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The crickets grow louder as the throng of inebriated teens around Van begin disappearing into the night. The party has thinned out considerably during Jackie Taylor’s mandatory team bonding activity.
Leave it to Taylor to think a few compliments could fix the trust on the team that had been fractured long before Allie’s leg. But how could someone who’s never faced a real problem in her life be expected to solve one?
Jackie and Shauna left with Jeff right after and Nat stumbled back to her friends, at least the ones she actually spent time with these days, higher than Van had ever seen her before.
Misty lingers awkwardly a few yards away as Lottie, Laura Lee, Taissa, and Van all stand huddled together in a small circle having what could barely be called a conversation. It is really more of an excuse not to have to interact with the remaining baseball players who kept glancing in their groups direction with a glimmer of hope in their eyes that was really quite comical. But only three out of the four of their group were in on the joke.
Taissa has stayed right next to Van since Van switched places with four of their teammates just to be next to her when they all lined up earlier for the Jackie Taylor show. Tai as might as well have already been in Seattle though, with how distant she’s been since the Allie incident earlier. Her quip to Van during coerced team bonding about “girl scout camp” had given her false hope that they were back to normal.
She had really hoped that they wouldn’t have to talk about it. That she wouldn’t have to ask her what Nat meant by “Taissa’s little plan.” Van doesn’t want to have to ask her the questions swirling in her mind that she hasn’t been able to drink away, even after her fourth shitty beer.
But the questions she doesn’t really want answers to have grown as the flame of the bonfire a few yards away has begun to dwindle. Was what Nat said true earlier, did you have a plan? Why Tai, why did you tell Nat and Shauna and not me? When did you stop trusting me? Have you ever really trusted me? Did you think I was too weak for whatever you had planned? God, Tai, what even did you have planned? Did you think I would think less of you, if I knew? If you did, how could you believe that Tai? How could you believe I could ever stop lo – caring about you?
Van dreads the seemingly impending conversation. It’s worse than waiting for practice to end the day last fall that coach made Jackie team captain instead of Tai. Back then at least they had the common enemy of Taylor to turn their frustration towards. Van can’t fix this one by interjecting Tai’s rant with a few choice jokes about their team captain.
Who’s the enemy here? Van can’t let it be Taissa, and she can’t find away to blame herself, she’s tried.
She’s wholly unequipped for this. Van deals in humor and sarcasm and making Tai laugh, not this. They don’t do this. It’s not who they are. Their relationship is supposed to be fun and light and convenient. They never let it get too heavy or real… Taissa isn’t dating her for serious conversations, she’s dating Van because she’s funny and can match her wit and because she’s a distraction. The second Van stops being those things for her; the second she slips up and allows Tai to glimpse that this is more than a high school fling…
Van can’t be inconvenient. She’ll lose her and she can’t lose her. At least not until the fall anyway…
Van stares down into her empty red solo cup. Anything to avoid looking at Tai. To avoid the risk of her girlfriend catching a glimpse of the hurt Van knows is painted across her face.
She’s debating how long she can avoid the risk of meeting Tai’s gaze when she feels Tai’s thumb brush over the palm of her empty right hand. It’s a small, brief gesture that was likely to go unnoticed, but Tai usually wouldn’t even take that small risk. It scares Van, that Tai is desperate enough to talk to her that she’s willing to let her guard down.
She finally looks over at her and Tai asks the three words Van has dreaded all day, “Can we talk?”
Van hesitates a moment, but this conversation is inevitable and it’s probably better that they have it before nationals.
“Uh… yeah, sure.”
She follows Tai a bit further into Wiskayok Woods, just out of earshot of any straggling party goers.
Van leans back against a tall pine tree with one foot propped up against it, and Tai stands in front of her.
They both stare at each other for a moment as if something between them will break when the silence between them does.
Tai looks at Van, her eyes are glassy in the moonlight like she’s on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry, Van.”
“Tai, it’s fi –”
“No, it’s not fine. I never meant to hurt her, but I should’ve told you about the plan to freeze her out. I just…”
“Thought I would try to talk you out of it?”
“Yeah, I did. God, you must think I'm an awful person.”
Van sighs, “No, I just think you wanted the team to win. You wanted what was best for everyone, and you made a tough call that a lot of people wouldn’t have been able to make. You couldn’t have known she would get hurt.”
“Can you forgive me… for not telling you?”
