Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

After seven and a half years of knowing Agatha Harkness, the best way Rio can describe her relationship with her next door neighbor is as a series of opening and closing doors—mostly Rio's door.

Rio probably wouldn't need a second hand to count the times she's knocked on Agatha's door. A quick 'hi, did a parcel come for me?' has been pretty much it. She'd probably need the same amount of fingers to count the times Agatha has knocked on her door in nothing but a towel.

"He thinks I'm in the shower," Her neighbor had said, like she was sneaking away from something much more delicate than her seven year old son, "I have his friends and their nosy mothers coming in less than an hour. Is there any chance you can help me?"

Sunday is the only day Rio closes her shop, and so, is the only day she stays inside and talks to no one. It's not that she doesn't like the social aspect of her job—she loves talking about flowers, loves putting together an arrangement, loves hearing about why her customer wants to buy them; she's learned over the course of many years that people are always willing to share small parts of the big things in life with her. But, still, she needs the occasional day to recuperate.

Rio would like to say she possessed the ability to say no, but it seems she's hardwired to help. Which is how, on a Sunday morning, she finds herself in a staring match with themed birthday cakes in the middle of the grocery store. A lot of what Rio knows about Nicholas Harkness comes from sharing a garden fence and her choices are limited, so she either goes with the green thing from Minebuild—Minecraft? Or a dinosaur—classic.

Rio thinks Nicky would be happy with either cake, but it's important she gets it right. It's like putting together a bouquet in some ways—if the recipient doesn't like it, relationships can sour. Or so she's heard from other florists. And though it's unlikely Nicky would denounce Agatha as his mother over a cake, she thinks it's equally important to get something that Agatha would be able to talk about, and the information about her son's very newfound love for the Minecraft game had come from Agatha.

She thinks the funniest thing about this whole morning is the fact that she'd set aside time for this exact scenario. Every year Agatha makes an attempt at baking one, and every year she comes knocking on Rio's door asking for her help. Maybe his next birthday will be the year she finally follows an actual recipe.

✦

Happy 7th Birthday! Is what the banner pinned across Agatha's door reads. Seven years, Rio thinks, presses the doorbell and waits. She remembers the day Nicky was born like it was yesterday, and though a lot of the past few years have blurred into one with the mundanity of it all, that is one day she thinks she'll remember in its entirety.

The thought gives her pause, and she presses the doorbell again. A lot of her Agatha encounters have been more memorable than others, just because she's so unpredictable. No wonder the days she shows up in nothing but a towel stand out in comparison to when one of her other neighbors come knocking to borrow a hammer, or something.

After the third attempt at ringing the bell, Rio hums and knocks on the door. The sound is swallowed by the vinyl, and not having solid wood doors might be her only real complaint about living here. She's just about to lean over and knock on Agatha's living room window when the door near enough flies off its hinges with the speed it's opened with.

"Rio," Agatha breathes a sigh of relief, looks over her shoulder for any sign of her son. Rio can hear the commotion coming from the back of the house and it sounds like Nicky is suitably occupied, what with the gleeful screams. Agatha is dressed in actual clothes now, and not just covered for Rio's sake. Maybe she'd have been easier to say no to if she'd been dressed the first time around.

She passes the grocery bag over. Rio's stomach grows warm at the way Agatha's face lights up to see the cake.

"I'll never be able to pass off that I baked this," She smiles anyway, "He'll love it."

"I'm definitely marking local bakery off of my list of potential workplaces."

They've had this thing, this running joke about Rio not knowing where Agatha works for years now. She hasn't put too much thought into trying to work it out, but she figures if it was important Agatha would tell her. Rio looks forward to Agatha's obvious lies about her workplace now, anyway.

"I don't think you just figured that out today."

"You could've been a really terrible baker."

Agatha is usually hard to read, and Rio often finds herself wanting to read her mind, and only hers—a stupid waste of a superpower to use it on her neighbor, maybe. Agatha is very free with her smiles when it comes to her son, though. Whenever Rio catches a glimpse of them both together—in the yard over the very low fence, or crossing paths on the street, Agatha's face is different to how it is any other time, and for a moment—caught up in conversation with her son, that smile shines on Rio as her existence is acknowledged with little more than a nod of her head.

"I, uh—" Rio shifts, holds out the neatly wrapped dinosaur excavation kit that's been sitting on her coffee table for weeks, "I got him a little something. If you don't mind giving it to him."

"Do you want to come in?" Agatha makes no move to take the gift, "You can give it to him yourself."

Rio most certainly doesn't belong in there, "No, no. You don't need me there," She laughs like Agatha had maybe been asking as a joke.

Agatha shrugs, a sly smile on her face as she leans her shoulder against the doorframe, like they share a secret, "You'd be the only person in there I vaguely tolerate," And then, like an unwilling afterthought, "Nicky would probably like to see you too."

Rio wets her lips, can't stop the smile from tugging at them, "Just for a minute then. Just to say hello."

It's strange. It feels like such a turning point in their virtually nonexistent relationship for Rio to take step after step inside. She hasn't seen these walls since before Nicky was born. The house has been painted tastefully darker than it had been last time Rio had been here—no longer stark white and millennial gray, and it's like getting a little glimpse into who Agatha is. There's framed art on the walls—Agatha must have a soft spot for rabbits because Rio has already seen them featured in three—as well as, she presumes, some of Nicky's drawings and paintings, framed and hung with the same amount of care.

(A memory sparks in the back of her mind of a bunny, but she pushes it away as quickly as it came.)

Agatha's home looks lived in—cozy in a way that couldn't be manufactured. It's cluttered and there are birthday banners hanging all around the house, balloons all over the floor, ripped wrapping paper in the living room they pass that Agatha mustn't have had chance to throw away yet.

It's a stark contrast to Rio's own home. That's not to say it has no personality, with plants everywhere there's free space, coffee table books on her favorite topics—Greek mythology, paleontology, pathogeneses, and poisonous plants—all stacked neatly in the very center of the table, the odd wall painted her favorite shade of deep, aged green.

But it's not quite the same as this—every room a different color as though Nicky had been the one allowed to choose, a book on the table open face down to save the page like Agatha just threw it down to move on to something else.

"Aren't you nosy?" Rio nearly bumps into Agatha when she stops in the middle of the kitchen.

Rio flushes, caught, "I like what you've done with the place."

Rio spots Nicky outside through the window—his voice quietened by the back door that's pulled mostly closed and the music from the speaker out in the yard, but she can still hear him shouting to his friends something about fighting til they're all dead while he waves a sword above his head. The other parents are sat in borrowed plastic chairs from Rio's shed. Rio wonders if Agatha actually likes any of them or if she just acts civil for Nicky's sake.

Agatha hums and grabs a beer from the fridge as Rio puts the present down on the counter. She throws her hand up in obvious frustration when she has nothing to open it with, and begins rooting around in a drawer for a bottle opener intent on evading her. She slams the drawer with a huff and drags her hand over the kitchen counter like it might magically appear.

"It's okay, I don't need a drink," Rio leans against the counter, crosses her arms over her chest, "I don't really have alcohol in the day, and I won't stay long."

She doesn't really need Agatha to make a fuss over her, she's sure she has bigger things to focus on today. Rio recognizes that look—the one where Agatha's face crumples when she gives up and leaves the bottle on the counter, and rakes a hand through her hair with a sigh.

"I don't usually do his parties at home, but," Agatha finally looks at her and she forces a smile when she shakes the thought off, instead nods to the beer bottle and changes course, Rio now noticing the 0% on the label, "I don't drink around him. Only the very occasional glass of wine after he's gone to bed. I'd prefer if the other adults didn't drink around him either."

Rio's body doesn't leave the counter as she slides closer to Agatha, comes dangerously close to touching her as she takes the bottle. She doesn't need Agatha stressing over this for her.

She hasn't done this in a while, but it was sort of her go to party trick at college to impress girls where she couldn't with her words, and she slots the cap under the thick ring she wears on her index finger, easily pops it off. It doesn't escape Rio, when she looks back up before bringing the bottle to her lips, that Agatha is giving her a look not unfamiliar to her, eyelids just a little heavier.

"Want me to do you?"

"I—" Agatha blinks, "What?"

Rio gestures with her bottle to the fridge, "You want one?"

"Oh," Agatha grins like some sort of joke has been lost on Rio, "No, that's okay. You said you weren't staying long, right?"

Rio hums, curious—cautious all in one. And she thinks she was right to be when Agatha's fingers wrap around the bottle to take it from her, "No harm in sharing then," and then brings it up to her own mouth, grins around it like she doesn't even want it.

Rio's relationship with Agatha is also like this.

She can go weeks without seeing her, only hearing her voice through the walls and talking to people who aren't her, but then she'll come knocking on Rio's door, asking for her help and then flirting with her.

Rio knows it won't go anywhere—that it's just a bit of fun, but—

"Mom!" The door flies open and Agatha shoves the bottle into Rio's chest as she throws herself halfway across the kitchen away from Rio, instantly sinking into mom mode.

"How's my favorite son?" Agatha beams down at Nicky, goes to ruffle his hair but he's too quick, dodges it with a grin.

The grin sticks even as he groans, exaggerated, "Mom. I'm your only son."

Rio can see the glimmer in Agatha's eyes like those were the magic words. She feels like a fly on the wall—like she shouldn't be allowed to watch Agatha turn to quickly grab a spatula from the holder behind her, brandish it as a weapon.

Nicky meets her attack with his sword, and for as much as Rio has always liked the idea of a family, she has never yearned for it in this way before.

"And does that mean you can't be my favorite?"

The metal of the spatula clacks against Nicky's plastic sword but the sound is near inaudible over the sound of his laugh.

"No," Nicky finally gets a hit in, "It just means you're being silly." He punctuates his words with the apparently killing blow.

Agatha smiles brighter as she dies.

She withers away to the floor, pushes her grin down even though it still twitches on her mouth, and Nicky backs away, sword still pointed at her—just in case she resurrects obviously, until he bumps into Rio.

He spins, startled, but grins up at her once he realizes who she is.

"Rio!" He holds his hand up for a fist bump, as is customary now, and then rattles off, barely stopping for breath, "I didn't know you were coming. Did you know it's my birthday? Did my mom tell you she was making me a cake?"

"I did know it was your birthday," Rio says, artfully dodges the cake question, though she does find it funny how she'd messed up the cake for his fourth birthday, still hasn't managed to get it right, and yet tells Nicky she'll bake this one herself. Rio wonders if every year Agatha convinces herself that this will be the year she finally gets it, wonders if Nicky truly believes that his mom has the talent of a professional cake decorator. He's seven, Rio thinks, amused, he probably thinks his mom is Superwoman.

"Are you here for my party?" Nicky barrels past any question Rio was worried she'd have to answer about the cake, "Do you wanna be a knight? Mom got me this sword but you could borrow it if you don't have your own."

"Rio can't stay long," Agatha presses a hand to his head, fingers tangling in his hair, and then says something Rio will think about later, "They have lots to do today."

Nicky is small enough that when his shoulders sag in visible disappointment, his sword trails on the floor, and though she knows his sadness will be short lived, Rio still finds her heart clenching to know she's disappointed him. She understands how Agatha struggles saying no to him.

"Maybe you can bring it to the shop some time and we can see if it's sharp enough to cut some flower stems?" Rio asks, eyes flickering between the two of them.

She can't quite discern the look Agatha gives her, but her neighbor agrees anyway when Nicky looks up at her. Rio doesn't often see Agatha at her shop; she doesn't seem in need of flowers very often.

Briefly, Rio wonders if Agatha is the type to give a partner—a potential partner flowers—if the reason why, over the years, Agatha hasn't had to buy flowers is because she isn't seeing someone.

Or, she thinks, remembers every interaction she's ever had with Agatha as if it were flicking through her mind like looking through a viewfinder, maybe Agatha isn't the type to buy her partner flowers. She seems the type to enjoy receiving.

Before Rio has any chance to explore that thought, or even to shake it from her own mind with purpose, the back door swings open like it's about to fly off the hinges, and there are two boys—one looking like he's downed three cans of full sugar coke, and the other holding onto the door behind him, shying away from Agatha's look as if he was the one that nearly put a hole through her wall.

"Nicky, you've been gone forever," The boy with the sugar rush bounces on his toes, "Sir Thomas is gonna have to throw down a gor—gorl—"

"Gauntlet," The quieter boy pipes up from behind, still clinging to the door.

"I'll have to throw down my gauntlet if you don't join us."

It's then that Rio remembers being jealous she couldn't join in with her younger brother, watched him from her bedroom window and wished the boys from before she'd reached high school had still wanted to be her friend after they'd decided for themselves what she was.

Nicky steps away from his mom, stands as if he's protecting her, and Rio watches with a small smile as he tries to look menacing.

"You don't need to challenge me," Nicky says, little voice unwavering as he draws his sword, "I will protect my home. I was born in this house, and I will die in this house."

And with that, Nicky charges at the boys who run back into the yard.

"I don't know where he gets his dramatics from." Agatha's eyes find Rio's, the picture of innocence, and then, before Nicky gets too engrossed in his life or death fight, crosses to open the back door and shouts, "You weren't born in this house, but I love the enthusiasm, baby."

Rio raises an eyebrow, amused, takes a sip of her beer when Agatha turns back around, "He thinks he had a home birth?"

"He didn't not have a home birth," Agatha rolls her eyes, comes to snatch the beer away. Rio thinks back to her morning, wonders if anything she's had—used, has made it's way to the bottle lip for Agatha to taste—her coffee, her toothpaste. "Jen probably told him that."

Jen.

Rio doesn't think she's ever heard of a Jen. She racks her brain for a memory but comes up short, wonders if she'd dismissed the notion of Agatha dating someone too quick.

She clears her throat, rids herself of the thought. It wouldn't matter either way if Agatha was dating someone. Rio might finally stop being called on for the most minor of inconveniences. "I should go."

Agatha blinks at her for a moment, then smiles, "Sure, sure," She puts the beer down—whatever was between them in that moment breaking, "Gotta get this cake ready anyway."

Rio is aware of Agatha following behind her to the front door, "You, uh, you can come by the store any time," She says, hand tugging self consciously at the back of her hair, "If you want."

"Yeah," Agatha is sort of squinting at her when she turns round, "I mean, Nicky likes it there so—"

She cuts herself off and Rio takes that as her sign to leave before more awkwardness kicks in, though where it came from she's not sure, just feels it—cold on the back of her neck. The fourteen steps back to her own house seem to take longer today.

✦

They have lots to do today.

Later comes when Rio is brushing her teeth, the monotonous movements slowing her brain enough for the thought to come.

(There was a time years ago—they'd maybe known each other for a few weeks at most. A nameless, faceless neighbor in memory now had interrupted a conversation with Agatha between their front yards.

"She won't come to the bar, don't even bother asking her. She goes to work and she goes home. She likes hanging out by herself."

Rio had cringed through it. She never liked the idea of being a recluse in Agatha's mind, and she hadn't really liked the—the—

"Do you ever feel a disconnect to that?"

"To what?"

"She. It feels constant," There had been a moment of panic, "I don't mean that in a—" Except she still doesn't know what she meant, even now.

Agatha was always quick to jump on something embarrassing Rio had said, but this time, she just nodded quick and said, "Not for me. But it's not a bad thing. It doesn't have to make sense right away.")

Maybe Agatha took something from that conversation and made it something it isn't. Rio should bring it up, correct her. Maybe it doesn't really matter—they're only neighbors after all.

✦

The forces between Rio and Agatha had taken a while to balance out back when she moved in.

