Chapter Text
Lena and Jack returned from their honeymoon a few days ago. She didn’t want to know this, but she was the maid of honor, so of course she knew. Yet as soon as the newlyweds landed back in National City, Kara had a text waiting from her best friend requesting a much-needed catch up.
She wanted to say no, the month-long distance had become somewhat of a healing balm for her heart. It really did help that Lena was out of sight for Kara to keep her out of mind. It wasn’t foolproof, of course, but she appreciated the reprieve. It was one thing to pine after her best friend, but now that Lena was married, she’d never felt more pathetic. Perhaps she was more pathetic for carrying a torch for her best friend after so many years, but Kara found that she couldn’t let go.
The truth of the matter was that she just couldn’t leave Lena. Lena could leave her, and she would allow it. Welcomed it, even. But she simply couldn’t be the one to step away first.
So here she was, waiting in front of their favorite Chinese restaurant, their agreed upon dinner destination for the evening. She scanned the passing crowds of pedestrians down the riverwalk, wondering if any of them knew how she felt. If they, too, had somehow wrangled their heart in a mess of loving the wrong person.
When Lena came into view, Kara instantly stopped her pacing, clammy hands set on her waist so she stopped fiddling.
Kara opened her arms and Lena jumped into them for a fierce hug, squeezing her best friend tightly in her arms, basking in the weight of Lena surrounding her. She was only human, after all.
“I really thought you’d look like a lobster by now,” Kara teased as they pulled apart.
“Do you honestly think I would go out into the sun willingly? You know I would never subjugate my Irish complexion to the sun like that.”
Kara shook her head just as she pulled the door open for the both of them, exaggerating her bow and eliciting a giggle from Lena. They were seated quickly,
“So what have you been up to?” Lena asked, placing her napkin on her lap. Kara opened her mouth to answer, flashes of her days sitting alone came to mind only to be superseded by her trysts with Andrea. She shut her mouth, lips forming into a thin line.
“You know, stuff.”
Lena’s brow quirked upward, and Kara knew there was a probing question at the tip of the other woman’s tongue.
“I find that hard to believe.”
She shook her head. “It’s just much of the same ol’, same ol’. Not really worth talking about my boring life. Not when you just got back from your trip.”
Moss green eyes narrowed slightly, studying her, but Kara put up her best smile.
“It was lovely,” Lena fawned eventually, seemingly willing to play along, recounting stories about their various destinations dotting southern Europe and Northern Africa. They fell into easy conversation after that just as Kara fell into her role. The teasing and the joking and the questions came out smoothly enough, so to Kara, that too was enough.
She was just about to dig into a potsticker when her phone buzzed on the table. A message popped up with a message from Andrea.
Do you have dinner plans?
She frowned before quickly picking up and thumbing back a response.
Yeah. Sorry
No apologies necessary. Talk soon.
“Sorry about that,” she mumbled, accompanying it with an equally apologetic grin, before turning her phone face down and resuming how she spooned some more rice on her plate.
“Everything alright?” Lena asks, chopsticks held up in mid-air.
“Yeah, yeah. Andrea just wanted to know if I had dinner plans, which—” she paused with a slight shrug and a huffed laugh, eyeing their table. “Obviously, I already do.”
Lena hummed and offered her a nod. Then, coolly, she asked, “Is that anything?”
“Is what anything?”
Lena only rolled her eyes, resting her chin on the heel of her palm. “You and Andrea. You two were awfully cozy at the wedding. Fast friends and all.”
She should probably deny everything now, nip whatever ideas Lena might have about her and Andrea in the bud. But something niggled in the back of her mind with the way Lena watched her as she waited for a response.
“Nah.” She shook her head, taking a sip of her water, mouth suddenly parched. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“We just hang out sometimes.” She did not elaborate that they have only mostly hung out in each other's bed or couch. A few times on Andrea’s kitchen counter and once on her living room floor.
“That’s—honestly, I’m a little surprised.”
Her brows knitted together. “What do you mean?”
Lena shrugged. “Just didn’t think you two would get along so easily. Andrea can be prickly, I suppose. And you’re…light.”
“Light,” she echoed.
Lena laughed a little to herself. “I don’t mean anything by it, darling. I’m just saying that you’re easygoing and bright and she’s a bit of a brooder, that’s all.”
That was a bit of a surprise to Kara, if she was being honest. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she didn’t see this brooding Andrea on their way to a bed. Or when they spent evenings without sex on the table, the conversations remained surface level, safe.
It reminded Kara that how either of them knew Andrea were not the same at all.
“Well, we just hang out,” she reaffirmed.
“That’s good.” Lena stuffed a potsticker in her mouth and chewed carefully, slowly, and every second pricked Kara’s brain. “You know you can be with whomever you want, darling. You know I’ll support you.”
