Someone Borrowed, Someone Blue Ch. 04

"Thank you! Oh, did you mean the lake?" She laughed - man, we sure did laugh a lot around each other. The couple behind us was having a discussion about whether or not the husband was going to overcook the steaks again, sounding like an inside joke, warm and comfortable without rancor. "It is, indeed." She grabbed her glass, looking at me over the top as she took another swallow. "According to my friends you were pretty as well."

"Much less likely to be available for daily viewings in these parts, though. And chances are I have fewer fish in me."

"Not if coconut shrimp count! Ha!" Tish raised her glass to emphasize her point before sipping more Guinness. "They *died* when I told them about Theresa. Did you see Kaylee go behind you to see if you had eyes in the back of your head?"

Oy. "There were many women with many names moving in random patterns, so I may have missed that."

"You still haven't told me how you knew she was there, Bear." She chuckled. "I get it, I get it, a magician never reveals their secrets, but I swear I'm going to go to my grave wondering how you pulled that off? Maybe you can sense the approach of utter evil?"

I needed to get away from this topic because I felt bad about lying to her - well, lie by omission, I guess, but the point was that I felt deceitful by not coming clean about my motivation behind the kiss. I couldn't say anything, though, because there would be no way to unring that bell once I'd swung the clapper. Since it was unlikely she'd drop to her knees and express her undying love for me on the reveal it was better to go against my moral fiber, at least in this instance. Offer another deflection, make another joke, change the subject. Be creative! Hell, it's what I did for a living. Piece of cake.

"I didn't know she was there."

My eyes went wide as soon as that slipped out of my mouth. What? How? Why? I knew I hadn't wanted to keep lying about it but ye gods my subconscious had picked a hell of a time to assert itself.

"I mean, we were helped by the fact she'd no doubt done a line or two of coke at some point before that. Did I mention that about her?"

I didn't answer - hell, I wasn't even breathing yet. Had she somehow not heard me? That would be too much to hope for.

"Yeah, Terri is a..." Tish trailed off and her head turned in my direction, eyes narrowing as she set her glass down. "Did you... what did you say?"

The cat has left the bag, repeat, the cat has left the bag. Also, the kitty shredded said bag into a pile of fibers so it can never be put back inside again before taking off for a place with saucers of milk and a bevy of slow, fat mice. Not that I had planned on trying anyway, which I wanted to tell myself was because I was such a fine, upstanding person who would never embrace a falsehood. While that may or may not be true there was also the fact that not even the slickest of snake-oil salesmen could have pulled themselves out of this one. Scratching the side of my face, I mumbled 'Ididntknowshewasthere' into my armpit.

Tish's lips pressed into a thin white line for a moment, which was pretty impressive given that they were rather fully shaped and also coated with glittering blue coloration. They released into a tight smile. "What. Did. You. Say?"

I sighed and threw up my hands, my fraying nerves combining with the bizarreness of the preceding hour or so to add a degree of terseness to my reply, making it come out much louder than I'd wanted it to. "I said that I didn't know she was there!" I dropped my head at once, embarrassed and waiting for the scorching reply. This was going to be a wonderful episode to recount to my future therapist.

Silence ruled long enough for me to notice that our neighbors had gotten *really quiet* as well. I guess Tish picked up on it as well, scooping up her glass and asking me, in a somewhat strangled voice, "Can I talk to you inside?" She left without waiting for an answer, which made sense because it hadn't felt like a question. Shoulders slumping, I grabbed my beer and headed in to meet the likely demise of the best friendship I'd had in years.

Closing both doors behind me while also holding a fairly full glass was more challenging than expected due to the trembling my hands were doing, but the little bit that slopped over the edge went on my thumb and was easily licked up. Turning around, I spotted Tish by the table next to the kitchen, already seated. Another chair sat in front of her, empty and waiting. She tilted her head in that direction. "Sit," she said, her voice clipped. Almost at once she sighed, waving a hand as she closed her eyes.

"Sorry. That sounded really bitchy. Please sit here so we can talk about this."

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat as I made my way over and settled in. Our knees were almost but not quite touching, and at this distance I could catch the faintest whiff of the remnants of her perfume. With a modicum of effort I dragged my eyes up to meet hers, dreading what I might find. To my surprise and relief she looked more concerned than anything else, although there was still a hard angle set to her brow.