“Yeah, I forgive you…” Van hesitates a moment trying to decide if Tai will run if she admits what’s been weighing on her all day, “I just – I want you to know that you can trust me. I can handle it, Tai. I guess, I just want you to know that you don’t have to make all the hard calls alone…”
Tai studies Van for a moment like she’s taking in the full implications just beneath the surface of her words.
Van releases a shaky breath she didn’t know she was holding when Tai reaches out and strokes her cheek, “I want that, too, Van. There’s no one else on the team I trust more.”
I care about you, Tai. I’m actually afraid I might lo –
“There’s no one else I trust more either, you know?”
“I know,” Tai smiles softly before it fades again, “Can I tell you something, even if it doesn’t make sense?”
“You can tell me anything.”
“I’m scared, Van.”
“Tai…” Van carefully scans the woods to make sure they’re alone before clasping Tai’s hands gently, “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember any of it. I was on the field headed for Allie and then and then…”
Van has never seen Tai afraid before or, at least, she’s never seen her let her guard down enough to show her she’s scared. She traces a small circle with her thumb on the side of Tai’s hand.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Van brushes a tear away from Tai’s cheek, “It was traumatic Tai, I think it’s normal to like block that out, you know?”
“Maybe, but Van, what if you're wrong? What if there’s something wrong with me? What if I hurt someone again?”
This is insane. Tai wouldn’t hurt anyone. At least never intentionally.
It’s so hard to hear Tai, who cares so deeply about everyone, believe these things about herself. The whole Allie situation happened in the first place because she cares so much about her teammates. Van may be biased, but her kind, caring girlfriend shouldn’t be spending the night before Nationals afraid of herself because she was the only one who cared enough about the team to try to help them win. Maybe if Jackie fucking Taylor had actually tried to be a leader for once, Tai wouldn’t have needed her plan in the first place, and she wouldn’t be breaking like this know.
“Tai, listen to me,” Van says softly, like she’s afraid anything louder will break Tai, “You are one of the most caring people I’ve ever known. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone. You were just stressed, and a terrible accident happened. There’s so much going on between Nationals and graduation and it doesn’t help that you’re constantly forced to be the team leader because our captain is useless.”
Tai lets out a small laugh at Van’s last comment and sighs, “I guess you’re right. I just…”
“Wish it hadn’t happened?”
“Yeah,” Tai reaches out and tucks a strand of red hair that had fallen in front of Van’s face behind her ear, “I’m really glad you’re here, you know?”
“Well, damn Tai, I’m glad I exist, too.” Van laughs it off because this is drifting into uncharted territory for them. Because, talking about anything too real might ground them in the reality of it all too much. Might remind them how risky this all is and could remind Tai how much she has to lose.
Tai laughs along but grows earnest again, “Van, seriously, you’re just so sweet and thoughtful and I hope you know what that means to me…”
What does it mean to you, Tai? Do you feel it, too? This thing between us.
“This all means a lot to me, too…”
“Sometimes I really wish things were different, you know?”
“Different how?” Van questions, as if she wasn’t well acquainted with wishing things were different. With wishing they didn’t have to hide so much. Wishing they could actually plan a future together and believe it.
“I heard Allie, in the locker room before the pep rally. I would’ve asked if only…”
“We weren’t gay in the middle of suburban hell?”
“Yeah… Someday, maybe…”
This is too real. They need a distraction. More importantly Van needs to be fun again.
“So…” Van smirks, “I have an idea.”
“Oh god, do I even want to know?” Tai laughs.
“Well, that depends. Do you want to do something fun tonight?”
Tai checks her watch, “Van, it’s almost two.”
“And we’re eighteen not eighty, Tai.”
“And we have Nationals in the morning.”
“We don’t have ‘Nationals’ tomorrow,” Van bumps her shoulder gently into Tai’s, “We have the flight to Nationals followed by hours of free time in our room to sleep before the team dinner.”
Tai smirks and gets that gleam in her eye that usually is followed by a whispered comment that’s sure to make Van go weak in the knees, “It’s cute that you planned on sleeping in our shared room when we have hours of uninterrupted time together.”
Van blushes, “Point taken, but we can still sleep on the plane.”
“Yeah, you’ll need your rest once we land.”
“Oh, I’ll be ready. But tonight isn’t over yet.”
“The only place open this late is the diner and we’ve been there a hundred times.”
