Her

Ade blushed, visible despite her dark skin, and drew both of her lips into her mouth. Then just her lower lip, pinched between her teeth. "It went okay."

"Don't make me ask f-f-followup questions. I hate ssss-ss-sounding like an idiot."

"You don't sound like an idiot," Ade said, reassuringly. "Um, well, for one thing, she was gorgeous." Her eyes got a far away look, like she was looking at a memory. She moved her hands up next to her head. "She had a tight fade, real short on the sides, and then, like... the hair on top a little longer? And curled over like a wave? Total boy cut, and she had the confidence for it. Oof."

"I d-d-didn't know you went for the butch type!"

Ade rolled her eyes and smirked. "I mean, her hair was longer in her picture, but that wouldn't have mattered. She was gorgeous. I swiped right." She licked her lips, and her smile flattened ever so slightly. "Turns out we didn't have a whole lot in common? Like, she didn't really get 'pursuing dance' as a career. It took her a while to wrap her head around the idea that dancing isn't just something I do after I finish my regular job, or how I could make enough money to live."

"In her defff-fffense," Frankie said, "we almost don't."

Ade shrugged, and said, "We didn't have great chemistry at the bar, so..."

There was, at the microscopic level, a pause, between the words chemistry and at, and it was only because Frankie knew Ade so well that she picked up on it. "The sss-sex was good though?"

Ade laughed, long and loud and clear, and nodded emphatically. "There won't be a second date, but there's a non-zero chance I'm going to text her at two in the morning at some point."

"u up?" Frankie said, drawing a little 'u' in the air with her pointer finger to differentiate that it was 'u' and not 'you', and was rewarded with another joyful peal of laughter.

"It's funny because it's true."

"Well, I'm glad the sex was guh-uh... was good. You deserve good sex."

Ade rolled her eyes again, and shook her head. "Yeah," she said, sighing happily. "The sex was good. Like, we made it all the way to the bottom of the toy box."

At this, both of them devolved into snickering and giggling.

"Th-thhhat reminds me," Franke said, excitedly. "I bought my first toy!"

Ade raised an eyebrow at her.

"Like," she added, "my first toy."

"You've never owned a sex toy before?" Ade asked, incredulously.

Frankie shook her head, and her gaze fell toward the river. "I tried to bring it up with him a couple times, but he always seemed, like... confused as to why I would want more than him?" She took a long breath, and said, "And then, apropos of nothing, we'd have, like, really intense s-uh... s-sex that he got off on way more than I did. Like he was trying to prove something."

Ade smiled faintly and stared off toward the skyline. She asked, "So what did you end up getting?"

"A dil-a dil-ah... a dildo? A vibrating one?"

"The classic," Ade replied, and that broke the tension like a split piñata.

Frankie laughed, and leaned her head over to rest on Ade's shoulder.

***

"Do you want one of those Starbucks espresso shots?" Frankie asked, as the two of them fast walked into the convenience store section of the gas station the next day.

"It's a day that ends in 'y', so..."

Frankie nodded, double checked that her mask was firmly in place, and entered the store. Her first move, a newly acquired skill, was to look around and map out a safe path through the store that kept her away from others. Ade's father had ulcerative colitis, a condition for which he took steroids which had in turn compromised his immune system. Ade was very careful, which Frankie had taken to mean she needed to be ultra careful if she was going to continue to hang around. While doing her pathfinding, picking up drinks and chips for them while Ade ostensibly went to order their wraps from the deli, Frankie froze.

She was vaguely aware that Ade was next to her, also standing still, but only vaguely. The overwhelming majority of her brain was trying to find a way to deal with the fact that she was, for the first time in about six months, in the same room as her ex-fiance.

"Don't," Ade said, but it was too late.

Near the back of the store, towering over aisles of shelves that Frankie could barely peer over, stood a man who made her stomach want to empty itself on sight. He was tall, broad shouldered, square chinned; a mountain of a man. He had a full beard, not unkempt, that transformed his appearance from creature that fought bears barehanded to creature that fought bears barehanded and spent time bottle feeding the litter of kittens he was fostering.

This six-foot-four, two hundred and fifty pound, textbook example of Mr. July in a firefighter calendar visibly flinched at her approach.

"Hello Francesca," he said, acting like she was the one who was a whole foot taller. "How've you been?"

"How have I..."

