Her

"Oh!" the woman cried. "That's delightful! I've never heard that one before." The look she gave Frankie afterward was sarcastically withering, and at this Ade laughed even louder.

***

Frankie reclined in a chair, with cucumber slices over her eyes and a mud mask everywhere else. Diffuser sticks behind her sat in a mason jar of essential oils, filling the air with earthy, faintly sweet tones. Water flowed gently in a cycle over a pile of rounded stones.

Ade rustled softly beside her. "Are they gone?" she whispered.

Frankie peeled one of the slices up off her eye to peer, and saw that Ade was doing the same. Brief eye contact. "I th-uh-think so," she whispered back. She put the slice back in place and settled back into the chair, hoping that Ade would do the same.

"Good, because like..." Ade was silent for a minute, and then she said, "The whole vibe of this place is, like, new age-y, and let's align your chakras, and all this, like, woo-woo stuff."

"You don't like it?"

"I've never been more relaxed in my whole life," Ade said, and the two of them started giggling. "I don't even get this mellow when I'm high. God, I needed this."

"Yeah?" Frankie asked, turning slightly to peel her cucumber slice away from her eye again.

"2020 has been getting on my last damn nerve."

They both laughed again, but this was more muted. More if we don't laugh about it, we'll have to cry about it rather than being outright funny.

"The last few years have been, like..." She put her hand on her throat, high up against the jaw, and extended her chin. "This tension. It hurts. Like I'm just waiting for the next thing to flinch at."

Frankie, feeling a pull within her, reached across the gap between their chairs and took Ade's hand. Ade turned her hand into a fist, squeezing the tips of Frankie's fingers into a tight little bundle.

"Do you w-w-want to talk about it?"

"No, I mean..." Ade paused, considering. "I mean, I already tell you about it. We talk about it all the time. It's just that we usually end up talking about the news, or something that happened that day. Isolated stuff. It's one thing to know there's all these dots, and it's something else to map 'em out and see where things are headed. The direction, you know?"

Frankie stayed quiet, and just held her hand.

"Dad and I still admin Kendra's comments sections. We take turns, going through 'em every night, and... you know, she always gets one. One or two."

"Mean comments?"

"Racist comments," Ade said tightly. "Grown men talking about how cute she is. Guessing how long until she turns eighteen. More. And, you know, she's about old enough to start moderating it herself, but we haven't, like... She doesn't know she gets that... that hate. That attention." She swallowed, audibly. "We've been shielding her from it, but..."

"You know," Frankie said, very softly, "she's a smart kid. I bet she knows."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

Frankie squeezed her hand tightly, as tightly as she could, and Ade squeezed back.

"This is nice, but, you know, it doesn't really make me feel better either."

"I know," Frankie said.

"You know what does make me feel better?"

She just waited quietly.

"Having a project. Something to focus on. Something to work on. That was the worst part of the really bad days, earlier in the year. When all I could do was sit around scrolling through my phone."

"You mmm-mean our project?" Frankie said, and this got a very firm nod from her friend. "Good."

Ade let go, rotated her hand around, and squeezed Frankie's hand back properly. Both of them squeezing very tightly.

"Thanks for letting me help," Ade said.

Frankie scoffed. "There was no project without you."

They were still holding hands five minutes later, when the masseuses carted in the hot stones.

***

Frankie sat on her couch watching through Gilmore Girls for the thirty-seven-thousandth time, which is to say that she had it on. It was her default background noise. Season four. Jason Styles. Her favorite season, and yet she wasn't paying attention at all.

She had it bad. She sat in the corner with her knees curled up to her chest, under a Pikachu blanket, and stared into one of the dark corners of her apartment. Eyes unfocused while she processed. She had it really bad. She had the stomach flutters. She had the pins and needles when they held hands. She had the goosebumps whenever Ade laughed. She'd felt heat in her cheeks every time she twisted her head enough to see Ade's bare backside while they got their massages. Heat all over.

She had it really, really bad.

Then, just as her brain was starting to spiral, her phone buzzed. She flipped it over, and saw that she'd missed two calls. From Ade. She quickly replied by text, typing "?"

