You coo sympathetically. “Do you have any books you can read?” you ask brightly. “I would have loaned you some if you’d asked.”
“They have some, but they’re all old people books,” she moans. You raise your eyebrow at that, turning your gaze to your own bookcase. “I should have brought some of my own, but I forgot.”
“Hm.” You consider it for a moment, doing up the buttons on your shirt. Then, fully dressed, you pick up your phone and begin padding back to your bedroom. You might not exactly be talking to her in the nude, but nobody can stop you lying down on a comfortable bed as you do, at least. “Well, it’s lucky you brought your phone then. I’m not the most interesting person, but maybe I can distract you.” You talk over the little distressed noise Charlotte lets out at some point during that sentence. “You’re only there until Friday, right? Do you have any plans for the weekend?”
You don’t bother taking your phone off speakerphone as you climb atop your bed and lie down. You can hear her plainly enough, and she can evidently hear you just fine. It’s a lot more comfortable to just lie there without having to actually hold the phone to your ear.
She’s in a very talkative mood, you find. Once you manage to set her on a topic—such as her plans for the rest of the next holidays, or her family—she rambles on for well over half an hour, only occasionally pausing to let you ask a question or encourage her to continue rambling. It’s nice, really. You’re not always the most talkative person. It’s good to be able to just close your eyes and listen to someone spill their heart to you.
Apparently, her plans for the holidays aren’t very grand. Some of her friends have arranged to go to the carnival while it’s on, but—and she confides this to you in a somber, almost sad tone—she doesn’t think most of them actually want her along. She’s looking forward to it, though. So are you, actually, although you don’t have any definitive plans to go yet. Aside from that, Charlotte is planning on spending a lot of her time repainting her bedroom.
She’s halfway through describing how she wants to buy a DVD set of a new Earth Aleph series when your phone beeps. You frown, rolling over to look at it. You don’t like it when your phone beeps. Beeps are usually bad.
You manage to choke back a sound of surprise when you see a text from Aisha sitting there. It’s only short—Hey, what’re you up to?—but even that much is surprising. Honestly, you hadn’t though the two of you were close enough for her to want to text you out of the blue like this.
As Charlotte continues to describe the series she’s been watching recently, a piece of procedural crime fiction starring an author and a detective, you open the text and type out your own short response. I’m not doing much. Just sitting around at home. What are you doing?
Aisha doesn’t respond immediately, so you focus back on Charlotte, who is… still talking about this crime show. Apparently, she really likes it. From what you can gather from her excited rambling, it stars an actor who had portrayed a character in another television series she had watched in the past, a science-fiction show.
“—though it’s kind of obvious that they’re going together,” she continues to talk, her voice almost soothing to your ears. “A lot of these shows feel like they don’t know where they’re going, which can get kind of annoying, you know?”
“Yeah.” Your phone beeps again, a notification of a reply from Aisha. You casually tap it open. “Although I thought you said you were watching season three and they still aren’t together. Maybe the show’s writers are just drawing it out.” Your words are only half-thought, distracted as you are by Aisha’s message; Just hanging around. Brother’s out, kinda bored. Been doing much?
Charlotte’s response is indignant. “Hey, they’re just taking it slow, you know? All that build-up as they get to know each other. It’s sweet, really.”
She sounds almost petulant, which causes a sly grin to tug at the corner of your mouth. You don’t put much consideration into your response, as distracted as you are by trying to figure out how to reply to Aisha’s text, instead just almost absently replying, “Well, I do enjoy a lot of build-up. Still, that’s a very long time to deny you your satisfaction.”
You’re so distracted that you miss the way Charlotte chokes for nearly a full five seconds before managing a response. “Th-That’s true,” she replies weakly. “It, um. It works for the show though? B-But it could be mean in, in other shows.” You aren’t so distracted that you miss her stuttering, and despite the fact that she can’t see you, you raise your brows at her.
Still, before you respond to Charlotte, you finally finish a short reply to Aisha; I’ve just been hanging around at home. What about you?
Then, you turn your mind back to Charlotte. Your brows have lowered, although your lips are still curved up into a small smirk. You’re not sure what caused her stammering there, but dear god, she is adorable when she stammers like that, so… breathy, and almost nervous. “That’s true,” you allow. “But this is your favourite show, isn’t it? So you must like that kind of thing.” It’s a logical enough conclusion, after all. If it annoyed her, she wouldn’t be watching the show, let alone be describing it to you in such detail.
“B-But-“ And there she goes again, stammering almost breathlessly. Your smile grows somewhat, an expression that anyone would call predatory if they could see you, although there’s nothing but faint lust and a growing appreciation for how cute a flustered Charlotte is in you. “I-I never said it was my favourite show!”
You hum, a sound that draws a faint sound from Charlotte. “That’s true,” you concede, mock-frowning down at the phone. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you like the build-up, does it?”
There’s only silence from her end for several long moments, broken only by the faint hitching of her breath. The silence drags on long enough that the smile drops from your face. You’re about to speak up, to ask if she’s okay, or apologize, or something, when she finally speaks up. “It doesn’t.”
Her voice is small and breathy. Even you, as emotionally stilted as you are, can hear and understand the faint trembling in her voice. You’ve heard the same kind of trembling before, though from a different brunette. In the very same bed you’re lying on now, in fact.
But you’re pretty sure you haven’t said anything that would cause her to be turned on. You rack your brain for a quick moment, but all you can remember teasing her about is her taste in television shows and the romances developed therein. Unless she’s the kind of girl who gets turned on by being teased?