His eyes flickered as she stammered, past her and over her shoulder, and she could see the shutters dropping and the walls coming up. As had happened often, Mark had completely shut down, and it pissed her off.

"Hello Ade," he said, flatly.

"Come on, Frankie," Ade said, taking hold of her shoulder and pulling her gently back toward the parking lot.

"No!" she shouted, her pitch rising anxiously. "H-h-how have I been?! Are you ssss-ssssserious?"

"She's not ready for this," Ade said, apologetically, as she tried harder to wrangle the shorter woman. "Frankie, you're not ready for this."

"I still care about you," Mark said, making pointed eye contact with her. "I'm sorry. I know that sucks to hear right—"

"What sucks," Frankie screeched, "is you!"

"Just because we're not together doesn't mean I want to see you in pain."

"W-w-well who's f-f-fault is that?!"

"We'd been drifting apart for a while, Fran. I'm not sorry for being honest about that."

"Alright," Ade said, as she came around to Frankie's other side and started pushing her.

Frankie continued to curse and shout, jumping up on her toes to stare daggers at her ex-fiance over Ade's shoulder, but it didn't make her feel any better; not when Mark looked like he'd rather jump in front of a train than give her answers. It still hurt to see him in pain, to see him hurting, and to see the hurt so obviously on his features. It was so hard to be mad at him, but her heart was a furnace. A roaring, white-hot furnace, and it would not be quenched. Could not be quenched.

She found herself sitting in the passenger seat of her own car, a few moments later, and blinked. Ade leaned over the center console, reaching into Frankie's purse to fish out the keys, and started the car before Frankie's near-suicidal desire to know got the better of her and pushed her back into that deli.

And then the car was moving. Ade was talking to her, at her, but Frankie heard none of it. The whole thing was a blur, and before she knew it, the car was parked again.

Frankie got out of the car out of pure reflex and realized she didn't know where she was. There were trees and sky, and posted signs on just about every vertical surface she saw. Ade swept alongside her, slid an arm around her shoulder, and herded her forward.

"We're not supposed to be here," Frankie said, thickly, recognizing that they were heading into a park. "Aren't these closed?"

"We're alone," Ade said, gently. "The whole place is empty. Given the circumstances, I think we'll be okay."

Frankie was not in the frame of mind to do more than accept this at face value, and allowed herself to be led into the park.

They only walked a short ways, far enough along the walking path to be past the first line of trees and out of sight from the road, before settling on a bench. It felt good to sit down, and she realized, belatedly, that she'd been doing something different than sitting back in the car. Something that had her whole body practically fighting her seat belt. As she sat there in the quiet, surrounded by light forest, with the wind and the sun and the birds, she finally caught her breath.

"Good place to think, right?" Ade said.

Frankie nodded.

"I come out here sometimes. It was always quiet, but now it's..." The taller girl shook her head slowly. "It's very peaceful."

Frankie stood up, body moving automatically, and screamed. She screamed until her throat hurt, until her ears hurt. Until her head hurt. Until the muscles in her stomach hurt. Until her toes hurt. Birds fled. She shattered the quiet so profoundly, and so completely, that she thought it might never recover. In her mind, the echo of her continued out in every direction like a shockwave. In her mind, that wave shattered buildings, flattened trees, and toppled mountains.

When she fell to her knees, crying, Ade was there.

***

"I hate this," Frankie moaned, as she sat in the passenger seat of Ade's car a few days later. "I hhhha-hate that I n-need a pe-pe-pep talk for this."

"It's gonna be fine," Ade said. "You're going to be fine!"

"It's not getting better!"

Ade smiled tightly and said nothing.

"I keep w-waiting, and waiting, an-an-and... and... " She trailed off, and grunted loudly.

"You know, I could just text her."

"No," Frankie said, tersely.

"She'd honestly probably prefer—"

"I need to do this. Face to face."

Ade nodded slowly, eyes widening ever so slightly, ever so briefly, as she said, "Ooookay."

Frankie looked over, and then collapsed in on herself. "Fff-fuck! I'm wasting your time too. Damnit!"

"Don't worry about me," Ade said. It had become a mantra of hers, and Frankie was sick to death of hearing it.

"Fuck it," Frankie said, as she pushed open the door. She got halfway out and up to her feet before she stopped and said, at the same time Ade said, "Sanitizer."

