Previous Chapters
The first time Reagan met Farrah
You must be Amy’s mom. I’m Reagan. And may I just say, you have a lovely home
was awkward.
Which put it at least one step ahead of the the first time Amy met Reagan’s father.
Reagan and Farrah had been awkward. Amy and Martin was… painful. Like bodily injury painful.
The first time Amy met Reagan’s brother, Glenn, was much smoother. Much simpler.
Glenn had three questions.
“You really a lesbian?”
Amy had nodded yes, which she would realize later, was really the first time she’d ever actually said it out loud.
Even if she didn’t really say anything.
“You know about Shelby?”
Amy had nodded again. Reagan was in the other room, right on the edge of her little kitchen and her living room and Amy could see her over Glenn’s shoulder. She saw the way her girlfriend’s whole body tensed at the question. Saw the way Reagan’s eyes squeezed shut.
“I was in Afghanistan,” Glenn said - that part not a question. “I can kill a man with my pinky. Or my big toe. Keep that in mind,” he said, “if you’ve got any thoughts of ‘phasing’ my little sister.”
Amy nodded. And then… “I thought you had three questions?”
It was Glenn’s turn to nod. “Oh, right. Almost forgot,” he said. “You got any single friends that are like, even half as hot as you?”
Glenn was very lucky Reagan couldn’t kill a man with her pinky.
Meeting Glenn had been easy. He might have been older, but he was, at heart, an even bigger kid than Reagan or Amy. He reminded Amy a lot of Karma in a way. All innocent and hopeful. Except for every once in a while, for just a moment, Amy would catch glimpses of it. Of what had happened to him over there.
It was in the eyes. And it was there for just a moment - never more than a second or two - and then Glenn was Glenn again and joking about his toes the lethal weapons and questioning Amy if her sister
(he’d heard all about Lolo)
was really serious about this Theo guy and asking Reagan if she’d introduced Amy to ‘dad’ yet.
And there was the elephant in the room. Again.
Because Amy had been asking the same thing. Repeatedly. Day after day.
So maybe she and Reagan had only been together a little more than a month. It had still been weeks since Reagan met Farrah, and Amy was convinced she was ready.
If, by ready, she meant absolutely terrified.
Amy wanted to meet Martin. She wanted to meet the man who had coined the 'motherfucking mantra’, the man who had convinced Reagan to get the hell out of her truck and ring the Raudenfeld-Cooper’s doorbell. She wanted to meet the man who had done what her father couldn’t.
The man who had stayed.
But as much as she wanted to meet Martin, she wanted even more for that meeting to be perfect. Amy didn’t want any slip-ups. She didn’t want any embarrassing moments. She, in short, wanted her first meeting with Reagan’s father to be everything her first meeting with Reagan hadn’t been.
Amy remembered it well. Locked in a storage room. Scarfing down shrimp at an alarming - and possibly insane - rate. Pretending to be Liam’s possibly knocked up girlfriend who set off the Booker family armageddon.
(Amy felt less and less guilty for that by the day.)
And those were just the things Amy could - oddly enough - predict and avoid.
(She totally had a 'do not do’ checklist of post-it notes on her mannequin.)
(It started with not eating shellfish and ended with not being pregnant. Not even fake pregnant.)
But there were - in Amy’s mind at least - a thousand and one other things that could go wrong.
There were the basics. Like what if Martin didn’t like her?
Amy knew herself well enough to know that she could be something of an acquired taste. And that she typically sucked in social situations and resorted to snark and sarcasm and what if Martin didn’t appreciate snark? What if he was one of those people
(those assholes)
who didn’t find sarcasm to be a particularly charming trait?
(Do not do sarcasm.)
(Check.)
Then there were the slightly more thought out objections.
Like her age.
“I’m sixteen,” she said to Shane - as if he’d forgotten. “What if he thinks I’m too immature for her? What if thinks I’m just some dumb little high school girl going through her college lesbian phase a little early?”
Shane - as was his GBF duty - had done his best to reassure her. He reminded Amy that - despite her general apathy toward anything that wasn’t doughnut, Reagan, or Netflix related - she was one of the smartest girls he knew.
He told her that not every girl went through a lesbian phase in college.
(only the smart ones)
“And, most importantly,” Shane said, “Reagan’s not a phase.”
He paused. Longer than he should have.
And spoke again. When he really shouldn’t have.
“Right?”
Amy glared at him - the same glare she’d give him a few weeks later when he accidentally outed Reamy to Karma - but it was too late. As was usual with Shane, his attempts at making things better had only made them worse.
If Shane wondered - if her other best friend actually fucking wondered, and let’s face it, if he didn’t wonder, he wouldn’t have asked - then how could Amy know Martin wouldn’t wonder too?
And that brought up Amy’s biggest worry of them all. The one with a name.
Shelby.
Amy had never met Shelby - not yet - but she loomed over her relationship like a fucking cloud, a cloud which, judging from the pictures Amy had seen on Reagan’s Facebook
(Reagan didn’t believe in 'delete’. “You should never try to erase your past,” she said, “that’s just erasing you.”)
was fucking hot. All curly hair and big boobs and tight abs and God, if Amy hadn’t hated the bitch, she so would have wanted to fuck her.
