Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jackie Taylor was never a jealous girl. Never cared what people did, or didn’t do. Except, when it came to her sister. Claire.

Her hair, a much lighter shade of blonde than Jackie’s, was like silk woven from the gods and infused with gold and sunlight. Her eyes, instead of being midway between swamp green and shit brown, were a clear ocean blue. Her smile, white and wide. Genuine, but practiced all the same. Her boyfriend, plucked straight out of a fairy-tale book (or a Taylor Swift music video).

Jackie was never a jealous girl, but oftentimes she wished she was her sister.

Her five-year relationship with her high school sweetheart had crumbled apart like a castle built on sand, washed away by waves of unspoken truths. That she had never really loved Jeff. That he had been a placeholder for something she hadn’t realized she truly wanted.

Not a man, but a woman.

That particular revelation had sunk her entire self-worth, or maybe she simply never had any in the first place.

Who was she now? Without Jeff. Without the perfect little fantasy she had pre-planned for her entire fucking life? Since she’d been young enough to have her own thoughts?

A white canvas was a far scarier endeavour than painting by numbers where everything was already decided for her. What size brushes would she use? What type of color palette would suit her?

Jackie had no clue where to start. At the beginning of who she should be, or at the end of who she was?

Wind tussled her hair as she took a sip of her cappuccino. Mug warm, sun threatening to become warmer as it slowly rose in the background of a towering skyline of buildings.

This breakfast restaurant wasn’t distinct in any exceptional way. The coffee wasn’t addictive, although the food was perhaps a little more seasoned than most big-chain restaurants. Its defining feature, the one that always managed to make Jackie and her sister come back time and time again, was the rooftop terrasse.

Jackie sat across from her, their table round and just big enough for two plates and two mugs. Anything more would have made it feel overcrowded.

She was lost in thought, her mind stuck on what-ifs and things that may have never happened, when Claire uttered a single sentence that made her freeze in place.

“I actually have something to tell you,” she said, excitement clear in her tone.

Jackie’s hand stilled, coffee halfway to her mouth. She ripped her eyes away from the city skyline to her sister’s bright blues. Her mug made a loud clink as she set it down on the table. Her heart kicked up a notch.

“We’re getting married!”

Jackie’s shock wore off as soon as Claire’s squeal pierced her eardrums and slapped (or stabbed) her back to reality.

Claire rummaged through her purse and slid the ring on. It was beautiful. The diamond wasn’t shy about taking up sunlight, and neither was the gold the band was forged with.

Right. She should have been happy. Excited. Should she have, like, screamed? Nah. Too much. Tenants at the table behind them were already staring, whispering. 

“Holy shit,” Jackie breathed out, reaching for her sister’s hand and pulled it closer. “That thing is fucking huge.”

“Do you really have to swear so much?” Claire asked, pulling her usual face. The exact same one their mother used to make. 

Disapproval tangled with judgment.

“It’s how I show my excitement,” Jackie replied, lips pressed into a thin line, voice dry and flat. As if her personality switch was flipped off.

Claire changed her demeanor, too. Must be Taylor genetics, or something. She gently slid her hand away from Jackie’s and turned the ring on her finger with her thumb and index. Back and forth. Again and again. 

Jackie’s eyes were glued on the motion. Taunting.

Claire wasn’t staring at her sister when she spoke. “It’s just the engagement ring.”

Right. The real thing absolutely had to be bigger. Better. More diamonds. More gold. This is just a simple peasant ring.

Jackie barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She should have brought sunglasses, just to have the privacy to do so.

“When—”

Claire cut her off, like she’d been hoping Jackie would ask. “In six months. On Mom and Dad’s anniversary.”

Jackie lifted her coffee to her lips, holding back whatever smart-ass remark might offend her sister and landed her with the bill after Claire would inevitably storm out.

“Are you sure?” Jackie asked, after a careful moment’s consideration. 

“I asked Dad.”

Claire’s eyes snapped up, landing right on Jackie’s. A hint of dampened excitement lingered in them. And whether it was for her sake or Jackie’s, she couldn’t tell. Jackie felt ridiculously foolish for letting petty jealousy ruin the moment.

“And you?”

Jackie’s brow creased. “It’s your wedding.”

Her wedding, her choice. Could be symbolic. Could be just another way for Claire to make everything about her. To prove how much she had always been - and would always be -  the favorite child.

Claire shook her head, as if clearing unwanted thoughts away. Her smile returned as her hand reached for Jackie’s across the table.

“Good. I’m just so happy, Jack. I can’t wait.”

Jack. 

God, she hated it when people called her that. Far from cute and endearing. 

“Me too,” Jackie lied straight to her face, forcing out her brightest smile. The one she mastered over the years of expertly masking. 

It always worked, too.

“Congratulations, Claire,” she said in a steady voice. “You deserve it.”

More than Jackie ever would. Jackie was acting like a petty asshole (at least in her own head), rather than celebrating Claire’s engagement to her high school sweetheart. 

Maybe it felt especially personal since Jackie had just ended things with hers.

“Are you bringing Jeff?”

Jackie wanted to wretch when his name left her sister’s mouth. Like she’d dug her hand into her garbage and pulled something out that should have stayed there. The stench remained, imprinted in the air around her, stitched into her memory.

“We broke up,” Jackie reminded her with a clipped tone that she barely managed to temper. 

Claire let out a soft chuckle, like it was all a joke to her. “You always do. And you always get back together.”

“No, not this time,” Jackie responded, eyes sliding towards the skyline once more. The sun was nearly peaking over the buildings now. “It’s for real this time.”

Claire simply hummed as she sipped her drink. A Mimosa. This was perhaps a cause for a bigger celebration, indicated by Claire's beverage, though Jackie decided that she’d rather have caffeine to get through it. 

“Come on, Jackie,” she prodded, a prominent pout on her lips. 

Jackie knew, better than anyone, how it worked on her parents. On her soon to be husband. And how it used to work on her. 

Used to. Not anymore.

“You can’t come to my wedding without a hot date.”

Jackie shrugged, one shoulder. “I might.”

Silence fell for a beat. Thick like a cloak masking things unspoken.

Claire finally acquiesced, letting out a sigh of dramatic proportions. “Female solidarity and all that,” she tried to joke, raising her hand like her statement stood for a greater cause.

Jackie snorted a laugh. 

Claire thought her joke had landed, her blue eyes mirrored delight in having successfully lightened the mood (she thought). 

But the laugh Jackie let out wasn’t the one Claire had intended to earn.

Jackie’s smile was tight, head tilted as she clinked her mug against her sister’s thin glass.

“Yay, women,” she mumbled, lips against the rim of her mug.

Sarcasm at its peak. She was simply not enthused.

Jackie was never a jealous person, but she sure as fuck felt like shit for acting like one.

Jackie wasn’t sitting at home, sifting through the recent photos she’d taken, sitting under the cool breeze of an air conditioning unit. No, Jackie was unfortunately stuck in the hot Austin sun, accumulating sweat in places she’d rather not dwell on.

Camera around her neck, too-large sunglasses covering her eyes, and her bangs curling from the sweat at her brow, and this climate’s truly fantastic humidity factor.

It had been her fault, really, having been fathered by UT Austin’s soccer coach. Women’s division, his pride and joy. The Austin Longhorns. He’d always hounded her to join, but Jackie was never the athletic type. He should have known, his daughter being a fashion major at this very campus.

Jackie sat smack-dab in the middle of the bleachers. Her father had wanted her to take “action shots” for the school paper. Something about recruiting poor girls into sweating it out with the lot of them, out in this arid, fucking desert of a state.

Pure torture. 

Masochistic, even.

The rest of the bleachers were mostly empty. The Longhorns were warming up (as if simply walking outside hadn’t been enough) before their game. Jackie lifted her camera, scrolling through the shots she’d taken earlier. Her eyes grew wide with embarrassment as a certain star player seemed to be in every frame.

Shauna Shipman. 

Number 6.

Truth be told, Jackie had been nursing this totally unrealistic crush on the girl for a long time. And the most distressing part of it all? They’d never actually spoken. Sure, they’d seen each other a lot, considering Jackie’s father was the coach and Jackie had been roped into being their unofficial, disgruntled photographer. 

But, their interactions were never anything more than a head nod or a small “hey”.

What the hell would she even talk to Shauna fucking Shipman about, anyway?

‘Wowza, Shipman, you sure can handle slippery balls.’

Not only would Jackie probably have said something equally mortifying (if not fucking worse), she also hadn’t told anyone that she was, you know, oh-so-very gay. 

Except for one person.

“Still taking pictures of sweaty women, loser?”

Charlotte Matthews, better known as Lottie. Her best friend.

The tall woman slumped into the empty seat next to Jackie, eyes peeking at the tiny screen on her camera.

Jackie quickly turned it away, as if she hadn’t just been deciding which twelve pictures of Shauna to keep for the school paper.

“Just talk to her already.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Lottie smiled, shrugging like the heat didn’t bother her. Bangs didn’t lie, though, and hers were also stuck to her forehead.

“I do have extensive knowledge of dating a soccer jock.”

Jackie snorted a laugh and deleted more photos. A particularly egregious close-up of Shauna, mid-kick, mouth parted, sweat beading on her face and throat. 

Yeah, fuck it, she’ll keep that one.

Lottie turned back to her suddenly. “Wait, I could get Nat to—”

“No,” Jackie interrupted without looking up. She paused her deletion spree, and turned to witness Lottie’s bothersome smirk. “Let me be melodramatic about it. Maybe we’ll run into each other in the most absurd way, fall in love, get married.”

“Maybe she’ll kick the ball right in your face, and—”

The ball did, in fact, come soaring their way, but it landed just shy of their feet.

Jackie shot Lottie a glare hotter than the sun itself. 

Lottie was too lost in her full-belly laughter to notice it.

Jackie watched as Shauna jogged toward them, then hopped onto the first row of the blue-colored benches and waved one arm around.

She was looking straight at Jackie.

Jackie remained still. Like a statue. Like a statue-shaped moron. 

“Throw it!”

Shauna shouted further instructions, as her hand wave had seemingly not been enough of a prompt for Jackie. It was. Should have been, really, had Jackie not been frozen in place. Inexplicably.

Lottie eventually elbowed her, and Jackie moved like a woman on a mission. She bent to grab the ball, gripped it with both hands, raised it over her head, and threw it with all her might.

It landed, pathetically, halfway between them.

Shauna stared as it bounced between two benches, before bursting out laughing.

Great. Fantastic.

Jackie truly hoped red looked good on her.

“I’ll get it!” Shauna yelled back as she quickly jogged up the steps and threw it to her teammate. The one with the blonde hair who’s always wearing that awful backwards cap. Hat or something. Whatever, it didn’t matter.

Jackie watched Shauna pause before heading back down. She shot Jackie the most egregiously crooked grin over her shoulder.

“Nice throw.” 

And then she was gone, like nothing had happened. As if the simple, off-handed comment hadn’t just made Jackie’s heartrate shoot up.

Jackie’s jaw tightened as she flipped Shauna off for the cheap shot at her expense, middle finger raised high and unapologetic. At least she still had the coordination for that much. A fact Shauna clearly caught when she glanced back over her shoulder.

Smiling.

Wide and toothy. Dopey enough to make it irksome.

Jackie was still flushed when she sat back down, arms folded across her chest. 

Lottie leaned over to laugh into her shoulder.

“You almost had your rom-com moment.”

It was, at that very moment, that Jackie wished the ball had hit her in the head and caused a severe concussion. It would have been far less humiliating than whatever the hell that was.

“Fuck you,” Jackie replied with a huff.

Lottie only laughed louder. What a rotten friend she was.

The rest of the bleachers eventually filled out with enthused partisans, drunk or otherwise, and the game was well on its way.

Jackie wasn’t much of a conspiracy theorist, but she swears that she caught Shauna throwing furtive little glances her way throughout the game. 

Once, right after she scored a goal.

Jackie had stared right back.

Jackie was lying on her bed, head at an awkward angle as she stared down at her phone, mindlessly swiping like some robot. The air conditioning unit worked overtime to keep the room cool and the desert heat and humidity outside where it belonged.

Too tall. Swipe.

Too blonde. Swipe.

Too…dopey. Swipe.

Jackie was in full crisis mode. She needed a date for her sister’s wedding, and sure, she had six months (minus the past two weeks that had already gone by). But, shopping for arm candy was a far more complex endeavour than she’d initially thought.

UT men really didn’t have that much to offer. And it had, in fact, occurred to her that men were not her preference, but for the purposes of a wedding date? It would have to do.

Right?

Besides, who came out to their family just before their sibling’s wedding? It would give attention seeker. Jackie might not be perfect, she might be a kind of an uptight bitch, but hell, she wasn’t one of those. 

And if anything, Jackie was, for once, happy she hadn’t inherited that particular trait from Claire.

From her perch on Jackie’s desk chair, Lottie finally tore her eyes from her sketch long enough to level her friend with a perfectly judgmental look.

“Don’t tell me you’re done with the assignment already.”

Instead of answering, Jackie simply lifted her sketch pad. She’d been told she was gifted at designing clothes, which really was kind of convenient because that was, in fact, her major. Fashion had always interested her. She loved putting outfits together for herself and for others.

She also loved judging people’s lack of style, too. Jackie wished she could claim she kept that part to herself, but she was pretty vocal about it.

Isn’t it ironic that Jackie Taylor, fashion aficionado, was currently slouched on her bed in a beat-up pair of joggers and a baggy white T-shirt, scrolling through dating profiles like she was window-shopping for a new purse?

Joggers were sort of indoor chic. And she allowed herself to look like a hobo when no one but Lottie was around.

“I hate you,” Lottie sighed, and turned back to her own drawing.

“Don’t hate the player, baby,” Jackie replied with a sly wink, the exact kind she’d find repulsive if it had been directed at her. “Hate the game.”

An eraser was thrown her way.

Jackie swatted it out of the air.

Maybe she should have joined the school’s martial arts club when Quigley had asked her to. She had told Jackie her hips were wide, which meant she’d probably have really strong kicks. And frankly, Jackie wasn’t sure if that had been an insult or a complement. 

She still didn’t.

“Are you Scrolling through your endless Shipman folder, perv?”

Jackie decided, for her sanity, to ignore her completely. “I’m trying to find a date for my sister’s wedding.”

“Any luck?”

“Nope.”

Lottie stood and stretched, arms reaching high before she dropped onto the bed beside Jackie without warning. One moment Jackie’s phone was in her hand, the next it was in Lottie’s. The smile on her face feel as soon as she peered at the screen.

“You’re looking at men?” she asked, brow knitting together in some overly dramatic concern.

Jackie flicked at Lottie’s nose, using this as a well-planned distraction to rip her phone away from her nosy (pun intended) best-friend’s unyielding grasp.

“I’m,” Jackie corrected, dragging out the word to make her point, whatever that was, “looking at men.”

“Jackie…”

“It’s just for a wedding, Lot,” she waved off the concern as she settled her phone back onto her stomach and continued with her boring courting ritual.

“So you’re going to pretend to date some guy you don’t even like just so your family thinks you’re a perfectly well-adjusted member of society?”

“Yep.”

“Isn’t that what you promised me you’d stop doing when you broke up with Jeff?”

Jackie winced. She sure had promised Lottie exactly that. But, in her defence, she was fairly wasted at the time.

“Yep.”

No use lying to her.

Lottie moved with the rapidity of a cheetah, ripping Jackie’s phone from her limp grip. She then swiftly turned her back to Jackie, shoulders hunched as she shielded the screen.

“No, don’t!” Jackie managed to wheeze through her laughter. She put up a half-hearted fight, draping herself over Lottie’s frame.

“This Benny guy was going to send me pictures of his horses!”

“We’re in Austin,” Lottie replied, deadpan. “Everyone has horses.”

Even if Lottie was right with her gross generalization, it didn’t mean she had to use that knowledge against her best friend. 

Treason is what this was. 

Try as she might, Jackie couldn’t wrestle her phone back. Lottie was a tall, lanky, immovable object. Like Superman, only with better hair, smoother skin, and, frankly, way prettier.

“I’m contractually obliged to save you from yourself,” Lottie said.

Jackie watched in mild horror as her finger tapped the delete button. Not on the app, but on her actual account.

Oh well. It was probably for the sake of both their sanities.

With a heavy sigh, Jackie let go of Lottie’s shirt and flopped onto her. Moments later, a hand began gently threading through her hair.

“I can’t go alone,” Jackie whined, sounding every bit like the spoiled child she currently felt like.

“I’ll go with you.”

Jackie’s head shot up, her voice embarrassingly small. “Seriously?”

Lottie smiled down at her. 

“Yeah.” 

Jackie’s excitement, however, wouldn’t last very long.

“Or,” Lottie started. Slowly. Teasing.

Jackie hated the way Lottie’s voice sounded, or how she could hear the evil voice smile that pulled at her lips.

“You could just grow some balls and ask—”

Jackie pushed herself up, and slapped her hand down on Lottie’s mouth.

“Absolutely not. I will not, under any circumstance, sober or otherwise, ask the idiot jock I’ve had a crush on since my dad started coaching that stupid fucking team to come to my sister’s wedding as my fake girlfriend.”

Jackie let out a huff, finally realizing how drawn-out and oversharing that rant had gotten.

“You’re so embarrassing.” A slight pause. “I love you.”

Jackie smacked Lottie’s stomach with the back of her hand. It hit her mark, true and sure. 

“I don’t know, Jackie. It kinda seems like the perfect set-up for a cute rom-com.”

“Shut your stupid face,” Jackie retorted, using  a pillow to smother Lottie’s grin.

Their ‘homework’ hangout rapidly devolved into a pillow fight. Soon enough, Jackie’s bed doubled as a wrestling ring.

No work was done after that.

Lottie won the world heavyweight championship belt. Self-proclaimed and totally unfairly, as far as Jackie was concerned. 

It was late evening on a Friday, the very same week Jackie had embarrassed herself in front of her father’s entire soccer team.

She slowly closed her bedroom door behind her. Shoes on, phone safely stowed away in the pocket of her cherry-red jumpsuit. Sleeveless with a rounded neckline to show off both of her best assets: shoulders and cleavage. 

Going to a party without a boyfriend wasn’t an excuse to become a total fashion crime scene.

Jeff had, unfortunately, been more of an accessory than a person during their time together. Not because he was an asshole, and not because she hated him. She’d just never felt anything deeper for him.

Jackie realized she’d been more in love with the idea of being in love than with Jeff himself.

And, in retrospect, Jackie really should have thought about putting her shoes by the front door. Even if she had remembered to step over the creaking floorboards - A path she’d mapped out since middle school - seeing as her father was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

He flicked the light on.

Jackie bristled, her hand flying to her chest. She could feel her heart thumping underneath.

“What the hell, Dad?” she hissed under her breath, for absolutely reason. The only other person in the house she’d tried not to wake was, well, very much standing in front of her.

Arms crossed and broad-shouldered, muscles defined but not quite chiseled like an athlete. Her father had slowly descended into the “used to work out” look over the years and now seemed committed to staying there.

His greying mustache twitched as he fought off a smile, like he already knew the excuse she was about to blurt out (as well as his own answer).

“I’m just going… out,” she offered. Meekly. 

Her outfit certainly wasn’t something Jackie would wear for a late-night grocery run.

“Party night, huh? Charlotte’s house?”

His accent had far more of that southern twang than hers. Rough and gravelly, like he should own a farm and yell at ranch hands all day. But alas, Wade Taylor just happened to love yelling at girls who kicked balls instead.

A tragedy. 

He probably heard about the party from the girls on his team, too. Van being the likely culprit.

“Shoot me a call if any of y’all need a lift.”

He knew better than to keep a young woman in her mid-twenties from a Friday night party. 

Still, Jackie felt guilty that he’d probably stay up late waiting for her. Sometimes he’d even cook when she’d get back. They’d sit outside, chat, eat bacon and eggs, and watch the sunrise together.

“Sure, Dad.”

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, stubble prickly against her skin. Jackie glared at him for a brief moment when she pulled back.

“What’s with the stink-eye all of a sudden?”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Jackie replied, attempting (and failing) to look genuinely peeved at her father.

He let out a gruff chuckle and smiled.

“My bad, kiddo.”

He wasn’t sorry. Not one bit.

Jackie slid into the Uber already waiting for her, only to be met with a familiar face in the backseat. Vanessa Palmer, rarely called by her full name. Goalie for the Longhorns, and one of the few players Jackie might even call a friend.

Other than Natalie, of course.

“Single and ready to mingle, are we?” Van said, instead of offering a normal greeting. They were beneath her, or something.

“Gross.” Jackie let out a chuckle as she sat down. “The very diverse dating pool featuring Longhorn jocks and my best friend? Pass.”

“Come on,” Van lamented. “You and I both know that generalization is deeply hurtful.”

“Good,” Jackie replied, tone dry, and fished her buzzing phone from her pocket. 

A text from Lottie lit up her screen. Several, actually.

[Lottie] when tf are you getting here??

[Lottie] Hello????

[Lottie] Hi???

“Some of us have personalities outside of sports, you know,” Van defended.

Jackie let out a noncommittal hum, nowhere near agreement, then typed a quick reply and hit send.

[Jackie] Are you sloshed already??

When Jackie looked up, Van was grinning at her, arm hanging out of the car window, breeze rolling in. 

“Does discussing how many concussions you’ve had count as a hobby?”

“If you’ve had more than ten? Sure,” Van threw out with a shrug.

Jackie laughed, carefree. She felt weightless. Maybe at the sheer absurdity of two worlds colliding because Jackie’s best friend was dating a Longhorn. Or maybe it was the first night Jackie actually felt like she didn’t have to perform at all.

No Jeff. No one to keep up appearances for.

This was nice. Too nice.

Jackie’s phone buzzed again.

[Lottie] Just making sure the Uber driver didn’t kidnap you.

[Jackie] How chivalrous.

[Jackie] I’m with Van, safe and sound.

[Lottie] Honestly? That’s even more cause for alarm.

“What?” Van asked, her curiosity piqued by the sound Jackie made.

“Lottie thinks you’d be a horrible bodyguard.”

Jackie angled her phone’s screen toward Van.

“Does she know I stop balls that come at me at 70 miles per hour? For fun? And I’m not even getting paid… yet.”

Jackie pulled a face. Repulsed, annoyed, confused as to how this could possibly make any sense.

“And how does that particular skillset help you stop a full-grown human, not ball-shaped by the way, from kidnapping me?”

Van stared at Jackie for a long moment, lips pressed thin, a blank expression on her face.

“You’ve never taken one of Shipman’s balls to the face, and it shows.”

“You’ve had way too many concussions, and it shows.”

They were silent for a beat before the back of the Uber erupted with full-bellied laughter.

As soon as Jackie crossed the very familiar threshold of the Matthews residence, ‘Midnight Cit’y by M83 assaulted her senses. Not only had that song been played on repeat by everyone she’d had the misfortune of hanging out with for the past month, but it was currently being blasted straight into her eardrums.

Worse yet, as she swung the door open and traversed the foyer, moving between the already slightly overwhelming crowd, Jackie had the displeasure of barreling straight into Shauna Shipman.

Fucking hell.

Shauna was known to quite literally never hang out at these parties. She and her self-titled ‘bash bro’, Melissa, usually partied with the men’s soccer team. Oftentimes alongside the football morons, including one Jeff Sadeki.

Which brought Jackie to her next question currently triggering a very real mental breakdown: why the fuck was Shauna Shipman in her personal space, grinning down at her, while various sweaty individuals pushed them even closer together?

“Hey,” Shauna said, smirk pulling at the corner of her lip in the most irritating way. Whatever drink she was nursing definitely wasn’t her first.

“Hi,” Jackie replied, for lack of a better response.

Great. This was already getting super awkward. And not the cute rom-com kind (as much as Lottie claimed it would be). Because, one, Jackie was utterly incapable of having a conversation with her crush. And two, said crush was currently staring at her, expecting some form of conversational skill from Jackie.

“Hey back,” Shauna repeated. 

Jackie scoffed, something that most likely came off as extremely bitchy rather than what she actually felt like, which was a deer caught in fucking headlights.

“You already said that.”

Shauna shrugged, bringing the red cup to her lips and taking a slow sip. Her other hand stayed stuffed deep inside the pocket of the jogger shorts she’d opted to wear. Out in public. And was (apparently) not embarrassed by that very fact.

Jackie couldn’t help it. Her eyes scanned the outfit, taking in every unfortunate detail presented to her. Her lips refused to feign a smile. What she saw disgusted her immensely.

Jogger shorts. Grey, not that any color would have made them better, paired with bright orange Crocs. The entire look was finished with a very baggy, faded football jersey. Navy blue. The Texans’ colors.

“I know,” Shauna finally replied, her smile genuinely arrogant. As if Jackie’s appraisal had been positive in any way. As if Jackie wasn’t completely repulsed by Shauna’s total disregard for personal style.

“You look ridiculous,” Jackie blurted out before she could stop that thought from morphing into words and subsequently tumbling out of her mouth.

Fuck. 

Shit.

Shauna erupted in a loud, delighted laugh, like Jackie had just delivered the funniest joke on earth. Jackie was certain she hadn’t.

The crowd pressed them even closer together. Whether it was the shuffle of bodies or some cruel gravitational force, Jackie found herself inhaling the sharp sting of Shauna’s cheap cologne.

A headache blossomed at her temple. Who even wore body spray anymore?

Jocks, apparently. Another tragic revelation, courtesy of yours truly.

Shauna’s eyes, she noticed, were a deep, rich whiskey brown. Easy to get lost in. Easy to fall for. And yet, somehow, they belonged to someone whose fashion sense barely surpassed ninety percent of the school. Tragic.

Jackie would have loved an explanation for why her brain had chosen to crush on this particular disaster. Maybe she should do well to blame her heart. Or something even lower.

Maybe spending more time around Shauna would scrub this dalliance from her brain, but a party was probably a terrible time to test that theory.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie caught sight of a tall, lanky blur she immediately recognized as Lottie. She reached for her, hand outstretched through the crowd, and was subsequently rescued from her predicament.

She was knocked against a few bodies, shouting “sorry!” over the music, even if no one was listening.  They were all far too intoxicated to care.

Lottie pressed a suspiciously sticky red cup into Jackie’s chest once they entered the far less suffocating kitchen.

“You look like you needed a drink,” she said, practically yelling over the bassline thudding through the walls. “And a rescue.”

“I needed ten of these five minutes ago,” Jackie hissed, voice low, words sharp with irritation. She didn’t even examine the cup before downing half of it.

“Ew.” Jackie’s face scrunched up in pure disgust as the mystery liquid made its way down her throat. “What the hell is that?”

“Jungle juice.” Lottie leaned casually against the counter, her vague answer far from satisfying. She then took a second to examine the context of her own drink, before her eyes flicked back to Jackie’s. 

“I think.”

“You invited her on purpose, didn’t you?” Jackie accused before rational thought could catch up.

“She literally just came with the team,” Lottie said, far too calm for someone whose best friend was in the middle of a catastrophic emotional implosion. 

Jackie narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.

“The team she’s the captain of,” Lottie continued.

Jackie crossed one arm over her chest, the other still holding her drink, eyes sharp and scowl unimpressed.

Lottie sighed, long-suffering. Still, she pressed on with her farce of an explanation.

“The team that my girlfriend of two years is also on.”

“I just find it interesting,” Jackie said, head tilted like a detective poking holes in an alibi. “That you happen to host the one party where my crush shows up looking like she rolled herself in a dumpster and somehow thought that counted as appropriate attire for a public appearance”

Lottie chuckled, her smile effortless as always. “You actually caught her on a good day,” she said. “You should see her in her Corona cowboy hat.”

Jackie took a deep breath, trying to stop her mind from picturing Shauna in that, and drained the rest of her drink in one gulp, immediately regretting it.

“Cool. Well, I’m gonna go die in your bathroom now.”

Jackie made a step to turn away, but Lottie caught her, fingers curled around her forearm.

“Come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I told her straight to her face that she looked ridiculous.”

Lottie’s face stayed blank for half a second before she burst out laughing.

“You’re such a mess.”

Jackie’s brows furrowed as she backhanded Lottie’s shoulder with a satisfying, playful swat. It didn’t faze her.

So Jackie started pacing. Uncharacteristically so.

“I can’t even talk to her like a human being. I can barely get one sentence out,” she said, arms gesturing wildly. “And she laughed at me, Lot. She laughed.”

Lottie’s demeanor didn’t change. She didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation. 

“Shauna laughs at everything,” Lottie’s expression was a little too knowing, a little too cocksure for Jackie’s liking. “Maybe because she thinks you’re funny.”

Jackie froze, cup still in her hand.

“Don’t,” she said flatly.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make this worse by being optimistic. I can’t handle optimism right now. I need, like, shame, and maybe more of this toxic waste you call a drink m.”

Lottie was already turning to refill her cup. “Coming right up.”

Some guy Jackie was pretty sure she’d never seen before elbowed past her on his way to the counter, and the large bowl of mystery punch.

One of Jackie’s hands snapped to her hip.

“Excuse you,” she drawled, making sure her disgust at his proximity came through loud and clear.

The guy turned, wobbly and grinning, one brow cocked at her glare. Then his eyes slid to Lottie, like he was hoping for an explanation.

Lottie lifted her hand and traced an invisible square in the air around Jackie, as if outlining her with neon tape.

“This is a danger zone,” she explained. “Do not enter. Do not look. Don’t even question.”

He gave a single thumbs up and continued on his way, the liquid in his cup nearly sloshing out as he turned.

“God,” Jackie groaned, hiding her face in both hands. “I am a fucking mess.”

She felt herself drawn into a hug, Lottie’s chin settling gently atop her head.

“Yeah, but you’re a funny mess.”

Jackie pinched her side lightly.

“Fuck you.”

The night went on, and Jackie was spared the misfortune of embarrassing herself in front of Shauna any further. She got absolutely hammered. Enough that Lottie eventually decided to drag her outside. They ended up sitting on the front porch steps.

Jackie was pretty damn sure the cool air did nothing but make her drunker. 

She slumped into Lottie’s side, the world rocking back and forth like she was stuck on some rickety little boat. The crunch of tires on gravel pulled her attention away. With bleary, unfocused eyes, she watched Shauna fireman-carry a passed out Melissa from the front lawn to the back of an Uber.

“Don’t take turns too tight. You should’ve seen the crap she put away tonight. Trust me, you don’t wanna be the one scrubbing that out.”

Those were Shauna’s ‘wise’ parting words before she shut the door. She even waved goodbye, like a total dork. And she lingered a moment, hands stuffed in her jogger pockets, watching the Uber pull away.

“Aw, you’re so sweet,” Lottie teased as Shauna walked back toward them, steps perfectly steady.

Not much of a drinker, huh?

“Amongst other things,” Shauna said, voice low, eyes locked on Jackie’s.

Amongst other things.

Really?

What an idiot.

Jackie bit her lip and turned her head away before she could give Shauna the satisfaction of seeing her smile.

Somewhere in the middle of her drunken haze, she was pretty sure she heard Lottie laugh at her expense. 

Again.

Chapter Text

Jackie couldn’t pinpoint when her casual fascination with Shauna had morphed into a full-blown crush. Which was, frankly, ridiculous. Jocks were not her type. Then again, her meager dating history didn’t exactly provide a statistically significant sample size to explain why she inexplicably desired the women’s soccer captain of all people.

Was it because Shauna was always so effortlessly amused by everything, or treated everyone like they were her favorite person? Or maybe Jackie’s motives had been far less noble than that. Just her smooth, caveman brain continuously repeating: see pretty thing, like pretty thing.

Surely she wasn’t that much of a Neanderthal.

So what if Shauna’s eyes were the prettiest shade of amber she’d ever seen? So what if Jackie had memorized every line and curve of her abs during that one game when Shauna used the hem of her jersey to wipe the sweat from her forehead?

That didn’t make her creepy, or like, no better than any man. No, it was just part of the collegiate experience. Just a girl, crushing on a girl she’d barely spoken to their entire first semester. And was now, apparently (thanks to Lottie’s traitorous ways), running into her at parties.

Exchanging glances across the crowded room, smoky with idiot’s vape fumes, bass thudding, eyes always finding each other, even through the seas of bodies around them. That exact kind of overplayed, overdone, badly written, beat-to-death cliché of a fucking trope.

Jackie was mid-existential crisis, shovelling warm pancakes her dad had whipped up at two a.m. from the easy-bake mix, completely unprompted when she’d gotten back from the party.

Her ears were still ringing from the awful music, head spinning, mouth numb. In fact, Jackie had no fucking clue how she’d gotten up on the counter. But there she was, seated, legs swinging without a care in the world. A plate was precariously balanced in her lap. One careless tilt and the syrup would be cascading onto the floor, or onto her cherry red jumpsuit.

A frankly, even worse outcome.

Her dad leaned against the opposite counter, nursing a mug of coffee he’d probably made just for the smell of it.

Hot bean juice had a certain smell about it. Hypnotizing. Addicting. Everyone was under its spell, and Jackie wasn’t spared from being its dirty mistress.

But not tonight.

The succulent dark liquid would have to wait until morning, as the pancakes were currently doing a fantastic job of soaking up all the excess alcohol she’d swallowed tonight.

It hadn’t helped rid her brain of vivid images of Shauna’s abs. And it, unfortunately, also hadn’t rid her of the gnawing sense of dread as the date of her sister’s wedding continued to quickly trickle down.

“Your ma woulda killed us if she walked in on this,” he said, pushing off the counter and still not drinking his coffee, Jackie observed.

The kitchen was fairly small - so was the house. Cozy, homey were good descriptors. Spacey, modern, and expertly decorated it was not. The window above the sink gave a framed view of the patchy backyard grass and the arid desert vegetation.

No noisy traffic, just the blissful quiet of open countryside freedom.

Jackie rolled her eyes, licking syrup off her thumb. “Yeah, and she’d make us clean the whole kitchen while she’d sit there and eat every last pancake.”

Wade let out a soft chuckle. Low, rumbling, from deep within his chest.

Jackie stared at her empty plate with a profound sense of sadness. That the sugary goodness was all but gone. And also, most likely, thoughts of her sister’s wedding continuously resurfacing. 

“Do you really not care that Claire’s getting married on your anniversary with Mom?” Jackie asked.

Her dad lifted the mug halfway to his mouth, then stopped. “Ain’t losin’ sleep over it. She knows how I feel.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. It’s Claire.” The words came out too fast, too bitter, and Jackie saw the way his shoulders stiffened.

He set the mug down. “C’mon now, what’s this really about?”

Jackie slid her empty plate across the counter, legs swinging, hands tight on the edge beside her hips.

“She’s getting her perfect wedding, with her perfect fiancé, and I’m here at two in the morning, drunk and eating pancakes with my dad.”

“Sweetie—”

“Don’t ‘sweetie’ me. It’s pathetic, Dad. I’m pathetic.”

They sat in silence long enough for Jackie’s shame to really settle in, heavy and sour. It had been there ever since Claire announced her engagement, clinging at the back of her mind without remorse. 

“You ever gonna tell me what really went down with Jeff?” he asked finally. 

No judgment, just quiet curiosity. Or maybe he wanted another reason to hate the guy.

The truth was ugly in its simplicity. Jackie was the problem.

She still was.

“I stopped wanting to pretend that I was in love with him.”

Her dad moved to stand beside her, facing the window. The sky outside was a pale wash of blue, the first trace of morning. His mug sat untouched on the counter. He still hasn’t taken a damn sip of it.

“Love ain’t supposed to feel like a chore,” he said finally. “And if it ever does…” He let the quiet stretch just for a moment, making sure she was really hearing him. Truly. “Then he ain’t your guy.”

Jackie huffed a laugh that sounded too much like a sob. “God, you’re so cliché.”

“Maybe,” he said, grinning as he rested a big, warm hand on her shoulder. “But you’re pretty cliché yourself.”

Her watery laugh broke free before she could stop it.

“You’d be surprised.”

An Austin country girl (minus the twang), who’d dated the same guy since she was barely a teenager, only to figure out she’d never loved him and was very, very gay? That didn’t exactly scream cliché.

But dawn was creeping in, and Jackie was running on fumes. This wasn’t the morning to unpack all that.

So, she left it at that.

Jackie left her cramped classroom, once again eternally grateful to whoever had invented air conditioning. No swamp ass for her. At the very least, not during her draping class. It was always one of her favorites. She didn’t just get to play dress-up on a blank canvas, she got to bring her own vision to life.

It was immensely gratifying. And Jackie couldn’t imagine a world where she would ever tire of that feeling. 

It also happened that this was her 2 p.m., which was her last class of the day. She dug her sunglasses out of her bag and plopped them on, squinting against the brutal afternoon sun. Water bottle in hand, her only survival tool, Jackie stepped out of the perfectly air-conditioned building.

Humid. Heavy. Gross.

Jackie maintained, and would maintain until she was buried six feet under, that she was not made for this climate.

Silver lining? Campus was extremely beautiful. 

The courtyard stretched wide. Stone walkways spanned blocks, bordered by vivid green trees and lush grass. Red, orange, and beige brick buildings loomed over the students as they hustled to their next class.

And it was one of those very students that Jackie nearly crashed into. Again. When she lifted her head and pushed her sunglasses up over her head, she wasn’t at all surprised (considering the recent bad luck looming over her like some fucked up  curse), to find that this student was Shauna Shipman.

Jackie couldn’t help it. The venom spat from her mouth the second she laid eyes on her.

“So you do actually attend class.”

Jackie wasn’t sure why the only things she could manage to say to her supposed crush were always the most vile, bitchy remarks she could conjure. Some kind of coping mechanism, or like, some trauma response. 

Perhaps both.

Shauna laughed. Loud, unfiltered. The heat didn’t seem to bother her.

“When I'm in the mood," she replied with a stupid wink. And an equally ridiculous, easy smile. The kind that made Jackie’s stomach swoop instantly.

Pathetic, really.

Shauna readjusted her school bag, which was slung on one shoulder, nearly sliding off. She was wearing the stomach-turning combo of white socks, pulled high up her calves, slipped into a pair of nondescript flip-flops.

Jackie wanted to stop there. But her eyes moved upward, regardless of her better judgment. That was where she landed on a most unsightly outfit: a UT Longhorn hoodie - a hoodie, in this fucking weather? - paired with the shortest gym shorts Jackie had probably ever seen.

And it was then that she had seen too much of Shauna’s thighs. Defined, lightly tanned, and a total disaster cocktail for her brain cells. The only working ones were having a dance-off in her head. 

“And yet,” Jackie titled her head, taunting, “you don’t dress any better for school.”

Jackie ignored the way the soft fabric of her shirt stuck to the sweat pooling in the middle of her back. Whether it was from the blazing sun, or the heat of Shauna’s stare, she didn’t know. Didn’t want to dwell on such a fact.

The corner of Shauna’s lip pulled up. A twitch, a ghost of a smirk. “Anyone I should be trying to impress?”

Jackie let out a sigh and gave Shauna one last look-over, purely out of obligation. Or that’s what she told herself. In reality, her treacherous brain was busy cataloguing every detail. The ridiculous confidence, the way her shorts clung to muscle, the way Jackie’s baser instincts were screaming at her to just climb her like a tree.

Disgusting. She despised herself almost as much as she despised that look.

“Evidently not,” Jackie muttered.

Shauna chuckled. Low and rough, maddeningly casual. Sexy. 

She needed help. Serious help. 

“So,” Shauna asked, like this was just the type of casual conversation the two often shared, “what are you up to?”

Small talk. Actual small talk? Ew.

“Going home,” Jackie snapped.

“Cool.” Shauna nodded, unbothered.

Riveting.

“Just because we bumped into each other at a party doesn’t suddenly make us friends.” Jackie folded her arms, layering on the coldness of her words to cover the fact her heart was currently jackhammering through her ribs. All because of one woman. One very beautiful  sun-kissed, soccer jock. 

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got some very… complicated criteria for who makes the cut as your friend.”

Jackie nearly short-circuited at the fact that Shauna actually challenged her, instead of laughing it off like she’d been doing. 

She cleared her throat, shifting her weight. “Then you’d also be well-informed that you’d fall short.”

Silence fell. Not even the bustling students around them could break it as they stood there, staring at each other. Both with so much to say, and  neither knowing where to start.

“I gotta get to class.” Shauna broke the spell they both seemed to be under. She took a few steps backward, throwing out the universal head-nod. The casual, ‘see ya, bro.’

Horrifying.

“You do that,” Jackie tossed back, turning on her heel before her face betrayed her.

“Good talk, Jackie.”

The way Shauna said her name, like it was hers to say, like it belonged on her lips. It made something violent and traitorous happen to Jackie’s cardiovascular system.

Behind her came a soft hissed, “Shit,” from Shauna’s mouth.

Jackie didn’t have to turn to know that Shauna had walked straight into something. The image was enough. Shauna tripping, laughing at herself, shaking it off like it never happened. No dent to her ego. Of course, she’d never actually felt shame a day in her life.

And Jackie hated that she found even that stupid scenario unbearably charming.

She needed to put as much distance between Shauna and herself as possible. She unscrewed the tip of her water bottle and chugged nearly half of it in one large, greedy gulp.

But some thirsts couldn’t be quenched with water alone.

She made it to the parking lot without causing further embarrassment to herself—a feat that should have been celebrated by all.

Where was her ‘five minutes without incident’ pin?

As her fingers gripped the chrome handle of her old Chevy, the faded chrome handle warm under her palm, a voice suddenly called out behind her. She jumped at the sound.

“Hey. Jackie?” Jeff asked, as if checking whether she had changed her name since they had last spoken.

Her shoulders tensed the moment the words left his mouth. She took a deep breath and spun around, forcing a smile onto her lips when they wanted nothing more than to curl into a snarl.

“Can we talk?”

Ah, the classic.

“No, Jeff. There’s absolutely nothing for us to talk about.”

Nothing that they haven’t reiterated over and over again. Like a vicious cycle. Like a Groundhog Day that would never end, no matter what she changed, or did differently

“Please, I really—”

“Do you not fucking understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?” Jackie cut in, leaving no room for argument. She slid into the driver’s seat of her beat-up truck and slammed the door so hard the window rattled. Hinges squeaking in loud protest.

(It always did. It was an old piece of shit, but that was beside the point.)

As she drove off, the engine pulling away in a low rumble, Jackie glanced back in the rearview mirror just for a moment.

He stood there, looking dejected. Like Jackie should feel guilty for her feelings, or lack thereof. She scoffed and let her eyes slide back to the road ahead, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

She refused to let anyone strong-arm her into playing the perfect country girl anymore. A role she’d never auditioned for but kept getting cast in, over and over. Maybe part of that was on her, but she was done letting people decide who she was, or who she should be. 

And she sure as hell wasn’t letting Jeff guilt-trip her into dating him again.

Learning how to make patterns, making clothes of her own design, and getting to know design software were all things Jackie would categorize under the vast umbrella of things she considered to be fun.

Studying the history of fabrics, however, was so far from the word that they couldn’t possibly exist in the same universe.

Which was why she had texted Lottie and called a mandatory homework hangout, lest she perish of complete and utter boredom. Alone. In the room she had grown up in and hadn’t changed much since middle school.

Completely unbecoming. 

Lottie had texted that Natalie was already there. Jackie nearly cancelled (she didn’t feel like being their third wheel) until Lottie added that a few others were there too. Jackie took ‘a few others’ to mean exactly that. Two, maybe three people. Five or ten if it was a party. 

It definitely didn’t mean one single person. At least not as far as Jackie was immediately concerned. 

Which was why, when Jackie walked into her best friend’s living room after driving twenty minutes into town, she instantly felt the sting of betrayal when she observed that these supposed “others” were a lone Shauna Shipman.

Jackie’s gaze snapped to Lottie, who was sitting on the floor, books and laptop arranged haphazardly on the coffee table.

She couldn’t shout. She couldn’t scream. Jackie couldn’t even make a face. They’d notice.

Lottie knew, though. Oh, she knew.

Her face was like an open book to Jackie.

The way her smile twitched into a smirk. Or how she had plastered on a way-too-big grin when Jackie had come in.

“Take a seat,” Lottie greeted. “Join us in our collective brain-melting.” She even motioned to the conveniently empty space just beside Shauna, on the other side of the table.

Jackie allowed herself to narrow her eyes, just slightly, while still sporting the most friendly fake smile.

“Wow, you really shouldn’t have thought of me. Like, at all, actually,” Jackie nearly gritted out. “I can actually just go in the garage. Alone.”

Natalie snorted a laugh and lifted her head, scraggly blonde hair poking out from behind her laptop, phone in hand.

To the untrained eye, it might have looked like she had been hard at work. But Jackie knew better. Natalie was most likely arguing with people on a musically themed subreddit, as she had the habit of doing.

Jackie only received a head nod in greeting from Nat.

“Sit,” Lottie repeated, her smile no less shit-eating than when Jackie had come in.

Shauna smiled up at her. She was settled comfortably on the floor as well, back resting against the couch, laptop where it belonged (technically). In her lap.

“Hey,” she said. Simple. To the point. No more, no less. And yet it irritated Jackie to no end. Why that was, however, was a complete mystery.

“You again,” Jackie replied. She hoped it had come off as sarcastic as she had wanted it to. And judging by Shauna’s low chuckle, the way she had shaken her head and shot Jackie a crooked grin—it had worked flawlessly.

A slight problem arose, however, as Jackie wished they were doing a whole other kind of studying. And, well, her mind went elsewhere entirely. Which was the exact opposite of productive.

After she had finally settled down, tempering the emotional crisis of being rudely forced into close proximity with Shauna, Jackie actually managed to get some work done. She even tuned out Natalie and Shauna chatting about their latest game, catching only the tail end of a story involving some poor girl who had taken a ball to the face and dissolved into tears on the field.

An hour slipped by, and Jackie found herself almost used to Shauna’s presence. Almost. Her mind wasn’t constantly hyper-fixating on the fact that Shauna was right there, beside her, breathing evenly and typing away at her keyboard.

Natalie was the one to break the hour-long silence when she asked them the very pertinent question: “Food?”

“Yes, please,” Lottie sighed, rubbing both of her hands down her face to no doubt jostle her academic brain back to reality.

“Pizza?” Jackie suggested, lifting her shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. She wasn’t expecting anyone to argue with such a widely beloved meal choice.

It was then that Shauna lifted her head, stretched her arms behind her head, and said, “You guys get what you want. I brought my own lunch.”

Natalie pushed herself into a sitting position from the dejected way she had been lying on the floor, lifeless and horrified at having to do anything that wasn’t soccer related. She rolled her eyes at her captain.