The phone lit up in her hands. Another call. A video call. She quickly grabbed all her dark, mahogany locks and pulled them back from her face, whipping an elastic band from her wrist and making a quick, messy ponytail, even though all the hairs in the front fell loose anyway.

"Hey," she said, answering the second time around through her ringtone.

Ade was staring at her through the phone, brows lowered. "Turn on a light," she said, which Frankie did. "Was that a date?"

Frankie found that she was unable to control her facial reaction. She was so stunned to be called out that all of her brain power was spent on coming up with something plausible. Something clever. Something nuanced that eased Ade's mind. She came up with, "No?"

From beyond the range of the camera, she could hear Kendra explode into laughter, and then the younger Walker sister began parading around the room with her hands in the air, shouting, "I was right!" at the top of her lungs. Ade scowled over her shoulder, and then gave Frankie an unreadable look.

"I'll call you back," she said, and hung up.

Frankie held the phone like a snake poised to snap at her, and very gently set it down beside her, face up. She couldn't miss the return call, when it came. She had to know. The cat was fully out of the wet paper bag, and there was no putting it back together again. All her metaphors mixed together, turning into one gargantuan quagmire of cliched anecdotes. She closed her eyes and started counting, as if the amount of time elapsing would give her some kind of sign.

By the time the phone lit up again she had counted three hundred and seventy five seconds, over six minutes, though her phone said it had been only two.

"Might have counted a little fast," she said, as she picked up her phone.

"There was no groupon," Ade said.

This time Frankie could clearly make out that Ade was calling her from her room, but she could still hear Kendra in the background.

"You just paid for that whole thing, and used groupon as an excuse to make it happen today where I wouldn't question it."

"Hypothetically," Frankie said, holding her index finger up in front of the camera, "if that were true, how mmm-mm-mad would you be?"

"Kinda not cool, Frankie. I knew something was up, but... I mean, really? A spa date?"

Frankie quickly added, "Part of it was pure, I promise. I really wanted to give you today. You deserve it."

"The other part wasn't pure at all, though, huh?"

"Don't laugh," Frankie said.

Suddenly, Ade's cold, business-like expression narrowed, straddling the fine line between cynical and skeptical.

"I had to know, okay? I had to know if what I was feeling was real. I couldn't... There was too much at stake to ask you out cold and maybe fuck up everything. Again."

Her calculating eyes darted around, and then she gave Frankie as direct a look as video conferencing ever got, which is to say that Ade stared very hard somewhere around her nose. "I know you don't have a lot of money to play with."

"Worth every penny," Frankie said softly.

At this, Ade nodded slowly, looking somewhere off into the room around her where Frankie was not privy to. "There's a longer conversation coming, about open communication—"

"Absolutely," Frankie said, desperately clinging to the merest hint that she wasn't being shut down.

"Do you have any idea the kind of bet I just lost with Kendra?"

"Tell me about it tomorrow?" Frankie said. "I think I need to... to go lie down."

Ade shook her head, and Frankie froze like a deer in headlights. Eyes wide. Ears pinned back. Pulse racing.

Her friend rolled her eyes. "I mean, yeah, I'll tell you about that tomorrow, but... before you go..."

"...Yeah?" Frankie asked, when Ade paused.

"I can wait," Ade said.

"W-uh... w-uh-wait for what?"

Ade just looked at her meaningfully. "Is there something you want to say?"

"I'm sorry?" she said, meaning it quite sincerely but not understanding what she was— "Oh!"

"Yeah."

She swallowed hard, and then laughed nervously. "Why am I so scared?"

"Probably because it'd be the first time you say something like this out loud, except maybe in front of a mirror?" Her eyes unfocused for a second, and when they trained on her again she added, "If it helps, it was scary the first time I said it too."

Frankie cradled her phone in both hands like it was precious, moved to sit more upright, and tucked her stray hairs behind her ears. "I had a really good time today."

"I did too," Ade said, as a smile crept onto her face.

"Would you like to... to go out some time? Get some coffee?"

"Yeah, okay," Ade said, "but we already get coffee every day."

"Do you want to come over? Tomorrow night? Watch a movie?" Before Ade could answer, Frankie excitedly added, "Oh! I even know the p-p-perfect movie! I've been meaning to see it!"