It wasn’t that Amy was jealous
(OK. It wasn't just that)
she knew Reagan was over Shelby. Amy knew that her girlfriend had no lingering feelings for her ex-girlfriend. Amy had no doubts about that which should have made it all so much easier.
Except it didn’t.
Because no matter what she knew, Amy still couldn’t help but feel that she was still living in the other girl - and her relationship’s - shadow.
Which, Amy guessed, was probably not unlike the way Reagan felt about Karma.
Yeah. Like that little epiphany made anything better.
What really didn’t make it better, what actively made it worse, was the way - all the ways - Amy felt like Reagan was holding back. The way she kept putting off Amy meeting Martin. The way she kept slowing things down when Amy thought she was giving her all the signs in the world that she wanted to speed them up.
In Amy’s mind, it was simple.
(Which should have been her first clue that it wasn’t.)
In her head, Amy was convinced that Reagan was afraid. Afraid of the same thing she was. That Martin - who had never been Shelby’s biggest fan and had seen through her right from the start - would see right through Amy too.
And it wasn’t like she hadn’t provided him with plenty of reasons to look.
“You haven’t told him, right?”
It became Amy’s standard refrain every time her meeting Martin came up.
“You haven’t told him, right?” she would ask. “You know… about me and Karma.”
Reagan reassured her - every damn time - that no, she hadn’t mentioned anything about Karma to her father.
They may not have been afraid of exactly the same thing, but Reagan wasn’t stupid enough to hand her father a gold-plated invitation to be suspicious of her new girlfriend.
“And even if I had,” Reagan said - every damn time - “he wouldn’t care.”
It was a lie. A little one. A slight… exaggeration.
“My father wouldn’t care,” Reagan said, “not if he knew the whole story. Not if he knew how much I… care about you.”
They were still a ways away from Reagan’s impromptu 'I love you’ in the Hester hallway, but even Amy caught the pause before 'care.’ Even she got the idea that - for Reagan at least - this was something serious, something real.
That was the only thing that kept Amy going. It was her reminder, the one thing she fell back on whenever she worried. It might not have been those three little words, but it definitely told Amy that she wasn’t in this alone.
This wasn’t Karma all over again.
And she tried, really she did. Amy tried so hard to show Reagan that even if she couldn’t say the words yet, she felt the same. That was why she pushed so hard to meet Martin. Doing something that big, that important a step, even though it scared the shit out of her, was the least Amy thought she could do.
She tried. She tried so fucking hard.
But - even if she didn’t know it - she kept coming up just short.
Right up until the night she met Shelby.
Shelby was fucking everywhere.
Or, at least it felt that way to Amy.
It was rapidly getting to the point where Amy felt like there weren’t just two people in her relationship. Theirs was a threesome, a love triangle with one point missing.
(A square, if you counted Karma.)
(Amy tried really hard not to.)
She felt it more and more every day, felt the anger and resentment and aggravation of it bubbling up inside her every time Shelby’s name came up. Which, it seemed to Amy, was damn near all the fucking time.
Whenever she mentioned meeting Martin.
Whenever she thought Reagan was just about to say those three little words.
Whenever - and this was the one Amy almost couldn’t stand - it seemed like maybe, just maybe, she and Reagan were finally going to… you know.
And yes, Amy realized that if, even in her own head, she couldn’t stop referring to it as 'you know’, then she probably wasn’t really ready yet. And that made all the sense in the world, it made for an easy, ready made excuse for why Reagan kept pulling away.
It was perfectly logical.
And complete bullshit.
Amy knew she had limited
(and by limited she really meant none)
real relationship experience. Faking it didn’t count - in so many different ways - and the closest she’d come other than that was her one night stand with Liam
(ugh)
and her one failed kiss with Oliver. So, she had a grand total of one person who wasn’t attracted to her because she was the wrong gender
(no matter how much Amy believe 'woah’, 'I know’ wasn’t just because it was, in Karma’s words, “hot”)
one who fucked her out of convenience
(and because she was the best weapon against Karma)
and one who had… well… made her a crane. And most definitely not made her 'no no place’ say 'yes, yes’.
Yeah, she had no experience worth a damn to fall back on. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t need it. Not for this. Not to know that something was off.
And the way she saw it, there were only two real possibilities for what that something was.
It was her. Or it was Shelby.
Amy wasn’t sure which of those was worse.
But, Amy being Amy, it didn’t really matter. Because they both did the same thing, the worst thing anyone could do to her.
They made her doubt.
And that one little seed of doubt, that tiniest of questionable thoughts, that most ridiculous of concerns, was all Amy needed to go fully round the bend, at least in her own mind. She did, somehow, manage to keep her growing insecurities to herself. She didn’t drag Reagan into it, didn’t tell her girlfriend how she was examining every single detail of every single encounter they’d had.
