Page 23 of Take What Hurts

So yeah, she was moping, because all she wanted was to text Elliott and ask her out. But then there was the small matter of the ethics of the whole thing. She’d wallowed so much about being unable to simply go out and get what she wanted that she’d even considered, just for a moment, handing the file to one of her colleagues.

But then she’d thought about her career objectives. Of everything she’d been working for. Literally for years. Then there was her mother. And god forbid she ever find out that Mackenzie had withdrawn from a matter so important to her career over a girl.

Just thinking about it made her want to crawl into bed and not leave for days.

Hence all the moping.

But she’d finally crawled out of the pit of despair to meet Frankie this morning, like they’d done many weekends on and off over the past fourteen years. They had met at Sundays—the coffee shop in Fremont—and had spent the morning wandering the market, inspecting stalls that sold everything from variations of handmade knitted hats and chopping boards and serving platters handmade out of red alder, to wares that could best be referred to as reclaimed junk but passed as “antique” or “vintage.” Mackenzie had, again, bought far too many books, and Frankie had bought more rings and earrings than she would ever be able to comfortably wear at once. After a trip to their respective cars, they found themselves shuffling through the crowd from food stall to food stall, catching snippets of shy tourists bartering with vendors and conversations between foodies sizing up the offerings.

Having swallowed the oversize bite of éclair she’d picked up at her favorite patisserie stall, Mackenzie swiped the back of her hand over her mouth, picking up some errant cream, which she promptly licked off. “You had the threesome, mind-altering orgasms, et cetera, et cetera,” she said, waving a hand around her ear. “And now you’re sort of, but not really”—she squinted against the neon light of their favorite food stall, Banh Mi and You—“like, dating one of them? But that one is in a relationship with the other one?”

Frankie, polishing off the last bite of her own éclair, nodded along enthusiastically. “Yep, exactly.”

Mackenzie nodded slowly, her thoughts prolific but slow—like they were lodged in molasses. Frankie disappeared to place their order and returned a minute later with two tickets for their food. “So, are you kind of dating, like… both of them?” Mackenzie ventured.

Frankie tilted her head slightly to the side, contemplating, before she spoke. “Not exactly. I’m dating Parker. Parker is in a committed relationship with Jo. Sometimes Parker and Jo sleep just with each other. Sometimes Parker and I sleep with Jo together. And sometimes Parker and I just sleep together without Jo.” Mackenzie nodded, eyes narrowed and brain tripping over itself in an attempt to follow the explanation punctuated by Frankie’s wildly gesticulating hands. Frankie bounced on the balls of her feet like it was Christmas and she’d been given the toy she’d most wished for. “They’re poly, and I’m part of the polycule.”

Mackenzie hummed. “Okay… and are you poly?”

Frankie’s little button nose scrunched in thought, and she stared at a spot over the top of Mackenzie’s head. A smile crept into Mackenzie’s cheeks despite herself, because one of the things she loved most about Frankie was that she treated every question about any subject with the same level of care as she’d give to something that actually had the capacity to alter her life. “No, I don’t think so. They’re poly, but I’m dating Parker separately and go on dates and sleep with her as an individual, but then I also join them as a third when they want a threesome, if that makes sense? I don’t date anyone other than Parker.”

Honestly, it did make sense to Mackenzie in principle, but in a lot of other ways, it didn’t. Because it sounded like a recipe for jealousy and mistrust, and for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine how she would ever manage something like that. But Frankie thrived in these situations. Where Mackenzie would deem something to be complicated, Frankie would consider it a challenge or something new for her to dip her feet into, and she would dive right in. And Mackenzie guessed that tracked.

She had met Frankie freshman year of their undergrad at UW, and though they were like water and oil in a lot of ways, they’d trauma bonded over their freshman art-history class with their weird and slightly creepy professor and had never looked back. Frankie, Mackenzie was pretty sure, was a genius, and she worked as an engineer specializing in building infrastructure for Seattle’s queer community. She’d designed accessible spaces for neurodivergent members of the alphabet mafia, homeless shelters for queer youth, and queer community-hub buildings, and Mackenzie’s heart burst with pride whenever Frankie took her to the latest finished product. So given Frankie’s job, Mackenzie was never surprised when her propensity to take on a challenge and succeed spilled over into her personal life.

