The Favor

"Hooters."

"I wish I was joking. That would be even funnier."

"Hooters," Tracy said, one more time, as they stepped up onto the curb in front of the doors.

"Welcome back, Tracy!" the hostess said, as she held the door open. Tracy smiled and turned back to Brit, who was still dutifully providing support as they walked. "Great to see you again! Is tonight the night we're finally gonna get you in one of our shirts?"

"Uhhh—"

"It would look so beautiful against your skin," she said, brushing her hand familiarly along Tracy's forearm. Tracy forced a smile and looked back to Brit again.

"Table for two," her friend said.

"Sure," the hostess replied, grabbing a couple menus. "Just follow me!"

"Hooters," Tracy mouthed silently as they followed the hostess, clad in the signature orange short shorts and tight-fitting white top. Brit smiled and shrugged.

"Here you are," the hostess said, setting them up in a table for two beside the corner from the bar. "Heidi will be around in just a minute to get your drinks." She smiled brightly as she left, and Tracy blushed again.

"You know," Brit said, "I resisted coming here with you for years, so these wings better be bloody spectacular."

"Are you sure you're not joking?"

"Couldn't have made this up if I tried."

Tracy nodded, still fighting down the blush from her cheeks, and looked around. "Two women, sitting together... here... People are going to get the wrong impression."

"That would be terrible," Brit said, smirking, though when Tracy really looked at her, smirking less than she thought she would.

"So what do I... What do I do?"

"At Syntron?"

The name was familiar. "Is that where we work?"

Brit nodded. "You run the Quality Control department. You've got six people below you, doing spot checks and audits of the bearings and housings we make. Most of the time, though, you're stuck dealing with returns, defects, and angry customers."

Tracy stared down at the table, breathing slowly and evenly. None of that rang a bell, though it did line up with different things she'd noticed about herself. Little observations she'd made, in a round-about fashion, about her observations. "And what do you do?"

"I'm the IT girl," she said, sitting back with a grin. Arms folded across her chest.

"Do we... work together a lot?"

"Some." Brit squinted slightly, and Tracy thought she might be trying to figure out how much to say. "There's a lot of process monitoring equipment in the plant, and we're both responsible for them in different ways."

"Hey Tracy." Tracy nearly jumped at hearing her name coming from another voice she didn't recognize, this time with a southern accent, and her confusion wasn't at all reduced by the waitress smiling at her. "I had the bar get your margarita started as soon as I saw you! I'm Heidi," she said, turning toward Brit and flashing a dazzling smile. "What can I get you started with?"

"Just a water," Brit said, smiling politely.

"Ooooh! Is that English I hear?"

Brit nodded again.

"Very sexy. And I assume she dragged you here for the wings too?"

"I've been hearing about them for years."

"Well, you won't be disappointed. I'll be right back with your drinks!"

Brit mockingly held her cupped hands, palms up, in front of herself, and gave them a playful heft as soon as the waitress was gone. It had not escaped Tracy how well-endowed Heidi was, and she giggling-ly swatted at her friend to make her stop. "That's not nice!"

"No," Brit said, with a lopsided smile. "It's not. Although I have to say I am just the slightest bit let down."

"By what?"

"Heidi aside, most of the other waitresses are very average."

"Oh stop," Tracy said, blushing again.

"They have fantastic bums. Across the board. Those shorts are something else, but..." She shrugged. "There's always better cleavage than this at a con."

"I don't know what that is."

"A-uh... convention. Comic Convention. I uh..." She licked her lips and smiled. "I go. To... those."

"And do what?"

"Right," Brit said, smiling and shaking her head. "S'pose that, uh... well, I dress up. It's called, uh, cosplaying."

"You dress up?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"I did Harley once before everyone was doing Harley," she muttered. "Over the summer, I did Miranda Lawson."

"I don't know who any of those people are."

Brit shook her head and smiled. "Doesn't matter." The tiniest bit of sadness hung at the edges of her eyes, but before Tracy could press her on it, Heidi came bouncing around the corner with their drinks.

"Here you go, y'all. The wings'll be right out!"

"Can't wait," Brit said, with a dry smile that flew well over Heidi's head.

Sure enough, another server came around less than a minute later with a large basket of orange-glazed wings. Tracy felt the heat of them singeing her nostrils. Her stomach twisted in nervous anticipation. Here was her favorite food, served up hot and fresh. The idea that she might finally remember something was almost as terrifying as the possible let down of not remembering anything.