“Nah, Jackie,” Natalie said through a chortle of laughter, mocking. “Miss Shipman would never put anything she considers ‘toxic waste’ into her body. Oh sorry—her temple.”

Shauna didn’t confirm nor deny, though she did scratch her cheek with her middle finger. Entirely too pointedly for it to have been a simple gesture.

Shauna then turned to Jackie, face stoic, brown eyes dead serious.

“And that’s why my shot could pass through a brick wall, and hers,” she waved a hand in a dismissive gesture at her teammate, “couldn’t even rip paper.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Natalie wheezed.

“Eating the proper amount of protein will do that to ya,” Shauna shot back.

“Okay, ew, too much information,” Jackie responded, gesturing vaguely at Shauna’s entire person.

Shauna would then send wink Jackie’s way. Why? Archaeologists with twenty years of experience couldn’t even dig up that answer.

“So, pizza?” Lottie finally asked, her voice still warm with laughter.

Natalie stood, rolling her neck, then offered her hand to Lottie.

“We’ll call it,” Natalie said, tugging Lottie up.

Jackie turned, catching Shauna’s gaze head-on. “‘Calling.’ Sure.”

“In another room?” Shauna deadpanned.

“Right. What is this, the nineties? Does she have a house phone I don’t know about?” Jackie asked, tilting her head as if she were genuinely considering it.

Shauna let one shoulder rise and fall in a shrug. “They haven’t tongued each other in, what, an hour? They’re about to combust.”

“Children,” Jackie said, shaking her head with exaggerated disapproval as they started toward the door.

Shauna matched her solemn expression, but the corners of her mouth twitched.

“Five minutes!” Shauna shouted at their retreating forms, tapping her too-large wristwatch. “Or no dessert for you two!”

That broke Shauna’s straight face, a sharp laugh escaping Jackie as the couple rounded the corner and disappeared out of view.

Though genuine, warm laughter had just been shared between the two, the air turned awkward like a snap of fingers. Like a cold wind suddenly rolling in. Jackie was suddenly hyper-aware of how alone she was. With Shauna.

Did she mention: alone?

And Shauna was still staring at her with that easy smile, like she was always one second away from saying something but always kept it clamped shut.

“What are you working on?” Shauna asked, nodding her head towards Jackie’s laptop.

“Illustrator assignment,” Jackie answered. She lifted a brow as Shauna nodded like she understood exactly what that meant.

“Cool,” she predictably replied.

“I guess.”

“So Lot said you were looking for a date to your sister’s wedding?”

First off. What the actual fuck, Lottie?

Second, Jackie’s brain struggled to keep up with the whiplash of the sudden change of conversation.

“You have severe, and I mean severe,” Jackie stressed the syllables, “conversational skill issues.”

When Shauna only laughed, Jackie continued the grilling session.

“Seriously, have you never heard of the word ‘boundary’? I—”

“I’ll go with you.”

Jackie’s eyes grew wide like saucers. She stared at Shauna like she was some being from another planet for a moment. Might as well have been.

“E-excuse me?” The words stumbled out of her mouth, uncharacteristically uncoordinated.

“I’ll be your date,” Shauna shrugged again. Casual. Like she wasn’t offering something that most people would ask to be paid for.

Holy shit, Shauna was one of those fake wedding date gurus, wasn’t she?

“And what makes you think I’d want to date you?”

That felt so incredibly dishonest on every emotional level Jackie had ever crossed. Because, yes, she would very much like to date Shauna. And reasons for that were still inexplicably unclear and very distorted, but this had to be a very, very bad idea. Right?

“I just figured it’d be easier if it was someone you were chill with. I understand the assignment. No harm, no foul. Y’know?”

“What?” Jackie spat out. Because sure, those were words that Shauna had spoken. But she had no clue how to even fit them together.

Shauna opened her mouth to say something, and Jackie immediately slapped her hand over the offending lips. Only to realize, seconds later, that she was very much touching Shauna’s lips with her palm.

“Shush,” Jackie hissed, index finger raised like that made the command more… well, commanding. “What makes you think this was any of your business to begin with?”

Shauna let out a small chuckle, low under her breath, as she gently removed Jackie’s hand from her mouth.

Jackie swallowed hard and looked at anything else but the way Shauna’s eyes softened. There. A piece of lint next to her foot. That should be enough to help calm her heart rate. Lint. Stupid, left behind and forgotten, and not Shauna’s handsome fucking smile.

“Just trying to help a friend.”

Jackie wanted to scream that they were so far from being friends, but considering her brain was a few screws loose of functioning, she remained quiet. And frowned down at the piece of lint.

“You don’t have to say yes. I’ll just give you my number, and you can text me whenever you figure it out. Cool?”

What the actual fuck?

“Shauna, I—”

That was about when Lottie and Nat burst back in, Natalie practically riding Lottie like a pack mule.

“The meal has been ordered, peasants!” Natalie announced.

Jackie blinked herself back from the weirdness and aimed Natalie a perfect, slow glare. “Stop riding my best friend like a pony, Nat. Or I’ll be forced to slap the shit out of you.”

Natalie grinned. Toothy. Cocky. 

Fuck. 

“Relax, Jackie. She’s into it.”

Jackie let her forehead drop against the coffee table with a dull thud, the sound swallowed by the laughter around her. It felt like the whole room was in on the joke. That her talent for humiliating herself in front of Shauna was less accident and more universal law.

A week slipped by, and Jackie sank into her blissfully monotonous routine. Classes, homework, helping her dad with the horses. And, most importantly, absolutely refusing to reply to Shauna’s text that read:

[Shauna] Yo its me

(Lie: she thought about it constantly.)

“Yo, it’s me,” Jackie had muttered to her vanity mirror that morning, testing out the words in disbelief. Idiot.

She curated her look with precision anyway, for no one in particular. Lip gloss and mascara qualified as makeup. It was the weekend, after all, and the hottest date she had lined up was watching early 2000s rom-coms with Lottie.

Natalie was off doing… soccer things? Jackie figured it was tied to the tryouts her dad wouldn’t shut up about. All week he had been rattling off stats and hyping up the star players who were coming to Austin to try out for the Longhorns. Whatever. Jackie didn’t care. 

She did care about how happy he appeared to be, though. That was good enough.

It also meant he, and everyone else would be occupied all day, so there was zero chance of surprise Shauna-and-Natalie-shaped intrusions. 

By the time noon rolled around, the living room was buried under an avalanche of pillows and blankets. The coffee table was covered with snacks that would be opened but not finished. Netflix taunted them with too many options. After an hour of debating (and good-natured gossip about their classmates’ Instagram posts), they landed on ‘The Proposal’.

‘The Wedding Date’ would’ve been way too on-the-nose for Jackie’s current predicament.

“You’re the worst,” Jackie accused, apropos of nothing, just as the Netflix logo bloomed on screen.

“I said I was sorry like a hundred times,” Lottie whined, her voice pitched high, like she was trapped in an eternal loop of torment.

“You could apologize for the rest of your life, and it still wouldn’t cover it.”

Lottie dropped her head against the couch cushion. “Shauna’s the perfect person for this, and you know it.”

Jackie scrunched her face, lips pressed thin, head tilted.

“And in what universe is that remotely true?”

“She knows the drill. And,” Lottie added with a certain smugness about her, like this was the clincher, “she’s not going to send you unsolicited dick pics when you inevitably ghost her after the wedding.”

Jackie didn’t tell Lottie that Shauna absolutely seemed like the type who would send aforementioned dick pics. For once, she kept that to herself.

“It might help, Jackie.”

She wasn’t about to stoop low enough to admit that Lottie might actually be right. Spending extended time with Shauna might finally force Jackie’s brain to catch up with reality and recognize how not-her-type Shauna was.

“What, like… get her out of my system or something?”

“You get it.” Lottie winked, shoving a fistful of popcorn into her mouth. Most of it tumbled onto the blanket they shared.

“I still think it’d be a huge mistake.”

“Your sister would freak.”

Jackie smiled at the mere thought of it. “She would.”

She most definitely would. 

And the thought grew more and more alluring the longer Jackie imagined the anguish it would cause her sister, and every other family member present. Except her dad. She had no clue what he’d do. 

Elation? Disappointment? Outright laughter?

Either way, it was all just theory. Not fact. Not yet.

Sandra Bullock was busy turning boarding a boat into the most complicated task known to humankind when Jackie picked up her phone. She thumbed through a few notifications before landing on the empty conversation thread with Shauna.

One lone message taunted her.

[Shauna] Yo its me

Jackie slammed the app closed before she could type anything she’d regret.

The night wore on. The drinks started flowing. Poorly made margaritas whipped up in Jackie’s tiny kitchen in a blender that probably hadn’t seen action since, well, ever. The first sip was precarious, ice half-crushed with stubborn chunks floating at the top. Strong. Too strong. But it burned warm in her chest, and that was good enough for a girls’ night in with her favorite person.

Somewhere around her third glass, something shifted. Jackie kept returning to Shauna’s message. Opening it, closing it, opening it again. Rinse, repeat. Until, finally, she typed something out and hit send.

She didn’t check what she’d written. Not until morning. Not until she lifted her head, bleary-eyed, realizing she and Lottie had both passed out on the couch. Jackie didn’t know who she was, what year it was, or who the president was (or maybe she just wanted to forget that last one).

But then, a sinking feeling slowly creeped in. The horrible kind, starting low in her stomach and blooming into panic as she remembered that she had texted Shauna.

Wild-haired, pawing through pillows and snack wrappers, Jackie hunted for her phone. Lottie snored softly beside her. Finally, she found it under a half-crushed bag of gummy bears.

[Jackie] First. If you’re going to text me, please refrain from using ‘yo’ and ‘sup’ and anything else equally stupid. Second, follow these exact instructions: Bennu, 11 a.m. Don’t be late. Goodbye.

[Shauna] Cool

[Shauna] You don’t have to sign off like it’s an email, btw

[Jackie] ‘Cool’ falls under the forbidden words.

[Jackie] ‘btw’ as well.

[Shauna] You gonna send me a list of shit I can’t text you?

[Jackie] No, that about covers it.

[Jackie] GOODBYE.

[Shauna] See ya tomorrow then

[Shauna] GOODBYE.

[Shauna] ahahaha ;)

What the actual fuck? Jackie didn’t remember sending any of those texts. But they sounded like her. Which meant they had to have been sent by her.

Jackie Taylor, private investigator. Hire her now, folks! She’ll crack your mysteries wide open in minutes. 

With a defeated groan, she let herself flop down half on top of a mountain of pillows. Lottie who simply grunted in semi-conscious protest. 

“This is all your fault, by the way,” Jackie mumbled into a pillow.

She received another groan in response.

Jackie sat inside the familiar coffee shop, one where UT students often reunited to study. She peered outside the window. The day was overcast. The only one where rain had been announced. Dark, gray clouds marred the usually blue sky this time of year.

Another sign this was the worst fucking idea ever presented to her. But here she was, waiting for Shauna fucking Shipman to show up.

Jackie glanced down at her phone, tapping the screen once. 10:46 a.m. And she was already on her second coffee. She ordered a third one. She checked her conversation with Shauna again. The only new response was from early this morning when Jackie rushed to get ready after chugging a bottle of water and slamming down a few ibuprofen tablets.

Breakfast of champions or whatever.

[Shauna] medium low fat cream hazelnut latte 

Right. As if Jackie would order her a drink when she didn’t even know when the woman was actually going to show up.

Idiot.

Jackie sipped her third cup. If she turned into a complete spaz when Shauna did finally appear, it would be entirely her fault for not showing up ten minutes early. As would be the correct thing to do in any social situation.

Shauna entered the coffee shop at 11:02 a.m.

Jackie sank a little lower in her seat, pressing a hand to her forehead when she noticed what Shauna had shown up wearing. T-shirt, with the sleeves cut off. Badly. Horribly. She must have done it herself. The shirt was at least two sizes too big for her frame, and so were the jeans she wore.

There was a pattern here.

At least her choice of shoes was fine. Which wasn’t good. But it wasn’t the worst thing Jackie had ever seen. A plain pair of Vans. Green.

“You’re late,” Jackie immediately greeted the second Shauna was close enough to their table.

“Where’s my drink?” She had the absolute audacity to ask Jackie.

“You’re late,” Jackie repeated. Slower. Colder. As if that answered why she didn’t order said coffee.

Who could blame her? Shauna’s arms were on full display, and Jackie’s body wasn’t sure how to react. She had to stop herself from leaning forward in her seat, spouting something flirty just so she could lean in and “accidentally” touch her arm while laughing like an air head.

What a fucking absolute mess she was.

And she would absolutely have stooped that low, if the situation were different.

Maybe.

Shauna burst out laughing, leaning back and twisting in her chair, her elbow hooked lazily over the back. She flagged the barista. Two fingers, head nod. The girl hurried over, a large smile on her face, too many teeth and somehow not enough.

Either way, Shauna ordered her overly sugary drink.

“I thought your body was a temple, Shipman?”

Wow. An entire sentence. And it wasn’t actually an insult. Not really. Well, maybe a little.

Good-natured, for sure. Totally.

“Sunday cheat day,” she explained.

Jackie rolled her eyes and sighed, hating that she hadn’t seen that coming.

The toothy barista brought Shauna her drink moments later, and Jackie cleared her throat.

“So, I’ve planned out how you’re going to do this—”

“Planned out?”

“Yes. That’s when you think before you act. I’m sure you’re not very familiar with this practice.”

Shauna nearly spit out her coffee, barely holding back her chuckle.

Jackie bit her lip, lest she join her in laughing. She couldn’t have people, or worse, Shauna, think she enjoyed her presence.

“My family’s not gonna buy it that easy. We need a plan before we go.”

Shauna mulled that information over for a few seconds, indicated by her brow drawing close together. Then releasing moments later. 

“And what do we have to convince them of exactly?”

“That we’re actually dating. And in love.”

Shauna frowned again. “Why?”

Jackie clamped her mouth shut and took a deep breath.

“Because,” she started with a hiss, “if we are nothing short of infatuated with each other. If we aren’t looking at each other like we’re seconds away from proposing, I’ll be a total embarrassment to them.”

Shauna nodded. She didn’t seem spooked. Or angry. Or much of anything except chill and laid-back.

“Okay… and how much time do we actually have before this wedding?”

“Six months,” Jackie answered quickly. Then she checked her phone once more. “Five, actually.”

“We’ll have to convince everyone around us.”

“I know,” Jackie sighed. Annoyed. Beyond mentally exhausted. 

At the very least, time was on their side. 

“Even Lot.”

“Yep,” Jackie smiled. It was nothing short of sarcastic. “Don’t remind me.”

“And Coach.”

Jackie groaned. This was starting to seem pretty dire.

“He loves me,” Shauna waved Jackie’s very real and very justified concern off. “He’ll be the easiest to convince.”

Jackie didn’t even dignify that with a response. She simply stared at the patrons occupying the table next to them. How simple their lives must have been. Not having to fake date someone they actually would love to date, but also hated that they wanted to.

God. Her entire life was a joke. A movie. A stupid rom-com in the making. And she hated every second of it.

When she snapped her eyes back to Shauna, she found that she had been intently staring at Jackie.

Jackie’s stomach did that treacherous swoop thing. Immediately.

The softness in Shauna’s eyes, the arrogant little smirk pulling the corner of her lip up.

“What?” Jackie snapped without meaning to. Her hands curled together around her mug. It was cold by now.

“Yeah… this’ll be easy.” Shauna shrugged, like that wasn’t a completely insane statement.

Right. Because spending five months getting to know a complete stranger, then convincing her family and friends that they’re in love? Totally ‘easy.’

Not to mention Jackie’s family - save for her angel of a father - were very… particular, let’s say. Detail-oriented. Judgmental. Vicious. 

She could go on forever, really. 

“What’s your favorite color?” Shauna idiotically asked.

“No.”

“That’s not a color,” Shauna replied, deadpan.

Jackie leaned forward in her seat. “This isn’t a fucking movie, Shauna. No one is going to ask you that. No one,” she repeated, stressing this very important fact.

That pulled a short laugh from Shauna. “Maybe I just wanted to know.”

“Well, I don’t want to tell you.”

“You’re really obstinate, y’know that?”

Jackie smiled. A real one this time. “Thank you.”

She sipped her coffee, eyes narrowing at the way Shauna stirred her coffee like it wasn't eighty percent sugar already.

There was no fucking way this was going to work. They were just too different. No one was going to buy that they were in love. Not Wade. Not Claire. And definitely not Lottie.

Even Jeff, as emotionally inept as he was, would see right through the ruse.

But, even if Jackie was well aware of all that - she still couldn’t back down. This was, by far, her only good option. Because the more she thought about fighting off a random guy’s advances for an entire weekend, the more she realized Shauna was her best option.

The rest of the time was spent looking over each other’s class schedules, and Shauna’s suffocating soccer calendar. No wonder jocks hated coming to class — it must always feel like a complete waste of their precious time.

“6 a.m. training?” Jackie asked, leaning forward across the table. She lowered her voice, and asked: “Is my dad torturing you guys?”

“We knew what we signed up for.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

Jackie leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. Most of their conversation was logistics. The when, the how, the boundaries to cross and not to cross. The usual. And once that was settled, they bickered over the check until Shauna strong-armed Jackie and tapped her card first.

Shauna then opened the door for her. But, Jackie refused the courtesy, insisting she could handle it herself. Shauna didn’t argue, she stepped out first, closed the door quickly behind her, and held it shut when Jackie tried to push it open.

Jackie’s jaw tightened. Eyes slid to Shauna’s stupid grin.

“Open the door, Shauna,” she spat out through gritted teeth.

“Funny,” Shauna leaned forward, one hand enough to block Jackie out, the other on her hip like she was proud of the point she was about to make. “You didn’t want me to just now.”

“Shauna,” Jackie hissed, realizing she was practically shouting to be heard through the glass. And that, unfortunately, most of the patrons were watching them.

“Open. The. Door.”

Shauna lifted her free hand to her ear. “Can’t hear you.”

“Please,” she finally acquiesced, knowing that’s what this moron was looking for.

The door flew open too fast. Jackie stumbled out and crashed against Shauna’s warm body. 

Her hand immediately lifted, backhanding Shauna’s taut shoulder with a swift smack.

“Is this how you treat your supposed girlfriend?” 

“Yeah. Get used to it,” Shauna replied, unfazed. 

Jackie was absolutely not going to get used to any of this buffoonery. Seriously. She was going to murder Lottie. Then Shauna. Then Lottie again.

Now that was a fine plan indeed.

But then Shauna actually walked Jackie to her beat-up truck, hand lightly pressed on the middle of her back, and Jackie couldn’t help, and for some infuriating reason, she was charmed by the soccer captain all over again.

Like a fish falling for shiny bait.

Fuck.

Jackie would not look at her in the review. Okay, so she did anyway. 

She was waving at her, like she did when she’d stuffed Melissa in the back of that Uber the night of the party.

Idiot.

Chapter Text

Jackie was stuck sweating like a fucking pig in this heat again, all because their fake-dating plans had to look genuine and organic. Which meant showing up to every single one of Shauna’s games. Not because her dad’s car was in the garage again and she was his only ride. Not because she was the team’s unofficial photographer.

No, because of fake girlfriend obligations.

Stupid.

And all of it, she constantly reminded herself, was self-inflicted..

Why couldn’t she have been born Canadian? Then she could’ve been watching her crush play hockey in a freezing arena instead of roasting alive, sweat pooling in every unnamable crevice of her body.

Jackie, however, flat-out refused to wear Shauna’s jersey like she’d suggested earlier that morning. She had gotten the text in the middle of CAD class. Jackie had seen her phone screen light up with the notification. She had read it, quickly, a snarl formed on her lips the more she read on. Not only because of the suggestion, but how it was written.

[Shauna] u should wear my jersey tonight i got like a bunch just tell me which one ill wash it

The offending text had also been sent with a picture. A snapshot taken of Shauna’s jerseys, laid out on her bed like she had just dug them out from underneath her bed.

Reprehensible. 

That was a month three dating milestone at the earliest.

And that’s precisely what Jackie had replied to the Longhorn’s captain.

Besides, she’d have to painstakingly wrangle a somewhat passable outfit around a fucking sports jersey. One of the most unfashionable atrocities on the planet.

Classes came and went, as Jackie obsessed over every detail of being seen in public talking to Shauna, until the time finally came. She lingered by the sideline when Shauna jogged over, cheeks flushed from warm-up. Ponytail bouncing, black sleeve hugging her arm—which Jackie had still yet to decipher what it was for. 

She also, inexplicably, had a ball tucked under her arm like she was on a basketball court rather than a synthetic field. 

Jackie’s very first thought, unfortunately, was: ‘You’re pretty when you’re out of breath’.

She bit it back. Just barely. Then immediately blurted, “Don’t embarrass yourself out there. I can’t be dating a washed-up athlete. It would be horrible for my reputation.”

Shauna laughed, low and unbothered. She, however, completely ignored the comment. “Football game Friday. You in?”

Absolutely not. That’s what Jackie wanted to say. What she almost said. Instead, she had to reluctantly agree. But, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be an obstinate bitch about it (her speciality).

“A date?” She let the pause hang, mostly for dramatic flair. Mostly because her eyes had just followed a bead of sweat down Shauna’s jaw to the collar of her jersey. “With you?” She added, finally, spitting the words like venom.

Shauna smirked in response, like all the insults didn’t even chink her armor. She started spinning the soccer ball on one finger like a WNBA all-star “For realism, we should play the angle that you could barely resist my magnetic charm so you accepted my offer right away.”

Jackie’s lip curled, jaw tightening. She swatted the ball clean off Shauna’s finger. The smile she flashed her was nothing short of sweet, though diabolically fake.

Shauna stared at her, deadpan. Somehow managing to look wounded and annoyed at the same time.

Jackie lifted her chin, as if issuing a challenge. What that was exactly, she didn’t know. 

Shauna didn’t bite. She never did. Instead, she flicked the ball with her foot to a waiting teammate. “Cool. I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Typical.

“No,” Jackie rolled her eyes. “I live half an hour out of town. Be ready by six-thirty.”

Shauna saluted her lazily. “As you command, Captain.”

Jackie shoved her shoulder. 

Shauna grinned wide, nearly splitting her face. “Should I bring you flowers? Or is that too cliché for you?”

Jackie’s smile came sharp, merciless. “I think you know.”

Before something else equally ridiculous could tumble out of Shauna’s mouth, Melissa came up from behind her, throwing a loose arm around her captain’s shoulders.

“Flirting with the hot girl’s real cute, but we got some goals to score, Cap.”

Shauna didn’t try to run away from the conversation after being called out so bluntly. Which, Jackie would wager, to anyone else would have been immensely embarrassing.

“Yeah,” Shauna said, slow, easy, eyes glued to Jackie’s. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Fucking idiot.

Jackie scoffed and turned away without uttering another word. It would have been wasted on her. Still, she overheard Melissa’s parting comment:

“You know that’s the coach’s daughter, right? Got a death wish or somethin’?”

Jackie let herself smile, just for a moment. And though she was not at all fond of Shauna’s caveman-like courting ritual and horrifyingly cheesy flirting methods, they seemed to convince people around them. And that was the goal, really.

Deny, deny, deny, until they doubted everything and it became too obvious for it not to be true.

That tactic was Jackie’s invention, and she was proud of it. On the battlefield of love and the court of public opinion, she was a master tactician. Maybe she’d even write a book. An e-book. She could picture it now: ‘Jackie’s Guide to Getting Away With It’. She could sell it for a stupidly high price, promise life-changing results, and people would eat it up.

Her daydreams of fame and fortune were cut short as she shimmied by a few students on her way to find her seat next to Lottie. One of them shouted ‘GO LONGHORNS!’ right in her face. She’s pretty sure she could smell their breakfast and lunch on their breath.

Great, she was now deaf in one ear, and disgusted beyond belief. 

And, Jackie was reminded yet again, how UT Austin ridiculously gave all their sports teams the same damn name. She also came to find, after making that precarious trek through the crowd and plopping down on the bench, that Lottie had a firm frown creasing her forehead.

“Relax your face, love. You don’t want pesky early wrinkles showing up,” Jackie mostly jested, a low chuckle on her lips. She leaned back in her seat, throwing one leg over the other. Her gaze landed, like drawn by a magnet, on Shauna. 

Both teams moved into position just before the whistle blared. Murmurs turned to cheers as Shauna picked the ball clean from the opposing team. 

The wonderful chaos of collegiate sports.

“You were talking to Shauna.”

“Very astute observation,” Jackie shot back, with surprising confidence.

 “Why?”

Jackie turned away, quick. Lottie knew how to read her face just as easily as she could. Her nervousness about even being around Shauna, however, worked wonders for their little ruse. 

Deny, deny, deny.

Jackie lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Non-chalant. Eyes still glued to the field. “She wanted to know when I could take the new player’s headshots.”

That wasn’t entirely false. She still had to do that. But the date had already been set. Truths were always the best lies.

“I don’t know.” Lottie eyed her for a moment, unspoken words passing between them. “That seemed…”

“Just spit it out, Lot,” Jackie snapped, convincingly so.

“Sorry.” Lottie rolled her eyes—totally unrepentant. “It’s just… you didn’t even talk to her last semester. And now you’re out here on the sidelines like some kind of groupie?”

“Remind me again who invited her to your house party?”

Lottie feigned innocence, offering Jackie some of her popcorn as some sort of shitty deflection technique. She also wouldn’t confirm nor deny the accusations.

Jackie continued, tone colored in practiced sarcasm. “And wasn’t it you who invited me to your, like, weird study double date?”

The ghost of a smirk poked through, but Lottie tempered it down quickly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, babe. The heat must be getting to you.”

Laughter spilled out of both of them, Jackie clutching a fistful of popcorn as she bumped her shoulder into Lottie’s.

“You’re only excused because you were gallant enough to pay for the popcorn.”

“Well,” Lottie winked, tossing an arm over Jackie’s shoulders in full jock parody, “I happen to be an expert at this whole dating thing.”

Chuckling through her mouthful, Jackie settled into Lottie’s side. Comfortable, even though the humidity usually made that impossible. The evening air was cooler, at least.

“You’d be such a douchey jock.”

Lottie, as always, neither confirmed nor denied this denunciation of her character. Instead, she took an easy jab at her best friend.

“I hear you’re into that, though.”

“Fuck off,” Jackie replied once she eventually overcame the shock of how potentially accurate that statement had been.

And, as much as Jackie hated to admit it, this whole thing was kinda working out pretty well. Better than she had anticipated, even.

Jackie lay defeated, a pile of her own clothes strewn beneath her. The ceiling didn’t hold the answer she so desperately sought. She wasn’t asking for much. She simply wanted to know what to wear to a first fake date that was supposed to come off as a casual, friendly hangout but still gave the impression that it was more than that.

Easy. Simple.

And yet, the answer eluded her.

Makeup first, she decided. Regaining some energy from this newly acquired purpose, Jackie jumped off her bed and walked over to her vanity. Her eyes judgmentally examined every feature of her face. If it wasn’t supposed to be a date, then she’d go for a more natural look. Soft, muted colors. Nothing that would pop and scream: “Hey, look at me with my super hot girlfriend.”

Then again, Jackie didn’t exactly mind if that’s what people believed. That was their plan, after all. But more than that, she thought she’d probably look really good on Shauna’s arm. Not that she enjoyed the whole trophy-girlfriend thing—she wasn’t into setting women back twenty years of hard work.

Her brain quickly came to her rescue, conjuring up images of the disaster of an outfit Shauna would probably show up in, and she quickly changed her mind. Fantasy evaporated.

Just like her sanity, apparently.

The door of her room creaked open, and she jumped, nearly blinding herself with her eyeliner. Jackie turned, slapping her hand down on the wood of the vanity.

“Knocking. We talked about this.”

His mustache twitched with a smirk, but he refused to answer for his crimes.

“Where ya headed tonight?”

“Football game.”

His eyebrow rose as he leaned back against the doorframe.

“Goin’ to see Jeff play?”

Jackie stilled her movements, lip gloss nearly to her mouth.

“I thought I already told you that the whole thing with Jeff was over. For good.”

“I know. But I also know how ya ladies are.”

Jackie turned, one hand on her hip, glare loud and proud. She nearly broke character when she observed her dad bristle under the heat of it.

“I just meant, fights happen. Sometimes ya realize it wasn’t so bad, y’know?”

Nice recovery. Jackie narrowed her eyes at him one more time before turning her attention back to the task at hand: looking hot for Shauna. Shit. No. Looking hot for herself. Entirely just for her own sense of accomplishment.

Yep. Totally.

“I’m going with a few of the girls.”

“My girls?” he asked, brows drawn in confusion.

Deny. Deny. Deny.

“Girls in my sewing class.”

“Oh.”

From the corner of her eye, she could tell that Wade wasn’t buying any of it. Or at least, he was connecting some dots that made him heavily question the validity of her statements. His eyes snapped from the pile of clothes on the bed to the way she was meticulously applying makeup.

“Well,” he said with a sigh. “Make sure to tell your old man how our boys do.”

She wouldn’t. Jackie barely knew the rules, let alone how to follow a scoreboard. Remembering the final score would be nothing short of a miracle.

“Sure, Dad.”

He stepped inside just long enough to kiss her forehead, then knocked on her door on his way out.

Jackie sighed—exasperated and long-suffering. A small chuckle slipped through despite herself. 

She’d take a father who cracked the corniest jokes over one who never showed up at all. Surviving her mother’s passing had once seemed impossible. How either of them had managed was beyond her. But somehow, they had. And, ten years later, they’d found their rhythm, and life with him felt steady. Great, even.

With her makeup done, Jackie turned and leaned against the dresser, her shoulders deflating as she was faced with the reality of having to now dress herself. She picked up her phone from the dresser, opened the messenger app, and clicked on Shauna’s stupidly good-looking profile picture.

[Jackie] What are you wearing?

Shauna was already typing something.

Jackie just now realized how dumb of a question that was to pose to this idiot.

[Shauna] right now? not much

[Shauna] if you want a picture it’ll cost you extra

[Jackie] You’re literally the fucking worst.

[Shauna] okay GOODBYE.

[Shauna] and see you soon!!

[Shauna] don’t be late ;)

Jackie threw her phone on her bed and walked, defeated, to her closet. She gripped both doors, pressing her forehead against them.

There had to be something in there she could wear that wouldn’t make her look desperate for attention but would also make Shauna not want to look at any other girl.

It was a fucking simple ask.

No?

She hit her head against the doors, hard wood on an even harder head. The dull thud echoed over the soft music playing from her Bluetooth speaker. Not only did she have to deal with the nervousness of now publicly actually hanging out with the crush she couldn’t seem to get over, she had to lie. Convincingly. And she couldn’t lose track of any of them, or she’d end up looking like a fucking moron.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Jackie huffed, rereading Shauna’s last text for what had to be the hundredth time since she’d been (impatiently) waiting out front for the past fifteen minutes.

[Jackie] I’m here.

[Shauna] omw

She really should have known to add that fucking acronym to her list of don’ts.

The sky burned a bright orange, and Jackie did not buy the lie that the sun wasn’t at its warmest in the evening. Even with all the windows wide open (which would be a total of two), she felt like she was being roasted alive like an overseasoned chicken in her truck’s cabin.

Thank God her shitbucket had not come with leather seats. A small mercy bestowed upon her.

Jackie tossed her phone onto the bench seat, all but discontinued in newer models of cars (unfortunately). She crossed her arms and bounced her leg against the floorboard, glare locked on Shauna’s driveway. Her car was there. An equally beat-up Civic. 

Hatchback, naturally.

The home itself was what real estate agents would have called ‘modest.’ Paint was peeling in places, bright turquoise fading toward a dusty gray. Two stories, tall but forgettable, unremarkable yet weirdly charming.

A sudden car horn snapped Jackie upright. What the fuck now? A moment later some jackass tore down the street, bass turned up so high Jackie felt it rattle her ribs. That set off a dog. Then another. And somewhere not far off, sirens started to wail.

God, the city was fucking noisy. Nothing like the quiet she’d grown up with out in the country.

The front door finally opened, Shauna running down the steps two at a time like she was suddenly so concerned with time and how long she’d made Jackie wait.

She had on a Longhorns football jersey, unsurprisingly. Bright orange on stark white. That, in itself, wasn’t despicable considering they were going to a sporting event. What was, frankly, baffling to Jackie was how Shauna wore it over a long-sleeved shirt and full-length cargos.

It was like the girl was immune to heat and humidity or something. Was she a fucking alien?

“Took you long enough,” Jackie said, throwing the truck into drive before Shauna even finished shutting the passenger door.

“I wanted to put in a little more effort for you,” Shauna replied, punctuating it with a wink.

The truck jerked forward. Jackie pretended it was just the brakes, not the way her pulse spiked. Shauna already looked at home, one arm draped out the window, one sneakered foot kicked up on the dash. The wink replayed itself in Jackie’s brain for the sole purpose of tormenting her.

“You shouldn’t have,” Jackie managed, her voice lagging so much she half-hoped Shauna had forgotten what she’d said.

She hadn’t. Smirk sharp, eyes sharper.

Shauna then turned her head, scanning the dashboard. “What year is this thing from?”

“Before you were born.” Jackie’s response was nothing short of flat and dry.

“Cool,” she said around a chuckle. Warm and low, the one Jackie had identified as the most treacherous for her mental state.

“Should we post something?”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna need a bit more context.”

“A selfie. For Insta.”

Jackie barked out a laugh. “Right, because nothing says ‘subtle’ like me, freshly single, never hung out with you once in my life, suddenly showing up with you to watch a sport I don’t give a fuck about? Publicly?”

“Girls take pictures all the time when they hang out,” Shauna countered, utterly unbothered.

Jackie shot her a look. “I thought we agreed to ease into it.”

Shauna nodded, grinning like no conversation they ever had was serious. “We did. Was just a suggestion.”

“Then it’s settled.”

“Sure.”

“Good,” Jackie muttered, though the relentlessly smitten part of her brain was already cataloguing how good Shauna looked with her hair falling messily against the open window.

Not even a minute later, Shauna had her phone out, snapping a picture of… something. Jackie didn’t bother to look. Safer to keep her eyes on the road than to think too hard about the way Shauna was sitting in her truck.

Invading her space. Her mind. The cabin was even starting to smell like her body spray. It was all so very quaint.

Shauna shattered the silence, moments later: “I wasn’t trying to make fun of your truck.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Okay.”

God, every conversation felt like pulling teeth. No spark, nothing in common. And, worst of all—Jackie hated even admitting it—no chemistry. Why had she even agreed to this? Regret was starting to seep in. It wouldn’t be too late to call everything off, she reminded herself.

Jackie turned to shoot her a quick glance.

Shauna was softly muttering the song playing on the radio under her breath, watching the buildings blur by.

After the game.

After the game she’d call it off. She’d apologize for dragging Shauna into this ridiculous plan and then, honestly, probably switch schools just to avoid dying of embarrassment.

The only silver lining—rare as those were lately—was that the campus wasn’t far from Shauna’s house.

By the time they got there, the crowd was already overwhelming. They settled on a plan: Shauna would grab drinks, Jackie would hold their seats.

Easy.

At least, it was. Right up until some idiot, clearly already drunk, tried to park his ass in Shauna’s spot.

Which Jackie was very obviously saving, given her handbag was sitting right on it.

“Excuse me,” Jackie tried. Her voice actually carried over the rowdy crowd, but the guy didn’t even flinch. He was too busy running his mouth to his friends.

“Nah, dude, I’m telling y’all. 31-25, Longhorns.”

“Hey, moron,” Jackie hissed, giving his back a little shove to stop him from crushing her purse.

That finally got him to turn. Mouth hanging open, eyes vacant, like he’d just discovered other humans existed, and that one of them was inconvenienced by his existence.

“This seat’s taken.”

“First come, first served.” He smirked and went to drop into it anyway.

“I was literally here first, you fu—”

“Got our drinks,” Shauna cut in, her voice flat and dry. Jackie glanced up, startled. It was probably the first time she’d ever seen something close to a scowl on Shauna’s face.

“Good thing you were here to warm my seat,” she added, stepping past Jackie. “You can find another one now.”

The guy blanched. “Oh, sh—sorry, Shipman. Didn’t know you were with her.”

“All good,” she said, flashing him a smile that never reached her eyes.

“Who knew dating a UT celebrity had its perks,” Jackie muttered, still eyeing the guy who’d nearly stolen the seat. Wishing she’d somehow magically gain the ability to melt him with eye lasers.

Shauna dropped into the seat like nothing had happened and turned to Jackie with her usual assured smirk. “Thought this wasn’t a date?”

“It isn’t.” Jackie crossed her legs, tucked her purse between her stark white sneakers that had never felt the warmth of exercise, and never would.

Shauna handed her a nondescript red cup.

Jackie gave it a precarious sniff.

Beer.

“What is it?”

“Beer.”

“Shauna,” Jackie sighed.

“Fuck if I know,” she answered with a chuckle. “Cheap shit they had on tap, if I had to guess.”

“Good thing I came prepared.” Jackie bent over to unzip her bag and pulled out a small flask of whiskey. Truth was, she never carried a purse anywhere. If she did, it was most likely to smuggle in whiskey.

She tipped the flask straight into her beer, then held it out toward Shauna.

“Cup,” she demanded without a shred of patience.

Shauna paused. Eyes scanning the flask, then Jackie’s face. “And who’s gonna drive your drunk ass home if I let you overpour?”

Jackie rolled her eyes before she even finished her sentence. “Just a little. To mask the taste. And you’re not driving my truck.”

Shauna lifted her hands in mock surrender, then dropped the one holding her beer to take a sip.

Jackie almost choked on her own drink at the face she pulled. Like the stuff really did taste like dirty socks going down.

“Yeah, okay. Fine,” Shauna said, still grimacing even after she swallowed. “Not a fan of beer that tastes like ass.”

Jackie hesitated, just to tease her. It worked. A pout formed on Shauna’s lips and Jackie had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

What the fuck? Down, girl.

After Jackie moved past that particularly mortifying thought, she poured the honey-flavored whiskey into Shauna’s cup.

“Now it’ll taste like whiskey and just a little ass,” she added with a sarcastic little smile.

“Go Longhorns,” Shauna joked, unenthused, and clinked her cup against Jackie’s in a half-hearted toast. She paused before drinking, bracing herself, then downed half in one gulp.

Her expression shifted from blank to mildly impressed.

“Not bad.”

Jackie turned her head away to laugh, too stubborn to let Shauna see the smile tugging at her face.

That would be beneath her, really.

The game started off strong, with the Longhorns scoring a touchdown and getting seven on the scoreboard within the first five minutes.

Jackie wasn’t sure why they were allowed an extra point for kicking a ball through a giant fork-looking pole thing, but her drink tasted less and less like ass and more like just pure whiskey, so she stopped questioning it.

She’d been so sure—without a shadow of a doubt—that she’d spend this whole fake not-date fending Shauna off. That she’d have to argue how being handsy right out the gate screamed too fast. Too easy. And honestly? Trashy. But Shauna couldn’t care less about her presence (or so it seemed to her).

She’d been engrossed in the game from the start. Yelling obscenities at the refs, and nearly spilling her drink (twice).

After the third time, Jackie finally asked her, leaning in close.

“What are you so worked up about?”

Shauna’s shoulder immediately tensed, only to relax seconds later. When she turned toward Jackie, having to talk directly into her ear to be heard over the crowd, Jackie realized why this entire thing was such a bad fucking idea.

Shauna’s breath, warm on her cheek.

Fuck.

“Oklahoma’s been fouling our guys nonstop, and the refs are playing favorites like assholes.”

Jackie cleared her throat, just to make sure her words wouldn’t come out in an embarrassing squeak. “That explained exactly nothing,” she replied, face blank. She was proud of how even that all sounded.

But then, Shauna leaned in again, her hand moving to the back of Jackie’s chair, which pushed them even closer together. Treacherously so.

“You can’t hit someone with your helmet. I saw them doing it at least three times.”

“Fascinating. What a barbaric sport.”

Shauna pulled back, slight frown on her face. It was cute. Too cute. 

“Shouldn’t you know this already?”

Jackie simply pulled a face, like it was pretty obvious why she didn’t know jack or shit about this sport. Or any other sport, for that matter.

“You dated the QB for like, ever, dude,” Shauna pressed.

“It wasn’t something we talked about, dude,” Jackie replied in the most unkind and mocking tone.

“What the hell did you guys talk about then?”

“I really don’t see how that’s pertinent to this,” Jackie motioned between the two of them—between the rapidly disappearing distance. “Arrangement.”

“It’s something we’d definitely talk about if we were dating,” Shauna reasoned.

“Let me make this crystal clear for you,” Jackie hissed, moving even closer. She could see the flecks of golden brown in Shauna’s eyes. And the barely discernible freckles on her nose. “Not only is my history with him none of your business, we have no reason to talk about him. Ever.”

“Alright,” Shauna leaned back again. “Sorry,” she muttered under her breath.

Jackie felt like a complete asshole, instantly missing the totally non-suffocating warmth of Shauna pressed against her. Instead, she was stuck here—irritated, bored out of her mind by a sports game she couldn’t care less about. And as if that wasn’t enough punishment, she had to physically see her ex-boyfriend.

Fucking ew.

They should’ve gone on a fake date to the movies, like normal human beings. But no. Apparently, everyone at UT Austin was a die-hard sports fan. Everyone except her. She was pretty sure she’d already spotted most of her first semester teachers in the crowd.

Shauna’s arm stayed draped over the back of her chair the entire game. Jackie asked a question now and then, which Shauna answered easily enough—but Jackie noticed her good-natured smile starting to falter. Cracks in the facade.

Fantastic job, Jackie.

And then, of course, the curse kicked in. Jeff somehow spotted her, locked in on her like she had a neon bullseye glowing on her forehead. A direct hit. Perfect.

For half a second she considered grabbing Shauna’s chin and making out with her right then and there. For what? To punish him for cornering her in the campus parking lot last week? Shauna was a person, not a chess piece for Jackie to shove around the board. 

Still, she may have leaned into Shauna’s side just a fraction. Marginally. Barely. Practically imperceptible.

She just prayed Jeff wouldn’t take it as a sign to text her. Or worse, to corner her face-to-face again.

From the corner of her eye, Jackie glanced at Shauna, who was sipping from her cup, gaze fixed on the field. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to fast-forward this fake-dating plan just a little. Because if she had to explain to Jeff one more time why they were never, ever, getting back together, she might actually fight him.

This whole thing was already more tangled than Jackie had bargained for. Her very real (maybe), sort-of-horny feelings for Shauna, Jeff’s relentless hovering, and the fact that she still hadn’t announced to anyone but Lottie—and by proxy, Nat—that she was actually very much a lesbian.

What a fucking mess. At least the rest of the game was far more enjoyable than she imagined. Partly because of the whiskey, and also partly because of Shauna’s closeness, and the random tidbits of information she’d tell Jackie here and there.

Later, back in her room, Jackie collapsed onto her bed, still buzzing from the game. She was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, when a photo stopped her cold. To anyone else it would’ve blended into the feed. Vague, nothing special. But to her, it was obvious.

Shauna’s point of view from Jackie’s truck. Her sneaker propped on the dashboard, cargos stretching into the frame. The caption, casual, read:

[@CapShipman06] Go Longhorns! ;) #ridingvintage 

It worked almost too perfectly. A breadcrumb trail straight back to Jackie, but hidden just enough that only someone who’s ever seen the passenger seat would recognize it.

Without thinking twice, Jackie tapped the follow button and shut her phone off for the night, her pulse running faster than it had any right to.

Jackie woke before the sun, same as always on Sunday mornings.

The horses were restless, their hooves echoing through the dark like someone banging pots and pans under her window. She dragged herself out of bed, pulled on her work boots, jeans stained with years of varnish, paint and other unidentifiable substances. Her coffee was ready, still steaming (hopefully), inside a black thermos cup. 

The air outside was damp enough to sink into her skin, leaving her shivering before she’d even made it to the stables. The humidity hasn’t hit yet. It was her favorite time of the day.

Her dad was already there, up to his elbows in stable muck, humming some tune under his breath.

“Mornin’, sunshine.”

"Coffee's good,” she replied while taking a slow sip. It warmed her to her bones. The kick in the ass she needed before starting the day’s work.

Routine carried her through the first few minutes. Scoop, dump, step aside before a horse kicked her into the dirt. Easy. No thinking required. But, soon enough, the cool morning air disappeared the moment that the sun poked its fiery red sphere over the horizon. The serenity of early morning evaporating along with it. 

Her phone started buzzing in her pocket. Once. Twice. A whole stream that set her teeth on edge. She ignored it until ignoring it felt worse than just looking. By the time she pulled it out, the notifications stacked across her screen.

Lottie had spammed her with screenshots. She must have finally woken up from her Natalie-shapped coma and weekend-long romp. Blurry Instagram stories, captioned with an unnecessary amount of hearts and laughing emojis. In most of these, Jackie was sitting pressed close to Shauna, heads turned too close, caught mid-laugh in one (when Jackie had been pouring whiskey in Shauna’s cup). 

The kind of picture that looked way too natural and genuine.

Well, Jackie couldn’t complain. They actually looked amazing together.

Then, there was a single text from Jeff:

‘Hope you enjoyed our win’.

Before she could even think of throwing her phone straight into a pile of hay, it lit up with an incoming call. 

Jackie winced, thumb hovering, then answered anyway. If she didn’t, Lottie would just keep trying. Or worse, call her father. She was pretty persistent.

“Good morning, miss Taylor!” Lottie’s voice was overly bright, cutting straight through the morning quiet. Jackie’s dad glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow, shovel paused midair.

Jackie stepped back from the stable, swatting an errand strand of hair that had annoyingly fallen from her pony tail. She pressed the phone closer to her ear. 

“I’m busy,” Jackie grunted her reply, like she was beyond inconvenienced by this call. 

Lottie didn’t buy any of it. As usual.

“I was just wondering how you enjoyed the game Friday night.” There was a lilting tease in her tone that made Jackie want to hang up immediately. “Because from the looks of it, you and Shauna had the best seats in the house.”

Jackie fought off a smirk. 

Hook line and sinker, sucker.

“We were just—”

She cut herself off with a startled yelp as one of the horses nudged her back, snorting. He demanded her attention. And when she didn’t bow down to his demands, he started chewing on her bootlace, tugging insistently like he planned to drag her back into the stable.

“Hey, stop it,” Jackie hissed, trying to shake him off. “Not a snack. Boots are not a snack.”

Lottie laughed faintly through the receiver. “Did I catch you at a bad time, babe?”