Amy never mentioned replaying every kiss. Every something more than a kiss. Every night falling asleep in Reagan’s arms and every morning waking up beside her.
All that thinking - which was never good for Amy - all that replaying and examining and studying from every fucking angle, had left Amy with two things.
A headache.
And the conclusion that Reagan was - in her own Reagan-ish way - trying to tell her something, that she kept bringing up her ex because she was trying to find a way to say something she couldn’t quite find the words for.
(And if Amy had known that - eventually - Reagan would find the words? That she’d eventually manage to blurt out 'I love you’ because she just couldn’t hold it for one more second and 'I want to be your Shelby’ as way of explanation for the 'I love you’ being so fucking long in coming?)
(She might have relaxed.)
(Might.)
(She was still Amy, after all.)
Amy wasn’t afraid of losing Reagan to Shelby. She knew that wasn’t going to happen. Reagan was over her and Amy knew that. But she also knew that Reagan had loved her.
Loved her. Capital 'L’. Capital everything else.
Reagan hadn’t said as much out loud, but Amy got it. She knew how much Reagan had loved Shelby. Loved her to the point that if Reagan hadn’t caught her in the act, if she hadn’t been forced to literally face the truth
(Shelby staring at her, standing dumbfounded in the doorway, while she kept right on fucking her boyfriend - her ex boyfriend or so Reagan had thought - Shelby watching Reagan break while she screamed her way through and orgasm that put every one Reagan had ever given her to shame)
Reagan would have ignored it. She would have ignored the doubts, the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something was off, something was wrong.
A feeling not unlike the one Amy was having.
If it hadn’t been so blatant, so out there, so right in her fucking face, Reagan would have pretended. She would have stayed in the metaphorical closet just so she and Shelby could have stayed together. She would have been cuckolded.
And she wouldn’t have done a fucking thing about it.
That wasn’t the Reagan Amy knew. That was someone else. Some other girl, some other life.
A life Amy couldn’t help but feel Reagan was still trying to get out from under.
And she didn’t know how to help her.
Until the night she met Shelby.
When Amy finally did meet Martin for the first time, it was painful.
For him.
He got pepper sprayed. And punched in the face. And kicked in the balls.
It wasn’t Amy’s best first impression.
But, if the first time she met Reagan’s father was painful - at least for him - then the first (and only) time she met Reagan’s ex was like open heart surgery without anesthesia.
It was almost their anniversary. Six weeks - and yes, Amy had, against her own better judgment, become one of those people, the ones who celebrate every fucking week together - and despite her worries and stresses, Amy was happier than she’d ever been.
She wouldn’t have minded being able to share this all with her best friend, but that one minor inconvenience was something Amy was learning to live with.
Besides, she figured, she’d tell Karma eventually and it would all be fine. Maybe Karma would be a little put out, at first, but, come on, it was Karma.
How bad could it really go?
One night short of their anniversary and Amy was hanging at a club where Reagan was spinning, waiting for her girlfriend to get done with her set. Amy had very distinct plans for the rest of the evening.
Dance. Make out. Dance. Make out. Make out. Make out. Dance
(for like five minutes)
Retreat to Reagan’s apartment for more making out. Preferably with considerably less clothing.
That particular idea had been front and center in Amy’s mind since the night before. Since the moment she had learned to appreciate just what 'blue balls’ were.
Since the moment Reagan had chosen to - rather abruptly - end their night and take Amy home.
“You’ve got school in the morning,” she told Amy. “I know your mom loves me and all, but if you start flunking classes…”
Bullshit.
Amy had thought it - quite loudly - in her own head. Bullshit. For weeks while faking it with Karma, Amy had been the Queen of avoidance, the Duchess of denial, the Princess of 'move it along, nothing to see here’.
She knew bullshit when she heard it.
Reagan didn’t care even a little bit about Amy’s grades. Maybe - maybe - she cared about what Farrah thought of her, but they both knew Amy’s mother was so far over-the-moon for her daughter’s new girlfriend that Amy would have to commit armed robbery or talk about being gay in front of Nana for Farrah to even blink.
It was simple logic. Really.
It was bullshit.
It was also the fact that, at the very fucking second Reagan had grown so concerned about Amy’s education, she’d had one hand down the back of Amy’s unbuttoned jeans, squeezing the blonde’s ass so hard Amy was pretty sure the cops could have lifted a fingerprint or two from her flesh.
And the other hand?
Fuck. That other hand.
Even thinking about it twenty-four hours later, in a crowded club, with the bass thumping in her ears and underage pervy teenage boys leering at her was enough to make Amy just a little wet
(maybe more than a little)
and her nipples hard all over again.
Amy had never been touched like that - been touched there. Yes, Reagan had come close that day Farrah caught them, but there’d still been a bra then. There’d still been fabric between Reagan’s hands - her fingers - and Amy’s flesh.
Amy had never imagined fabric - or the lack of it - making such a difference.
Reagan’s touch - the feel of her fingers dancing along Amy’s skin - had stirred something in the blonde that all every fantasy she’d ever had about Karma
(or her reality with Liam)
had never even gotten close to. The way Reagan’s fingers brushed along the edge of her bra made Amy’s heart race. The anticipation as those finger slipped between the strap and Amy’s skin almost made her boil over.