The bottle of Purell gel had become a permanent fixture in the front cupholder of Ade's car. Both of them took a couple pumps of it, and were working it over and around their hands as they made their way up to the front door.

"Hey Dad," Ade called, as she entered the house.

Her father looked up from his laptop, which he had set up at the kitchen table like a makeshift office, and beamed. "Hello sweetie! This is a surprise! I wasn't expecting you back until later in the week! Hello Francesca! Always nice to see you too!"

"Hi Mr. Walker!" Frankie said, waving. "Hhhh-how're you doing to-uh, today?"

"I'd be a lot better if these East Coast affiliates would stop scheduling meetings when I'm trying to eat my lunch!"

There was yellow tape running through the house, dividing each hallway down the middle. Separate counter spaces. Separate bathrooms. Separate railings, handholds, and pretty much everything. Nobody walked on Mr. Walker's side unless they'd been in the house for 72 hours without exposing themselves to anyone else and without any sign of a fever. Ade and her family had found ways to limit his exposure almost completely, and Frankie was all in on adhering to the letter.

He asked, "So what brings you to our pandemic paradise?"

"Here to see Kendra," Ade said, as she started up the stairs.

"What'd she do this time?" he said, voice low like he was hoping he'd be let in on some juicy gossip.

"No," Frankie offered, as she followed Ade up. "It's good! I promise!"

"I'll believe it when I see it," he called, voice raised to carry after them as they climbed.

Ade was rolling her eyes as she stood in the hallway upstairs, waiting for her, and knocked when they were together.

"Yooou maaay entaaaaaaah," Kendra announced, dramatically, from the other side of the door.

Ade pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, exhaustedly, as she opened the door.

"Oh! Hey! Hi Frankie!" Kendra, Ade's bubbly younger sister gave her a quick wave before turning her attention back to her screen. "I'm in the top 4 —check that, top three—, so this'll be over quick."

Ade leaned back against the inside of the door, arms folded across her chest, and waited. Frankie tried to adopt a similar posture, but she'd never possessed her friend's patience. Not even close.

"So, uh—"

"Top two," Kendra announced, standing up halfway out of her chair as she juked and moved like her physical motions could translate to dodging maneuvers in-game. "You heard that new Run the Jewels?"

Frankie blinked. "Yeah, I—"

"Come on!"

She twitched when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but it was only Ade, and she was shaking her head. Frankie wasn't sure how to interpret this, but that pause while her brain spun its wheels proved to be enough.

"Let's go!" Kendra shouted. "Let's go!" She jumped up, spun around, and reared back like she was going to high five Frankie from ten feet away. Frankie drew her arm back as well, more confused mirroring than in solidarity or any intent to high five, but Kendra just slapped the air and moved on without making a thing about it. The younger girl was nothing if not endearing.

Kendra had her hair pulled back into two pigtails, placed nearer the top of her head than the back and coming out like nubby bunny ears. She shared Ade's dark skin, her dimpled smile, and her bright, piercing eyes; blue, though, instead of Ade's deep brown.

"So! What are two adults doing in my room?"

"So," Frankie said, starting again for the third time, "Kendra, hey! G-uh, g-uh... goood to see you again!"

"Still stutterin', huh?"

Frankie nodded, feeling heat in her cheeks.

"My buddy Freeze," she said, plopping back into her chair, "I stream with him sometimes, he has a stutter too. He's a badass."

"'s he better than you?" Ade asked, with the unmistakable lift in the pronunciation indicating she was smiling while she said it.

"Hell no," Kendra said, and then added, after a brief-but-perfectly timed pause, "but don't tell him I said that."

"Is th-th-th..." Frankie took a deep breath to settle herself, and found that, once she thought about it, it was nice to have it acknowledged. She wouldn't give up Ade's tendency to pretend the stammer didn't exist, but her little sister's approach had its merits. "Is Call of Duty something you'll p-put up on your channel?"

"I might," Kendra said, sitting back, "but I'm leaning toward just making another channel and keepin' the Roblox thing separate. Those demos don't overlap too much."

"You can just mm-mmake another channel?"

Kendra had a lovely laugh, just like her sister's; expressive and full bodied. The kind of laugh one develops when laughing happens all the time, when you grow up with it, and that appealed to her on such a basic level that she scarcely knew where to begin processing it.

"I can make as many channels as I want," she said.