“Always,” Jackie replied, already fumbling to shove the slobbery muzzle away. “Look, I gotta go before he eats my boots.”

She didn’t wait for Lottie to reply. She hung up, shoved the phone back in her pocket.

“Great timing,” she muttered. “She’ll totally think something’s up.”

The horse shook its head, letting out a series of short snorts.

Jackie pushed herself up on the tips of her toes, giving him those scratches behind the ears that he always sought out.

He sighed, delighted. 

“Sweetie,” Waded called out, sucking on a mint. He was trying to quit smoking and got addicted to mints and candies in the process. “Shit needs shovelin’.”

Better a cavity than… well, something worse. Jackie wouldn’t let her mind go to that place. Not again.

She rolled her eyes, but she caught the worn shovel that was offered to her.

The wink he sent her way made her chuckle under her breath.

Wade bent his knees, picked both wheelbarrow handles in gloved hands, and followed behind her.

“How was the game? Ya never said who won.”

Subtle. He was fishing for answers. She knew. He probably had already gotten the notification of the score on his phone.

“Longhorns. I think.”

That pulled a low and rough laugh from Wade. 

“Right.”

He remained silent for a moment, as questions no doubt swirled in his mind. He finally settled on one of them:

“And, who’d ya go with again? Charlotte?”

“God, no,” Jackie laughed, tone dismissive. “She had a whole date weekend planned with Nat.”

“Now, I might be mistaken, but I saw some pictures on the school’s website, and looked like you and my Captain were together.”

Jackie truly loved it when people did the dirty work for her.

She paused, sinking the shovel in the dirt and leaning against the handle, eyes sliding over her dad’s furtive ones. “Your captain?”

He wouldn’t correct his statement. “I didn’t know you two had been talkin’.”

“She had no one to go with,” Jackie explained. She knew it was a weak excuse. In fact, she was counting on it. “So I said yes.”

His mustache twitched again as he mulled over how much of a fucking lie that was. He didn’t call Jackie out on it, though.

“Right,” he repeated. Tone unsure.

More silence.

“Well,” he sighed, giving her a subtle unimpressed side-eye as she all but ripped the shovel from her hands and took over. “Hope ya had fun.”

Jackie moved to the wheelbarrow, a small smile on her lips.

“I did.”

Wade chuckled and shook his head.

No more words passed between them after that. None had to. However hard the work looked from the outside, she liked these quiet mornings with her dad. It was theirs. Untouchable. And, oddly enough, pretty damn relaxing.

Mondays always felt like such a jarring change of pace. One minute she was a good ole country girl, mucking stalls and riding horses, the next she was dressed up for class like she hadn’t been shoveling shit a day earlier.

Shauna had only texted her once since Friday. Some dumb memes about the game. Which Jackie had promptly replied to with a string of question marks.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t figure it out. It was fairly simple. Two images stacked on top of each other. The top one featured an Oklahoma player basically headbutting Travis Martinez mid-air. The bottom image was Ralph from ‘The Simpsons’ diving through a window.

The question marks were supposed to mean: ‘why the hell are you sending me a sports meme when I don’t give a shit about sports?’ In hindsight, Jackie wasn’t convinced that message had landed.

She just walked out of class, and was going to push her earbuds in, when a casual “Hey,” nearly made her jump out of her skin.

Shauna had just appeared, like she always did, out of thin air. She looked like she’d rolled straight out of bed and into daylight. Oversized t-shirt swallowing her frame, joggers bunched at the ankle, hair tucked into a messy bun that could not possibly have been done with a mirror. 

And somehow, against every single law of attraction that Jackie believed in, it all worked. Casual, and completely nonchalant in a way that was devastating.

Shauna held two cups in her hands and offered one to Jackie. She took a cautious sip, partly to hide the sudden drop her stomach had taken. She was bracing herself to recoil in horror, but it was actually exactly what she usually ordered.

“You remembered.”

Shauna’s smug expression was maddeningly annoying (and hot). “You could try looking impressed that your hot, super popular girlfriend actually walked to Beanu just to grab your favorite coffee.”

She said it like it was a joke, but it felt like a targeted attack to murder Jackie’s composure at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday.

“Sorry, I’m all out of that for today,” Jackie smiled. Toothy. And, despite her sarcasm, it was genuine, underneath it all. “Try again next time.”

Shauna just grinned in response, slow and easy.

After a few seconds of very much not-subtly looking at each other, it was Shauna who managed to save the moment before awkwardness could start to spoil the moment.

“Walk with me,” Shauna said with a simple nod of her head. One hand stuffed deep inside her joggers pocket, the other around her own cup.

Jackie wanted to protest, loudly and dramatically. Maybe even, like, throw herself into a bush to avoid walking next to the most casually attractive human alive. 

“Must I?” She sighed, mostly to herself.

She caught up to Shauna easily. There wasn’t much of a height difference between them—at least, not when Jackie was in heels. And she was. That’s also when her brain, unhelpfully, decided now was the perfect moment to crank up the physical contact. She stepped forward and looped her arm loosely around the crook of Shauna’s shoulder.

It seemed casual. Easy. The kind of thing friends did without thinking. But there was just enough ambiguity in it to leave anyone watching wondering what, exactly, they were to each other.

“How are… huh, things looking?” Shauna asked, like they were planning to rob a fucking bank.

Jackie chuckled, leaning in to whisper: “Like we’re about to sell black-market organs between classes.”

“I’m serious.”

Jackie was taken aback by how much of a rarity that was. She’d only been talking to the girl for three weeks (including the texts), and there were exactly no sentences that tumbled out of that Shauna’s mouth that could have been categorized as such. 

“Dad’s onto us. Lottie’s onto us. We’re right on track.”

Jackie observed a group of four students staring as they passed, eyes flicking between her and Shauna. She flashed them a quick smile before ducking back into her coffee, taking a long sip.

Everything was proceeding as she had foreseen, as a wise Sith once said. So what if Jackie was a Star Wars nerd? This shit was cool these days, right?

“That’s why Coach spent the whole practice looking like he wanted to bench me for life.”

Jackie turned toward Shauna, eyebrow arched, voice teasing. “Thought you said he loved you, Shipman?”

Shauna grimaced, like she realized how stupid of a statement that had been. “Yeah, well, my star power might not help me if he thinks I’m just some asshole trying to get in your pants.”

Jackie tripped. Quite literally, embarrassingly, tripped over absolutely nothing. She blamed the sidewalk crack, though she was positive it was the phrase “in your pants” delivered in Shauna’s stupidly casual voice that did her in.

“Is that a hint, or am I supposed to read your mind?” Jackie tried to recover, though her cheeks felt hot enough to melt through the pavement.

“I’m saying, maybe I should, I don’t know…” Shauna stopped, sighed, stared into her coffee like it had the words she couldn’t say. “Drop by your place sometime?”

Jackie’s brain promptly spun out. Shauna, in her house. In her bedroom. On her bed. A thought she did not need on a Monday morning.

“I’m not saying no,” Jackie finally replied. Hand on her hip now.

It wasn’t exactly the more horrid idea she’d ever heard.

“Okay.”

“I’m just saying, maybe not right away?”

“Yeah, cool,” Shauna nodded with way too much enthusiasm. “That’s cool.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes, but didn’t press. The likelihood that Shauna would be forthcoming with her was a longshot in itself. A hail mary, if you will.

See? Jackie knows sports stuff.

“You coming to my game? Wednesday?” She asked as they started walking again. 

Jackie wasn’t planning to. The yearbook had all the shots they needed. The school paper hadn’t hounded her in a week. She was, by all intent and purposes, a free woman.

“Should I?”

“If Lot’s going for Nat…”

Jackie tilted her head, suspicious. Shauna was certainly on a good idea streak, and Jackie wasn’t sure she liked how impressively forward-thinking she was being.

“Okay, fine,” Jackie sighed. “But I’m not wearing your jersey.”

Shauna shrugged, grin wide. Confident. Like she knew Jackie would give in. Someday. 

“I can live with that.”

Jackie’s eyes narrowed, lips pressing thin. “I wouldn’t care if it killed you.”

Shauna laughed, careless and bright, and Jackie felt her entire carefully-built sarcasm armor wobble.

“Later, then.” 

And, with a two finger salute, and that stupid fucking wink, Shauna was gone again. She blended into the crowd while still somehow standing out. Jackie stared after her, annoyed with herself for staring, and even more annoyed that Shauna somehow managed to be the hottest person on campus while looking like she’d gotten dressed in the dark.

“Bye,” Jackie finally uttered to exactly no one but Shauna’s retreating form. 

Shauna, in her house? Perfect. This was going to need some serious strategy. And maybe even a full coaching session from Lottie.

Chapter Text

Shauna’s mouth was too close. That was the first thing Jackie registered, the kind of close where breath feathered against her cheek and sent her pulse into a frenzy. She wasn’t sure where they were. Her bed? Shauna’s? Had she even seen Shauna’s room? Some shapeless in-between that felt both familiar and foreign. 

Shauna laughed, low and soft, and it sank straight into Jackie’s chest. Her hand felt both heavy and soft on Jackie’s jaw. Her thoughts blurred into static as lips moved against hers. Warm and hungry. There was the press of Shauna’s palm at her waist, the weight of her knee between Jackie’s thighs, a rush of heat that left her dizzy. 

Jackie wanted to say something, anything, but her mouth refused to form words. Breath caught in her throat. Words dying on her lips. On Shauna’s mouth.

Then, Jackie jolted upright, heart jackhammering behind her ribcage. Breathing uneven. Sheets fell away, the cool early morning air teasing her skin and causing goosegumps to rise in their wake. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dark, her ceiling fan slicing shadows overhead. 

No.

Hell no.

No. No. No. No.

This couldn’t be happening. Fake-dating Shauna was supposed to purge whatever twisted infatuation her brain had latched onto, not supercharge it with fantasy-fuel.

She flopped back with a groan, dragging her hands over her face, as if she could physically smother her humiliation into silence. She’d never be able to make eye contact with Shauna again without replaying those hazy, stitched together images. Sounds and feelings absolutely included in that horrifying package.

Fucking fantastic. 

Not only did Jackie already behave like a sub-human around Shauna, now her subconscious was determined to salt the wound. How the hell was she supposed to act coupley now? Her brain would fry itself before she even held the girl’s hand.

Fuck.

She hauled herself to the bathroom, splashing freezing water on her face like that might exorcise the memory. It didn’t. It just made her regret having functioning nerve endings. 

Brushing her teeth went no better. Aggressive, like she wanted to wash an invisible stain away. It wasn’t exactly great for her gums, the bristles splaying out in protest. She spat in the sink, ran the water for a moment, and tossed the toothbrush in the trash with a clank that echoed louder than intended. 

Loud enough to draw her father’s attention.

Wade stopped, mid-way down the corridor. 

“If ya need to break some stuff this mornin’, firewood needs cuttin’.”

Jackie turned to him, arms crossed over her sleep tank top, creased and rumpled from having slept (and rudely awakened) in it. “Do I look like I have the shape of a fucking Lumberjack?”

Of course that was just her being a bitch. She did, in fact, cut firewood more often than not.

Wade chuckled. Low, voice rough from not having been smoothed down by the warm embrace of coffee. He flexed his arm in a pose that would make any bodybuilder cringe, t-shirt stretching just enough to prove the point.

“You’re a spittin’ image of your old man, and you know it.”

Jackie wrinkled her nose in absolute distaste. “Funny.”

“You get up on the wrong side again, or’s that just your face today?”

“Something like that.” She scrubbed her palms down her face, again, muffling another sigh. “Sorry.”

Wade leaned in the doorway, reached out, and ruffled her hair until it was a full-blown disaster. 

She slapped his hand away, unable to tamper the laugh that escaped her lips.

“Coffee’ll be ready in a minute.”

Driving to campus was supposed to give her something else to think about. Coffee in her thermos, radio low, Austin skyline pulling her forward. But as she turned onto the main road, Shauna crept back in. The ghost of her hands, her mouth. Jackie nearly choked on her coffee at the sheer vividness.

Hot bean juice, meet airway.

Fuck this entire day.

At least, her first two classes (back to back), went by fairly quickly. Jackie immersed herself in fabrics and colors, which seemed to ward off the evil that was Shauna Shipman. At least, until she texted her. She felt her phone buzz. Once. Couldn’t be Lottie. She was a serial spammer. Shauna wasn’t.

She stuck the pins she had in her hands into the pincushion by her knee, skewering the material like she might be imagining it was a certain soccer captain’s face. She was working on the hem of a dress’ skirt, and the damn thing didn’t want to wave out like she wanted it too.

She figured a break was well overdue.

With a sigh, Jackie retrieved her phone from her back pocket. 

[Shauna] good mornin :)

Jackie scoffed. It was nearly lunch time.

[Jackie] Are you never in class, or do you just not pay attention?

[Shauna] and yet you always reply

Touché. Whatever.

Jackie, despite her better judgment—which was heavily out of sync with reality—decided it would be best to send Shauna a picture instead of attempting to explain what her class consisted of. With a tap of her finger, she sent it.

The shot showed the mannequin, and the half-formed dressed around it.

[Shauna] not my color but im sure itll look really good on you ;)

In the spirit of not wanting to buy a new phone, Jackie sagely decided to not engage with that comment.

[Jackie] Are we seeing each other today? Because if so, I need at least two hours of mental prep and caffeine. 

Shauna sent her a picture. It framed her legs, splayed out on her bed. Shorts, long socks (horrid styling choice), gaming controller in hand and a TV that sat on her dresser displaying what Jackie assumed was a video game. Clothes were embarrassingly, but not surprisingly, strewn haphazardly all around it. Some of it was even spilling from the half-open drawers.

Not only did Jackie have a sex dream about Shauna fucking Shipman, now her brain would certainly catalogue what her bed sheets looked like.

Great. Just more fuel to the fire.

[Shauna] im already back home got no classes on tuesdays

Right. Jackie should have remembered that. They had each other’s schedules. Maybe she should consult it once in a while.

[Shauna] i can bring you come coffee if you want tho

[Jackie] No need. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Jackie pocketed her phone before she could see what Shauna had sent, the sharp clack of her professor’s heels already closing in. Professor Margot carried herself like you’d assume an eternally grumpy seamstress would. Gay hair twisted into a tight bun, glasses perched low on her nose, eyes hawkish and unforgiving.

“These darts aren’t aligned with the bust point. Redo them.” Her tone was devoid of softness, as if she’s never felt such a thing. Only the blunt edge of judgment without a coat of sugar. “And your grainline,” she added, circling the mannequin, fingertips skating over the fabric with practiced disdain. “It’s completely off. That’s why the whole piece is twisting.”

Jackie’s throat closed up. The kind of reprimanding she was familiar with. The kind often heard from her mother, back then. One which her sister so effortlessly mimicked. 

“R-right. Thank you, Professor Margot.”

“Tell whatever boy you’ve been texting he’s doing you no favors.”

Jackie didn’t know why her mouth betrayed her, why sound clawed its way out when she should have stayed silent. But before she could stop herself, she blurted a simply idiotic statement:

“Definitely not a boy.”

Professor Margot faltered mid-step, a hitch in her retreat. Then she rolled her eyes, heels resuming their sharp report against the floor as if Jackie wasn’t worth another word, another precious breath.

Could this day get any fucking worse?

Lunch time eventually, and thankfully, rolled around. Lottie had texted Jackie that she would be waiting for her near the fountain in the courtyard. Which, also prompted her to check the last text that Shauna had sent her during class.

One of them was a picture. Another shot of her messy room. The TV screen, which is what Jackie assumed was the reasoning behind sending this horrible photo, was displaying an arbitrary score of some sort.

[Shauna] did u know that youre dating a world class banjo kazooie speed runner?

[Jackie] I’m not sure I know what any of those words mean, love. So, no.. 

Jackie had hit send before she realized that the word of endearment slipped out. Or maybe it was more of a word of contempt in this case. 

[Shauna] :( 

[Shauna] ill share my once in a lifetime achievement with someone who’s actually gonna appreciate it

[Jackie] Good luck with that.

Jackie slipped her phone into her back pocket just as she lifted her head, catching Lottie’s gaze. She was perched on the lip of the courtyard fountain, a prime seating area for students on days when the Texas heat wasn’t trying to strangle everyone. 

A small mercy they’d been blessed with this afternoon.

Lottie’s smirk was waiting for her as Jackie approached, eyes narrowing with distrust the moment she spotted the look.

“You’re not allowed to text anyone but me and smile like that,” Lottie said, tossing the joke out in her usual mock-possessive manner. Light and cocky.

“I wasn’t.”

“You very much were,” Lottie easily countered.

Jackie dropped onto the fountain’s edge beside her. 

“Shut up and scoot.’’ 

“You seem prickly today. More than usual.” Lottie watched Jackie from the corner of her eye, like she was desperately waiting for her reaction. Or rather, retaliation. 

Jackie sent her the most demure and mindful middle finger, using it to push her sunglasses up over the bridge of her nose. 

“Margot was riding my ass all class long,” Jackie explained with a huff, and thinly veiled annoyance. 

“Gross.” Lottie snorted, clapping a hand over her mouth so her half-chewed sandwich didn’t fall out. “Did not need that mental image, babe.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t need to have a steamy dream about Shauna, and yet here we are.”

Lottie froze mid-chew. “You—what?!” she yelped loud enough that a couple students passing swung their heads towards them.

Shit.

Jackie could lie. She should lie. But the pathetic crush thing? It had done her a few favors for her little ruse previously.

“Whatever,” Jackie waved it off like the embarrassment of it all wasn’t still clinging to her. “It happens to the best of us.”

She took a vicious bite of her sandwich, courtesy of the school’s saintly lunch lady.

“What is even happening between you two?” Lottie asked, eyes wide with glee.

“Nothing!” Jackie shot back. Too sharp, too fast, and way too high-pitched. She forced the bite down, and tried again. “We’re just hanging out,” was said evenly. Confident, even. 

“And you’re just having se—”

Jackie slapped her hand across Lottie’s mouth. “Shut your face. I don’t need the entire campus knowing,” she hissed, lowering her voice.

“You should tell her,” Lottie muttered against Jackie’s palm, muffled but merciless.

“No!” Jackie shouted, which won her a few more curious looks from kids perched on benches nearby. She wilted instantly, sinking lower like she could command the ground to swallow her whole. “What the hell would that even accomplish?”

“Maybe she’ll be into it,” Lottie explained with a shrug, as if that thought wasn’t the further from normal possible. As if the mere act of thinking about telling Shauna didn’t make Jackie want to hide away in a fallout shelter for the rest of her life.

“Oh, I know.” Lottie suddenly leaned forward, catching Jackie’s forearm in a dramatic clutch. “Let’s roleplay it.”

Jackie blinked. Once. Twice. “Don’t.”

“Okay, I’ll be Shauna,” Lottie continued, completely undeterred by Jackie’s glare. She cleared her throat in a theatrical way, then said in the most ridiculous, low-pitched drawl: “Let’s make that dream a reality, baby.”

Jackie shoved her shoulder. “You’re a fucking idiot. And Shauna would never say that.”

“Because you’d know?”

“Maybe.” Jackie smirked around her straw, taking a slow sip of her ‘diet’ drink like it wasn’t a stupid marketing ploy. It was just enough to plant the seed. And judging by the crease between Lottie’s brows, it landed.

Lottie leaned in, scanning Jackie’s face like she was reading a secret. “I know you’re hiding something from me. I just can’t prove it yet.”

“You’re insane,” Jackie shot back. Dismissive. Defensive.

And yet, humiliating as it was to stoop to the level of a soccer groupie, Jackie could admit she was actually having fun with this whole thing.

Jackie was halfway through convincing herself that the paragraph she’d just written was absolutely genius (it wasn’t) when she remembered to check her phone. Do not disturb had been on for hours, because nothing killed her motivation for writing a damn paper faster than her screen lighting up every five seconds.

And there it was. Texts. From her friends, sure, but what stood out the most was the single message Shauna had sent. Two hours ago.

[Shauna] wanna grab something to eat after the game?

Jackie blinked at it, her brain was still hazy with a bunch of pretentious school-work approved sentences and was slow to catch up. The fucking soccer game. Right. The one she had definitely agreed to show up for. Instead, she’d been hunched over her laptop, writing about postmodern fashion silhouette while time slipped right through her fingers.

Cue instant guilt.

So she did what any reasonable fake girlfriend would do: grabbed her truck’s keys, sped all the way to campus, and pulled into the parking lot just as the players were streaming out, damp hair and probably putrid-smelling duffle bags slung over their shoulders. 

Her fingers nervously drummed on the steering wheel, as she sat waiting for Shauna like this had been the plan all along.

When the captain finally pushed through the sports complex’s double doors, she had a whole entourage of teammates orbiting her. Patting her back, hollering… sports jargon, Jackie assumed. Some weird jock ritual she wasn’t privy to, no doubt.

Jackie sat up straighter when Shauna popped into view at the passenger side window, flashing that stupid, heart-melting smirk.

“Thought you were breaking up with me.”

She leaned against the open window’s frame. Casual. No anger, no annoyance. No trace of anything hostile was found, Jackie observed.

Odd.

“I’m so sorry,” Jackie rushed out. “I had a paper due and time just went poof.” She threw in a half-laugh, hoping to soften the obvious fact she had totally and royally fucked this up.

Shauna tossed her duffel into the truck’s bed, the thud loud enough to rattle cleats against shin guards. Then she slid into the passenger seat, door groaning shut behind her.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Still casual. Easy. Unbothered.

Still fucking odd (as far as Jackie was concerned).

Jackie drew in a steady breath. Calm before the storm? Or was Shauna just freakishly good at the whole passive-aggressive ‘it’s fine’ routine. Something most girls had down to an art. Jackie included.

She grimaced as she turned to face Shauna. Who was, for once, wearing what Jackie would immediately categorize as a passable outfit. T-shirt and jeans. Unremarkable in every way, but a classic hard to compete with. 

“That’s it?” Jackie finally found her courage to ask. “You’re not pissed?”

“School comes first, right?” Shauna had just spoken the most sound thing Jackie’s ever heard come out of her mouth. “You being seen picking me up works fine. They’ll put it together.”

And worse yet, Jackie couldn’t find a single fault in that statement. What the hell was happening? Was she really starting to casually agree with Shauna? Jackie just barely stopped herself from checking her forehead to make sure she wasn’t deep in the throes of some horribly contagious flu. 

The least Jackie could do was drive her home. They had to keep up appearances after all. But a frown suddenly creased her forehead, as one single question lingered: “Where’s your car?”

In the same breath, a smaller vehicle pulled up beside them, ripping Shauna’s attention away. A fully blacked-out Honda Civic (windows and all), parked the opposite way, driver’s side lined up with Shauna at the passenger window.

“You ditching me?” Melissa asked, rolling down her window. Smirk crooked, pink cap backwards on her head.

“Yep,” Shauna shot back, draping an arm over the bench seat. Casual, sure, but Jackie knew it was for show. The way Shauna ‘claimed’ some sort of territory. It was pure egotistical posturing, but it was also, (sadly) effective.

Melissa took notice. Smirk twitching further up.

“Never ask me for a ride again, asshole,” she called out to Shauna, flipping her middle finger as she peeled out.

Shauna laughed and mirrored her, arm fully out the truck, middle finger held high and proud. Then she swiftly turned to Jackie, eyes wide.

“Go! What the hell are you waiting for?”

“Excuse me?” Jackie slowly arched a single brow, eyes narrowed dangerously. Like if she didn’t like Shauna’s explanation, she would most definitely kick her out of this truck’s cabin. 

“You gotta beat her out of here.”

Right. Because apparently, recklessly tearing out of the campus parking lot was also one of this idiot’s sacred rituals.

“I will most definitely not.”

“Man,” Shauna sighed, slumping back in her seat. “We’ll get her next time.”

“Who’s ‘we’ exactly?”

“My beautiful driver and me,” is what Shauna replied, grin wide and toothy. Wink? Check.

As if compliments ever worked on—yep, her cheeks were already on fire. Jackie clamped her mouth shut, shifted into drive, and focused all her attention on the road. No further commentary required.

“You never answered me.”

Well, Jackie surely wasn’t about to answer her now. Considering she had no earthly clue what the fuck Shauna meant. She was petty like that.

“About getting food?” Shauna tried again.

Jackie had definitely skipped dinner, considering her father hadn’t been home to cook and time absolutely passed differently when you’re trying to finish a paper last minute. She hadn’t even heard Wade leave earlier that day, he must have taken her ‘do not disturb’ note on her bedroom door quite seriously.

For once. 

“I’m starved,” Jackie complained. Pout forming on her lips. “Please don’t suggest anything sensible to me right now.”

Jackie’s brain had simply been way too overworked today. She needed something greasy. Something that would make her feel like shit after eating it, sure, but really good while eating it. And luckily, there were a multitude of food chains dedicated to delivering this exact experience. 

Shauna smirked in response. “Wasn’t going to.”

Instead of getting lost in the whiskey brown of Shauna’s eyes, Jackie turned back to the road and attempted the monstrous task of ignoring the way Shauna still had her arm on the truck’s bench. Or the way the back of it just grazed her shoulder. Or how, maddeningly, she could feel the heat coming off Shauna’s skin.

Jackie suddenly remembered the insane thought she had earlier when messing with Lottie. On how so much ‘fun’ this ruse was. It was moments like these that made her realize just how wrong, and incredibly out of her depth, she truly was. 

The interior of Torchy’s Tacos was loud. Bright red plastered on the walls and on the ceiling above the bar area where they sat. Cartoon devil, the restaurant’s mascot with a mocking sneer, watching them as they ate.

Jackie bit into her taco, and every thought of appearing lady-like and proper evaporated. Her plate was covered in sauce and toppings, and so were her fingers.

“You got somethin’ on your face,” Shauna said around a mouthful, pointing vaguely at her mouth, somehow still smirking.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Jackie shot back, equally loaded with taco. She swallowed, then gulped down half her beer in one go. “Not what a proper lady would do.”

“Well, shit,” Shauna laughed, gripping her own beer and flicking her pinkie outward before taking an equally massive gulp. “Pardon the fuck outta me.”

Jackie nearly choked on her sip. She backhanded Shauna’s shoulder. It was entirely her fault Jackie had spilled beer on her chin, dribbling past her lower lip like some kind of caveman. She definitely didn’t want to feel second-hand embarrassment from the grave if they both ended up on the 8 p.m. news as the two UT Austin students who died choking on tacos at Torchy’s.

“You missed my hat trick,” Shauna said after a few moments of comfortable silence. Not that the other patrons, or the speakers in this palace exactly contributed to a serene and quiet atmosphere.

“You did what with your hat?”

“Three goals scored in a game.”

Jackie nodded sagely. As if the familiarity of the term came flooding back in her mind. 

(It didn’t).

“Is that… good?” 

Shauna stared at her with a blank face, before letting out a sigh, and turning back to her taco devouring activities.

Jackie narrowed her eyes at her, hand gripping the fabric of Shauna’s shirt at her side. “Answer me,” she demanded between bursts of laughter, pulling at the fabric.

“No,” Shauna said curtly. She was fighting for her life. Lips twitching in a smile every few seconds. “Can’t believe your father’s my coach and you know nothing about the sport.”

“Because it’s just mindless posturing. You kick a ball in a net real hard and shout. Sometimes it’s a puck, whatever. Same thing.”

Shauna spun on the barstool, knees bumping into Jackie’s as she leaned forward, elbows braced on her thighs.

“It’s not mindless. You’ve got to switch a play in a second. Know what your teammate’s about to do without them saying a word. And then there’s the other team. You get in their heads, make them doubt themselves, make them doubt each other.”

“It sounds like you’re going to war out there.”

“We are,” Shauna said, dead serious.

“Okay, Alexander the Not-So-Great.”

Jackie snorted, but the way Shauna’s eyes lit up when she talked about the sport. It was, dare she say, kind of refreshing? There was strategy there, layers. The chess aspect of demoralizing your opponent definitely appealed to Jackie. Maybe she’d missed her true calling and should’ve been a soccer player too.

How different things might have been. Hell, she and Shauna might even have been on opposite sides of the field. A sports rivalry turned romantic. How steamy.

“Jackie.” Shauna snapped her fingers in front of her face.

Jackie bristled, shoving at her shoulder. “Don’t snap your fingers at me.”

“You were zoned out.”

“No I wasn’t,” Jackie denied, like her very life depended on it.

Shauna’s smirk was instant. “Thinking about how super hot your soccer girlfriend is?”

Heat crept up Jackie’s neck before she could stop it. Which was deeply unfair, because technically, yeah, sort of.

“Actually, I was just thinking about how unbelievably self-centered she is.”

Shauna brought a hand up to her chest, hand covering a non-existent wound. “Ouch. Straight to the heart.”

Idiot. 

Jackie snorted when her phone buzzed. Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered checking. Which was kind of rude when you’re supposed to be entertaining your fake girlfriend. But it could’ve been Lottie. In danger. Or, worse, perfectly fine and just sending stupid memes.

No such luck.

It was Jeff.

[Jeff] You’ll come to my game, but you’re gonna ghost me? Come on, Jackie. Let’s talk?

[Jackie] I didn’t go for you. 

Jackie threw her phone on the counter with enough force to rattle the entire restaurant (not really), but close enough to rattle her plate. Truly, she wasn’t in any mood to placate him further. She was having fun. Genuinely enjoying her time with Shauna, and wasn’t going to let his stubbornness get in the way of that.

“Damn,” Shauna’s voice was low, her laugh short. “You look like you wanna throw hands with your phone.”

“My phone isn’t the problem. It’s the idiot on the other end who can’t take a fucking hint.”

“Jeff?” Shauna guessed without hesitation, one brow arching as she wiped her hands on yet another napkin. The pile between them was starting to look like a landfill.

Jackie sighed, annoyed but not at her.

“I know you said it wasn’t my business,” Shauna added quickly, “and it’s not. But you can talk to me. If you want.”

Jackie opened her mouth, ready to fire off a reminder that Shauna was right, that it wasn’t her business. But holding it in hadn’t exactly helped, and Lottie didn’t need to be her only dumping ground.

“He just assumes we’ll end up back together. Because it happened before.”

But, it was different this time. It became different the day Jackie stopped wanting to pretend to be in love with the man she was dating. Only to turn around and fake-date the girl she actually had a crush on. 

Peak ingenuity. 

“Let me guess,” Shauna said, a small, knowing smile tugging at her mouth. “He thinks you came to the game for him?”

“They're all so predictable, aren't they?”

Jackie would have been more impressed by Shauna's correct assessment of the situation if she wasn't still so peeved by that fucking text.

'You’ll come to my game, but you’re gonna ghost me?'

Asshole.

Shauna’s grin turned mischievous. “We could always just make out in front of him. Send a message.”

Jackie choked on a laugh. “No, Shauna. I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t care how many times he texts me or,” her jaw tightened, “corners me in the school parking lot.”

Shauna’s head snapped toward her. “He did what?”

Jackie shook her head. “He has nothing to do with this. With us.”

“He will, if he tries that shit again.”

The protectiveness in Shauna’s tone sparked something in Jackie, a confusing mix of exasperation and fluster. She reached out to wrap her hand lightly around Shauna’s forearm. Warm. Soft. Too easy to hold. The tension in Shauna bled out instantly under the touch, her shoulders dropping.

“My hero,” Jackie teased, but it came out softer than intended.

Shauna scoffed, turning away before Jackie could catch the flicker of a smile.

“Why’d you break it off with him anyway?”

“I wasn’t in love with him. Never was.”

Shauna nodded. She wouldn’t ask anymore prying questions, as if she sensed that’s all she’d get out of Jackie tonight. And she would be absolutely right. 

They spent the rest of the meal talking casually, Shauna letting her arm drape over the back of Jackie’s chair like she always did in social situations.

For all intents and purposes, it seemed to work as intended. The bartender hadn’t come over once, even though Jackie was sure he’d caught her eye at least three times during the meal. Maybe it wasn’t Shauna’s arm at all. Maybe it was Jackie, leaning a little too close, tugging idly at the neckline of her t-shirt, daring anyone to misread the situation.

Who could say?

It seemed to work on Shauna, anyway, who barely looked anywhere else the whole night. Jackie wasn’t complaining. If this was what a fake date looked like, it was hands-down the best one she’d ever had.

Later, Jackie left the engine idling in Shauna’s driveway, parked right behind her beloved white Civic. Shauna opened her mouth, probably to toss out a casual “goodnight, dude” or something equally stupid, but Jackie cut her off with something much worse:

“We’ll have to make out. Eventually, I mean. In front of people.”

Shauna blinked at her, face carefully blank. “I figured. That’s why I told you I was fine with all of this. All five times you reminded me this gig came with the whole ‘dating’ package.”

Sure they had discussed this. The touching, the closeness that came with pretending to be with a couple. But they never explicitly mentioned making out, or kissing. And perhaps, that had been intentionally left out by Jackie to save her brain from a total meltdown at the time. Now she understood why.

“I just wanted to make sure. To prepare you. Mentally.” Jackie’s hands gripped the steering wheel like she might push Shauna out and speed away at any moment.

Stupid. You idiot. You sound like a total clown.

Shauna raised an eyebrow, trying, and failing, not to grin. “Consider me prepared?”

A tense moment passed, and Jackie couldn’t believe that she ruined this totally awesome evening with something this ridiculous and totally unimportant.

“Don’t you think we should maybe… I don’t know, do a test run?” Jackie’s words tumbled out faster than her brain could keep up with.

“What, like, practice kissing?” Shauna’s voice was calm, but there was a twitch in her lip that gave her away.

“We wouldn’t want it to look weird, or awkward, if we kiss for the first time in front of our friends.” Jackie’s face warmed. She was acutely aware of the way Shauna’s eyes were quietly laughing at her panic.

Shauna leaned back slightly, relaxed and seemingly unphased by all of this. While Jackie was fighting to keep her heart inside of her chest cavity. 

Shauna’s eyes moved. Calculating. Thinking. Snapping up, then down. Jackie’s eyes, then her mouth.

And moments later, Shauna’s lips were on hers. A gentle pressure. Nothing more, nothing less. Jackie froze for a second, mind blank except for the shockingly perfect feel of Shauna’s mouth against hers. Then Shauna pulled back, tilting her head with a teasing glint in her eyes.

“That’s it?” Jackie breathed, half-laughing, half-panicked. She’s not sure she could even hear her own voice over how loud her heartbeat was.

Before Jackie could think of what else to say, Shauna leaned in again. And this time, she wasn’t testing the waters. Wouldn’t hold anything back. Her lips pressed harder, tongue seeking the warmth of Jackie’s mouth without so much as a warning. Their breaths caught between groans and laughter, swallowed in the kiss.

Jackie had half a mind to push her away. Tell her that was enough. That they, certainly by now, have gotten over that timid stage. And that their tongues were, for lack of a better word, well-aquainted. 

Instead, Jackie’s hands found purchase on Shauna’s shoulders. Fingers eventually tangled in Shauna’s hair, hand at the back of her neck, pulling her closer. She heard Shauna whimper, low and pathetic. Or maybe that was her. 

Keeping score wasn’t exactly a priority.

Shauna’s hands gripped the front of her thighs, then slid up, resting on Jackie’s hips. With some coaxing, Jackie slid onto Shauna’s laps with the help of gentle guiding hands. She tipped Shauna’s head back, mouths breaking apart just enough for their breaths to collide, both of them unsteady.

Shauna’s pupils were blown wide, her expression edged with a seriousness Jackie wasn’t ready to decipher. So she leaned back in, groaning, loud, when Shauna pressed her closer with a warm hand at the small of her back. Jackie’s fist bunched in her collar, tugging her nearer still.

They’d passed ‘practice’ miles ago. Especially when Shauna’s hands brushed bare skin at her waist, her shirt pushed up without either of them quite noticing. Jackie caught her wrists, covering them with her own hands. And before Shauna could misread it. Before Jackie could lose the ability to think at all, she broke away and blurted the first thing that hit her tongue.

“I didn’t mean right away.”

Shauna froze, then let out a small, mortified laugh. “Oh.” She went quiet, too embarrassed for words, which was, mercifully, better than whatever idiotic comeback she had locked and loaded.

They both cracked up, the laughter stripping the tension from the air. Somehow, even with the woman Jackie had been obsessing over still tasting on her lips, she felt lighter. Maybe there really was something to this whole “get it out of your system” theory.

Or maybe it was just a placebo, dangling a false sense of security in front of her like bait.

Time would tell. It always did.

Jackie was sprawled across her bed, propped up on her elbows, watching her best friend ransack her closet like a raccoon in a pantry. Jackie herself was already dressed: short-sleeved button-down, all black with thin white stripes. Tucked into high-waisted blue jeans. Nights were cooling off, so full-length denim didn’t feel like torture anymore.

Lottie emerged from the walk-in in a baggy shirt over baggy pants, the ankles cinched with elastic. The pants technically suited her long frame, but the rest of her said otherwise. Shoulders slouched, pout firmly in place. It was the expertly crafted “help me” face, without actually asking for help.

“I look stupid.”

“Yes,” Jackie said immediately, pushing past the glare that followed. “But only because you’re hiding your shape, my beautiful, towering Amazonia friend.”

The chuckle she got in return was worth it. Jackie grinned, already elbow-deep in her drawer of folded tanks and belly shirts.

“You need something fitted on top to define your waistline,” she explained, flipping through too many shirts. “Otherwise, the silhouette just swallows you whole.” She turned, hand vaguely slicing the air in Lottie’s direction. “And trust me, you’ve got a lot of shape to lose.”

She lobbed a cropped white tee across the room. It smacked Lottie in the face, earning only a deeper pout, like Jackie was out of her mind to think one little top would solve anything.

It did. The moment Lottie tugged it on, the whole outfit clicked. Taller, sharper. Hotter.

“I’m a genius,” Jackie declared, steering her toward the vanity and planting her hands on Lottie’s shoulders. “Now, what are we doing with your hair? Messy bun?”

Lottie tilted her head, considering. “I was thinking braid?”

“Braid it is.”

Jackie’s hands moved on autopilot, fingers weaving through Lottie’s hair with practiced ease. Which was the problem. Muscle memory left her brain way too much space to obsess over things it had no business obsessing over.

Like Shauna Shipman.

She hadn’t texted since Wednesday night. It was now Saturday. Jackie wasn’t about to text first. Not after she’d been the one to suggest kissing. Hell no. She wasn’t going to look like some desperate groupie chasing after her fake girlfriend. Utterly humiliating.

Still, the silence gnawed at her. What if the kissing had been too much, too soon? What if Shauna had decided Jackie was the worst kisser alive and wanted nothing to do with her? Ridiculous thoughts, sure, but they spun around her head like vultures anyway.

“Who’s coming tonight?” she asked, mostly to distract herself.

“Anyone in particular you want to meet at The Grand?” Lottie countered.

“I simply want to know how drunk I’ll need to be to have fun.”

Lottie hummed, clearly unconvinced. “Nat’ll be there.”

Jackie rolled her eyes, forgoing any sort of verbal response.

“A few of the Longhorns. Laura Lee.”

“It’ll be good for her,” Jackie muttered. “She never parties with us enough.”

“Van and Tai.”

“That’s a given.”

“I think Hat and your girl might also show up.”

Jackie nodded. Until she realized what Lottie had actually said. She froze, fingers stilling in the braid. Her eyes snapped up to meet Lottie’s in the vanity mirror.

“Go on,” Lottie teased. “Say it. Lie to me.”

So Jackie did just that. Except it wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. 

“She’s not mine.”

“All the girls on the team are teasing her about you. How you’re always together.”

She was truly impressed how easily it was to start a rumor on a college campus from just a few hang outs. 

Jackie’s face twisted. “If that were true, she’d be here right now. Or texting me. Or giving me a sign that she’s, you know, alive. Which she hasn’t since Wednesday.”

Lottie caught her gaze, again. Her reflection in the mirror was slowly morphing to something more akin to impatience. But Jackie had to stand her ground, at least for a tiny bit more. If her best friend didn’t believe she’d ever date someone like Shauna, it would all crumble at their feet.

“You’re telling me you weren’t at the game?”

“I wasn’t.”

This was, in fact, true. But only because she’d been too engrossed in school work to notice that time wouldn’t conveniently freeze just for her,

“Melissa said you picked Shauna up.”

“I did.”

Lottie twisted around in her seat. There was something other than simple amusement in her eyes. Hurt maybe. Jackie immediately felt like shit, even before Lottie said, voice soft despite her frown: “Then why won’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

She couldn’t spit out the lie again. Not to Lottie. It wasn’t nothing. Not emotionally, anyway. Not after knowing the exact way Shauna kissed, how her hands had been sure, insistent. Those details were burned into her memory, whether she wanted them there or not.

“Fine,” Jackie exhaled. “Fine.”

Lottie whipped around, eyes wide. “Oh my God. You’re serious? You’re dating Shauna? Shauna Shipman?”

Jackie snorted, resuming the braid like nothing happened. “Dating’s a stretch. We’ve just… started seeing each other. It’s not serious, or anything.”

“How—I mean—I have so many questions.”

Jackie put on a mask of annoyance, but her grin betrayed her. “Ask away.”

Not that she wanted this conversation sober, but she’d rather Lottie hear it from her than in some mangled version floating around campus. Besides, the last thing Jackie needed was to wreck her friendship over a girl who was only pretending to like her back.

She stuck to the cliff notes. The version she and Shauna had rehearsed. They’d started talking more thanks to Jackie’s photography gig with the team. She usually lingered through practice anyway, since her dad rode in with her. One thing led to another, Shauna asked her to a game, and Jackie went out of sheer curiosity. The rest wrote itself.

Simple enough. Close enough to the truth. And Lottie bought it. Shauna’s vague Instagram posts over the past few weeks only helped seal the deal. Lottie even pulled one up as ‘evidence’ of how she knew. Two plates of tacos, Shauna’s elbow just barely in frame. Not incriminating on its own. But Jackie’s hand, decked out in her usual bracelets and nail polish—the same ones she was wearing right now—were the dead giveaway.

“Was the secrecy really that necessary?” Lottie asked.

“What was I supposed to do, Lot? Announce it to the whole school when it’s still so new? I don’t see the point in dragging people into it when I don’t even know if it’ll work out.”

“No. But I figured you’d at least tell me. It’s the girl you’ve been crushing on for, what, a year?”

“I know, I know.” Jackie sighed, letting her chin rest lightly on Lottie’s head. “I just didn’t want to jinx it. Still don’t.”

Lottie seemed to accept this information. Or at least, digest it without any unfavourable side effects. 

“Didn’t think I’d live long enough to see my best friend finally grow a pair.”

Jackie barely held back a smug little smirk. So what if she hadn’t actually grown a pair? There was plenty of time for that. Fake-dating a crush who didn’t even know they were your crush was practically the definition of confidence.

She and Shauna were geniuses. Well, one of them was. The other was just banking on absorbing genius by osmosis. Or whatever. Jackie had never paid much attention in bio.

10 p.m. on a Saturday and the Grand was packed. The place was a magnet for the college crowd, its massive floor crammed with pool tables stretching as far as you could see. The other gaming zone has foosball (which Jackie had never even pretended to understand) and darts, which sat behind waist-high railings.

The beer wasn’t cheap, but most people showed up already buzzing. Jackie and Lottie had done their part, knocking back a few whiskeys before their Uber arrived. Somewhere between tipsy and reckless, Lottie had made Jackie swear she wouldn’t vanish into a bathroom with Shauna all night.

As if. That wasn’t Jackie’s style, not even a little. Besides, Lottie was practically vibrating with excitement about her first night out as not-single and not-straight. Jackie didn’t see the huge distinction, but Lottie wasn’t letting her win that argument. She probably had already texted Nat the update, which meant by the time they stepped into the pool hall, the entire Longhorns roster was in the loop.

Jackie almost texted Shauna, too. A mere warning. But being tipsy and stubborn, she held off. Their no-text streak had become a thing, and she wasn’t about to break it first. Punishment. For… something. Jackie wasn’t sure what exactly, but there had to be something, and that was enough justification. So no text. 

There. Settled.

Before Jackie could process why she was moving, Lottie had already tugged her straight toward a pool table. A quick scan of the room landed on familiar faces. Van, Tai, Laura Lee, and Natalie, pool cues in hand. They seemed way too invested in the current game.

They slid into the mix with the Longhorns crowd, which Jackie still found borderline offensive, given she was apparently one of them by default now. Lottie, meanwhile, wasted no time greeting Nat with a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.

Jackie rolled her eyes. Those two were far more likely to spend the evening locked in a bathroom stall than she and Shauna ever would. Not that Jackie would say no to the offer if it were real. Considering their little arrangement, though, that would never happen.

“Good, we’re all here. Almost,” Van said, leaning lazily against the felt.

“Just waiting on Dumb and Dumber,” Tai added with a chuckle, head tilted.

Right. Dumb being Melissa, and Dumber being Jackie’s so-called girlfriend. Her reputation was doomed by association.

Nat’s smile was crooked as she settled into Lottie’s side. 

Jackie narrowed her eyes, as if daring her to say something.

She didn’t.

Jackie would then get roped into a match with Tai after Van dramatically tossed her the cue. As per her words: “I’m getting murdered out there, junior. Do me a solid and kick their asses for me?”

How could she refuse? She snatched the cue like it belonged in her hands all along. Which, frankly, it did. Jackie really did like Laura Lee. She was the sweetest girl alive. But she was going to fucking destory both her and Nat. No pity. No mercy.

By the time Shauna and Melissa showed up, the game was tied and tight. Jackie was crouched low, eye level with the table, calculating every angle. The pockets she needed were blocked by enemy stripes. A nightmare layout. She considered a risky hop shot, then dismissed it with a hiss of breath. Too messy.

When she stood back up, a gentle hand pressed into the middle of her back. Shauna.

“Stuck?”

“A little,” Jackie admitted with a sigh, refusing to glance to her left and break her focus. Not to mention, risk seeing what atrocity Shauna was surely wearing on her person.

Melissa slid in on her other side, arms crossed, blue eyes narrowed at the table like she was analyzing a chess board.

“Solids?” She asked.

“Unfortunately,” Jackie replied.

Melissa’s gaze flicked to Shauna’s. A silent exchange. Then, perfectly in sync, both said: “Three.”

Of course. Jackie blinked. How had she missed it? A combo off the twelve. Clean.

Melissa wordlessly handed Shauna the chalk. Shauna rubbed the tip of Jackie’s cue, brisk, efficient. Melissa set the chalk back down with military precision.

Jackie stepped into position, leaning over the table until the wood pressed into her stomach. She lined up the shot, shifted a hair to the left, and let it fly. The cue cracked against the twelve, which clipped the three. 