For the first five years of Rio living there, it had been peaceful—the quiet street with the retirees and divorcees. "It's not the kind of place someone in their twenties wants to live," the real estate agent had told her, nose wrinkling like he wouldn't be happy to live there himself, but that—to a twenty-eight year old Rio who had just received inheritance from her grandfather's passing, and was something of an aspiring recluse, had been akin to someone personally unlocking the gates to heaven for her.

That's what those first years were like. Heaven. Absolute bliss.

Rio got to live out the quiet, mundane life she enjoys—one where she does what she loves for work, gets her social interaction time in by getting to talk about plants and flowers enough to sit comfortably within the range for optimal well-being. Alice, her coworker and one friend fills the gap for other topics of conversation. She does like to ensure she won't go insane.

Rio has built up a safety net in this new place, far, far away from home, away from a family who doesn't want her for reasons she feels she's barely scratched the surface of. And safe is exactly how her new life had felt.

Life is still like that now in many ways, but Rio's steady equilibrium has been disturbed since Agatha's arrival, and her old life—the one where there are no surprises and no one to bother her is very much over. Because Agatha brought noise with her from the U-Haul to, later, her son.

Rio can't pretend to hate it as much now as she first did.

✦

Agatha won't be here long.

She squints at house she'd started renting almost on a bit of a nervous whim through the window of the small truck she'd hired.

The drive here had been… shaky at best. Though she probably would have fared better if her mother had bothered to pay for driving lessons when she turned sixteen like everyone else she went to school with. She hadn't really needed to drive anywhere—had moved around enough to know to pack light, to not buy anything she doesn't need. But a baby needs. And so, she's been quickly accumulating things—a crib, a mattress, stacks of diapers—all before she's even started showing, as some kind of anxiety induced response.

(It's fortunate that she doesn't own a lot more than the bare basics because a bigger hire van probably would have had her destroying more than wing mirrors.)

This wouldn't really be her ideal place to live. The real estate website had said the area was perfect for anyone looking to downsize, or young couples looking to start a family. Agatha is just one person, but soon there will be two—a mini 'her' who probably deserves to grow up without the roommates Agatha never really liked, and away from the noise of the city.

So, Agatha doesn't anticipate staying here too long—just wants to be settled somewhere when the baby comes, and a rental home with basic furnishings is perfect for that.

Technically, Agatha thinks as she unlocks the front door, nose wrinkling at the sheer amount of gray everywhere, she could have waited a little longer; it's not like the baby is going to fall out of her any time soon, but the thought of having to move alone while already carrying the full weight of a small human didn't appeal.

And so she begins banging and clattering around removing boxes from the van, blasts music from the U-Haul's radio even though she'd been explicitly warned about leaving the battery running. It's not her van, she's not really too concerned about the 'battery life'. Anyway, if this quaint little neighborhood is as brainwashed into 'small town life and values' as the estate agent had made out then Agatha is sure someone could help her out with that.

Probably not the person glaring at the van as she walks past it. Agatha gives her a tight lipped grimace-smile thing, and is—as she's very good at doing—about to push it to the back of her mind until she sees her walk up the steps to the house next door.

Cool, she thinks, she's already pissing off the neighbors.

Agatha heads back to the front of the van, reaches inside and turns the music louder.

It only takes another trip back and forth for Agatha to spot her new neighbor watching her from her window. Agatha tilts her head as she makes what she assumes is probably eye contact until the curtain falls to cover her.

Agatha's head tips back in a cackle before she can even think to stop it.

She bides her time after that; she doesn't have too many boxes left to, shall she say—test—what kind of person her new next door neighbor is. And after she side eyes the curtain being pulled back another three times all from different rooms, Agatha decides to strike.

Agatha hears her neighbor's footsteps coming quick towards the door after she's rang the bell, but it still takes an extra ten seconds of absolute silence before the front door swings open, her neighbor leaning on her palm against the doorframe.

"I'm not being too loud, am I?" Agatha gives her biggest, fakest smile before her neighbor can even get a word in.

She blinks, and the silence gives Agatha a moment to study her long enough to deduce she'd usually be her type—from the hand resting on the doorframe, dirt trapped in her cuticles and smeared up to her wrist in a way that makes it seem job related rather than that she's just dirty. Agatha does like someone good with their hands. Her hair is just above shoulder length, tucked behind her ear on one side like it just won't stay where she wants it to. Dark hair, dark eyes wearing the look of someone who is intrigued by Agatha at best, dressed in a thick flannel with only the top button undone. She looks older, too. Not by a crazy amount, but she's probably in her thirties.

Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate that she seems to have pissed off what might be the only butch in a ten mile radius, but a quick rendezvous with her pregnant next door neighbor probably isn't on her to do list anyway.

"No," She says, breaks Agatha from her thoughts, "No, you're fine."

Agatha knows, without a doubt, that isn't true. She hums, "Sure," And then, mind working overtime, keeps up her false smile, "It's just so hard doing all this by myself," watches as her neighbor's stance relaxes a little, the crease between her brows smooths out, "I'm Agatha, by the way."

"Agatha," Her neighbor says, like she's trying her name out, then wets her lips, eyes moving away from her face to the van behind her, "Do you need help?"

She's considering saying no; Agatha is an independent person after all. But she's also not about to turn down a butch with manners that extend past her own feelings. So she puts on something of a pout, says, "I'd love some help," and watches her grab her keys from the side, clip them to her belt loop—the left hand side which means something to Agatha if her neighbor knows anything about carabiner culture, before shutting the door behind her and heading to the van.

"Do I not get your—"

Name.

She'd been about to say 'name'.

The word slips from her mouth when she sees her lift the tightly rolled mattress—the only thing Agatha's treated herself to that's new and not just new to her—over her shoulder like it doesn't weigh a thing.

So, Agatha doesn't end up getting her neighbor's name. She thinks the show she got instead was better.

✦

A few days later, in with Agatha's first stack of mail, is a letter addressed to a 'Rosario Vidal' at number 2806.

✦

Rio should change her door bell.

This is something she thinks at least a few times a month.

It works perfectly fine but the tune becomes obnoxious—like a calling card for Agatha herself, because she knows it's Agatha on her doorstep.

(Except she can't change it. Even though she has one of those doorbells with twenty jingles that can be cycled through—happy birthday, we wish you a merry christmas included—Nicky was the one to pick this particular tune. He lay in her hall, pressing the buttons to double, triple check he hadn't missed his favorite, while Agatha was outside haggling a deal for her gutters to get cleaned out.

Ding-ding, ding-ding, dong. Ding-ding, ding-ding, dong.

That was what he went with. And now the Harkness household had intro music.)

"Do you have a screwdriver?" Agatha—just as anticipated. She knows Agatha knows she has a screwdriver, so the question is redundant except Rio knows Agatha isn't one to specifically ask for help; Rio generally has to be the one to offer it.

"What DIY project are you taking on at," Rio checks her watch, "6:07?"

Agatha shifts her weight, "Well, I would've done it sooner but you were at work, hence the screwdriver being inaccessible to me."

"Done what?" Rio tries to hold back a smile, isn't fully convinced Agatha actually needs a screwdriver.

"Screwed the screw in."

Right.

Agatha narrows her eyes. Rio mustn't be doing a very good job of hiding her skepticism.

"My," Agatha clears her throat, looks to the sky—presumably for some excuse to come to her, "My toilet seat is loose."

"Ah," Rio smiles, "And you checked the toilet seat first?"

"I—what?"

"It's just that most of them have butterfly screws," Rio says, waits an adequate amount of time for the response Agatha might have given if she'd even had a look at the toilet seat, then puts her out of her misery, "A normal screwdriver won't work for tightening them."

Agatha's face paints a picture of someone really trying to think, and only because of the years she's known Agatha does Rio not get caught out by it, "It's hard to know which is which."

"Okay, Agatha," Rio pulls her lips into her mouth to hide her smile, but ultimately does go to grab her toolbox from the shed.

Agatha is very intensely examining her nails when she returns, passes the whole toolbox to Agatha. "Just in case," Rio shrugs.

"Right."

Rio isn't under any illusion that she's going to be thanked. Agatha hangs around on the doorstep though, predictably doesn't look at all like she's itching to get back to her 'task' and so Rio doesn't shut the door on her.

"Are you going to this thing at," Agatha eventually says, sucks on her teeth like the thought just came to her. She snaps her fingers and points vaguely in the direction across the street.

Rio peers over Agatha's shoulder, "Sharon's?"

"Yeah," Agatha points at Rio, some sort of maybe-smile on her lips, "You going?"

It's only now that Rio faintly remembers the leaflet stuffed inside her letterbox about a neighborhood book club, hadn't intended on going, hadn't even given it a second thought. Rio likes her routine, and that is not a part of it.

All the same, "Are you going?"

Rio asks the question for the sole purpose of politeness.

"I was considering it," Agatha says, squints at Rio like she's a puzzle to figure out, "I like books even if I don't like anyone going."

Rio gasps, holds a hand to her chest in mock outrage, "And I thought we were friends."

Agatha laughs and her eyes scrunch in the corners enough for Rio to know it's real, "No, you've been acquaintance-zoned," and then, "I didn't think you'd be going. I didn't think it would be your thing."

She's not wrong, obviously.

"I—" Rio shrugs, at a loss for words, "I like books."

Rio thinks of all the things she could say yes to, a book club is the least offensive, probably.

It only takes minutes after Agatha leaves for Rio to text the number on the bottom of the leaflet to tell Sharon she'll be there.

✦

Rio isn't a very online person.

Texting isn't exactly a social media platform, she remembers Agatha telling her.

She's right, of course, but Rio isn't used to her phone blowing up like this. She has it on vibrate during working hours just in case, but they have a designated work phone for anyone wanting to contact them, and Alice—her sole hire—has control of the Instagram.

Rio takes a deep breath as her phone buzzes on the counter behind her again and again, closes her eyes before she loses her mind and uses the clippers on the tip of her finger on purpose.

She'll have to silence it.

A barrage of new messages greets her as soon as she unlocks her phone.

Sharon (neighbor)
Nobody panic.
I have WINE.

Rio has tuned into the text chain—group chat, she corrects herself in Agatha's voice—just enough to know that Sharon will be hosting the first book club meeting, and, if all goes well, they will rotate around the neighborhood.

She assumes this is some sort of late attempt at neighborly bonding.

John (neighbor)
We weren't panicking
White or red?

Sharon (neighbor)
The GOOD one.

John (neighbor)
Red?

Sarah (neighbor)
I'll bring rosé. I don't drink red

Sharon (neighbor)
ALL of them…

Agatha
ominous. love it
you'd better have that wine from last time that i liked

Sharon (neighbor)
I finished that after you left.
I bought a new bottle though…

Agatha
great. i'll come

Sharon (neighbor)
You already said 'yes'?

The messages continue a little, but what Rio can't look away from is the little 2 in a circle next to Agatha's name in her phone. Not the book club chat, just Agatha.

She ignores the rest of the messages still coming through and instead clicks into Agatha's name.

Agatha
does wine lady know it's a book club not a party?
not that i'm complaining

Me
She's like seventy
I'm sure a book club is a party to her
Also, you know her name is Sharon, right?

Agatha
wow. you're harsh.
remind me not to grow old around you
she's wine neighbor in my phone. how am i supposed to know?

Rio huffs out a laugh through her nose, tongue pressing to the inside of her cheek like Agatha might be able to see it if she doesn't hold herself back from it. Rio was right to think the book club wouldn't be Agatha's thing as much as it isn't hers. Maybe, as one of the only people Agatha tolerates, she might get to talk to her for more than five minutes like they've been doing from their doorsteps. She thinks maybe if she was a better person, she'd chastise herself for the selfish thought, but she isn't.

(Maybe Agatha is right there with her.)

She decides to be a little bolder with her message, enjoys this back and forth with Agatha—always has, even if she didn't understand it at first.

Me
After all this time are you scared to get close to any of us?

She can't wait more than twenty seconds until her itchy fingers type out a new message, almost without thought.

Me
I'm scared to know what my name in your phone is

Rio thinks about putting her phone back down, getting on with her work; she never usually gets distracted like this, but then again, it's usually never Agatha wanting her. So she waits, phone unlocked just so she can't miss the message.

Her phone pings again.

Sharon (neighbor)
Does anyone have any book suggestions?
The last thing I read was the latest House Beautiful. HA HA.

Rio tugs her lips into her mouth, leans back against the counter and waits for another snarky message from Agatha about this too now.

But the longer her messages go unanswered, Rio knows she's waiting for something that won't come, knows she looks pitiful, a smile still tugging at the corner of her lips. She drops it as soon as she notices; it's not as though it's normal for Agatha to text. Rio could scroll up and be skimming the surface of messages from years ago with just one wave of her thumb.

Agatha is like this; flirting with her one minute and then forgetting she exists in the next, which is okay, because Rio knows not to expect anything more.

✦

With the layout of her shop, Blooming Buds, Rio can't see her customers when they first walk in—hence the bell above the door. With the rows of flowers and the shelves built high, she'd wanted to avoid the clinical touch; things can very often be pretty with no feeling.

Which is why Rio hears them before she sees them.

"Where do you think Rio is?"

Her head shoots up at the sound, shuffles around the corner, neck craning to look to the door even though she can't see. She's pretty sure that's—

"She might be with a customer, okay?" That is, without a doubt, Agatha's voice. "She might be too busy."

"But she said we could come to the store after school," Nicky's little voice carries over the shelves. Rio can see the top of Agatha's head now. "It is after school."

She leaves the arrangement she was putting together on the counter in the corner of the shop, and heads towards the voices.

"Nicky," She grins wide when she spots him, sees his face light up when he spots her. Rio has never been great with kids—it's never come naturally to her to speak to them like children. She knows her brother has kids now, though she's never met them. Nicky is just like a mini Agatha, though with better manners, and Rio at least knows how to navigate a conversation with her most days.

(Is it bad to have thought she wouldn't come? To think she's built the whole texting thing up in her head like she's done something wrong, when it hasn't disrupted Agatha's life in the slightest.)

Nicky runs up to Rio, fist bumps her as Agatha brushes her fingers over the top of a limonium stem from a bunch in the middle of the store, leaning over a little—Rio should fix it—but like it's reaching out to Agatha herself.

"How was school?" Rio blinks away from Agatha.

Nicky shrugs, mouth twisting like Agatha's does when she's forced to engage in conversation past what she wants to be talking about, "It was good. I don't like math too much, though."

"Yet," Agatha insists from behind him, "You don't like it yet. But that's just because it's a little harder than other things. Doesn't mean you have to dislike it."

Rio tilts her head when she looks down, "Your mom's right. It's good sometimes, to like things you're not good at."

"I guess," Nicky makes an expression like what Rio would expect to see on her own face if she was forced back to school now. She watches as the light finds his eyes again and he spins round, hands reaching for Agatha's bag, "I brought my sword. Like you said."

"Ah," Rio claps her hands together, looks at Agatha with a smile, "Then I'm afraid I'm gonna have to steal your son."

Agatha reaches inside the big tote bag on her shoulder and pulls out Nicky's sword. "Be careful, okay?"

Agatha sort of hangs back, slowly follows them round the corner where Rio's work bench is. It's sweet to see her pretend to look at the flowers while she keeps Nicky in eye line.

"You're gonna be my assistant for a bit, right?" Rio grabs an empty bucket and turns it upside down for Nicky to stand on so he can reach the table, moves anything sharp out of his reach.

"Yup," Nicky says, instantly reaching out for the roses Rio hasn't dethorned yet. She quickly moves them away with a nervous laugh. Kids are so fragile and lack a lot of self preservation, it's stressful. "What flowers can I cut?"

Rio grabs a few tulips out of the bucket she just brought out of the cooler—one red, one yellow, and one purple. The hollow stems should make it easy for even Nicky's plastic sword to cut through them.