"Okay." She rubbed at her jaw for a second. "Let's review and make sure I understand where we are right now. You kissed me at the reception. I, at the time, had thought it was because you were aware that a miserable harpy was coming up behind you. Recent information has come to light which indicates that was a faulty assumption on my part, which leads us to this moment and this new line of inquiry: if you didn't kiss me because you knew the miserable harpy was approaching, why did you kiss me?"

I appreciated Tish talking enough to allow me to get past being somewhat terrified of potential fallout. By the time she'd gotten to her question I'd had long enough to take a few deep breaths and try to bring my runaway nerves under control, or at least some semblance thereof. "So, okay, well, uhm, see, I, uhm, I mean, can you blame me?"

While there could be a case made for that viewpoint, it probably wasn't the one I should have led with. In my defense I was busy tripping over my own tongue. Tish's eyebrows rose in unison before coming back down in a vee-shape, and I held up a hand to forestall an outburst.

"Wait, that's not what I mean. Well, not exactly. I... ugh." I let out an exasperated sigh, biting at my lip as I tried to get my shit together. This was not going well.

Her expression softening, Tish reached out and gave one of my knees a squeeze. "Bear. Bear. BEAR!" The last one got my attention, pulling my focus back to her. "Calm down. Relax. You're acting like I'm going to punch you in the face or something. I'm not." She paused. "Tossing you in the lake isn't out of the question, but I'm not going to break anything."

I nodded. "There's a very specific clause in your rental contract. You break it, you bought it."

That evoked a ghost of a smile from her. "Understood. Let's try again. Why did you kiss me?"

Time for the truth, then. I owed her that much. "Because I wanted to. Because I've wanted to for a long time. Because I've been attracted to you since the day we met. Because I've been pointlessly mooning over you for months, if not years." I was babbling by now. "Because I-"

"Wait, wait, wait." Tish held up both her hands, palms facing me. "Let me get this straight - you have a crush on me?"

I made a face. "I mean, that makes it sound like we're in junior high or something. The sentiment is correct but I'm not passing you a note in study hall. You know that you're my friend and that I love you." I paused. "I mean, I hope you know that."

"I know, Bear, I know. That's not the issue here."

"You're right, it's not." My hands flicked through a sequence of random gestures, a conduit for nervous energy. "My feelings for you as more than a friend have been building, but for a while I think I was kind of blind to them myself, if you can believe that."

She snorted. "Oh, I can believe that."

I welcomed the small smile that crept onto my face. "Right. Sorting those emotions out put me in a weird place. I loved the relationship we had, I loved spending time with you, and I was afraid that I'd destroy that by trying to inject a romance when one side wouldn't be interested."

Tish arched an eyebrow. "Please expound about your thinking on that tangent."

"I mean, you date professional athletes! You're in a college Hall of Fame! You're ridiculously gorgeous! You're way out of my league." When she didn't say anything I added, "I never got a vibe that you thought of me in that way anyway, which reinforced me not trying anything."

"Until you did."

Couldn't argue with that. "Until I did."

She held up a finger and sort of waggled it around. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have had a so-called 'vibe' toward you but never acted on it because I didn't think you saw me that way?"

My brow furrowed. "No, I mean, why would I think that? You-"

"Remember what we talked about on the way here, Bear? In the Zone of Truth?" I was surprised to see what appeared to be tears welling up in her eyes, and the frustration in her voice was plain to hear. "You dated Barbie dolls. Barbie. Fucking. Dolls. All these tall, thin, drop-dead gorgeous women with absurd tits. Why would I think you'd want someone like me who, if you haven't noticed, is not a Barbie doll?"

"But you look incredible and-"

"I know I look incredible, Bear, but I didn't think I looked incredible to *you.*" She sniffed. "One of them was a Victoria's Secret model, for crissakes."

I held up my hands. "She was in, like, two pictures."

"That still counts, you dope." Tish shook her head. "And maybe, like what someone else recently said, I was afraid to take the chance of ruining our friendship over an unwanted advance." She took a deep breath, blowing it out through her lips. "Okay, gonna extend the radius of the Zone of Truth to include this living room, if that's okay with you."

"Not that I think either of us plan on lying, but that's fine." I shifted in my chair, feeling somewhat unmoored. This had been one mothereffing weird day.