The three obediently rolled into the corner pocket with a satisfying thunk.

Jackie straightened, cue balanced casually against the floor. Behind her, Shauna and Melissa bumped fists, serious as surgeons who had just successfully operated on a brain.

Jackie’s grin broke through despite herself. Shauna caught it, and winked.

“Yeah, no. That definitely qualifies as cheating,” Nat argued from the sidelines.

“Helpful tips aren’t categorized as obstruction,” Melissa sagely explained. Face stoic, voice flat and dry.

“We never touched the cue itself. Perfectly legal,” Shauna added in the same exact cadence.

Jackie bit her lip to stifle it, but the laughter ripped out of her anyway. Everyone else followed, the serious act collapsing all at once.

Different players were rotated in, giving Jackie and Shauna a moment to chat alone. They were both leaning against the railing behind the pool table. 

Jackie gave her outfit a once-over. Honestly, not the worst she’d ever seen her in. Though she still wasn’t sold on the sheer number of layers. Jean jacket over flannel over a t-shirt. Khakis, again. Beat-up sneakers.

Publicly acceptable. Barely.

Better than when she was under Jackie, tongue in her mouth, anyway. Though Jackie hadn’t exactly hated that either.

“You told Lot?” Shauna asked.

“Correction,” Jackie shot back, “she figured it out.”

“Now everyone knows?” Shauna pressed, leaning closer, her voice lowering.

Jackie shrugged. She didn’t trust her voice. Not when Shauna smelled like clean shampoo instead of drugstore body spray, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that showed her jawline, her outfit looking somewhat passable. And not when Jackie could still taste her lips if she let herself think too long. With Shauna this close, her brain tripped over itself like it was drunk.

Though, technically, Jackie was walking on a tight rope between tipsy and drunk.

“A heads up woulda been nice, Jackie,” Shauna said, eyes nervously darting to her friends who weren’t paying the slightest attention.

“You haven’t texted me since that night, so I just assumed you took a ball to the head and were in a coma.”

Sure, she could’ve texted first. But watching Shauna squirm with something other than an easy and friendly grin was unfairly satisfying.

“What the hell was I supposed to text? ‘By the way, thanks for letting me shove my tongue down your throat?’”

“You should be thanking me,” Jackie replied, pushing a finger into Shauna’s chest, “but that’s not the point. You didn’t even bother to tell me you were coming tonight.”

“Because Nat already told me you were.”

They were truly horrible at communicating. 

Jackie groaned into her hands, face hot. From the alcohol, or from the complete humiliation of hashing out post-practice make-out groping in public, she’d never know. She peaked at Shauna through her fingers, who unfortunately, was already back at doing her usual easy grin routine. Looking smug, and fucking hot.

“Are we good?” Shauna asked eventually, one hand settling on the railing right by Jackie’s hips.

“Yes.” Jackie’s voice came out a little too fast, a little too clipped. Totally convincing.

“Cool.” Shauna smiled, lips brushing the shell of Jackie’s ear as she leaned in. “How do you wanna play this?”

Jackie’s spine went ramrod straight. Breathe. You’re fine.

“Like we’re really bad at not being obvious?” she managed.

Shauna’s grin widened. “My specialty.”

Jackie let out a small huff that sounded too close to a laugh for her liking. “Color me shocked.”

“Hey!” Van snapped, finger pointing impatiently at them. “Gather in.”

Jackie darted a look at Shauna, eyes practically begging for an explanation about why everyone was circling the pool table like they were preparing to sacrifice a lamb. Shauna’s response? A wink. Casual. Lethal. And the effect, as per usual, was devastating to Jackie’s state of mind.

“Before we all separate to enjoy the other avenues this fine establishment offers,” Van droned, “I propose a toast.”

“I’ll get the shots,” Melissa called, already on her way to the bar.

Shauna jerked her chin up at Melissa. “Dude, wait up.”

The offended player shot her captain a glare, but still froze in place.

Then Shauna turned back, closer now, eyes soft but focused. Pretending like personal space was just a mere suggestion.

“What do you wanna drink?" 

Jackie’s hand betrayed her, rising on instinct to toy with the collar of Shauna’s shirt. Totally casual. Totally not because Shauna was standing so close her breath tickled her cheek. Definitely just part of their carefully curated act.

“Whatever you get me,” Jackie said, relieved when it sounded almost flippant instead of like a gasp.

“Cool.”

But Shauna didn’t move. She just stood there, staring. Eyes darting from Jackie’s eyes to her lips, back again. Exactly like in the car. Exactly like right before she’d kissed her.

Jackie’s heart started hammering in her chest, and she did her best to remain impartial. Like Shuana’s closeness had absolutely no effect on her. Her lips twitched into a smirk that felt more like a grimace. She wanted to lean in, wanted it so badly, but kissing her now would nuke the whole act before the night even got started.

Instead, Jackie tapped Shauna’s chest with her hand, a little nudge to snap her out of whatever had jostled screws loose in her head. “Go,” she ordered, masking the panic with a sarcastic smile.

“Right.” Shauna chuckled, spinning too quickly and clipping someone at the next table with her shoulder. “Sorry, bro!” she called back.

Jackie shook her head at the complete stupidity of it all. And why it was that she found it so pitifully endearing.

Once the shots and drinks made their way around the table, Van raised her glass high.
“A toast! To our fearless captain, for leading us through a perfect season so far.”

“Go Longhorns!” Melissa yelled, flashing devil horns on her forehead before slamming her shot back.

Everyone else followed like it was some bizarre ritual. Jackie stared, horrified, certain she’d wandered into a cult.

Well. To each their own.

“Yay, Longhorns,” she muttered, and tossed the shot back. Warm, bitter, throat on fire.

“I’m not embarrassing you too much, am I?” Shauna leaned in, voice low.

“On the contrary,” Jackie retorted smoothly, “you’ve been embarrassing me from the start, love.”

Shauna’s laugh spilled out, and Jackie realized, to her growing dread, that she really, really liked the sound. Worse yet, kissing her hadn’t solved anything. It hadn’t cleared the air, hadn’t purged the crush. If anything, it made her want more. 

This whole night was supposed to be a test run. A performance. See how the act held up in front of other people, not just her dad with his hawk eyes at the games. Instead, Jackie got thoroughly and catastrophically wasted.

Oh well, there was always next time.

When she finally felt human again, around two in the afternoon the next day, Jackie scrolled through her phone with a pounding head. Vague recollection of the night before came back in weird, tangled cut-up scenes: Shauna valiantly trying to teach her darts. Shauna driving her home. Shauna not kissing her goodnight.

Then Jackie froze on Laura Lee’s feed. A collection of photos from the bar. One in particular made her sit up straighter.

They were by the dartboard. Shauna was leaning against the table, hand covering her eyes in possible embarrassment, smiling underneath it all. Jackie was hunched over laughing, hand boldly clutched around Shauna’s forearm.

They looked really convincing. Too convincing.

Chapter Text

Jackie was spending this Sunday much like she did every other one: wondering why the hell she was born this fucking south of hell. Her truck was parked near the barn, tailgate down, coffee thermos near the edge. Forgotten and cold by now. How that was even remotely possible in this heat was beyond her.

She bent down, wrapped her gloved hands around the twine holding the bale together, and lifted it with a huff. Jackie was starting to feel overdressed as the morning stretched on—6 a.m. had somehow turned into 10 in what felt like minutes. The flannel she’d thrown on earlier had overstayed its welcome. She slipped it off and tossed it onto the truck bed, where it dangled lifelessly, and was likely to stay for the rest of the day.

She could make her life easier, and could’ve used the hooks. But she liked the upper body strength she was building. Not that she flaunted it or anything. Just knowing it was there, ready to help move furniture, or knock someone’s teeth out was more than enough.

Fueled by cold caffeine and a protein-filled breakfast, she kept stacking. Playing Tetris with sixty-pound blocks like this was oddly satisfying. This is how she enjoyed spending her weekends, accumulating swamp ass at the shit crack of dawn.

And she did. Truly. Regardless of her sour attitude or sarcastic comments to her father she’d made this morning when he checked in on her. 

After the fifth one, Jackie paused. Took a gulp of bean juice and stepped back, only for her boot to catch on something. And then her back collided with a body.

“Dad, what the—”

Only it wasn’t her father.

To her immediate horror, she turned to find a newly awake Shauna. That easy grin that still managed to melt her insides in seconds. Well, at least she hadn’t seen Jackie in that godawful flannel. Not that the ripped jeans turned shorts and baggy band tee were much better.

“Kinda early in our relationship for you to be calling me ‘daddy.’”

Jackie had to stop herself from smacking that look off her face. Seriously? Who the fuck opened a conversation with such a childish comment?

“What are you doing here?”

“I texted you. You didn’t answer.”

“So you figured showing up unannounced—” Jackie grunted as she hauled another bale, using her knee to boost it up, “—was the right move?”

“Yep.”

Jackie heard Shauna answer, and it most likely came with a shrug or something equally nonchalant.

“Thought it’d be good to start showing up, y’know?” Shauna added to justify her lack of manners.

“Right.” Jackie took a deep breath, heart thudding (from the physical exertion, and from Shauna’s mere presence). They’d brushed against this topic a few weeks back. Maybe it was time, considering they were mostly out to their friends.

“Is that… cool?” Shauna asked, cautious now. Her face twisted into an unsure grimace, realizing how presumptuous it might’ve been. And it was. But not entirely unwelcome, as much as Jackie despised to admit it.

“Well, I’m not going to turn you away after you drove all the way out here,” Jackie reasoned. Mostly to herself. “And I’ve got your jacket. From the other night.”

“Yeah, you ripped it off my shoulders. Thief.”

Jackie scoffed. As if there was any good reason she’d want to wear Shauna’s clothes.

“Liar.”

Then again, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she’d done while out of her wits.

“You can keep it if you want.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “I’ll go get it.” She brushed past Shauna, bumping her shoulder against hers, but a warm hand on her wrist stopped her.

“I didn’t come for that.”

Jackie turned. She hadn’t realized, hadn’t calculated how close they were until Shauna stepped in and the edge of the truck pressed into Jackie’s lower back.

“Enlighten me, then,” Jackie said, surprisingly even, though her throat had gone dry the second their eyes met.

Shauna leaned in a little, hand falling from Jackie’s wrist to rest flat against the tailgate.

“Should I kiss you?”

Jackie’s brain short-circuited.

Kiss? Now? Here? Her and Shauna?

“Your dad’s watching,” Shauna added, attempting to temper her laugh. A task which she failed.

Oh. Right. That whole thing.

Jackie’s eyes quickly scanned the vast backyard. Her father was just finishing up hammering the last of the wooden fence that one of the horses had kicked down a few days ago. How the hell Shauna even noticed him was a mystery. The theory that she was indeed superhuman wasn’t off the table yet.

“You better not,” Jackie managed, throwing in a glare for good measure. “He might actually murder you if you try that before helping me haul all this shit to the stables.”

“Work before kissing,” Shauna saluted, with very poor posture. “Got it.”

Jackie turned towards the stack, shooting Shauna a look over her shoulder. “Have you ever lifted one of these before, Captain?”

Shauna scoffed, even rolling her eyes at the audacity of Jackie’s tone. “How hard can it be?”

Jackie laughed. Loud. Evil, maybe. She loved when people said that. There was nothing more satisfying than watching even the strongest guys get humbled. And Shauna was definitely no exception.

It wasn’t until her tenth failed attempt that Jackie finally showed her the right way to lift one.

A fair punishment, really, for all the mental anguish Shauna had been causing lately. Not that she even knew how hard all this closeness had been on Jackie. But still. She deserved every drop of sweat rolling down her face.

Jackie allowed her eyes to wander. Even if Shauna still wore a horribly low-effort outfit, the way the muscles that were visible strained against the fabric was enlightening to say the least.

Maybe having a ranch hand wasn’t so bad. Especially if they looked like that.

They actually unloaded all of the hay bales, stacking them onto the wall-mounted racks in record time. Shauna had been surprisingly helpful once she got the hang of it. All Jackie had needed to do was shove a pair of gloves against her chest and give her that look, the one that dared her to prove she had it in her. Suddenly, Shauna was in farmer mode like it had been lying dormant in her veins all along.

Sometimes, Jackie was truly baffled at how little difference there was between women and men. And she greatly relished moments like this one.

With the work mostly done, Jackie led Shauna down the narrow aisle between the stalls, the soft shuffle of hooves and their footfalls the only noises around. Life in the country truly was peaceful. 

“Tell me you at least know how to ride,” Jackie said, leaning her shoulder against one of the stall doors.

“Nope,” Shauna replied, entirely unashamed.

Jackie’s mouth dropped in absolute horror. “You’re like, the worst Texan I know.”

“I grew up in the city,” Shauna reminded her, “and stealing horses is sort of frowned upon.”

Jackie snorted, shaking her head as she pushed open a stall door. The mare inside had a dark mane, coat shining like oil in the sun. The animal lifted her head, shifting her hooves in the dirt below. Jackie caught Shauna’s wrist and guided her hand toward the horse’s neck.

“Here,” she said, hand lingering a moment longer than she really should have, considering there was no one but the horse’ beady eyes on them.  “Just pretend you’re petting a really big dog.”

Shauna, as if Jackie was granted reprieve of her stupid jokes, didn’t say anything. She, instead, laughed softly when the mare’s nose pushed at her shoulder, then huffed warm air against her neck as if demanding more attention. Shauna obliged, fingers splaying wide.

The sight caught Jackie off guard. Shauna’s face, lit from the morning sun peeking through the small slanted windows, seemed impossibly gentle. Brown strands of hair fell loosely around her face, having been knocked out of her pony tail from the work Jackie put her through. 

For once she wasn’t playing it cool or hiding behind sarcasm. She just looked beautiful. Enough to make Jackie wish she would come by every morning. Not that she’d ever admit something so mortifyingly personal to anyone. Let alone the object of her still, nonsensical, affection. 

Which was most likely the explanation for the appalling words that tumbled out of Jackie’s mouth without a moment’s notice: “You can kiss me now.”

Shauna seemed to freeze for a moment, as if she too, needed a reminder of what exactly their arrangement was. 

Jackie’s words hung in the dusty air, absurdly loud. She was thankful that she hadn’t been insane, that she could actually hear her dad outside. Boots crunching on gravel, the scrape of a brush as he cleaned the remnants of hay from the back of her truck. She knew him well enough to know what came next. He’d be through that doorway in under a minute, checking the stalls, asking if she’d finished.

She couldn’t even blame Shauna for gaping at her like she was reconsidering her entire existence from birth until this moment.

“He’ll come in any minute,” Jackie hissed, arms slipping loosely around Shauna’s wide shoulders. Her shirt damp with sweat at the collar. If it would have been anyone else, she might have been repulsed, but she couldn’t give less of a fuck. She let her fingers brush over the warm skin at the back of Shauna’s neck.

Before she could mentally prepare, Shauna’s lips were on hers. Warm and sure, just like the first time they had kissed. Jackie melted instantly, mouth parting to let Shauna in, pleased by the groan that escaped her. Shauna’s fingers tightened at her hips, pulling Jackie flush against her.

Jackie kissed her back with a comfortable ease that surprised her, like she had suddenly unlocked some deeply hidden confidence. The horse shifted in the stall beside them, snorting. Shauna laughed against her lips, the sound muffled. Jackie thought vaguely, that she quite enjoyed Shauna like this, laughing into her mouth, pressing closer against her like she too craved the contact.

It was simply maddening. 

Which, of course, was also when Wade walked in.

The heavy door creaked on its semi-rusted track. “Jackie? Ya in here?” he called out.

Both of them shot apart. 

Correction, only Jackie did. 

Shauna’s hand, stubbornly, remained around her waist. And for one horrifying heartbeat, Jackie forgot why they’d been kissing in the first place. Forgot everything but the taste of Shauna still on her lips, until reality shattered her fantasy apart at the seams.

“Shauna,” Wade spoke, slowly, in a very fake and very practiced tone of surprise. As if he hadn’t just watched her all morning casually existing in his backyard. “Didn’t know my captain was my girl’s ranch hand.”

“Hey coach,” Shauna replied smoothly, somehow managing to keep her voice even. “Came for my jacket, stayed for the free farmhand experience.”

Wade smiled, then let out a low chuckle. He was buying it. Actually. His mustache didn’t twitch. Holy shit.

“You have got to stop calling her that, Dad,” Jackie muttered, still trying to will away how her cheeks were still dusted pink.

There it was, the twitch. Gaze flitting sideways at her, as his hands rested on his dust-covered jeans. “You let your old man catch ya playin’ tonsil hockey, and this is what you get red in the face about?”

Shauna tried. She really did, but she broke and burst out laughing after a mere two seconds. 

Jackie was already beet red by the time Shauna was hunched over laughing. 

She smacked Shauna’s shoulder once. Then twice, harder. “Now would be the time to defend me, asshole!” she hissed, grabbing one of the work gloves stuffed into the back pocket of her shorts and swatting Shauna across the arm with it.

That only made Shauna laugh harder, as she half-heartedly attempted to grab Jackie’s glove to stop the barrage of slaps that was raining down on her. It was done justly, might Jackie point out. 

Wade was still chuckling as she pushed the stall’s door open all the way to let the air in, and ensure the horses didn't suffocate in the afternoon’s sun. He tipped his worn, dirty hat at them. 

“Why don’t y’all take five? Sun’s only gonna get meaner, and it’s near ‘bout lunchtime anyway.”

Jackie forced herself to look on the bright side of this whole mortifying ordeal. Her dad had definitely bought the act. Not that it had been much of an act in the first place.

Maybe this was the universe’s way of punishing her for thinking their little scheme was foolproof. More likely, they were just two idiots blundering through uncharted waters, so clumsy about it that people couldn’t help but think: ‘no way in hell they’re faking this’.

That was far more likely than them consistently putting on Oscar-worthy performances. 

Jackie sat in the passenger seat of Shauna’s Honda, stunned in disbelief from the dreadful way she’d just come out to her father with her fake-girlfriend, no less. And how, he apparently, did not react negatively in the slightest. The Civic smelled of burnt diesel, and for half a second Jackie almost asked if Shauna’s brain was overheating from all the pretending.

But she didn’t. Because Shauna, infuriatingly, was a model girlfriend. Playing the role to perfection. Volunteering to swing by the gas station so Jackie could grab fuel for the lawn tractor. Always smiling. Effortlessly dependable. As if Jackie hadn’t spent the better part of five years having to bribe Jeff to do the simplest tasks for her. 

Jackie almost felt guilty. What was Shauna even getting out of this whole ordeal? She was already popular (not that she cared). Already the captain of the Longhorns (earned that on her own). Already too cool to need this charade to propulse into the next step in College social hierarchy. 

Jackie glanced sideways. Shauna drove with one hand wrapped around the steering wheel, the other loose out the window. Eyes on the road, easy and relaxed smile on her lips. 

What was her angle?

“You don’t have to stay and help me do all the yard work,” Jackie said, giving her a very clear and defined ‘out’ that anyone would be crazy not to take.

“My entire day’s free, that’s why I came,” Shauna shrugged, eyes still on the road. “Unless you want me out of your hair?”

“No.” Jackie sighed, snapping her gaze away from Shauna’s seemingly perfect profile, back to the countryside passing them by. “No, I’m just—”

The Civic rattled when the road changed from dirt and gravel to smooth pavement. Jackie checked the side mirror, half-expecting to see an important car part bouncing behind them in the dust.

“Sorry,” Shauna laughed, brushing a strand of hair off her face. Jackie had to clench her fists so she wouldn’t reach over and do it for her. “She’s not exactly built for off-roading.”

“Clearly.” Jackie folded her arms over her chest, just so they wouldn’t do something without her immediate consent. 

When Shauna finally slowed the Civic up to the gas pump, Jackie couldn’t stop herself from asking: “What’s in it for you?”

Shauna paused, slipped the car into park, and turned to her with a little crease between her brows.

“Why did you even, like, agree to this?” Jackie pressed. This was a far cry from reality, though. Shauna had basically thrown herself at the idea, really. She hadn’t asked questions then, but the more Jackie thought about it, the more it gnawed at her. 

Shauna drummed her fingers against the wheel before letting her hand drop, shoulders slouching back into the seat. “I’m trying to go pro, you know? Every girl I’ve dated ends up deciding I’m too… what was it? ‘Married to the game.’” Her mouth twitched, like she found that to be so incredibly stupid. “And my mom’s convinced if I don’t lock someone down now, I’m gonna die single and bitter.”

Jackie chewed her lip. It tracked. Shauna had the prestige of looking like she was in a relationship without the mess, without letting it take her focus away from soccer. Being stuck playing farmhand for the day is a lesser evil than waking up to screeching voice messages from a girl who thinks she deserved hundred percent of her undivided attention.

“Okay,” Jackie finally said. Voice low.

“That’s it?” A smirk tugged at Shauna’s mouth as she asked. Teasing her.

Seriously, was Shauna allergic to staying serious for more than a few minutes?

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t—”

“Riding my dick too hard?” Shauna cut in, laughter coloring her words.

Jackie choked on her own spit. She swatted Shauna’s shoulder, which doubled nicely as an excuse to gather herself before speaking.

“You know damn well you could’ve phrased that differently, Shipman.”

“Yeah, but seeing you freak out was worth it.”

That fucking wink. One day it was going to kill Jackie Taylor. Not today, though. Today she was determined to survive. Even if it meant secretly rooting for the stupid soccer jock she was supposed to be faking it with.

Jackie ignored Shauna’s laughter in favor of reaching for the empty jerry can on the backseat, and wordlessly stepped out of the Honda. By the time she was crouched by the car and twisting the cap off, Shauna was already pulling the nozzle from the pump.

Gas splashed into the can, the sharp smell of gasoline cutting through the air. After a somewhat awkward silent stretch, Shauna off-handedly asked: “Why don’t you ever talk about the horses?”

Jackie arched a single brow, eyes lifting up towards the woman. “Why the hell would I?”

Shauna kept her eyes on the pump. “I don’t know. People have the wrong idea about you, that’s all.”

Jackie screwed the cap back on. “And what, pray tell, is the word on campus about me these days?”

“Just the usual dumb shit,” Shauna said quietly, sliding the nozzle back into place. 

For a second, neither of them spoke, or maybe any noise, the silence heavier than the smell of gas. 

“Like?”

“Like,” Shauna sighed, hand on the back of her neck. “How you apparently cheated on Jeff with the whole team. How he definitely dumped you, and not the other way around. How he’s the hero and you’re the—”

“Slut?” Jackie finished for her, with a laugh that wasn’t entirely humorless. “Wow, the me that lives rent free in their heads seems to be having a hell of a time.”

Shauna let out a laugh, short and genuine.

“Right? I wouldn't mind partying with her.”

Jackie shot her a look. “You’re such an ass, Shipman.”

“I’m kidding.” Shauna’s voice softened, slipping before she could catch it. “I like this version better. The real you.”

Jackie froze, was it the gas fumes getting to their heads? And though they were very much outside, Jackie felt like she desperately needed air.

They left it at that. Because honestly, what the fuck was Shauna’s problem? Saying something so sincere, with her brown eyes soft and her smile even softer?

Idiot. 

Jackie gave Shauna her card and forced her (allegedly) to pay the bill. No way she was going to talk to a person in public wearing her work clothes. She looked downright atrocious. And, to soften the blow, she told Shauna she was free to pick out anything she’d like to eat, or drink, as payment. 

As they drove back, Jackie had taken her steel-toed boots off. Feet clad in colorful ankle socks were up on the dashboard, hand inside a bag of ships that Shauna had gotten for them. While miss ‘I don’t put anything processed in my body’ sipped on a zero-calorie energy drink. Af if it being sucked out from actual sugar made it any less of toxic waste in a can.

What a moron.

“Did he text you? Since Torchy’s?”

“Jeff?” Jackie asked, though she knew exactly what Shauna was referring to. “No. He just likes to talk a big game.”

“Never pegged him to be that type of loser,” Shauna replied, blindly placing her empty can in the cup holder between them.

“I thought you two were friends?”

Shauna let out a loud laugh. “Mel and I went to their parties ‘cause the beer was free. And Martinez is chill. But I never talked to the guy, really.”

After a moment of Jackie wondering how the hell she and Shauna had never met, it seemed the soccer captain had the same train of thought.

“Why were you never at those parties, anyway? Any scandalous reason you’d like to share with your super hot fake-girlfriend?” Shauna had the gull to ask such a question, punctuating it with a ridiculous little eyebrow wiggle.

“Getting drunk in a house full of smelly egotistical jocks? No thank you.” The thought alone made her queasy. She knew how they all were. Wandering eyes. Wandering hands. Hell no. Not her scene.

“Does that mean you don’t think I’m smelly or egotistical?” 

“You seem to be able to remember to bathe all on your own. Congratulations for being a successful adult.”

Shauna laughed louder this time. And, as was tradition, Jackie turned away as she munched on a single chip to prevent this moron from seeing her smile. Though, Jackie suspected she did anyway.

She leaned forward and turned the knob on the radio. Much to Jackie’s surprise, not only did Shauna join her in signing, they were perfectly in sync with each other. 

It was then that her brain treacherously reminded her that she knew exactly how Shauna held onto her when they kissed. And the little sighs she made when Jackie pressed her body flush into Shauna’s.

When she left that day, Jackie wished she hadn’t. 

Classes, papers, being forced to attend soccer games—that had been her daily routine for the past two weeks. It would’ve been atrociously embarrassing if everyone around her hadn’t seemed completely charmed by the fact that she and Shauna were dating. Fake-dating (at least for one of them, anyway).

Then again, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Athletes were practically worshipped around campus. They were probably idiotic enough to believe Jackie was the lucky one, not Shauna.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Regardless, the show had to go on, and the part of the supportive girlfriend had to continue being played to perfection. Which was why Jackie relished lunchtime, when she could find an empty, quiet spot in the cafeteria to sip her coffee and scroll on her phone.

A sacred moment of peace, of quiet sanctity, suddenly broken by the sudden scraping of a chair. Jackie’s eyes flicked up, her mouth still around her coffee straw. Laura Lee and Melissa.

“Hi, Jackie!” Laura Lee’s smile was bright and big.

Jackie knew full well she didn’t have the guts to tell her to fuck off.

“Mind if we join ya?” Melissa asked, already taking a seat, clearly uncaring of Jackie’s opinion on the matter.

“Make yourselves at home,” Jackie muttered under her breath, eyes dropping back to her screen. She knew the sarcasm wouldn’t reach their ears. It was truly reprehensible how, in just six weeks, she’d become this Longhorn magnet.

Fortunately, they talked amongst themselves while Jackie continued her doom-scrolling—until a certain photo made her stop cold. She had no recollection of anyone taking it, let alone Shauna sneaking pictures of her when she wasn’t looking.

In the shot, Jackie was driving—one hand on the wheel, the other reaching for the radio knob. Wind in her hair, sunglasses covering her eyes, the orange sun casting an almost ethereal glow around her.

Not bad.

Jackie liked it. Whatever. She couldn’t deny it served its purpose well enough. The photo was framed perfectly to make everyone around them believe they were dating. And hell, even in love.

“Where’s your girl?”

The voice made her jump, just slightly. She covered it by readjusting herself on the gnarly plastic chairs the school tortured them with.

Van slid her tray onto the table just as Jackie pocketed her phone, her question still hanging in the air, unanswered. Tai came moments later, and soon most of the Longhorn’s first stringers surrounded her like bodyguards. As far as collegiate sport experiences went, this wasn’t so bad—especially when they didn’t force her to talk about soccer.

“She’s probably choosing a dreadful outfit to wear just to publicly humiliate me,” Jackie finally said.

Chuckles and snorted laughter circled the table.

“You know,” Van started, fork skewering whatever mystery meat she’d chosen, “everyone here thought you were such a snob before.”

Utensils stilled. A thick silence settled.

Tai smacked Van’s shoulder. It wasn’t very effective.

“Look, I’m just saying,” the goalie continued, “we still think you’re a snob… just a really cool and funny one.”

Jackie burst out laughing, pressing a hand to her chest like that had meant the world to her (it sort of did). “That’s truly the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

The tension evaporated instantly. The conversation shifted from Jackie’s fashion snobbery to something more in their wheelhouse: soccer and their upcoming game. Apparently, it was a big one—something about macho rivalries or whatever. The girls seemed to be victims of the need to reign supreme over others simply because they wore different colors.

Jackie briefly considered how she could write a fashion paper about how sports jerseys activated humanity’s baser instincts for clique behavior and belonging.

“So, which color jersey should I be booing?” Jackie asked, unwrapping her breakfast burrito she was definitely not eating for breakfast.

Disappointed looks all around, even if they knew she was being facetious.

“Who decided she could sit with us?” Tai asked, a crooked smile on her lips.

“I did,” came Shauna’s voice, appearing (seemingly) out of fucking nowhere.

She walked beside one of the football bros—Travis Martinez. Trays in hand, overflowing with food. Portions that would make a hibernating bear blush with envy. Jackie was truly jealous she couldn’t eat like a garbage disposal and never gain a single fat cell. Then again, constant sweating under the arid desert sun probably balanced out the calories egregiously consumed.

Shauna squeezed in between Jackie and Van, who begrudgingly made room for Travis to drag over another chair beside Shauna.

“Hey, Jackie,” he said, flipping his dark hair back like he was in some magazine shoot. He wasn’t repulsive by any means. With enough liquor, she might even call him attractive. But she’d never mingled with the football guys—contrary to popular belief that she was some kind of floozy.

Apparently.

“Travis, right?” Jackie asked with a practiced but still genuine smile. Maybe that had to do with how Shauna’s knee pressed into her thigh, given how close they all were. Or maybe it was how Shauna had already draped her arm over the back of Jackie’s chair, all protective-like.

He nodded and stuffed his face instead of replying. What barbaric manners. No wonder Shauna liked him.

“We never really talked, did we?” Jackie tried again.

He chuckled, swallowing a too-massive bite. Big guy. Tall, muscular, burly in every way—but his smile, the way it reached his eyes, was surprisingly timid, Jackie noticed.

“Yeah,” he said, taking another bite mid-conversation, “you were sorta off-limits.”

Jackie turned to Shauna, whose eyes went wide with either shock, surprise, or something else entirely foreign to the soccer captain. She took a slow sip of her water (of course Shauna’s body was a temple—but only on weekdays).

The look on Jackie’s face clearly spelled out her complete confusion and irritation alike.

“Is anyone going to explain?”

All eyes shifted, almost creepily in sync, right onto Shauna. Even she looked reluctant—and that wasn’t like her.

“Jeff would lose it when his teammates talked to you,” Shauna finally explained.

“Can confirm,” Martinez added.

Jackie wanted to make a joke rather than acknowledge how awful that made her feel. How much she was starting to realize Jeff had treated her more like a trophy than a person.

“And here I thought I just had really bad breath and no one was brave enough to tell me.”

Sure, it had the desired effect, everyone laughed. Still, something deep inside her wanted to find him and slap the idiot out of his brain.

“I’m gonna say something crazy,” Shauna started, a smirk already tugging at her lips.

A rude way to interrupt Jackie’s violent thoughts.

“Not only can y’all talk to Jackie—”

“If I want them to,” Jackie added, lightly patting Shauna’s forearm with a sarcastic smile.

“If she wants you to. But…” Shauna leaned in, voice dropping to a not-so-soft whisper. “You can even hang out with her if I’m not there.”

Although Jackie would never willingly hang out with the Longhorns, she appreciated the thought. Everyone fake-gasped in perfect unison—it was almost impressive how in sync they were.

Once the laughter died down, Jackie finally started eating her lunch before she’d have to scarf it down on her way to her 1:30 class.

“You didn’t even say hi to me,” Shauna said. She was suddenly very close. Close enough that Jackie could smell the mint on her breath.

That tiny detail threw Jackie so much she nearly forgot they were supposed to be the school’s new “it” couple.

Right. Girlfriend mode.

“Why would I?”

She had to drain the sarcasm out first, though. Jackie felt instantly better when Shauna chuckled, the jab bouncing right off her limitless armor.

Without warning, Shauna leaned in and kissed her. Just a press of lips—cold from the water, perfectly molded against her own. Still, it lit every nerve ending in Jackie’s body on fire.

When Shauna pulled back, Jackie frowned and tugged her closer by the lapels of her stupid flannel, fabric worn thin from too many hot cycles in the dryer.

“Hi,” Jackie said once she’d pulled back, punctuating it with a wink. She was proud. Really She’d given Shauna a taste of her own medicine. She’d taken the power back, stomped her ridiculous crush, and now she’d be free of this embarrassing chapter of her life.

Wishful thinking, really. Maybe in another life.

In reality, her cheeks were burning as Shauna, like a total maniac, gently brushed Jackie’s hair behind her ear. Maybe it was the way Shauna looked at her, pupils blown wide, half-grin playing on her lips. Or maybe it was the fact that everyone’s eyes were absolutely glued to them.

“So, what’s everyone doing for the Halloween party?” Van asked, in a tone that suggested she was desperate to steer the conversation away before anyone commented on the kiss—or on how red Jackie still was.

“We could do team costumes?” Laura Lee proposed, as if the Longhorns hadn’t done “zombie soccer team” last year.

The great jock Halloween bash. Where, once a year, jocks would come together and get sloshed (as usual) and completely destroy someone’s parent’s home. But it was different in October, because they did it in tacky costumes.

Jackie nearly blanched when someone mentioned couples’ costumes. There was no way in hell she’d stoop to such a cringey tradition. Though, when Shauna turned to her, easy smile on her face, hand warm on her thigh, Jackie thought that yeah, maybe she’d stoop to such a cringey tradition, actually.

Fuck.

Lottie was acting weird. Not only had she and Nat not shown up at lunch, but she also wasn’t replying to the last five really hilarious videos Jackie had sent her.

So, yeah. Weird.

Lottie lived in the city, but the drive was worth it. From the moment Jackie jumped in her truck and peeled out of the driveway, gravel spitting against the undercarriage, her brain churned through every worst-case scenario possible like any of them had been remotely close to probable.

By the time she hit the second red light, she’d already pictured Lottie kidnapped, hospitalized, or spiraling through some cosmic breakdown. Which, frankly, was a lot to handle while driving.

She yanked her phone from the cup holder, thumb flicking open her messages, and tapped on Shauna’s name.

[Jackie] Did you see Nat today?

[Shauna] yeah she was at practice this morning why??

[Jackie] Did she look, I don’t know, off?

[Shauna] apart from her glaring at everyone not really

Holy hell. What an idiot.

Jackie would have to result to another tactic. Which was to explain the very pressing issue to Shauna like she was a five year old.

[Jackie] I haven’t seen Lottie all day and she isn’t replying to my messages. Nat wasn’t at lunch either.

[Shauna] i can pop in and check it out Lot doesn’t live too far from here

[Jackie] I'm almost there.

[Shauna] ok

[Shauna] let me know if she’s alright :)

[Shauna] or if you need me

[Shauna] or if you want to watch me speed run dk64 after

Jackie jumped when someone behind her laid on their horn obnoxiously long. The light had only just turned green.

“Hold your fucking horses, asshole,” she muttered, slamming her foot on the gas. The Ford growled like it shared her attitude.

Somehow, that dumb little exchange with Shauna made her feel lighter. Not calm, exactly, just better. She hated that. Hated that a few words from Shauna could make her chest loosen, that the thought of sitting next to her on a couch while she played some stupid Nintendo game sounded almost nice. Cozy. Dangerous territory.

By the time she reached Lottie’s neighborhood, Jackie had worked herself into a headache. She didn’t bother knocking. She’d been coming here since middle school—it practically smelled like her childhood. Jackie kicked off her shoes by instinct and climbed the stairs, her hand gliding along the banister that used to be covered in glitter stickers back when Lottie thought she was destined to be a pop star.

When Jackie pushed open the door to Lottie’s room, it was like stepping into what bad juju probably smelled like. Stale, humid, sad. Curtains drawn. Fairy lights dead. A pile of laundry sagging in the corner. 

Lottie was a lump under her covers, ear buds in, surrounded by a small battlefield of used tissues, half-empty water bottles like a minefield around the bed.

“Jackie?” Lottie’s voice was muffled, hesitant.

“I know you saw my messages. Why the fuck didn’t you answer me? Confirm that you’re, oh, I don’t know, alive?”

Lottie rolled her eyes before covering them with her hands. Her fingers were puffy, a little red. Crying red. Like, for example, if she’d been sobbing over something or someone—and didn’t think to call her best friend about it.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Lottie groaned.

Jackie crossed her arms, nails digging into her sleeves. “I nearly sent Shauna to check on you.”

That got a small, bitter laugh out of Lottie. “That would’ve been awkward,” she muttered, pushing herself upright. The bed groaned beneath her.

She set her earbuds on the nightstand, eyes down, picking invisible lint off her blanket. Her voice cracked when she finally spoke. “It wasn’t much of a fight. I just realized it might not actually work between—” She stopped, choking on the words.

Jackie didn’t even think. For someone aggressively anti-sports, she moved fast. Basically showing her prowess by vaulting onto the bed and pulling Lottie into her arms before her brain could catch up. Lottie melted against her instantly, face buried in her neck. Jackie’s hand moved through her friend’s dark hair, slow and steady.

Her phone buzzed against her thigh. She thumbed out a message one-handed.

[Jackie] She’s fine. Just an asshole.

[Shauna] you coming over after???

Jackie stared at the screen a moment too long. She turned her face away from her phone and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Lottie’s head.

She hated how normal that text made things sound. Like they were casual friends who just hung out. She hated even more that she wanted that—and maybe something even beyond it.

[Jackie] I can’t.

Shauna sent a thumbs-up emoji. Then another message about the weekend rivalry game Jackie absolutely had to attend.

Jackie rolled her eyes and tossed her phone onto the comforter, where it disappeared into the folds like the mess of blankets was quicksand. She had bigger things to deal with than nursing a crush she should’ve kicked to the curb months ago.

Right now, her best friend was crying into her shoulder, and Jackie decided—for both their sakes—that she was staying until Lottie smiled at least once.

Which meant she was probably spending the night.

Again.

It took a full hour until Jackie was able to drag Lottie out of her room. And it was with great strength (and responsibility) that she did so, with the promise of ice cream. 

And that is how they ended up sitting on the swing set of her parent’s back porch eating ice cream. Crickets were chirping. And though the sun set hours ago, leaving the sky a dark blue, the air was still hot and sticky—the worst kind. 

They were having an unusually warm October. Even for Austin. Or maybe the few weeks of colder weather they’d gotten the last few weeks were irregular. Jackie couldn’t tell. Seasons fit into two distinctive categories: ‘hot af’, and ‘breathable’. 

Jackie toyed around with what little remained of her icy treat, spoon in hand. “Has the sugary treat pacified you enough to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Nat wants to go pro.”

Jackie stilled. The realization hit, that she’d had this same conversation with Shauna just a few days ago. It felt like déjà vu.

“And that’s a problem?” she asked.

Lottie turned toward her, anger sharpening her tone. “Do you know how many women actually make a career out of soccer?”

Jackie sighed and scraped up the last spoonful of ice cream. She couldn’t tell if Lottie was being vague on purpose. To punish her for keeping the Shauna thing secret.

“What’s really the issue?”

“I just don’t see myself supporting someone who’s chasing a dream they might never reach.”

Jackie blinked at that. The seriousness of it, how unlike Lottie it sounded. She adored Nat. She watched all her games, bragged about her without irony. So why the sudden shift?

“You can’t predict that, Lot.”

“Which is why she needs a fall back,” Lottie stuck her spoon in the quickly melting ice cream with intent to kill. “But she’s not focusing on classes. On anything that is fucking soccer.”

Jackie hesitated. Part of her wanted to take Lottie’s side, to say Natalie was being reckless. But she knew that wasn’t true. Not really.

She could’ve brought up Shauna, too. She had her own big dreams. But their situations weren’t the same, not even close.

If Jackie was honest, she didn’t know what she’d do if it came down to it. Whether she’d stand by Shauna through the rough years after college, scraping by on two jobs, barely seeing each other. Or if she’d tell her to take something stable, just to watch her come home miserable, wishing for the days when she was a soccer star on a full scholarship at UT Austin.

Then again, that future was still just a fantasy.

Jackie leaned down and set her empty bowl on the oak planks of the patio. When she turned toward Lottie, the sight nearly undid her. Lottie looked miserable. Eyes rimmed with frustration and something that was frighteningly close to despair. It broke Jackie’s heart.

“Do you want my best friend answer, or my real one?” She asked softly,

Lottie hesitated for a moment, and ran a shaky hand through her hair. She still looked unsure when she said; “Real.”

Jackie met her eyes. “Then I think if you really love her, you’d try to make it work.”

That’s what Jackie would do.

“Come on, let me drive,” Shauna grovelled as she walked beside the lawn tractor while Jackie cut the grass at an extremely leisurely pace. A pace that gave her ample opportunity to enjoy her drink. It was canned and premixed and maybe a little too sweet, but refreshing enough.

Jackie refused to answer, which prompted Shauna to jump onto the tractor anyway. Her added weight shifted it slightly, but honestly, it was her weak grip that nearly caused her to fall off.

And, sure, Shauna had been holding the same drink as Jackie, the aluminum can sweating into her palm. But still, weak grip.

Jackie snapped her hand forward, bunching the front of Shauna’s shirt into her fist, fingers tightening around the fabric. Disaster prevented.

A bit of alcohol was lost in the process, sloshing out of their cans.

“Fine,” Jackie sighed, finally stilling the machine. “Since you’re so suicidal about it.”

She sat up, hopping onto the engine, and crossed one leg over the other. She took a slow sip from her can as she watched Shauna drop into the driver’s seat with a wide, idiotic grin. The usual.

After a few minutes of wind tousling hair and the sun beating down on her skin, Jackie leaned back, one hand braced behind her.

“You know, I could get used to this.” Jackie hadn’t meant to speak that somewhat private thought out loud. But there it was, out in the open.

She couldn’t imagine Shauna was enjoying herself much, not with Jackie blocking half her view of the grass she was supposed to be mowing. When Jackie’s eyes, masked behind tinted sunglasses, slid toward her, she caught Shauna watching her far more than the lawn.

Jackie nudged her with the heel of her foot. “If you crash this thing, I’m going to kill you.”

“I’ve got it handled,” Shauna replied, casual and relaxed. Her can was wedged between her thighs, though she gripped the steering wheel with one hand.

“I don’t know,” Jackie said, leaning back further and giving her sunglasses a little tap so they slid down the bridge of her nose. “Looks like you missed a spot there.” She wasn’t pointing at the grass, or anything near it.

Jackie was being reckless. Both of them were. Operating this machinery while drinking was far from recommended. But it was hot as hell, and she was parched. And watching Shauna engage in that kind of yard wor was gratifying in more ways than one.

Okay, so maybe Jackie was acting no better than a man, but she hadn’t asked Shauna to come here. Shauna had driven her ass all the way out to the countryside on her own. Well, after a brief conversation over text.

[Shauna] what r you up to

[Jackie] Why must you shorten ‘are’ but not ‘you’? Also, where the hell is your question mark

[Shauna] ?

Jackie had rolled her eyes and sighed like she’d been dealing with this for a century.

[Jackie] Mowing the lawn.

[Shauna] tmi :(

[Jackie] The grass outside, you buffoon.

[Shauna] should i come over?

[Jackie] Bring something to drink.

[Shauna] what beverage does the lady desire?

Another eye roll.

[Jackie] Alcohol.

Jackie was starting to think no weekend was complete without roping Shauna into some kind of yard work. It was, unfortunately, catastrophic for her mental health. Their constant closeness, the teasing, all the awful little side effects of her ridiculous infatuation. But she could justify it. After all, keeping up the tradition was good for their ruse.

Either way, she had somehow been convinced by big, whiskey-brown eyes to sit on Shauna’s lap while she drove the lawn tractor, because (as per Shauna’s words), it was “just a little safer that way.”

Right. Safer for her physical health, but not so much for her mental well-being. Not only did she have to fight off the sun’s vicious intent to fry her like a chicken on a spit, she had to fight off the intrusive thoughts of kissing Shauna (unprompted) every few minutes. Surely the alcohol wasn’t helping her case, and it all felt so diabolical.

Perhaps she should’ve just picked some random person on her way to her sister’s wedding instead. That would’ve been far less disastrous, and far less embarrassing, than whatever long-term farce she’d agreed to.

Jackie figured she should probably start a conversation soon. Her shoulder, arm, and half her side were pressed against Shauna’s chest, and her wandering hands were dangerously close to wandering further. She shifted, letting her back rest mostly against Shauna’s front instead.

(Not exactly an improvement.)

“So what was up with Lot?”

Jackie’s brain didn’t care how close she was pressed against Shauna, the question made her spin around in her lap so fast it made her dizzy. 

“What the hell do you mean? Did Nat not tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Jackie groaned. “Oh my God. Do you idiots seriously not talk about anything besides sports and kicking round things into square ones?”

Shauna had her lips to the rim of her can when Jackie said it, and ended up inhaling some of the too-sweet alcohol.

“Yeah, dude,” she coughed, clearing her throat. “We talk about you. And, like, food. Sometimes we even discus the very distinguished topic of asses. Not yours—” Shauna added quickly, as if that made it any better. "Mostly."

“Moron,” Jackie muttered, turning back around. After a beat of silence, she slapped Shauna’s hand off the steering wheel and took over herself, only to feel Shauna’s free hand settle casually on her thigh.

Perfect. Finding out she was attracted to someone who ironically used the word ‘dude’ was just the cherry on top of the stupid cake.

"Did I cover all the jock stereotypes?" Shauna asked just when Jackie thought that particular conversation was over and done with. 

"You missed your horrible fashion sense and pea-sized brains."

"Cool. I'll take notes for next time."

Jackie snorted, not kindly, as she steered the lawn tractor just a little ways behind the hulking barn.

“Lottie doesn’t think Nat should pursue a career in soccer,” Jackie finally said.

“Ouch,” Shauna grimaced. “That’s why Nat’s been a miserable asshole the last few days.”

Seriously? Jackie couldn't even fathom question Shauna as to why she hadn't connected the dots sooner.

“I want to say the issue is the stupid jock she’s dating,” Jackie sighed. “But honestly? I don’t think it is.”

“Thought you and Lottie were ride or die?”

“We are,” Jackie shrugged, pushing her glasses up onto her head as they drove under a thick oak that provided some shade. “But I won’t let her drive into incoming traffic if I can help it.”

Shauna nodded. “You think she’s wrong?”