“Even if I ended up with Andrea?” she asked, curiosity getting the best of her.
Lena tipped her head to the side, sitting back in her chair before clearing her throat. “Of course. However, I’m well within my rights as your best friend to give her the shovel talk if such a thing arises.”
Kara huffed out a snort and shook her head. “Shouldn’t you also give me the shovel talk? She’s your friend, too.”
It was then that Lena pushed herself up and took another bite of her food before settling her chopsticks on the side of her plate. She met Kara’s eyes. “Yeah, maybe. But she’s not my favorite.”
Lena's smile was radiant and playful and everything she wanted.
Kara wished she hadn’t said a thing.
—
After dinner, Kara and Lena parted ways when Kara declined Lena’s offer to drive her back to her apartment and instead opted to walk to the train station and go home that way.
“Are you sure?” Lena asked. “You know it’s no trouble. I’m happy to do it.”
Kara's phone buzzed in her hand and interrupted her thoughts. She glanced down to try and see who it was, surprised to find Andrea texting her.
Andrea: Oh my god are you at dinner with her right now?
“Um, it’s nice out,” she said finally, dragging her eyes away from her phone screen to the expectant eyes of her best friend. “The walk would be nice, and I need to digest.”
Lena regarded her for a second before pulling back and nodding, situating herself in the driver’s seat. “Alright. Text me when you get home?”
“You, too.”
Kara stepped back from the driver’s side window, shoving her fists in the pockets of her jacket and flashing Lena her best smile. She then took a hand out and waved goodbye as Lena drove away from the curb just to stop at the nearby traffic intersection. Kara refused to move from her spot, but otherwise answered the phone when it buzzed in her pocket.
“Hello,” she said, not bothering to look at the caller ID somehow already knowing who it was.
Sure enough, the dulcet tone of Andrea’s voice came through the phone. “Is she still there? Please tell me she is.”
She sighed deeply before turning on her heel and walking towards the direction of the station. “You’re literally the worst. And no, she’s not. She just left.”
“You didn’t go with her?”
“You’re so annoying.”
“You have a funny way of expressing your appreciation for my company.”
Perhaps she should have hung up then and there. For whatever friendship she and Andrea may have forged since the wedding, there was something unnerving about Andrea’s relentless pursuit of antagonizing Kara at every turn.
Still, the thought of being alone tonight after seeing Lena for the first time felt worse than entertaining Andrea’s presence. So she swallowed her pride.
“I can express my appreciation at my apartment, if you’re free later.”
Silence draped over their phone call and Kara waited, wondering what the other woman was thinking.
“I’ll be by around ten, querida.”
—
Kara opened her door to Andrea wearing jeans and a blue sleeveless blouse, emphasizing the blue in her eyes. For someone who was meeting Kara at ten o’clock at night, she looked much more put together than Kara who stood in her sweats and t-shirt.
“You look like a frat boy.”
She stepped aside, a frown on her face. “Uh, thanks?”
Andrea crossed the threshold and passed her by, placing her purse on the couch and glancing around Kara’s apartment.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Kara shook her head and knew that if she could put up with Andrea’s random judgment comments, she could do anything. She handed Andrea a glance of red wine after they made their way to her kitchen island.
“Didn't really take you for a booty call, Pulitzer." Andrea took a sip of her drink, twisting her glass by the stem.
She scrunched her face.
"Relax," Andrea said, walking towards her, raising a hand to catch Kara's chin between her index finger and thumb. "I need you loose and limber."
"You're such a bitch."
"Ooh, dirty talk."
She rolled her eyes, but there was now a reluctant smile on her face.
"There she is," Andrea smirked with satisfaction. "You done pouting like a baby?"
Kara huffed. "I wasn't pouting like a baby. I was just tired."
“Mm. Pining after a married woman does that to you,” Andrea said with a shrug. “Or so I've heard.”
“I wasn't pining! Besides, I thought you were gonna help me out."
The other woman rolled her eyes, leaning against the kitchen island and folding one arm under the other so she could hold her glass up. "Alright, you have a minute to talk about it."
"Not really much to talk about. She’s-they're back from their honeymoon, of course had the time of their life probably. I was kinda dreading seeing her, but it turned out better than I thought. I was really hoping that all this time she was gone would've helped, but just seeing her again—"
"Not as strong as you thought, huh?"
Her jaw had dropped, but the pointed look Andrea threw her way had her indignation deflate. "No, guess not."
Silence sat between them, Andrea watching her while Kara stared off into space. Then Andrea downed the rest of her wine and placed the glass back on the counter.
"Alright, minute's up."
Kara's jaw dropped again, shock plastered on her face. Then she shook her head because if nothing else, she knew what she was getting with Andrea. "You are kind of terrible, you know that?"