"True, true. Okay, so, when I invited you to come with me to this wedding I had some vague hopes and desires that maybe something would happen between us." She gestured toward her dress. "You'd see me absolutely slaying in this and go 'Hmm, maybe a person with some meat on her bones could be an option I've been missing out on.' You know, something crazy like that."

My turn to hold up a finger. "Hang on. Two questions. Why'd you wait so long to ask me to come?"

She rolled her eyes. "Previous dude was tougher to get rid of than flypaper. Stage four clinger, you know?"

"Okay. If you were hoping something would happen why'd you get a place with two bedrooms, instead of having us share a hotel room?"

"I..." Tish stopped short before letting out a long chuckle. "I never even considered that. I just didn't want to be under Theresa's control in any way, but I totally get how you could come away making that connection."

"I didn't consciously think of it when we got here, but it might have been running around in my head." I shrugged. "When you pair it with telling me that you're moving three thousand miles away, it seems kind of obvious."

"Yeah, you're not wrong. It never occurred to me. I figured this was nice and isolated, no hanging around at the hotel bar until the wee hours of the morning. Plus I'd anticipated being much more drunk and thus more bold." She pursed her lips. "You know, I really thought you were going to kiss me at another point."

I closed my eyes, tapped my forehead. "The quarry, right?"

"YES! I mean, if you had been wanting to display that you were interested in me how DIDN'T you kiss me then? Big aqua hug, right next to each other... when it didn't happen I took that as the final sign that you weren't into me." She put her elbow on her leg before dropping her chin into her palm. "Can't blame me. I mean, we were right there."

"No, that's on me." I sat back in my chair, gave her a rueful smile. "It was even thematically perfect. Like a Hallmark movie or something. And I blew it. Thought about kissing you again when we were dancing, but didn't pull the trigger then either."

"After the thing with my dad? No, you made the right call there. That was most assuredly not a romantic moment. You were exactly what I needed then, Bear." Sitting up, she swept her braids behind her. "And when push came to shove, you were the one of us who had the guts to take the leap."

"I did. And it was a hell of a kiss."

She was silent for a moment, considering. "It was, wasn't it?"

"Yep. And now we've managed to make it weird."

"Weird?"

"Weird." I rolled my hand in her direction. "I kissed you, right? Something which both of us evidently wanted to happen."

Her grin was electric. "Mmm-hmm. As we've determined, one enjoyed by all participants."

"Oh, I agree. Huge relief to discover that you didn't suck at it."

That earned me a raspberry. "Get back to the weirdness, smartass."

"So, you and I finally have our first kiss. Earth-shaking stuff for our world. Huge moment."

"I'm not disagreeing, but what are you driving at?"

I looked away, scratched my ear. "So after that epic occurrence, what was the first thing that came into your mind?"

Tish looked confused for a moment before her face fell and she brought her hand to her mouth. "Oh, fuck. I made it about Theresa."

"Yeah. You were so set in believing that I couldn't possibly want you that your mind came up with an excuse for why it happened." I shook my head, sighed. "Which then made me think the same thing in reverse. Hence, weird."

"Ah, hell." She seemed to deflate a little more. "You're not wrong. I was stubborn and definitely made it weird. And having an in depth discussion about it is increasing the weirdness quotient. Which is a ridiculous thing for us to be hung up on but it's gonna be a thing, isn't it?"

This *sucked.* The edges of my world were starting to gray out a little, and that didn't seem like a good thing. Fuck you, depression. Hang over me like a dark cloud later, do your insidious whispering then. Right now I had to deal with one of the most important things in my life.

I wanted to believe that if she tried to kiss me I wouldn't tense up and ruin the moment, but now it was impossible to ignore the gigantic elephant in the room it had become. "Well, that and the fact that you're, you know, leaving. I don't blame you, not at all. Even if we weren't busy submarining ourselves this is the chance of a lifetime for you. I'd be even more upset if you hadn't taken it."

Tish wiped at the corner of her mouth. "Given that I'm getting to be a head coach, am taking a program to D1, and doing it all on the coast of southern California I'd say it's the chance of three lifetimes," she said. "I'd have said the same thing about us getting together before it got all screwed up."

I grunted. "Yeah, somehow we made a bad joke out of it."