Van raises a brow, “Maybe we need this place to be closed…”
Tai rolls her eyes, “haha great joke, we’re not breaking into some place or whatever the fuck you’re suggesting right now.”
“You see, the beauty of my plan is that we don’t have to break in.”
“Van, no.”
“But you haven’t even heard what I want to do, yet.”
Tai narrows her eyes at Van, “I don’t need to hear it to know that it sounds like a terrible idea that could literally get us arrested.”
“Just let me tell you, and then you can tell me I’m a complete idiot, if it’s a bad idea.”
Tai laughs, “I mean, I can tell you that anyway, but fine.”
“So you know the sign over by Muriel’s?”
“The shrine to the mediocrity of men that they put up as a consolation prize to make them feel better about the fact that they’re going to peak in high school? Yes, I know it well.”
“I knew you’d be onboard with this!”
“Onboard with what, Van? I haven’t agreed to anything.”
“Oh, but you will,” Van smirks.
“Van,” Tai tries to look annoyed, but there’s a little twinkle of amusement in her eye that she can’t conceal.
“Okay, so… I thought… that maybe, it would be fun to make some select corrections to the sign as a last hurrah before Nationals.”
“You want to vandalize a fucking sign the night before the biggest tournament of our lives?” Tai says in a tense whisper, but the twinkle in her eye is still there.
Van elbows Tai playfully, “Come on Tai, you said yourself that it’s like a monument to the patriarchy or whatever.”
“First off, I said it was ‘a shrine to the mediocrity of men’ and it’s not worth the risk.”
“Take a risk for once, Tai. You’re literally about to graduate as Valedictorian, if anyone deserves to live a little for once, it’s you.”
“But what if we get caught? Then what?”
“Then I’ll take the fall for it. It's a harmless prank. What are they going to do?”
“Arrest us, suspend us, or worse, disqualify us from Nationals.”
“Tai, that’s not going to happen. You can be the lookout and if you see anyone, run.”
“Oh yeah, sounds like a great plan, Van. Maybe I can just cast an invisibility spell while I’m at it.”
“Seriously, you’re really going to use my love of DND against me?”
“Well, ‘just run’ isn’t exactly a foolproof plan, babe.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“Yeah, we don’t vandalize the fucking sign,” Tai lowers her voice to a whisper as though she’s afraid the pine trees will rat them out.
“Tai, come on, we’ll be fine. We can park down the block at the diner and just pretend we’re getting food. No one is going to catch us.”
“I don’t know…”
Van smiles, “Look, this is like the best ‘fuck you’ to Wiskayok.”
“And what if I don’t want to say, ‘fuck you’ to Wiskayok?”
“We both know you hate this shitty little town just as much as I do.”
Tai rolls her eyes, “Okay, yeah, I do. But if we get caught…”
“We won’t.”
“But if we do –”
“I’ll take the fall for it.”
“Fine, but we better not get caught.”
“We won’t.”
“I’ll drive?”
“I mean, Lottie drove me here and she’s long gone now.”
Tai laughs as they walk towards the makeshift parking lot in the clearing, “Are you ever going to use your license?”
“Why drive when I can be driven around by beautiful women instead?”
“Oh, women?” Tai playfully swats at Van’s arm, “Do I have competition?”
“Never,” Van checks that they’re actually alone in the clearing before kissing Tai on the cheek.
When they get in Tai’s car Follow You Down by Gin Blossoms starts playing on the chorus.
She was listening to the mixtape. The one she gave to Tai last month.
Van beams over at Taissa in the driver's seat, “So… my taste in music isn’t half bad, huh?”
Tai raises an eyebrow and smirks, “It’s okay… sometimes… when you’re not listening to the same music Jeff Sadecki probably listens to.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure Jeff just loves Sleater-Kinney and The Cranberries,” Van laughs.
“No, but I’m sure he listens to The Offspring…”
Van rolls her eyes, “Oh my god, for the hundredth time, I was listening to them ironically.”
“Sure you were…”
“I was,” Van laughs.
“God, you’re so…”
“Adorable, endearing, hot…”
Tai rolls her eyes, but she can’t stop grinning and looking over at Van the rest of the short drive to the diner.
When they get there, Tai parks her blue Subaru Justy in one of the spaces facing Elm Street, careful to park between the streetlights in case they need cover later.
“Ready?” Van beams over at Tai as she locks the car.
“Do I have another option?” Tai laughs.