You blink, your mouth suddenly dry. That thought is way too erotic. You have to lick your lips for a moment before you can formulate a response. “Th—That’s good to know.” Your voice is softer than you want it to be, but you don’t care enough to try and raise it. You can imagine Charlotte straining to hear your reply anyway, and that mental image is nice enough to make you want to lower your voice further. “You’ll have to, uh. Show me, one day.” That was a mess of a sentence. Damn it.
Still, by the fact you can hear her breaths, you’re pretty sure she doesn’t mind. You wait for a moment, two, before she responds with a choked, “O-Okay.” You wait patiently, but she doesn’t say anything else, just keeps breathing heavily.
Well, that’s fine too. Your phone beeps—another text from Aisha—but you ignore it for the moment. “I’m looking forward to it,” you murmur. You wait for her to make a sound—which turns out to be a small whine, followed by a sound of agreement and a harried “Yes”—before you open the text from Aisha. “Anyway,” you say finally, “you were telling me about how the author was writing books about the detective?”
It’s a safer topic, at least for you. You’re not quite sure what you had done that had turned Charlotte on in the first place, but… well. As cute as Charlotte is, you can’t help but remember the disgust she’d felt at school when looking at you and Madison. You really have no idea what she had found erotic about your conversation, but whatever it was, you… you don’t want to risk saying the wrong thing and reminding her of that disgust when you aren’t there to damp it down.
And besides; it’s hard to concentrate on texting Aisha when you know the girl you’re speaking to is aroused.
Victoria doesn’t arrive at five. Dad still isn’t home by then, though you have dinner for the two of you bubbling away on the stove—just a thin tomato soup with two handfuls of frozen vegetables defrosting in a smaller pot to the side. Your conversation with Aisha, such as it is, is still technically ongoing, although the rate of messaging has slowed down even further—you’re lucky if she responds within fifteen minutes of a text now. Somehow, you get the feeling she was looking more for a distraction than a proper conversation.
Charlotte, on the other hand, had kept talking to you about nothing in particular until nearly exactly three o’clock. Except for your flirty exchange with her, the conversation had largely been superficial—you’d talked about your favourite TV shows, your favourite books, your classes at school, and other such small topics. You are not sure how long you would have talked if her father hadn’t interrupted her on the phone, rather abruptly informing her that she had to come down and help prepare dinner.
It’s kind of troubling how abrupt her father was, actually. Not in a serious way—he didn’t seem like she was in trouble—but you do remember how hesitant her initial call had been. It seems that her family isn’t much more interested in talking with her than they have been.
Oh well. You can’t do anything about it for now. You could try calling her, but you’re pretty sure that if you spent that long on the phone every day, she would wake up to a phone bill in the thousands. You’ll just have to… figure out a way to cheer her up when she returns. Perhaps with the series she agreed to watch with you?
Your thoughts are interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. You look up at the clock with a faint frown. It’s past five now, closer to quarter past than on the hour. She’s late. That’s unlike her.
The first thing you notice about Victoria after you open the door are the faint bags beneath her eyes. On most people they would be so small as to be unnoticeable, almost ignorable—but on her, they stand out, a sharp flaw on her otherwise almost perfect features. You can see faint smudges to the side, where she has attempted to hide them with eye shadow. It hasn’t worked.
“Hi,” you say quietly, standing to the side. You try not to make your staring too obvious, but by the way she grimaces, you don’t succeed. “How are you?”
She moves past you, her movements almost sluggish. “I’m fine,” she murmurs. The energy that usually pervades her has disappeared, leaving her moving slowly. She’s almost plain like this. As plain as Glory Girl ever gets, anyway. She stops after a moment, then turns to you, eyes searching your face for a moment before she slowly steps forward, arms widening.
You recognize and accept the movement, allowing her to fall into a grateful hug. You don’t say anything, just stand there for a few long moments, softly stroking her back. You keep it up until she steps back, some of the energy restored to her movements. “Feeling a little better?” you ask, arching your eyebrow in what you hope is a teasing manner.
She smirks at you. You can’t deny the relief that flows through you. You’re not used to seeing Victoria tired like that. “A little,” she says, waggling her own eyebrows. “A good hug always helps, you know? Especially when it’s from a cute girl.”
You nod. It’s true, if a little self-aggrandizing. Hugging her did cheer you up. You’d meant to ask if it made her feel a little better, but whatever. As long as she’s smiling, the details aren’t important. “Hugs are always good,” you say approvingly. “Come on in. Did you want to stay for dinner?” There’s enough in the cupboards today that you could boil up some rice to go with it. That would allow you to spread the soup for three people.
She shakes her head, but holds her hand out for you to take and lead her further into the house. “No,” she replies, looking a little mournful. “I can’t stay for very long today, actually. Mom wants me home by seven so I can test out some new gear.” She rolls her eyes, a little sneer taking over her face. “Some tinker over in San Francisco developed a new testing dummy or something. I’m supposed to test how safe it is, so Mom can see whether she wants to endorse it or not.”
Huh. You tilt your head a little. That… makes a kind of sense, you suppose. If you were going to test a product that was potentially dangerous, you’d probably test it with a machine first, but if you couldn’t for whatever reason, then Glory Girl is probably the best cape you can imagine for that kind of thing. She’s survived a car exploding beside her without being injured before—you’ve seen it on TV. You hadn’t imagined hiring her out for that before, though. It’s kind of undignified, but then, you’ve considered the costs of the kind of programs that New Wave has ongoing before. Every bit of extra cash would help if you were funding those sorts of programs.
Yet Panacea provides her healing without expectation of payment. Hm. Maybe there’s a governmental contract there? Or is that just another charity act?