“Obviously.” And then came Jackie’s patented word vomit: “I mean, if you and I were truly dating, I’d encourage you. Even if it was a long shot. Even if we had to live in a moldy apartment in Franklin Park for a while before you got us a massive mansion.”

God. Had she really said all that out loud? She found solace in knowing Shauna couldn’t see her face. And that (thankfully) Jackie couldn’t see the stupid smirk probably plastered on Shauna’s.

“And you think you wouldn’t hit it big before me? Fashion is all the rage these days.”

“And how would you, the total fashion disaster, know anything about that?”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Shauna defended in a half-hearted shrug.

Jackie, unfortunately, felt all of it.

“I already have, and I fully intend to keep doing it.”

Shauna only laughed at that. Jackie couldn’t help but grin over her shoulder, which inexplicably prompted Shauna to move her hand from Jackie’s thigh to her hip.

Thankfully, a well-timed interruption came in the form of her father strutting their way on Dolly, the mare Shauna had previously been acquainted with.

“Heya,” Wade greeted, tipping his hat like he’d been cast in some B-movie western. 

Dolly shook her head, snorting.

“Hi, pops,” Jackie said, her cheerful tone directly tied to how many of those stupid cans she’d consumed.

“You’ve been doin’ plenty ‘round here lately, how about we treat ya to dinner tonight?”

Jackie nearly choked on her sip. 

Jesus. Maybe Shauna had been right after all. Her father absolutely did adore her.

Wade scratched at the scruff on his neck. “There’s an NWSL match at seven. Since this one here don’t give two hoots about soccer,” he said, nodding at Jackie with mock judgment, “figured it’d be nice to have someone around who’ll actually cheer the ladies on with me.”

“Yeah, sure, coach,” Shauna replied almost immediately.

God, Jackie really was going to be stuck watching those two scream at the TV for hours. She’d need more liquor. Stronger, too.

“Great.” Wade turned away, then shouted, “Ya missed a spot!”

He, like Jackie, was pointing at nothing in particular.

Jackie chuckled and, for once, let herself relax against Shauna.

No matter how exhausting this ruse was getting, or how her own feelings were tangling up in the show they were putting on—at the very least her dad seemed to be buying it. And that was, to her, the hardest part of the job.

The hardest still being her dear sister Claire. 

Which, it had been really nice not thinking about her lately, and just obsessing over a stupid jock. That was, until she checked her phone and there it was, a text from the dev—her sister.

[Claire] I’ll be staying over this weekend! I’m so excited. I also want to discuss some of my wedding plans with you. And my dress. See you soon xxx

This time, Jackie did really spit out her sip. 

Fucking shit fuck.

Chapter Text

Jackie was having the absolute most miserable time of her life. Squeezed between the hulking mass of the man who had fathered her and her equally bulky—yet more feminine and lithe—fake girlfriend. She endured exactly what she’d predicted earlier: both of them shouting at the tiny athletes sprinting across the TV screen.

The living room was simple in layout and design, even more so in its furniture. One couch that could comfortably seat three adults, unless they were the two aforementioned Neanderthals. There was also a single recliner that Jackie had fallen asleep in an innumerable number of times. The flat screen sat in a cabinet covered in that dull orange-brown that plagued the ’90s, designed before the invention of 4K.

Jackie’s current predicament, however totally avoidable, was still very much one of necessity. Letting Shauna cozy up next to her father while she banished herself to the recliner like some prisoner wouldn’t exactly sell the illusion of a loving, well-adjusted relationship.

“Those fuckin’ refs are blind,” Wade barked when the whistle blew. “She got all ball!”

Shauna leaned forward, gazing his way. “You’d fry me for coming in studs up like that.”

“Yeah,” Wade intoned. “Well I ain’t her coach, now am I?”

Shauna shook her head and let out a soft chuckle. 

Another whistle. This one also followed by groans from both sides of Jackie.

She didn’t even bother interrupting their disgruntled soccer-speak to ask what the hell a stud was and why it would ever be “up.” Just when she thought she might actually pass out from sheer boredom between these two idiots, something resembling entertainment happened.

A Houston Dash player broke away on a counterattack. Shauna’s voice jumped an octave as the ball slipped past the keeper. Wade’s feet hit the floor with a heavy thud, his excitement shaking the coffee table.

Jackie flinched but couldn’t help laughing, despite her aversion to their barbaric rituals of celebration.

The cushion dipped beside her as Shauna collapsed back into it, the vicarious thrill of scoring a goal she hadn’t actually scored slowly fading.

Jackie shifted on the couch, her hand landing on Shauna’s thigh with bravery she had totally earned from the alcohol she’d been sipping all day.

“Refill?”

Shauna turned to her, the light sunburn across the bridge of her nose making her look even warmer. Her eyes were glassy from manual labor under the sun, or the few drinks she’d had throughout the day.

Maybe both.

“I’m good. I still gotta drive myself back home.”

Reasonable. At least.

“How could I forget? You’re already a danger on the road sober.”

Shauna slung her arm across the back of the couch, her hand dangling close enough for Jackie to feel the heat of it. For a second, Jackie thought she’d just let the jab slide and laugh it off, like she always did. Like Jackie was her favorite comedian in the world.

“I told you she wasn’t built for dirt roads,” Shauna said with a smile so crooked Jackie didn’t believe a word of it.

“You certainly have that in common with it.” Jackie chuckled, courage buzzing on her tongue despite the absurd way Shauna’s smile managed to make her stomach swoop like a teenager experiencing her first crush. 

“Her, Jackie. Her.”

“It’s a car,” Jackie replied, tone dry and deadpan. 

“She’s my friend.”

“And you’re a moron.”

Jackie moved her hand to Shauna’s cheek, her skin warm and soft under her palm. She tilted her head up just slightly and pressed a quick kiss to Shauna’s lips.

Her reasoning for this display of affection was perfectly logical: to show her father she wasn’t simply roasting the soccer captain to be a royal bitch. That it was all in good fun. Just normal couple banter, or whatever.

The reality, however, was a little different. 

“I’ll take a refill,” Wade interrupted.

Jackie rolled her eyes, almost forgetting the two weren’t alone. “Did I ask you?”

Her father flashed her the biggest grin she’d ever seen, and even she couldn’t keep up the act. The mock irritation slipped right off her face as she gathered their empty cans and wandered toward the kitchen.

The atmosphere was nothing like it had been when Jeff was there. Back then it had been stiff and boring, thick with the sound of her dad grinding his teeth through long, awkward silences. Neither of them had known what to say to bond? Not that either had cared to even try.

It had been as if Jeff was just waiting for them to find a reason to disappear into Jackie’s room so he could stuff his graceless hand down her pants and work her to a very fake orgasm.

Shauna had the advantage of already knowing Wade, but only as her coach. Someone to listen to, respect, and sometimes challenge. Not someone she was forced to act like the perfect girlfriend in front of.

Even from the kitchen, Jackie could see the two of them locked in an animated debate about some soccer nonsense.

Jackie eventually drifted back into the living room. Wade’s beer hissed open, his thanks came out as a low rumble from somewhere deep in his chest when she handed it over.

She sank back into Shauna’s side, a routine that was starting to feel a little too hauntingly familiar for her liking. But rather than addressing that particular thought, she kicked it away without giving it the power to bother her.

Whatever. She didn’t have time to debate this bullshit with herself tonight. Nor did she have the sound mind to do so.

Shauna and Wade’s rambling about player stats became white noise in the background, steady and calming. It pulled her under into a surprisingly deep nap. She blamed how unfairly comfortable the soccer captain was.

When she startled awake at the sound of cupboards being slammed shut with all the finesse of a gorilla, she realized she was curled up on the couch. Alone.

Hushed voices came from somewhere around the house. The kitchen, maybe? The TV was off, which meant the game must have been over. A fantastic development. Jackie had slept through most of the stupid match without having to endure lectures from both her father and Shauna, and she’d gotten a really refreshing nap out of it too.

After stretching and popping whatever had been misaligned in her shoulder, Jackie padded toward the kitchen, following the sound of two distinct voices. Arms crossed, hair a mess (probably), eyes adjusting to the brightness of the world around her. She entered the kitchen to find the two fucking idiots hunched over the dining table, watching the game on Shauna’s phone.

Jackie’s eyes snapped to the kitchen clock. 8:58 p.m. Fuck. She’d only slept thirty-five minutes, not two hours. How she woke from that nap feeling like she’d time-traveled fifty years into the future, ready to run a marathon, was truly a mystery.

“You guys could’ve kept watching in the living room.”

Shauna glanced up at her, eyes reluctantly tearing themselves away from the tiny screen. Jackie had the very sudden urge to kiss her. Another unfortunate side effect of Shauna’s treacherously handsome whiskey-brown eyes.

“You were snorin’ like a damn tractor, darlin’.”

Jackie was drawn away from her momentary insanity to her father’s smirk. She was far too tired to even feel the dreadful emotion called embarrassment.

“Liar.”

“It was cute,” Shauna said. Her grin was proof that something far stupider was about to tumble past those lips. “In a Jurassic Park kinda way.”

Jackie stalked toward her like a tiger closing in on prey, smile sharp and entirely fake. At least, until she got close enough to swat Shauna’s shoulder. Lips curling into something between a snarl and a laugh, she hissed, “Screw you, Shipman.”

Her timing was perfect. Her wit? Not so much. Words always deserted her at the worst possible moments. Coincidentally, whenever Shauna was around. Truly her Greek tragedy.

Shauna’s eyebrow arched, that familiar spark in her eyes suggesting there was more dumb commentary in the chamber. But thankfully, she seemed to remember Jackie’s father was still very much in the room, and she bit her tongue for once.

“Anyways,” Jackie said, backing down the hallway slowly. “I’m gonna go shower. Enjoy the rest of that dreadful sport you both call entertaining.”

“Quitter!” Wade called after her.

She didn’t dignify it with an answer. There was only so much sports a human soul could endure in one day. Especially since she’d received the delightful news that Claire would be “gracing” them with her presence (ew). And she’d also have to attend Shauna’s big rivalry game as the supportive girlfriend. Which also mostly likely meant an after-party. And all the more screaming idiots to drown out.

Maybe she could convince Shauna to show her those stupid retro video games she was always going on about.

God, who was Jackie turning into? A simpleton who’d get into video games just to escape a social engagement? All for a jock with a pretty smile and prettier eyes.

As the hot water washed away the day’s grime, Jackie started outlining what she generously called her mental health plan for surviving her sister. Step one: make sure Shauna or Lottie (preferably both) were around at all times. Step two: focus on them, and not on Claire’s relentless judgy face. Step three: figure out what step three was.

Easy. Right?

Nothing better than dragging her best friend and fake girlfriend into a family drama fabricated atop years of useless, petty rivalry.

As Jackie trudged down the hall, still toweling her hair and imagining Claire’s inevitable meltdown over her “girlfriend,” she nearly collided headfirst with said girlfriend.

The towel slipped forward, blinding her for a second, as she came to an abrupt stop inches from Shauna’s chest.

She lifted the towel just enough to reveal one eye, her expression pure Sith menace. “Don’t make me kill you,” she intoned, low and dramatic.

“Whoa,” Shauna laughed, hands raised in mock surrender. “What’d I do this time?”

Jackie squinted, pulling the towel off of her head. “Star Wars?”

Shauna’s mouth curved into a teasing smirk. “Didn’t know you were a nerd.”

Jackie recoiled as if physically struck. “You’ve never watched them?” The tone alone wasn’t enough. She, of course, had to lightly shove Shauna’s shoulder for emphasis. “You disgust me.”

Shauna only shrugged, eyes glinting with amusement. “Wouldn’t say no to watching them with you.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Jackie immediately replied. “I couldn’t possibly keep fake-dating someone who’d never seen my favorite movies.”

“Cool,” Shauna said, grin widening. “It’s a date.”

Jackie’s mouth opened, then closed. “No. It’s punishment.”

“Whatever you wanted to call it, beautiful.”

Jackie’s pulse jumped. Her arms crossed instinctively, like she could shield herself from the sudden warmth pooling in her chest.

“Why are you even up here?” she snapped, maybe too quickly.

Shauna blinked, suddenly sheepish. “Right. Uh, just wanted to say good night.”

Jackie cleared her throat, fighting the stupid grin threatening her face. Right. The game must have finally ended. “Drive safe.”

“I’ll text you when I get home,” Shauna said with a wink, still unaware of how deadly it was.

“Don’t. I’ll leave you on read.”

They both laughed, that familiar rhythm between them clicking into place, effortless and annoyingly perfect.

And when Shauna finally left, Jackie stood there in the quiet hallway, cheeks warm, towel sliding off her head, whispering to herself, “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

Because she was. And worst of all, she didn’t completely dislike the feeling.

The week came and went, dragging on at a snail’s pace. Or at least, that’s what it felt like to Jackie, with the impending doom of her sister’s visit approaching with each passing day. It was absurd, the way it consumed her mood. She knew it. Still, there are those people you could never click with no matter how much you tried, and for Jackie, that unfortunate someone was her sister.

It helped that Shauna spent the week suggesting ridiculous costumes for the Halloween bash later that month, sending pictures of outfits she knew were cheaply sewn, nowhere near double-stitched, and destined to rip the moment they tried them on.

Still, that was the Halloween experience, wasn’t it? Cheap costumes, cheap booze, cheap thrills. The college trifecta of this useless holiday. 

The latest picture Shauna had graced Jackie with was what the link boasted as a ‘funny couples costume to stand out at any party!’ Right. Jackie tapped the link once, lifting her head for a moment to see if the line for the bean juice she desperately needed that afternoon had moved. 

It had not.

The costume was a deer in headlights.”` The image itself made Jackie snort a laugh, which she attempted to cover up to the best of her ability. Shauna would be the deer, and Jackie would be the headlights. Well, more specifically, her chest would.

[Shauna] i looked at the reviews the headlights light up

[Jackie] Fascinating. But I’m not dressing up like the fucking pavement.

[Shauna] i wanted to be a deer :( 

[Jackie] Do it. I’ll show up with a hunting rifle. 

[Shauna] that’s illegal even for texas

“Pumpkin cream cold brew for Jackie.”

Jackie immediately perked up at the sound and traversed a few nonchalant (and frankly fucking selfish) bodies to get to the counter. Finally, the sweet promise of caffeine to get her through the rest of her day.

She thumbed a quick reply to Shauna as she shouldered her way out of the coffee shop.

[Jackie] Keep trying. I’m sure you’ll find something, love.

[Shauna] idk youre hard to please

[Jackie] ;) 

It was Thursday. She had plans with Lottie that evening. Jackie had suggested a cathartic shopping spree, since Lottie and Nat had decided it was best to go on some sort of ‘break.’ From Jackie’s experience, that was just what couples who couldn’t communicate called ‘taking time for themselves.’ As if saying “hey, I don’t feel like constantly being attached to your hip this week” wouldn’t have the same effect.

But whatever. Jackie was always down to blow way too much money on clothes. The only problem was where she’d put them. That would be future Jackie’s problem, actually.

And as the two best friends stood side by side in different changing rooms, Lottie’s mood had improved considerably since Jackie had picked her up earlier. Back when a frown had seemed permanently tattooed between her brows.

She was even chatty now. Imagine that.

“So, you haven’t even told me how sex with Shauna is.”

Jackie froze halfway through trying to squeeze into a skirt she’d already known was too small for her hips. She nearly slammed into the stall door, catching herself with one hand on the poorly laminated wall.

A few strands of hair slipped into her face. She could feel Lottie’s smirk through the divider. Diabolical and far too pleased with herself. Jackie blew at the stray hair (which accomplished nothing).

“I—” Her voice came out strangled. She cleared her throat and tried again. Maybe she could pass it off as struggling with the clothes, and not being caught, like… well, like a deer in the fucking headlights.

(Maybe Shauna’s costume suggestion had been more genius than Jackie was prepared to admit.)

“Why? Are you shopping for a threesome?”

“Ew, no.” Lottie let out a loud laugh. Bright, full-bellied. It was music to Jackie’s ears. “It’s just, you were never a prude about this stuff when you were with Jeff.”

“I’m not a prude,” Jackie grunted, jumping in place to peel herself out of the cursed skirt.

“Then tell me.”

“Why the hell do you care so much?”

“Can’t I live vicariously through my best friend’s happiness?”

Jackie leaned her forehead against the wall, breathing out a sigh that signaled her resignation from the matter. She couldn’t exactly describe Shauna’s skill (or incompetence on the matter). At least, not truthfully. So she pivoted to safer territory.

“Did I ever tell you Jeff was absolute shit? I got so good at faking orgasms he probably thinks he’s some sex-gifted god.”

“Are you—” Lottie’s words dissolved into laughter. Big, loud, echoing through the changing room. If anyone else was nearby, well, this conversation would no longer be private.

“Are you serious? Why have you never told me this before?”

Jackie let out an annoyed scoff. “Because it’s fucking embarrassing?”

“For him! Not you, babe.”

Whatever. Jackie had always wanted to keep up the illusion that she and Jeff were the perfect couple. In love. Having mind-blowing sex every day. The reality had been the furthest thing from that. The fact that even Lottie had believed the lie felt almost tragic. Out of everyone, Jackie thought she’d know better.

Apparently, she was gifted at faking everything.

“Please tell me Shauna is at least a little more handy.”

“There’s been a distinctive lack of faking, if you must know.”

“No wonder you look at her like she hung the fucking moon and stars.”

“I do not.”

“You do, babe. But it’s cute. I’m happy for you.”

Jackie would’ve been happy for herself too. If any of it were real.

She pushed the stall door open and smoothed her hands over her outfit, which had come together surprisingly well after she ditched the skirt. A cropped V-neck top, a forest-green belt, and dark beige fitted khakis.

“How does this look?”

“Hot,” Lottie declared, as if it were a scientific fact.

Jackie was inclined to agree.

Lottie, meanwhile, stood in a black T-shirt over a skirt. Jackie tilted her head, and Lottie immediately stiffened under her gaze. It wasn’t judgmental. Not at all.

“Try the green long-sleeve I threw on your pile.”

“Really?”

“Am I ever wrong?” Jackie’s smirk widened.

“Fine.”

When Lottie stepped out again, Jackie’s self-satisfaction was well earned. The sweater hung loose in all the right ways, drawing attention to Lottie’s legs. Every outfit needed a focal point, and Lottie’s legs had plenty to say.

Jackie pushed off her door, moving behind her friend. She spun the taller woman around by the hips to face the mirror.

“Look,” she said. “What do you see?”

“My legs.”

“Exactly. And you should show them off. Like, all the time.”

Lottie laughed, ducking her head to hide the blush creeping up her cheeks.

“You’re welcome,” Jackie said.

Her phone buzzed from inside the stall, the dull vibration against the wooden bench drawing her attention. She glanced at the screen: a text from Shauna. And three from Claire. She ignored the latter, no need to invite that headache.

[Shauna] whens your sis getting here?

Seriously? Even her fake girlfriend had to bring her up.

[Jackie] Tomorrow.

For the first time in her brief texting history with Shauna, Jackie wanted to use emojis instead of words. The puking one, specifically. Three of them.

[Shauna] damn what is the deal with you two maybe you should give me a debrief before i have to meet her ???

[Jackie] Nothing I can convincingly explain over text.

[Shauna] come tell me then ;)

[Jackie] I’m shopping with Lottie.

[Shauna] ok have fun you two!!

[Shauna] we could chill tomorrow ?

[Jackie] If I can fit you into my very tight schedule.

[Shauna] youre so romantic

[Jackie] Have fun doing whatever it is you do. Speedrunning or doing burnouts with Hat.

[Shauna] u know me so well already

[Jackie] Unfortunately.

“You’re not going to ditch me to go fuck Shauna, are you?”

Jackie’s head popped around the corner of her stall. Lottie stood there, arms crossed, lips pursed in mock indignation.

“Of course not, love. I’m all yours tonight.”

“Good. I want ice cream.”

And ice cream they got.

Crisis averted. Sort of. Lottie wanted details about Shauna and Jackie’s sex life while Jackie was busy licking chocolate ice cream off her cone. She’d shut it down fast, gaslighting Lottie into believing she was some deviant pervert for even asking.

What else could Jackie realistically say? She knew Shauna was unfairly good at kissing, and that was truly it. Jackie had never slept with a woman before. Lying to her very gay best friend about it would’ve been near impossible. Not to mention fucking idiotic.

They left it at that. Thankfully.

But maybe Jackie should prepare an answer for when Lottie would inadvertently berate her about this in a couple of months.

So, Jackie did the only thing she could think of: send Shauna a text about it.

[Jackie] We need to have the sex talk.

[Shauna] ??????

In retrospect, that most likely wasn’t the ideal way to broach this conversation. Oh well, it was satisfying to find out that there was indeed a way to stun Shauna into silence.

Jackie dreaded going home. She was sitting in her truck, still very much parked on campus. She was staring at the ford crest on her steering wheel, wondering if there was some miracle that could get her out of this. 

Maybe Shauna would let her crash at her place all weekend. Her parents wouldn’t mind, would they? Doesn’t matter that she’s literally never met them yet, but still, they’ll absolutely love Jackie. They have to. Everyone does. 

Except her demon of a sister, apparently. 

Her last text still haunted Jackie.

[Claire] I’m here! Yay! Can’t wait to see you! Can I set up my make-up kits next to yours? This is gonna be such a fun weekend, Jack!

What kind of demon spawn from the depths of hell typed 'yay' unironically?

Man the fuck up, Jackie. Come on. Don’t be a little bitch.

She had to face the music someday. Staying here wouldn’t help. Maybe they could take the horses out for a ride, at least Jackie wouldn’t have to talk to Claire much then.

Jackie grabbed her phone from the cup holder and dialed Lottie.

No answer.

Oh no. Hell no. This couldn’t be happening.

She called again.

Still nothing.

Silver lining? Lottie and Nat must have definitely made up. There was no feasible way she’d ignore Jackie’s emergency call while rotting away in bed scrolling on her phone.

On to the next contact on her list. Shauna. She hesitated, thumb hovering over her name. Their last conversation was embarrassingly fresh in her mind, an awkward lunch at Beannu where they’d attempted to script their fake-sex life for friends and mostly just ended up arguing about who’d be top and who’d bottom. Useful? Not so much. Though now, Jackie was fully aware of the type of… accoutrements Shauna would use. More fuel for her stupid brain to conjure up detailed dreams with. Wonderful.

Fuck it.

Shauna’s voice filtered through after the fifth ring. 

“If you’re calling to ask what color of straps I got, do it by text. ‘Cause I’m in class.”

Then why the fuck did she even answer?

This absolute buffoon. 

“Don’t you dare joke with me right now. This is an emergency.”

There was rustling and the soft click of a door closing. Did this idiot step out of a lecture just to take the call?

“Shit. Sorry, what’s up?”

“My sister’s here.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Yes. Come with me. Please. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ll fucking kill her, Shauna.”

Jackie sounded pathetic. She knew she did. But she couldn’t care less.

Shauna chuckled. The nerve. “I’d love to, but I’ve got classes all day and practice tonight.”

Oh fuck. Shit. That also meant her father wouldn’t be home.

“Shauna, you don’t understand. You have to come. I can’t be with her. Alone.”

“I can make it after practice? But I’d have to sleep over, the game tom—”

Perfect. Wade could ride with Shauna, giving Jackie time to prepare an alibi.

“It’ll be too late. If you do come, bring a shovel.”

Jackie hung up after that particularly grim instruction.

Her phone buzzed before she could even shove it back into the truck’s rickety cup holder.

[Shauna] ill tell your dad im sleeping over :)

How the hell this idiot jock had been more of a perfect partner than her five year boyfriend was beyond her? No time to dwell on that, or the fact that Shauna would be sleeping over and everyone would fully expect them to sleep in the same bed—Jackie had a meeting with the devil incarnate to attend to.

She flipped down the sun visor, checked her hair, then her makeup. At least that was in order. She slammed the gas and tore out of the school lot like someone determined to face all her greatest fears in one evening.

Spoiler: she wasn’t.

When she arrived, Claire’s all-black, too-big SUV was parked out front. Crooked, and in her spot. Not that it was officially hers, but she’d spent months marking that territory with her truck’s tires.

Fucking bitch.

Jackie slammed the door and found Claire in the upstairs bathroom, having pushed Jackie’s makeup bag and toiletries into a corner of the counter. Piled high so the guest of honor could spread out her own shit in the rest of the space.

Claire turned with a large, white, perfect smile.

Jackie flashed the fakest grin she could pull off before Claire wrapped her in a tight hug.

“I’m so glad to see you!”

Before Jackie could muster anything remotely enthusiastic, Claire launched into her usual tirade. “When was the last time you got a haircut? I can totally see your split ends from here, Jack. You look tired. Have you not been sleeping well? Oh, and can I take your room? I hate sleeping in my old room. It’s so… not me anymore.”

Jackie wanted to choke her. Right here. Right now. Prison life sounded solid: three meals a day, a gym, TV, plenty of social interaction. A solid retirement plan.

Instead of committing a felony, Jackie stood her ground. “Your old bed’s too small for two. Shauna’s sleeping over tonight.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Claire’s face illuminated with what Jackie could only describe as pure demonic energy. “When is this girlfriend of yours getting here?”

“Late. With dad. Soccer practice.”

Claire suddenly pushed past Jackie, nudging her out of her way. She then grasped her wrist, pulling into the hallway with her. “You’ll have to tell me all about her. And why is it that my little sister has never bothered to mention to me that she was gay, or bi?”

“It’s pretty… recent,” Jackie answered, grimacing at how unsure that sounded. And it was truly how she felt.

Claire dragged Jackie to her bedroom, where they both sat on the edge of the bed that hadn’t been used in years. Claire’s room had truly been left how it had been all those years ago. Filled with posters of boy bands and early 2000s nostalgia that some would certainly dish out good money to get their hands on.

“Eric didn’t come with?” Jackie asked, instantly regretting it when Claire’s jaw twitched at the mention of her fiancé. 

She kept the fake smile up anyway. “He couldn’t make it. Work conference.”

Jackie nodded, even though it was obviously bullshit. Their father couldn’t stand Eric. And he was the kind of pushover who couldn’t ever grow a spine and spend a weekend with his fiancée’s family because of that.

“That... sucks,” Jackie said, like it actually did bother her. It certainly did not. And though Eric was not particularly offending in any way, as he had no real personality to speak of.

The air turned sour and awkward sooner after. This was why Jackie did not want to be alone with her. They had nothing in common. Nothing to discuss. Claire didn’t even bother to ask about Shauna properly, she didn’t care to learn.

And that was totally fine. Jackie wasn’t jumping at the chance to tell her either.

“Do you want to take the horses out for a ride?” Jackie offered after a long silence.

Claire’s face brightened immediately. “That would be lovely! Let me change first.” She sank to her knees to wrestle with four—four—fucking suitcases. “Oh, and we should eat something first. It’s pretty hot out. I wouldn’t want to get a heat stroke before I even get to see pops.”

Jackie rolled her eyes as she stood. Claire’s attention was fully devoted to the mountain of clothes she’d brought.

“Sure. I’ll make you something.”

With poison.

Jackie did not, in fact, poison her sister. And the horse ride had been a great choice. Not only because the fresh air actually helped get rid of all her homicidal tendencies, but because it reminded her that peace still existed somewhere in the world. By the time they got back home, and Claire had disappeared upstairs to shower, the quiet of the house felt almost earned.

She was sitting on the couch, legs propped up, when her phone rang.

“Sweetie.” Wade. Voice tired, but excited—for some reason. “Shauna and I are grabbin’ some pizzas and wings, and we’ll be on our way soon. Y’all need anything else?”

Ah. Wings. That’s where his excitement was coming from.

“Carbonated water for Claire. I don’t think we have any here.”

“How’s my eldest daughter doin’?”

“Hopefully, drowning in the bathtub.”

“Jackie…” Wade drawled with a sigh.

“I’m kidding, Dad.”

She wasn’t.

“We’re orderin’ now. See you girls soon.”

Just another half hour of dreadful waiting until she’d get to see people she didn’t want to bury in her vast backyard.

Another half hour to kill before she’d have to smile at people she didn’t actually want to bury in her backyard. She knew she should’ve been more panicked about faking her relationship with Shauna in front of Claire. But they’ve had so much practice over the past two months that Jackie felt like it would be the easiest part of her evening.

Still, she couldn’t help it. She shot off a semi-anxious text to Shauna anyway.

[Jackie] ETA?

[Shauna] ur girls drivin sweetie

What the actual fuck? Hopefully Wade hadn’t gotten too adventurous with Shauna’s phone, because Jackie was pretty sure the last text she’d sent her had been ‘Don’t forget the shovel’.

[Shauna] fifteen tops

Well. At least her father had taken to Shauna the way Jackie hoped he would.

The sound of a hair dryer being turned on was good news. Claire would no doubt spend the rest of the time making her hair perfect, while Jackie could be left alone to raw-dog thoughts about how awful this dinner was going to be.

Very emotionally mature stuff. Most people wouldn’t understand.

The front door opened, accompanied by her father’s deep laughter, while Jackie was just finishing setting the table. Utensils for Claire (seeing as this fucking psycho didn’t eat anything with her hands), and a pile of napkins for the disaster the spicy wings were about to cause.

Claire came running down the stairs, actually squealing like a banshee. Jackie wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to be some sort of supernatural creature. Two large brown bags hit the floor just before she jumped into Wade’s arms.

Jackie couldn’t help but smile at how elated her father was to see his oldest daughter. She approached them, hands sliding into the pockets of the dark jeans she’d thrown on. The relief she felt when Shauna smiled at her, was nothing short of tragic. 

Shauna reached forward, pulling Jackie in by her empty belt loops. “Hey, you,” She greeted, voice smooth. But she looked completely fucking wrecked and exhausted.

Jackie felt horrible for forcing Shauna to come here just because she couldn’t fathom sitting through dinner with her sister alone. It was part of their arrangement, and yet she couldn’t quite shake off the guilt.

She rose onto the tips of her toes, her mouth near Shauna’s ear. “Thank you,” she whispered, lips brushing skin.

“You survived,” Shauna whispered back.

“Barely.”

It didn’t take any prompting for Shauna to tip Jackie’s head back and press her lips against hers in one swift motion.

Jackie melted into the embrace instantly, a soft groan swallowed by Shauna’s eager mouth and pliant lips. Her arms looped around Shauna’s waist, pressing their bodies flush together. They’d last seen each other a mere five days ago, but even that had been too long. She had almost forgotten how soft Shauna’s lips were—how her mouth fit against hers like puzzle pieces sliding into place.

“You must be Shauna,” Claire said. Her high-pitched, fake tone shattered the brief peace Jackie had finally been allowed. “Jack told me so much about you.”

Jackie rolled her eyes as she pulled back, but remained nestled into Shauna’s side. 

I sure as fuck didn’t. And it’s Jackie. Not Jack. Jackie.

That’s what she wanted to say. But for the sake of peace, she swallowed it down like the bigger person and moved past it. There were more pressing matters she should be concerning herself with. like devouring pizza and putting on a show with Shauna. 

The highlight of her day, truly.

“I’m Claire,” she said, extending her hand for Shauna.

Jackie looked at her properly for the first time since she’d come downstairs. Claire’s hair was straight, silky smooth, and blonde like the fucking hay she fed the horses every morning. Still, there was no doubt in Jackie’s mind that her sister was gorgeous. They shared the same sharp jawline, the same nose, though Jackie’s face was a touch rounder, and Claire had a visible cleft in her chin.

“Shauna. Nice to finally meet you.” Shauna shook her hand politely. But Claire didn’t let go that easily. Her hand started wandering, blatantly squeezing Shauna’s forearm.

Claire turned to Jackie, smile wide but eyes narrowed. The viper. “You never told me she was this handsome.”

Here we fucking go. Let the flirting commence. 

Jackie’s grip on Shauna’s hip tightened.

“Shame on you for keeping her all to yourself,” Claire pressed on, undeterred by Jackie’s glare.

Shauna chuckled, and amazingly, there was no trace of distress on her face.

“Yeah, we’ve been keeping it kinda low-key,” Shauna explained.

Jackie almost burst out laughing at how Claire tried so very hard not to grimace at the response. Like a mere peasant was attempting to converse with her. The nerve to use such barbaric terms as ‘low-key’.

“Come on, ladies. Food’s about to get cold.” Wade’s voice, loud, carried from the kitchen behind them.

Jackie was extremely grateful for the interruption. She was almost certain something she’d later regret was about to come flying out of her mouth. Something about the way Claire had stared at Shauna rubbed her the wrong way. Every wrong way imaginable, actually. 

Dinner was fine. If fine meant that Claire’s sole purpose was to annoy the ever-loving hell out of Jackie. She hadn’t stopped talking since Wade had set the pizza boxes on the table. Or, more specifically, she hadn’t stopped talking to Shauna.

It started innocently enough. Claire, sitting across from Shauna, leaned her chin on her hand, asking her every question in the annoying sister playbook.

“So how did you two meet? I’m sure it’s quite the tale.”

Shauna laughed quietly, taking a sip of her drink. “It’s not that cool of a story, really,” she said, giving Jackie’s thigh a small squeeze. Like she was perfectly fine taking over the conversation if Jackie needed time to breathe—which she did.

“I was too chicken-shit to talk to her at first,” Shauna admitted. And she sounded so sincere that Jackie almost believed it. "But she kept coming to practice 'cause of Coach, so we'd see each other often."

“You say that like my sister’s some unapproachable celebrity.”

Jackie cut in, already knowing where her sister’s line of questioning was heading, straight toward making her feel small and insignificant. She wanted to shut it down fast.

“Dad asked me to take pictures of his team for the yearbook. We got to talking, and things just developed from there.”

Easier to stick to a story if it’s simple.

Claire completely ignored her, though.

“I hear you’re the captain, Shauna?” Claire asked instead. “You’ll need that skill set.” Her gaze flicked between them, feigning innocence. “My sister’s not exactly low-maintenance.”

Jackie’s grip around her drink tightened so much she feared the glass would crack in her palm. “Right. Because you’re such a model of simplicity, Claire.”

Wade cleared his throat. “Now, girls—”

“Just saying,” Claire interrupted sweetly, “Jack’s always been super intense. Takes things personally. She used to throw tantrums when I borrowed her clothes.”

“You stole them,” Jackie corrected.

“I borrowed them,” Claire said, cutting her slice into perfect, surgical pieces. “She just never liked sharing. Guess that hasn’t changed.”

“Only with things worth keeping.”

Claire met her gaze head-on, smile widening. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

“She’s no trouble at all,” Shauna said, and the table went quiet for a second. Everyone but Wade looked surprised. She gave a small shrug, eyes still on her plate. “She actually listens when I talk about stuff I know she doesn’t care about. Sits through my games, even though sports aren’t really her thing. Never gets on my case when we don’t see each other for a day or two.”

“Wow.” Claire’s voice pitched higher than usual, like she was fighting off a scream. Like she wanted to argue. “You make her sound like she’s perfect.”

Jackie’s fingers found Shauna’s, threading through them before she lifted their hands and brushed a kiss across the back of hers. She relished the way Claire’s seething gaze locked onto their hands once they were back on the table, still entwined.

That particular line of questioning was dropped after that.

Checkmate, bitch.

Jackie thought she was finally able to enjoy her greasy pizza when Claire dropped a fucking bombshell on them.

“I’m postponing the wedding.”

“What the fuck?” Jackie blurted, mouth half-full of pizza.

“Ew, Jack.” Claire grimaced, folding her hands primly atop the table beside her neatly placed utensils. “Swallow before you speak, please?”

Wade’s forehead creased deeply. Even he stopped demolishing his plate of wings. “Did somethin’ happen?”

“No, no.” Claire waved him off. “Nothing that dramatic. We just haven’t been able to lock down the venue we wanted in time, and we thought it was best to wait so we could have the wedding we’ve been dreaming of.”

Translation: Claire was being a hard-headed bitch, and Eric was taking it with his ass up in the air.

Perfect. Now Shauna was trapped in this engagement far longer than she’d signed up for, and so was Jackie. And while she knew the soccer captain had taken in the same news they had, she looked a hell of a lot less bothered by it.

“I’ll keep you two updated for when we have an actual date,” Claire said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Like everyone could so easily plan their lives around her wedding.

Jackie felt Shauna’s thumb rubbing the back of her hand. Maybe she’d been squeezing a little too hard since Claire decided to fuck up her entire six-month plan.

“And, I guess you’ll have more time to design my dress, Jack.”

Jackie smiled politely. She wasn’t sure she could say anything remotely nice right now. She tried anyway.

“Hope you get the venue sorted out soon.”

“Me too,” Claire said, her hand resting lightly on her chest. “I can’t wait to marry him.”

The dress was already drawn in Jackie’s mind. Full red costume. Pointy tail. Maybe little bat wings. Horns? Definitely.

Bitch.

Jackie closed her bedroom door behind her and sagged against it, eyes shut. She’d survived the first day. Only two more to go. Easy.

“It was cool to meet your sister.”

Jackie nearly jumped out of her skin. Shauna’s voice was maddeningly casual. And when Jackie looked over, she was already undressing. Like, full-on peeling her shirt off as if this were a locker room and not Jackie’s bedroom.

For a moment, Jackie was struggling to find the words. Any word, actually. What even was a sentence?

“You do know we have a perfectly good bathroom down the hall, right?” She finally managed, tone flat and vaguely judgmental. The only thing keeping her sane was sounding annoyed and not like she was imagining herself licking—

“It’d look kinda weird if you kicked your super hot, ripped athlete girlfriend out of your room to change.”

Jackie’s brain caught maybe two of those words. “Hot” and “ripped.” Which, unfortunately, lined up perfectly with what she was seeing. The taut line of Shauna’s abs, the smooth dip of her stomach where it disappeared beneath her waistband—

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. She was not doing this.

Down girl. Please.

Shauna nearly tripped as she hopped out of her jeans, muttering something under her breath before tugging on a pair of basketball shorts from the backpack she’d brought over. Jackie’s body stayed completely still, but internally she was an electrical fire.

And then Shauna just laid down. Threw herself on Jackie’s bed, in her sports bra and shorts. Like this was normal behavior.

Jackie blinked at her, brain still catching up and buffering everything that it had just witnessed. “You’re seriously going to sleep in that?”

“Yeah? Don’t be shy. Your turn,” Shauna said, perfectly relaxed.

Shy? Jackie wasn’t shy. Jackie was composed. Jackie was rational. Jackie was definitely not trying to remember how to breathe.

Fine. Whatever. 

She gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, then immediately regretted the confidence of that move. Because, of course, her usual sleep clothes weren’t where she normally left them.

Shit. Laundry day.

She swung her closet door open, only to reveal a Category Five disaster. Right. The shopping spree with Lottie. She hadn’t exactly organized everything she had bought earlier that week.

She blew out an annoyed breath and bent toward the dresser, elbow-deep in the second drawer, muttering curses to herself. Somewhere in the background, the air shifted. She felt the creeping awareness of being watched. 

A disturbance in the Force, she thought grimly. A smug, half-naked soccer player approaches.

She froze halfway through rummaging, because Shauna was right there. Too close to be innocent. Just far enough to pretend otherwise.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Shauna’s voice brushed against her ear.

Jackie’s jack ticked. She spun around too fast, her back met Shauna’s front. Skin grazed against skin, warm and immediate, the kind of contact that sent her brain into a reboot loop.

Shauna didn’t step back. Neither did Jackie.

The shirt dangled between them. Dark wash, faded Anakin print from Episode II, soft with age. Long enough to hit mid-thigh.

It wasn’t what Jackie had been looking for. At all. But she took it, slipping it over her head without breaking eye contact, staring at Shauna with petty defiance disguised as indifference. The cotton clung for half a second before settling against her skin.

Still facing Shauna, Jackie hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her jeans and shoved them down. Slow, deliberate, not saying a damn thing. She felt Shauna’s gaze trail after her like heat.

Once her pants were gone, she reached under the shirt, wriggling into her bra with all the casualness of someone definitely not losing her mind.

Shauna smirked, offering no more commentary after that display. She climbed back onto the bed like none of that just happened.

Jackie turned back to her dresser, pretending her pulse wasn’t trying to punch its way out of her throat.

The comedown of that was… decidedly very awkward. Like they were both very skilled at teasing each other, but then too embarrassed by it to follow it up with anything else. 

Jackie sighed as she slipped under the covers and collapsed onto the matress. She turned onto her side to face Shauna, who was still laying on her back, both hands behind her head. 

“I’m sorry for all of this.”

Shauna didn’t even open her eyes. “Don’t sweat it.”

“What if she pushes the date another six fucking months?”

That got her attention. Shauna shifted, turning onto her side to mirror Jackie. One arm bent under her head, her voice softer now.

“I meant what I said earlier. You’re not bothering me.”

“You say that now.”

Before Shauna could reply, Jackie’s phone buzzed on the mattress between them. The blue light flickered across Shauna’s face, carving sharp shadows along her cheekbones.

“Your secret lover’s texting you,” Shauna teased.

Jackie sighed, fully expecting an apology text from Lottie for ghosting her all fucking day. 

It was Jeff.

[Jeff] Shauna Shipman? Really, Jackie?

Her stomach dropped. Her face must’ve given her away, because Shauna immediately turned onto her back, quiet now.

Jackie bit her lip, chewing at it while her brain scrambled for the right response. Something sharp would sound too desperate. Something smug? Too defensive. A personal attack on his person? Too petty. So she did the only thing that made sense, she blocked his number.

Good riddance.

“Can you promise me one thing?” Shauna said, voice devoid of her usual playful nature. 

Jackie didn’t know what to respond with. Not really. The sudden change in demeanor was odd, to say the least.

“You’re not doing this just to get back with Jeff, are you?”

Jackie should be pissed. Should tell her it’s none of her damn business. But from Shauna’s perspective, it could easily give off that impression. The popular girl faking a relationship to get a rise out of her ex.

Instead of arguing, Jackie lifted her phone and held it out.

Shauna frowned, confused, until Jackie pressed it into her hand.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Was Shauna satisfied with what she saw? Were they on the same page? What the hell was this jock’s method of communication anyway?

“Do you wanna look through my phone too?” Shauna’s smile returned, the teasing timbre of her voice rising with a familiar lilt.

“I don’t need to.”

“I should tell you, though…” Shauna hesitated. “The day we agreed to this whole thing, I was texting someone.”

Jackie shot upright. “You what?” The words came out like a hiss through her teeth.

“Wait, wait.” Shauna scrambled to sit up too. “It’s not what you think. We haven’t talked since, I swear. I just thought, y’know it would make sense if I ghosted her once we ‘got together.’ Make the whole thing look real. Yeah?”

“Listen to me, Shipman.” Jackie jabbed a finger into her chest, hard enough that Shauna flinched. “You’d better not get romantically involved with anyone. One rumor, and I'll be made the fool in front of the entire school. Do I make myself clear?”

Shauna’s eyes softened. “Hey, I won’t. I told you, I’m not even looking for anything. I just want my shot at the National League. That’s it.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Maybe it was the softness in her voice, or the way her eyes didn’t flinch away, but Jackie believed her. She hoped she wasn’t wrong.

They settled back down. 

“So your sister’s kind of a bitch, huh?” Shauna asked after a single beat of silence.

Jackie let out a small scoff. “Did you think I was joking?”

“I thought you were being dramatic.”

“Fuck you,” Jackie laughed, giving Shauna’s stomach a gentle swat.

They talked about everything and nothing, circling from one topic to the next with the ease of people who didn’t need an agenda. Shauna’s voice, low and steady, rambled on about some game she was trying to beat or some ridiculous strategy she’d invented, and Jackie found herself following along half-heartedly. Words blurred together, sentences weaving into a kind of gentle, persistent hum, until her eyelids finally gave up and she slipped into sleep, carried off by the unintentional lull of Shauna’s chatter.

She forgot the obligatory rom-com speech, warning Shauna to remain on her side of the bed and never, ever crossing into Jackie’s.

Oh well, what could possibly go wrong?

Chapter Text

Jackie was well aware that she was cursed. Not because their home was built on some old ancestral burial ground. Or because she might have unknowingly wronged a witch (though that might very well have been her sister). Her curse actually festered by ill-fated luck. 

That was the reason Jackie had woken up lying half on top of a still-sleeping Shauna, clutching her like a koala bear. When Jackie’s eyes flew open, her heart rate quickly followed suit when she realized how deeply and comfortably nestled against the soccer captain she was.

She should have put pillows between them or something. An actual electric fence maybe.

Jackie quickly moved past how very much not shocked she was to have found herself in this situation, and started the very laborious process of slowly untangling herself from Shauna. Her mission was delicate. Jackie simply did not have it in her to explain to her fake-girlfriend why she was real cuddling with her. 

So, she started with her arms, slowly and methodically. Her head, though, was a bit more precarious, as Shauna’s cheek was pressed against the top of it. Gradually, she moved away, and Shauna’s head lulled against the pillow when Jackie was fully extracted, save for her lower limbs.

That was when Shauna stirred, mumbling something only an alien speech device could have no doubt deciphered.

Jackie stilled. Took in a deep breath, and held it in.

Shauna’s hand was reaching for something. For her?

Fuck.

Jackie came up with a quick solution, and gently pushed the pillow she had slept on into Shauna’s side. She immediately clutched the damn thing to her chest. Then came the last step: getting her legs out from under Shauna’s without waking her up. Once the task was accomplished, Jackie pushed herself to the edge of the bed, where mission success was nearly within reach.

However, just as her right foot hit the floor, her left one caught in the covers and she fell to the ground with a sound that was far from gentle.

“Fucking fu—”

“Did you fall?” Shauna asked, messy head poking over the edge of the mattress. Stupid lazy grin on her lips even though she didn’t seem fully conscious yet.

“No, idiot, I obviously slept on the floor all night.”

Jackie heard a raspy chuckle. Then, there was the sound of covers shifting as Shauna rolled onto her back. 

“Dude, it’s 5 a.m.?” She grunted with some obvious displeasure. 

“Dude, I have horses to feed,” Jackie intoned, voice sing-song and mocking. “Go back to sleep,” she urged Shauna, after finally pushing herself up to her feet.

“Need he—”

“Sleep,” Jackie repeated, throwing whatever discarded article of clothing she’d just nearly tripped on, directly into Shauna’s face.

Maybe she should have joined the Longhorn basketball team. That was a solid shot. Mid-range distance too. And right on target.

“Okay, okay,” Shauna chuckled, pulling the shirt off her face and lying back down.

It was going to be hot as balls out today. Jackie could feel it deep in her bones. That intuition came entirely from the fact that she was thumbing through the weather app on her phone telling her as much. High of eighty-eight today. All sun and no clouds.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Jackie did her best to tiptoe around her room, though it only took about ten seconds for Shauna’s breathing to even out. 