"You've gotta slice them," Rio makes the motion with her hand, "Okay? No hammering the stems with your sword."

And Nicky agrees, though at seven years old he obviously hasn't taken a home ec class in his life and so his knife skills leave a lot to be desired. Rio has to stop him from butchering the red tulip, hand covering his own gently and guiding it through the proper motion.

"Easy, right?"

"Yeah," Nicky picks the flower up, "Now what?"

Rio grabs one of her pre-greened vases, slides it over to where they're working, "You can put it in there. And then we can do another flower."

"And then it'll be a whole bunch of flowers," Nicky says, not a question.

"Exactly. You get it."

So he does the same with the yellow—more careful this time, slots it into the vase with Rio holding the base just in case it topples over. In the same way Agatha pretends not to be watching them from behind a ladder shelf full of house plants and ready to buy flower arrangements, Rio pretends not to let her eyes wander over there every so often.

It's a little hard to pretend she hasn't been occasionally watching when she makes eye contact at just the right time for Agatha to gesture that she has an incoming call. Rio throws her a quick thumbs up and watches her retreat around the corner.

"My mom would like these flowers," Nicky says, after a moment of concentrated silence.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yup," Nicky says, matter of fact, "Her favorite color is purple, but my favorite is yellow."

Rio feels her fingers itch upon hearing that, and she can't help but move to start gathering purple and yellow flowers from storage, just for Agatha, brings them back to Nicky and watches as he carefully slices the stems.

The arrangement is sort of messy, what with small, unpracticed hands fiddling with the flowers and moving them into 'the perfect place'. The lone red flower from the beginning stands out stark against the various yellow and purple flowers, and the green leaves. Nicky was insistent about keeping it in though. And so it stayed.

"It looks so good!" Nicky says when he can't get many more flowers in without crushing the stems together. "Who's it for?"

"Hey, you're the one who put it together," Rio grins, goes to grab a couple sheets of kraft paper to wrap the flowers in, definitely does not trust Nicky carrying a glass vase, "You get to choose who they're for."

Nicky hums, thumb and forefinger gripping his chin like he's learned how to pretend think from his mom. It's cute, Rio thinks, that she can see him trying to hide his smile. "We can give them to my mom?"

"Good idea."

The words are barely out of Rio's mouth before Nicky is grabbing the bouquet off of the counter and running off with it, "Mama!"

Rio hangs back. It's not her moment to intrude on, but she smiles as she hears Nicky telling Agatha that he put the flowers together for her by himself. Her mind gets stuck on Mama, and she remembers the time Agatha had lingered on her doorstep long after she'd gotten what she was there for, just to quietly tell her she thought she was ready for the first time he called her mom, but that all her preparation had gone out the window the moment it actually happened.

It makes her heart clench to hear him call her mama again, knows how much that will mean to her.

Rio looks away and leaves them to themselves, retreats to the back of the shop to be alone once more.

✦

Agatha would love to say that, like she imagined, there must be some sort of weird suburban magic that makes people wake up before eight and eat a substantial breakfast, and not just coffee or an energy drink—sometimes both. The kind of magic that would be instilled in her just by living here.

Alas, this is the third day this week that she's woken up, looked out of her window to see dog walkers, power walkers, late-for-work flustered walkers, and thought to herself, 'the day is clearly already over'.

Agatha is reluctantly trying to gaslight herself into believing she's a functioning member of society—less for herself, and more for her unborn child—which is why she forced toast down her throat before she left the house this morning.

There's a fine line to walk, she's learned, between becoming her mother and becoming someone even Agatha is not, just in the sole interest of being her antithesis.

Evanora was—is—a woman of routine and structure. Everything had a purpose. She would go to the store on the same day, at the same time, just to bump into the same people and have the same coded conversations. She would drag Agatha to church every Sunday so that she could surround herself with the same vapid creatures, all to praise Agatha in public and receive that praise in return—for all her achievements belonged to her mother, and all her failures belonged to herself.

For the longest time after she finally managed to get away, Agatha has distanced herself from any sort of routine, has stayed away from a community where she could fall into the same trap. But her child deserves to have structure and friends and their achievements told to anyone who will listen.

It is conflicting. It is also how she finds herself in the grocery store with the vague plan to come this same time next week.

It's relaxing to know she knows no one here, to know that her words won't get twisted, that they won't be reported back to her mother. Even now, here at twenty seven, a town this small reminds her of her mother and everything that comes with that.

So it doesn't make sense for her to spot Rosario at the opposite end of the shop and head over to her—the only person here she even knows by name.

"Hey," Agatha says when she gets close enough, but her neighbor doesn't look up, "Rosario."

Her head springs up and she scrambles to catch the punnet of mushrooms that almost tumbles from her grip.

Gross.

"Gross," She says, can't keep the thought inside as, wide eyed, Rosario shoves the mushrooms in her basket.

"No."

"They are though," Agatha wrinkles her nose, doesn't even want to look at the fungal monstrosities, "They're slimy."

"No," Rosario says again, looks a lot more like when Agatha first met her and her face was hardened by her annoyance at her, "My name is Rio. Just Rio."

Agatha can almost feel the way her eyes refocus to take 'just Rio' in for what feels like the first time again. "Rio," She says, tries it out, finds it fits and immediately discards the old one, "I like it. It suits you."

She swears she can feel the breath Rio let out on her cheek and Rio looks away. There's a story there, Agatha knows, but she's not stupid enough to think she's privy to it. She doesn't even think it matters.

"Did you need something?" Rio looks somewhere past her.

"No, I—" What did she approach Rio for? "Is it illegal to say hi to my neighbor?"

Rio looks mildly confused at best, "Okay. Hi."

Cool. Well that's fucking embarrassing. Agatha turns around and walks away, unsure what she'd even expected. It's not like they're friends; it's not like Agatha wants them to be friends, she just wants this fresh start to be different because for all the moving around she's done in the past, this one isn't about her.

Agatha continues her shop in a huff—throws things into her basket. She had found Rio fun a couple of weeks ago but now she's not so sure. Either way, there goes her plan to come this time next week. Rio already seems too rigid to not have something as simple as a schedule.

She barely even notices what she's putting into her basket, just following the direction of her list and grabbing without a second thought. The burst of color near the register is the only thing that makes her pause. Agatha is sort of limited with the decorating she can do with her house being a rental. Not that it's stopped her much from opening a paint can in what will become the nursery—no child of hers is growing up in a gray room.

Flowers could be an easy fix to that though.

And then she feels more than sees Rio brush past her to the open register. Agatha has never wanted friends, she's probably not even a very good one, but she can't stop herself from reaching out, light touch to Rio's shoulder before she gets too far.

"Do you think a house is more of a home with flowers?"

Rio looks different to the first time Agatha approached her—more amused and like they're sharing a joke. No matter how funny Agatha is, she doesn't know the joke.

"Of course."

She turns around to start unloading her basket, ending Agatha's ideas of an actual conversation. It doesn't matter. She leans down to bring her face to the bouquets, eyes fluttering shut as she breathes the fresh smell in.

Someone clears their throat from beside her, and she pays it no mind until they're blocking her light and crowding her space. Rio has one hand stuffed inside the pocket of her jeans, shoulders bunched up around her chin. Agatha stands to her full height as she watches Rio's mouth open and close as if she's finding and then losing the words.

"I have—" She eventually starts, but then Agatha watches her wince and shake it off, "There's a florist if you carry on down Main Street." Agatha raises an eyebrow at her. She's about to speak but Rio cuts in, "Just—if you want some," Her eyes flicker to the side and Agatha doesn't bother to hide her amusement when she lowers her voice to say, "good quality flowers."

This isn't the small town murmurings Agatha is used to. When her mother dragged her to the store—on the occasions she didn't trust Agatha out of her sight—she would engage loudly in discussions of the best and worst of the main street and people would, unfortunately, listen as though her word meant something. Rio's lowered voice, hot cheeks, and nervous blinking isn't that.

Still, Agatha's lips pull into a frown, "You think I want to pay a fuck ton of money for the privilege of fancy wrapping?"

Where she'd expected Rio to shrug and walk away like Agatha is already getting used to when she doesn't want to have a conversation, her eyes finally lock onto Agatha's face and her mouth twitches in the corner. Agatha isn't sure if she's angry or amused. "You think that's all it is?"

"It's flowers," Agatha says, picking the first bouquet in reach and brushing past Rio to take what had been her spot at the register, "How good can they be?"

Rio tilts her head, rubs across her bottom lip with her thumb in a way that is—distracting. "You think grocery store flowers are the same?"

"They look like flowers," Agatha says, lips coming to form a bit of a pout. She doesn't know Rio and so doesn't know why the self satisfied smile that's still plastered to her face throws her so much. She wants to wipe it away somehow—maybe even physically with a hand to their cheek, or her mouth to—fuck. Or something. The thought isn't worth lingering on. Agatha leans down to the flowers again, breathes in deeply, theatrical with it, "They smell like flowers too."

Agatha stands up again just in time to catch Rio looking away from her, her tongue tucked into her cheek. She wishes Rio's tongue was inside her mouth like that. What?

She clears her throat like it will clear her mind of that thought. She's not usually one to reign herself in but now knowing she can't, that she shouldn't, it's a lot harder than she would have thought. So Agatha picks up the first bunch of flowers her fingertips touch—nice and tame and a lot of pink; not the one she would have chosen if she wasn't hellbent on making a point. And then she pushes past Rio to take her spot in the line.

The only way Agatha can describe the noise Rio leaves in her ear is a breathy laugh that has Agatha fucking shivering, tilts her head to brush her ear against her shoulder to mask anything that might give her away.

Even Agatha isn't sure if she's taunting Rio with a side or flirtation, or flirting with a side of provocation, just knows that it feels like she won.

In her good mood she speaks to the cashier like she actually wants to know how his day scanning tomatoes is going, signs up for the store's loyalty card, even fills in her details at the register just so 'Here to Help Ralph' knows she won't just forget about it when she gets home.

And none of that has anything to do with Rio or holding up the line of exactly one person.

✦

It's late-ish that night when Agatha's doorbell rings.

She grumbles and groans about having to get up when she's already in her pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, and watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on the couch, quietly threatening to maybe strangle whoever is on the other side of the door, just as a late night treat to herself.

But when she swings the door open, comes close to yanking it out of the frame with a vicious, "What?" Agatha finds the late night air empty and devoid of any response bar the chirping of crickets.

She blinks, stares out into the dark, dark blue—though not yet black of the street, before she even considers turning her attention down.

When she does, there's a vase of flowers staring up at her like a challenge.

Agatha bends down, knees to her chest as she reaches out to brush her fingertips over the silky petals. The bouquet is unquestionably beautiful, though Agatha won't pretend to know enough about flowers to name any of them past roses and carnations—the two that were in her grocery store bunch.

She would have to be very, very stupid to believe in coincidences.

Agatha quickly sends a glance to the left where Rio's house is—doesn't see her standing on the border and watching her like a creep, and so she reaches out to quickly bring the vase inside.

The offending bouquet is quickly marched to the kitchen and placed as heavily as she can without smashing the vase onto the horrific gray kitchen table, right next to the one she had bought for herself.

She can see now with the better light that the colors aren't what she'd really choose for herself—pinky peaches being the focus—but even Agatha can't deny that when her eyes get drawn to the purpled sea holly that would be a stark contrast in her grocery store bouquet of Barbie pink flowers, her first thought is, 'beautiful'.

Not that she'd say that.

It's still absolutely not worth the sixty dollars her neighbor likely spent on them. On her.

Ridiculous.

✦

Rio has been nursing the smallest amount of anxiety over this book club for the last month. She's now read The Wife three times and the monotony of it in her bid to know the book inside and out so she can't be caught off guard has sort of tipped her over the edge into now not liking it that much. Something else to be stressed about.

She's googled typical book club questions about it, has had Alice quiz her on it when they're working together, even on the busy days. She's even started dreaming about it.

Rio parts the blinds in her living room with two fingers, stares out across the road as John enters her view, carefully balancing his copy of the book on top of what looks like two large dishes covered in foil, stacked one on top of the other in opposite ways so as not to crush the one on the bottom. Rio watches as he maneuvers them to press the doorbell with his elbow, his book almost slipping off into Sharon's azaleas before steadying himself, door opening to Sharon's wide arms, wide smile as she welcomes him inside.

She doesn't know how to make herself the next person to arrive.

She could have been the first. She'd been watching Sharon's front door on and off, pacing around her bedroom, and then her living room for the better part of an hour, has seen most of her neighbors walking up the path to that one house.

The only anomaly being the redhead who Rio swears caught an embarrassing glimpse of her staring as she slowly pulled up outside Agatha's house, Nicky running out to the car a few moments later. Maybe, Rio thinks, the corner of her thumb bitten red raw, maybe this is Jen.

It's only when her anxieties start teetering over to be inclusive of how rude it is to be late, that Rio smacks herself over the head with the book to right her brain and leaves her house, a bag of pretzels gripped tight in her hand because, for all the rules she would like to forget from growing up, she's never been able to shake the you should never show up empty handed one.

Sharon's smile is big and welcoming when she opens the door; it pulls slightly to one side along with her body, the door stopping her from toppling any further.

"Rio," She says, and Rio can easily see her glassy eyes now. Rio is either very late, or Sharon has been pregaming book club. She lets herself be pulled in for a mildly choking hug, finds she doesn't really mind it that much. When was the last time she was held?

"Now, you're a little later than I expected," Sharon says as she guides Rio to the living room, takes the bag of pretzels from her as she speaks, "So you might have to get cozy on a beanbag."

Like a latecomer badge, the beanbags are squished together near the fireplace that thankfully isn't lit; her other neighbor's greet her from the couches and armchairs around the room—not a single seat free.

A body brushes past up against hers in the tight doorway, and Rio embarrassingly jumps, body about to tense up before realizing it's Agatha. She hopes it isn't obvious how much she relaxed into the knowledge.

"That's okay," And it is, but it's not Rio's mouth the words fall from, "Rio can sit with me."

She's not exactly in a position to say no. Wouldn't even if she was.

To Rio's surprise, a beer is shoved into her hand. She thinks the look on her face dropping further into bewilderment only has Agatha's sly grin growing larger, curling up into her cheeks.

Unlike the time on Nicky's birthday where they had shared, Agatha still has her own bottle. She brings it up to quirked lips, watching Rio, the pair of them still stood in the living room doorway like they're on display.

"How did you—"

"You're not the only one who can look out of windows, you know?"

And then Agatha walks away, makes sinking into a beanbag look somehow graceful. Rio awkwardly follows, even more awkwardly falls into the beanbag next to Agatha's. All of Rio's precision seems to have trickled into her fingers alone ("you could be a surgeon with those hands" Alice had told her, "yes, my parents told me that as well") and so the rest of her body is usually used for bigger things—lifting, building, helping, and Rio doesn't necessarily need to be delicate for any of those things.

Rio wouldn't say it, but she's suddenly glad to be this late. It's not that she doesn't like her other neighbors, but she doesn't talk to them all that much apart from the odd time they'll come into her shop, or when thereafter, she'll run into them when she's out and they'll simply tell her that the flowers they bought from her have been the longest lasting in many years.

Rio likes that, is happy to talk about her work because she loves it.

It makes it hard now though, suddenly surrounded by the people she's spent over a decade living with, not knowing enough about them to make any real conversation.

She watches Sarah and Abilash laugh through a story he is telling, and Rio hadn't even considered that they might be friends. Isabel and John are the same—Rio watches him slip out of the door, mime to Isabel to ask if she wants a top up of her drink and then 'subtly' fill both of their glasses with rosé when he returns; his back to most of the room like he's doing something that would get him banned, but that gets a laugh out of a few people.