Tish started to say something else but froze, her mouth open, and stayed that way for a few seconds. There was a good deal of blinking before her eyes positively lit up, her smile perhaps wider than ever before. Shaking a finger in my direction, she fixed me with her gaze as she started nodding.

"You're right. Bad joke. But I think I know a way to unweird this, Bear." Her voice was tinged with excitement. "Pretty sure you'll be okay with it."

I was dubious, to say the least. And given she was leaving, I wasn't sure there was even a need. What was she going to do to circumvent the awkwardness? If she put on slow music and asked me to dance my eyes I would be in danger of laughing at the utter cheesiness of the move. "I hope you're right," I said, shifting in my seat.

"Cool, cool. Okay." Eyes still dancing, she held up her hands for a second. "Knock-knock."

The hiss that escaped me was equal parts exasperation and ire. "Calling me by my stupid rugby nickname is not going to make anything less weird, Tish."

The look she gave me was one of infinite patience being put to the test. After an exaggerated pause punctuated by her lips pressing together, she gave me a tight smile. "Bear. Knock. Knock."

Oh, that knock-knock. Comedy? Now? Really? I did my best to conceal my excessive amounts of WTF. "Who's there?"

She leaned forward. "Interrupting Tish."

I couldn't keep from rolling my eyes. "Interrupting Ti-" That was all I managed to get out before I was indeed interrupted.

By a kiss. A kiss from Tish. By Tish. Including Tish.

It was my turn to be shocked into momentary inaction, but as her lips pressed against mine and her arms encircled me I went from passive to active in a flash. Dwelling on the foibles of our first attempt felt asinine as I felt myself getting lost in her touch, in her embrace. There was a franticness between us, a shared sense of urgency as if her plane to San Diego was already waiting for her on the runway. We kissed with the reckless abandon of two ravenously hungry people being dropped into an all-you-can-eat buffet, our mouths releasing contact for only the briefest of moments before seeking one another again. Deep within the recesses of my mind there was a tiny flicker, a discordant note as the reminder that my performance in this arena had been lacking and damn, it was going to be mortifying if it happened again. Utterly crushing. A wellspring of despair.

Judging by what was currently going on in my pants, that wasn't going to be an issue.

I'm not really sure how long we were making out like a couple of teenagers at a drive-in movie, since neither of us seemed interested in nor capable of easing up on the passion. We might have been perched on those two chairs for hours if we hadn't overbalanced a bit and had to stop to catch ourselves before we tumbled to the floor. Donning matching shy smiles, we both took a moment to try to get our galloping hearts under control. I could feel how flushed my cheeks were and I wasn't sure if I'd ever been as aroused and excited as I was at this moment. As far as I was concerned, the weirdness was no longer an issue. So was the knowledge that she'd soon be the width of a continent away. I mean, I hadn't forgotten it, but for the time it could stay in the 'Don't Worry About This Now' folder in my mental filing cabinet. The hell with the weirdness, the awkwardness, the hesitancy... it was all gone, put away, unimportant.

"There's a problem, Bear," Tish said, her voice a bit breathy. "There's still something very weird going on."

Doing my best to hide a grimace, I looked deep into her eyes. "Really? Are you sure?"

She nodded, her face deathly serious. "Positive. It is incredibly weird to me that we're still sitting out here, fully clothed, as opposed to being in the bedroom and extremely naked." With a quick laugh she leaned in and kissed me again before jumping to her feet and dashing off. "Hurry up before the weird wins!" she called over her shoulder.

I didn't cross the living room in one bounding step but it sure felt like I did, barely noticing the contents of the bedroom as I pulled the door shut behind me. Tish stopped in front of the bed and turned back in my direction, swathed in moonlight sneaking through the blinds. Her smile was still in place, joined by what looked like... nervousness. I saw her take a big swallow before she took a step in my direction. "Been waiting a long time for this, Bear. Had pretty much accepted that it was never going to happen."

"You and me both, Tish. Plus I also got to worry that if the opportunity did present itself, I wouldn't be able to... stand muster."

Another step closed the gap between us, her hand reaching out to let a knuckle slide up the obvious bulge in my pants. I gasped and rose up on my toes a bit, eliciting a bigger smile from her. "Unless you've been smuggling ferrets all night I don't think that's going to be an issue." Pulling her fingers away, she leaned in and gave me a soft kiss. "I feel flattered."