Chapter Text
Jane Hollander does not like Lily Rozanova. And she’s too polite to say it out loud or admit it anywhere except the journal she keeps hidden under her bed, but she thinks about it a lot. A lot.
They’re teammates, though. And being teammates means they have to get along. At least on the ice. Not on the ice, things are…different.
Lily is in the Business School getting some kind of marketing degree, but Jane’s in Agricultural and Life Sciences, a focused “Nutritional Sciences” major that Madison boasts. Their classes never intersect. Jane lives in a studio apartment near the lake, but Lily’s in a house with some other hockey girls, closer to downtown. These days, they only interact at practice, in training, and during team events.
Last year, their first year at UW, Jane thought they might be friends. The summer that they met, Jane didn’t really hit it off with any of the other girls on the team—she’s not the best at making friends, and even most of the other freshmen already knew each other. Jane and Lily were the only new international students on the team, and so Jane thought—when she noticed Lily at an international student mixer and went up to say hi—that they would maybe, like, be buds. Or at least get along.
But Lily was sarcastic and dismissive and cocky. She was an 18-year-old Russian wunderkind, born with a hockey stick in her hands, and the only freshman on the first line. Clearly it went to her fucking head.
So they don’t get along. Jane is polite, more or less, and admittedly they work well together on the ice. But even now that they’re on the first line together—even now that Lily has gone from the center of her own line to playing rightwing on Jane’s line—their relationship is pretty fucking fraught. Lily never lets her forget that she thinks she should be the center on their line, and they spend every second that they’re in the same room together trying to outdo each other.
One time after a shouting match in the locker room escalated to shoving, their coaches reminded them how much they rely on each other, how much the team relies on their performance, their symbiosis. Lily had muttered something in Russian that sounded fucking rude, even though Jane couldn’t prove it.
But Jane is winning now, she knows. Maybe Lily was at the beginning but not anymore. Jane was the one who scored the winning goal that took them to the Frozen Four last year. Jane was made captain—the only sophomore to earn the title in team history. So Jane tries to remind herself, when she’s feeling particularly sensitive about Lily’s egotistical everything, that she knows she’s the better player. By every conceivable fucking metric.
**
The men’s team is disgusting and rude and, as a group, terrible to hang out with. Individually, however, some of the girls on the women’s team make time for them. Or men belonging to various other social circles, not always athletics.
But not Jane. She’s too busy.
She doesn’t even really socialize except with girls on the team. She studies with some people she takes classes with, but otherwise she’s in her apartment by herself or training with the girls. And sometimes after training they hang out, watch movies, shoot the shit. But Jane is still only nineteen so she doesn’t go out to bars with them, and she feels weird about drinking even when they’re just chilling.
“One party isn’t going to kill you,” Hayden tells her on Friday night, after they’ve lost to Minnesota. “You have a whole weekend to do homework—come on.”
“I don’t like their house,” Jane complains, referring to the casual frat-esque house in which half a dozen players on the men’s hockey team live. They throw parties semi-frequently, and given that they won a serious game yesterday, they’re full of reasons to celebrate. And many of the girls are going too, if only to drown their sorrows.
“Free drinks and hot people,” Hayden says with a grin. “I’ll pay for your Uber.”
“I can buy my own Uber,” Jane dismisses. “Fine, I’ll come for an hour.”
And she does. She doesn’t know how to dress for a party so she just wears what she’s comfortable in—joggers and a hoodie. (What else would she wear anyway? That’s 90% of her clothing, and she’s not going to dig out formalwear for a college drinking binge.) She turns up at the house and stands outside in the snow, burrowing into her jacket, wondering what the fuck she’s doing here. Especially since there’s another familiar figure by the front door of the house, beanie over blonde curls, a cigarette held carefully between two fingers.
Jane doesn’t even get all the way to the steps before Lily has met her on the path, grinning in her casually cocky way.
“Hollander,” she says as they stop face-to-face, feet from each other, “I think for a second I am hallucinating. You know this is party, yes? Where there is alcohol and handsome men to flirt with?”
“I’m familiar with the concept of a party,” Jane affirms, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
She laughs, gesturing with her cigarette. “I mentioned handsome men, yes? The goalie on men’s team, he is big—and he is from Russia. We get along well.”
Jane imagines she knows what that means. Everyone on the team knows that Lily hooks up pretty indiscriminately, so Jane wouldn’t be surprised if the men’s team goalie is on that particular roster.
“Better question,” Lily says, “is what you are doing here.”
Jane shrugs. “Hayden’s sort of waiting for me.”
“Ah,” she says with a grin. “You are dating.”
Cheeks flushing with heat and heart rabbiting in her chest, Jane isn’t great at modulating her volume when she protests, “No!” Then, quieter, “No, we’re friends.”
“Good,” Lily says, “she is weak player. You can do better.”
Jane frowns. She’s uncomfortable about pretty much everything Lily is implying, not just the indirect insult to Hayden, but also the casual assumptions being made. About her. “Why do you always have to assume everyone on the team is a lesbian? Just because traditionally masculine sports tend to attract queer women—”
“Oh my god, Hollander,” Lily laughs, cutting her off, “you sound like one of many boring Humanities professors in classes I am supposed to take. Was joke, no? Many girls on team are straight, I know. But not Hayden.”
“Don’t say that,” Jane huffs. “Don’t spread rumors.”
“Who is listening?” She laughs and takes a drag from her cigarette, then gestures down the block. “I think neighbor has ice man.”
Jane’s brain tries to make sense of the words. It takes a second, and she asks, “Snowman?”
“Yes, yes, snowman—man made of snow. He will listen to our gossip.”
“You know,” Jane says, trying to find a way to move past Lily’s chosen topic, “you really shouldn’t smoke by the door. There’s, like, a fifteen-feet rule.”
“Boo rule,” Lily dismisses, blowing a raspberry. “I am far from door now.”
“You shouldn’t smoke at all. Being an athlete and all.”
“Young athlete, prime of life.” She winks, boastful—as usual. “I am still faster than you, Hollander. Maybe this is advertisement for cigarettes, yes?”
“You’d be a good spokesperson,” Jane acknowledges, maybe teasingly.
“I will be good spokesperson for many things,” Lily says. “When I play professionally, Nike will sign me. Or Adidas.”
Jane briefly reflects on the way “Adidas” sounds in a Russian accent. Then, “You’re always reminding us that you could be playing professionally right now. Why wait?”
Lily shakes her head. “No, not in Russia. Here, in North America.”
“Professional women’s hockey?”
“That is what I am saying, Hollander—they will make NHL for women,” Lily says with a confident nod. “Is already in development, I have been approached.”
Jane’s entire chest goes cold. “You’ve been approached for a professional women’s ice hockey team.”
“Da,” Lily says, shrugging casually as if it isn’t a huge piece of information. “I told them I win Frozen Four first, stay on student visa, and then I might play with team that helps me to stay in North America.” She looks Jane up and down, her signature smirk coming to rest on the curve of her mouth. “You are angry to hear this. Jealous?”