Van falters, “We can just, like, get a burger at the diner or something, Tai. I don’t want you to feel like –”
“I’m just joking.”
“Okay, but if you don’t –”
“Van, stop talking before I change my mind,” Tai laughs, “God, you get so in your head sometimes.”
“I do not,” Van counters as they start walking down Elm Street towards Pine Street.
“Babe, you actually asked me if I accidentally kissed you the first time.”
“Hey, I actually asked ‘did you mean to do that?’ I technically never asked if it was an accident.”
“That’s the same thing,” Tai laughs.
“Well, in my defense, my gorgeous, perfect, seemingly ‘straight’ best friend had just kissed me in the middle of an X-Files episode. I think I was allowed to be a little shocked,” Van playfully knocks her shoulder into Tai’s.
“The fact that you thought I was straight until that moment still astounds me…”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Van, I was flirting with you for months.”
It’s not the first time they’ve talked about Van being completely and utterly clueless that Tai was interested in her. Two years ago, Van never could’ve imagined that she would ever be interested in her. She doesn’t miss the days that Tai was just a ‘completely unrequited’ and ‘totally unobtainable’ crush. Most days, she still doesn’t understand what Tai sees in her, but Van will never question it too much for fear that Tai will realize her mistake. Somedays Van wants to ask… but she can never quite find the right words.
“You were?”
Tai just rolls her eyes and interlocks her fingers with Van’s as they turn onto Pine Street.
It’s something so small, but it feels so right to have Tai’s hand in hers. They rarely get to do this, especially not in downtown Wiskayok, or anywhere in public for that matter. They held hands at the beach last summer and it didn’t end well. They haven’t tried again in public really, even away from this little town, since that day.
Except on nights like tonight, when it’s just them, the streetlights, and the stars.
Van smiles down at their interlocked hands before looking over at Taissa.
“What?” Tai smiles back at her.
“It’s silly…”
“Tell me anyway.”
“It’s just like, nice to get to hold your hand or whatever… it’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb… it’s not at all, Van. I wish we could more often…”
“I do, too, Tai…”
There’s a pause where other things could probably be said. Where Van could tell Tai that every night she lays in bed and daydreams about moving to New York with her someday. How Nat has told her it’s a whole different world an hour away. How Lottie told Van about The Village last year and how they wouldn’t be alone there.
But these are all also things Van can’t say to Tai. Not now. Not yet. Probably never…
Things like plans for a future together carry a weight of assumptions to them. Like assuming Tai even wants a future with her when she can probably find someone better… A woman destined for far more than Van.
Tai interrupts the silence, “So… any ideas for the sign?”
“Oh, I have a few,” Van wriggles her eyebrow.
“Tell me.”
Tai smiles over at Van with a look of adoration mixed with captivation, like she’s ready to study every word Van’s about to say like it’s some ancient knowledge and not just some silly little thing she thought. Tai has looked at Van like this hundreds of times in the last four years. Sometimes it’s when she’s explaining the plot of a movie (many times a movie Tai saw with her already) or when she’s talking about some nerdy history fact, or when she’s explaining her plans for a DND campaign, or really any dorky thing Tai wouldn’t care about unless Van was telling her about it. Van’s heart still flutters a bit every time Tai looks at her like this though. It’s like the things that she says and what she thinks and the things she cares about matter to her.
“Well, I’m a bit limited with the letters we're working with, but I thought maybe ‘OUR BOYS SUCK BALLS!!,’ but I’m not sure on that one. Like, I’m going for ironically homophobic, but I’m not sure it will land.”
“Van, half of this town probably couldn’t define ‘ironic’. What else do you have?”
“Could keep it short and sweet with ‘BASEBALL SUCKS!!’”
“Hmmm… any other ideas?”
“What about ‘BOYS ARE PROUDLY LOSERS!!’”
Tai laughs at that one, “I mean, it’s the truth. I feel like you can push it a bit further though…”
“I think I’ve got it! ‘WE’RE PROUD OUR BOYS JACK IT!!’ What do you think?”
“I think that my sweet, adorable, beautiful, funny girlfriend also has a way with words.”
Van blushes, looking down at the cracks in the sidewalk to hide her grin.
“God, you’re so sappy sometimes,” she playfully nudges Tai, “Hey, if I’m just so gifted with words, maybe you’ll let me win at Scrabble next time?”