"I'm in," Ade said, and when she said it Frankie felt so much lighter.

"Tomorrow," Frankie said.

"Tomorrow."

***

"And then these people become your patreons?" Madam Castillo said, her brow furrowing.

"No," Frankie said, unable to stop herself from smiling. "Patreon is the... uh... the platform. When people sign up for it, they become patrons."

The older woman took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't know, girls."

"It could keep the studio going, if it takes off," Frankie said, "and if not, then it's not costing you anything."

"That's... no." She sat back and shook her head. "That's not... I'm not okay with you two taking a risk like that."

"There's no real overhead," Ade said, but Madam Castillo waved her off.

"That's not what I mean. I mean, best case scenario, I profit?" She licked her lips, and looked around the room. "You know, I bought this place from my mother."

Frankie and Ade both nodded. They'd heard this story before.

"She taught flamenco. Ballroom."

"Only ballroom," Ade and Frankie said, in unison.

Madam Castillo peered at them each in turns. "You're not always going to dance for me, girls."

"We know," Ade said, to which Frankie nodded emphatically.

"I mean, I'm thrilled to have you teaching for me. There's always going to be a place for you here, if you need it, but I think you two are on to something. I just..." Her hand fluttered over her chest. "I have that feeling, and I'd be awful if I let you save me."

"No," they said in unison, but she cut them off with her hand.

"If it's meant to be," she said.

"It's meant to be," all three said together, repeating one of Madam Castillo's favorite sayings.

She smiled and nodded. "We might close up shop, and then all the young girls in Portland will need someone new to teach them. That's the natural order of things." Then she paused and leaned forward, peering at them. She pointed vaguely at Frankie, and then at Ade, and then back and forth between them a few times. "Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Is this happening?"

When neither of them responded right away, she added, "You two? Finally?"

"What do you mean, us two?" Frankie said, at the same time Ade asked, "What do you mean, finally?"

The older woman threw her hands up in the air and laughed. "I had before 2021 in the pool," she said, drumming her hands on the desk. Then she got up and scurried out of the office, calling "Janet! Janet!" as quietly as she could.

Frankie looked down, confused, and laughed when she realized she'd been gently brushing her pinky finger against Ade's hand. "I thought you were doing that," she said, shaking her head.

***

Frankie was still fretting about stray fuzz, despite hours of cleaning and prep, when she answered the door. She was so frazzled she even reached for her keys to unlock the deadbolt, only realizing as she reached for it that she was on the inside of the door, and simply needed to twist the latch.

Ade had on a faux-vintage t-shirt, a Led Zeppelin tour shirt which Frankie only recognized because it was the one that had the actual zeppelin on it, underneath a dark blue blazer. Blue jeans cuffed just above the ankles. She had her hands in her pockets, projecting a bit of an aw shucks affect. It was, on the whole, a look, and Frankie suddenly felt very underprepared.

She laughed nervously, ran a hand through her wild tangle of hair, and backed away out of the door. "Come in!" she said. Despite having put on half her wardrobe one piece at a time, she felt like she'd made the wrong choice. Her ruby red dress, short in the sleeve with a hemline just below her knees, was so far from what Ade was wearing that it seemed like they couldn't possibly be there for the same thing.

But then Ade smiled at her and said, "That dress is beautiful."

Frankie had never possessed what anyone would refer to as a dancer's body. Her style, hip hop, involved a lot of motion that happened close to the body; twisting, bending, and moving around within a relatively small space. She had to be in control of her movements at all times. The possibility of her having a thigh gap had disappeared somewhere around the age of twelve as a result of her constant squats. Her exercise regimen had always involved working with her own bodyweight, with reps that went into the hundreds making her blunt and squarish wherever Ade was lithe and graceful.

Frankie had always joked that she didn't have breasts, she had pecs, but that dress cut her in a way that had given her some confidence. Ade's compliment put any lingering doubts to bed.

Ade took two steps inside and looked around. "Oh my god, you cleaned?"

Frankie blinked, and then she remembered that she was with her best friend. "It wasn't that dirty!"

Ade smirked at her, and it made all the little butterflies do loop-the-loops in her middle. I've got it so bad, she thought.