Maybe she shouldn’t be. She doesn’t know anything about the kind of approach Lily is talking about, and maybe it’s all bullshit. But she prickles at the thought that a professional team would go to her before Jane, when Jane was the reason Madison made it to the Frozen Four for the first time in five years during her freshman season. Lily may wear an A on her jersey, but Jane’s a sophomore with the fucking C.
“What about Russia? Surely you’d make more money in an established league.”
“You are so eager to kick me off the continent, Hollander,” Lily laughs. “Be generous—North America is big place. We can share.”
She takes one last drag off her cigarette and drops it, crushing it underneath the toe of her boot. Jane would probably give her shit for just leaving it there, but she’s sure there are dozens of other cigarette butts hidden in the snow beside them.
“You do not want to go to party,” Lily accuses.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You would not stand out here so long,” she says, “with me. You are not often talking. With me.”
“Talkative,” Jane corrects her. “I’m not talkative with anybody.”
“Hmm, with Hayden.”
“She’s different,” Jane dismisses.
“She is special.”
Jane rolls her eyes. “What, are you jealous?”
“Of you? No, Hayden is not my type. I prefer pretty girls.”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
Lily laughs, loud and harsh. “Hollander, you are allowed to laugh! I am hilarious. And you did not notice that I flirt with you.”
The words bounce around Jane’s head, especially “flirt”—loud and clear. Her mouth goes dry, heart thud thud thudding in her chest. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
“Mm, I think so,” Lily says, head tilting. “It is word for expressing interest, yes? For sex?”
Jane’s stomach twists, a familiar—but vaguely nauseating—feeling rushing through her. She doesn’t—she’s not—“I’m not gay.”
Lily nods, shrugging. “I am not either. I like both.”
“Oh,” Jane says. Because she can’t think of any other response to Lily casually coming out to her. “Well. I better—go. Find Hayden.”
A gentle smile on her face, Lily gestures toward the house. “Have fun, Hollander.”
**
They don’t talk about it. Why would they? There’s nothing to talk about.
Lily was probably drunk—she didn’t mean it. She probably hits on everybody when she’s at a party like that. A scattershot policy, increasing her odds of getting laid. She’s as bad as the men.
**
Jane loves hockey. All she’s ever loved since she was a kid is hockey. Her parents put her in skates when she was three years old, and ever since she was old enough to actually play on a team (in a youth league, but still), hockey has been the only thing she’s really connected with. The only thing that she feels like she truly understands.
Her interests have led her to sports nutrition, by way of the (very midwestern) School of Agricultural and Life Sciences. She thought about Boston College, but it felt too close to home, and she wanted to put a little more distance between herself and her parents. Besides, the Madison team is clearly better than Boston, and she prefers the sprawling farmland of Wisconsin to the densely packed Massachusetts. It’s calm. Comforting.
She goes running by the lake a lot, sits in cute coffee shops with her books and her laptop, sometimes manages to make it to concerts and student events. But they’re trying to make it to the championships, so—she’s focused.
She’s also trying to do well in her classes. Well enough that she can get recommendations in the future, that she can plan ahead for graduate school.
So she’s at the Writing Center on a Wednesday morning in February, even though she’d rather be sleeping in. It’s a little silly, but she’s having a fair amount of difficulty figuring out what she’s doing wrong in this class, and she figured she might as well use all the tools at her disposal. (Also her TA suggested it.)
She’s not expecting to see Lily there too, bouncing her knee as she sits in the little waiting area fashioned as a living room, all homey and intimate. Lily’s face splits into a grin when she pushes through the door.
“Hollander,” she greets Jane.
“Rozanova.”
There’s a student sitting at a desk nearby, and she waves Jane over, handing her a clipboard. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jane says, and then flinches. She’s talking to a girl her age, not a fucking 1950s secretary.
“Sign in for me. A tutor will be with you shortly.”
She writes her name as quickly and clearly as she can and then hands the clipboard back and goes to sit down across from Lily and hide her embarrassment.
“Very smooth,” Lily whispers, even though the space is small enough that there’s really no hope of having a private conversation. (To be fair, the student manning the desk is reading a magazine very diligently, so Jane imagines she doesn’t care enough to eavesdrop.)
“What are you doing here?” Jane asks.
“Mm, this is restaurant, yes? Or café? My English is not so good, I could not read sign outside.”
Jane rolls her eyes, unsurprised by the sarcasm. “I just mean—you’re always complaining about school. And here you are.”
“Instructor is offering extra credit,” she says with a shrug. “And writing in second language does not come easy.”
“Your English is great,” Jane dismisses. “Better than last year.”
“Yes, better. But still.”
Jane bites the inside of her mouth as she fights off the weird, sudden urge to offer to help Lily with her midterms. They’re not friends. Jane doesn’t owe her anything.
“You are native English speaker,” Lily says, nodding toward her. “Why are you here?”
She shrugs. “Even native English speakers can be bad writers.”
“Hm, yes, but you are not.”
“How would you know?”
“You give good speeches,” Lily says.
Jane automatically assumes the compliment is a sarcastic one—Lily only ever has snotty things to say about Jane’s attempts to rouse a little team energy. But she also…isn’t sure. Because Lily looks pretty serious, no cocky smirk or leering grin. Huh.
“Thanks, I think,” Jane manages.
“Boring speeches,” Lily says with a shrug, “but grammar is very clear.”
“Fuck you,” Jane scoffs, cheeks heating.
Lily beams, nudging Jane’s shoe with hers. It’s an annoying little prompt, a windup. Jane kicks her back.
They’re still tussling with their boots a minute later when a student rounds the corner, pausing in the doorway to examine them. Jane freezes, which means Lily gets in one last firm heel to Jane’s toes. Bitch.
“Liliana Rozz-and-over?”
Lily stands, eyes still on Jane. She’s smirking when she says, “Be good student, Hollander.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“See you later.”
They will, in fact, see each other later—they have practice this afternoon. But for some reason the promise in Lily’s voice feels different. Like she’s trying to say something else.
Jane waves wordlessly, and Lily disappears with the tutor.
Jeez. Did they stop hating each other at some point this year and Jane forgot to notice?
**
They win the Frozen Four. They win the whole fucking NCAA women’s tournament during her second fucking year—and Jane’s going to make sure they win the next two as well.
She doesn’t drink, not really, but when Hayden hands her a cup at the party and tells her to enjoy herself, it’s not like she’s going to say no. That would be rude.
It’s April but there’s still mounds of snow packed on the ground outside, waiting to be melted by the coming summer. Finals are around the corner and Jane is at least one week behind in pretty much all of her classes and she should probably be home studying tonight, catching up on late work, but instead she’s dancing at a party with her teammates and a hundred of their closest friends.