Rio has been under the impression that she knew how these people operated, knew who they were as people. It seems, heart sinking into her stomach with more than the night's nerves, that she knows a sort of caricature of them alone.

Her only saving grace is Agatha.

She too drinks her beer in silence, watches what's going on. Rio supposes the only difference is that the only person Agatha isn't watching is Rio.

She hears Sharon call Agatha's name from the kitchen, feels Agatha's beer bottle knocking into the back of her hand to get Rio to take it as she playfully—playfully rolls her eyes and hauls herself off of the beanbag.

Rio didn't think Agatha liked her neighbors—Rio hadn't even ruled herself out of that—and yet, here she is, seemingly fond of Sharon of all people. Even then, if Rio could make it past all that, she didn't think Sharon liked Agatha all that much.

("She's—" Sharon fought for her words, eyes darting around like she didn't want to be overheard, "loud, isn't she?"

Rio looked over her shoulder even when Sharon made a small noise of discomfort—like their new neighbor was going to appear like an apparition watching them. She couldn't help but agree, though, "She is."

"I didn't get her name," Sharon slapped a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes, "Or, if I did, I don't remember it. I might have to send Todd over so it doesn't look like I wasn't interested, it's just—"

"Agatha," Rio said, looking back again, couldn't see her anywhere, briefly, stupidly wondered where she was, what took up her day, "Her name is Agatha."

"Agatha, that's it!" Sharon knocked herself on the head with a smile, "You don't think she'll be a problem, do you? This is a nice neighborhood, and I'd hate to see it ruined with…"

Rio blinked at her, "Ruined with what?"

Their new neighbor was rude, and abrasive, and had made almost no attempt to hide or change this. Rio found she didn't mind this so much.

"I don't know!" Sharon threw her hands up, and then in a much lower voice, leaned in and said, "Drugs and sex parties, and things."

Rio couldn't stop the laugh from erupting, reined it in when she saw the serious look on Sharon's face, cleared her throat, "I don't think that's why she's here."

"Well," Sharon's brows went into her head, "You never know. I just don't think she's the type of person we want living here."

Rio wondered how many of her neighbors felt the same, how many of them didn't actually want Agatha there. She decided in that moment, stupid as it might have been, that she would do her best to make Agatha feel welcomed.)

Sharon's opinion on Agatha, it seems, has changed.

They never talk about her and so Rio feels she shouldn't be blamed for assuming otherwise. In fact, Agatha hadn't even been a topic of conversation past a night during one of those first few weeks where Agatha had apparently invited Sharon over to split a bottle of wine. And the only thing she knew for certain about that night was that Agatha hadn't touched the wine—Agatha had told her that herself, a hand held protectively to her belly.

Rio finds herself alone then. She does try to involve herself in conversation, turns her body towards Sarah, Abilash, and now Sarah's husband. She smiles politely until she doesn't understand the context of the conversation and then shifts, uncomfortable, back in her bean bag. She doesn't think any of them noticed.

So, Rio just keeps watching, keeps reciting what she knows about the book in her mind. She hadn't realized her eyes had glazed over, reached a non-seeing state, until Agatha plops back down in the beanbag next to hers and, with no warning, holds something up to Rio's lips. All she knows is that it's red.

Rio feels like she should be frozen solid, should look at Agatha, or even what it is she's trying to feed her. Instead, she simply opens her mouth and lets Agatha push the food into her mouth.

It sort of explodes in her mouth and Rio somewhat chokes around what she thinks is a stuffed pepper—sweet and spicy at the same time.

That's about as far as she goes with her deductions because Agatha isn't careful with it, fingers brushing against Rio's lips and lingering there for a moment. Rio moans—at the taste, at the touch after such a long time, she isn't sure.

"Yeah?" Agatha's voice is quiet, "I thought you'd like that."

Rio's body chooses one of the only responses she wouldn't have wanted. Her panicked eyes find Agatha's and she somewhat chokes around the fucking canapé.

Agatha backs away from her mouth—thank god; the terrible, terrible thought of how close Agatha was to having her fingers in her mouth was almost fully formed, about to lodge itself in there forever. Rio manages to not let it take root.

For something so big, she would have thought the whole world was watching, but it seems even here they're trapped in a sort of bubble of their own—not even gossiping Sarah turns her attention to them.

Rio swallows hard when Agatha snatches her beer back, grants her a moment's reprieve, "I wasn't helping in the kitchen without some kind of reward."

"So then why did I get one?"

Agatha smirks, lips pressed to the rim of the bottle, "I'm just in a giving sort of mood."

Rio's toes curl with the insinuation. She knows nothing will happen between them, but the flirting affects her all the same. She clears her throat, breaks the moment. Agatha allows it, she always does; it's not like there's anything for Agatha to want to cling to in these moments other than fun.

Sharon comes in then, starts putting plates of canapés on the coffee table, sends a glare Agatha's way when she immediately reaches for a prawn cocktail cup. It's enough for her hand to drop into her lap, but not nearly enough to stop her from stealing one the second Sharon turns her back to go to the kitchen again.

Since Agatha apparently already knows Rio was watching her, she doesn't feel too much hesitaion when she says, "So where's Nicky tonight?"

Something changes behind Agatha's eyes and she softens from her mischief at the mention of her son. "My usual sitter wasn't available. Hot date or something, so he's at a sleepover tonight with the twins in his class. Timmy and Tommy."

Rio sucks on her teeth, "Unfortunate names. I, um—" now is when she feels awkward asking, because it's not really any of her business who Jen is to Agatha, "I think I saw their mom when she picked him up."

"I'm sure you did," Agatha flashes her a grin, "Wanda's fine. And she has two of them so she's got double the experience on how to keep kids alive, so I trust her."

Wanda. So not Jen.

The mystery, as well as the uncomfortable feeling in Rio's gut, continues.

"Hence the beer?"

"Hence the beer. I might even have a glass of wine later."

Rio grins, "Oh, you do get crazy."

Agatha shrugs a shoulder, and there's a gleam in her eyes when she says, jokes, "I'm not like the other moms."

No, Rio thinks, but then again, Agatha isn't like anyone she's ever met.

✦

This is how Rio learns that book club isn't as serious as she'd thought. In all honesty, it seems like Sharon came up with the the whole idea to get all the neighbors together for drinks and gossip. It takes some getting used to, but she enjoys sitting back and watching various interactions.

(She'll admit only to herself that most of her time is spent watching Agatha.

She's a mystery a lot of the time, and not as knowable as Rio would like for her to be. All thought of the book is tucked away firmly to the back of her mind in favor of watching how she interacts with everyone, wondering how she knows them, how she feels about them.)

And Rio is happy just watching; she doesn't mind that her neighbors have inside jokes, or that they have things to talk about other than work. She doesn't even mind that Agatha joins in, becomes the center of attention where she glows under a spotlight every time she tells a story, half drunk and laughing—stumbling through the details on which every person in the room is hooked.

She is, after all, radiant.

Rio's brain buzzes against her skull and she looks down at the glass of wine she remembers Agatha passing to her when she'd left earlier for a top up—had come back with a drink for Rio too.

"Are you okay?" Agatha's melodic voice filters in through the backlog of noise as she plops down on the beanbag next to Rio's once more. She tucks her knees into her body like she's not offering herself up to the entire room anymore, angles herself towards Rio, "You've been quiet."

Rio shrugs, doesn't know what she means, "I'm always quiet."

Agatha goes to speak, holds herself back, quite visibly—physically bites her fucking tongue, but then eventually says, "Not when you're with me."

Rio swallows around what she knows to be true, but also what Agatha says—a just as true, separate statement. She tilts her head, acquiesces, "You're right," doesn't bother hiding it, "I just hadn't prepared for this."

Agatha nods, sits with that for a second, "What had you prepared for?"

Rio swallows, knows her face is flushed, "Well," she scrambles even though she knows, "I'd prepared to talk about the book."

A grin spreads across Agatha's face before she bites her bottom lip, looks away, "You obviously don't know Mrs Hart very well."

Rio does a bit of quick mental gymnastics—just enough to work out that Mrs Hart is supposed to be Sharon. She doesn't know where the Mrs Hart of it all came from.

Rio takes a deep breath, a sigh, she supposes, then smiles with a tilt of her head, "Are you saying I was wrong to assume book club would be a book club?"

"I'm saying you underestimate that woman's list of excuses to turn any event into a night of drinking," Agatha says, cocks her head in Sharon's direction, then sobers and squints, "Do you usually plan conversations in advance?"

Rio feels suddenly very hot, very put on the spot, "When I can."

"Do you plan our conversations?"

Rio probably couldn't plan any of her life when it comes to the parts Agatha touches, "I might if I could. You make it hard to predict where conversation is going."

Agatha, Rio has found over the years, isn't good at sitting in silence, at ruminating with a thought, acts on instinct—presents herself to the masses as a predator, yet acts like prey. But here, she allows herself the time before she jolts herself out of it, plasters on a grin shaped wrong, and says, "In a bad way?"

Rio immediately shakes her head, "I don't mind it with you."

Agatha's response to that isn't with words, but rather with two healthy gulps of red wine. She clears her throat before Rio can say anything more, speaks louder, to the rest of the room, but still keeps her eyes on Rio, "What do we think of Joe's walnuts, then?"

Rio tilts her head to look at her, the chatter around them quieting down. An answer doesn't come quick to anyone, and she wonders how many people had actually prepared for a discussion, how many people have actually read the book.

Agatha's question isn't vague though, isn't a passing, "What did everyone think of the book?"

Rio thinks maybe… and then, decides to be bold and asks, like the whole room isn't now looking over in their direction, "Did you prepare questions?"

Agatha shifts under her gaze, and shrugs, and Rio has her answer before Agatha can even explain that, "Nicky was disappointed in me not doing my homework."

And so, finally, author Meg Wolitzer is brought to justice—even if Rio ended up wanting to tear her hair out over the book at the end of her third read of the month, as the group turns their attention to the question—to Agatha. Future authors will not be faced with Rio's same mistake.

✦

Agatha is pissed the fuck off.

No matter how hard she tries; no matter how she wills it—side A and side D do not fit to-fucking-gether with the nut and bolt.

This is it—she's fallen at the first (second, third) hurdle, and now her child won't have anywhere to sleep for the rest of their life.

Agatha presses her head to the cool wall—not long painted. She's hyperventilating. She's been doing that a lot lately. The wall still smells fresh—the bright yellow paint penetrates her eyelids even when her eyes are shut tight. A reminder, she supposes, of where she is now—how intrinsically linked she is to her child now.

A child.

Agatha has a child.

She will have a child.

Both statements can be true before she has given birth.

For a moment, forehead cooling the rest of her body against the wall, she thinks about her mother finding out, furious that this is the one part of Agatha she's never been able to sink her claws in to.

Good. She will never touch them.

The rest of the house remains relatively untouched even weeks and weeks later. She doesn't exactly want to shit on the kindness of Lilia—the owner of one of the restaurants on main who has a side gig of selling crystals behind the bar—and the way she helped a complete stranger find a house just because of how pathetic said stranger was about the state of her life.

The strangest of friendships had been struck between the two of them, even though the whole reason they met was because she caught Agatha stealing from her.

(The Etsy witch gig is pretty lucrative if done right and she needed her hands on those fucking crystals, alright.)

The other rooms don't matter as long as the nursery is finished. She doesn't care about the crushed velvet wallpaper, or the gray carpet, or the high gloss kitchen cabinets, or the gray tiles of the back splash and the bathroom if it means she can cover her child's room in color without risking eviction.

But Agatha just—she hates to admit she doesn't excel at something, would usually have given up by now, but this isn't like the time she tried embroidery because 'it didn't look that difficult'. There are greater consequences with the lack of crib. She has a while yet before it's a major issue, but still, a midwife is supposed to be coming to check if everything is safe for the baby.

She fucking swears this never used to be a thing, because if it was, she might have been taken from her own mother before she'd even gained conscious thought. It's a nice fantasy.

It's been playing in the back of Agatha's mind for a while now—butches know how to build things, right?

It's maybe ridiculous to admit, but the only reason she hasn't asked them yet is because she's maybe, kind of been flirting with Rio.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Agatha will be the first to admit she'll flirt with the first dyke to so much as move, but it's different when it's a neighbor. And she doesn't even like Rio—they're annoying and the petty flower thing was plain irritating. It didn't help that she was made to think about them every time she saw them.

(She could have thrown them away, but she's learning not to be wasteful.)

It doesn't mean she doesn't still find them attractive.

This might be the first time Agatha has been flirting with someone she's not trying to fuck.

She doesn't even realize she's losing motor function just thinking about Rio maybe liking her in that way, until she bites her tongue much too hard, the tip of it going numb.

Maybe Rio would bite her tongue.

No. No, no, no.

In the before, Agatha wouldn't have even hesitated, but she's not the same person she was before. A one night stand with a hot, pregnant woman is different to just—a hot woman.

Agatha rakes sharp nails down her neck, brings herself back to reality. It's time to crush her daydreams. She's a big girl, she can do it.

So, she sucks it up and makes the short trip to Rio's house. She knows they're in—it's not hard to get used to someone's work schedule when you're actively trying to learn your neighborhood, Agatha has learned.

"Hi," She says, plasters on a smile much too sweet when Rio opens the door. They look confused.

"Hi?" They sound confused, too.

"You look like you're good with your hands," She says, because there's obviously something wrong with her, but her eyes drift down to them anyway. Rio does have nice hands. She'd like them inside her. Agatha clears her throat to get rid of that thought, "I thought you'd be the right person to ask to help me."

Rio, even through their confusion, sort of preens at that, "What do you need help with?"

This is when Agatha hesitates, doesn't know what it is about telling Rio. It isn't a bad thing, and she refuses to be shamed for being a single parent, likes that she'll be a single parent.

"A DIY thing," She says, instead, "Maybe it's easier if I show you."

Rio doesn't need too much more convincing than that, though they do jolt into action—Agatha likes how much willing they are to help—and goes inside just to quickly grab their toolbox. The crib didn't come with anything but an allen wrench, but it's nice that Rio is thinking ahead.

Agatha feels an unfamiliar flush of embarrassment when she leads Rio through her house. She hopes it's obvious that it's not to her taste, but at the same time, the way she hasn't even tried to make the space in any way hers has her skin running hot at someone else seeing it.

Rio doesn't say anything about how bare her house is—no artwork on the walls, the books she owns still in boxes. They don't even say anything when they climb the steps and enter the nursery, just take in the space around them like all of the pieces are falling into place.

They carefully put their tool box down, near the wall so that it's not in the way, but just far enough from the paint that they can't damage it. Eventually, "Did you use frog tape?" Agatha clears her throat, looks to where Rio is tracing a finger around the edge of a socket.

Agatha feels her face heat up, doesn't know what she's done wrong, doesn't know why she wants Rio to think she's done good, "No."

Rio looks over their shoulder, their eyebrows raised. They tilt their head like they're seeing her different, somehow, "You did that free hand?"

"I have a steady hand."

Rio smiles, "Honestly, I just thought you'd lack the patience for free hand painting."

"Hey," Agatha scowls, "I'm a very patient person."

The words stick to her mouth when she says them like the letters don't want to be part of her lies.

Rio's smile only grows bigger, and Agatha can barely remember the blank faced expression they'd given her in their first few conversations. They kneel on the floor, immediately flip through the instruction booklet Agatha had just about managed to keep in one piece.

Maybe it's because she isn't used to ease, or not having people question her decisions, but something verging on an argument bursts out of her, "Why haven't you said anything?"