“Not a fucking chance.”
“You always win though.”
“Why do you think it’s my favorite board game, babe?” Tai smirks.
“Your obsession with always winning is kind of hot, you know.”
Tai just rolls her eyes before gesturing towards the sign about a block ahead of them.
“Van?”
“Yeah?”
“How the hell are you going to get up there to change the sign?”
“Obviously, my hoverboard,” Van laughs, “A ladder, Tai, how else would someone do that?”
“And where are you getting a ladder from?”
“Oh, Nat’s friend Kevyn’s older brother works at Muriel’s and Nat convinced him to leave the ladder behind the dumpster for the night.”
“How’d she do that?”
“Tai, she’s Nat, I learned not to ask too many questions a long time ago.”
“Wait… this was premeditated?”
“Jesus, Tai, you make it sound like we’re murdering someone.”
“I just didn’t expect it to be planned is all.”
“Oh no, we’re committing vandalism in the first degree,” Van giggles.
Tai elbows Van slightly less playfully than earlier.
“Besides, what kind of a butch would I be to take you on a date I didn’t plan?”
“Well, you’d be you, considering I’ve planned most of them.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re better at planning things,” Van laughs.
“Sure, that’s the only reason.”
Van ignores Tai’s quip as they stop in the parking lot of Muriel’s.
Tai turns to Van, “I’m still kind of nervous about doing this. What happens if we get caught?”
“Then I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Tai rolls her eyes and groans, “Really, Van?”
“What? We’ve been over this, babe. Don’t give me an opening to quote a movie, if you don’t want to hear the quote,” Van grins in a way that makes Tai roll her eyes again.
“Sometimes you’re so…”
“Adorable? Endearing?”
“You’re lucky you’re so cute.”
“Oh, so now I’m cute?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“Fine.”
Tai faces Van and pulls her in for a kiss by the collar of her windbreaker.
It’s a brief kiss before Tai pulls away just moments later, but it’s a kiss like they’ve never had before. They’re in public, out in the open. Though no one else is around, it’s special to get to have even a small kiss in a sub shop parking lot instead of in the usual places. The empty locker room. Tai’s bedroom. The backseat of Tai’s Subaru.
Van stares dumbfounded for a moment.
“I – um – I’ll grab the ladder.”
“It’s really cute, you know.”
“What is?”
“How flustered you still get.”
“I do not get flustered,” Van protests as she scurries around the side of the restaurant.
She pretends she’s in a hurry to find the ladder, but it would be hard to miss the flush creeping onto her cheeks even with only the limited light from the streetlights and the drive-thru sign.
“Sure, babe.”
Van drags the ladder out from where it’s hidden behind the dumpster on the right side of Muriel’s. She accidentally clangs the metal ladder against the dumpster with a clatter in the process.
She can see Tai jump a few feet off to her side.
“Try to keep it down,” Tai chides.
“Yeah, because I totally just made a fuckton of noise intentionally.”
“Just be more careful, okay? We can’t get caught.”
“Oh, so I guess I should cancel the marching band, then?”
Tai just rolls her eyes.
Van manages to carry the ladder around the front of the building and set it up against the ‘WE’RE PROUD OF OUR BOYS - VARSITY BASEBALL - GO JACKETS!!’ sign without any additional commotion.
Van turns to Tai with one hand already on the ladder, “Okay, so just like, call up to me if you see anything and then run back to your car.”
“I can’t just leave you if something goes wrong.”
“Tai, I can talk my way out of it. If anything goes wrong, which it won’t, okay?”
“Fine, if anything goes wrong, I’ll run back to the car.”
“I’ll toss the letters down on the other side that I don’t use and we’ll stash them with the ladder after,” Van says as she begins climbing up to the sign.
“Babe,” Tai calls up after Van as she’s almost to the sign.
“Yeah.”
“You’re kind of a badass sometimes.”
“Oh, only sometimes?” Van laughs as she starts rearranging the letters on the sign to spell out a nice message for the fine townsfolk of Wiskayok.
“Don’t push your luck, babe.”
Once Van finishes changing the sign, she descends the ladder and stands back next to Taissa to admire her work.
Van gestures to the sign that now reads ‘WE’RE PROUD OUR BOYS JACK IT!!’ dramatically and takes a bow.
“Ma pièce de résistance.”
“You’re just a true visionary of our generation,” Tai laughs.