Maybe under normal circumstances Jane would pass the drink off or just put it down but she actually wouldn’t mind being a little out of it tonight, getting out of her head. Because the thing is—
Jane probably wants to kiss Lily Rozanova. She kind of can’t stop thinking about it. There was a moment tonight, on the ice, after Lily made her best pass all season and Jane scored, finally overtaking Ohio State, when they had really felt like teammates. Lily had shouted her enthusiasm right in Jane’s face and smacked a big, loud kiss onto the visor of Jane’s helmet, and the look on her face was really—striking. And after the game, after they’d won, Lily had been the first in the locker room to shed her gear and throw herself at Jane, actually hugging her for the first time ever. She’d tugged playfully on Jane’s ponytail and screamed a bunch of stuff at her in Russian, all while wearing a beatific grin, and Jane’s whole body had lit up like a firework.
And now she’s here in Lily’s house, drinking Lily’s alcohol and dancing to Lily’s music. It’s a lot. A lot of her.
Jane isn’t gay. She’s not. She’s had crushes on guys before. She’s only ever kissed guys. So the weird feeling in her gut—and lower—when she thinks about Lily is an anomaly. An odd aftereffect of their symbiosis on the team. A lingering resonance of their on-ice connection. Right?
But she can’t stop looking. She’s helpless to it—her eyes seem to know exactly where Lily is at any given point. Jane can find her in a blink. And she’s pretty impossible to look away from. Her blonde curls are pulled up in a high ponytail and she’s wearing this ridiculously tight tank top, breasts threatening to spill out the top; she’s never dancing alone, always with someone, always on someone. She could have anyone in the room right now, Jane thinks. Every single person here would probably drop to their knees for her.
Flustered and vaguely sick to her stomach, Jane leaves the throng of dancing bodies in the living room and makes her way to the tiny kitchen, where she’s hoping to get a glass of water and maybe a carbohydrate to soak up the liquor in her stomach. It’s just as crowded as the rest of the house, and there are school athletes in every corner, eager to congratulate her. By the time she escapes, she’s feeling even more unstable, although she at least has a cup of water.
She’s walking past the stairs when a warm hand wraps around her wrist, causing her to hesitate.
“Is that vodka!” Lily shouts over the music, the crowd. She’s grinning, face vaguely dewy with sweat, and she gestures to the cup Jane’s holding. Her other hand is still on Jane’s wrist.
“Water,” Jane tells her.
“What!”
“It’s water!”
“Boring!” Lily steps toward the stairs, pulling Jane with her, and Jane—goes. Because she’s not really sure what else she should do.
It is quieter upstairs. But there are also people making out up here, leaning in the hallway, since the girls had the good sense to lock their bedroom doors. Lily finally releases her grip on Jane’s wrist so she can pluck her keys out of her jeans, letting them both into her room.
Jane’s never been up here before. It’s cleaner than she would’ve expected.
“Could not hear myself,” Lily says with a smirk, nudging the door closed. She throws the lock. “You are having a good time?”
“Sure,” Jane says, and takes another sip of her water. “It’s getting kinda late, so I was probably gonna leave soon.”
“Do not be boring, Hollander,” Lily laughs. She wanders over to her desk, which has a bottle with a red label on it; Jane imagines she knows what the clear liquid inside is. “You have just won NCAA championships, it is very big deal.”
“We won,” Jane corrects her.
Lily beams over her shoulder as she pours herself a drink, splashing a generous pour of vodka into a nearby coffee mug. (Jane imagines that might be the mug’s sole purpose.) “Yes, yes, team victory. And you are team captain.” She takes a sip from her mug, her eyes drilling right into Jane’s. “Will you leave again if I try to flirt?”
The question is—startling. Not just because it reveals that Lily has thought more about what happened in December, but also because Jane really doesn’t know the answer. She doesn’t want to leave. She would actually describe herself as pretty relieved to be alone with Lily behind a locked door. And that’s an odd feeling—she’s fairly certain she’s meant to be annoyed or disgusted or offended. Or, at the very least, disinterested. She’s not any of those things, though.
She also doesn’t really know what to say. She doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen. She thinks maybe—maybe—Lily wants to kiss her too. So maybe they’ll do that. Kiss. But Jane doesn’t know how to get from here to there. She’s never been the kisser, only the kissee.
“Hollander,” Lily says, stepping closer. “I see you looking at me. All night.”
Shit. That’s—shit.
She swallows tightly, gaze dropping to the cup in her hand. “Sorry,” she mutters.
“Mm, no, you should not be. I like it.”
Nervous and surprised and grateful all at once, Jane glances back up at her and finds her smiling easily.
“You are very beautiful,” Lily says, “and very good player. I am attracted to you.”
Right. Jane isn’t sure how to respond to that either.
Lily takes another step. There’s hardly any distance between them now, mere inches. “You have never kissed a woman.”
Maybe that’s surprising, given that Jane probably has more queer women in her social circle than the average person in Madison. But—no. She hasn’t. She’s only kissed two people: a boy from a hockey camp when she was fourteen and the guy who took her to prom.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Lily asks, her voice soft, curious. A hand comes up to touch Jane’s face, cupping her jaw, her cheek. She turns into it, into the warmth of Lily’s palm, eyes slipping closed.
“Yes,” she admits. It’s not that embarrassing, since the feeling is clearly mutual.
Lily’s hand moves to the back of her neck. Jane licks her lips nervously, maybe in anticipation, but she leaves her eyes closed, waiting.
It’s not that different, Jane thinks, from her other kisses. Soft lips, careful pressure. Lily smells like vodka and beer, but Jane doesn’t actually mind. But then Lily sucks gently on her bottom lip, pulling the sensitive flesh onto her own mouth, and Jane knows it actually is pretty different—because neither of her other kisses made her feel like this. It goes straight through her like a flash of lightning, sparking from the inside out, making her nipples hard and her tummy quiver.
She breaks the kiss only to reach for a place to put down her water cup, and then she’s on Lily in an instant, hands cupping her face, trying to hold her still so she can get what she wants. She’s hungry for it now, now that she knows it feels even better than she thought it would. Lily grins into it, and she must put her mug down too because Jane can feel both hands on her back, holding her close.
Fucking hell—she feels so good. Jane couldn’t have imagined, didn’t know, would never have thought—
Lily pulls her tank top off over her head and Jane’s jaw literally fucking drops. Zero to sixty in no time at all.
“You are shocked?” Lily teases, hands skirting under Jane’s shirt. “We shower together, Hollander. You have seen tits many times.”
“That’s different,” Jane argues, because it is. “That’s—I don’t look in the shower.”
“I think you lie,” she says with a smirk. “I have very beautiful body, I give you permission to look. And touch.” She takes Jane’s hands from where they’re limp at her sides, lifting them to press over her breasts. And Jane—Jane feels kind of lightheaded, blood rushing to places other than her brain. “I like firm touch,” Lily tells her, already leaning in again, nose brushing over hers. “I think you do too, yes?”