It felt like moving through water as she and Brit each reached for a wing. She held it delicately between the tips of her index fingers and thumbs, and bit down. There was, as her nose had predicted, quite a bit of heat, and...

"Hmmm," Brit said, chewing slowly. Brow low. Tracy was sure her expression was the same. "It's um..."

"That's not what I was expecting either," Tracy said. "I mean—"

"It's not bad. It's good, I mean, but—"

"It's not what I was expecting," Tracy sighed, deflating.

"I mean, right? They're okay, but the way you always went on about it..."

Tracy put down her half-eaten wing and glanced around. "I come here all the time?"

"Yeah," Brit said distractedly, with a bit of surprise thrown in at the end.

"Oh my god."

"What?" her friend asked, as she bit into her second.

"Do you think I... Do you think I... come here... because..." Tracy tilted her head meaningfully to the side.

Brit looked up and around, and then sat back in her chair pensively.

"How often do I come here?"

"Don't get too—"

"How. Often."

Brit slid her lips to the side, causing her right cheek to bunch and puff. "Once a week, I think. Maybe more. I'm not really sure."

"Oh my God," Tracy said, hiding her hands in her face. "Hooters? Really? Am I so transparent?"

"Look," Brit said, leaning forward. "Looklooklook. Smell and taste are senses that are extremely closely tied to memory. You know, I get a whiff of licorice and suddenly I'm eight years old with my hand in a sack of Pontefracts at my Grandmums house."

"Pontewhat?"

"Doesn't matter. Point is, you can't go too hard on yourself about anything right now. You don't have all the pieces to the puzzle."

"Are you making that up?"

"Honest," Brit said, smiling softly. "That's a real thing. Science is neat like that."

Tracy hunched forward, blushing very brightly. Across the table, her friend made a brave show of going back for her third wing.

"Everything alright here?" Tracy jumped just a tiny bit as Heidi surprised them again, appearing from out of nowhere.

"I think we're good," her friend said.

"Great. Let me know if there's anything I can get ya!"

Brit smiled, raising up her glass of water like a little toast, but Tracy barely noticed. She leaned forward, lowering her chin near to the surface of the table with her eyes wide with shock, as she watched a shadow circling in her margarita.

"Trace," Brit said, leaning down as well.

"There's something in there."

"In where, love?"

"Don't you see it?" Tracy gasped a little as the surface of her drink swelled, and then overflowed the rim. She shrank into the corner of her booth as tendrils of pale yellow fluid crept across the table. Slithering after her. "Do you see that?"

"Trace," Brit said cautiously.

"Oh my God," she whimpered, as two of the tendrils rose up from the table.

"Trace!"

Tracy looked over, eyes wild. Instantly, the vision was gone. The table was just as it had been. "Oh God," she panted, grabbing her chest. Heart pounding. "Oh God."

"Are you alright?"

"Oh God."

"What were you seeing just now."

"Oh God. Oh God." Tracy swallowed hard, and tried to catch her breath. "My drink was... it was... like snakes.

"There were snakes in your drink?"

"No no... Oh God... It was like... the snakes were made of my drink... or maybe—"

"Okay," Brit said, rising up from her seat. "That's—"

"No!" shouted Tracy, as she reached across the table to grab her friend's arm. "Please."

Her friend looked around, trying to be discrete, and lowered her voice. "You didn't tell me you were seeing things."

"Please."

Brit shook her head. "I shouldn't listen to you. I shouldn't. I shouldn't."

"Please," begged Tracy.

"I shouldn't." Her friend took slow, even breaths through her nose, and sat back down. "I shouldn't."

"I can't go back."

Brit looked around again and sighed. "Well, did you want to stay?" Tracy shook her head, afraid to look anywhere but at her friend. "Okay. I'll take care of this," she said, as she reached over into her miniscule purse and pulled out a few bills.

"I'm glad you're my friend."

Brit smiled tightly as she put her wallet back into the purse, and offered Tracy her arm for support.

***

Tracy sat down in the chair at her desk, and ran her eyes apprehensively over everything. The pictures, mostly of her daughters. The cup of pens. The aforementioned beach-side wedding photos. She thought it might be the beginning of something that she knew the 'plant' in the corner was really a ficus tree, but no other major breakthroughs followed.

"What do you think?" Brit asked, smiling hopefully.