Frankie's apartment was really only two rooms; her bedroom, which was small, and a combination kitchen/living room, which was also small. So small, in fact, that Frankie had ended up forgoing having an entertainment center and TV and instead invested in a little projector for her laptop. She kept the area in front of the projector clear of any pictures or paintings, and she barely felt weird at all anymore about having a couch that faced a blank wall.

She suddenly felt very self-conscious about being barefoot when she realized Ade had on some very fancy shoes. In another life, she might have called them saddle shoes, with a kind of black/white/black color pattern from toe to heel, but these were dress shoes. Nice ones, too. For one fleeting, stupid moment, she completely choked on concepts like protocol.

But then her mouth started talking without needing any input from her overworked brain, and she found herself saying, "I love your shoes."

"Oh thanks!" Ade said, turning and twisting one foot at the ankle. "I just got these!"

"I don't think I could pull those off, but..." She whistled low and nodded emphatically. "Yeah. That's hot. They're hot. You look hot."

Her superpower had always been the ability to just say things, and own the place that those thoughts came from. She was, authentically, herself at all times, but circumstances had conspired to make her double and triple guess herself into a kind of paralysis. She didn't want to be that person anymore.

Ade just looked at her, and before the old, familiar stammer could kick in, she said, "To be honest, I had no idea what to wear to... date my best friend? It sounds weird when I say it like that."

Frankie looked down at herself, took hold of the skirt on both sides, and fanned it out away from her legs. "I'm embarrassed to admit h-how-how long it took me to pick this."

"I think it's perfect," Ade said.

Frankie laughed stupidly, a kind of involuntary huh-hu-huh, and turned to head into the kitchen. She didn't know why she was going there or what she was going to do when she got there, but she needed to be doing something. Ade was a complimentary person, had always been quick and genuine with praise, and it wasn't like Frankie was a stranger to receiving compliments. It shouldn't have shaken her. Mark, her only other serious significant other, had possessed a decent range of flattery.

It floored her coming from Ade.

"Would you like a..." She paused and rethought her offer before it made it to her lips. "A glass of wine?"

Ade's mouth opened to respond, but her jaw just hung open.

"Or beer?" Frankie offered.

"Yes," she replied. "A beer."

Frankie grabbed two of the light beers from the lower drawer in her fridge, and set them on the counter while she rifled around for her bottle opener. She didn't know why she'd doubted herself. She knew what Ade liked. It was all there, if she'd just listen to her intuition.

"What did you want to watch?" Ade said, as she puttered around the couch.

"I found this Kristen Stewart movie I'd never heard of," Frankie said excitedly.

Ade laughed. "Is she, like, the one gay actress you could think of, so you picked that?"

Frankie looked up and blinked. "Is she?" She laughed, and Ade laughed. "Oh my god, is she the only one I know?"

Ade put her forehead into her hands, still laughing.

"I've been wanting to watch it for a little while though! I swear! I found it a few weeks ago, and it's just been waiting for the right moment!"

"The Christmas one?"

"She has a Christmas movie?" Frankie asked, as she popped the tops off of the bottles.

"You're not talking about Charlie's Angels, are you?"

"Everyone's heard of that," she said.

"Wait. What movie are you talking about?"

Frankie said, "Underwater."

"Never heard of it."

"Exactly! Nobody has," she said excitedly, handing over one of the beers, "but it looked good!" She went over to her laptop, and queued it up on Prime.

Frankie's couch was a three seater, three cushions. Ade sat down center left, and reorganized the pillows beside her. Frankie saw her moment and went for it, setting herself down right smack in the middle of the couch, so that she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Ade. Ade barely even cocked an eyebrow at her before doing a little shimmy, wiggling into place, and that was that. Frankie almost sang. It was so easy when she just did the thing she thought about first; the thing she knew was right.

When she thought about it, a lot of these things were things she'd kind of always wanted to do with Ade, and around Ade, and that she'd had to keep herself back from because it would be weird to sit that close to your friend. She didn't really know what that meant, as it related to anything larger than proof that her instincts were good, but she thought it might be the kind of thing her new therapist might be able to help her decode.

***

Ninety-five minutes later, Frankie fell back into the couch for what felt like the first time.