Honestly, Jane has no idea what she likes. Not really. But she’s sort of curious to find out.
The kissing is good. The touching is nice too, even though it sort of makes Jane simultaneously thrilled and terrified. She tries not to be self-conscious as she strips her shirt and her sports bra, and then she’s in Lily’s bed, half-naked, so turned on that she wants to squeeze her thighs shut to try to soothe the feeling.
“I will make it good for you,” Lily says against her mouth, hands dragging Jane’s joggers down and off. (Jane is briefly panicked over what kind of underwear she’s wearing, but they’re simple blue briefs, uninteresting but also not the bottom-of-the-drawer period panties she wears when she’s been neglecting her laundry.) “You will come for me.”
Oh, god—isn’t that a nice thought. But panic strikes her so fiercely that the words come tumbling out: “I can’t.”
Lily smirks at her as she stands, stripping her own jeans. She’s wearing the tiniest red underwear Jane has ever seen, practically nonexistent, blonde bush protruding so much it might as well swallow the fabric. “You cannot what? You are trying to leave?”
“No, I—I don’t want to leave,” Jane says, “but I can’t—come.”
Lily tilts her head. “Why not?”
Flush with embarrassment and rather exposed, Jane sits up with her arms covering her breasts as she admits, “I’ve never. Had an orgasm.”
The smile falls from Lily’s face so fast it might as well be an anchor plunging through the weightless sea. “Hollander,” she says quietly. “You have never—even by yourself?”
It’s not that odd. She’s nearly twenty but she’s still technically a teenager and she’s had lots of other stuff to focus on at this point in her life. Masturbation has always seemed—weird. Slimy. Unpleasant. Jane doesn’t even like getting ink on her hands when she’s taking notes in class, and that hardly has a texture at all.
“I should go,” Jane says, swinging her legs over the side of Lily’s bed.
“No, no, no, no, no—you should stay.” Lily captures her ankles and crawls atop her again, pinning her to the mattress. “I understand your demeanor much better now. I would be quite unfriendly if I had never had orgasm.”
“Fuck you,” Jane huffs, even though she’s actively using her hands to draw Lily closer. “You are fucking unfriendly.”
“So mean, Hollander,” Lily teases with a pout. “Will you let me try? To make you come?”
Well. The offer is certainly tempting.
“Let me do you first,” Jane says, since it’ll be easier not to worry about whether Lily’s enjoying herself if she’s already confident of Lily’s pleasure.
“Mm, what do you want to do to me?” She’s straddling Jane, muscular legs on either side of her hips, and when she straightens up, arches her back, Jane’s mouth waters.
“Can I put my mouth on you?”
“Very brave for first time,” Lily says, but she looks pleased. “You want me on top or on my back?”
“Like this,” Jane says, hands dragging Lily’s closer by her hips. She feels less nervous about it if she can just…lie here. (That’s what some of the older girls have told her about sex—just lie there a few times and let it happen, and then it starts getting good.) She’s seen some porn. Not a lot, but some. Still, she’s never actually seen someone get eaten out before, doesn’t really know how it works. She wants to make Lily feel good, of course, but she also has no idea what she’s doing. “What do I—do?”
“Mm, stick tongue out like this.” Lily shows her, mouth open, tongue all the way out, flat, chin tilted up. It’s—quite a visual. It makes Jane’s pussy clench in anticipation, slick and hot and overwhelmed. “Relax jaw, I fuck your mouth. Yes?”
“Yeah,” Jane eagerly agrees.
They kiss a little more first, which Jane appreciates—she goes from curious to absolutely desperate in the span of that kiss, and it’s easier then to help Lily shed her barely-there panties and straddle Jane’s head.
It’s—intense. Sensory overload. But Jane finds, as she has on the ice, that when she’s properly driven, she can tamp down on the discomfort of overwhelming muchness. And besides, it’s—not as weird as she expected it to be. That’s at least partly because of how confident Lily seems, how unbothered she is, how readily she drags her cunt over Jane’s tongue. And even though she smells all sweaty and musty, even though her pubes are damp and wiry against Jane’s face, Jane wants. Her mouth is watering, drool pooling at the corner of her lips before she can swallow it, and her hands are clenching, eagerly holding onto Lily’s thighs.
Jane knows, sort of, about the clitoris. She can feel the way hers gets sort of hard sometimes. She’s taken plenty of anatomy classes and heard plenty of girls complain—she knows it’s supposed to feel good to be touched there, and that men never seem to know where it is. But it’s pretty obvious to her right now that the blood-warm, solid nub on her tongue is doing something to Lily. Something really nice.
“Fuck, Hollander,” she all but moans, one hand in Jane’s hair as she thrusts her hips in careful motions, stroking herself on Jane’s protruding tongue.
Lily chases the feeling, dropping her weight further, and so Jane adjusts the firmness of her touch, pushing back against Lily’s body with her tongue. That makes Lily moan even louder, a whine high and tight in her throat.
“Yes, yes, yes—” She mutters some stuff in Russian, voice low and breathy, and Jane can feel herself getting hotter, wetter, can feel her core aching with some unknowable need. “You are perfect like this, good—good girl.”
Jane’s fingers dig in tightly, body singing with the praise. God, she wants to be touched—she wants to know what it feels like, wants some relief for the mean, hungry feeling inside of her. But all she can do is hang on and try to do what Lily asked, try to relax her jaw and keep her tongue firm and not drive herself insane with how aroused she is—more aroused than she’s ever been.
It’s very good for Jane’s ego that it doesn’t really take much longer. Lily keeps speaking her native language with a weak voice, hips moving faster and faster, frantically, and she all but shouts as she shudders to completion; her hand tightens in Jane’s hair, and Jane can feel her trembling, feel the muscles in her legs jump and shake. She shoves herself backwards unceremoniously, collapsing on her butt half on top of Jane’s legs, their bodies squished in the Full-sized bed.
“Fucking hell, Hollander.” She’s laughing, dragging a hand across her forehead.
Jane sits up on her elbows, trying to ignore the quickly-cooling wetness around her mouth; she doesn’t succeed, wiping at her face with the back of her hand to rid herself of the sensation. “It was okay?”
Lily’s answer is a scoff, followed by a fervent, eager kiss. She licks her own arousal out of Jane’s mouth, hands warm and firm on her face. “Next time I will not come so fast, but I have had many fantasies of this. Is hard to control myself.”
Next time. Fantasies. Control herself.
Jane is overwhelmed with the truth of it, with how eagerly Lily touches her, with the evidence of just how badly Lily wants her. Being wanted feels good.
“Your turn,” Lily mutters into their kiss. “You really have never touched yourself?”