Reagan had spent the first month of their relationship slowly prodding Amy into being more vocal, more open, letting her know when something felt good.
“It’s OK,” she told Amy over and over. “I like hearing you. I love knowing what I’m doing to you.”
And even with all that, Amy was pretty sure that even Reagan was stunned by the moan the blonde let out when Reagan’s fingers so deftly popped the front clasp on her bra and slipped one hand beneath, cupping Amy’s breast, a finger and her thumb capturing and gently rolling one already hard nipple between them.
Yeah, Reagan was stunned. Hell, Amy was too. But she saw it, she saw it on Reagan’s face, saw the mixture of surprise and arousal and - for just a fleeting second - there was something else.
And Amy didn’t need to be experienced to know that 'something else’ was why Reagan stopped. Why she suddenly got so concerned with Amy’s schooling. Why she suddenly stood up and straightened her own clothes and grabbed Lightning’s keys off the coffee table.
It was that something else that had dominated Amy’s thoughts ever since. That something else that had lit a fire under those worries and fears and insecurities. And it was that something else that Amy was bound and fucking determined they were going to deal with that night.
Even if 'dealing with it’ meant pinning Reagan down and fucking that 'something else’ right out of her.
(Amy kinda hoped it would mean that)
So she went to the club and waited. And danced. And used the fake ID Reagan and Shane had 'found’ for her to get a few drinks so she could shut all those worries up.
And then that 'something else’ walked right into the club in a super short, super tight, and holy-fucking-shit-hot mini dress.
And that was how Amy met Shelby.
After he met Amy for the first time, it took a few hours for Martin’s face to stop burning and for his normal vision to return. He walked away with a black eye and his balls ached for a week.
Amy had never been pepper sprayed. She’d never been punched in the face and she - for obvious reasons - had never taken one in the junk.
But after she saw Shelby for the first time - live and in living hotness - Amy was pretty sure she knew how all those things felt.
And then some.
She’d seen Shelby before, in old photos. But seeing her on a computer screen or the tiny little screen of her iPhone? Not quite the same thing. Not quite the same thing at all.
Shane had said, on more than once occasion, that Reamy was the hottest couple ever, real or fictional.
Hotter than Selena and Justin, he said. Hotter than Hollstein . Hotter than Taylor Swift and… well… any of them.
“Hotter than Bechloe?” Reagan had asked once.
“Let’s be real,” Shane said. “No one is that hot.”
Clearly, he had never seen Shelby.
Amy stared - and she wasn’t the only one - and did everything but have her eyes bug out like a bad cartoon. She didn’t even know where to look.
The red hair, maybe? The drapes that, thanks to a drunken slip from Reagan, she knew matched the carpet.
(And Amy wanted desperately to be thinking about anything - anything - other than Shelby’s carpet right then.)
Or, possibly, the body? The perfection that was Shelby was… well..
Perfect.
Amy had a hard time with that. But, try as she might - and she was trying so fucking hard - she couldn’t find a flaw.
Maybe her legs? Were they too long?
Or maybe it was her ass. Yeah, that was the flaw. Cause, you know, really? Who really wants to be able to bounce a quarter off it and still feel like you could sink your fingers into it and be able to hang on tight while you buried your tongue in…
Fuck.
Amy needed a drink.
No. She needed a flaw. A problem. A something wrong, a something off, a something that wouldn’t attract every person - male or female - in the joint.
It certainly wasn’t her flawlessly made up face. Or that fucking smile.
Girl next door meets dirty fucking whore meets 'I’ll make you scream my name while your mother’s in the next room and if she comes in, I’ll make her scream too.’
There wasn’t a thing wrong. There wasn’t a thing Amy could see that would make anyone do anything but what they were all doing. If Amy had been able to look anywhere else, she’d have seen every head in the club turn - as fucking one - and follow Shelby to the bar.
Every head but one.
It was, Reagan knew, nothing more than self-preservation. It always had been.
OK, so maybe the fact that ever since she and Shelby broke up, she had kept one eye on the door of every club she spun in wasn't always self-preservation. Maybe once upon a time, just at first, just in those first few weeks when she still had hope
(Shelby could have come to her senses)
(the boy could have just been… well… fear. Or something)
(he could’ve been)
(really)
maybe back then there was still something else to it. Maybe she was hopeful, maybe she was still feeling and not thinking. Maybe she was just desperate and heartbroken and praying that she could see that smile one more time.
Not the one Shelby wore now. Not that smile Amy saw, the one that made men babble like idiots and made women wet.
Reagan had seen that smile before. Before she and Shelby met, when Shelby was still just the girl who sometimes sat at the bar while Reagan spun. Before they danced one night, before they spent all night at the diner by Reagan’s apartment, before they spent an entire weekend fucking and talking and laughing and fucking and Shelby swore there was no one else for her.
She’d seen that smile and she’d hated it. But then there was the dance and the diner and the weekend that taught Reagan so fucking much.