Tai quickly gathers up the letters that are in the parking lot while Van grabs the ladder.
As Tai is about to hide all the letters behind the dumpster with the ladder, Van places her hand on top of hers to stop her.
“You know, I think there’s a ‘T’ and a ‘V’ left in here.”
“Why Van Palmer, are you suggesting vandalism and theft in one night?”
“Actually I suggested VAN – dalism,” Van chuckles and Tai groans, “Besides, it’s only theft if they miss the letters and they probably have like five thousand of these in storage.”
“First of all, that’s not what theft is and what would we do with them?”
“I thought we could – forget it, it’s a dumb idea.”
“No, tell me,” Tai smiles reassuringly at Van.
“I thought that you could keep the ‘V’ and I could keep the ‘T’ and we could like, take them to college with us in the fall. It would kind of be like a memento from tonight to like, remember each other or whatever,” Van blushes.
Van’s heart races. Fuck. She shouldn’t have said that. She shouldn’t have brought it up. Going to separate colleges in the fall is one of the many things they never talk about for various reasons.
Tai silently searches the stack of letters and hands Van the ‘T’ and grabs the ‘V’ for herself.
They start heading back towards the diner and just as they turn the corner onto Elm Street Tai pauses.
“What?”
Tai answers just above a whisper, “You know we won’t have to remember each other, right?”
“I just thought… with like, college in the fall…”
“Is that what you want, Van?”
No, Tai, that's not what I want. I want to stay together and eventually I want to move to New York with you and I want to live in The Village with the other lesbians and I want to adopt a cat and…
“What do you want, Tai?”
Tai lays down her giant letter ‘V’ on the sidewalk. Then she faces Van and puts her hands on Van’s shoulders.
“I don’t want to ever have to remember you. I never planned on you just being a memory, not ever, okay?”
“I don’t want to ever have to remember you either, Tai.”
Tai strokes Van’s cheek, “I’m here as long as you’re here.”
They stay like that for a moment in a comfortable silence before Tai picks her letter up, and they continue heading for the dinner. After a few paces, Van intertwines their hands like earlier, and Tai doesn’t drop her hand until they’re beneath the parking lot lights at the diner.
The second they’re in Tai’s, Tai leans over the center console and kisses Van hard.
She pulls back after a moment keeping a hand on Van’s hip, “I’ve been waiting to do that all night.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, the whole vandalism thing was kind of hot.”
“Only ‘kind of’?” Van bites her lip.
“Okay, very hot… You know, you could sleep over tonight,” Tai smirks.
“As much as I want to, we have a flight tomorrow.”
“And you said it yourself that we can just sleep on the plane.”
“I need my bag for the flight.”
“We can pick it up from your house on the way in the morning.”
It’s tempting… It’s really tempting, but…
They can’t risk it. People talk, even teammates, and Van already has a target on her forehead labeled ‘DYKE,’ that she can never forget for too long. They can’t risk showing up together tomorrow and then rooming together all weekend.
She can’t let that happen to Tai. She can’t watch her go through that. She can’t lose her.
“Tai… I really want to –”
“Then stay over.”
“People will talk, Tai. We can’t just show up together in the morning.”
Tai laughs casually, like they haven’t had this exact conversation a dozen times before.
“Van, come on, I’m all for being careful but no one’s going to question ‘best friends’ having a sleep over the night before nationals.”
“They will, Tai. Maybe, if we hadn’t already shown up at school together Monday and Tuesday. We also had that close call after practice. I just –”
It’s always a game of tradeoffs, them being together. Of meticulously calculated risks. Their entire relationship is one giant ticking time bomb of risks and possible collateral damages through no fault of their own.
“Plenty of platonic friends show up places together all the time.”
“Like who?”
“Well, Shauna and Jackie –”
Van laughs wryly, “Well there are some pretty obvious differences between me and Jackie fucking Taylor, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Tai smirks before trying to lean in for another kiss that Van dodges.
“Babe, I’m serious. We can’t, not tonight.”
“It’ll be fine. No one is going to question it.”
“It’s just with us rooming together at Nationals. I don’t want to risk the whole weekend, Tai.”
Tai groans, “You’re right, it’s just I hate–”
“I hate it, too.”
“I meant what I said earlier, you know. About wishing things were different”
“I know, Tai. But they’re not and I don’t know that they ever will be, at least not here…”
“I hope someday…”
“I hope so, too, Tai.”