It was only when she stepped out into the hall with her glasses on that she realized she’d gotten her jeans, but Alix’s shirt. A faded black tee that was perfectly oversized on Alix but snug on Grace. Instead of going back in and risking waking her, Grace kept the shirt on.
The light cotton and unmistakable scent of Alix’s cologne set off a chemical reaction in Grace’s body. Heat over her skin and a hard flutter in her chest that made a full breath impossible. Lightheaded, Grace floated into the kitchen and became immediately intimidated by Phyllis’s one true love, a fancy espresso maker.
An idea formed while she was already moving. Already putting on a sweatshirt Alix had left on the couch. Black and littered with dinosaur outlines, Grace took a greedy inhale of the collar and went outside.
Without the influence of booze and the night’s sky and Alix’s hands on her hips, she didn’t consider taking the longboard on the porch. Instead, she walked, the early morning cool and bright and brimming with possibility.
The mile walk to the street where the internet said there was a coffee shop was incredible without humidity. Grace absorbed every moment with a deranged grin dying to get loose.
The walk back should have been annoying while she carried a biodegradable tray and bag full of vegan croissants uphill, but all she could see were the cute raised houses and palm trees and inclusive pride flags.
Everything about Alix’s neighborhood was different than hers. By the time she was climbing the porch again, she was debating leaving her firm to sell handmade crafts at farmers markets and live on a lesbian commune.
Tiptoeing back into the house, Grace was relieved that Alix hadn’t woken up yet. She set her prizes on a mismatched nightstand and crawled under the covers.
At the motion, Alix turned. “Hey,” she said, voice groggy while she rubbed one eye. “Happy New Year’s Eve.” She eyed the coffee. “Did you go somewhere?”
Grace ran her hands through Alix’s messy hair. Even her bedhead was cute. “I did.”
Grace kissed her jaw before nestling into the crook of her neck. If she’d ever wanted anything, it was to stay there forever. To exist only in a place where she was breathing Alix in while wrapped around her body. Where she swam in sheets that smelled like her.
“Did you steal my clothes?” She hugged Grace like she’d missed her without even knowing it.
“I did.”
Alix chuckled and squeezed her tighter. “I like that.”
“Me too.”
Grace was unexpectedly drifting to sleep when Alix kissed the top of her head before brushing back the hair she only realized she hadn’t bothered brushing.
“Where did you go?”
“I walked up the street to get us some coffee so that I didn’t lose Phyllis’s approval by messing with her machine.”
“You walked?” Alix asked in the same surprised shriek as if Grace had popped out for a face tattoo. “No one walks in LA.”
Grace chuckled. Nobody walked in Miami either.
“I love your neighborhood.”
Alix made circles over Grace’s back. “I’m pretty lucky. Phyllis has been renting here since the nineties. It’s like a rent-controlled oasis. I’ve never even met or talked to the landlord. Phyllis has handled it all because she’s been here so long.”
A lifetime of believing that renting was akin to flushing money down the toilet almost made Grace ask why she’d rent so long, but she was self-aware enough not to ask.
“Will you show me more of it?” Grace traced the leaves over Alix’s collarbone with her finger. “Your neighborhood?”
“Mm-hmm,” Alix said like she was drifting away.
Grace settled against her chest and closed her eyes. When they woke after inadvertently falling asleep, they drank lukewarm and mediocre coffee and headed out the door.
“I can’t believe you don’t get sick of not having a car,” Grace said when they stepped out of the rideshare and toward a smattering of shops and restaurants.