Rio is either being difficult on purpose, or it hasn't even crossed their mind. Maybe this changes nothing for them. The flirting, Agatha knows, would have taken them nowhere, but Rio didn't know that. She doesn't like that it didn't even register on that level enough to Rio to even matter.

She thought, hard as they are to read, that Rio might find her attractive—had hoped, in some sort of sick way, that finding out she's pregnant would be a disappointment to them.

Whatever.

Rio stops though, and does something ridiculously attractive that has even Agatha feeling some amount of shame for how much she enjoys it, in spinning the screwdriver in their fingers. It might be a habit to help them think, but all Agatha can say for certain is that it's a move that has her wetting her lips and swallowing harshly.

"What would I say?"

It's a frustrating question for a number of reasons. Is the question positive or negative? Is Rio annoyed at her for bringing it up? Fuck them if that's the case. Agatha huffs, can feel herself getting worked up about it.

"Do you want me to say something?" Rio says before she can say anything. Again, the question is difficult. "I would never, like, judge you for being a single mother, if you were worried about that. I'm sorry if I made you think I would."

Rio looks genuinely ashamed, twists a hand in the bottom of their shirt and doesn't even look at Agatha.

And that's—well, that's not what Agatha had meant at all.

God, then it just gets worse, "Not that I think you look single!" Rio almost shouts at her, "I just haven't seen anyone else coming and going. Maybe you're not single at a—"

"I'm single," Agatha cuts them off, can't bear their spiraling over this. She wants them to know, "I'm very much single."

Ridiculously, that's about all Agatha can manage. The twists and turns this conversation has taken is giving her a headache and finds herself not wanting to bring up anything that may or may not be simmering between them. Agatha doesn't think she's making it up.

Agatha, being the on-the-spot thinker that she is, the genius that she is, changes course.

"You're sweet," She says first, just to see them blush, and then clears her throat, "But no, I'm just kinda concerned you might think millennial gray is my thing, or that I'll be one of those mothers who doesn't let their kid know colors exist."

"Is that a thing?"

"Yeah, like those moms who are very aesthetically driven and just couldn't possibly own baby toys that don't match their color scheme," Honestly, Agatha hadn't even realized she was so passionate about this but here she is, "I don't want my kid to know the same color spectrum as a dog."

"That's a misconception, actually. Dogs don't see in black and white." Rio shifts when the fact hangs between them in the air, and then turns their attention back to the crib.

Agatha feels the need to defend herself over the abundance of gray anyway, "I'm not sure I'll be here long. The whole suburban mom thing isn't for me, but I thought I'd try. For—" Her breath catches and her hand touches her stomach, bump barely there, only really visible when she's naked and examining herself in the mirror. It's the first time she's spoken to anyone that isn't a doctor about it. Even with the crib being built in front of her, even with the panic-bought diapers stuffed in her closet, this is the first time it feels real.

She doesn't notice Rio moving until they've fully entered her space. She resists the urge to flinch at the closeness, but Rio doesn't touch, just hovers their hands near her like they might if she leaned into them. She doesn't. Doesn't know how to receive affection in a touch that isn't based in sex.

"It's very impressive that you're doing this all on your own," They say even though Agatha hadn't encouraged their touch. Maybe Rio genuinely has no ulterior motives to say these things to her. Maybe that's worse. Maybe they actually mean the things they say to her. "Just in case no one's told you yet."

Agatha swallows, says, "I know," like she hasn't been tearing herself open over this for months now, her deepest, darkest fears that she's made a terrible mistake keeping this child, trying to raise this child when she's only just now learning about how to keep a baby alive, never mind about healthy parenting techniques. Instead of admitting to any of that, Agatha just adds, "I excel at everything I do."

Rio doesn't look unimpressed, or disbelieving, they just nod like this makes sense to them and say, "If your kid has even half the self belief you do they'll be acing presentations," Then their lip twitches just before Agatha can get overly emotional about the thought of the plum sized fetus inside of her talking in school, and Rio says, "My kid would have no hope. I vomited all over the front row of my history class once." Even now—though it's a memory from long ago, Rio blushes. Agatha struggles not to find it endearing. "I did get out of all my presentations for the year though."

Agatha snorts her laugh—it's an unfortunate quality of hers, "Your nerves and too honest face paired with my bullshitting ability would create a terror child."

She laughs until she realizes just what she said, had implied that she would have a child with Rio, and then sobers drastically.

"I—" Agatha coughs, and she can see Rio's wide eyes looking everywhere but her face, "Do you need a drink? I need a drink. You must be thirsty." God, she'd kill to have a proper drink right about now.

It must take Agatha longer than she realizes to compose herself, forehead pressed against the cool faux marble counter in her kitchen when she manages to make her escape, because when she comes back up, hands empty of any drinks at all, the crib is finished, pressed against the wall, drag marks throughout the carpet like Rio had tried to work out the best place for it.

Agatha's throat tightens when Rio passes the rabbit plush that had been sat on the floor next to the flat pack box. She runs a gentle thumb between its ears and then down its back, smooths its fur before she puts it down slow in the crib.

"I, uh—" The words don't come natural, "You didn't have to—"

Rio makes some sort of noise—annoyed, maybe—and waves her off entirely, "You don't have to say anything. Of course I'd help."

Rio does seem that way inclined; seems the type to like helping out a neighbor with no other incentive other than to be kind.

With nothing else to do, Rio starts packing up their tools. Agatha leans against the wall and watches for a moment until her mouth opens without her meaning for it to, "Are you the helpful neighbor, then?"

Rio doesn't do much more than a questioning hum.

"I'm trying to slot everyone into their small town stereotypes. You're the neighborhood handyman, right? I can see it," She imagines she's far from the first person to ask for their help. She sucks on her teeth, an idea forming, "Oh, is that what you do for work?"

Rio picks up their tool box and smiles at Agatha when they finally look at her again. It's a strange sort of smile; they look amused as if Agatha has told a joke. "Oh no, you don't know me at all."

They brush past Agatha and head to the stairs. She trails after them, "Okay, so which parts am I wrong about?"

She doesn't know what it is that makes her want to know. If reviews could be left about her dating life, the majority of them would say, 'she's the hottest woman I've ever met, gives great head, but she doesn't want to talk about anything but herself'. And it's true. Agatha doesn't really care enough to ask questions and she doesn't care that she doesn't care.

She just—doesn't like being wrong about things, and if there's something to know, she wants to know.

Rio is annoying though, and when they reach her front door they just look over their shoulder like they have the upper hand—and maybe they do, and say, "Bye, Agatha."

Agatha absolutely refuses to tear her hair out over this.

✦

The next day when she leaves to buy an overpriced decaf cappuccino from Jen, who owns the disgustingly named Kale Koffee, because she likes that she hands it to her with an exaggerated wink and the words, 'definitely fully caffeinated cappuccino for Agatha!' she is stopped in her tracks before she even leaves her driveway.

There, in a jug, is another insanely gorgeous bouquet.

She refrains from kicking over the jug, inexplicable anger coursing through her veins, and plucks the note from the flowers.

'Some color,' it reads, 'even if you're not staying'.

✦

On Tuesday evening, the doorbell rings at an Agatha appropriate time.

Rio hasn't seen her since book club and she's already knee deep into reading People We Meet on Vacation for the second one.

She's decided to be more normal about this one.

Rio has, instead, rehearsed saying some fun facts in front of the mirror about topics she enjoys, rather than things about the book.

(Rather than just things about the book.)

She'd be lying if she said her fingers didn't tingle at the thought of seeing Agatha, though Rio doesn't want to put any thought into why that might be. She puts the bookmark back in and leaves it on the coffee table, slides the reading glasses she's been having to wear more and more lately, from her nose and rests them on top of her book.

The gleam in Agatha's eyes isn't what greets her when she opens the door though. Rio has seen Agatha cry before, the way she bites the inside of her cheek like she wants to hold them back on instinct before inevitably letting them go like crying is the stronger choice.

That's what Rio sees on Nicky's face now.

"Hey," She steps down, eyes darting around for Agatha, heart pounding when she doesn't see her, before refocusing on Nicky, "What's wrong? Where's your mom?" She hovers her hands over his shoulders and that's when he breaks, falls head first into her stomach and wets her shirt with his sobs.

Rio cradles his head, strokes his hair on instinct, "It's okay," she repeats even though she doesn't know if it is.

"M-mom's in work," He manages to get out through his tears, "I didn't know where else to go."

"Okay," Rio murmurs, guides him to sit on the step with her, "Are you home alone?" She hasn't known Agatha not to have a sitter, but she can't think why else he's here.

Nicky shakes his head about twenty times, "Nonna's looking after me."

Every part of the past three minutes has been more confusing than the last.

Before she can ask for any clarification on Nonna, Nicky holds up Señor Scratchy, the bunny teddy he's had since he was a baby, his arm hanging loose—held together with just a few threads.

At least a few of the pieces click into place.

Nicky's eyes well with tears again but Rio can see him look to the sky, bite his cheek—exactly like his mom, before he thrusts Scratchy into her chest like it's easier if he isn't holding him.

"Mom said if I need anything I can ask you and you'll always help," Rio's heart pounds in her chest. He's right, of course, she would do anything for him; that's always been the case, "Mom says you can fix anything."

Rio nods, takes a good look at the rabbit, then grins at Nicky, "It's a good job you could save the arm. Other rabbits aren't so fortunate."

Nicky takes this very seriously, "I held him so gently when I was bringing him. But you know that's a leg, right?"

Rio knows she's blushing. He is Agatha's kid, of course he's this pedantic, "Just testing you," His mouth pulls wide but he still looks like he doesn't believe her. Anyway, "I think we should ask Nonna if we can use your mom's sewing kit."

She doesn't need Agatha stressing out about a call from Nonna if she finds out Nicky is gone.

Nicky's face twists when he looks up at her, "What's a sewing kit?"

Rio can't hold back her laugh. Sometimes she thinks Agatha might be making things up just to see where Rio might draw the line, but the time she asked Rio to sew a button back onto her shirt apparently wasn't one of them. "I'll get my sewing kit, and then we can perform surgery in your house, okay?"

Rio rings Agatha's doorbell—a rarer sound for her—to be polite about the whole thing, but Nicky just scrunches his face and turns the handle, "What are you doing?"

An older woman, and not Agatha's mother, if the memorial card she remembers Agatha spitting on serves her memory correct, traipses down the stairs. She has one of Agatha's silk gowns wrapped around her, Agatha's slippers on her feet, and she nearly stumbles down the rest of the stairs when she realizes the door is open already.

She watches the woman feel along the wall like she wants to be reaching for a baseball bat before realizing this isn't her house.

"Um, hel—"

"Nonna, this is Rio," Nicky cuts her off, and Rio gets to watch as the other woman's expression goes from furious concern to intrigue.

Rio feels very much like she's being appraised as the other woman steps forward, eyes unblinking.

"I—" Rio somewhat squeaks, clears her throat and tries again, "I live next door."

"I know," The other woman drawls like this is obvious.

"Rio is mama's friend," Well, she doesn't know about that exactly, but she can't tell the kid that, "She's gonna perform surgery on Señor Scratch."

"Have you done many operations in your time, Rio Vidal?"

Okay, yeah, they're clearly operating on different playing fields.

Rio isn't sure this is someone she even wants to have on her side. If this isn't Agatha's mother, but it is Nicky's nonna, doesn't that stand to reason that it's his other parent's mom?

Agatha has never even alluded to Nicky's other parent. The one time Rio got over curious and asked, she had said, "Does it really matter? Our family is just two people, and I want it that way."

"This is my first rabbit, but I've done lots of other things for Agatha." Rio stands her ground.

She gets looked up and down in a way that looks weirdly more approving than judgmental, "I can only imagine." Then she sighs like she's annoyed with someone—Rio, herself, Agatha, she's not sure, and says, "That girl is ridiculous. She's never even mentioned me, has she?"

"I—no." Rio doesn't see the merit in a lie.

The woman rolls her eyes, then cocks her head for Rio to follow to the kitchen, "I'm Nicky's godmother. And I'm Agatha's—" She pauses, tries to find a word, "Well, I'm Agatha's Lilia."

Lilia.

"Lilia," She repeats, some amount of relief.

Nicky doesn't give either of them time to think on it further, "Can you fix him now?"

"Yes," Rio nods, shakes herself out of it. She likes knowing Agatha has people, no matter how much she claims to be alone in most aspects of the word, "Yes, of course."

She sets Señor Scratchy down on the counter, very serious, "It's good that you were able to stop the bleed," Nicky looks confused until she gestures to where Scratchy's stuffing looks like it's been haphazardly pushed back inside, "He hasn't lost too much stuffing."

Rio unpacks her sewing kit—a cookie tin she took from her mami's house the last time she visited before she left for good because she liked that more than she had ever liked Rio, and strings thread through the eye of the needle. Nicky leans in close to watch exactly what she's doing.

"This doesn't look so hard."

"It isn't," Rio says, though she's had ample practice. She doesn't ever want to put a boy off learning how to sew. "If you stay calm and if you're patient, it's pretty easy."

"I've never seen Mom do this."

Calm and patient isn't exactly her forte, is what Rio doesn't say, because even if that's true, Rio knows there are things Agatha is good at that she herself isn't, knows the dragons painted on Nicky's bedroom wall that she saw when she was bribed round to build his loft bed didn't come from nowhere, but also, "How boring would it be if we were all good at the same things?"

"Like how Mom knows the meanings of all the big words but I have to look them up in the dictionary?"

There's something about the way Agatha has a dictionary for him to use instead of a tablet for him to look up the words that makes Rio smile. She likes knowing what Agatha is like for other people and Rio is greedy, takes this Agatha fact with speed so she can hide it away, gentle in her hands. "Yeah, exactly," She says, feels better about the fact Lilia has sat down away from them, though Rio isn't one bit convinced she's actually doing anything but watching them.

She focuses on her stitching, listens to Nicky talking about school, finds out his favorite subject is science now, where it used to be history. His favorite changes every time she asks.

"Did you go over to Mrs Hart's house?" He asks, eventually, just when Rio thinks he might have ran out of breath telling her about the rainstorm in a glass experiment in school.

"Mrs Hart?"

"Yeah," Nicky says, voice a little squeaky, "She lives across the street."

It takes a second for it to click for Rio where she's heard that before, "Oh, Mrs Hart. Yeah, me and your mom went to her book club."

Rio had thought Agatha was being purposefully ignorant about the name thing, but the thought that maybe she can't ever remember Sharon because her son calls her by a different name is unexpectedly sweet.

"Did you have fun?"

"More fun than I was expecting," Rio says, and it's the truth, "It's a little out of my comfort zone, but I had a good time."

"Mom had fun too."

"She did?"

"Uh-huh," Nicky says, hopping on the spot, eyes on Scratchy getting his final stitches, "She always has fun with you."

Rio's question of, "Did she say that?" falls embarrassingly on one set of deaf ears as Nicky gets a fully recovered Señor Scratchy back. Clearly not Lilia's though, as she feels the skin on the back of her neck buzz from being watched even when Nicky runs over to show her where the leg has been fixed.

"Thank you, Rio," The words startle her coming from Lilia and she fidgets with the needle, accidentally stabs herself in the thumb with it before putting it away in its box.

"No biggie," She mumbles around the coppery thumb in her mouth, even though she's never said that before in her life.

"Thank you so, so, so, so, so much, Rio," Nicky bounces over to her, "Scratchy says thank you too." And then, before Rio can say anything, "Hey, you know if you say book club pretty fast it sounds like butt club?"

After she's packed up and making the fourteen steps back to her own house, not keen to overstay her welcome, she mouths it to herself and laughs. He's not wrong.

✦

It's on Monday that Rio finds out there's been some talk that hadn't involved her about the host house for book club entering rotation.