It’s just—
She was told that girls don’t. Her whole life, she was told—boys masturbate. Girls control themselves. Girls keep their knees shut until they find a nice man who will give them a ring and a house and then they give it up, when they’ve secured their future. Not that that’s exactly what her mom had said, but—Jane didn’t really get much of a sex talk as a kid. When she was about nine or ten, her mom gave her a picture book about menstruation and they talked a little bit about puberty. But all she ever said about sex was that Jane should wait. And then they never talked about it again.
And Jane never felt like her bedroom at her parents’ house was all that private. She didn’t have a lock on the door, and her parents tended to barge in and out at will. So as a hormonal teenager who got turned on by a lot of different things—summertime at the pool, the occasional perfume commercial, the voice of that pop punk singer she used to listen to—she didn’t exactly feel comfortable enough, safe enough, to do anything about the way her body warmed at various stimuli. She tried a few times in the shower, but it didn’t feel right—it hurt, definitely didn’t feel good, so she gave up.
She sort of thought, distantly, that one day she’d meet a guy she was just unbearably attracted to, and she would let him tick off her various virginities one by one, until she had done it all. She hasn’t really pondered exactly how long she’s willing to wait for that imaginary man; she’s just aware that she’s never met him. It seems, perhaps, that he doesn’t exist.
That feels like probably too much background information to share right at this moment. So instead of saying all that, Jane just shrugs and says, “It’s weird to me.”
Lily smirks, kissing her again. “But you want to, yes?”
“Yeah—I want to.”
“I have thing—might be easier.” Lily kisses her quickly one more time and then scoots off the bed onto her feet, padding—naked and unashamed—over to her dresser, where she reaches into the top righthand drawer. The thing in question is a dildo so big that Lily can’t close her fist around it. It’s black and fairly dick-shaped, although it seems to have some kind of handle on the end.
“What the fuck,” Jane breathes.
Lily laughs. “Do not panic, Hollander, is not for putting inside. I will not hurt you.”
“What’s it for if you don’t put it inside?”
“It go zhhhh,” Lily says, stepping closer to the bed as she points to two buttons at the base of the toy. “Uh, word is—vibrate?” She flips it upside down, holding it by its handle, and mimes rubbing it between her legs, all with a grin on her face. “Hold against clit, you will definitely come.”
Jane blinks. “You want me to do it?”
“Yes,” Lily insists with a nod, holding it out to her. “I want to watch.”
“Oh.”
That’s—interesting. Jane isn’t exactly sure how to feel about it. But, perhaps oddly, she really trusts Lily. So she sits up and accepts the device—which is not actually as heavy as she somehow expected it to be—and turns it over in her hands, examining it.
“Relax,” Lily says, hands brushing over Jane’s shoulders, her neck. “See here?” She points to the base, to one of the buttons. “Hold down to turn on and off. This one,” she says, moving her finger to the other button, “change speed. It start slow, and you press to go faster. Six, uh—” She hesitates as she searches for the word. “ —choices.”
“Jeez. That kind of seems like a lot.”
Lily laughs softly. “Is quite tame for sex toy, Hollander. I worry you are prude.”
“I’m not a prude.”
“No, just virgin.”
Is she still? Technically? What counts as losing your virginity when it’s with a woman? Now she’s made someone come, so—that’s gotta count for something, right?
“Is very sweet,” Lily says, brushing her fingers through Jane’s hair. She moves to straddle her, arms winding around Jane’s shoulders. “I am honored.”
Jane wants to brush it off, wants to say it’s not a big deal. But—it sort of is. A big deal. And Lily could be a total bitch about it if she wanted to be, could be rubbing it in Jane’s face or something. But she isn’t.
Instead of saying anything, since she’s not really sure what she should say, Jane captures her mouth again, kissing her hard. And she lets Lily push her flat again, head cushioned on one of Lily’s many firm pillows, and lets her legs inch apart.
“I have to take these off,” Jane says,
“Mm, it is all new—you will be too sensitive,” Lily says, pressing kisses across Jane’s jaw, down her neck. “First over underwear. It will still be good. Try.”
Jane briefly wonders if that’s how Lily learned to masturbate, with a vibrator between her legs, over her underwear. More likely there wasn’t a vibrator at all—just Lily’s fingers over her panties, rubbing her clit through damp cotton.
“I said no panicking, Hollander,” Lily reminds her.
“Definitely not panicking,” Jane admits; her breathlessness has far more to do with how turned on she is than any kind of nervousness. It feels like they’ve been naked together for ages now—shame is rather distant. At this exact moment, all Jane wants is to do whatever Lily says. “Are you gonna be, like, on top of me while I…?”
“Mm, would be hard to watch.” Lily kisses her again and then scoots backwards, sitting criss-cross at the foot of her bed. “Knees up,” she instructs, already pushing Jane’s feet apart.
It’s definitely…vulnerable. Being stared at. But it only seems to thrill Jane more, make her needier, hungrier. And she can’t really look at Lily right now anyway, head relaxing against the pillows; all she can see is the ceiling, plain stucco. She knows, definitely, that Lily is there, can feel her warm hand wrapped around her ankle, a silent acknowledgment, a connection.
Too eager to be embarrassed, Jane fumbles with the vibrator, holding the button down to power it on. It buzzes to life after a second, a careful vibration that doesn’t feel all that powerful in her hand. But when she guides it between her legs, resting oh-so-carefully against the flat of her panties, it’s—more.
“Oh,” she gasps, moving the toy higher, where it feels best. Even the gentlest buzzing seems to rock all the way through her, vibrating from her clit across every inch of her skin. “Oh my god.”
“Good,” Lily says, thumb brushing over the knob of Jane’s ankle.
There’s no better way to describe it than deeply, deeply satisfying—like scratching an itch that’s been bugging her for years, getting a little bit of fucking relief. Even through the cotton of her underwear, the vibrations against her clit overwhelm every nerve, exciting and soothing all at the same time. She understands now, why vibrators are such a big deal, why girls talk about them as if they’re essential—she gets it.
Chasing what feels good, she uses the handle like Lily had showed her, rubbing the toy between her legs more insistently instead of just holding it there. She can’t help but picture Lily on top of her, doing this to her. She can feel how wet she is, feel how open and empty she feels—for basically the first time ever, Jane wants to feel something inside her, wants to soothe some of that ache. But she also wants to come, and she doesn’t want to wait.
She can imagine it, though. She can imagine Lily curling two fingers inside her—or three, maybe?—and touching her just so, can imagine being filled, can imagine Lily wielding some toy that isn’t quite so intimidating and fucking her with it. And just the thought of it, the vaguest fantasy that has no time at all to really take root, makes Jane light up so fucking hot that she feels like she might faint. Or—explode. Like a star.
“Oh, fuck,” she whines, shocked and exhilarated and overwhelmingly grateful. She can’t help it, can’t control it, just finds herself muttering, “Thank you thank you thank you,” as pleasure crests in her core, something bursting apart and shaking her from the inside out.
It’s a sort of odd feeling, after. Raw. Even kind of pained. She twitches and winces and manages to turn the toy off before she drops it between her legs, leaving it perched against her thigh. She hardly has a second to recover before Lily is on top of her again, kissing her, panting hot and sweet into her mouth.