She picked out something she wouldn’t sweat bullets in. She landed on her well-loved and worn-down patchwork shortalls (the ones with the red varnish blotches all over) and threw them over a bikini top. It might not have been the most public-appropriate outfit she could have chosen, but it’s not like they had noisy neighbours. Not close ones, anyways.

Wade was already loading up hay bales in the back of her truck when Jackie stepped out onto the porch. No sign of Claire, not that she even expected her to be out there this early. Mug in hand, freshly brewed coffee steaming inside, Jackie made her way toward her father.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Didn’t think ya’d get up this morning.”

“I wasn’t going to sit in bed and watch Shauna snore for another three hours.”

He grunted as he powered up a stack of hay without the help of the twine literally designed to do so. “Help me load these, will ya?”

“I was thinking of just watching you, actually,” she joked, the coffee bitter and warm on her tongue.

His chuckle seemed half-hearted. Weak.

What the hell was his deal?

Wordlessly, they began loading the rest of the bales into the truck, until only one remained.

Her father took a deep breath, one hand on his hip. He lifted his hat and dried his sweaty brow with his bare forearm.

“Y’know… ya should really try to bury the hatchet with your sister. Before the wedding.”

Bury it in her head? No problemo.

Jackie scoffed, slamming her mug down on the bed of her truck. “Excuse me? But she is the fucking problem. Don’t you see how she talks to me?”

“I know she can be as prickly as a damn hedgehog, but—”

“You think?”

“Jackie…”

“Don’t ‘Jackie’ me. I’ve done nothing wrong. Not to mention she openly flirted with Shauna like I wasn’t even there. If she wants a genuine smile out of me, she has a whole lot to make up for.”

Jackie didn’t wait for an answer. She’d spoken her peace. Moving past her father, she yanked her truck’s door open and boosted herself up into the driver’s seat.

“I just want my two girls to be happy,” he said after slamming the tailgate shut, both hands resting onto it.

She shut the door. It squeaked and protested the motion. “Then may I suggest telling her that?” Jackie shot back, and waited for him to hop in, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

“I ain’t tryin’ to blame you, sweetie,” he said once Jackie put the truck in motion. It moved along, steady, the cabin rattling from the hay bales shifting in the back.

“You can’t force two totally different people to get along just because you want them too,” Jackie muttered. “That’s not how it works.”

“You and Shauna’re ‘bout as different as night and day, but somehow y’all make it work.”

Right. They made it work out of pure necessity. It was fabricated, not genuine. The fact that he even made that comparison is absolutely laughable. Then again, Jackie could admit without hurting her ego (too much) that they do have way more chemistry than she had initially thought, regardless of how misaligned their interests were. 

“That’s so very different.”

“Is it now?”

They left it at that.

Jackie couldn’t even fathom attempting to bridge the ever-widening gap between her and Claire. She wouldn’t have known where to start. Hell, Jackie wasn’t even sure her sister would have cared to try.

Jackie leaned forward over the bathroom sink, steadying her hand holding the eyeliner so as to not blind herself. Though, it would have made for a fantastic excuse not to attend the soccer game. Shauna and her father had already left, after eating a mountain of pancakes and eggs. Something about carb loading before a game being ‘appropriate practice’.

To which, of course, Jackie tried to confirm the reason why Wade needed to load up as well. He’d reasoned: “Yellin’ at these girls take a whole lot outta me.”

Fair enough.

She’d kissed Shauna goodbye at the door, making sure to linger just long enough to make Claire uncomfortably annoyed. Jackie knew she’d been watching, not only because she could feel those laser beams she calls eyes burning through her back, but because when she finally turned around, Claire’s glare shifted into something softer instantly. Practiced and instant.

Bitch.

Okay so maybe some of the tension between them was on her—but it was marginal. And besides, Claire started it. So screw her. Jackie would turn into a fucking skeleton before she’d ever get a single apology from that girl.

Shauna had also, unfortunately, left Jackie with one of her clean jerseys. She paired it with a black cargo pants, in order to appear somewhat stylized. The white sneakers would really pull it all together. She hoped.  They were practically just t-shirts anyways, far less tragic to build an outfit around than something long and baggy like a football or hockey jersey.

At least there was one thing mildly sufferable about that sport. Shauna also being one of those things, if Jackie were at all capable of being honest with herself.

Lottie had arrived a few minutes later Shauna and Wade departed for the school, like a well-timed miracle. Claire had also, miraculously, gone into hiding at that very moment. She was probably out on the back porch, pretending to be tragically intellectual by reading some awful novel that was most likely entirely smut. 

“How did things go with the witch?” Lottie said, tone hushed, just in case. She stood beside Jackie, working concealer on the miniscule and nearly unperceivable red blotches around her cheeks and chin.

“About as well as you’d imagine.” 

“Did she have a meltdown over the whole,” Lottie paused to make vague motions with her hand, “‘surprise I’m gay’ thing?”

That particular question pulled a deep sigh out of Jackie. She leaned back from the counter, eyes moving from her objectively perfect eyeliner, to Lottie’s reflection. 

“No such luck.”

“So what, she’s been… supportive?” Even Lottie grimaced at the thought of Claire ever showing such an emotion.

Jackie snorted a laugh, stuffing the left corner of Shauna’s jersey into the cargos. She made a disgruntled face, and wondered briefly if the captain would mind if Jackie turned it into a crop top. 

“She’s just been flirting with her to piss me off.”

“Do tell,” Lottie drawled, the promise of sweet, sweet drama sparking immediate interest. 

“I was wearing my checkered overalls this morning to work outside.”

That pulled a grin out of Lottie. “The ones with the short shorts?”

“Those ones,” Jackie confirmed. “Shauna was getting handsy when I came back inside and Claire said—I kid you no—‘Wow, Shauna, didn’t know you were into girls who dress like farmhands.’”

“Jesus,” Lottie chuckled humorlessly. “Does that woman even have a soul?”

“Absolutely not.”

“So what did Shauna say?” Lottie pressed.

Jackie was powerless to stop the crimson that dusted her cheeks at the simple memory of it. Or maybe it was how Shauna’s fingers had been brushing against Jackie’s still sweaty skin when she’d said it then.

Jackie sighed, then said, tone low and gruff: “I like her with any clothes on. Even more when they’re off.”

The fucking moron.

Though, Jackie had been very much satisfied with the way Claire had clamped her mouth shut for once.

Lottie burst out laughing at the dramatic retelling of this morning’s events, and how Jackie mimicked Shauna’s tone to perfection.

“She’s definitely a keeper, babe.”

Jackie leaned against the counter, palms on cracked laminate, grin tugging at her lips despite her seemingly fading aversion to Shauna’s idiotic antics. “She’s something alright.” 

“It’s still so crazy to me how insecure that woman is over your girlfriend of two months when she’s literally about to get married.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, love. But I would bet money on—”

“Hi girls!” Claire’s voice interrupted their gossip session like a demon’s claws ripping through the thin veil of skin. “We should really get going if we want to make it in time. Lottie, you’re way too gorgeous to need all that make-up. You look perfect, come on.”

Claire pulled Lottie out of the bathroom like a whirlwind, and the taller woman pulled a face like she was requesting immediate rescue from the hands of the beast. However, as Jackie’s sister was, for once, right about them needing to get a move on, she let Lottie deal with her for a bit.

She’d survive. Right?

Right.

The drive over was unbearably tense. They had taken Claire’s SUV, as per the princess’ request. Lottie was sitting out front, receiving the full force of Claire’s nothing-burger word-vomit that she calls conversation skill. Jackie occupied the vast back seat all to herself, tuning Claire’s shrill voice out of her mind while reading the last few messages Shauna had sent her.

[Shauna] dont forget to wear the jersey

[Shauna] if u get here a little earlier we could take a pic

[Jackie] We just left. Claire’s driving. No promise on our ETA. 

[Jackie] Or that we make it there alive.

[Shauna] pls dont die before we get to post our first couples picture together :(

“You girls look so cute wearing those jerseys. Wish I had one.” 

When Jackie glanced up from her phone, she was faced with Claire’s ridiculous pout.

“Just date a Longhorn,” Jackie suggested, deadpan and dry. “It’s all the rage these days.”

“You know I’m way more into the football hotties, Jack.”

“Are you absolutely sure of that, Claire? You couldn't seem to take your hands off of Shauna.”

Jackie wasn’t sure why she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out exactly what she had been thinking, but the look on Claire’s face was well worth it. Well. For a second. Her snarl soon turned into a fiendish grin.

“Did it really bother you that much?” Claire asked, hand on her chest like she had been completely oblivious to her own schemes. Voice soft like an angel. Or at the very least, trying to give off that impression. “I was simply trying to be friendly and supportive.”

“Friendly and supportive?” Jackie spit out, leaning forward in her seat. “More like slu—”

They hit a pothole. The deep one just as the road turned from dirt and gravel to pavement. The same one that rattled the entirety of Shauna’s small Civic. The SUV jerked, tires screeching, but it was Claire’s annoyed growl that took the cake.

“Stupid fucking redneck backroads!” She slapped the steering wheel, gripping it tightly moments after. The leather creaked beneath her palms. “I’m so glad I moved away from this piece of shit—”

Claire caught herself mid-sentence, suddenly remembering she wasn’t alone. And that she was, in fact, trashing the very city her sister and her passenger still called home.

Jackie met her eyes in the rearview mirror, one brow lifting in silent challenge. 

Go on, finish it.

Even through the simmering irritation over her sister’s casual dismissal of how she’d practically been all over Shauna, Jackie knew she might have regretted calling Claire ‘slutty and handsy’ to her face.

Then again? Perhaps not.

She kind of deserved it.

They most definitely did not make it in time. They missed the first five minutes of the game, thanks entirely to Claire, who had to have some ultra-specific, protein-infused coffee from a tiny café located about as far from UT Austin as humanly possible.

Why go to Beannu, which was just spitting distance from campus, when you could drag your sister and her best friend on a ride purely to spite them?

That was exactly how a demon spawn made plans.

They found seats, squeezed between frat boys who thought showers were optional and that body spray covered up any unpleasant body odours. Jackie blamed that on Claire as well. But, alas, once they were seated, Jackie found it rather easy to focus on the game.

Not only had she reluctantly picked up on a few rules here and there by listening to Shauna and her father constantly throwing soccer jargon around her, but she’d also learned from watching.

The game was intense from the get-go. Lots of whistle blows. Harsh-looking tackles. Banter thrown back and forth between both sides of the field. Though as one play escalated way past that, Jackie was convinced the banter had actually been trash talk the entire time.

One of the Oklahoma defenders slid into a tackle to no doubt attempt to steal the ball from Shauna’s possession, but instead ended up taking her out entirely.

The Longhorns came to her defense immediately. Whistles blew, yellow cardboard was waved around. Jerseys were tugged and pulled. Shauna, though, amidst all this chaos, had a firm grin plastered on her face. Maybe she loved the mess, or even enjoyed causing it.

It seemed Jackie and Shauna might have had something in common after all.

Shauna scored after that play. A pass from Tai landed spot-on, smacking into the side of her cleat before she sent it flying to the left. The ball curved high and fast, arching far out of reach of the goalie.

Jackie wasn’t particularly proud of how she jumped to her feet like the frat bro to her left, even sharing a high five with him.

She would later blame her behaviour on the pressure of being in a social setting involving organized sports… or something. Whatever. She’d at least fulfilled her end of this ridiculous bargain and appeared like the proud girlfriend Shauna, at the very least, deserved to have.

The excitement of the first goal scored by the home team was nothing short of a cataclysmic event.

“LET’S GO SHIPMAN!” was yelled almost directly into her ears.

Well, it wasn’t like Jackie needed her hearing or anything.

Shauna’s name was then shouted, belted, screamed, over the next few minutes.

As the game dragged on, Jackie noticed how Oklahoma was after Shauna like she had a firm target spray-painted on her back. Every tackle was harsher than the last. Every full-team scramble took more and more refs, and even the coaches, to rip players apart from each other’s throats.

Wade had lost his hat in one such event. He looked absolutely furious. 

It was only in the last stretch of the second half that Jackie could tell Shauna wasn’t playing as usual. Her grin had been replaced with a snarl. A frown was deeply etched into her features. Words seemed to spit out of her mouth in a manner that was harsh and not at all like her.

Even her teammates seemed to flinch when barking orders at them. At least, that’s what it looked like from where Jackie was sitting.

The game was tied, and there wasn’t much time left on the clock. Jackie’s eyes kept glancing over, snapping from the action on the field to the dwindling numbers. So much so that she hadn’t realized when exactly Claire had disappeared, or where she’d gone.

No loss there.

Jackie finally understood the heightened anxiety of watching a team you ‘belonged’ to simply from being at the same school. It was intoxicating, especially how everyone was radiating that same nervous energy.

As the clock wound down to zero, the opposing team were the ones cheering over their victory. A measly one-goal-difference win.

Most of the crowd seemed deflated, if not a little drunk. Still, the disappointment rolled off everyone in waves, as they too shared the weight of defeat with the Longhorns.

As Jackie and Lottie weaved their way through the frankly very overwhelming crowd, there was still no sign of Claire.

Her phone’s notification screen was a barren wasteland. Nothing new. Nothing old and lingering.

Jackie typed a quick ‘where the hell did you go?’ message to Claire.

“I’m gonna wait for Nat in the locker room,” Lottie said, voice barely audible over the noise around them. "Meet us there?"

A few bodies crashed into them. Beer was spilled, but thankfully not on their clothes.

Jackie blew out a breath, throwing her head back like the petulant child she fully knew she was acting like. She didn’t want to be deserted by her best friend, but she more than understood that the situation caalled for it.

“I guess I’ll try to find my sister so she doesn’t tell my dad I lost her in a crowd full of drunk college bros to get endlessly groped by.”

Lottie smiled and patted her head. It looked as condescending as it felt.

“Text me when you find the witch,” Lottie said, just before being swallowed up by the crowd.

Jackie traversed the thinning crowd, having to fist-bump a few unnamed strangers, being offered a beer she outright refused, before finally coming up on a familiar face.

“Travis!” Jackie shouted over the noise. He spun around, confusion marring his features for half a second before being replaced by a wide smile the moment his eyes landed on her.

“Hey! Nice shirt.”

“Thank you,” she said, striking a pose and getting a small chuckle out of him.

He flipped his bangs back, and Jackie thought maybe a trim would be in order. She didn’t tell him that, though.

“Have you, by any chance, seen my sister?” she asked instead.

Jackie was not at all surprised when Travis pointed to the group of Longhorn football players that included one Jeff Sadeiki. Claire was surrounded near the half-empty bleachers, garnering their full attention. Her natural habitat: being the center of attention amongst a bunch of no-good meatheads.

“You and Shauna are coming to the party later, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Jackie said, her eyes flicking between her sister’s hideous fake laugh and Travis.

“I can walk you there, if you don’t wanna…” Travis trailed off, leaving the obvious reason for her hesitation hanging in the air.

Why was Travis the only sensible football player she’d ever encountered?

“Yeah,” she smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

After a moment of comfortable silence, Travis inexplicably blurted out, unprompted: “I used to have the biggest crush on you.”

“Okay?”

“Wait, don’t—I didn’t mean like—don’t tell Shauna I said that, she’ll totally kick my ass.”

He was quite literally twice Shauna’s size. How in the hell was he scared of her?

“It’s just that you’re really cool, y’know? And it’s cool that you’re dating my friend.”

What was it with jocks and the word ‘cool’?

Whatever. It was flattering. Especially when there were literally zero creepy vibes coming off him. She could do him a solid: prevent a supposed ass-kicking from Shauna. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Cool.”

Jackie sighed, stopping just shy of the group when Claire noticed her.

She waved Jackie over.

Jackie waved her over.

There was a bit of back-and-forth before Jackie gave up and approached them. Travis followed close behind.

“Do you not read your texts?” Jackie said in lieu of greeting her. She kicked away a discarded red cup with the toe of her sneaker. College students really were fucking pigs. The ground was littered with garbage.

“I was catching up with old friends,” Claire shrugged, a crooked smirk on her lips, but not the cute kind.

Translation: old fuck buddies she apparently couldn’t wait to talk to

Jackie already felt the weight of Jeff’s stare on her. Demanding her attention. Not asking. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, though.

“Okay, well, catch up later,” Jackie attempted to get her sister’s ass in motion by interjecting a little (a lot) of urgency into her voice. “We’re gonna hit up somewhere to eat that’s not packed to hell before the party.”

“Actually,” Claire started, which prompted an immediate eye roll from Jackie, “I’ll get on with the guys, if it’s all the same to you. We’re all going to the same place, right? We’ll see each other there later.”

Jackie, quite frankly, couldn’t have given less of a fuck. “Whatever,” she snapped. “Just text me when you get there. So I know you didn’t get fucking kidnapped.”

“Aww, isn’t she sweet?” Claire gushed, smile fake, tone faker yet. “My little sister, the protector."

This entire interaction was made immeasurably worse by the fact that Jeff had not looked away even once.

Fuck him. All of them, actually.

(Except Travis).

Jackie turned her gaze right onto him.

“Is there something you wanted to say, Jeff?”

He seemed to have been caught off guard, his eyes shifting anywhere but Jackie’s.

Asshole.

He remained silent.

Claire looked like she wanted to reprimand Jackie. But for once, she wisely kept her mouth shut.

“Later, Jackie!”

Travis shouted at her retreating form. 

She waved back. 

He really was sweet. A shame he was stuck with these idiots.

Jackie had already spent far too much time entertaining fools. She had a fake girlfriend to catch up to.

Jackie entered the sports complex. The halls were nearly empty, save for unhurried footfalls coming from Tai and Van. They’d most likely just left the locker room. Duffles over their shoulders, exhaustion on their faces.

“Yo,” Van called, pointing a (seemingly) accusing finger at Jackie. “If you intend on venturing inside there, I hope you’re ready to encounter the beast.”

“What?” Jackie said, eyes narrowing, arms crossed. She was already beyond peeved with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, she truly did not have the brain power to solve a Van riddle.

Van’s grin only widened. “It lurks in the shadows, trembling with fury. Its name is: Shauna,” she finished, tone over-dramatic, worthy of her title as theater major. Worth every penny, really.

“Van,” Tai said in a warning that was not headed, elbowing her in the side. “What my dumbass girlfriend is trying to say is that Shauna’s majorly pissed about the loss.”

“There’s no monster I haven’t been able to tame,” Jackie answered. As if ‘mad’ Shauna could rival her sister’s alleged ‘good’ moods.

“Be careful!” Van called out, clutching her heart like this was the final act. The climax. “She feeds on pride and misplaced confidence! No one’s ever survived an encounter twice!”

“We’re leaving.” Tai had now resorted to physically dragging her backwards by the sleeve.

Jackie straightened her shoulders, standing at attention, and brought her hand up in salute that was far from military approved. 

“I’ll sacrifice myself for the good of the people,” she declared, lips twitching as she fought to keep from laughing. “Tell everyone about what I’ve accomplished here today.” 

“Godspeed, soldier,” Van mirrored the salute.

Tai rolled her eyes, and continued to pull her backwards by the sleeve of her shirt.

Jackie could still hear Van’s fading narration. Something about bestowing Jackie with the heroic title of ‘Beast Slayer’ just before Tai’s voice cut in with a muffled, “Please stop embarrassing me.”

“Can you believe we thought she was a snob?” 

Jackie heard Van say, in a very poor attempt at a hushed tone. 

She shook her head and pushed open the locker room door.

How bad could it be, really? This was Shauna. She couldn’t go one second without a grin on her face. Jackie could hardly believe she even had a single angry bone in her body.

Though, that was before she stepped inside and saw Shauna drive her fist into a flimsy locker door. Even from across the room, the dent in the metal contradicted the image of the soccer Captain Jackie had fabricated in her head.

“And what exactly did that locker ever do to you?” Jackie asked, expecting a laugh, or at least for the tension to ease from her shoulders.

The response she received instead was cold. And dry. 

Shauna didn’t even glance at her when she spoke. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jackie froze mid-step. Her jaw tightened. Thin, defensive shell snapping into place.

Shauna yanked her duffle shut, damp hair clinging to her face as she bent to grab it. “I really don’t need my fake girlfriend pretending to give a shit right now.”

Instead of retaliating, of escalating, of giving Shauna the fight she was most likely looking for, Jackie just stood there. Arms crossed. She waited, pointedly, for this idiot to realize how unbelievably stupid she sounded.

It took a moment.

Jackie knew she had crossed into unfamiliar territory. She had never seen Shauna’s eyes like that before. Hot with anger, and something else maybe. Her grip on the bag tightened until her knuckles blanched. More words were waiting on her tongue, no doubt, sharp and vile, but they never came.

Still, she stood her ground. She promised Palmer to come back alive, after all. She couldn’t, in good faith, break it.

The duffle hit the floor and Shauna slumped onto a wooden bench, hunched over. Deflated. The thump of it echoed, the sound bouncing off the room that had been brimming with post-game energy moments before. Now, a void, empty echo of quietly simmering tension.

Jackie observed her movements. The way Shauna’s hands fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, her gaze fixed anywhere but her.

“Fuck,” Shauna muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Jackie sat down beside her, wordless. She then said, quietly and measured: “We can be friends. We can be here for each other. Even if the rest is fake… or whatever,” she finished lamely. Even that was starting to sound like the worst lie ever told.

“I know,” Shauna swallowed thickly. Her pride or something like it. “Didn’t mean to—” She cut herself off with an annoyed sigh, perhaps at the inability to string the proper words together. “Not your fault. The game was just super frustrating.”

Well. It wasn’t the most eloquent of apologies, but it certainly did get the point across. Jackie would accept it. This time.

“They were glued to your ass the whole game,” Jackie said, even if she risked sounding like someone who paid a miniscule amount of attention to the game. And, worse, actually enjoyed it.

Shauna leaned forward, elbows on her knees. Head down, expressive brown eyes were still glued to her hands, though she did let a soft chuckle escape her.

“Yeah.” Shauna flipped strands of  hair out of her face, as another sigh pushed past her lips. She left it at that. Not in the mood to discuss the complexities of soccer? Jackie was, for once, glad for this small moment of respite granted to her.

“How are you not hurt?” Jackie asked with genuine curiosity, and some thinly veiled admiration.

Shauna straightened the moment the comment left her mouth. The usually soft and genuine smile returned when her gaze finally landed on Jackie.

“You’re not fake-dating a wimp, dude.” 

She (idiotically) flexed her bicep for emphasis.

Jackie went to swat at Shauna’s shoulder, but she caught her wrist mid-action. Anticipating the hit, no doubt.

For a second, neither of them moved. The warmth of Shauna’s hand wrapped around her arm, sending a jolt right through Jackie’s chest, sharp and impossible to ignore. She forced her mouth shut, willed it too, lest something embarrassingly honest would spill out.

Shauna’s grip slowly loosened, thumb brushing Jackie’s skin before she finally let go. 

Jackie sat back on the bench, pulse drumming in her ears. Her hand stayed there between them, next to Shauna’s hand that was now curled around the edge of the seat. And when Shauna’s fingers twitched like she might reach for her again, Jackie thought, just maybe, she wasn’t the only one fighting it.

Shauna lifted her head then, that same stupid, unguarded grin spreading across her face. The one that still managed to make Jackie’s heart stumble in its rhythm.

Still, she could forgo the momentary embarrassment as pride surged within her since this meant she’d officially slayed the evil energy that had taken over Shauna.

Jackie Taylor. Beast Slayer. 

Shauna’s mood shifted soon after, like any of the progress they’d just made evaporated in an instant. She rubbed both hands down her face, a groan muffled into her palms.

“We still gotta go to that stupid fucking party,” Shauna lamented.

“No we don’t,” Jackie replied. Simple. True. They had absolutely no obligations to show up, and less of a responsibility to even inform anyone that they weren’t going.

Shauna’s head snapped up in an instant. Eyes wide, like she’d only now just realized they had free will. Truly, what a crazy concept. 

“You’ve got a high-maintenance girlfriend now,” Jackie said, waving her hand dismissively. “They’ll eat up any excuse. Trust me.”

“High-maintenance is a stretch,” Shauna chuckled. It truly was all or nothing with this one. From punching a locker to practically kicking her feet in delight. What an absolute dork.  “Genius though? Maybe.”

“Very likely actually,” Jackie added with a very necessary and dramatic flip of her hair.

Shauna tilted her head, a grin playing at her lips. “And what does my genius, low-maintenance girlfriend want to do?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Jackie sighed. They both chuckled at the subtle jab. “But, whatever you want.”

Jackie immediately regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.

“Really?”

“Really.” 

“Cool.” Shauna pushed herself up to her feet and slung her duffel over her shoulder. She paused in front of Jackie, extending her hand toward her.

Jackie let herself be pulled up with a gentle tug, biting down on the comment she really wanted to make about the overuse of the word ‘cool’.  There’d be a better time down the line for that, surely. 

Shauna threaded their fingers together. This was completely necessary, on account of whoever might happen to spot them exiting the complex, of course. At least, that’s what Jackie told herself.

“My jersey looks pretty good on you,” Shauna said, out of fucking nowhere. 

Jackie managed to temper the sudden spike in her heart rate to smoothly deliver the overly-confident response of: “You're gravely mistaken. I look hot in anything.”

Shauna’s laugh rang out, filling the air with warmth. And for once, Jackie didn’t bother to hide her grin.

As they both approached Shauna’s car, a tall, burly figure was leaning against the small (in comparison) Honda. 

“Took ya girls long enough,” Wade grumbled, mustache twitching with a smirk.

“Did you think I forgot?” Shauna asked, free hand rubbing the back of her neck in obvious discomfort.

Wade didn’t say anything to confirm if he believed her or not. Jackie bet on the latter. 

They absolutely did forget they had to drive Wade home, on account of him being, still very much, without a vehicle. Jackie was certainly not going to complain about having the luxury of getting to touch Shauna a little while longer.

“Hope it ain’t too much trouble,” Wade said like he didn’t care either way. “I know y’all got places to be.”

“No trouble, pops,” Jackie raised herself up on the tips of her toes, and gave his prickly cheek a kiss. “We’re in no hurry, really.”

Shauna rounded the car, popping the drunk open and throwing her duffel in with as little regard for it as you could imagine. The impact took a few years off the car’s suspension’s life (probably). 

Once they were on the road, Shauna spoke up over whatever background slop was playing on the radio. “Sorry about the game, Coach.”

“What the hell are ya sorry for? You did good kid.”

“I could’ve stayed focused. Done better. I don't know.”

Wade let out a wry chuckle. Jacked caught a glimpse of his reflection in the review. His smile was knowing, the kind that showed up just before he was about to impart some Texan dad knowledge on someone. 

Tonight, his designated victim was Shauna.

“Ain’t no use second-guessin’ yourself. Don’t do nobody any good. You played one hell of a game. You think them pros don’t mess up? Don’t lose? Happens to everybody. You just gotta kick the dust off and keep walkin’. That game’s in the rearview now, eyes on what’s next.”

Jackie took Shauna’s free hand in her own, bringing their joined hands on her lap. Thumb gently brushing over the warm skin. Back and forth. No purpose, no hurry in the movements.

After a long moment of silence, as Shauna most likely stewed in those words of wisdom, she replied with: “Do I need to pay you for that therapy session, or is it a freebie ‘cause I’m dating your daughter?”

“Drive,” he grunted back, setting into his seat, arms crossed (a position Jackie’d learned from him). “‘Fore I change my mind ‘bout you bein’ my favorite.”

‘Favorite what, exactly?’ Jackie wanted to ask. But it didn’t matter. Not really. She let them have this moment. She was fine just playing the supportive girlfriend for now, oblivious to sports and all its many plights. 

Still, Jackie let out a small chuckle as she brushed a soft kiss on the back of Shauna’s hand. The smile she received in return was well worth it.

When Wade had arrived at home, safe and sound, he was leaning against Shauna’s opened car window. The sun was still out, heat was very much present too.

“You girls goin’ out?”

“Nah,” Shauna said, sneaking a glance at Jackie. “I got something better planned.”

“Alright, well,” He straightened with a slight grunt, and gave the car’s roof a few taps, like urging  a horse along. “If y’all need anything…”

“We’ll call, Dad,” Jackie finished. Not that they will. But it was sweet how much of a worry wart he was.

As they drove off, gravel rattling beneath the Civic’s already battered undercarriage, Jackie wondered what Shauna actually had in store for them. If she had anything planned at all, or if that confident response to Wade had just been for show. 

Either way, Jackie realized she was far too invested in the mystery to ruin it by asking.

As Shauna slowly brought the Civic to a stop in its usual parking spot, Jackie suddenly felt a jolt of nerves assault her. She should have asked what the hell Shauna’s so-called ‘plans’ for them had been. Really. Because now she was about to meet Shauna’s parents without any prior knowledge to even guide her through a conversation. And frankly? She was starting to fully freak the hell out.

“You okay?” Shauna asked, as if she had sensed that very energy radiating off her in waves.

“No, you moron,” Jackie snapped, only just realizing she hadn’t let go of Shauna’s hand since they left her home. She pushed it away, as if it offended her.

And it had.

The word-vomit reared its ugly head soon after her brain cells sparked Jackie into full-on panic mode. “You haven’t told me a single fucking thing about your parents, and now I’m supposed to what? Just wing it? Make a fool out of myself in front of them? Who the hell do you think I am, Shauna, some—”

She was cut off, not by words, but by Shauna’s hand covering her mouth. Palm warm on her lips.

Immediately, Jackie wanted to bite back. But she held off. Just barely.

“I live alone.”

Oh.

Oh.

Jackie curled her fingers around Shauna’s wrist, not at all in the soft, demure manner her mother had taught her, and briskly pushed it away from her mouth.

“Then why the fuck didn’t you lead with that, idiot?”

Shauna only laughed and shrugged, irritatingly, at the accusation.

Jackie scoffed and remained in the car for a few seconds even as Shauna exited, simply out of spite. But then Shauna actually opened the door for her. She even bowed after. The moron.

Jackie shouldered past the grinning soccer player as she climbed out of the car. Maybe she was a little high-maintenance. Oh well. It wasn’t like Shauna seemed to mind, judging by the smirk fixed firmly on her lips when she glanced back over her shoulder, leading the way to the front door.

There were only a few steps leading to the house’s front entrance. Jackie noticed how Christmas lights (probably all burned out and defunct) were still strung up around the porch, half-hanging, half-stapled into the wood.

Suddenly, Jackie wasn’t too keen on seeing the rest of the house’s state.

“I rent with Mel, but she’s not here most nights anyway,” Shauna explained as she pushed her key into the lock. "So, 'alone'."

“I thought you said she wasn’t dating anyone?” Jackie asked, following Shauna into the pitch-black home.

Shauna made a face like her friend's dating habits were an eternal torment to her very soul.

“She doesn’t date.”

That was all the explanation Jackie needed to elicit an eye roll. Typical jock.

The lights blinked on as Shauna slapped her hand onto a switch in the entryway.

It was surprisingly clean. Actually.

Though that couldn’t be said for the state of Shauna’s room. As they ascended the stairs and Shauna led them to the first door, she stilled her movements, stopped in her tracks, turned toward Jackie, hand on the doorknob, and said, “Gimme a minute, alright?”

And then she disappeared, the door slamming behind her.

Rude.

Jackie opened it a second later.

“God,” Jackie exhaled in the most judgmental tone she could muster, “do you ever clean this room?”

Shauna jerked around, arms already filled with clean or dirty laundry (Jackie couldn’t tell).

“I fucking told you to wait!” she hissed.

“I can see why.”

Jackie took a moment to survey the war zone. It was exactly as she’d imagined, maybe even worse. The bed was unmade (God only knows when those sheets were last washed), and clothes were scattered in chaotic piles: some on the floor, some on the bed, others draped over the dresser that held the console and TV Jackie recognized from the photo Shauna had sent weeks ago.

The same grey socks were sticking out of one of the drawers, too.

“I don’t really have space for my clothes,” was Shauna’s meager attempt at a defense.

Jackie motioned to the obvious closet space.

“That’s full,” Shauna said quickly.

“Full of what, pray tell? Dead bodies?”

Was that the actual reason Shauna didn’t date? A serial killer all along? Or some deranged cult leader? Jackie wouldn’t be surprised. She had really shit luck, after all.

Shauna rolled her eyes.

Oh, a first? Had Jackie finally managed to get under the captain’s skin?

When Shauna pushed the doors open, Jackie realized that perhaps her fake girlfriend—and kind of also friend—was as much of a nerd as she was, though just a slightly different variation. The closet had three six-tier bookshelves pushed against each other, taking up the entirety of the space. They were filled (very neatly) with what Jackie could only assume were a large assortment of retro video games.

“That’s…” Jackie had no words, really.

“Cool, right? Wanna see my complete in-box Japanese version of—”

“I don’t care,” Jackie immediately cut her off, lightly pushing Shauna’s face as she turned to observe the disaster of a room.

Shauna only laughed in response, of course.

Well, this had to be fixed. Jackie couldn’t even sit in this room without her crippling OCD taking all of her attention.

“Dump all the clothes on your bed,” she demanded. No room for argument.

Shauna stood by the open closet, the collection looming behind her. The sight was almost comical.

“Did I stutter, Shipman?”

Shauna jumped to action. Quickly and efficiently.

Jackie could not believe that part of her day, this supposed ‘quiet date night in,’ consisted of reorganizing Shauna’s room. Still, it was for the betterment of her mental health, and probably Shauna’s as well, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Worst of all, Jackie didn’t exactly hate it. Not the time spent together, anyway. Not even the part where Shauna idiotically sniff-tested every shirt. Jackie would snatch the clothes out of her hands and impart knowledge about proper clothing etiquette.

“If you can’t remember the last time you washed it,” Jackie explained, sinking a pair of jeans into the hamper with a clean three-pointer, “then it’s dirty.”

“Nice shot,” Shauna said, gathering a pair of garish, too-long gym shorts and attempting a three-pointer of her own. The shorts dropped lifelessly, a few centimeters short.

“So you’re only good at one sport? Tragic,” Jackie sighed dramatically.

A shirt hit her square in the face soon after that remark, blotting out her vision. She peeled it off slowly, one eyebrow twitching.

“Oh no,” Shauna intoned, flat with mock horror. “Don’t force choke me. That would be terrible, or whatever.”

“You’re a freak,” Jackie managed between an embarrassingly loud snort of laughter. She was somewhat proud Shauna had picked up on all her movie references, a testament to how well her plan to indoctrinate Shauna in the Star Wars cult was working.

“You know it,” Shauna sing-songed as she bent over to pick up the shorts she’d failed to sink into the hamper.

Shauna's good mood always managed to elevate hers. Unfortunately.

Whatever. Jackie wasn’t going to tell that idiot she was having a great time with her. And besides, Anything was better than thinking about her sister and how she’d have to see her tomorrow. Or later this evening, or any day she decided to drop in, uninvited and unwelcome.

It was a pleasantly surprising (and well-deserved) reprieve from all of that drama.

By the time they’d finished folding everything and neatly sorting it into each drawer, the room looked marginally less like a disaster zone and more like something that could legally be called livable to Jackie’s eyes.

They’d earned the right to collapse on Shauna’s bed, half-sitting, half-lying down, legs stretched out in front of them. Cartons of Chinese food balanced in their laps, controllers in their hands.

On the TV, the nostalgic tune of classic GoldenEye filled the room. Jackie squinted at the odd three-pronged controller like it was an alien artifact.

“How do I punch again?” she asked, fumbling with the stick.

“Z,” Shauna said around a mouthful of lo mein, eyes glued to the screen.

Jackie stared at the controller like she’d just been given instructions in another language. “Where the fuck is it, Shauna? This controller makes absolutely no sense.”

Shauna only laughed, firing off a headshot that sent Jackie’s character spinning dramatically to the ground. The familiar jingle played as Jackie’s half of the screen turned red.

“Found it yet?” Shauna asked sweetly.

Jackie reached forward to unplug Shauna’s controller and proceeded to shoot her character down while Shauna wrestled to retrieve the cord back. The ordeal ended with Shauna plugging the controller back in, and winning the game, regardless of Jackie pleading that an unplugged controller was the proper handicap considering she'd never played before (which hadn't deterred Shauna one bit).

Shauna was stretched out on the bed, a victorious grin plastered on her face, when something seemed to click in her brain. Nothing short of a miracle.

“Shit, dude. We forgot to take that picture at the game.”

Jackie froze mid-bite, guilt pricking her. She was still stewing in the annoyance of defeat. “Blame the demon spawn I have for a sister.”

Shauna waved it off with a shrug. “Yeah, no biggie. We can just take one now.”

Jackie looked down at herself, cross-legged on Shauna’s bed. She was still wearing Shauna’s jersey, a little too big. Her hair was a mess, her eyeliner halfway through giving up. “Now?” she asked skeptically.

Shauna was already lifting her arm, like she expected Jackie to just throw herself onto her. Jackie hesitated, eyes narrowing, as if trying to uncover a deeper meaning. Like this might be a ruse. And it was, technically.

With a resigned sigh, Jackie placed her food container aside and nestled herself into Shauna’s side. One leg was thrown over hers, hand resting lightly on Shauna's stomach.

The camera clicked.

The picture taken framed their intertwined legs, the tangle of N64 controllers, and the faint glow of GoldenEye’s game over screen. It looked candid and perfect, something that would make people assume a story that wasn’t entirely false.

Jackie stared at it for a long second. “I should post it,” she said quietly.

Shauna only hummed, noncommittal, one hand behind her head, the other tapping on her phone.

Jackie soon received the notification that the photo had been sent her way.

She wasn’t big on posting on socials to begin with, though she’d often wrestled with the idea. Sunsets at the stables, quiet trails, things that made her feel, but she’d never felt like sharing the beauty of the world she saw. This, though, wasn’t about that. This was for the plan. For the show.

At least, that’s what she told herself as she typed the caption: ‘Shauna’s idea of a ‘date night’, with the rolling-eyes emoji.

Worst of all, she did all this while still resting against Shauna’s side. She could fall asleep like this, easily. The hum of the TV, the occasional muffled sound of a passing car, the steady thud of Shauna’s heartbeat beneath her ear.

Neither of them made any effort to move, either.

“You crashing here tonight?” Shauna asked after a few moments of silence.

“Might as well,” Jackie agreed, too quickly. Only because she didn’t want Shauna to have to drive back out of the city again.

Another small lie she’d started to love telling herself. They were slowly piling up, stacked high, teetering on the edge. Jackie told herself she had them balanced perfectly. She must have forgotten what broken plates sounded like.

Besides, if she stayed, she’d have the perfect excuse to dodge her sister for half of tomorrow—and a few hours after that.

See? Entirely practical. That’s all.

“So, you remember when you made me promise not to get into it with any other chick, right?”

Jackie lifted herself, snarl already on her lips. She couldn’t even compute the use of the word 'chick' coming so casually from Shauna’s mouth. “Shauna, I swear to God…”

“I just mean the whole ‘promise’ part,” Shauna said quickly. “I kinda need you to promise something, too.”

Jackie blew out a breath, rolling onto her back again, away from Shauna. What a moron.

“If it’s something ridiculous, you can forget it.”

Shauna rolled onto her side, staring at Jackie. Her brow had that serious little crease about it. Jackie really wanted to smooth it out with her thumb.

“Don't ghost me after all this is over.”

Right. They had to publicly ‘break up’ at some point, didn’t they? Though that was entirely too far out of Jackie’s mind to even cause alarm.

Jackie mirrored Shauna’s position, shifting onto her side, head supported by her hand.

She could have teased her. Told Shauna she was a big dorky sap for even wanting to remain friends. But she couldn't. Jackie felt the same way.

“I promise," she whispered, not wanting to break the intimacy of the moment. Or perhaps, the weight of what it meant.

They stared at each other for what felt like way too long. Jackie had to resist the sudden urge to push Shauna’s hair out of her face and kiss the underside of her jaw. It was all so tempting. So she turned away.

Much later, as Jackie settled under the covers that smelled unmistakably like Shauna, in clothing she'd never be caught dead wearing in public, she convinced herself it was all according to plan. This was just for convenience. Nothing more. Truly.

But as the quiet rhythm of Shauna’s breathing pulled her toward that hazy space between wakefulness and sleep, Jackie could’ve sworn she felt Shauna shift closer, the soft press of her chest against Jackie’s back, and the faintest sigh that made the whole room feel smaller.

Jackie woke up to the muffled sounds of what sounded like a disaster of catastrophic proportions happening somewhere nearby. When she lifted her head from the pillow, one eye open, hair askew, she realized she was not, in fact, in her bedroom.

Right. She was at Shauna’s. And Melissa’s, apparently.

She took her time stretching out, feeling how cold the other side of the bed was. It wasn’t like Shauna to be an early riser. It was only when Jackie peered at the time on her phone’s screen that she realized she had been the one to have uncharacteristically slept in.

9 a.m.? What the fuck?

Jackie couldn’t even remember a single day in the past ten years when she’d gotten up that late.

There were a slew of notifications on her phone. From Lottie calling her out for ditching the party to have what Lottie supposed was to have sex with Shauna, to Van asking if the Beast Slayer was still alive, to way too many Instagram comments and likes on the photo she had posted last night.

Those would have to wait until caffeine and food were properly administered.

Jackie padded down the stairs, arms crossed over Shauna’s oversized football shirt and sweatpants that hung off her like they belonged to someone twice her size. She’d rolled the cuffs a few times just to avoid tripping, still feeling vaguely like a toddler playing dress-up in adult clothes.

The kitchen could be seen from the bottom of the staircase. Small, not much of a kitchen, but it had a nice island counter that connected to the rest of the space.

Shauna was standing in what Jackie could only describe as a mismatch of a worn long-sleeve sweater, shorts, and socks stuffed into flip-flops for inexplicable reasons. She stood in front of the stove, flipping a pancake and dumping it onto a plate already stacked way too high.

“You disgust me,” Jackie greeted.

“Good morning to you too, my sweet cactus flower.”

Jackie was about to retort—or maybe backhand Shauna—but that wouldn’t erase the stupid fucking smirk on her face. Still, she would have, had she not been interrupted by quiet footfalls as a woman Jackie had never seen before exited the house, wordlessly.

She spun toward Shauna, forehead creased. “Do you have a second roommate?”

Shauna chuckled under her breath, flipping the bacon sizzling in the second frying pan. “Ask Mel,” she answered cryptically.

Not that it took much for Jackie to put two and two together. 

No dating. Unnamed woman 'sneaking' out. Of course.

Jackie sighed, arms folded over her chest. “She’s literally the jock douchebag I thought you were.”

Shauna let out a much heartier laugh at that.

Moments later, footsteps that sounded like thunder claps came from the staircase, ending with a loud thud as Mel jumped the last four steps.

“Do I smell bacon?”

“Yeah,” Shauna replied, hissing as a pop of oil burned her hand. “None of it’s for you, though, jackass.”

Melissa pushed at Shauna’s shoulder much harder than Jackie would have expected out of playfulness. Shauna had to fight her off, and they engaged in what Jackie could only describe as some sort of barbaric morning ritual.

“Did my moron roommate offer you coffee?” Melissa asked as she untangled herself from Shauna’s headlock, applied with no love and all force.

“Definitely not.”

Melissa swatted the back of Shauna’s head as she moved past her and poured water into the coffee machine.

“I’m cooking!” Shauna defended, then swatted Melissa’s ass with the rubber of the spatula.

Jackie watched with a grin as Shauna and Melissa continued their little back-and-forth. A warm cup of coffee was pressed into her hands a few minutes later, steaming and bitter, just the way she liked it. At least for the first sip. Then the creamer would find its way in without mercy.

She took a slow sip, letting it warm her from the inside out, and then padded over to Shauna, who still had her back turned. Jackie draped an arm around her waist, pressing her cheek against Shauna’s shoulder. Shauna’s body softened under her, the quiet punctuated by the occasional clank of plates as Melissa moved about the kitchen, preparing the counter to receive the delicious food.

The semblance of a peaceful morning was all Jackie needed to nuzzle closer to Shauna’s neck and drop a light kiss there. The reaction was immediate: the tongs slipped from Shauna’s fingers and clattered to the floor.

Perhaps Shauna had been too focused on showing off her bacon-flipping skills and wasn’t expecting the sudden press of lips on her skin.

“Jumpy?” Jackie teased.

“I’m cooking,” Shauna meekly defended, though this time, the tone of her voice sounded way less confident than when she’d belted it at Melissa. “Go bother Mel,” she continued to grumble under her breath.

“Jumpy and grumpy.” Jackie slowly extracted herself from Shauna, hand lingering on her stomach. “You should get that checked.”

Shauna turned toward her, bent down to pick up the grease-covered tongs, and pointed them at Jackie’s face in a semblance of warning. “I will kick you out of my kitchen.”

Jackie simply backed away, head tilted, teeth chewing on her bottom lip to temper her grin. That was, until she backed straight into Melissa.

“Look, I know you two are busy doing gross couple stuff, but you’re not the only people in this room.”

Jackie immediately colored bright red at the comment.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Chapter Text

Coming home after that terrifyingly good evening (and morning) with Shauna had been bittersweet. Sweet, because she could finally throw on clean clothes. Her own clean clothes. And bitter, because—

The front door opened just as Jackie was kicking off her shoes.

“Hey, you!”

That.

That shrill of a voice this early should’ve been illegal. A fucking jumpscare. Especially after a wonderful breakfast spent listening to two jock idiots debate the best video games of all time—or something to that effect. 

Jackie hadn’t entirely followed the conversation.

Claire’s form appeared, still very much vested in yesterday’s clothes.

Jackie immediately crossed her arms over Shauna’s jersey, the only piece of clothing she’d been wearing since the game yesterday. She truly wished she could fast forward this conversation and go straight into the shower.

Though, it did feel like old times. High school, to be precise. Both of them doing their own version of the fabled ‘walk of shame’. Minus the shame this time. At least where Jackie was concerned. The jury was still very much out on her sister.

“Did you just get in, too?” Claire asked, resting one hand on Jackie’s shoulder as she bent down to remove her egregiously high heels.

Had she really brought a change of clothes for the party?

“You didn’t come back here last night?” Jackie asked instead, confusion etched across her brow.

“I was way too drunk to drive myself home. And everyone else too, as you can imagine,” Claire waved off. And, as if on cue, she didn’t give Jackie time to counter that Ubers very much existed and also applied to the great city of Austin. “So, I crashed on some guy’s couch. What was his name… Travis, I think?”