On Wednesday, she finds out Sarah has put herself forward for the next one.

On Thursday, she offers to host the third one when Sharon comes into the shop and spends a good hour talking to her about life.

Friday morning comes with the regret of Thursday's social interaction high. She always does this—thinks something sounds good in the moment when she has someone to bounce off of, and then spends the next day with a migraine and flashbacks that make her come off so much worse in her head.

And Friday night has her regretting not bringing her notebook with her to Sarah's house so she doesn't fall short as a host.

"But there's nothing wrong with your house," Agatha says through a mouthful of chorizo, gets sidetracked when her face scrunches up, "Fuck, that's spicier than I was expecting."

Rio swipes a piece from her secret stash in her cupped hand. Once again, the food hasn't technically been put out yet, and Rio thinks Agatha sneaking food might become a regular occurrence. Rio wouldn't say things like this come naturally; she has always strived to stay inside the lines, especially since she realized she was some form of queer as a teenager, and allowed that to be her only misstep. She thinks she could get used to being Agatha's partner in crime though.

"Agatha," Rio's laugh comes out of her nose. They must look like children, the way they're hiding away in the corner of the kitchen, "It's not even hot."

Agatha stuffs another piece in her mouth, "Okay, maybe it just caught me off guard," she says, even though she coughs a second later.

Rio laughs louder than she's expecting and Agatha leans in to her space, shushes her even when she has no intention of stopping her own giggles.

"Guys," Sarah's putting on her mom voice just for them, but even that can't sober Rio up. She's always felt a particular sense of whimsy when she's with Agatha. "If you're gonna stand here, you can help me carry things through." Sarah nods to the now partially uncovered trays of food.

"That sounds really fun," Agatha says with a wince, backs away from the kitchen like she's getting away from a rattle snake, and then, with a pout she continues, "Such a shame I heard Isabel start talking about the book. This one is my favorite so far."

She is infuriating. A smile tugs at Rio's lips.

"This is the second book." Sarah's exasperation is palpable, but Agatha is already gone.

Rio clears her throat, grabs a tray in each hand, "The chorizo is really good."

Parts of Agatha seem to linger even when she leaves because Sarah's glare only makes her feel more alive.

✦

Rio would never have chosen to read this month's book. She supposes that's a good thing in many ways. She's never been into romance books, has never found them relatable. Granted, she hasn't read one since she was fifteen, but being that pathetic for someone seemed infuriating.

People We Meet on Vacation had Rio yearning. It's not even that she loved the book, but more that it slotted somewhere deep inside the chasm of her chest at some point and she couldn't dislodge it.

"Okay, did anyone else put the book down and pace when Alex said he got a vasectomy?" Isabel says. There has been more talking about the book this time—confusing for Rio until she realized the backbone of this book club was probably going to be the women who ache for romance.

Sarah groans, head tipping over the back of the couch for a second, points at Isabel to keep the attention there. She's a little more drunk than Rio has ever seen her, but then Rio could probably count on one hand any times she's hung out with Sarah past her first year of them being neighbors.

When Rio first moved in, surrounded with couples without children and older people—just as the real estate agent had said, she had seen them around, made tentative plans with her neighbors. But most of them—Sarah and Harold the Bore included—had children soon after, and Rio didn't fit in with their plans anymore.

"Oh god, I had talk, after talk, after talk with my husband to get him to understand why I wanted him to get a vasectomy," Sarah says, "If I had to spend one more year on the pill I was gonna kill him. Alex getting one by himself?"

The few men who decided to stay after last months feminist novel, and this months rom-com politely nod. Harold the Bore, as Agatha has taken to calling him, does not grace them with his presence.

Agatha scoffs from her chair in the corner. It's one of Sarah's dining chairs, but that doesn't stop Agatha from getting comfortable on it. Shoes off and strewn in different directions, one leg folded underneath her and the other brought up against her head so that she can rest her chin on her knee. "Bare minimum," She says, waves off the rest of the room, "Honestly, I think more men should get vasectomies. Vasectomy until proven safe to wield."

She snorts at her own joke, and Rio can't help but laugh too. Even when they first met and there was something so infuriating about Agatha that it boiled her blood, sunk into every crevice and lit her up from the inside, she still found her amusing. Agatha meets her eyes, and it feels almost like a challenge. Rio does her best keeping her gaze locked on her from the other side of the room, even through blushing cheeks, until Agatha takes pity on her. Briefly.

"What did you think about the sex scene, Rio?" Agatha's eyes are back on hers after a second's reprieve, "I was expecting something with a little more oomph. But it was sweet."

Rio swallows hard, doesn't know what Agatha wants from her here.

Agatha carries on, "I guess I'm just used to reading things that are a little more," her eyes dart around the room, "passionate."

Rio clears her throat, "Sure. Yeah." She downs the rest of her drink just for something to do. Two things to do. She stands as naturally as she can from the couch, stretches like she's just been sitting there for too long—she's forty now, she can play that card, surely. "I need another drink. Anyone want anything?"

A few people put in their orders, but she's either lost brain cells since she waited tables back in college, or she's distracted. Even with only three real choices—cheap rosé, beer, or sprite, her mind seems to be whirring, stuck on the way Agatha seems to want her riled up.

"I'll help," Says Known-For-Being-Helpful Agatha. The one person she needs a teenie tiny break from is the only one who seems to notice her buffering.

They shuffle around the kitchen in tense silence. Rio can feel Agatha's eyes on her the entire time.

"So?"

Rio takes a gulp from one of the beers she's just cracked open. "So, what?"

"What did you think of the scene?"

"The uh—" Rio coughs, "The intimate scene?"

"The in—" Agatha's sigh cuts her off and her laugh enters Rio's space. She's close when Rio turns around. Her breath hitches and she stupidly lets out her own laugh—nervous and drunk off Agatha's.

Agatha looks her in the eye as she takes the bottle from Rio's hand, brings it to her lips, and Rio's knees don't weaken when Agatha's tongue darts out to lick a stray droplet from the neck of the bottle, drags it up to the rim before she even takes a first sip. All while maintaining eye contact.

It's something close to torture.

Only after that whole performance does Agatha carry on, "Can you not even say the word sex, Rio?"

"I can—" Rio's ears feel hot, and she snatches the beer back, eyes finding the doorway, but there's no one there but them, "I can say sex."

"Oh, can you?" Agatha presses in close until they're almost touching. Rio's not—she's not great with touch; she doesn't receive it often in any capacity. "Because to me, it sounded like you're nervous in the way someone who's never been touched is." Agatha's lips curl into a grin like she's already excited for her next words, and she gasps, over exaggerated, "Are you a virgin, Rio?"

Rio huffs, already knew where that was going, "I know it can't have been that unmemorable."

There's some sort of static in the air when the words get out and sit between them for a moment. Rio can't work out Agatha's expression—not quite. She doesn't look upset, though, or annoyed. She just—her eyes flit down Rio's face to what might be her lips, she's not sure.

Emboldened by the way Agatha edges closer however, fingers brushing gently against her own, Rio lets her eyes drop down too. Agatha's lips are glossy, and there's a little indent on the left side of her bottom lip where she has a habit of drawing it between her teeth.

Rio finds herself wanting to kiss that spot exactly. Wants to run her tongue over the indent to check if it's still the same as it felt seven years ago. If it's the same way it feels in her head or if time has warped the memory.

She shouldn't be thinking about this.

Rio inhales sharp, pulls away just as Sharon's voice filters through.

"—get my own drink. I'm parched."

Neither of them have time to get as far away as they would probably like. Rio's heart feels like it might pound out of her chest; she's never wanted to do anything, to be anything to Agatha that might disrupt her life with Nicky here.

"Aw," Sharon stops in the doorway. Agatha is the better one out of the pair of them at acting like nothing happened, walks over to the other side of the kitchen for the freshly filled wine glasses, "I never knew you guys were such good friends. It really warms the ol' heart."

Agatha shrugs, passes a glass to Sharon, casual, "We've been neighbors for a while."

Sharon downs her drink, goes over to the counter and fills it, sends over the top winks to both of them and then leaves again.

Rio can hear her own heartbeat, thinks, if she listens close maybe she'd be able to hear Agatha's too.

Maybe Agatha has the same thought because she clears her throat and grabs a couple of glasses; thumping pulses drowned out by the clinking.

She does, however, choose to take the longer route around the kitchen island to leave, has to bypass Rio on her way. Agatha slows, leans in, and it's now that Rio learns she's completely attuned to the other woman, because she wouldn't have heard her otherwise, voice low and gravelly.

"I couldn't forget it if I tried."

And then she's gone before Rio can even think to respond.

✦

Sometimes, when Rio feels like she gets close to Agatha again, it shifts something for her neighbor and she pulls away. Rio hasn't brought up what happened between them in years. She's fairly sure—she knows—Nicky was still a baby the last time. But she didn't need to bring it up in words to know how Agatha felt; the sudden silence after they maybe stood a little too close together outside their homes, going through phases of Agatha not asking Rio for help anymore.

Rio couldn't bear to think what would have happened to their tentative friendship-adjacent thing if she'd reminded Agatha in words that, in admittedly what now feels like a past life, they'd had sex.

I couldn't forget it if I tried.

Rio shivers as she relives the memory of the words, and now she can't forget it. It had been easy to push the memory back any time it resurfaced, gasping for Rio to let it breathe. Less so now that Agatha has dragged it up herself.

And it's not just that; Agatha didn't retreat into herself this time.

Actually, it kind of fucks with Rio's routine. In just the following two weeks, she feels like she's held conversation longer with Agatha than she had the whole of last year.

"You always seem so shocked to see me these days," Agatha says, leans over the counter to see the bouquet Rio is putting together. Because that's what Agatha does now, visits her in work. "It's like you've seen a ghost."

"Well, I don't—" Rio tries to focus solely on her arrangement, "I don't usually see you this much."

Agatha rests a head in her hand, almost comically bats her eyelashes at Rio when she looks up, "Maybe I just miss you giving me flowers," Rio hadn't thought about that. The flowers were never casual for Rio though, always felt intimate even before she really understood why. Before she can say anything, can even finish thinking that maybe Agatha wants her to start that up again, she laughs and shakes her head, "Or maybe I'm just trying to find out if you're banging any of the other moms. Is that your move?" She says, all blasé like she knows she's not the only one.

Rio moves past that, wants to make sure, "I can give you flowers. If you want, that is."

Agatha laughs, but Rio knows by now it's not her usual one, "No, no. Flowers are a little bit romantic for what that is. Or was."

Rio doesn't know what that means.

"I'm not," Rio quiets her voice, even though she knows they're alone in the shop right now, "banging any moms. Or anyone. Just, by the way."

"I'm sure there are women who would like it if you banged them."

"Could you stop with the—" Rio doesn't want to give her the satisfaction of saying banging. She clears her throat, "I don't want to be with any of those women. My life is fine as it is, I don't need anything changing. I know who I am and what I like."

Agatha sort of looks like she doesn't believe her, like she might want to say something like, do you? She doesn't though, not with her lips tucked into her mouth, though inevitably she can't hold words back forever. "Does never changing anything just for the sake of being fine not sound like a waste to you?"

"It means that I'm fine."

Agatha sighs, "Do you not worry you'll become stagnant?"

"I'm not a body of water."

Agatha smiles, likes when Rio makes a sort of joke, "I just think if you assume you're the same person you were ten years ago, there's some things you might miss out on."

There's something in the back of Rio's mind that flickers to an almost life—parts of her that she's been content not to question because it just wasn't worth it. Maybe she's got nothing left to lose. She quickly snuffs the thought.

Agatha must see she's not ready to have whatever this conversation is. She slides round the counter, plucks a purple lisianthus from the table that Rio is working with, twirls it between her fingers like she just wants to test what she can take from Rio. There isn't a lot Rio wouldn't give her.

"When was the last time you did something that wasn't planned?"

"I changed an outlet cover for you last week. You sprang that on me," She reminds Agatha with a glare, "I'm going to book club. That's new."

"Something you decided."

"I could have said no."

Agatha returns her glare with something heavier before reaching across for a rose, pokes Rio in the arm with one of its thorns before she can even realize what's happening.

They both stare as a tiny pinprick of blood comes to the surface.

"I—" Rio's voice is probably lower than it should be. "I think the last time was a while ago."

She thinks the only thing she's done in a long time that she didn't think through first was years back when she was first getting to know Agatha. She could never have predicted her.

Agatha studies her, eyes running all over her face like she just can't work out what Rio means, or what Rio wants from her.

The store phone rings before she gets chance to find out which it is.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"No. I've gotta get back to work anyway," Agatha smirks, "You know how it is."

"Yes, they're really clamping down on the time you spend away from your desk as the uh, head fortune cookie writer."

Agatha barks out a laugh that has Rio's chest warming with pride as she walks away, still holding on to her lisianthus. Rio doesn't even feel bad for whoever ends up with this bouquet.

✦

Like a lot of the things Agatha says or does, that conversation sticks in Rio's head. Maybe she's not ready for any big changes, but she can surely start with something small—a slight change of routine on a work morning.

Technically, there's no reason for Rio to work as often as she does now that she has Alice; it's only really when they have big orders for businesses in town, or even sometimes in the city now that Blooming Buds has been raking in positive reviews for years.

But even though Alice must know this too, she still calls Rio seconds after she texts, 'I'll be in late today. Going for a coffee'.

"Have you been hacked?"

"I'm just going for coffee."

"You don't go for coffee. You bring a thermos into work every day because paying for someone else to make your coffee feels like a waste of money," Alice pauses, "And it probably is when you take it black."

Rio blushes though she knows she's not doing anything wrong, "I just thought I'd have a slow morning. Read my book."

Alice chuckles down the line and Rio doesn't think she likes it, "Your milf neighbor doesn't happen to go to book club, does she?"

"No," Rio says, though, fuck, that sounds more suspicious. Maybe Alice can read her mind. Going to a coffee shop has nothing to do with Agatha.

"So you agree she's a milf? Did she ask you to go for coffee? Are you going on a coffee da—"

"Bye, Alice."

Rio hangs up. She's sweating—from the interrogation or the thought of going on a date with Agatha, she doesn't know.

She's not delusional enough to think that might be what Agatha wants, though, no matter how much they've been flirting lately.

Kale Koffee isn't far from her shop. She parks in her usual spot and just walks the rest of the way there. Rio isn't taking leaps and bounds enough today to find a different parking spot.

It looks like they're just clearing up from the early morning rush, which is perfect for Rio, who didn't want to deal with a big crowd of people.

There's a woman taking a tray of empty mugs who sends a bright smile with a 'hi' over her shoulder before she disappears into the back. The door swings back and forth enough for Rio to make out her saying, "Oh my god, I'm gonna delete that Tetris shit off your phone. You've got a customer."

"And when Nicky comes crying to you that he can't play his favorite game, then what, Jenny?"

Nicky.

And that—that was most definitely Agatha's voice.

Rio gets about ten seconds where Agatha reluctanly walks out front still on her phone, too Tetris engrossed, apparently, to take in the sight of her neighbor.

She's wearing what is definitely an inappropriately low buttoned henley, judging by the way Rio doesn't need all ten seconds to know she can see the lace of Agatha's bra, and flared jeans. She grabs her apron from where she'd thrown it onto one of the tables and pulls it on before she even notices Rio.

Agatha stops, stares at her for a moment, before walking over to her and poking her in the cheek.

"Huh."

"Um. Hello to you too."

Agatha pokes her again, this time in the shoulder, "I kinda thought maybe you spawned in only a few set locations. What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking your advice. Doing something new," Rio's eyes dart around. The coffee shop is a little on the minimalist, clean side, "You work here?"

"Five years and counting," Agatha smiles, their game of which outlandish job can Agatha pretend to have comes to an end.