“So fucking sexy, Hollander,” Lily rasps into their kiss. “It was good, yes?”
“Yeah,” Jane says, still breathless. “Yeah, I’m really—yeah.”
“We kiss more—go again?”
She’s still fuzzy in the head, tingly, and overwhelmed with it all for more than one reason (although, sure, having her first orgasm is definitely top of the list). Her brain seems to be screaming ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod and not much else, coherency lost. She can hardly even process Lily’s question for a minute.
“Again?” Jane asks. “Really?”
“You do not want to?” Lily asks incredulously, her face clearly expressing her simultaneous amusement and doubt.
Well. The feeling of Lily on top of her is really very nice. The party is still loud downstairs. Even if someone did come looking for one of them, Lily’s door is locked, either of them could have a million reasonable excuses for leaving the party. There’s no reason not to stay a little longer, right?
**
It’s past midnight when she fixes her hair in Lily’s mirror and orders an Uber on her phone. She’s—torn. Not logically, but emotionally. On the one hand, a big part of her is leaping with joy, with celebration—she had sex! She had an orgasm! Three, actually. And they only got better every time, like her body was learning how to do it, learning how to connect all the little nerves that make her shake and sing. Now she’s feeling a little weak in the knees and still pretty stunned; she almost expects it to appear in words on her face, an eminently legible sign of her new phase of life.
Which leads to the other hand: she’s pretty fucking panicked. Not just because she’s not sure exactly what to say if someone asks what she’s been doing up in Lily’s room for over an hour, but also because she had sex with Lily. Who she isn’t totally sure how to feel about. Who she kind of hates sometimes, but who also makes her a better player all of the time. Who’s getting dressed mere feet away.
“What do we say?” Jane asks, since she can’t summon a believable excuse. “If someone asks what we were doing up here?”
Lily’s brows lift toward her forehead as she finishes retying her ponytail. “It is no one’s business, Hollander.”
She’s relieved to hear that, obviously, but it doesn’t actually answer her question. “No, I know, but—we should agree on some kind of excuse, right?”
“Okay, you pick excuse.”
“I’m not a good liar,” Jane admits.
Lily laughs, nodding. “Yes, is true. Okay, we were not together, yes? I was up here with other hot Asian girl and you were somewhere kissing boys.”
Jane prickles a little—hot Asian girl. As if she isn’t totally aware that that’s how men see her, how they talk to her when they’re trying to hit on her at coffee shops and at the gym and at parties. It’s always: I love Asian chicks—what are you, like, Korean? And, I totally get into hentai, do you cosplay? Or, somehow worse, sometimes they’ll try to speak to her in Japanese, kon'nichiwa and utsukushī and other words that Jane never picked up. (Those guys are always unfazed by her blank stare, and never get flustered when she says she’s Canadian—they somehow launch into tirades on historical migration patterns as if they’re going to teach Jane something she didn’t learn in primary school.)
“Hollander,” Lily says, hand cupping her elbow. “Do not panic.”
“I’m not,” Jane dismisses, even though she is a little. She’s trying not to read too much into Lily’s words. That’s just the kind of person Lily is, brusque and rude. “I should leave first. I’m just going straight home anyway.”
“You are sure? Party will go much longer.”
“I’m sure,” Jane says. She thinks, but doesn’t say: You wore me out. “And we’re not telling anyone—you know that, right? No one on the team?”
“Oh my god, Hollander,” Lily sighs, rolling her eyes, “da, yes, I will not blab big gay secret. Next time, we meet at your place, no teammates.”
Next time. Next time. Next time.
Lily wants to do this again. They’re not just going to have a series of orgasms together in a fit of post-win celebratory horniness and then call it a day. Lily wants to do it again. And, if she’s honest, Jane does too. She wants to do a lot more. She wants to do everything that Lily wants to do, probably. And maybe even more on top of that. Now that she knows how good it is, she sort of never wants to stop.
“Next time,” Jane agrees casually.
There are only four weeks before final exams, five weeks before the final team dinner of the season, six weeks before Jane’s lease is up and she’s meant to go home for the summer. They could probably accomplish a lot between now and then.
**
They do, in fact, find lots of time to be alone together. Always at Jane’s place—private, secluded, intimate. They fill hours that they used to spend at the gym or on the ice together in bed. Or on Jane’s couch. In the shower. On the kitchen counter.
But neither of them seem to want to hang out in public. Jane doesn’t want to at least, and she assumes the same is true for Lily, since she never pushes it. They work their plans around Jane’s priorities: studying, meal prep, and finding time for the gym, even if her routine isn’t quite as intense as was during the season. There’s no reason to change the way they were before they were sleeping together, so they only emerge in the same social events to the extent they are team events. But those are all informal now, given the end of the season and the impending summer.
Jane lives her life. Finishes her classes, prepares for her finals—and falls back into bed with Lily like clockwork, hidden away behind locked doors.
**
“You can tell me, you know.”
Jane is really proud of the way she does not physically react to Hayden’s comment. They’re sitting together in the library, across from each other at a small table, hypothetically quizzing each other for their shared Intro to Epidemiology course. She doesn’t even bother to look up from her notes, just asks, “Tell you what?”
“About the guy you’re seeing.”
Jane glances up, careful to keep her expression blank. “I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Really?” Hayden asks with an arched brow. “Do you want me to list the evidence?”
Christ. Has she been that obvious? “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she dismisses, hoping that Hayden will drop it, let it go.
“I can keep a secret,” Hayden says, instead of answering Jane’s prayers. “And I’m extremely nonjudgmental. Is he older? Younger?”
Jane bites the inside of her mouth for a moment. Hayden really isn’t going to let this go and…maybe it’ll feel good to talk about. “No, he’s—he’s twenty.”
“I knew it!” Hayden hisses, enthusiastic but technically quiet enough to abide by library standards. “Why didn’t you say anything!”
Teammate. Woman. Complete and total bitch. Take your pick.
Jane shrugs, hoping the gesture emphasizes the unimportance of the relationship, not a dismissal of her friendship with Hayden. “We have a class together,” Jane says to her notebook. It’s easier to lie when she doesn’t have to look right at Hayden’s face. “It’s casual. Very casual.”
“That’s exciting,” Hayden says, grabbing her wrist and shaking her gently. It makes Jane laugh, fills her with a sense of relief.
It is exciting. And Jane hasn’t had anyone to talk to about it. And, Hayden is her best friend—if Jane was going to tell anyone about losing her virginity, it should be her, right? So she glances around to make sure there aren’t any relevant eavesdroppers and then admits, “He’s sort of my first.”
Hayden is clearly so violently reactive to such an admission that she feels moved to kick Jane under the table, pretty fucking hard.
“Ow,” Jane protests, frowning as she rubs at her pained shin.