"I think," Tracy started, but she had trouble finishing when the small pile of paperclips began to melt into a shimmering puddle. She looked away, arguing insistently with herself that no such matter state transition was happening. Paperclips did not simply melt.

"You think..."

Tracy looked up at her friend, blinking, and just that like her desk was normal again. "Fuck."

"Did you... see something?"

Tracy nodded, and Brit took her hand.

"Are you alright?"

Tracy shook her head. "The whole way in through the office, I had this awful feeling," she said, on the verge of tears. "It was like... this isn't going to work either, and it's so lonely feeling like this, Brit! It's lonely! I hate it! What is the purpose of building a life if, in the blink of an eye, it's all gone?"

Brit squeezed her hand and Tracy squeezed right back. "You know..."

Tracy sniffled and leaned forward, resting one elbow on her knee. "What?"

Her friend took a long breath, and sighed as she exhaled. "Love, I don't know what happened to you, and I'd be rubbish to guess, but you've been off for a while. Months. A year, maybe."

"I've been off?"

"I mean, it's not like you've been laying about on the job, but... when you thought no one was looking, you uh... yeah, you looked sad."

Tracy took a deep breath and sat back. That felt true, even though she couldn't quantify how. She felt it in her chest. "Thank you," she whispered hoarsely.

"Don't..." Brit looked down, and let go of Tracy's hand. "Don't thank me for that. I didn't say anything." She folded her arms across her chest. "I didn't help."

"Telling me now means a lot," she said, putting her hand on Brit's knee. "It's hard to explain why. Maybe it... maybe it feels less random? You know, even if the implication isn't good. It's worse not knowing anything."

Brit reluctantly nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.

"I'm lucky to have a friend like you."

"I can't..." Brit groaned and shook her head. "Damnit."

"You can't what?"

"We're not..." She paused to take a steadying breath. "We're not really friends, Trace. Not anymore, and... not for a couple years now." Her voice trailed near the end.

"What?"

Brit sighed tiredly. "It's been surreal day."

"I don't understand."

Brit licked her lips and forced a smile. "We um... we had a kind of slow falling out."

"Over what?"

"I um... I told you that I... liked. You. That I liked you."

Tracy's face fell.

"That I had a c—" Brit had to swallow hard before she could continue. "That I had a crush on you. You were polite about it, wishing things were different while still turning me down, but after that..."

"Brit, I'm sorry."

"You've said the same before. It's not your fault you don't feel the same."

Tracy frowned and let her hand slip away from Brit's knee. "I don't understand. All day today? All that driving me around, and we're not close?"

"We were," Brit said, smiling sadly. "Once. And I did owe you."

"What for?"

Brit closed her eyes and laughed. "You don't remember that either. Of course you don't." She continued, almost talking to herself. "All this time, I never even questioned that you knew why. I was just... eager to have this one off the books." She drew herself up and took a deep breath.

"When I um... when I moved here, to the States, you know, I didn't have a big support network. Didn't have any friends, really. Not at first. And uh... one night, working late, I went to leave and... my... car wouldn't start. I got nothing when I was turning it over, and you... You'd already driven away. You were out of the lot, down the road, and... you came back. I don't know if you were waiting for my headlights to come on or if you saw me pop my hood or what, but, like a minute later, you came back."

"I came back," Tracy repeated.

"Yeah. You waited with me for the tow truck, which took about an hour, and then you gave me a lift."

She blinked, pausing. "That's it?"

Brit nodded, smiling despite a shine in her eyes. "It was just... it was a nice thing. You know? It was a nice thing when I was alone, and just starting out here. A really nice thing when I really needed it." She sat back onto the desk a bit more, and crossed her feet at the ankle. "Of course, then it became this big thing. You held it over me for years. 'You owe me'. 'You owe me'."

"When I was looking at my phone, in the... in the hospital? I sang it. I sang You owe me in my head."

"Exactly like that," Brit said. "You'd threaten to make me eat some wasabi nuts, or make me take you up to Vegas for the weekend and be your designated driver."

Tracy shrank. "It kinda sounds like I was flirting with you."

"I don't really think you meant it like that," Brit said with a sad shrug. "You didn't know I was gay. I hadn't told anyone at that point. I didn't... I didn't flirt back, at first, but after a while I thought maybe you were giving me some... some kind of sign."

"Given my choice in restaurants, I certainly might have been trying to..." She paused to sigh. "I don't know."