“All right.” Mackenzie nodded, folding her ticket in half and then in half again. “And you’re—” She paused, fishing for the right word. “Happy? You’re happy with that?”

Frankie nodded, a grin splitting her face. “Yeah—it’s new and exciting and something different. But communication is key, so that’s the deal, right?” She looked at Mackenzie with serious bright-green eyes, her dead-straight bangs falling not an inch above her brows. “If the communication is no good, I end it, because I don’t wanna fuck with that.”

Mackenzie, despite her apprehension toward the whole situation, simply because she didn’t want to see Frankie get hurt, laughed. “Sounds like you’ve got it figured out,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Just, you know”—she squeezed Frankie’s wrist as their numbers were called, and they moved toward the stall to collect their food—“look after you, all right?”

Frankie nodded. “I always do.” She winked at Mackenzie over her shoulder and called back to her. “Clothes?”

Mackenzie took a bite of her banh mi and nodded.

The minute they found their way out of the crowd gathered in the section of food stalls, Mackenzie spotted a tall person with a familiar-looking head bobbing through the crowd, headed toward the clothing stalls. Mackenzie’s stomach flipped, flooding a tingling warmth right down her arms and legs and into her fingers and toes. She hadn’t seen Elliott since they’d sat together at the café a little less than a week ago. Despite Mackenzie’s staunch declaration that she wanted to get coffee with Elliott again, and even though she would have been clear it was—much to the disgust of her poor, traitorous heart—a catch-up as colleagues, almost like a mentoring session, something had given her pause when she’d sat down days later to send Elliott an invitation.

Elliott’s eyes that day.

There had been a moment—when Mackenzie had stared at Elliott and Elliott had stared right back—that Elliott’s pupils had eclipsed the smooth brown of her irises and she’d looked at Mackenzie with such untampered want that Mackenzie had had to squeeze her legs together under the table to quell the insistent pounding that had started between her thighs. That had made her fingers itch. And her legs vibrate. Elliott had ignited an unquenchable need in Mackenzie that had left her physically gripping the table to keep herself from launching across it and running her hands over every inch of Elliott’s body. And though Mackenzie’s heart had soared with the realization that Elliott was, perhaps, as attracted to Mackenzie as Mackenzie was to Elliott, sweat broke out on her brow whenever she circled back to the ethics of it all.

And so, saving them both from the temptation, Mackenzie had put down her phone mid-text and decided that putting themselves in that situation willingly, on purpose—well, she’d decided that was a bad idea. There were also the facts that she respected Elliott and wanted Elliott to respect her. And she was certain the minute she allowed herself to get closer to Elliott than well-acquainted colleagues, Elliott would see right through the workplace persona Mackenzie so carefully displayed and would discover the embarrassing mess of her personal life. The version who was indecisive. Who hesitated over the things that should have been easy. Who capitulated to what her therapist was quick to remind her was flat-out abuse from her own mother. The version of herself she wished didn’t exist.

But now, watching Elliott’s dark curls flit through the crowd, getting further away, Mackenzie couldn’t swallow the adrenaline-induced excitement that superseded every rational thought to… just… not, and pushed words loudly out of her throat and past her lips.

“Elliott!” Elliott’s head snapped around in their direction, and Mackenzie waved, giggling at the way Elliott’s brows knitted together and her mouth turned down in a moment of confusion before she recognized Mackenzie and threw up a hand in greeting. Mackenzie’s pathetic, traitorous heart leapt when Elliott’s face split into a toothy smile and she started back toward them, dodging people as she went.

Frankie slapped the back of her hand against Mackenzie’s chest, mouth gaping. “Shut up. The Elliott?”

Mackenzie shot Frankie a sideways look. “Yes, that Elliott. We ran into each other at a coffee shop, like, last week?” She shrugged. “We had a nice time.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes and laughed. “It slipped my mind.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie muttered darkly and pulled out her phone, but her eyes were on Elliott’s steady progress toward them. “Wow, Mac. She’s, like, smoking hot.”

It was Mackenzie’s turn to swat her hand at Frankie’s chest, and she scoffed out a laugh. “Frankie!” She turned to her best friend and narrowed her eyes. “Be good.” Frankie drew an imaginary halo around her head that Mackenzie knew meant fucking nothing. Promptly she started to sweat and cursed herself for allowing her swoopy stomach to dictate her actions rather than the perfectly good, sensible brain in her head that had already decided that encounters like this were a bad idea.