“You know you have to tell me everything now,” Hayden says, a delighted look in her eye.
Jane sighs, closing her notebook. It’s past lunchtime anyway. “Let’s take a break.”
There’s a student café near the library with overpriced food but really good coffee, so they post up there with iced lattes and big salads, whispering over the table about boys and sex. Hayden’s pretty subtle about it, which Jane appreciates—there are other girls on the team who talk loudly and explicitly about sex, and it always makes Jane a little nervous. (Although now that she has some of her own experience, maybe it won’t bother her so much.)
“Was it bad, the first time?” Hayden asks with a sympathetic expression.
That’s what girls say about straight sex—the first few times are bad. Uncomfortable. Even painful. That hasn’t really been Jane’s experience, but the first time Lily put something inside her, it was a barely one-inch thick vibrator that she wanted to keep inside forever, so.
“Not bad,” Jane says with a shrug. “But it’s better now. He’s very…attentive.”
“Good for you,” Hayden says enthusiastically. “You deserve some hot sex—you never do anything besides study and train. Do I get to meet him?”
“It’s not really a meet-each-other’s-friends-and-socialize kind of thing,” Jane tells her. And that’s true, to be fair. It’s beside the point that Hayden had already met the person Jane is screwing. “We’re just messing around until the summer.”
“Not relationship material?”
“No,” Jane says with a shake of her head. “Definitely not.”
“Well—at least you got some experience under your belt, right? Hey, is he gonna come to your birthday dinner?”
Oh, shit. Her birthday. They’re all meant to go out as a team for her twentieth, which is literally this weekend. As soon as finals are finished, summer will come crashing in, she’ll turn twenty, and the school year will really be officially done. She’ll go back to Ottawa, hang out with her parents, maybe have a summer job. She won’t see Wisconsin again—won’t see Lily again—until August.
“No,” Jane says, “but I might see him after.”
It’s useful, actually, to build that backstory in now. Then if she tries to make an excuse to leave, the fictional boy toy can take the blame.
“It must be pretty good, huh. If you’re spending all this time with him.”
The truth, of course, is that it is pretty good. It’s also the only sexual experience Jane’s ever had. Not that she’s complaining. In fact, she’s actually really grateful. It’s weird to admit, even to herself, but it’s true; the weight of her inexperience has been lifted, and she feels sort of new. Like there was a pre-orgasm period and a post-orgasm period, and now her body is different, changed. She likes that change. She likes the way she feels now, almost sort of—free. Free-er?
Obviously having sex—having good sex—hasn’t changed plenty of other things that are still weighing on her mind. But right now, in this moment, when she’s confident she’s going to pass her finals and she’s spent the last month having near-daily orgasms with Lily, it’s difficult to feel particularly burdened.
**
It’s actually surprisingly difficult to get through her birthday dinner. All of it is wonderful, obviously—her friends give her books and simple jewelry and big hugs. They share a long and delicious dinner with cocktails snuck to the 20-year-olds, and Jane has no real reason to want to rush through it.
Except she does. Want to rush. Because as soon as she leaves, she’s going to text Lily, and Lily is going to come over.
In her defense, she had invited Lily to the birthday too. Sort of.
They’d been lying in Jane’s bed the night after their very last final exams, when the semester was freshly done and they were making up for time lost spent studying. The campus was in a lighthearted, celebratory mood with the end of the school year—everyone in Madison was drinking and dancing and playing corn hole, but she and Lily were holed up in her apartment, tangled in the sheets. And Jane had casually said something like, “Are you coming to my birthday dinner?”
Lily had dismissed the idea and told her to enjoy her time with her friends, and text when she was done.
So she’s waiting to be done. Eagerly waiting. She’s trying to be patient, though. Trying to be calm and relaxed and not daydream about how Lily pulled her hair last night while fucking her breathless. It’s easier said than done.
After 10 PM, when the restaurant staff is subtly encouraging them to leave, Jane gives everyone hugs and cheek kisses and hurries back to her apartment as fast as humanly possible. Lily almost beats her there.
She stays all night. It might be Jane’s favorite birthday ever.
**
The final team event of the school year is the annual team dinner. It’s a big deal, a banquet, with all the players and coaches and staff, plus plenty of other UW-affiliated people who Jane doesn’t really know. There’s always a little award ceremony, where coaches (and Jane, as the captain) give speeches; then the university president says some stuff about athleticism and school pride. And then the coaches recognize “most valuable first-year” and “most improved” and “best team spirit” so on, for the sake of morale.
Jane notices, when she’s giving her little welcome speech at the beginning of the ceremony proper, that Lily isn’t there. She was there for dinner, was loud and energetic at the next table—Jane noticed her as soon as she arrived, wearing a tight black dress with a low neckline, blonde curls falling around her shoulders. She made such a striking, flustering image that Jane ended up stammering her hellos to her coaches, her tongue suddenly too heavy in her mouth.
But now she’s gone. Now that Jane is up there and she has to talk to people and she’s wearing a stupid dress that feels too big in the hips but too tight in the shoulders and Lily is gone. Jane keeps glancing around as the little awards go on and on, waiting for Lily to return. Was she in the bathroom? On the phone? Did she leave?
The minutes keep ticking by. The final awards are coming up, the final moments of camaraderie before they call it a night and the girls go out drinking. And Lily is no one to be seen.
Fuck her. Fuck her—what could she possibly be doing? What’s more important than this?
“It should come as no surprise to any of us,” one of their coaches is saying, standing at the microphone with a friendly grin on her face, “that last year’s most valuable first-year is this year’s most valuable player. She scored more points this year than anyone in the entire NCAA, and she brought the championship home to Madison—your captain, Jane Hollander!”
At the same time that she’s grateful her coaches have seen her hard work, she’s also sort of deeply uncomfortable with the cheering, the applause. It’s moving in a bad way, a way that makes her sort of want to cry, dig a hole and hide in it. But that’s not the reaction she’s meant to be having, she knows, so she forces a smile and shakes her coaches hands and waves at her teammates.
“Speech!” JJ shouts. The cheer is echoed by several others.
“You don’t want to hear me talk twice,” Jane dismisses.
“Go on,” her coach insists, bodily moving her back in front of the microphone.
“Um,” Jane says, looking down at the plaque in her hands, an almost identical replica to the one she received last year, but with a different inscription. She tries to remember what she said then. And, scanning her table, she quickly finds Hayden’s eyes and finds comfort in her solidarity, the grin on her face that says just how proud she is of Jane. “Thank you. I love all of you so much. I’m so grateful to play with you. Our graduating girls—Gilly, Drap, Mitty, Ren—it won’t be the same without you. Everyone else—have a great summer.”
There are a couple more awards, a couple more speeches, goodbyes from the graduating players. JJ whips out a flask and makes their lemonades into cocktails; the adults probably know, but they let it go, and Jane is feeling bad enough for herself that she has a drink. Or two.