"We work on the same street and I never knew."

Agatha shrugs, heads behind the counter, "You don't like change."

She's right, Rio taps her fingers on the counter, "Some change isn't bad."

The laugh Agatha lets out is strange, sort of disbelieving, and then she shakes herself out of it, "What are you having?"

"Oh, jus—"

The door swings open, and the woman from before sticks her head out, gives Agatha a disapproving stare, "Agatha…"

"I'm not saying it."

"I'm paying you to say it."

Agatha tilts her head back like maybe her will to live is somewhere in the white painted ceiling. If Rio could see her whole body, she'd swear she just stamped her foot too. She looks back at Rio with a smile so fake it's disturbing, her voice so high pitched it doesn't even sound like her, "Hi, welcome to Kale Koffee, what can I get started for you this morning?"

Rio just blinks as Agatha violently shakes herself out of whatever the hell that was.

"That's perfect."

"It's nauseating," Agatha braces her hands on the counter and leans her head down like she might be sick, "It's bad enough without having to say the name, Jen. It's like the Kardashian of coffee shops. It's narcissistic."

"Coming from you."

The squabble in front of Rio continues, but all she can focus on is that this is Jen. And maybe, more important—though she recognizes the stupidity of the thought—this doesn't seem like a romantic relationship.

"Come on," Agatha says, breaks Rio out of her self contained discovery center, "What are you having. No, let me guess," She holds a hand up, "It's something really pretentious with oat milk, right?"

Rio thinks the grimace on her face might say sorry to disappoint, "It's just a black coffee."

Jen leaves them—maybe only half convinced Agatha is going to do her job. Agatha groans, clicks like it should have been obvious. Rio has always enjoyed how much she uses her body when she talks, like she's in whatever she's saying. Strangely, Rio always finds herself mimicking this when she's around her—is usually quite a sedentary person, but with Agatha she becomes a hand speaker. "That's possibly more pretentious. You know that, right?"

"Should I just go flat out and order a double espresso?"

"That really has me on the fence," Agatha pushes her tongue against her cheek as she looks Rio up and down, "Those people are my favorite customers, but you guys are such fucking freaks. It disgusts me. You disgust me, Rio."

Rio takes all of this in her stride. She doesn't mind a little bullying from Agatha. "You have other favorite customers? I'm hurt." She doesn't know where the new found confidence comes from. Maybe simply stepping out of her comfort zone is the driving force.

"You've been here two minutes and you want to be my favorite?" Agatha raises an eyebrow. She looks unimpressed, almost condescending. Rio feels a little like she's being told off. Even more worrying is that she thinks she's maybe into it. Agatha doesn't have any idea about Rio's startling realization, "I require consistency. You need to be in here regularly for me to even consider you as my favorite."

"Does being your favorite come with any benefits?"

Agatha shrugs like this is a stupid question, "Honestly, it just guarantees I probably won't spit in your coffee if I'm having a bad day."

Jen pokes her head around the corner, "Agatha, you're always having a bad day."

"No," Agatha draws it out like a petulant child, "That's just what I tell you sometimes when I want to keep you off my back."

"Right, right," Jen nods with a smirk because letting Agatha run her mouth is clearly the fastest way to catch her, "You know I'm never gonna believe you now, yeah?"

"I said sometimes. What if I'm really having a bad day?"

"Then I'll ask when you last saw that hot neighbor of yours. They always put you in a g—"

Agatha spritzes Jen a few times with the spray bottle on the counter.

There seems to be some kind of silent conversation happening between the two of them once Jen gets over the wet patch on her apron. A lot of widening eyes and mild head gestures.

It takes Rio most of this time to realize she might be the hot neighbor in question.

It makes sense. She might not be friends with Agatha in this same gossipy way, but she thinks she'd know if Agatha was sleeping with, or dating another one of their neighbors.

(Though, for her to still be known as Agatha's hot neighbor even now—that's a heady feeling.

Even more heady is the rush of hearing other pronouns—ones she never knew could belong to her, said in reference to her.

Maybe change can be a good thing.)

Rio doesn't get her coffee until another customer walks in and prompts Agatha into actually doing some work. She thinks, even with the delay, she has enjoyed this morning more than any morning in a long time.

✦

It feels like many gaps have been filled in. Rio wonders if this is how Agatha felt when she walked into Rio's shop after years of receiving flowers from them. In her defense, they hadn't meant to keep that a secret, had always just assumed Agatha knew where the flowers were coming from past just the florist.

(The bell above the door jingled just as Rio was putting the phone down. She jotted down the last few details of the new order—a first anniversary bouquet, before she allowed herself to get sidetracked.

"We're gonna play a game, okay?"

She was just getting to the end of her quick brainstorming of a color scheme when she dug her pen so viciously down into the paper it skimmed off the page leaving a thick blue line in its wake.

Rio shoved herself out of her chair, phone call forgotten.

"What game, Mama?"

"We've been tasked with picking out the ugliest flowers in the whole shop. Do you think we can do that?"

Rio hummed, offended on behalf of the flowers.

Agatha hadn't spotted her yet, entirely focused on Nicky.

"But all the flowers are pretty."

Rio's mouth twisted to hold a smile back. She'd never really been around enough kids to know what they were like. It was never in her plan to have them, and she never felt like she was missing out not having them. Rio didn't have anyone solidly in her life who had any. Though maybe Rio just didn't have anyone solidly in her life.

That changed with Agatha. And it changed with Nicky. She'd always had a soft spot for that kid; probably always would.

"Hey," Agatha was bent down to be level with Nicky. She held onto the sides of his coat and swayed him, made him giggle, "I never said it was an easy game."

She stood to her full height, smoothed a hand over Nicky's hair as he started to look in the buckets of flowers on display. Agatha stopped though, eyes firmly locked on Rio's from across the shop. She didn't say anything though her jaw dropped a little.

Rio put her hand up in a wave that was more just a splay of her fingers in the air. Immediately regretted the awkward display.

Agatha started a slow walk over—weird for her when she seemed to live her life like she was crashing through it with ridiculous levels of speed. Rio just let her, like meeting her in the middle might have thrown her off. The closer Agatha got, the more cogs Rio could see turning in her head.

"This is your shop."

"I—" Rio didn't know what to say to that, "Yes." There seemed to be more going on, but Rio felt weirdly nervous to find out what that was. "Do you need help finding anything?"

The question jolted Agatha out of her introspection, like flicking a switch and she smiled more than Rio thought someone might with what she pulled out of her bag. She half-heartedly smoothed out a crumpled funeral invite, held it up under her chin with both hands for Rio to see—like a kid showing off a certificate.

Celebrating the Life of
Evanora Harkness

Rio might have tried to offer sympathy if she hadn't seen how Life had been crossed out for DEATH! written in sharpie.

"My mother is dead," Agatha expanded, though she didn't really need to.

"Congratulations," Rio said, the offering feeling oddly satisfying in her mouth.

Agatha tilted her head like she hadn't expected that and she hummed what sounded like appraisal. She enjoyed that from Agatha.

"Mama," Nicky's small voice called out before he appeared round a corner clenching some flowers in his hand—very much the opposite of a look, don't touch approach, "I don't like orange."

"That's great, baby," She gestured for him to come over, "Oh, that's kind of perfect," Agatha said when she got to see the flower up close, and she looked to Rio, plan plainly forming, "I'm thinking orange, pink, and white. Really rub salt in the wound, you know?"

Rio laughed, "I can do that. We try to put together a display that would really honor the departed here at Blooming Buds."

"Oh god, is that the name?" Agatha looked around like been somehow tricked into coming in.

"What's wrong with the name?"

"It just sounds a little…"

She trailed off and Rio picked up where she left off, "It's kinda funny, right? Like because of flowers, obviously, but also like, when British people say oi, he's my bloomin' bud, you know?"

Judging by Agatha's borderline horrified expression, she did not know.

"Never do that again," She managed to get out.

"That's not what you were thinking?" Rio cheeks flushed, "Even a little?"

"No, I was gonna say it sounded a little," Agatha put her hands over Nicky's ears, "vaginal."

Oh god.

"Oh god.")

That's where Rio shakes herself out of that embarrassing memory. They seem to embarrass themself around Agatha a lot.

The only other thing worth revisiting is when, days later, she answered the door to Agatha on her front step in nothing but a towel—not for the first time—and with nothing but a question. A statement, really.

"You were the one putting together flowers for me the whole time. You weren't just buying them."

Rio wondered how long she'd ruminated about that, if she'd imagined asking Rio about it in the shower and couldn't hold out any longer as soon as she'd hopped out. The oddest part about it was the way she didn't even let Rio get a yes out before she was leaving again.

✦

It probably defeats the point of what Agatha said, but Rio finds herself going to Kale Koffee most mornings before work, leaves Alice to open up the shop on the days she works, and on the ones she doesn't, Rio simply opens later.

The shop itself doesn't open until ten anyway, but Rio has always felt a sense of looming panic if they're not there early to make doubly sure they've got everything.

It feels stupid to admit it's become a new part of her routine—though, this week they've been going on different days than they did last week just to keep themself from getting too comfortable.

(They like the idea of Agatha wondering if she'll see them today.

Maybe Agatha doesn't think of her at all.)

Rio is contemplating the whole acceptance is a small, quiet room line from the book club's pick of Tiny Beautiful Things when Agatha drops down into the chair next to her.

She kicks Rio's shin under the table like all their attention hadn't shifted soundly to her as soon as she entered their space.

"I cried," She says, nods to the book, slides a cinnamon bun on a plate over to Rio but tears a little off to shove in her own mouth first before they can get to it. She continues through her eating, "I was crying by the second letter. Go on, you can laugh."

"Why would I laugh?"

Rio pushes the plate more into the middle of the table. Agatha doesn't need any more invitation than that.

She shrugs, "I'm a crier."

"Crying is a good thing," Rio says, knocks her knee against Agatha's under the table, leans in close with a small smile on their face, and speaks softly like their words are a secret, "It means you care."

Agatha just rolls her eyes. "Did you cry?"

"Oh, I'm not a crier."

Agatha seems mildly annoyed about this.

"Good morning, welcome to Kale Koffee. What can I get started for you today?" Jen's voice rings out, has Agatha cringing like she's heard a high pitched squeal.

"Can you please stop saying that," She calls out across to the register.

"Can you please stop sitting down on shift?"

Rio hears the man at the register change his order from stay in to take away.

They're also starting to notice how neither of them change anything in a these two are best friends, not just coworkers way.

Eventually, Jen gives up trying to manage Agatha and joins them.

"Rio, you've got to tell her to change the name."

"I can't just change the name," Jen says, putting on a voice like she's imitating Agatha, "I have a clientele."

Agatha sneers and waves her off, "Those are just the people that pity you after finding out this isn't an organic food store. This is probably the only coffee shop that stocks asparagus just in case."

Before the bickering can really take off, Rio says, "I changed the name of my business." They both look at her and she just shrugs, "I called it Tomb Blooms because I mostly did funerals. Turns out your market more than doubles if you sell flowers for the living too."

"See, I like that so much more than Beautiful Bosom."

"That's not—"

The conversation moves on far too quickly for Rio's liking, "You try naming something then."

"I named a human."

Rio thinks this could carry on all morning, though they're saved by a couple wrangling their children through the door.

Jen raises an eyebrow at Agatha, "It's your turn."

"It's your shop."

The look on Agatha's face when she wins, and Jen leaves probably shouldn't be as attractive as it is. Disconcertingly, they think Agatha knows exactly what Rio's thinking when she looks at them.

"I should probably go wash some cups or something," Agatha says, and a tiny bit of Rio thinks—knows she wants Rio to tell her to stay.

So Rio says the thing she's been working up to say for days, thinks it feels more right when they look at themself in the mirror, has allowed themself to really think. It seems so obvious now.

"I think you know something about me that maybe I should've found out a while ago."

Agatha studies them, "Oh yeah?"

"I, uh—" Rio scratches their face, feels suddenly very watched, "realized recently that maybe I fall somewhere outside of the binary. Gender-wise. Pronoun-wise too, probably."

(Definitely, if the way they've already settled into the comforting feel of them is any indication.)

Rio drums their fingers on the table like that would help distract. "I think maybe you knew."

Agatha only nods.

"You can laugh."

"Why would I laugh?"

Rio stammers, "Because it took me embarrassingly long to figure it out?"

In a move Rio couldn't have expected, Agatha reaches across the table, electrifies Rio's skin with a light touch to the back of their hand—the one on their face—and brings it gently down to the table. She laces their fingers together; the tightening locking sensation has Rio unable to breathe for as long as it takes to fully join them together.

It's been so long since they have touched like this. Not fleeting, not played off as accidental, not flirting. Just touch.

Somehow, even with half the tables filled, Rio can't hear anyone else in the room, feels almost caught in a vacuum, and so they're startled when Agatha says, "I'd be the first to tell you if something was embarrassing. I think you've known for longer than you realize. You told me years ago that you didn't like the way she and her made you feel. I put the pieces together."

Rio flails for their words, but Agatha's grip on their hand just tightens, grounds them, "I'm forty."

They watch as Agatha's lip quirks like she wants to say something wildly inappropriate for the moment.

"If it makes you feel good, then do it." Is what she settles on.

Rio can barely hear their own voice, "I can't just do whatever makes me feel good."

Agatha's response is simple.

"Why not?"

✦

Agatha feels like she's going insane.

No matter what she asks for, Rio is always available to help. On the surface this isn't a bad thing—Agatha gets everything she wants without having to ask around elsewhere.

She's learned a lot more about Rio over these past couple of months—things she's garnered herself, or things given away by their neighbors. There's a sort of divide between those things sometimes.

"Oh, Rio sticks to herself," Sharon tells her, "We hardly see her."

That hasn't been Agatha's experience. Rio goes out of their way to say hi to her when their paths cross, they bring flowers to her door—give them directly to her now rather than abandon them on her driveway, they text to ask if she needs anything from the store because they've even exchanged numbers 'just in case'.

It is absolutely infuriating.

No matter what Agatha does—goads them, gently bullies them, makes the most outlandish cries for help (see the time she asked them to find a can of chicken noodle soup in the back of her cupboard) they humor her.

(Except it's not humoring, not really.

Even Agatha wouldn't be able to stop the sickening sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of them helping out of some sense of obligation. And it wouldn't take much these days; the morning sickness still hasn't eased and her stomach is fragile at the best of times.)

She can't remember what she's called them over for when she answers the door. Something must be wrong in her house, or faux wrong at least, because they have their tool box with them. Agatha isn't beneath tweaking a few tiny nonessential things just so she can see her neighbor. She's a big fan of poking and prodding at them just to see how far she can take it.

As infuriating as she finds them, and as much as their personalities seem to rub up against one anothers, Agatha can't fight the jaw aching knowledge that she wants them inside her. It's mortifying just how much. It's at the point now where she'd let them get her pregnant all over again.

Most of this is, she knows, her rampant pregnancy hormones. But since Rio can't get her pregnant for presumably more reasons than one, she allows her mind to slip there every now and then.

She lets them in and they head straight to her kitchen, place their toolbox down next to the sink.

Right, right, her faucet needs replacing.

"It's warm today, don't you think?"

Agatha blinks out of her daydreaming. Her palms feel clammy. It is warmer than usual.

Before she can say anything, she gets treated to the rare sight of Rio shoving the sleeves of their shirt up past the elbows, exposing their forearms in their entirety.

Agatha wants to sink her teeth into them.

She watches, enraptured by skin moving over muscle and bone as Rio lays out their tools, opens the cupboard door to under the sink to move things out of their way. If Agatha was a better person she might have moved those things herself, but a better person wouldn't be able to watch Rio grumble and send her a mildly unimpressed look when they have to do it themself.