After that, there was only her smile.
Her smile was the one that lit up Shelby’s entire face. The one that spread slowly, like the way a crackling fire could slowly spread its heat up your body, bit by bit, so slowly it almost fucking hurt.
That smile? Reagan loved that smile It was the one that was just for her, it was the one that buried that other one away somewhere, the one that Reagan watched for from her decks every night she spun.
It was the one that said 'I love you’ without a word.
And Reagan lived for it.
More than she did for time with her father. More than she did for her hopes of Glenn coming home safe. More than for cater-waitering
(OK. Not the best example.)
More than she did for spinning.
Shelby was Reagan’s everything. Not a single night went by when Reagan didn’t watch the door, waiting for that smile. Waiting for her love to arrive. Shelby, Reagan was convinced, was the one.
She was Reagan’s whole world.
Right up until that world stopped spinning.
So, yeah, at first there might have been some hope. Some desperation. Some denial even, in the way Reagan’s heart tried to convince her that what her eyes had seen, what her mind believed, that it all wasn’t real.
Shelby had been scared. They were too serious. It was too fast. That was all it was.
There was hope.
Hope, Reagan realized very quickly, could keep you afloat.
Or it could push you under, drive you beneath the swells and let the waves crush you.
It only happened once. Reagan saw her and, as far as Reagan could tell, Shelby saw her at the same time.
By the time Reagan blinked, Shelby was gone.
After that?
Reagan refused. She refused to hope, she refused to deny, she refused to forgive.
She wasn’t going to fucking drown. Not for Shelby. Not for anyone.
After that, it was all self-preservation. It went from hope to habit. She watched the door of every club she spun in. And all that practice, all that time waiting and hoping to see that smile, it made it so easy. Reagan never slipped up, she never paid more attention to the door than to her work.
And she never saw her again.
Reagan couldn’t know if it was dumb luck, the law of averages, if Shelby was just spending all her time fucking her boyfriend, or if her ex was purposefully avoiding her. And really?
She didn’t actually care.
Over time - over the last slow moving year - Reagan got to a point where she hardly even noticed anymore. She still watched the door, but it was just habit.
She was quite sure she was never going to see Shelby again.
Right up until she did.
In the end, Reagan figured it made all the sense in the world that it was that night. The night before her anniversary with Amy, the night she was planning - or hoping - to finally tell Amy how she felt.
Of course that would be the night Shelby showed up. Of fucking course.
And while everyone else - everyone else - in the club watched Shelby, Reagan watched Amy.
Maybe, Reagan hoped, Amy wouldn’t recognize her. Maybe, Reagan prayed, Amy will just think she looks like someone she knows, but she can’t quite place her.
Maybe Amy’s eyes always track someone like that, maybe they always look like they’re boring a hole through someone, like they’d just as soon rip that person’s face off as speak to them.
So, maybe Amy not recognizing her was off the table. But that was fine. Reagan’s set was almost done. Three more songs and she’d be down the ladder, grabbing Amy by the hand and leading her to the parking lot.
And if she had to literally kiss the sight of Shelby from Amy’s mind, well Reagan was just fine with that.
Until, for no reason Reagan would ever even begin to fucking understand, she looked away from Amy. She let her eyes drift to the bar, through the crowd, to that unmistakable, unforgettable face.
Right to Shelby.
Who, Reagan found, was staring right back at her, and that fucking smile had faltered. Just a little.
And when Reagan finally - ten, fifteen, thirty seconds later - managed to look away?
She found herself staring right into the eyes of her girlfriend. And there was something in those eyes, something dancing behind them that Reagan had never seen before and - even though whatever it was it kinda turned her on
(more than kinda)
she never wanted to see again.
Which was fine, really. Because Amy wasn’t looking at her anymore.
Amy was walking.
No, not walking.
Walking.
There was anger in those steps. Anger and determination and a 'fuck you’ attitude that had people clearing a path
(and staring at her)
(not, ironically, unlike they’d just been staring at Shelby)
and that path led only one place.
Shelby.
The first - and only - time she ever met Amy Raudenfeld, Shelby never saw the blonde girl coming.
She didn’t know Reagan had a new girlfriend and, if she had, Amy wouldn’t have been her first guess. Shelby would have imagined someone older. Louder. WIth a bit more up top and flashier fashion and - definitely - more attitude.
Someone more like her.
That had less to do with Shelby’s ego and more to do with the simple fact that every girl she’d hooked up with since Reagan
(and there had been a few)
(more than a few)
could have been described as Reagan-esque.
Not nearly as hot. Not nearly as intelligent or talented or… well… not nearly as Reagan.
But as close as Shelby could come.
So, maybe it would have been a bit of wishful thinking, maybe a bit of hope? Maybe a little wistful dreaming that Reagan was still so hung up on her
(not that Shelby was hung up)
(nope, not even a little)
(sure) (right) (absolutely)
that she had done what the redhead had been trying to do. Find another her.
Which anyone with eyes and a working brain could easily tell was not Amy.