She’s leaving the bathroom when someone at the sink says, “Have you seen Rozy?”
Another girl, from a stall, responds, “She said she was going for a smoke, I think.”
So Jane looks around the fancy dining room for a minute before she slinks toward the stairs and down, down, down.
Outside, the sun is down and the air is cool; Jane wanders down the brick-paved path and then turns the corner, following the building around. There’s a garden back here, and sitting on a bench staring at some tulips, cigarette between her lips, is Lily Rozanova. She’s wearing a leather jacket over her dress, and even though her shoulders are not distracting anymore, she’s still—really stunning.
“Hey,” Jane says, grateful that she didn’t let Hayden talk her into wearing heels as she tries to walk across damp grass.
Lily doesn’t say anything, just glances up at her and takes a puff of her cigarette before holding it between two fingers and exhaling a puff of smoke in her direction.
Jane doesn’t comment on it, just dissipates the smoke with a wave of her hand. “You okay?”
“I am fine,” Lily says, focused on the flowers once again.
“Okay. That’s…good.”
Lily exhales a heavy sigh. “What do you want, Hollander?”
Jane clenches her jaw, hurt and more than a little shocked. She can’t help but think that this whole reaction is about hockey—that’s the problem, isn’t it? With the season over, they’ve been hooking up for weeks pretending that there isn’t this fucking elephant in the room: they’re teammates. More importantly, they’re the two strongest players on the team, and they’re always trying to outdo each other, always trying to be the best. But Jane’s been winning, and now Lily has to acknowledge it, has to listen to other people be proud of her. What a fragile fucking ego.
“I can’t believe you,” Jane says, something twisting in her chest, tightening. “I could’ve used you up there and you’re just—what? Chainsmoking with some tulips?”
“This one is Lily of the Valley,” Lily says, pointing to a white flower. “I am not so different from this flower, I was born in valley.”
Jane wants to kick something, wants to throw something. But instead she stands there with her arms crossed over her chest and demands, “You have nothing to say for yourself?”
“What you want me to say, Hollander?” Lily asks. “Sorry I did not stay for your special award—you won MVP, yes? I knew you would.”
“You’re so fucking ridiculous,” Jane huffs. “It’s a team award—why the fuck do you care who’s MVP when you’re negotiating professional contracts?”
Lily scoffs softly, shaking her head. Quieter then, she says, “I do not care.”
“That’s really fucking convincing.”
“I do not care about award, Hollander,” Lily insists, lifting her gaze again. “You are right—it is not as impressive as professional contracts and money I will earn from future advertisement.”
“Fuck you. If you’re jealous—”
“Not everything is about you, Hollander!” Lily all but shouts.
She stands as she flicks her cigarette toward a nearby gray, three-foot-tall portable ashtrays the university positions near all the doorways. (There’s a small hole on the side of the column, rather than the top, which makes it inconvenient as a trash can and often only really noticed by the smokers on campus.) Lily must have dragged it with her when she left the building. That’s actually pretty responsible, even though the gesture is dramatically undercut by the littering.
“My father moved my flight,” Lily says then, eyes dark and angry. “I leave for Moscow in the morning.”
Oh. God. That’s so—that’s so soon. It’s immediately. That means—that means her birthday was the last time. The last time ever. The fling is over. When they get back to school for the fall, they’ll have to be teammates again. Not—whatever they’ve been doing.
“Shit,” Jane says, a tacit apology. “I… I hope you have a good summer.” What else is she supposed to say, really?
The look on Lily’s face suggests she isn’t especially soothed by the well wishing. “My father—he does not want me to come back to America.”
“What?” Jane can’t help but stumble forward, hand going to Lily’s shoulder. “No, he can’t—he can’t make you stay in Russia, can he?”
“He can,” Lily says. Her eyes move back and forth between Jane’s, but most of the urgency has left them, leaving them softer, more curious. “But this is common fight of his. When I am home, he does not want me there—he was eager to send me away. He will be eager again when he remembers.”
“Remembers what?”
The corner of Lily’s mouth twitches. “That I remind him of my mother.”
That makes Jane want to ask—of course it does. But it doesn’t really seem like the time. She can assume, though, that Lily’s mom is gone. And that makes her heart ache just enough for her to wrap her arms around Lily’s shoulders and hug her. A hug is easy, simple—friendly. Teammates hug. And if they stand there hugging for several, long minutes… Well, nobody comes looking for them, anyway.
When Jane pulls back from the hug, she’s not that surprised that Lily’s hand goes to her neck, head tilting toward hers, all signs of an impending kiss. It’s muscle memory at this point, just short of instinct, so Jane doesn’t hesitate to kiss her back, to cling to the cool leather of her jacket and bask in what will probably be their last kiss.
Only then she remembers where they are, and she startles like a scared cat, shoving Lily backwards, maybe a bit too hard. The blonde stumbles just barely, eyes wide and frustrated on Jane’s.
“Don’t do that,” Jane huffs, distracting herself by brushing her hands down her dress, straightening invisible wrinkles. “Everybody’s right upstairs—anybody could see.”
“I think you worry too much,” Lily says.
“I think I worry a reasonable amount.”
Lily shakes her head. “Is not just big gay secret. You are ashamed to kiss me.”
The accusation is a little brutal, cold and harsh and—true. Or at least partly true. It doesn’t make Jane feel good, but. Yeah. She is a little ashamed by the fact she can’t seem to get enough of Lily.
“Aren’t you?” Jane shoots back. “Aren’t you a little ashamed to be doing this?”
Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, if it’s over. If they’re closing the book on the whole thing, consigning it to a memory, the shame is pretty meaningless. But Jane can’t be the only one—Lily knows just as well as she does that their whole relationship on the team, the way they push each other, makes the part where they fall in bed together way more complicated. So yes, Jane feels bad—ashamed, guilt-ridden—risking the thing she loves most in the world because she can’t stop wanting to hump Lily.
Lily shoves her hands in her pockets. “I like to keep private life private,” she says. “But I am not ashamed. Not of this.”
Jane isn’t expecting that, obviously. It’s surprisingly sweet. Probably the sweetest thing Lily’s ever said to her.
Shit. Jane is really, really going to miss her. She can’t stop herself from lunging forward all over again, kissing Lily one more time, hands on her face, her neck. She wants to remember this, wants to have it one more time, wants to commit every fucking sensation to memory, from the pressure of Lily’s body against hers to the taste of cigarette smoke on her tongue.
The world is still quiet and dark when they pull back. There are no spying hockey players or wandering administrators.
“I have to go,” Lily says, thumb brushing over Jane’s cheek.
“Yeah. I—me too.”
“You have WhatsApp, yes? You will text from boring Canada?”
Jane isn’t completely successful in fighting the smile off her face, but she nods, deciding not to be embarrassed if Lily can see her delight. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good.” Lily trails her hand to the back of Jane’s neck and squeezes, just once, before dropping her hand back to her side. “See you next season.”