If Jackie could’ve smacked that smug look off her face, she would have.

“You could’ve texted me,” Jackie huffed. “I was at Shauna’s.”

“I didn’t see your name pop up on my phone either, Jack. And you two practically disappeared without saying a peep.”

Bitch.

That was, indeed, the truth. But still.

Bitch.

“Besides, I didn’t want to bother you and your girlfriend.”

Why the hell did she have to say it like that?

Claire made her way to the stairs, stopping just shy of the first step. She turned and threw Jackie a furtive glance over her shoulder, like she knew Jackie was going to absolutely despise whatever came next.

“You won’t mind if I take a shower first, will you? Those football jocks are, like, allergic to not spilling their drinks,” she added with a soft chuckle.

Jackie didn’t have any fight left in her. Not for this, anyway.

“Go ahead,” she answered with a resigned sigh.

“Thank you!” Claire called out, tone as fake as her smile as she made her way up the stairs.

Jackie let herself deflate against the front door. Just a few more hours. A few more hours and Claire would take her boat back to Hades, and Jackie wouldn’t have to see her again until the wedding (whenever that would actually end up being).

She closed her eyes and wished, for some insane reason, that Shauna would suddenly materialize beside her. Her presence alone had become a sort of odd comfort Jackie couldn’t quite shake. Just like she couldn’t get rid of the thought that she was certainly pushing her luck with all of this farce. That, perhaps, this ‘crush’ wasn’t just a simple crush.

No. It was. It had to be. A momentary lapse of Jackie’s very fragile sanity.

It would go away. Surely.

Jackie, instead of unpacking any of that, busied herself tidying her room and replying to Lottie’s messages about being a ‘boring loser’ now that she was dating again. Thankfully, that was quickly followed by a much more supportive text. She declared how very happy she was that Jackie had, and this is a direct quote, ‘finally found someone she didn’t have to fake an orgasm with’.

Great. Why couldn’t that rumor be the one spreading around campus instead of Jackie, apparently, being a big fucking slut? That’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? Lies were far easier to gobble up than the truth. The irony of her current situation didn’t escape her.

Shauna hadn’t texted. Not yet. Not until Jackie was on her way to the bathroom, soon after the witch had melted her skin off for over a fucking hour in there. Towel thrown over her shoulder, clean clothes bunched in the crook of her arm, her phone buzzed in her free hand.

Jackie closed the door behind her, Claire’s perfume already giving her a migraine. The smell was only enhanced by the lingering warmth and humidity of the shower. It permeated Jackie’s pores. Her very soul.

Disgusting.

She managed to keep her breakfast down long enough to sneak a glance at Shauna’s message.

[Shauna] hey i just wanted to say thanks for last night

[Shauna] sorry again for being an asshole didn’t mean to take it out on ya

[Shauna] ps: im not sorry you suck at Golden Eye tho ahaha

Of course the only thing Shauna properly capitalized was a video game title.

The messages were followed by links to more horrible couple costumes that Jackie would need to be heavily intoxicated to even consider.

And after some careful consideration (and pretending her stomach didn’t flutter at the stupidly endearing way Shauna wrote her message), Jackie placed her phone face down on the vanity without replying.

Just a stupid crush.

It would go away.

Totally.

Jackie and Claire were lying down in the back of Jackie’s truck. Tailgate down, legs dangling, drinks loosely held in their hands. This position was made all the better since Jackie couldn’t see her sister’s face or the annoying way she greatly over-gesticulated all of her stories about what she and Eric had been up to—which were all embellished. No doubt.

All Jackie saw was the blue sky, though tinted green through her sunglasses. One hand behind her head, Jackie pretended to chuckle at whatever her sister had just said. Something about her fiancé being horrible at golf and how much he embarrassed her when their friends played at some fancy and probably really uptight country club.

As if anyone normal fucking cared about golf.

Their mother did.

“He had to clean his balls for three holes straight.”

Jackie immediately spat out her sip of pre-mixed gin in a can.

“God, you’re so crude,” Claire sighed. “Though I really don’t know why I’m surprised. We’re tailgate drinking when we could be, I don’t know, enjoying the sun at Metro Park or something?”

Right. As if Claire, the perfect demonic angel, didn’t swear like a fucking sailor whenever road rage possessed her.

“Everyone and their mother will be at Metro Park today.” Surely, Claire hadn’t been gone long enough to forget that fact.

It was true that October wasn’t the most common month to have a family beach day, but it had been unusually warm this year. It was sure to be packed as far as the eye could see.

“Oh, and by the way, I know Pops is, like, busy shoveling horse… feces, but if he asks, could you please tell him I slept at Shauna’s with you last night?”

Jackie frowned, finally turning to look at her. She didn’t appear nervous. Or angry. Or showing much emotion, other than pure smugness from the deepest pit of hell. 

“Why?”

Claire leaned back on her arm, letting the sun cook her bare stomach. She had borrowed a bikini top from Jackie. Apparently, she didn’t pack one, in any of her four fucking suitcases. 

“Because I’m asking.”

“Tell him yourself.” Jackie scoffed, bottom lip brushing the lip of her can. 

“Jackie, please.”

She wasn’t aware that Claire actually knew what her real name was.

“Did you bang Travis?”

Well. As far as blurting things out go, this was, at the very least, pretty warranted.

“Ew,” Claire immediately recoiled at the accusation. “Of course I didn’t. I’m getting married.”

Jackie believed her, on the evidence that her sister was extremely horrible at hiding her disgust—and that it was the only emotion she could, in fact, genuinely express.

“And this kind of attitude is exactly why I can’t tell Dad I slept there. He’ll think the same as you. Then Eric’s going to find out and—”

Untrue. Wade and Eric didn’t talk. Not casually at least. And Jackie would never willingly send him a message, even if she were on death’s door.

Whatever. Jackie let her sister ramble on about the plights of being engaged to an apparently very jealous man (even if Jackie was almost entirely sure that Eric didn’t have the mental capacity to even feel such an emotion).

Her sister might have been a truly horrific human being, but Jackie didn’t believe she’d ever cheat. Still. Maybe she’d try to pry the answer out of Travis whenever she’d see him next.

Jackie decided soon after that they should take the horses out again, seeing as listening to Claire ramble on and on was starting to make her feel homicidal again. Which, coincidentally, gave her a great idea about which costume she and Shauna should wear for the Halloween Bash.

Jackie sent Shauna a link and a non-negotiable ‘these will be our costumes’ text.

[Shauna] i should have known

[Shauna] im down

[Shauna] wait im not gonna be the one in the belly shirt right?

[Shauna] right???

[Jackie] ;)

It brought her immense pleasure to bring Shauna distress—so much so that she hadn’t noticed the maniacal cackle she let out until her sister pointed it out, in the worst way imaginable.

“Planning to giggle at your phone the whole time I’m here, or will you actually look up and enjoy the great outdoors?”

Why, yes, Claire, I would much rather talk to a lifeless piece of plastic than have to discuss anything worth talking about with you.

Anyway. Jackie didn’t voice any of that, as she very much didn’t feel like arguing when she was in such a good mood.

Her horse, Dolly, was slightly behind Claire’s to make sure Anakin wouldn’t wander off with her sister into the neighbor’s cornfield.

He was a bit of a feisty one, just like his namesake.

Jackie pocketed her phone, patting Dolly’s neck while she was already leaned over, fingers curling around the worn leather reins, and whispered, “At least you don’t have to deal with her like your brother does.”

She lightly tapped her stirrups against the mare’s stomach, urging her into a slightly faster trot to catch up with the pace Claire had set.

“What was that?”

After all, why shouldn’t Jackie fuck with her sister just a little bit?

“I was saying,” Jackie began, fighting to keep her smirk in check, “that I was replying to Shauna. She was thanking me for last night.”

“Thanking you for—oh, you’re disgusting,” Claire physically, emotionally, and probably spiritually recoiled. “I really don’t need any details.”

“There weren’t any details,” Jackie pointed out.

Claire scoffed.

She felt immensely childish for even enjoying forcing this sort of reaction out of her sister. But oftentimes, it was the small and simple pleasures of life that really made it worth living. Just like seeing Claire shudder in disgust when she’d been throwing herself all over Shauna just a few days prior.

Fake. Bitchy. And contradictory. Who wouldn’t want to marry that?

Definitely not someone with a personality.

Just as Jackie was starting to relax, listening to the horses’ hooves clopping rhythmically in the dirt, the gentle sway of her body in the saddle, the little snorts of attention from Dolly pulling low laughs out of her—Claire had to open her mouth. Again.

“I know we didn’t get much time to look at that sketch you started of my wedding dress,” she said. “But when you finish it, send it over and I’ll let you know what corrections need to be made.”

Jackie rolled her eyes so far back she thought she’d lost them for a second.

‘I’ll let you know,’ not ‘if.’ Not ‘I’m really happy you’re taking the time out of your busy school schedule for me. sis’.

“I need it to be perfect. Exactly like how I imagine it would look.”

“I know,” Jackie replied, in lieu of blowing out an annoyed breath and calling her a picky and bratty bitch. “We have plenty of time to get it right.”

“Will you be bringing Shauna to the wedding? If you’re still together by then, that is.”

Jackie’s hands curled so tight around the saddle horn she had been, prior to that asinine comment, loosely holding that she was sure it was about to snap off.

The art of turning a simple question into something that felt like a slap in the face was something Claire had mastered by the age of two. Probably. Jackie was ballparking, but she was almost certain.

“She’ll be coming,” Jackie answered confidently. Simply. Any more would have given Claire too much satisfaction. Any less would have made Jackie seem like she didn’t have any faith in their relationship.

“So you mean to tell me you’re actually envisioning dating a woman for an extended period of time? That this isn’t just a stunt to get back at Jeff?”

“Whatever happened between Jeff and me has absolutely nothing to do with Shauna.”

“Well, he seems to think otherwise.”

Jackie was so livid she didn’t think twice about that comment Claire had so casually slipped out.

“Luckily, my fucks about what he thinks are long gone.”

“Again with the swearing,” Claire chastised, lips curled into a smug grin—as if she’d gotten what she wanted out of this conversation. To rattle Jackie all the way down to her bones.

And she had.

Which was why, when Jackie and Wade watched Claire drive off the lot in her obnoxiously large SUV, Jackie sent her the middle finger with the highest hope that her sister was watching them in the rearview.

“Good fucking riddance,” she shouted. “And don’t come back.”

“For cryin’ out loud, Jackie, will you quit it already?”

“I said my piece, Pops,” Jackie replied, and exiled herself to the now peace and quiet of her room for the first time since Friday. She had a hell of a lot of schoolwork and reading material to catch up on and was more than fed up with spending energy on the demon spawn known as her sister.

Again. Good fucking ridance.

The two weeks leading up to the Halloween Bash went exactly according to plan. Jackie began her Star Wars indoctrination of Shauna on a Tuesday—the only day that week she didn’t have evening practice. She then planned their weekend like a drill sergeant, seeing as they had a total of eight other movies to get through, and Jackie would absolutely not settle for anything less than perfection.

Saturday: Episode II, lunch, Episode III. Prequels down. Shauna showed clear signs of fascination with Anakin’s descent into madness (as Jackie had hoped). The very next day, Jackie woke up to a Star Wars meme in her notifications.

Very good.

Jackie replied with her favorite Palpatine gif.

Sunday: Episode IV (with Melissa), pizza delivery for dinner, then Episode V (without Melissa). The blonde had claimed she was staying on campus to cram overnight for an exam, but Jackie and Shauna both knew that was a load of bullshit. She was off to bang some girl whose name she’d forget by morning and then barely pass the exam by the skin of her teeth.

Anyway, Jackie and Shauna had a schedule to follow. They couldn’t concern themselves with Melissa’s academics, or which poor freshman she’d make cry this week, so they waved her goodbye from the couch.

Shauna was slouched so far into the cushions that Jackie asked if it was a pullout. To which Shauna, idiotically (but not unpredictably), replied,

“It doesn’t. But I do.”

A ridiculous statement punctuated by an equally annoying eyebrow wiggle.

Jackie threw a pillow at her face. Melissa was gone now, which meant there was no reason for them to keep cuddling while watching Mark Hamill’s chin dimple in 4K resolution. So, instead of awkwardly moving away, Jackie got up under the pretense that she needed to use the bathroom.

“Cool, I’ll get us refills,” Shauna called out from the couch.

Just as Jackie entered the bathroom, and had the displeasure of seeing Melissa’s discarded underwear hanging off the fucking towel rack, her phone rang.

“I have a question,” Lottie said the moment the phone was pressed to Jackie’s ear.

“And it couldn’t have been a text?” Jackie teased.

There was silence on the other end. For a moment, Jackie thought her sarcasm hadn’t landed quite right.

“You’re with Shauna?”

Jackie hummed in affirmation, leaning against the vanity of questionable cleanliness, messing with the bangs that refused to settle just right on her forehead.

Stupid obstinate curls.

Lottie laid out her problem: “We don’t know what to dress up as for the jock Bash.”

“We’re doing Star Wars.”

A long-suffering sigh came from the other end.

“Is there…” Lottie hesitated, like she was grimacing at the mere thought of what she was about to ask. “Another couple Nat and I could do?”

Jackie smirked at her reflection. “There sure is.”

The thought of all four of them in matching costumes made a great sense of cringe swell deep within Jackie, but the simple fact that it was Star Wars made it somewhat tolerable.

A sudden, loud knock at the door startled her so badly her phone nearly slipped from her grasp. The door opened moments later.

“You done? Yoda’s freeze-framed on the TV and it’s creeping me out.”

“Oh my God, do you have any fucking manners?” Jackie screeched, likely busting Lottie’s eardrums in the process.

“The door wasn’t locked,” Shauna shrugged, unrepentant in the least.

With a sigh almost turned animalist growl, Jackie turned back toward her reflection.

“Lottie, I’ll call you back. I’m going to be choking Shauna to death now. Bye. Love you.”

Jackie’s palms pressed down into the vanity after she slid her phone back into her left shorts pocket.

“I heard the water running,” the idiot continued to defend.

“And that obviously meant you could just waltz in here?”

Jackie had only turned the water on to fix her hair, but Shauna didn’t need to know that particular detail.

“Yeah, ’cause you were finished.”

“Shauna,” Jackie enunciated with menacing precision, arms crossed over her chest as she slowly advanced toward her prey.

“Jackie,” Shauna countered with a smirk, hands in her pockets, posture nonchalant, though she was definitely taking deliberate steps backward.

The next series of events were, for lack of a better term, unfortunate.

At least where Jackie’s mental health was concerned.

It went as follows: Jackie lunged forward into a run, the quicker (and far more athletic) Shauna bolted down the stairs and disappeared into the living room. Or so Jackie thought, until she crossed the threshold and was subsequently tackled onto the couch.

Full linebacker, shoulder into stomach spear.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Jackie hissed, slapping Shauna’s shoulder. Not once. Not twice. But five times.

“Got your ass,” Shauna chuckled.

This moment, the one featured in every sickeningly sweet rom-com, had actually happened to Jackie. In real life. Not in a stupid fantasy her brain had conjured up during some boring class. No. Shauna was very much lying on top of her, laughing and breathing hard, and Jackie could feel her everywhere.

The press of Shauna’s stomach on hers. The heat radiating off her skin. The puff of warm air against Jackie’s exposed neck. A loose strand of brown hair nearly tickling the top of her nose. And, most importantly, the fact that the soccer captain was casually resting between Jackie’s legs.

Work brain. Do something. Wake up. Hello? Anyone in there?

“Uh,” Jackie croaked finally, her voice about two octaves higher than usual. “You—can—you move?”

“What?” Shauna laughed again.

Her brain snapped back into motion, just in time. “You’re heavy, Shipman. Get off me,” Jackie said, punctuating the words with a hard push into Shauna’s chest.

“Oh, huh, right—yeah, s-sorry.”

Idiot.

They eventually resettled on the couch to finish the movie on opposite ends. As far from each other as humanly possible. But instead of enjoying the film she’d seen at least a hundred times, Jackie’s brain kept replaying that moment over and over again like some horrible comedy.

It was awkward as hell for the rest of the night. So much so that Jackie drove herself home, even after Shauna had suggested she stay over since she had an early morning class. Jackie claimed her laptop was at home, even though she knew very well it had been sitting in her truck since Friday.

Whatever. She couldn’t possibly deal with sleeping next to Shauna after having almost real-kissed the woman she was supposed to be fake-dating. So she left, and uncomfortable goodbyes were exchanged to make matters incredibly worse.

It even seemed like Shauna was going in for a hug, but then Jackie recoiled out of instinct, and the whole thing was just… dreadful.

When Jackie slowed at a stoplight, the truck’s cabin filled with a voice from the radio, singing about lovers past, or something, she had the sudden urge to smack her head against the steering wheel. Repeatedly. Until she passed out from sheer embarrassment (and mild blunt force trauma to the brain).

The light turning green saved her from doing so.

Days flew by until, eventually, the big day was upon them: the Halloween Bash. Held, like every year, at the Kappa Sigma frat house. Food, music, haunted house (the term used very loosely here), the works.

But before they could all partake in this sacred yearly tradition, some preparations were in order. It was a costume-required party, after all. She and Lottie had claimed the bathroom mirror at Shauna’s, both leaning in close, heads tilted at identical angles as they swiped on mascara with the focus of surgeons.

That focus shattered the moment Shauna barged in. Unannounced, uninvited, and inexplicably halfway through removing her shirt.

“Gotta shower real quick,” she said, with an audacity that was, as far as Jackie was concerned, completely unearned.

“You haven’t showered yet?” Jackie demanded, hand frozen mid-stroke, eyes glued to the ridiculous spectacle that was Shauna Shipman. Who was now, quite mortifyingly, undressing right in front of both Lottie and herself.

“Mel took all the hot water earlier,” Shauna grumbled, already unbuttoning her jeans.

Jackie could not, would not, freak out in front of Lottie. That would have been weird. Fortunately, her best friend’s presence meant she could redirect the freakout instead.

“Are you seriously going to get naked in front of Lottie?” So what if her voice went from a formidable growl to the high pitch of a squeaking mouse in one sentence? 

“They’ve seen worse in that locker room,” Lottie said with a laugh, not even pretending to avert her eyes. Well, there had been one particular glance when Shauna walked in, but honestly, who could blame her? “Probably done worse, too. Nakedness means nothing to them.”

“Done worse?” Shauna echoed, hopping on one foot as she yanked off a sock. “Nah. Not me. I’m pure of heart.”

This was delivered with a grin that Jackie wasn’t sure she truly believed.

Shauna went to unhook her sports bra, and Jackie immediately spun around and slapped her hand over Lottie’s eyes.

“Am I the only decently mannered human being here?” Jackie squeaked, again, voice tinged with unsurmountable panic.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

Do not turn around.

“Possibly,” Lottie said, pretending to squirm for a peek under Jackie’s hand.

“Get your naked ass in the shower!” Jackie barked at Shauna, and accidentally glanced over her shoulder. Really, it bears emphasizing just how accidental this was.

The view that greeted her eyes was Shauna’s very naked ass.

Fuck.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Shauna promised, laughter obvious in her voice. Jackie could hear the smirk.

The absolute asshole.

Her antics had been getting worse since that awkward ‘movie date’ where they’d nearly kissed on the couch. Jackie still couldn’t tell if Shauna was trying to kill her or if she was just that oblivious.

When the shower curtain finally screeched across the rod, Jackie’s shoulders dropped. She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Lottie was already wearing that look. The one that always announced a ridiculous request of some sort. That Jackie could, naturally, never refuse.

“Can you do my eyeliner?” Lottie asked sweetly. “Since I, like, super suck at it, and you love me?”

Bearings regained, Jackie rolled her eyes and plucked the eyeliner from her best friend’s hand.

“Sit,” Jackie commanded, pointing to the toilet.

Lottie happily plopped down in the seat, tilting her head up toward Jackie as she gently coaxed her chin up.

“So what are you and Nat even going as?” Shauna called from behind the shower curtain, her voice carrying easily over the running water.

“Nat didn’t tell you?” Lottie asked.

Jackie sighed. This question was giving her flashbacks to a conversation she’d had with Shauna weeks ago. “Don’t bother. They don’t communicate like normal human beings.”

“Right, I forgot,” Lottie said. “They’re definitely a species apart from us.”

Shauna let out a full-on wolf howl from the shower. Which, under any other circumstances, would have been deathly embarrassing to be known as Shauna’s partner. But Jackie couldn’t help but let out a full blown laugh.

“They’re doing Ben and Rey, babe,” Jackie answered Shauna.

The term of endearment slipped out before she even noticed. It wasn’t until Shauna’s silence stretched on too long that the word ‘babe’ really landed.

A moment later, a wet head poked out from behind the curtain, droplets rolling down Shauna’s forehead. She was frowning, though Jackie couldn’t tell if she was surprised or amused. “Really?”

The rest of the conversation was spent debating Star Wars ships, which really brought them absolutely nowhere (except delving into the fascinating topic of alternate-universe fanfiction being rewritten as fully fledged novels).

“You losers still aren’t ready?” Nat asked, appearing in the doorway dressed in Rey’s full Jedi get-up. “You do know you’ll be wearing a mask, right?”

Nat was, no doubt, judging the care with which Jackie was applying Lottie’s makeup.

“And when I get tired of wearing it, I don’t want to look like a scarecrow when I take it off,” Lottie reasoned.

Very logical.

Nat rolled her eyes. Jackie snorted. Shauna laughed somewhere behind the curtain.

“I’ll still love you,” Natalie said, tone dry but eyes warm. “Whether you look like a scarecrow or not.”

Lottie’s smile tilted, soft and amused. “And they said I was too good for her.”

Jackie caught herself grinning. For all their bickering, the two of them fit together so perfectly. And it made her stupidly happy to see them find their way back to how they used to be.

“Can someone get me a towel?” Shauna called, somewhat shattering the moment.

Natalie groaned but grabbed one off the rack that, thankfully, had no rogue pair of Melissa’s underwear hanging there today, and tossed it over the curtain rod.

“Thanks!” Shauna replied cheerfully.

“Next time, have her shower in the morning. She always takes forever in there,” Nat said, imparting some sage knowledge on those not in the know.

Jackie stared at them all in disbelief. “How are we just perfectly fine with this? Does anyone need to take a shit while we’re at it?”

“Yep!” Melissa’s voice cut in, right before she squeezed past Nat into the bathroom. “Duty calls, or whatever.”

“Ew, I was joking,” Jackie replied, positively horrified.

“I wasn’t,” Melissa answered flatly, shutting the door behind her.

Jackie turned to Lottie with a look that could only be described as spiritually exhausted.

“I know,” Lottie said softly. “They’re animals.”

They retreated to the hallway, giving Melissa her so-called privacy, a towel-wrapped and dripping Shauna trailing close behind.

“She always does this,” Shauna grumbled, wringing water from her hair.

Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

Jackie looked back.

For someone who played a sport mostly with her legs, Shauna had ridiculously well-defined shoulders. That was an unbiased, objective observation. Probably. At least Jackie managed to compose herself before anyone noticed. Which didn’t make the whole being into the dripping wet idiot jock thing any less humiliating.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

Every single day that passed, regret started to settle deep within Jackie’s soul. Or perhaps that was just what fake-dating Shauna Shipman felt like. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what really dating her would be like. And she wouldn’t let herself go there either. They had a plan. A set goal. A set breakup (sort of). There was no point in wasting energy wishing things were different. Even if Jackie desperately wanted them to be.

As expected, little effort was put in the frat’s house decorations. The distinctively greek architecture of large, round columns were barely covered with fake webbing. The cheap stuff, too. A few silicone bats were hung here and there around the porch’s pot lights like dead fucking flies. 

There were three wooden chairs on the porch, all adorned with skeletons that look like they’d been stolen from the science building. All of them were in various stages of undress, wearing Kappa Sigma-branded clothing.

The most ‘impressive’ decoration was the large, inflatable ghost standing tall on the front lawn, that would surely be deflated by the end of the night. Next to him was a kiddie pool, filled with water, ice, and the complementary Kappa-Sigma canned drinks. The actual reason most people even came in the first place, and not the advertised poorly constructed ‘haunted maze’.

As they crossed the street from where Shauna had parked, Jackie adjusted the belt around her waist, fingers brushing the cool plastic of her blaster, when someone threw an arm around her. Jackie figured it was Shauna until she turned and found Ghost Face staring her down, the eerie mask that was recognizable to millennials all around the world.

Jackie startled (just a tad).

“What’s the matter?” Melissa’s voice rasped through a tacky voice modulator. “Not into horror movies?”

“Fuck off,” Jackie grumbled, shoving her away, though she couldn’t keep the smile off her face when Melissa flipped the mask up and winked.

“Drinks on me!” Melissa declared, jogging toward the kiddie pool to grab cans, handing them out like she had personally paid for them.

They took a group picture with the already slightly sagging inflatable ghost. Jackie was proud of the scar she drew over Shauna’s right eye. Who said having years of experience putting on make-up never came in handy?

The photo turned out great. 

Lottie had used her absurdly long reach to fit the whole gang in frame. Shauna’s arm was looped around Jackie’s waist, her gloved hand resting on bare skin, her expression an impressively convincing scowl. Jackie posed with her blaster up, eyebrow raised. Nat was tucked adoringly into Lottie’s side, while Melissa leapt up behind them, plastic knife raised high. The motion blur turned her into a streak of black and white, but she was still unmistakable.

They were then greeted at the door with yet another drink. It wasn’t a mere suggestion, the cans were practically shoved into their chests. Shauna, Melissa and Nat happily chugged them after smashing their cans together like Power Rangers trying to morph into idiot jocks instead of cool… Ninjas?

Jackie and Lottie exchanged synchronized eye-rolls before slipping past the soccer boys blocking the doorway, both too sober for this level of enthusiasm.

They entered the house, to the sound of a pretty standard Halloween playlists was at a reasonable level, nothing ear-shattering yet. The house was spacious, which helped thin out the crowd (a blessing in disguise).

Jackie felt the cold of Shauna’s fake leather glove on her hip once more as the group moved to the living room. She gave the soccer captain a once over, unable to resist. 

Getting Shauna to wear an Anakin costume was, by far, the best idea she’d ever gotten. Quite possibly ever. The dark tunic wrapped around Shauna’s waist just right, the pleather boots elongated her legs enough to forgive how fake and plastic the lightsaber hilt hanging from her waist looked. 

A true vision of moral corruption, and one which would be burned into Jackie’s mind forever.

“What?” Shauna asked, a crooked smirk on  her lips. As if she didn’t notice how Jackie’s eyes travelled the length of her body like a hungry lioness ready to pounce.

“Nothing,” Jackie shrugged, her own smugness shining through. “Villain looks good on you.”

Not technically a case of Jackie’s mouth moving faster than her brain. In this particular instance, she actually wanted the others to hear her.

Shauna hummed, dismissive. She didn’t pull back, and neither did Jackie. Shauna’s hand stayed on her hip, fingers spreading, a tremor chasing up her arm at the heat between them.

Jackie was expecting something that made sense within the mood she had just established. Like, a compliment, or even a crude remark. But, why she even bothered to try and predict what Shauna would say or do, was a mystery.

“You gonna drink that?” Shauna, instead asked. Head nodding at the untouched can in Jackie’s hand.

Jackie pushed at the taller woman’s chest, which pulled a deep, throaty chuckle out of her. “Thought you were driving us home?”

“I said I might,” Shauna explained, already popping open her second can. The sound punctuating her stupid fucking irritating grin. “I don’t know where the night is gonna take me, Jackie.”

“Really?” Jackie arched a brow, leaning back just slightly, hand on Shauna’s chest, between the folds of the dark tunic. “Have you perhaps thought about where I might take you?”

Shauna had to turn around, her sip of beer being ejected from her mouth the moment the comment left Jackie’s lips.

That’s what you get for being a smug asshole. 

Asshole.

“Damn,” Melissa said. “Maybe love isn’t just a government scam after all.”

“Dating you would be a scam,” Lottie countered, voice lightly muffled beneath Kylo’s mask.

Shauna was still struggling to get air in.

Jackie felt a pang of guilt as she watched her fake-jedi, fake-girlfriend, haunched over and hacking away at a sip of beer that went down sideways. So, she did what any good partner would do, which is to say, she half-heartedly patted her on the back and mocked her some more. 

“Breath in and out, Shipman” she teased.

“You—” Shauna’s retort was regretfully (not really) cut off by another cough, her voice strained and rough.

Nat ignored everyone in favor of suggesting: “We should probably go see that haunted maze before we’re too drunk to stand.”

“Hold up,” Melissa said, mask flipped up, juggling with the plastic knife and her phone. “Van said she’ll sacrifice us to an unknown deity if we don’t wait for the rest of ‘em.”

That certainly sounded like the Longhorn’s goalie.

Still, the group made their way upstairs, slowly, as there was a damn line to see this ‘amazing’ maze the frat boys had put together. Jackie couldn’t imagine it was much better than the decoration out front, but that logic didn’t seem to translate to anyone else.

A few people Jackie had literally never seen or interacted with in her college life stopped to greet her. Shauna was given a few high fives, and a apat on the head, which earned the guy a fierce glare. 

“Good shootin’ last week, Shipman!” One of them exclaimed, overly enthusiastic and already slurring like a sailor. He was dressed as Shaggy from Scooby-doo. How original. Still, points for actually committing to the wig.

“Easy,” Shauna replied. 

He took a selfie with the three soccer players, then ran down the stairs hollering to no one in particular: “GO LONGHORNS!”

The only horrifying thing about this entire experience was how acclimated to this environment Jackie had gotten. The strange, unprompted greetings from students she’d never even seen, to the way Longhorn players were treated as campus celebrities. 

Jeff had always been far more reserved and private. Not shy, but it seemed that students would simply nod at him in greeting. There was the occasional fist bump, too, but those were reserved for his teammates. 

Jackie was never approached while she was around him. Probably by his design, too.

The insecure cunt.

After far too many drinks leaning against the mansion’s bizarrely ornate staircase, the group—now joined by Tai, Van, Laura Lee, and Mari—finally headed into the maze. Giant, carnival-style arrows pointed toward the entrance, as if the hallway (and probably an entire room or two) wasn’t already visibly sealed off with black plastic bags.

The maze itself was a bit hit or miss, though it still far exceeded Jackie’s expectations. There were jump scares scattered along the way, one of them being Melissa, who leapt out from behind what looked like a giant cutout of Jason Voorhees.

“If this was a horror flick,” Melissa rasped through the voice changer, “You’d be hella dead.”

“Nah,” Shauna stepped in front of an already irate Jackie. “You would, moron.” 

She then slapped the mask off Melissa’s face. 

This turned into an all out brawl, naturally. 

The rest of the Longhorns simply watched on as if that were the norm for these two. Jackie was pretty sure she heard a bet or two being thrown around.

After a truce was proposed by Laura Lee—something about shots on goal in the next game—the group made their merry way through the maze that, though simple minds had created it, was quite complex in its construction. That was, at least, until Jackie realized it was pretty much just a big square, with intersecting passages.

Still. It had been worth going through at least one. Mildly tipsy for best results.

Jackie kept her fingers loosely looped through Shauna’s the whole time. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but something had shifted. Shauna seemed hesitant, maybe. Less at ease. A creeping worry began to settle in that their little act had already worn thin for Shauna, or worse, become some dull inconvenience in her day.

Something had happened between the couch incident and now. Whether it was Shauna realizing the attraction wasn’t entirely a fabrication on Jackie’s side, or something else altogether, she could hardly tell. And she wasn’t going to allow that fact to ruin her night.

Once they left the maze, Jackie pulled Shauna aside, near the staircase where a few people were hanging out. She leaned against it, eyes peering past Shauna at the massive line still stretching all the way down the winding staircase.

The other Longhorns followed, which hadn’t been intentional.

“Can we talk? Maybe somewhere a little more… quiet,” Jackie said, hoping it would sound suggestive.

It didn’t. Not really.

“Hey, go easy on our Captain, alright?” Van said, pushing the brim of her green hat up. Her Riddler costume was more fitting than Jackie could even put into words. “She’s not really too great at this dating stuff, and we got a game Monday. So if you need to dump her ass—”

“God, Van,” Tai hissed, cutting her off. Her eyes, filled with fury for a moment, snapped straight to Jackie. They softened immediately upon leaving Van’s general vicinity. “Word of advice: fall in love with someone who actually has a filter.”

“So what I got outta that, is that you love me,” Van countered, crooked smirk on her face.

Tai rolled her eyes but couldn’t quite keep her scowl in place. She bent down, planting a quick peck on Van’s lips. The green felt hat collided with Tai’s forehead, jostling the plastic vines and leaves her hair was adorned with.

“If I was in trouble, you guys would know,” Shauna paused, sending Jackie a sideways glance, her grin toothy. “And you’d hear it, too.”

“On that note,” Jackie said through gritted teeth, tugging Shauna along not at all kindly—just for the audacity of that remark alone.

Finding a quiet spot meant traversing the entire fucking mansion. Walking through a crowd that stopped them every few seconds because of Shauna, and finally emerging outside in the backyard through a patio door.

There were a few people in lounging chairs around the pool, though most of the partygoers were inside, seeing as that was where the free booze was located.

“So what are we doing?” Shauna asked, letting herself be led to the far side of the pool, where they’d be out of earshot of everyone. “Staging a fight? Pretending we’re getting a quickie in?”

The comment would have earned Shauna a smack to the shoulder if Jackie hadn’t already been fully in panic mode. It had started the moment they descended the staircase and gotten worse when the third idiot stopped them just to say, once again, how awesome their costumes were and how great they looked together.

It should have made Jackie happy that everyone seemed to be buying their story, truly. That was sort of the entire plan. But the moment she felt Shauna tense up when Jackie wrapped her hand around her bicep, she knew something was clearly fucking wrong.

Jackie blurted out her worries, just like ripping off a bandaid: “If this is getting too much for you, we can call it off.”

Shauna’s grin fell immediately. “Where the hell is that coming from?”

“You’re being skittish every time I touch you.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are, Shauna,” Jackie pressed, voice low but sharp. She didn’t want to accuse her of anything, but they couldn’t let this ruse fall out from underneath them. “And if I noticed, people will too.”

Shauna glanced away, jaw tight, lights from the pool’s LEDs casting waves of shadows across both of them, dancing back and forth with the slow rhythm the water set.

Jackie took a small sip of her drink, peering down at the can like it held all the answers. “I don’t want to make you feel like you’re stuck doing me a favor while you hate every second of it.”

When Shauna turned to face her again, she looked far more embarrassed than her previous forlorn look had suggested. “Sorry, I just—” She let out a sigh, rubbing the back of her neck as she tended to do when she got nervous, Jackie had noticed. “Van’s an ass, but she was kinda right. I’m not that used to all of this.”

Jackie waited for more. Because it sounded like there should have been more. But Shauna just stood there, looking down at her cheap pleather boots like she was confused about why she even had legs in the first place.

“Are we… okay then?” Jackie took a tentative step forward, one arm crossed, the other holding her canned beer.

Shauna’s head immediately snapped up.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Totally cool.”

“And, in the event that this whole thing does get too much—”

“I’ll let you know,” Shauna interrupted, voice soft, eyes softer yet.

Jackie smiled back. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

When they’d stood there for what felt like way too long to be ‘normal,’ Jackie pointed out, “You should probably kiss me.” And then quickly added, “So it doesn’t look like I was actually chewing you out.”

Maybe Shauna wasn’t the only absolute moron in this arrangement.

“Unless you want it to look that way?”

Jackie pretended to think, head tilted. “Too early for that.”

It’s true that they couldn’t play the perfect couple forever. It would look entirely too fake to not have any fights or disagreements. But as she’d just said. Too early.

Shauna closed the distance between them, hands resting on Jackie’s waist.

“Noted,” she mumbled against Jackie’s lips, laughing into the kiss.

Jackie was proud of herself for being a mature adult. This conversation was exactly what they had desperately needed to clear things up. She felt Shauna completely relax into her, bodies melding together, pressed tightly. Comfortable. Slotting together like puzzle pieces.

Shauna’s gloved hand pressed into her cheek as they continued to kiss. Jackie’s drink and arm were awkwardly squished into Shauna’s chest, but that didn’t stop the pretty loud groan from escaping Jackie’s throat when Shauna licked her way into her mouth. The heat that traveled from her head all the way down to her lower stomach was familiar and warm—and unfairly addicting.

Just as Jackie’s hand slid up Shauna’s shoulder to rest at the nape of her neck, and Shauna’s hand pressed into the middle of Jackie’s back, the echoing splash of someone diving into the pool behind them startled the pair into finally breaking apart. 

Jackie had been way too lost in the moment, and Shauna’s soft lips, to even form a single thought about breaking away. But, since there were people around, it all added to the realism of their supposed relationship. Right?

Right?

Jackie’s heart was slamming itself against her ribcage. It took a while for her to register just how close they were still standing. So much so that the plastic of Jackie’s blaster was probably poking into Shauna’s hip, while the saber’s hilt pressed into Jackie’s upper thigh.

Which was, unfortunately, when Jackie stupidly uttered: “Is that a lightsaber on your belt, or are you just happy to see me?”

Jackie thought she’d won again. That she had managed to make Shauna flustered after all the times she’d turned Jackie red as a tomato with a simple look.

Not this time.

“Both,” Shauna replied with a wink, and a smirk that was starting to feel less like a personal attack, and more like a personal comfort.

Jackie bit her bottom lip to stop herself from saying something worse. Maybe it was the right time to rejoin the party. Her faculties were more than a little compromised by all the drinks she’d had, and she had half a mind to show Shauna just how happy she could make her.

Time moved slower when alcohol was involved, and this night was no different. Jackie had lost track of time when Van had dragged her onto the make-shift dance floor, which was also a living room when this home wasn’t filled with a bunch of drunk college students.

The lights were off, save for a slow strobe that cut through the heavy fake-fog which filled the entire room. The air was heavy with sweat, awful smelling perfume, and the faint smell of body odour she’d wash off her body the second she got home. Hair stuck to her temples, her boots scuffed the beer-slick floor as Van spun her around once. Lottie’s laugh echoed over the music like the last sane sound in the room.

Shauna was still outside deep in a game of beer pong, Jackie thought. At least, that’s where she’d been last informed of her fake-girlfriend’s known whereabouts. 

“Does anyone need a drink?” Jackie shouted over the music. It was about time for a bathroom break anyway. She’d shed off the white cloak long ago.

“Yes please!” Lottie replied, hands in the air, brow a sweaty mess. Somewhere along the way, her Kylo mask had been clipped to her belt.

Van’s answer was, as per usual, vague. Which probably meant it was a yes.

Jackie slipped through the crowd of moving bodies with unsteady legs, but managed to to successfully make her way into the kitchen without bumping into too many masked strangers. This was where the fabled fluorescent green punch was located. Which, unfortunately, was where she’d also run into Jeff. 

His hair was the first thing she noticed. It had a stupid fucking swirl that fell down the middle of his forehead. And it wasn’t that the Superman costume didn’t fit snug around him, it’s that his face was simply obnoxious. No matter what expression it was pulled into. 

And right then? It was overly smug, for no apparent reason.

“You look good,” he said, eyes travelling down her body and the exposed stomach where the crop top ended.

Jackie suddenly very much wanted to be wearing a garbage bag. 

“Did me blocking your number not serve as enough of a hint that you should leave me the fuck alone, Jeff?”

He remained silent. Great. He was going to be playing mute tonight.

With the roll of her eyes, Jackie made a move to step around him. And she would have done so successfully, had his hand not clamped down around her wrist.

She had fully intended to yell at him. Maybe headbutt him. Kick him in the balls. But then he went and opened his mouth and said: “You’re not seriously dating Shauna Shipman, are you?”

The statement was not only incredibly asinine in nature—it sounded like something else she had heard not too long ago. From none other than Claire.

“Let go of me.” Jackie jerked her hand back, but he held on tighter. She wasn’t one to get nervous or scared easily, but her eyes darted around the room for a familiar face. Anyone.

“You think you can replace me with her?”

“Let. Go,” Jackie spat out, shoving her hand into the stupid symbol on his chest. Wasn’t that house’s crest the meaning of hope? Something worthy of a true hero. Everything Jeff was not. At least, not in that moment.

“I know you’re just trying to get my attention, but you can’t—”

“What the hell, dude?”

Her savior came clad in a really cheap Aquaman costume. But still, bless his soul.

Travis pushed Jeff’s hand away, putting his rather large body between Jackie and the now wide-eyed Jeff.

“What?” Jeff said, tone void of any warmth and patience. “We were just talking.”

“Not willingly,” Travis shot back.

Kick his ass, Aquaman.

“Come on, Trav,” Jeff said, arms spread wide. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Travis glanced behind him for just a moment. He seemed torn, truly. Walking a thin line between defending his friend’s (fake) girlfriend and betraying his best friend’s trust. Or something like it.

“I just think you need to back off,” Travis said, hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“We were just talking,” Jeff repeated, though this time, loud enough that his voice sliced right through the loud beat blaring over the speakers. 

A few wandering and curious stares zeroed in right on them.

Murmurs started growing louder, and louder. Jackie wished she could disappear. And it wasn’t a moment later that Shauna was at Jackie’s side, blocking her from Jeff’s view, alongside Travis.

“What’s going on?”

Travis was going to say something—probably idiotically cover for Jeff, apologize on his behalf, claim he’d had too much to drink. But too much alcohol and the red marks on Jackie’s wrist weren’t going to hold up very well. 

Especially not when Shauna already seemed halfway between livid and homicidal.

“We were getting a drink,” he replied, already walking away, completely ignoring Shauna like she wasn’t even a blip on his radar.

Though, that wasn’t the full truth. Her presence was felt. Jackie could tell by the way Jeff’s jaw ticked the moment she showed up.

Travis didn’t move. Not at first. His big brown eyes were locked on Shauna’s, and he opened his mouth, but clamped it shut the moment Jeff shouted his name. He nodded at both of them, flashing a forced smile. 

Jackie soon lost track of him, swallowed in the sea of bodies in the entryway of the house—notably without any drink in hand.

“You good?” Shauna asked, turning toward Jackie. Her hands pressed firmly, but gently, to Jackie’s shoulders, eyes narrowed with concern.

“I’m fine,” Jackie muttered, rubbing her aching wrist without thinking, gaze sliding past Shauna’s shoulder.

When Shauna saw, she moved so fast Jackie barely had time to react—grabbing her arm just in time to stop the soccer captain in her tracks.

Shauna could have shrugged her off. But she didn’t.

“Don’t,” Jackie pleaded.

“You think I shouldn’t bust his face open for hurting you?” Shauna’s lips curled into an incredulous snarl, voice raised beyond what Jackie was used to.

Sure, Shauna’s anger wasn’t directed at Jackie. Not really. But still, it made her flinch.

“I told you I wasn’t doing this just to get back with him,” Jackie reminded her in a hushed voice, both of her hands holding on to the sleeve of Shauna’s costume. “And I was serious. We don’t have to make it about him.”

Shauna shook her head, a small, humorless laugh escaping her. “You told me you wanted us to be… there for each other,” she caught herself quickly, eyes and ears still very much peeled all around them. “I wouldn’t let that bullshit slide with my friends, let alone my girlfriend.”

Jackie’s heart skipped at the word ‘girlfriend’, as if she wasn’t at all ready, or expecting to hear it from Shauna. “That doesn’t mean I want you to become a fucking target for the entire football team. You know damn well how they are.”

Like a fucking cult.

Silence.

“Please,” Jackie tried again.

The more Jackie thought about their relationship for the entirety of her high school life, the more she realized how deeply she had buried all the ways Jeff had been truly horrible to her. How he’d ruin an evening, a party, with one harsh line. One childish, jealous blow-up.

How blind she had been back then. Always assuming it was her fault. That she had said something she shouldn’t have. Or hadn’t done something she should’ve.

Jackie just wanted a fun evening with her friends. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

“Okay,” Shauna let out a sharp exhale. “Fine, but—”

Jackie pressed a finger to Shauna’s lips.

“No butts. I’ve seen my fair share for tonight.”

Even the fleeting thought that she’d probably never get tired of seeing Shauna’s body couldn’t distract her from the effect Jackie’s joke had. Shauna’s lip twitched. Then a soft chuckle slipped out.

“I knew you snuck a peek, perv,” Shauna joked, her easy and warm smile returning like it had never left.

“You undressed in front of me,” Jackie defended, deadpan. “What’s a girl to do?”

Their shared laughter dissolved the still-lingering tension, and with it, so did the party goer’s interest in whatever had been happening in the kitchen earlier.

“Come with me,” Shauna said, without explaining much further.

She placed a hand in the middle of Jackie’s back and gently guided her toward the patio door, leading them to the pool. Shauna stepped right up to the edge, shrugged off her cloak, and unhooked the saber hilt from her belt.

“I just need to cool off a little.”

And then she jumped. Fully clothed, minus the pleather boots she’d kicked off just before diving in.

Jackie had no fucking clue why she needed to be there to witness this idiot devolve into such madness. It wasn’t until Shauna slowly emerged from the water, eyes narrowed dangerously, that it dawned on her.

“Shauna, don’t…” Jackie warned. 

But just as Jackie stepped back, Shauna’s hand shot out of the water, clutching at her own shitty pleather boots. Her fingers dug in, only for the slick boots to slip free. Water weighed down her tunic as she hauled herself up onto the pool’s edge, and somehow, still managed to grab Jackie and throw her in.

The cold shock was enough to make her gasp when she resurfaced, the cold hit like a punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She took in a deep breath, using that air to scream her head off at Shauna.

“I am going to fucking roast you alive, Shipman!”

“Nah, you won’t.”

Shauna’s confidence was infuriatingly justified. Jackie’s glare could have melted steel, but Shauna just grinned and dove back under the water, kicking off a chain reaction as others followed their lead.

Jeff was a distant, meaningless thought. Shauna wrapped her arms around Jackie’s waist beneath the surface, pulling them close.

“Are you cool enough yet?” Jackie asked, a teasing grin tugging at her lips.

“Nope.”

“Let me help with that,” Jackie breathed, leaning in until their lips brushed. At the last second, she shoved Shauna’s shoulders down, dunking her under the water with so much as a warning.

When Shauna resurfaced, the playful fight erupted into a full-blown chase across the pool. Jackie swam as fast as she could, but the other bodies in the water (aka obstacles) made every stroke an uphill battle. Her costume clung uncomfortably to her skin, dragging and pulling in all the wrong places, slowing her down even more.

When Shauna finally caught her, wrapping both arms around Jackie’s shoulders, she let her head fall back against Shauna’s chest, laughter spilling out uncontrollably. It hit her then, how she hadn’t laughed like that in months and maybe even longer. That pure, unguarded joy she hadn’t realized she’d been starving for.