So, yeah, Shelby never saw Amy coming. Not even when the crowd was parting like the Red fucking Sea for the blonde as she marched across the crowded dance floor.
And if she had? If she’d seen Amy coming or known who Amy was or realized why Amy was suddenly stalking her?
She wouldn’t have done a damn thing differently.
And that? That was ego.
Ego and - even if Shelby was loathe to admit it - hope. Hope that maybe she still stood a chance. Hope that somehow the last year had softened Reagan’s feelings toward her, that maybe her favorite DJ would welcome her back.
Shelby knew it was a longshot. She knew that even if Reagan took her back, it would be hard and there would be a lot of anger and a lot more tears before it was all said and done. But if the last year had taught her anything - besides that old chestnut about not knowing what you had till it was gone - it was that she was willing to work. She was willing to do anything.
The last year was evidence of that.
Shelby had realized her mistake almost before Reagan was out the door. She’d come to her senses so fast it almost physically hurt. She’d dumped her boyfriend within a week and had - more times than she liked to think about - punched Reagan’s number into her phone, but never hit the call button.
She was a lot of things, but Shelby wasn’t stupid. She knew it was too soon. She knew it might always be too soon. So she had focused on herself. On fixing whatever was broken inside her that had driven her to hurt Reagan so fucking badly.
In short? It sucked. But not as much as the other… things.
While Reagan had been religiously watching the doors of every club she spun in,Shelby had spent the last year doing two things on a consistent basis.
Thing number one? Avoiding.
Shelby avoided any place Reagan was spinning - or anywhere else they might have ever had in common - like the fucking plague. She changed grocery stores, went to different movie theaters, stopped getting her morning latte at the coffee shop around the corner from Reagan’s apartment.
There were restaurants Shelby never visited anymore. Gas stations she wouldn’t fill up at, clubs she never danced at, hell, there were people who thought she might well be dead because of how completely she’d vanished from their lives.
Shelby changed anything and everything about her life, just so long as it minimized her chances of bumping into Reagan. She knew if she was ever going to have a chance, she needed to give Reagan some time, some space. A chance to let the anger fade enough that she could see past it.
So avoidance was thing number one.
Thing number two?
Missing.
Missing Reagan was like a painful aching nauseating burning thing in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t make go away. No matter how many Reagan-alikes she fucked, it never stopped, it never got any better.
And the guilt didn’t help. The nearly unbearable, unforgivable guilt that had set in the moment she said those words.
It was just a phase.
Shelby knew, without asking - because, really, who the fuck could she ask? - that Reagan didn’t remember it that way. She didn’t remember those words.
'It was’ wasn’t what Reagan heard. Being a lesbian wasn’t the phase.
In Reagan’s mind, it wasn’t 'it was’. It was 'you were’.
You were a phase.
Shelby figured Reagan spent months wishing those words weren’t true, just like Shelby had spent months wishing they were.
(A phase wouldn’t hurt so fucking much.)
But it wasn’t until she met Amy that Shelby realized that the one last thing she and Reagan had in common - those fucking words - was just as long gone as their relationship.
Reagan slapped at the knobs, pressed the buttons, cued up three more songs
(she didn’t even look at what the hell they were)
(she could have cued up Barry fucking Manilow for all she knew)
and made a break for the ladder.
She knew the chances were slim. She was in good shape, she was quick, she could move like a cat when she needed to, like a big black fucking panther stalking its prey. But when the prey - her girlfriend - was doing a little stalking of her own? And she had a pretty sizable head start?
Yeah, Reagan knew her odds weren’t good. There was very little chance she’d get to Amy before Amy got to Shelby. Very little chance she’d be able to cut the blonde off at the pass.
Very little chance she’d get out of this without having to actually see Shelby.
And Reagan was surprisingly OK with that.
She’d spent so long avoiding Shelby that she was almost - almost - welcoming the chance to see her. To face her. To prove to herself once and for all that she was over her.
It was a chance, one Reagan had thought she’d never have. A chance to prove that Shelby had nothing to do with why she’d been holding back with Amy. Why she’d pushed away every time Amy got close, why every time Amy tried to bring up meeting her father or taking things to the 'next level’
(and God Amy was so fucking adorable when she tried to talk all sexy)
Reagan had found a way to shut her up.
Granted, it wasn’t like they didn’t both enjoy most of those ways, especially the ones that involved Amy on Reagan’s lap and grinding hips and Reagan’s hands trailing up under the back of Amy’s shirt and her tongue caught between Amy’s lips while the blond gently sucked on it
(the first time Amy had trotted out that particular trick, Reagan had damn near fucked her on Farrah’s couch)
but Reagan knew. She knew Amy was starting to worry. Really worry,
And Amy wasn’t the only one.
Reagan would never admit it, at least not out loud, but it was Shelby. It had always been Shelby. Every single girl who had asked Reagan out in the last year - until Amy - had Shelby to thank for their rejection. Amy was the first one to get past that. Reagan didn’t know if it was the shrimp or the scene she made at the Booker’s party or what, but something about Amy had hooked her.