Agatha is weirdly attracted to the way their hand molds around a Clorox bottle.

She thinks maybe she's said something, but can't be sure what. It seems less important than maintaining the perfect angle for watching Rio's arms. It doesn't go exactly the way she wants, but she settles for the stretch of their jeans across their ass instead.

She's been focused on the exposed skin before—hands and wrists and neck—but never this. Agatha likes the way they look bent over.

"It's so tight," Rio grunts, and Agatha has to hold onto the counter edge so as not to lose her balance when they add, "Come on, nearly there."

Agatha has never been more jealous over words said to an old faucet.

When Rio resurfaces, goes to grab the new one, Agatha gets to watch a small bead of sweat trickle from their temple, down their cheek and to their neck, disappears into their shirt which—

They're unbuttoning. Quick fingers move through the buttons before Agatha can even encourage the move.

"You must be really hot," She says, doesn't think she means for her voice to sound the way it does—breathy and desperate.

"What about you?" Rio says, leans back against the counter, and left in a ribbed tank top and their jeans.

Agatha knows they're strong, has lifted various things she's struggled with like they don't weigh a thing. It's different seeing the bulk of their arms, her eyes glued to their triceps. It should be considered a crime that their arms are always covered.

"You're dripping," They say and it takes her a moment to realize they mean with sweat. Agatha's thighs stick together anyway.

Rio is bolder than usual, does what Agatha has maybe wanted them to do since she met them, what she would have encouraged if she wasn't pregnant. They reach for Agatha and she jolts when they grip her hips in firm hands, their touch exactly the way she would have thought. Rio pulls her towards them, fingers bunching up the material of her skirt as she gets closer.

Her bump gets in the way of them pressing flush against each other, but doesn't stop Rio from pressing their foreheads together, panting into Agatha's mouth like they need to share her air.

"You're gorgeous," They gasp, fingers trailing underneath her skirt, making a slow drag up the inside of her thigh.

"You're taking too long," Agatha says, reaches down to encourage their fingers to press firm into her clit.

She groans at the feeling. It's been so long since she was touched by another person. A memory tries to scratch at the surface of her brain but Agatha can't quite access it.

Rio doesn't spend too long on her clit. Good. She needs them deep inside. Fingers press against her but it feels muted somehow—like she's not really feeling it. She'll feel better once they're properly stretching her out, and—

Agatha blinks, pants in the darkness.

She's lying on her side. Sweat sticks her to her clothes, the pillow she's been sleeping with between her legs is pressed up against her.

Fuck.

Agatha groans, rolls onto her back and wipes her sweaty neck with the hem of the oversized t-shirt she's wearing.

She's never been great at just looking, and she can't touch Rio. A one night stand with her neighbor just to get it out of her system definitely isn’t worth it.

But—fuck. This might be a problem.

✦

Rio is pacing. They have the majority of the members of their book club spread across their living room and kitchen, but they're pacing upstairs in the spare bedroom.

They left Sharon topping up glasses of wine; it doesn't take much now for the group to ease into themselves, to allow themselves a second glass of wine before any discussion of the book has actually started.

Sharon
I have something to share when we meet…

John
Mysterious. Can't wait!

Those are the messages in the group chat from a few days ago. Rio thinks John and Sharon are becoming much better friends than anyone could have pictured.

The general worry seemed to have been more drinks equals more oversharing, but a little gossiping seems to be what everyone needs these days. Rio slipped out of the room mostly unnoticed toward the end of Sharon telling them about her secret affair with a Greek man when she was twenty and traveling the world.

Agatha isn't here.

Agatha hasn't been here since—

She hasn't been here in a long time, is all.

Weirdly, other people are here. People that haven't been to book club before. The redhead—Wanda, and definitely not Jen, is in their living room. It seems their book club has extended reach beyond their little square of houses, which might be fine if Agatha was here to distract them all from what might be a great failing.

It's not that Agatha has made being on time a habit, but she's never usually this late. She enjoys the one night a month she gets to have a few drinks and be a little less on.

Rio's burning need to get their turn 'over and done with' feels less worth it now without Agatha here. They can feel all the carefully placed bricks of true, actual friendship rather than what might go just beyond the neighborly thing to do being sledgehammer style destroyed.

And Rio wants Agatha as a friend, wants her in their life any way she'll allow it. They don't even care that it's probably pathetic to feel this way about her after all this time.

The doorbell rings just when Rio is about to make the skin around their thumbnail their next meal.

Ding-ding, ding-ding, dong. Ding-ding, ding-ding, dong.

Even without her here, Agatha has been on their mind since first-to-arrive Sharon turned up; Rio feels a little like one of Pavlov's dogs whenever the doorbell rings.

They slap a clammy hand to the back of their neck to shake themself out of it and head downstairs, suddenly feel extremely stupid when they swing the door open.

Agatha raises an eyebrow at them, and Rio can't stop the flush from rising on their cheeks. Their hand twitches to touch their face to feel the heat—cool it with their cold hands, but they think that would only draw more attention to it.

"I thought you weren't gonna let me in."

"I was, uh—" Rio fumbles when Agatha pushes past them through the doorway, tired of standing outside. Their back gets forced up against the wall and being face to face with Agatha is near excruciating when she's so close they can smell her shampoo and the perfume on her neck. "I was upstairs."

"Doing what?" Agatha's eyes drop to their lips and she sighs like she doesn't know she's doing it, eyes coming sharper when they refocus on Rio's own, "Solo party?"

"I—" Rio can think clearer the minute Agatha takes pity on them and brushes past them. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Why wouldn't I?" Agatha shrugs her jacket off, slings it over the end of the handrail, and there's a challenge in her words; go on, acknowledge what happened between us. Rio won't.

"You're just not usually this late."

If Agatha is disappointed she doesn't say. "Lilia was late leaving work, and she's looking after Nicky tonight."

Rio's ability to jump to panic fueled conclusions is staggering, apparently.

✦

Rio doesn't sit with Agatha this time; they're in and out of the kitchen a lot, but this is the first time Rio has hosted anything, and so they want to get it right—don't want to leave anyone hanging for drinks, anyone to go hungry, anyone to get bored of one genre of music.

All things have been accounted for and staying on top of that is easier now that they can actually focus.

Rio mostly lingers in the doorway of the living room and watches as any time Agatha begins telling a story the whole room turns their attention to her. It really would be ridiculous to think Agatha would ever be satisfied with the eyes of just one on her. Maybe that's why she hasn't been in a relationship the entire time Rio has known her.

"I think I've just been so busy lately that I had to spread my reading time out," Agatha says, "It's been easier to just read one column at a time." She pauses and rolls the rim of her glass over her bottom lip, "I didn't want to read it, either. I read a lot of advice and help leaflets when I was younger and none of it felt good, that's for sure."

"Do you think you made yourself busier?" Wanda says in that perceptive way Rio has, in a few hours, come to find creepy. "Gave yourself more to do so you could put off reading?"

"It's possible," Agatha says through gritted teeth. "Anything coated in truth rather than religion is always a better read, though. And it wasn't soppy. I didn't hate it."

It's not quiet the it made me cry that Rio got in the coffee shop. They tuck that private information away.

"Sometimes, taking things slower makes you appreciate them more," Rio doesn't realize they had something to say until the words tumble from their lips, "Sometimes what we need isn't something we're ready for."

Agatha looks at them with a strange expression. Rio supposes there's many places that could apply.

Rio clears their throat, "I'm just gonna—" They gesture with a thumb outside. No one but Agatha spends any more time on them.

✦

"I didn't say it when I got here," Sharon hiccups, "But your house smells wonderful."

Rio grasps her by the shoulders. At least her house is within view of their own and they can watch every staggering step she makes back home.

"I'll pick you up some incense sticks when I next go shopping."

Sarah wraps her coat tighter around herself, reaches out to take Sharon's hand to pull her away. They bump together and laugh—Rio doesn't think they've heard Sarah properly laugh in a long time.

"I'll get her home," Sarah cranes her neck back to call.

And then that's the night done.

A few others had slipped out when they retreated to the kitchen to start washing dishes. They should invest in paper plates for next time. And there's no doubt this group will last long enough for Rio to get a second round at playing host.

Rio hasn't felt this particular sense of community since they left home. It feels good, not stifling in the way they grew used to then.

They run their hands through their hair, slowing to a stop in the short ends when they hear a noise coming from the kitchen.

Agatha is drying their dishes and stacking them on the counter ready to be put away.

"I thought you'd left."

Agatha looks over her shoulder, "Without a goodbye?"

Rio shrugs even though Agatha has turned her attention back to the dishes and can't see them. "Sometimes things just have an end without having to say so."

They hear Agatha sigh, "Do you want me to go?"

"No."

They watch Agatha's shoulders release their tension. "Help me put these away then."

It feels intimate showing Agatha where every dish goes, which order they should be stacked in based on use, telling her which ones are their favorites based on what they're used for.

Agatha listens of course, but can't refuse a dig, "The DSM-5 would have a field day with you."

Rio glares at her, "It already did. This can't be a shock to you."

She chokes on a laugh, "Forgive me for assuming you were new to this whole self discovery thing you've got going on lately."

"Agatha," They say, smile on their lips and in their eyes. The same is reflected in Agatha's as they open an overhead cupboard to put their wine glasses away in, "I'm not blind."

They hadn't realized just how close they'd gotten until their hands brush inside the cupboard. They both still, and Rio becomes aware of the way their shoulders are pressed together.

Agatha doesn't pull her hand away and so Rio stays put until she brushes her finger against theirs in a way that can't be accidental.

God, Rio takes a shaky inhale, Agatha is so close. They only have to turn their head a little to match her, to make the slightest of eye contact, to feel her breath mingling with their own.

They nudge forward, head spinning even though they only had one drink tonight. Agatha tilts her head a little more and their noses bump together. It would take just the tiniest move from either of them to press their lips together. Rio hadn't dared to consider that she might want it just as much—not now.

It's Agatha who loses patience first—of course it is—and Rio's eyelids flutter closed on instinct at the barest of touches, Agatha's lips pressed to their own.

They breathe a sigh of relief into it, pull back to collect themself, to make it a proper kiss, and—

Smash.

They jump away from one another. Agatha has a hand pressed to cover her mouth—the first place Rio looks before they even try to work out what's happened.

A glass. It must have been nudged over the edge by their clumsy hands still stuffed inside the cupboard.

"You okay?" Rio's voice is rough.

"Yeah, yeah. It didn't get me."

Rio nods. Maybe they should have had more than one drink; maybe that would have given them the confidence to get their hands on Agatha, move her out of the kitchen and say something like maybe we should try that again, somewhere safer.

As it is, Agatha gets to fill the silence first once again, "I should go."

Rio doesn't argue.

✦

Rio hardly sleeps.

When unconsciousness does manage to take them, they see an Agatha who doesn't want anything to do with them anymore.

"I thought it might be fun," Dream-Agatha says, "But I don't even think it's worth this."

And so, Rio tries not to sleep.

✦

"We—irrrrd preg—nan—cyyyy crayy—vings," Agatha voices as she types her search.

Sweet and salty combinations, the smell of coal, pickles, pickled other things, ice cream, Chinese food—

The lists go on.

What doesn't make any list is 'butch next door neighbor who you want to make a dilf'.

But Agatha has always strived to be unique.

Since that dream, Agatha hasn't been able to get Rio off her mind. Even worse, every time she sees them, 80s porno music starts playing in her head like they might start stripping for her.

She's horny and losing her mind.

The one thing she hasn't tried to quell that with is touching herself. It had become part of her routine before when her brain was happy with just strong arms and a blurry face. As long as it had a strap attached to its hips, Agatha's libido was soothed by whatever dyke mannequin it had formed for her.

Now, she only wants Rio.

It wouldn't be so bad, a voice in her head that sounds suspicious just like her says, just this once.

That's as good an argument as any.

Agatha's clothes are discarded as she carries herself to her bedroom. It's a little less gray everywhere now. Still, the walls and floor remain unchanged, and some of the bigger things like her kitchen chairs are still crushed velvet, but Rio has taken her shopping enough times now to pick up some soft furnishings.

(She completes her teenage self's dream of having a deep purple comforter on the first trip when she hesitates long enough with it in her hands that Rio takes it from her and throws it into the cart.)

Agatha has never been one to waste time with foreplay when she's by herself. If she's touching herself then she's ready.

And she is. Even after all the time spent—wasted—trying to get herself comfy with a farcical amount of pillows, she's wet as soon as she presses two fingers to her cunt.

Fuck.

Agatha drags slick up to her clit, throws the lube she'd foraged around for onto the other side of the bed. She won't be needing that.

She pictures herself as she is now—touching herself, but with Rio's eyes on her from the foot of the bed. In her mind they undress themself, slow, exactly how Agatha asks them to.

And they always do whatever she asks.

They drop to their knees between Agatha's spread thighs, hands firm as they hold her. Rio would be diligent, she thinks, would hardly stop for air if she asked for their tongue on her.

Agatha strains back into her pillow mountain, head pressing deep as she imagines them building her up.

"I want to be inside you," This fictitious Rio moans into her hot cunt, "I wanna make you feel so good, baby. Please, please—"

How could Agatha deny such a pathetic request said with tear filled eyes?

She dips her fingers down and just—can't quite get the right angle.

Rio would have the perfect angle right now.

The thought doesn't help, and she wrenches her hand away with a huff. Thirty weeks of pregnancy with no complications doesn't come without its frustrations, it seems. She is uncomfortable a lot of the time, and, like now, her bump gets in the way. It also feels, the longer she lays on her back, like the baby might crush all her vital organs.

That probably won't happen, but the idea is off-putting enough.

Agatha maneuvers as best she can onto her knees, head pressed into the pillows, and—fuck, that isn't a bad idea.

The position is a favorite of hers; she likes being bent over, back arched, spreading herself open so she can be watched.

Agatha pushes her hand back between her thighs, circles her clit. She can't do any of those things—just about can keep herself steady and comfortable, but the position is enough to have her mind entering that slow, molasses-like state, where everything feels like a good idea, and the last of her shame seeps from her soul, lingers in the air until she's done and it forces its way back in.

She swears she can feel Rio folding themself over her, covering her hand as she touches herself, gets herself ready for them. She feels their hands on her hips, hears their voice ask, "What do you want?"

In her brain, this Rio knows exactly what she wants and her vision shifts accordingly. Agatha can feel them strapped up and pressed against her—they tease her with the head of their cock, bump it into her clit where her fingers—in reality—can't help but rub quick circles.

"You gonna be my good girl, Agatha?"

That's new. Agatha doesn't have the time to unpack that side of her praise kink now, but it's always just been, 'you're so fucking hot', 'you've got such a pretty pussy', 'you sound so good, keep being loud', never—

"I wanna be good for you," She slips into it—thinks she might even say the words aloud, "Wanna be your good girl—"

She whimpers as the Rio in her head starts pressing inside her, feels empty in comparison, but, fuck—fuck—fuck, it doesn't even matter.

Agatha presses harder into her clit, drools into her pillow and twitches onto her fingers as she comes, Rio's name on her tongue.

She's vaguely aware of the flush of embarrassment in the aftermath, skin sticky against the sheets she doesn't have the energy to cover herself with after she's gently repositioned herself on her side.

Agatha isn't sure how long she lays there for, but once she's near enough recovered from the shock of an orgasm barely five minutes into touching herself, she tunes back in to her surroundings, sees the fluttering of her blinds in the air.

There's maybe a small, minuscule, chance that she screamed her neighbor's name with her window open.

Agatha groans, shifts until she's comfy, hand covering her bump, and closes her eyes. That's tomorrow's problem.