"Don't beat yourself up," she said, shaking her head.

"You are, though? Gay?" Brit nodded, and Tracy swallowed hard. "How... how did you know?"

"How did I know?" she scoffed.

Tracy furrowed her brow as she stared at the surface of her desk. "There are signs, right? Some sort of measurable response?"

"You are... " The blonde laughed and probed the inside of her cheek with her tongue. "Yes. There are signs. No, I can't give you data on them." Tracy blushed. "I've told you this before, but you were born to work in Quality."

"Then I don't understand." She took a breath and looked up at her friend. "You went way above and beyond any... debt. You were there for me today."

"Yeah," Brit said hesitantly.

"And I'm... I'm attracted to you." Her friend blinked furiously while Tracy stumbled on. "I mean, objectively, you're beautiful."

"Uh huh," Brit said. Her body language was still closed off, arms and legs crossed while she leaned slightly away, but there was a slight flush in her cheeks.

"When I look at you, and I try to picture us... together somehow, I'm... I'm turned... on."

"You really know how to woo a girl," Brit said dryly.

"Well, what I'm saying is-is that... I'm still me, right?"

"Right..."

"I've been impatient and fidgety all day!"

"...right."

"Then I don't understand why I would push you away."

Brit leaned even farther back. She looked scared.

"I-I-I feel comfortable around you, and you make me laugh, and-and-and... and-and you're smart, and you're... You're... I mean... what am I missing?"

"I don't..."

"And you're compassionate. You spent your entire Sunday afternoon driving a crazy woman around."

"You're not—"

"I don't understand. I don't. You make me feel good. What else is there supposed to be?" Tracy stood up, with less steadiness than she might have otherwise managed but better than she'd done all weekend, and leaned against the edge of the desk just beside Brit's legs. "I'm serious."

The blonde pressed her lips together tightly. "I don't want to play this game."

"It's not a game," Tracy insisted. Brit sat up a little straighter. "I promise."

"This isn't why I helped you today."

Tracy reached forward and took Brit's hands, pulling them down and away from where they had been tightly crossed. The more she pulled back, the more Brit sat forward.

"...Trace..."

Their eyes met as their faces moved closer. Tracy saw her own fears mirrored. Her need for acceptance. She saw her own insecurities reflected back, and there was comfort; she was not alone.

"...please..."

Brit's hands slipped free and slid around her sides. Along her lower ribs, heading toward the spine. Tracy whimpered under her breath as she felt another woman's hands on her. Grabbing her. Pulling her in. Her head felt light, like it might float away, as she pressed her lips against her friend's.

Brit was soft. Pliable. Lips molded imperfectly against her own. Saliva that was not her own. Slick and wet. Tracy ran her fingers through dark blonde strands, fingertips meeting at the base of Brit's skull, and held her tightly. Soft whimpers accompanied every breath. Every shudder. Every moan.

Brit's tongue pushed through first, seeking her out. Warm and wet. Curling over and around her own. Probing the back of her teeth, and mapping out the roof of her mouth. Always her own tongue followed, sometimes chasing and sometimes being dragged. Her friend lifted her left leg up, twisted it out and around, and hooked it behind Tracy's thighs. Suddenly, their bodies were pressed as closely as their lips.

"Yes," Tracy moaned. Brit pulled back enough to catch her breath, but her lips continued to press quickly and gently. Feathering Tracy with kisses. "Yes." The kisses drifted to the side, along her cheek toward her ear. "Yes." Brit's legs encircled her, encasing her.

Suddenly, a door opened on the opposite side of the office area. Both of them gasped and whirled.

"Who th—" Brit slapped her hand over her mouth and turned back to Tracy. "Louis!"

Tracy opened her mouth to ask 'who', but her friend slapped a hand over her mouth too. Brit shifted so that just her index finger laid over her lips without actually making the 'shhhh' sound. Tracy nodded, and said nothing when Brit took her by the wrist.

They scurried, bent low, out of Tracy's office. The honeycomb of cubicles nearby weren't tall enough to shield them completely. Louis, whoever he was, telegraphed his presence by whistling as he walked, which made it easy for them to evade him.

"Hello?" he called, as they pushed out the door he himself had just come in through a minute earlier, but Brit and Tracy were already darting up a flight of stairs. Barely-concealed giggling. Thrilling and exotic. Getting away with it.