For the first time in a year, she looked at another girl and saw her and not Shelby.
And then there’d been the night out with Theo and Lauren. And the truth about Karma and 'falling in that direction" and… well…
Then there was fear.
There was Shelby.
Reagan didn’t think Amy was another Shelby. Really, she didn’t. Amy was too nice, too self-conscious, too awed by every little step forward they made. Reagan didn’t think, even for a second, that she was a Shelby.
But then she hadn’t thought Shelby was a Shelby either..
And there were those words.
Those four little fucking words.
You were a phase.
Reagan knew that wasn’t really what Shelby said. She knew Shelby hadn’t said that she was the phase.
Like it really fucking mattered. Like the semantics of the thing were important. Like the very specific word choice distinctions made even the tiniest bit of difference. Like even Reagan’s love for Amy or even her (almost) absolute trust in her even mattered.
Shelby had been, as far as Reagan knew, a real lesbian. At least she’d never faked it. She’d never lied to her entire school and her family and convinced everyone she was something she wasn’t. And yeah, Shelby had an ex. The very same ex Reagan had seen far more of than she ever wanted to.
But that ex?
He wasn’t Karma.
He wasn’t Shelby’s almost life long best friend. He wasn’t the person Shelby had lied to everyone for. He wasn’t the single most important person in Shelby’s life. That had been her. Or so Shelby said. So she’d told him when he’d tried to get her back.
Reagan had fallen. Not just for Shelby. But for her words. For her lies. For her… faking.
Martin never had. Her father had seen through her from the very beginning, he’d warned Reagan right at the start. But when she didn’t want to hear it, when she didn’t want to even consider that Shelby was anything other than exactly what she said, Martin had left it alone.
Reagan knew he wouldn’t do that again.
So she held off. She pushed away. She kept just enough distance that she could pretend she wasn’t as far gone as she really was. And she kept her father away from Amy so there was no chance he could see through her, no chance he could see that Amy was just another Shelby.
She couldn’t take it if Amy was. And she really couldn’t take it if her father had to be the one to show her the truth.
So when Reagan practically slid down the ladder and pushed and shoved and raced and did everything she could to get between her girlfriend and her ex, she - ironically - saw it the same way Shelby did: as a chance. A chance to prove it, once and for all. Maybe she hadn’t seen it before, maybe she’d missed the lies and the deceptions - or at least convinced herself she didn’t see it - but now?
Now she had a chance.
She was going to see them. Together. And somehow, she’d know. Somehow, she’d see the truth, no matter what it was. Because if there was one thing Reagan knew, above all else, it was that she couldn’t let herself do that again. If there was going to be a big fucking neon sign blazing the truth at her in the dark, she was going to fucking see it.
And this time? She’d listen.
The moment she saw Reagan again, Shelby was done. The last year was non-existent. The memory of every Reagan-wannabe she’d fucked in the last twelve months slipped from her mind and her every attempt at pretending and denying and claiming she was over it
(over her)
went right out the fucking window.
Shelby had been convinced that when she saw Reagan again, she wouldn’t even recognize her, that she wouldn’t see the girl she left behind. She’d heard enough from the friends of the friends they still had in common to know that Reagan had changed.
She hadn’t gone out with anyone since the split.
(Clearly, as Shelby was about to find out, that info was slightly outdated.)
Reagan had become gun shy, too afraid to even flirt. She was unsure of herself, tentative even around the people she was closest to. And that was what killed Shelby the most. Reagan - the Reagan she’d known and loved - had been the most confident, self assured, take no shit from anyone woman Shelby had ever met.
She was a badass. She was a motherfucking queen.
And - even if she hadn’t meant to - Shelby had taken that from her. And that hurt. But underneath that hurt, somewhere deep down, Shelby had to admit that a part of her wasn't… well… wasn't happy that Reagan was suffering. But it certainly didn’t suck.
Suffering Reagan meant Shelby wasn’t alone. It meant that somewhere out there, in some bizarre and twisted way, Reagan was still with her. They were still bonded together, even if it was just in their pain. It was - almost - oddly comforting.
And then Shelby saw her.
She saw Reagan up at her deck. She saw her spinning and dancing and just being… her.
And Shelby’s heart broke all over again. Because she saw it. She didn’t know who it was, she didn’t know who had changed it for Reagan, but she knew someone had.
Maybe someone - anyone - else wouldn’t have seen it. Maybe they wouldn’t have even known what to look for or what signs to see or even known the fucking difference.
But Shelby wasn’t anyone else. She was Reagan’s first love.
And even if Reagan would never believe it - and Shelby knew she wouldn’t - Reagan was hers.
But in that moment, in that club, as she watched her? Shelby knew.
Reagan’s heart wasn't hers. Not anymore.
Amy was not meant to be impulsive. She was, frequently, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea. All you had to do was look at her last six months to see that.
There was kissing Karma and the croquembouche incident. Or confessing her feelings in the most impromptu and ill-advised wedding toast in history.
Fucking Liam.
Impulsivity was not Amy’s friend.