“Say less. Please.” Andrea put a hand up. Kara effectively shut up. When Andrea pointed towards her bedroom she only nodded and followed quietly after as Andrea made herself at home.
“Should we set some boundaries?” she asked, situating herself by her bedroom dresser.
Andrea scoffed and turned at her incredulously. “What is this, a romcom?”
“No? But we're not dating and it's just sex.”
Sitting on the edge of Kara’s bed, Andrea leaned down and carefully tugged her heels off of her feet to reveal red polished toenails. “Those already sound like boundaries to me.”
“Can you stop joking for a second?”
"That's rich, coming from the one instating boundaries about hooking up after we've already been hooking up for like a month because the object of your affections returned from her honeymoon." She bristled at the comment, the tips of her ears blooming red, but didn't say anything. The other woman leaned further back slightly on one arm as she studied Kara. “Has it ever occurred to you that whatever this exchange is has less to do with your broken heart and more to do with how thoroughly I want to be fucked?”
When Kara didn’t immediately say anything, Andrea only pulled her blouse off to reveal smooth soft skin and a matching blue silk bra. Kara simply gaped at her before she was able to reel herself back from gawking.
Andrea just laughed as she leaned further down on her elbows, showing off her body. “Good. That's the correct response. Now, come on, I want to come at least three times tonight for my troubles.”
Kara shook her head before she walked towards Andrea, her legs brushing up against Andrea’s now bare feet. She then pulled her shirt off and revealed her own naked body, smirking all the while when Andrea’s eyes drank her in, Kara’s ego.
“That’s more like it.”
“Shut up,” she said without much bite before crawling over Andrea and meeting their lips together. This was the transaction. She put up with Andrea's mouth and, in turn, she gave back just as good with hers. Enough for three. At least.
It was not a smart or healthy coping mechanism to punctuate the time she spent with Lena by getting in bed with Andrea. Yet she couldn’t help herself because at least Andrea made her forget. At least she was able to open her eyes to blue-green eyes that looked nothing like that of her best friend’s and it gave her a little bit of hope.
More than anything, she needed that little bit of hope if she had any chance of surviving this heartbreak.
—
It was a little after midnight when they finished, easily reaching and surpassing Andrea's demands. Kara slouched against her headboard just as Andrea threw the covers back and began searching for her clothes. Kara's eyes narrowed on all the spots and bruises she'd marked on Andrea's chest and stomach and inner thighs. An odd sense of pride overcame her at the satisfaction she heartily gave the other woman, only to be brought back down with the burning shame that she wished it was Lena parading around her room with all of her marks.
Fully clothed, Andrea didn't look like she'd just been fucked well and thoroughly, save perhaps for the tousled way her hair has been thrown in a messy bun. Kara stayed on her side of the bed and simply watched until Andrea placed her foot in her heels and headed towards her.
"Heading out?" she asked needlessly. Andrea responded by sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Mmhmm. I have a couple of early meetings in the office."
She nodded, uncertain on how to proceed next.
"Listen, I'll text you next when I'm free."
She nodded again.
"In the meantime, do me a favor and don't text Lena this week."
She opened her mouth to protest, but Andrea placed her hand on Kara's mouth.
"If she texts you, text her back—don't be an asshole. But don't text her first. Or call, for that matter."
"What?" she asked, after Andrea brought her hand back down.
"Set some boundaries."
She pushed herself up, the sheet covering her chest falling to her lap. "She's my best friend, I can't just—I can't just ignore her!"
"Is that what I said?"
"She'll know something's up," she reasoned, though her voice was weak.
"Then don't let her find out. You've spent god knows how long hiding your feelings from her, what's another one?"
Kara's body slumped back down against the headboard, her eyes focused on some blur behind Andrea's shoulder.
"You wanted my help, this is it. Take it or leave it."
"Is this my only option?"
Andrea let out a dry laugh, stretching her neck. "Of course not. You can always come clean and see what happens with that or quit her cold turkey and fuck off to a different part of the globe."
She sighed and shut her eyes, knew that Andrea was right. When she opened her eyes, Andrea was staring right into her.
"Why do all of those options suck?" Her voice was hoarse with the threat of tears lodged in her throat.
In a rare moment of softness, Andrea reached out to unfurl one of Kara's fists and caressed her palm. "Because she's not yours, querida."
The words hit her like a bullet to the head, a sobering shock to her system, each of Andrea's words wreaking havoc inside of her.
Andrea wordlessly leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before walking out of her bedroom. Kara's ears strained to listen to the sound of Andrea's heels, each step assured and confident, before she heard the turn of her front door opening and closing with a thud.
Only when she was truly alone did she cover her eyes and allowed the tears to spill.