"You had the high-ground," Shauna whispered against her ear. "And you still lost."

Perhaps making Shauna a Star Wars fan wasn't the smartest thing Jackie had ever done. 

Though, regardless of Shauna's accurate assessment of the situation, Jackie still believed she was the winner tonight.

Chapter Text

Jackie had a hell of a long week. Mid-terms, working on her sister’s wedding dress between assigned readings for sewing class, and most draining of all: ignoring all the comments she’d received on Instagram every time she or Shauna posted a photo together. Or, alternatively, of the other.

And though the artificial endorphins created from receiving so many likes and comments had felt exciting in the moment, Jackie knew how easy it was to let it consume her posting habits. Which was why she never replied to anything.

That was, until Shauna had posted a picture of Jackie. From the back, she was sitting cross-legged on Shauna’s bed, TV light in front of her, game controller in her hand. Totally unaware and oblivious to the devious goblin snapping a picture behind her.

The caption read: ‘how do u get your girlfriend into video games? annoy her until she gives in’

Jackie had replied with a rolling-eye emoji, which had set off a chain reaction of comments.

Never again.

But regardless of this very modern plight, it was Friday, and Jackie was more than ready to unwind and relax with the Longhorns. They’d gone to the Grand with the intention of shooting some balls with some wooden sticks, or throwing pointy things at felt boards, or perhaps even down a shot or twelve. Who was to say, really?

Except, when Jackie arrived, all the Longhorns—quite literally all of them—were lined up at the bar, sitting on the stools, drinks in hand, looking half-dead. Some of them (Nat) were sleeping with their heads on the bar top. There was this faraway, haggard look in their eyes that Jackie couldn’t quite pinpoint or relate to.

Which was why, when she’d walked up to the zombie that was shaped like her fake-girlfriend, her greeting had gone as follows:

“Are we celebrating the Day of the Dead and no one bothered to notify me?”

She only received grunts in return.

What the hell?

Shauna sighed, beer bottle between her thighs, head falling back like it was too heavy for her to hold up.

 “Coach,” she managed to croak out.

Jackie couldn’t very well fight the smirk tugging at her lips. She quickly solved that particularly non-interesting mystery. Moving between Shauna’s legs, placing both of her hands on either side of the soccer captain’s face, she coaxed Shauna’s head back into a normal position.

“It’s like all of you need new batteries or something,” Jackie joked.

“You should leave us all here to die,” Shauna complained. She reached to grab the front of Jackie’s sweater and collapsed into her chest, forehead on collarbone.

For all the played-up dramatics, she did actually show signs of being absolutely fucking wrecked.

“Don’t be such babies,” Jackie said to throw more salt in the wound, palms pressed into Shauna’s thighs.

“You know what, Taylor,” Van entered the conversation, spinning her stool around with all the lethargy of a corpse with rigor mortis settling in. “Why don’t you come to practice with us next time?”

They all hummed in unison, like some weird cult chant. Jackie felt the vibration of it through her chest. Though that had probably just been Shauna grunting like a prehistoric human against her.

Van’s little challenge was ridiculous. Truly. Jackie spent her weekends lugging sixty-pound hay bales, dragging hard-headed horses into the stables, repairing (occasionally) broken machinery. Sometimes by kicking them with her steel-toe boots, sometimes by using actual tools.

How hard could pushing a ball down a field for forty-five minutes really be?

Jackie scoffed. She felt Shauna’s arms wrapping around her waist, holding on to the fabric of her shirt with a weak grip. The heat had officially been sliced by winter’s fast-approaching icy current. Crop tops and short shorts just wouldn’t do any longer. At least, not in the evenings. And though unfortunate, Jackie couldn’t very well say no to a cozy sweater and the dark jeans and high-heeled boot combo.

Shauna, unsurprisingly, hadn’t gotten that particular memo, as she was still wearing jogger shorts with unidentifiable stains. At the very least, her long-sleeve shirt had seemed (and smelled) clean.

“What are you challenging me to do, exactly?” Jackie finally answered the goalie who seemed a moment away from moving on to the next life.

“Go through an entire practice with us. And if you survive—”

“If,” Laura Lee echoed, voice as devoid of energy as the rest of her body.

“If you survive,” Van repeated, “I’ll allow all and every form of verbal bullying from you until the end of time.”

Easy.

Jackie let out a sudden, loud laugh. “I accept.”

“Jackie, don’t,” Shauna said, lifting her head, eyebrows miserably drawn on her forehead. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Jackie felt a sharp tug at her sleeve. It was Nat. She somehow mustered enough energy to lift her head from the bar top. Which was convenient, considering the bartender had that look in his eye like he wanted to kick her out for blatant sleeping.

“You’ll die out there, Jackie. Don’t do it,” Natalie rasped.

Lifting an eyebrow, Jackie waved off Nat’s heeded warning. “I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one here?”

All of them, again, grunted in perfect tandem.

Okay. Well. This evening was going to be extremely exciting.

It wasn’t.

They gathered around a high tabletop on the darts side of the bar once Lottie arrived, fresh off a four-hour paper writing session. But at least she had a bit of life left in her eyes, unlike the living dead Jackie had been stuck with for the past hour.

The evening consisted of the Longhorns quietly observing Jackie and Lottie playing darts. Jackie would also, occasionally, check on Shauna to make sure she was still conscious. She turned to her after a near bullseye, observing how Shauna was practically sagging against the stool, elbow up on the tabletop, head in her palm.

Jackie walked over, brushing a strand of hair away from her face.

“You look absolutely miserable.” This wasn’t spoken at all with pity. Jackie was far more dumbfounded by how they were all so stubbornly still awake. Though, them being ‘awake’ was still very much debatable. They were but empty shells.

“I’m good,” Shauna insisted, straightening and finishing the last of her beer.

Jackie even gave her an out: “Lottie can give me a lift home.”

Shauna didn’t reply to this. At least, not verbally.

Jackie turned around, with the immediate intent to play her turn, when Shauna pulled her right back into her chest. Hands around her waist, head on Jackie’s shoulder.

“Stay here,” Shauna mumbled into her neck.

Jackie swallowed (hopefully not audibly) before attempting to formulate a response. Shauna’s lips brushed against her neck, and it was simply a maddening experience. “So you can sleep on me instead of doing the smart thing, which would be to go home and sleep in your perfectly cozy bed?”

Jackie felt Shauna nod her head. The eye roll came easy after that.

Her gaze slid over to Lottie, who was similarly checking up on Nat to make sure she was still very much alive and breathing. Judging by how they were tonguing each other moments later… Natalie was breathing just fine.

Eventually, Jackie and Lottie managed to convince the hard-headed idiot jocks to turn in early. Well, earlier. It took a lot of prompting, negotiating food and other such favors, but the two best friends got the job done.

“Come over?” Shauna asked once they all filtered out of the bar and littered the parking lot. She leaned against her car, hands stuffed in her pockets, the jean jacket she came in with draped over Jackie’s shoulders instead of her own.

“I have a ton of designs to get through for next week’s class.”

Shauna shrugged, smile lazy and easy. And, as always, it made Jackie’s heart stutter for a beat or two.

“I won’t bother you. Captain’s honor,” Shauna said, with a poor excuse of a salute. “I’ll cook you breakfast,” she added, like Jackie hadn’t already made up her mind.

Fine. Whatever. Jackie could surmise that it wasn’t such a horrible idea that everyone around them, especially her father, noticed just how many nights Jackie was actually spending at Shauna’s. Besides, as far as new relationships went, they were still in that fabled ‘honeymoon’ phase, so they had even more incentive to keep up that appearance.

It was for that reason only (of course) that Jackie agreed.

Shauna passed out the second her head hit the pillow. She didn’t even have time to change. Not that her pajamas differed all that much from her actual clothing. But still. Jackie dutifully took off Shauna’s socks. She hated sleeping with them on and wouldn’t let Shauna suffer through that uncomfortable experience.

Jackie settled next to her, pillows propped behind her back, drawing tablet in her lap, glasses on. Sometime between her third scrapped design and Shauna shifting closer to her in her sleep, she realized just how truly comfortable this routine was becoming.

Maybe too comfortable. 

And yet, Jackie continued to reason it was necessary. She couldn’t have her sister and the rest of her annoying fucking family (except for her angel of a father) look down at her like the broken, miserable girl they all imagined she’d become after her mother’s passing.

Fuck them.

Even though that was partly true once, it was slowly becoming a distant memory. A lot of it could be attributed to the moment Jackie finally mustered the courage to break up with Jeff—and Shauna idiotically stumbling into her life like an unflinching disaster.

And just as Jackie was using her free hand to mindlessly run her fingers through Shauna’s hair, she decided that they’d convince every fucking soul at that wedding, that they were the happiest, most in-love couple to ever exist.

So help her God.

Next week rolled in with an even colder front. Jackie had run into the nearest campus building just to hide from the piercing, biting wind. It wasn’t doing her hair any favors either. Midway through fixing the mess on her head that Mother Nature had created, Jackie spotted Travis walking down the hall, bag slung over one shoulder.

Perfect.

“Travis!” Jackie waved him over, a genuine smile on her lips.

“Hey,” he greeted, eyes a little furtive as he stopped in front of her. “What’s up?”

“Can we talk?” Jackie asked cryptically, locking her phone with a distinctive click and stuffing it inside her coat pocket.

He leaned over, voice hushed. “Are you sure it’s okay if we’re seen talking?”

What the fuck?

Jackie rolled her eyes and grabbed hold of his bare forearm. “Come with me, you big oaf.”

She dragged him into an empty lecture hall. Once Jackie closed the door behind them and turned around to face the football player, he was already comfortably seated on the professor’s desk.

“So,” Jackie began, voice coy, “I might have heard from someone that my sister slept at your place when she was in town?”

“The night of the party?” Travis asked, eyes still soft and still genuinely oblivious to where Jackie’s line of questioning was going. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I took good care of her.”

Jackie’s eyebrow practically shot up into her hairline.

“No—wait, not like—I didn’t—we didn’t—I slept on the couch.”

These idiot jocks and their absolutely abysmal conversational skills.

“And you can confirm to me, without any shadow of a doubt, that you two didn’t play a little game of hide the sausage?”

Travis stilled for a moment, only to burst out with a full belly laugh seconds later. “I get why Shauna is into you now. Apart from…” he finished lamely, vaguely motioning at her entire person.

Before Jackie made a fool of herself asking exactly why he thought that, and what Shauna said about her when she wasn’t around, she forced her malicious brain to stay on track.

Interrogation. Travis. Focus.

“Answer my question, Travis,” Jackie pressed, walking closer with menacing intent.

“I swear, we didn’t do anything!” he replied, hands up like she had a gun pulled on him. “Shauna’s my bro, which means you’re my bro, which means your sister—”

“I get it,” Jackie snapped, thumb and index finger on the bridge of her nose. “She’s, by proxy, your ‘bro.’ Great. Enlightening. Thank you.”

Just as Jackie had predicted, Claire might be a horrible, constantly hissing, two-headed Medusa doppelganger, and an emotionally stunted cunt. But a cheater? Doubtful.

“Is… that it?” Travis reluctantly asked.

Jackie felt horrible for immediately slipping into her bad cop persona.

“No,” Jackie quickly answered. “Would you join me for coffee? I’m waiting for Lottie to finish her class, and I’d rather not run into him alone.”

“Sorry about the Halloween Bash, he—”

“Don’t apologize on his behalf,” Jackie snapped, interrupting his idiotic comment. “You’re not his guardian.”

Travis sighed. “I know. I know how he is. I know what he did to you. And I don’t want to take his side, but his dad’s friendly with NFL scouts. If I go against him…”

“You get early retirement for your troubles.”

“Pretty much.”

It was actually insane how similar Jeff and Claire were in that regard—manipulative, blackmailing assholes. Miserable ones. And misery? Well, It loves company. 

“I’ll go alone, then. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf.”

Besides. Jackie could very well deal with his mighty pompousness. He was too proud to tarnish his reputation on campus. He’d never do something stupid in public.

“You two aren’t dating anymore,” Travis shook his head, like he knew how fucking stupid this was, but chose to remain a prisoner to it regardles. “He can’t say jack, and he knows it.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah.” His smile was easy. Warm. Like Shauna’s. The kind that didn’t need over-confidence to be, well, confident. “The worst I’ll have to deal with is a pissy attitude.”

“Isn’t it wild how he acts like a woman?” Jackie surmised. A fact that had only just occurred to her. “No wonder it took me forever to figure out I was gay.”

Travis let out another loud laugh, clapping his massive hand (quite roughly) on Jackie’s shoulder.

“Ow, asshole,” Jackie hissed. “I’m not built like a shit brick house, you know.”

“Shit, sorry! Don’t tell Shauna, I—”

Jackie rolled her eyes, biting back a laugh. How Travis managed to be more scared of Shauna than Jeff was beyond her. Then again, she’d only seen Shauna mildly pissed off. They’d probably had the displeasure of experiencing the full nuclear version.

Jackie was sitting in the lecture hall, considering asking the student sitting next to her to slap her into a wakeful state. Maybe it would be too much to ask, but a little shock to the system would surely want to make her listen to the most monotonous voice she’d ever heard, drone on about the timeline of thimbles in Western Europe.

Surely.

Even his PowerPoints were tragically dull. Sepia photos, uninspired bullet points, names and dates no one, least of all Jackie, would remember past the exit sign. Ten more minutes, and she’d be free. But even that felt like an eternity, like she was trapped in a time loop she’d never truly escape.

Her phone buzzed beside her laptop, which was shooting out hot air even though all she had open was a notes app. The notification could’ve been anything. A comment, a like, Lottie planning their weekend three days ahead, or Shauna spamming her with stupid memes. Any of those options would’ve been a hundred times more entertaining than this academic purgatory.

Jackie picked up her phone as discreetly as she could, scrolling with the stealth of an undercover agent.

Her mouth curved into a smile the moment she saw the sender. She couldn’t, for the life of her, remember when she’d started smiling instead of scowling whenever Shauna’s name popped up on her screen. It was certainly worth being concerned about. But perhaps a problem for another day.

[Shauna] u in class?

[Jackie] I might be. 

[Shauna] got u coffee :)

Jackie’s brow arched at the mention of her favourite addiction.

[Jackie] Benedict Hall, 242C. I’ll be done in ten. 

[Shauna] cool 

[Shauna] ill be there in 10

Shauna was, in fact, waiting for her when the professor dismissed them. Cup of coffee on hand, wide toothy grin on her face, and the usual disaster of an outfit that seemed to have been picked out from what was lying on her floor this morning.

“Miss me?” 

The comment might’ve been referring to the fact they hadn’t seen each other since Jackie slept over last weekend. Or maybe Shauna simply assumed her presence was so spectacular that Jackie missed her every second of every day.

“Never.” Jackie scoffed as they started walking, fingers threaded together. She tipped her head back, foam cup to her lips. The coffee was warm enough to fight off the chill that would hit the moment they stepped outside.

“You didn’t get one for yourself?” she asked, noticing the lack of caffeine in Shauna’s free hand.

“Nah, it’s not cheat day yet.”

Jackie rolled her eyes, a short laugh escaping her. Right. Of course. How could Jackie forget she was fake-dating a ‘health-conscious’ athlete. The term was being used pretty loosely here. 

“When you have nightmares, do you, like, imagine greasy, sugary foods forcing themselves down your throat?”

“Only you, actually.” Shauna winked.

Jackie wisely didn’t take a sip. She’d learned how Shauna’s idiotic jock brain operated. Instead of choking on a mouthful of coffee and staining her sweater, she actually had the luxury to backhand Shauna’s stomach instead.

Her only response was a ‘oof’ the snack pulled out of her. And a subsequent chuckle. 

“So,” Jackie began, steering them away from wherever the hell Shauna had been trying to take the conversation, “I had an interesting talk with Travis.”

Shauna pushed the double doors open for them, and the cold front immediately assaulted Jackie’s senses. She instinctively stepped into Shauna’s side like a heat-seeking missile.

“I know,” Shauna laughed. “He texted me like four fucking times just to tell me there was nothing secretive going on.”

Jackie shook her head, biting back a laugh. She remained silent for a while, forgetting whatever it was she’d meant to ask. Probably because Shauna had just wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in closer—an event her brain promptly classified as ‘nuclear’.

It wasn’t the closeness that set it off, really. It was moreso the fact that Shauna noticed she was cold without Jackie having to say a word.

“Anyway,” Jackie continued, forcing her brain to restart, “he seemed nervous about scouts and being… recruited or something.”

“If we don’t get signed as rookies in the next few years, we’re pretty much screwed,” Shauna said, voice unusually quiet.

Well, that certainly put things in perspective. Like the seriousness of Lottie’s now resolved fight with Natalie. Or Shauna’s habit of treating every loss like a death sentence suddenly made a lot more sense.

“And are you signed to a team?”

Shauna went still. The air between them tightened, a beat too long for comfort. Her gaze dropped to the ground, expression unreadable but her shoulders a little too tense. Jackie could tell she’d hit something tender.

“Not yet,” Shauna said at last.

Optimist, at least.

“How?” Jackie asked, incredulous and frankly, miffed on the captain's behalf. “You’re the best player on the team.”

Something flickered behind Shauna’s eyes. For a split second, she looked exactly how Jackie felt: frustrated, and perhaps a little scared. Then, just as quickly, the switch flipped. The grin came back.

“Damn, why couldn’t you be one of the scouts?” she joked, and leaned down to give Jackie a quick peck on the lips.

It wasn’t unwarranted. Not really. They were in public, sure, but it felt less like affection and more like a diversion. A clean, practiced way to end the conversation before Jackie could ask anything else. Not that it was really Jackie’s business. Still, she thought that being friends, whatever the hell that even meant for them—should count for something. 

And this felt like something friends should be able to talk about.

Jackie decided it wasn’t the right time to prod the volatile bear for more information.

“Hey, Jackie?” Shauna asked after a stretch of silence.

Jackie turned, one eyebrow raised. They were weaving through clusters of students as they moved toward the cafeteria.

Shauna slowed, then stopped completely, forcing Jackie to halt too. Jackie’s sigh was loud enough to draw a glance from a passing freshman.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Shauna asked.

“We usually visit my sister and her fiancé.”

God. Jackie couldn’t imagine the type of conversation Eric and Shauna would have. Probably a staring contest with a wall.

“Oh. Okay. Cool.”

And then Shauna went quiet again.

“Will you just fucking spit it out already?” Jackie muttered.

Shauna exhaled sharply, eyes avoidant. “I’m going to my mom’s. In Dallas. I know it’s a bit much—and you totally don’t have to say yes—but she’s been asking to meet you. I figured maybe, if you wanted, you could come with me?”

Jackie blinked. On one hand, she kind of did owe Shauna for everything she’d done. On the other, she’d gladly fake some rare, highly contagious illness if it meant avoiding her sister again this soon. So maybe meeting her fake-girlfriend’s mother was the lesser evil.

“I’ll come,” Jackie said, tone decisive.

“Really?”

“Did I stutter?”

It only truly hit her as they joined a few Longhorn players at one of the tables that she was actually going to meet Shauna’s mother. And the whole act of pretending to be enamoured with Shauna wasn’t even the hardest part (she knew very well why). The real challenge would be facing a woman who might take one look at her and decide she wasn’t good enough for her daughter.

Fuck.

The day of reckoning was finally upon Jackie. The one which she’d dreaded the most since even agreeing to this tomfoolery. She stood on the soccer field, far more dressed than the rest of the Longhorns, who, despite the chill in the air, still wore their usual uniforms.

Jackie wore a track suit. Underneath was a Longhorn’s training uniform. One which, she a) absolutely did not want to be seen in, and b) would have frozen her tits off wearing. Sure, she much preferred cooler temperatures. But the idea of having to run around in said weather did not at all appeal to her senses in the least. 

Maybe it was the organized sports of it all. Or maybe she’d much rather do yard work at the house, instead of having to socialize. 

Nat had lent her a pair of cleats too, claiming they were her extra pair. Same size, same fit. Though that didn’t quite erase Jackie’s discomfort at wearing something that had probably been soaked in her best friend’s girlfriend’s sweat.

She tried not to think about it too much. 

Spoiler: she already failed that simple task. 

A pass was thrown her way, and Jackie simply stood there, arms crossed, as the ball collided against her feet and rolled away lifelessly. 

Shauna jogged her way, ponytail bouncing, that inexplicable arm sleeve on, and the usual happy grin on her face. 

“You wanna stop a pass with the side of your cleat,” she demonstrated, kicking the ball a few feet away and running to stop it.

“And, in the event that I don’t wanna, like, at all?” Jackie grumbled, when Shauna did some fancy… foot movement thing with the ball.

Shauna chuckled, hands on her hips. Smile still bright as the sun Jackie wished was just a tad warmer this morning.

“Told ya never to make deals with Van.”

“Yes.” Jackie blew out a long-suffering sigh. “And I deeply regret it now.”

“You’re here,” Shauna shrugged. Like it was that simple. “Might as well join in.”

Jackie rolled her eyes, even if Shauna was being entirely reasonable. “Must I really?”

That was when Shauna’s smile turned into a maniacal grin, as she leaned in to whisper: “Don’t you wanna prove them all wrong?”

Jackie’s jaw ticked. She glanced around. All of them were looking, giggling. Maybe at her, maybe at something else entirely. Still. Shauna knew to appeal to Jackie’s competitive side, and this annoyed her.

“You might get to kick a ball in Van’s face.”

Jackie perked up at the mention of gratuitous violence. 

“That’s a…” Jackie paused, eyes snapping directly onto the goalie who was doing some inhuman looking leg stretching in front of her net. “Very good point.”

“That’s my girl.” Shauna let out a laugh as she jogged backwards. “Passing first,” she shouted, “then shooting.”

Okay. Whatever. It appeared as though Jackie was really going to do this. And it wasn’t because she had a praise kink or whatever, but… well, perhaps she very well did.

After some surprisingly apt coaching from Shauna, and some remarks from her father (not at all welcomed), Jackie managed to get the hang of moving the ball pretty easily. It wasn’t that difficult, really. And people were paid millions for this?

Absolutely ludicrous.

Wade blared his whistle, nearly shattering Jackie’s eardrums. 

“Let’s run some plays, ladies,” he shouted. “Shipman, Scattorcio and Jackie on offense. Turner, Ibarra, Stevens on defence.”

The longhorns assumed their position. Jackie relied on Shauna’s guidance to place herself in the right spot on the field. Right. Something about being between the two white lines near the… center circle? Whatever. It didn't matter. Jackie despised the way Allie was looking at her and she’d sooner die of embarrassment than lose to someone with that smug of a face.

The fuck was her problem?

“Ain’t complicated: ya score, ya get a pat on the head. Now move it!”

That damned whistled blared again, cutting through the quiet field.

Nat took the ball up the middle, weaving through the cones before sending it off toward Jackie. The pass was clean, Jackie caught it with the inside of her foot and started downfield just like she’d practiced with Shauna. 

But the Allie cut in fast, sliding in a tackle and kicking the wall from Jackie’s possession. 

Coach’s whistle cut through the field, again.

“Jackie!” he barked. “Protect that ball! Keep your shoulders in, make ‘em work for it!”

Allie trotted back to her spot, lips pulled into the smuggest shit-eating grin Jackie ever had the displeasure of witnessing. She’d wipe it off her face. Somehow. Some way. It’ll be gone by the end of this. 

Jackie exhaled through her nose, jaw tight, pretending the failed attempt didn’t sting the ego. She shed off her tracksuit jacket, and reclaimed her earlier position. 

Next play, Nat moved the ball past the halfwayline. This time, the pass went to Shauna. She drove it forward and fired a shot from just outside the box, but Van blocked it with both hands.

“You know damn well you’re not scoring on me with that weak shot!” Van teased. She threw the ball to Tai, who moved it down to center field. 

Shauna raised her middle finger high, smirk on her lips. No witty comeback this time? Curious. Perhaps she was waiting to actually score. Actually, Jackie was almost certain of it. 

“That’s better work, girls. Keep it movin’.”

Third time. Jackie received the ball early and pushed it down the sideline. She could already feel Allie closing in again, footsteps practiced and rapid like the fucking Terminator zeroing in on its target. 

Jackie halted her movement, stopped the ball under her foot, waited just long enough for Allie to commit, then tapped it back, right into Shauna’s path.

Shauna moved like a lighting bolt. She was behind Allie before the defender could even blink. Two strides, a swing, and the ball hit the back of the net.

“C’mon, Red, stop the ball! Don’t just watch it going past you!” Shauna taunted, arms spread as wide as her grin.

“A wise woman once said something perfect for this exact moment,” Van said. “Fuck you, Shipman.”

“Love you too!” Shauna shot back, just before she turned and jogged over to Jackie. Cheeks flushed a shade of pink that made her look, dare Jackie think, cute. 

“As captain,” Shauna said, “it’s my duty to beg you to join my team.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Jackie wasn’t entirely sure why everyone was looking at her like they’d seen a ghost of soccer players past. She simply did the most logical thing based on the information she had. 

She knew all too well from being forced to witness this horrible sport that the easiest way to shake an opposing player was to pass.

So she passed. 

Easy.

“Please,” Shauna dropped to her knees. See? Dramatic. “For me?”

Jackie almost reminded the idiot jock that she wasn’t actually obligated to do anything for her. Or to ensure Shauna’s everlasting happiness. Or to mortifyingly become what she’d once hated—still hated to some degree. 

“I’m not joining a stupid sports team, Shauna.”

Jackie’s spidey sense tingled. She understood the moment she noticed that Allie stood a few feet away, arms crossed, eyes on them the entire time.

There it was. Smugness shattered. Victory.

Bitch.

Jackie turned her attention to a much better sight of Shauna kneeling in front of her. She didn’t seem convinced about Jackie’s refusal. She never did. For anything.

This was such a bad fucking idea.

“If y’all got enough wind to flap them jaws, you sure got enough to run me some suicides. Ain’t that right, ladies?”

Everyone groaned.

Shauna was already on the ground, so her lament consisted of her falling forward, forehead to the grass, like she was petitioning Wade to have pity on them. 

He did not. 

Jackie blanched when the familiar term sent a wave of flashbacks through her mind. She’d seen her father run the toughest girls into the ground with this drill. And Jackie had selectively forgotten that practice with the Longhorns also involved setting fire to her lungs.

She absolutely regretted everything. Being there. But most of all, she regretted having been born in the first place. By the end of the cardio session her drill sergeant of a father had them run, Jackie was collapsed on the field by the benches, curled into herself.

“I’m dying,” she croaked out. Cheeks flushed. Or rather, her entire face was. Her bun had given up half an hour ago, strands of hair were sticking to her sweat-covered forehead. Her clothes were drenched. She felt absolutely disgusting, and worst of all, drained of her life force. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to feel happiness again. 

“I think she needs a protein bar,” Melissa offered with a chuckle.

“Electrolytes,” someone else said. 

But it was Shauna who supplied the right answer: “Coffee.”

Jackie pushed herself up at the mere mention of the word. “I’m not going to be on this earth for much longer. It’s the least you could fucking do,” Jackie hissed through still-heaving lungs.

She hadn’t meant to redirect her anger at Shauna. She was simply the first moron who decided to kneel down next to her. 

Wade trotted down the field moments later, hulking from making its way towards them. 

“Good to know I didn’t go and kill my youngest girl,” he observed, mustache twitching with some sort of great satisfaction at her suffering. Or perhaps it was simply for the fact that Jackie had actually joined practice, something he’d no doubt been praying for every night. 

“You most definitely did,” Jackie lamented. “This has to be hell.”

Everyone laughed. Except Allie. Even if Jackie was focusing on Shauna’s gorgeous brown eyes, she sensed evil somewhere on the field. And seeing as Claire was back home in Hades, it couldn’t be her. 

Jackie might have made a new enemy this day. 

The evil will be defeated once again. Mark her words. 

The weekend was rapidly approaching, signalling the end of yet another week. Which also meant Jackie was another week closer to meeting Shauna’s mother. And she was no closer to finding out how she should act towards the woman. Shauna had been less than forthcoming with information, claiming that she was pretty simple and nice in nature. 

But Jackie knew to be wary, no parent was simple, or nice, or even normal when it came to who their kid is dating. Except Wade, he probably talked about Shauna more than Jackie ever did. Which is slightly concerning, or would be, if she knew he wasn’t confident in the fact that he was coaching the next big soccer star. Jackie wished Shauna would see that, but she seemed to be the kind of person that was harsh on no one but herself.

The evening after the practice she violently suffered through, she caught her father scrolling through the school uniform submission form.

“We’re missin’ number nine…” Wade had said. Like that was supposed to sway Jackie being very against joining an organized sports team.

“Forget it. It’s not happening.”

After that adamant reply, Jackie had hidden herself away from her father’s pout for the rest of the evening. If there was one thing she knew she’d easily succumb to, it was his puppy dog eyes. Treacherous things. 

Either way, Jackie had to fight texts from the entire Longhorn team asking her why she hadn’t attended practice the next morning. That Sunday’s game was going to be on another campus and that she should probably get a move on and get her uniform ordered and ready. 

Shauna was less than helpful, as usual. Hell, Jackie was almost certain the captain had bullied her entire team into sending her these messages. The traitor.

Which was why, when Jackie found Shauna cornered between a vending machine, and a woman who was standing oddly close to her, she let her idiotic jock of a fake-girlfriend deal with it. Even if she sent Jackie a S.O.S signal with her eyes. Even if her smile showed her obvious discomfort.

Jackie couldn’t give less of a fuck if some soccer fanatic was acting like Shauna owed her something. If she wanted to become a professional athlete, she’d have to develop that skill all on her own. It was never too early to start practicing. At least, that’s what the little devil on her shoulder assured her.

Jackie sauntered up to the vending machine in question, she had a great need for caffeine and not nearly enough time to run to Beanu’s and get her fix before her next class. So she settled for the bottled cold brews. Not the most eloquent way to get rid of her caffeine headache, but it would work just as well.

“Hey, babe…” Shauna attempted.

Jackie deflected it with a sarcastic smile, closely followed by a glare.

“I see you’re busy,” Jackie uselessly reported the obvious. Shauna shifted her weight from one foot to another. She couldn’t take a step back from the girl, small, redhead, most definitely did not understand the concept of personal space. “I’ll see you later.”

“No!” Shauna practically shouted, hand gripping Jackie’s wrist. 

Jackie had to fight a smirk and a laugh all at once. 

“I mean—weren’t we going for lunch?” Shauna asked. Or rather, blatantly lied. 

She did really want out of this situation.

“No, Shauna. I have a class in five minutes.”

It was refreshing. Seeing her squirm for once.

Jackie’s smirk, however, fell a little when her eyes scanned the redhead’s. She definitely was not basking in the pleasure of Shauna’s discomfort. In fact, she seemed pretty fucking miffed that Jackie existed.

“We were in the middle of a conversation,” the girl had the absolute fucking boldness to utter. 

Now, normally, Jackie would have walked away. Would have left Shauna to deal with her own little club of fanatics, but this bitch—this fucking bitch had to make it about her.

She stepped between Shauna and the other woman.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jackie hissed, chin high, voice low, “is my presence an inconvenience to you?”

The girl, however small, was mighty nonetheless. She stood her ground. “You know, like, if it wasn’t for you, I'd totally be the one dating Shauna.”

Jackie didn’t know exactly what she was expecting. But it certainly wasn’t anywhere near that. By a fucking country mile.

Shauna remained mute, and watched on with an uncomfortable chuckle. 

The words tumbled past Jackie’s lips before she could contain them. “Even if I wasn’t dating Shauna, which would be a net negative for her, she wouldn’t be into some ginger sl—”

Shauna swiftly covered Jackie’s mouth with her hand, and cut in with a far less harsh: “Look, I should have said I wasn’t single anymore. But Jackie and I wanted to keep it quiet in the beginning. I didn’t want it going around campus before she was ready to tell her friends.”

That was probably the most mature thing Jackie ever heard Shauna utter. Which was entirely different from Jackie’s own reaction of the matter at hand.

Whatever. That girl had it coming. 

Jackie Taylor couldn’t be very well known by other students as the girl who let other women openly flirt with her girlfriend. That just wouldn’t do.

The girl scoffed, eyes narrowed at Jackie. Until, her gaze lovingly landed on Shauna. “I’ll see you around,” she said, gaze lingering a tad too long, just before leaving down the busy corridor. 

Jackie jerked forward, possibly to tackle the woman to the ground, she hadn’t decided, but her legs moved on their own. Fortunately, a strong arm around her waist stopped her.

“Drink your coffee,” Shauna chuckled. “Take a breather.”. 

Jackie shoved Shauna off her. And noticed how much time she had actually spent on this… situation. “I’ll be late for class.”

“I’ll walk you,” Shauna immediately answered. Like she had to apologize for something. Which she didn’t. Not really.

Jackie threw a slight glare over her shoulder at the captain. “Don’t you want to walk Ginger Spice to class instead?”

Shauna let out an incredulous laugh. Mouth open, about to come out with some sort of ridiculous defence, until Jackie broke character. 

Maybe it was the sip of coffee she took that greatly improved her mood, or perhaps it was the fact that it was Jackie who Shauna had her arm around, and not that bimbo.

“Dude, I thought you were gonna murder her.”

“I can’t very well let other women flirt with you, now can I?” Jackie whispered. It was a sound theory, really. Jackie knew how college women operated. Mark your territory or watch everyone pissing all over it. “It’ll look bad on me.”

Shauna hummed in agreement. Then said,  moments later: “Remeber the chick I told you I was texting when we… first got together?”

Jackie’s mouth opened in shock, only for it to wear off seconds later. It tracked. With her luck and Shauna’s complete idiocy. “Surely you’re joking?”

Shauna let out a laugh, like this one, much like everything else, was of no matter to her. “Guess she didn’t take the ghosting too well.”

“No shit,” Jackie chuckled, stopping in front of the lecture hall her class was held in, spinning to face the (marginally) taller soccer player. “This is me.”

“Okay. Uh, I’ll see you later? Maybe?” And, as if on cue, Shauna’s sudden bashfulness was out in full force. As if this was the first time they’d been seen together.

“Maybe,” Jackie echoed, pushing herself on the tips of her toes, hand fisting the front of Shauna’s shirt. Her lips were cold, she knew that much. She wondered if Shauna tasted the coffee on her tongue. If it bothered Shauna, she didn’t show it, considering how she didn’t hesitate to deepen the kiss. 

And, through all of this, perhaps it was dawning on Jackie how coffee wasn’t her only addiction. The way Shauna held to her jaw and brushed her thumb against her cheek was starting to become a serious fixation of hers. 

Jackie sat at her desk, earbuds blasting a podcast she was only half listening to while she worked on Claire’s dress. It had started with shoulder pieces attached to the bust, but somehow it had evolved into something completely strapless. Both she and Claire had been blessed with the wide-shoulder gene—it’d be a crime to hide them.

This was the kind of bias-free design she’d get to make once she actually landed a job in fashion. She just had to detach from the demon living under Claire’s flawless skin and see her as a client, not a person.

(If she wasn’t a total fucking bitch.)

The podcast helped with that part.

Jackie was sketching a new hemline, stylus gliding across her tablet, when a sudden warmth on her shoulder made every self-defense instinct flare. She was ready to spin around and dropkick whoever it was, but Jackie was a little more lenient in her judgment when she saw who it was.

“That’s pretty,” her best friend said in lieu of greeting. Then, with a raised brow: “Too pretty.”

“I know,” Jackie sighed, pulling out her earbuds one by one. “But I won’t have her evil highness taint my good name as a clothes designer before my career even starts.”

“Smart,” Lottie said, tossing her bag onto the bed before collapsing after it. “Hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t find the motivation to keep doing my readings without your judgmental stare.”

Jackie pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m so honored.”

Lottie settled herself on the bed, back against the headboard, long legs crossed, books spread like a buffet of scholarly misery before her.

Jackie was about to place her earbuds back in, when Lottie asked: 

“So how are things with Shauna?”

Jackie spun in her chair, arms crossed, judgmental stare at the ready. “Thought you were here to do your assignments?”

“Are you deflecting?”

Jackie’s eyes rolled at the irony that was Lottie accusing her of such tactics, when she herself was employing them. Whatever, a little break couldn’t do that much harm to her concentration.

“It’s fine. Good. Better than good. Everything is great. Fantastic even.”

Lottie remained silent for a moment. She leaned forward, Dark eyes scanning, evaluating, pinpointing the obvious flaw to Jackie’s statement. She finally concluded: “Liar.”

“I’m serious,” Jackie protested.

Lottie’s expression said otherwise.

Jackie let her head fall back, blowing out an annoyed breath. “Fine. She’s just been… unusually, secretive or whatever, about this whole sport scouting thing. I know she’s stressing out, big time, but she won’t fucking talk about it.”

Lottie leaned back against the headboard, a lazy hum escaping her mouth. “I can only get Nat to open up about anything after sex.”

“Post-nut…” Jackie squinted, brain short-circuiting halfway through the thought. “Post-nut something.”

“Sharing?” Lottie offered, grimacing.

Jackie pointed a finger at her, trying to appear serious. “You should write a thesis on that.”

Lottie’s eyes widened in mock grandeur. “And when I get my psych doctorate, I’ll be known as the ‘Post Nut Lady’.”

Jackie barely made it a second before she broke, laughter bursting out “Doctor Nut—” She didn’t even finish before dissolving into a fit of violent giggles.

Lottie stood up from the bed, then mimed removing a pair of invisible glasses (inexplicably) and said, in a low voice meant to sound provocative and sensuous: 

“Doctor Nut will see you now.”

Jackie lost her shit. The kind of laughter that stole all of your air gave stomach aches. Lottie tried to stay composed but ended up wheezing, knees giving out as she collapsed onto the carpet, choking on a snort.

Jackie slid off her chair, tears stinging her eyes, wheezing between sharp intakes of air. “Stop—I’m gonna piss myself—"

Lottie gasped for air. “You—you started it—”

Safe to say, Lottie did little reading. When the laughter finally left them, Wade barked out that dinner was ready. Lottie stayed. She always did. Especially during fall when Jackie’s father made the most delicious comfort meals. This was his white girl pumpkin spice season, but for stews and chili. 

Maybe Jackie didn’t entirely figure out how to help Shauna with her soccer issue, and it didn’t need saying that the whole ‘nut’ thing was pretty much out of the fucking question. But one thing was evidently clear: Jackie wanted to help.

Friends did that right? They wanted to help each other. Make the other feel better. That was totally within platonic territory. Well, except for all the ways her brain helpfully supplied many, many (and it can’t be understated how many) unique ways she could make Shauna feel better. None of which could be categorized as ‘friendly’, much less anything achievable.

Jackie chalked it up to blue balls, or whatever. That’s what men did right?

Yep. Just a naturally and perfectly normal case of blue balls.

Jackie wondered how her life had led her to this exact moment, sitting across from Shauna who was demolishing a wagyu beef burger like she hadn’t eaten in days. Must’ve been some karmic debt from a past life. Or maybe just fate being an asshole.

Either way, Jackie leaned forward and stole a few fries from Shauna’s plate. Just punishment.

“You told me you weren’t hungry,” Shauna said between a mouthful, not bothering to chew and swallow—as would be proper etiquette in any social setting.

“I’m not,” Jackie replied and then pointedly stole more fries, stuffing them in her mouth. “I’m just helping you eat faster so I can go home.”

Shauna frowned, freezing mid-bite, eyes shooting up to Jackie’s. “You’re not staying over?”

“We have to prep the stables for winter.”

Shauna hummed, the sound noncommittal and distracted. Though there was still a slight crease to her brow, like there was something going on in that head of hers, other than thinking about food and kicking balls.

“I have working hands. And legs,” she said finally, more statement than offer.

“That you do,” Jackie surmised. Of course, she was simply being facetious on purpose. Wade would love nothing more than having Shauna help him diligently. And yet, forcing Shauna into labour when she already has soccer, and her studies to take also focus on, felt incredibly selfish.

Jackie plucked another fry from Shauna’s plate.

Shauna’s glare was mild, voice flat. “Okay, I’m ordering you fries.”

“I already told you I wasn’t hungry enough for that,” Jackie defended, hilariously, around a mouthful. So what? Manners only applied to her present company. Not to herself.

“Hey, sorry!” Shauna called, waving their server over.

The girl had two plates in her hands, and an empty drink in the other. She wore a big smile, and a bigger bun. 

“We’re fine,” Jackie said quickly, grabbing Shauna’s hand and pressing it to the table before she could say another word. “Thank you.”

She gave her best polite smile, though it was hard to maintain while Shauna wriggled free and slapped her hand right back on top of Jackie’s.

“No problem, at all. Y’all know my name if ya need anythin’.” 

A couple of gum smacks, and she was gone.

Jackie seized the silence before Shauna could start up again. “So. Tell me about your mom, so I don’t totally humiliate both of us when we visit.”

“You won’t,” Shauna reassured with a dismissive scoff.

Jackie fought the urge to roll her eyes and instead leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand. “What’s she like?”

Shauna shrugged. “You really need to stop worrying. She’ll love you.”

“At the very least, can you tell me what we’ll likely be doing? So I can pack accordingly.”

Shauna took an enormous bite of her burger right as Jackie asked, forcing her to wait—arms crossed, eyes murderous—as the beast across from her chewed.

Finally, Shauna swallowed. “We’re going to the Cowboys game on Friday.”

“What is that, like, Baseball?”

Shauna went perfectly still, studying her face like she couldn’t decide if Jackie was joking or just tragically sports-illiterate.

She wasn’t joking.

“Football,” Shauna replied flatly.

“How wonderful.” Was Jackie’s sarcastic-heavy reply. “Anything else planned for your lovely girlfriend?”

At the very least, Jackie sort of understood how American football worked. Emphasis on ‘sort of’. It made even less sense to her than soccer, but she could at least pretend.

“You’ll see when we get there,” Shauna answered with a wink. One which she knew greatly infuriated Jackie. As much as her vague and totally useless replies did.

“Great,” Jackie muttered, leaning back into her seat. Shauna was nearly done with her meal, and Jackie was already running out of patience. “So I can’t pack, I don’t know how to act around your mother, and I—”

“Oh, right! You should bring something formal,” Shauna interrupted, as if she’d just remembered.

“Formal?” Jackie echoed. Confused as to what formal event Shauna would ever attend.

“That’s what I just said, dude.”

Jackie made a face and stole another fry from Shauna’s plate. 

Actions have consequences, Shipman.

“And you’ll be wearing…?” Jackie asked, cautious now, like she already knew what kind of answer was coming.

Shauna opened her mouth, but Jackie raised a hand before she could get a word out.

“Let me guess. Another surprise?”

Shauna chuckled, the sound quiet and smug. 

Whatever. Jackie could work with that information, however limited. A nice dress.  A little leg, but not too much. Medium heel. Warm clothes for something probably outdoorsy. Easy. She was already assembling outfits in her head, mentally flipping through her wardrobe, when Shauna’s next comment completely derailed the process.

“Talked to Jeff yesterday.”

Jackie froze mid-thought. “Why?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Cornered me after practice.”

That certainly was his modus operandi.

“And you’re telling me this now!?”

Shauna shrugged, unbothered. As if she hadn’t almost gotten into a fist fight with him at the Halloween Bash. “If I don’t show up with a black eye, then there’s nothing much to say.”

“Oh my God, Shauna, you—” Jackie caught herself, and exhaled sharply. She couldn’t exactly yell at her fake girlfriend for dealing with her ex-boyfriend, no matter how psychotic or self-absorbed he was.

She tried again, calmer this time. “You shouldn’t have to deal with his bullshit.”

“Yeah? Neither should you.”

Well. Hard to argue with that logic. Fine. They were even. Whatever.

By the time the waitress came back around, Shauna ordered a key lime pie. Jackie waved her off, insisting she didn’t want any. Shauna gave her a look, then ordered two.

Jackie dipped her spoon into one anyway. Hunger wasn’t the issue, pride was, and she was losing that battle fast. “What did he even say? I can’t imagine Jeff suddenly wanted to bond.”

Shauna was hunched over her cake like she was trying to protect it from Jackie, even if she had her own. “According to him, I should enjoy it while I can, before the rebound thing fades and you come crawling back.”

Jackie blinked, once. Twice. Then let out a disbelieving laugh.

Surely Jeff suffered too many football-induced concussions if he believed intimidating Shauna was going to make Jackie suddenly want to run back into his arms. As if he was the best thing she’d ever had. As if he’d been the best thing she’d ever had. When, in reality, the fake girlfriend she’d been fake-dating for three months was better in literally every conceivable way.

Fucking moron.

“Please tell me you laughed in his face and walked away?” Jackie said.

Shauna tilted her chin toward Jackie’s half-finished plate. “You gonna eat that?”

Rolling her eyes, Jackie slid it across the table.

Shauna forked a bite and, between chews, said, “Told him if he wants you to come running back, he should probably learn how to give real orgasms.”

Jackie choked. “How the hell—”

“Nat,” Shauna said, like that explained everything.

Jackie gaped at her. “Oh, so that you’ll talk about? But not literally anything else?”

Once Jackie was over the mortifying news that the Longhorns were aware of her lack of… finishing, she pulled out her phone, leaning back just enough to get Shauna and her tower of empty plates in frame.

“What are you doing?” Shauna asked, though she immediately struck a pose anyway. Thumbs up. Stupid grin.

“Just documenting the aftermath,” Jackie said. “The world deserves to know how much of a pig you are.”

“Hey, I deserve it after that game,” Shauna defended through a low chuckle.

“You did play well,” Jackie admitted, because she wasn’t heartless.

Shauna cocked her head. “Would’ve played better if you’d been on the field with us.”

“Not happening,” Jackie hissed, but there was no bite in it.

Shauna just shrugged like she knew something Jackie didn’t. Like she’d seen the future and found it funny.

Maybe she had.

Jackie reached across the table, grabbed Shauna’s drink, and took a long, pointed sip through the straw.

“Thought you weren’t thirsty?” Shauna asked, smirk far from subtle.

“I’m not,” Jackie said, before finishing it off.

Shauna’s laugh came out bright and a little too close. Jackie tried not to smile, failed miserably, and looked away.

They left the restaurant still laughing, too loud for the quiet street outside, too close for two people who were supposed to be pretending.

Two weeks. That’s all Jackie had to prepare for a weekend with Shauna’s mother. And she’d been given the least amount of information humanly possible. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong besides a gigantic fucking disaster?

At least a little time away from this place, and from Jeff, might do them both some good.