"Do you have to d-do a lot of editing with g-uh.. gameplay videos?"

Ade, said, interjecting, "You're taking the scenic route. Kay, we want you to edit some footage for us."

"Okay," she replied, easily. Then she blinked, tilted her head, and narrowed her eyes a little bit. It was a very Ade-like look: perceptive. "What kind of footage?"

"We w-w-wanna mmmake music videos," Frankie said. "Dance videos."

"Videos... plural?"

Frankie nodded, and then turned around. It occurred to her that they hadn't really talked through the scope of what they wanted beyond making this one dance for High, and she was relieved when she saw that Ade was nodding along with her.

"Videos you two are going to make?"

Frankie nodded again, but Kendra wasn't looking at her. Kendra was looking at her big sister, and so Frankie turned to look at Ade as well. Ade had adopted a flat, expressionless expression, which was both admirable in its oxymoronic nature and completely inscrutable.

"Yes," Ade said. "The two of us."

"So you're gonna be partners?"

Frankie was looking back and forth between them so much that the muscles in her neck were sending up warning flares. "Y-yeah," she said, when Ade remained silent. "Creative partners, right?"

"Uh huh," Kendra said.

The younger sister also smiled in a way that Frankie couldn't parse, and even though looking back and forth between them was just about to make her dizzy, she couldn't help feeling like she was missing something. After a few beats, with neither of them really acknowledging her or her attempts to understand them, she chalked it up to being some kind of sister thing she didn't get and shrugged. "So," she said, trying to make it plain, "you're in?"

"I'm in," Kendra said, without breaking her staring contest with her sister. "I wanna see this."

"Can you help us make a channel too?" she asked.

This time, Kendra did look at her. "Nice," she said, with an affirmative nod. "Yeah. No problem. Is this gonna run through the studio?"

"Um, y-yeah?" Frankie said. It was really starting to irritate her how frequently she was needing to look back for confirmation, but the younger Walker sister was asking a lot of pointed questions she didn't have answers for. Ade just looked at her and shrugged. "Yeah. F-ff-for now, yeah."

"Okay, well," Kendra said, "it's all gonna run through an email address to start it, so figure out if that's gonna be, like, a new address? Something that's tied to a new brand? Is it gonna be, like, the studio's main address?" When the two of them remained silent, she added, "Probably not your actual, personal email, for something like this."

"That gives us something to work on," Ade said, bouncing away from the wall with a sinuous roll of her shoulders. "We'll get back to you."

"I'll be here," Kendra replied, as she settled back into her chair and put her cat ear headphones back on her head. The second Kendra turned away the two of them ceased to exist, but Ade stared so hard at Kendra's back, for one interminable second, that it ought to have burned a hole straight through to the street.

***

"No," Ade said, failing to keep the frustration out of her voice. "Too hard. Again."

"What do you mmm-mean, too hard?" Frankie shot back.

Ade said, "First of all, stop clenching your fists when you come around in that turn, and second of all, you're, hitting, too, hard, on, the, beat. This isn't hip hop. You need to flow through this phrase!" She demonstrated again, arms moving fluidly up and around as she spun, hands draping along behind her wrists like gentle streamers, and Frankie was left slack jawed.

Or, at least, she had been left slack jawed the first ten times. By that point she was just pissed: more at herself than anything else, but Frankie had never been gifted with an abundance of self-awareness. She grit her teeth and started counting.

"Three, four,"—as she counted, she stepped into the turn— "five, six, seven, eight, one, t—"

"No," Ade said, rolling her eyes. "Again."

"That's not helpful!" Frankie cried, scratching her nails back across her scalp. Her voluminous hair had mostly fallen out of the ponytail it had started in, and it was matting around her face with the sweat.

"Neither is you making the same mistake for hours now," Ade snapped back.

Frankie recoiled as if slapped. It had been a long time since someone had yelled at her in earnest, and she was so unused to the entire concept that she scarcely knew how to deal. Her lips kept forming the shape to make the 'w' sound, as a precursor to 'what the fuck', but she couldn't get even those few words out without her stammer completely shutting her down.

That was the final straw. The stammer. Again. Frankie turned and kicked the nearest thing —a water bottle, not her own— across the room. It hurt like a bitch, and while she was hopping around, cursing the pain, she became vaguely aware that the hard plastic bottle —a reusable one, not a disposable— had shattered against the concrete of the back wall.