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“Honey, I’m home!” Lucille called out as she pushed the door of their apartment open with her hip, a pizza box in one hand and her keys in the other. Winona looked up from her spot on the couch, stood, and bounded over with frightening speed.
“Did you get pepperoni?”
Lucille dropped her keys in the bowl by the door, and put her free hand to her heart. “For you, babe? Of course.”
Winona grinned at her, a bright flash of teeth. The auburn fuzz on her shaved head shone in the late-afternoon light coming in through the window. For a second she was too brilliant to look at, like her fire was strong enough to burn anyone who came close.
Lucille’s heart stuttered, a staccato beat in her chest. Then Winona moved slightly and the light faded. The moment passed.
Winona paused in taking a slice of pizza, the crease of a frown on her face. “Are you okay?”
“What?” Lucille blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Then she shoved pizza in her mouth so Winona wouldn’t ask her any more questions. She had to admit it wasn’t the best diversion tactic, but what else was she supposed to do when the very sight of her best friend rendered her speechless?
“Okay,” Winona said slowly, and took the pizza box over to the couch. After a second, Lucille followed her, tossing one of her blonde braids over her shoulder.
The couch was used but soft, the upholstery a faded green velvet. It wasn’t exactly the same as the one they’d seen on the side of the road those few weeks ago that felt more like years, but it was close.
“I went to the library today,” Winona started after she’d finished her first slice. “It looks like they’re hiring. Only part-time, but—”
“Is Winona Olsen getting her first job?” Lucille interrupted with mock surprise. Winona rolled her eyes. “Seriously, babe, that’s great.”
“Thanks,” Winona said. Was that a blush she saw on her cheeks? “I know you’re supporting us with all your badass poker winnings, but there’s no way I can spend all my time in this apartment. I may as well get paid to do something.”
Lucille snorted, and bumped Winona’s shoulder with hers.
There was something beautiful about their apartment, she decided. Not the actual, physical apartment—it was pretty much a shithole—but the space inside it. How she and Winona had filled it with their green velvet couch and their new thrift-store clothes and the bright yellow curtains over the windows.
They went deeper in, Lucille thought suddenly, deeper and deeper, deeper in or dead, and somehow they passed through to the other side and got out. Now it was just the two of them, and their shithole apartment, and the space in between.
Without warning, or really even considering what she was doing, Lucille reached out and took Winona’s hand in hers, threading their fingers together. She squeezed, tightly.
“Winona?”
Winona shifted, turning her head to look at Lucille. “Yeah?”
“I,” Lucille said, and swallowed around the new lump in her throat. What was she so fucking scared of? She took a deep breath, and told herself to stop being such a coward. She wouldn’t chase Winona away, no matter what she said. “I love you, Non. I really love you. There was nothing good in my life, not really, not until you came around. And now-” She laughed, just a little bit. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
“I love you too, Lucille,” Winona said, smiling so brightly Lucille’s heart nearly skipped a beat. “Being with you, together like this, it’s everything I’ve always wanted. Everything I’d always thought it would be.”
Somehow Lucille was surprised when they started kissing.
She wasn’t sure if it was Winona who leaned forward first or her (or both, most likely). All she knew is that between one moment and the next, Winona’s lips were on hers, soft and sweet like chapstick. Lucille pressed forward hungrily, her hands coming up to cup Winona’s cheeks.
Why, for God’s sake, had she been with Chaxton for so long when she could’ve been doing this all along?
When they finally pulled apart, Winona was blushing hard, her eyes sparkling. Lucille knew she looked exactly the same.
“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,” Lucille said, and realized how that sounded. “Not that it was bad! The opposite. It was really, really good.”
“I know what you meant,” Winona said, and this time, she took Lucille’s hand, her thin pianist fingers folding around hers perfectly. “We should have done that a long time ago, shouldn’t we?”
Lucille laughed. “No time like the present, right?”
“No time like the present,” Winona agreed, and leaned forward to kiss her again.