Until Reagan. Until she’d hung up on Karma and climbed that ladder and asked DJ Hottie out.
It was only once. One time when being impulsive didn’t backfire on her, didn’t make things a whole metric fuckload worse.
But what a 'once’ it was. And now she was staring down the one thing
(because she was so not counting Karma)
that could fuck her 'once’ up. And so Amy didn’t think. She was, truthfully, past thinking, and had been since the moment the night before when Reagan touched her - touched her - and then pushed her away. It was frustrating and not just sexually.
Amy was frustrated with herself. With her own inability to girl the fuck up and fix whatever the hell was wrong with her and Reagan before it got too serious. She was frustrated and scared.
Scared of finally meeting Martin. Scared of not being enough for Reagan. Scared that her inexperience and immaturity was slowly turning the older girl off.
And then all of those worries and fears and insecurities walked right in front of her in her way too tight outfit and staring way too long at Amy’s girlfriend.
So, yeah.
Amy and impulsivity didn’t work well together.
But when had that ever stopped her?
If you knew what to look for, it wasn’t hard to spot. And after all those nights of fending off one DJ groupie after another
(and yes, that’s a real thing)
Shelby had grown quite adept at knowing what to look for.
It was in the eyes, usually. The lust. The want. The hunger. It was - usually - a primal thing, purely sexual. Drunk and horny girls looking to hook up and the hottest one of them all was the one up on that platform. When Reagan spun, it was like she was the fucking queen ruling from on high. And every one of her subjects wanted nothing more than to service her, to please their queen.
Shelby got it.
Once upon a time, she’d been one of them. So she understood.
And if that was the only thing she saw in Amy’s eyes, if the first time she’d stared into them she’d seen nothing but that hunger, she would’ve dismissed Amy out of hand. She would’ve ignored the younger girl’s admonishment
“You can stop staring now.”
and gone right back to what she was doing, which was staring. Watching Reagan come down the ladder, watching her start to move through the drunken masses.
Shelby had never realized how much you could miss the way someone moves.
So she almost didn’t even look at Amy and probably wouldn’t have if the blonde hadn’t been all up in her personal space. She turned to her, just to tell her to fuck off, and that was when she saw it.
That hunger. That lust.
That anger.
Shelby had never seen that before, but she’d heard about it, she knew what it looked like, because they’d all told her about it. Her friends.
Their friends.
They had all seen it. Night after night, time after time. In her eyes when she was dealing with the little wannabe DJ fuckers. That anger. It wasn't just anger.
It was possession.
And suddenly, even without knowing her name, Shelby knew exactly who Amy was.
Which didn’t stop her from asking, “Who the fuck are you?” with all the venom and mean girl 'fuck with me and I’ll fuck you up’ attitude she could muster.
It was weak and she knew it. She was out of practice. She hadn’t had much cause for threats the last year or so, hadn’t really had any territory to protect.
And, Shelby realized quite quickly, she hadn’t been on this end of it, not in a very long time. She was the intruder, she was the wannabe, she was the problem.
She was the threat.
For a second or two, she wondered if Amy even knew who she was. Probably not. Most likely, Blondie had just picked out the hottest girl in the place and was looking to make a name for herself, stake her claim good and loud for everyone to see.
Two, Shelby figured, could play that game.
“I know who you are,” she said, stepping closer to Amy, virtually eliminating the space between them. It was an old trick, the body contact, the heat, the sexual energy of it all designed to fluster the newbie.
“Yeah?” Amy asked, not backing up even a step. “Who am I?”
Shelby smiled and it was just about the most evil thing Amy had ever seen.
“You’re the new me,” she said.
“You’re the new me.”
Reagan froze. She was too far away to interject, but close enough to hear. Stuck in some sort of limbo, unable to move or speak, just locked there like she was frozen in time.
It was those words.
Those four fucking words.
You’re. The. New. Me.
Leave it to Shelby to come back after a year and peg Reagan’s worst fear on the first fucking try.
And leave it to Amy to shoot that right to hell.
“I’m nothing like you,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
“Really?” Shelby asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm and that 'bored, now’ tone she used when she was done messing with some little bitch that wanted a piece of what she thought was hers. “You sure about that? You positive?”
Reagan watched Amy carefully, watched her as her eyes shifted, dropped, unable to quite hold onto Shelby’s gaze.
Score one for the ex.
“No,” Shelby said, unable to resist a little gloat. “You’re right. You're nothing like me.”
Reagan’s heart dropped as Amy faltered, shrunk back just a step, the aggression already fading.
“If you were like me,” Shelby said, pressing the issue, “you wouldn’t be worried about me. You wouldn’t have to be. Because you would know, without even a flicker of doubt, that every single bit of her? Is yours.”
Shelby stepped away from the bar, bending just slightly so she could put herself right in Amy’s downcast vision.
“But you don't know, do you?” she asked. “Because you do know who I am. I can tell. And now, seeing me, you’re wondering and worrying and thinking about every little thing that isn’t quite right with the two of you.”
Reagan dropped her eyes. She couldn’t watch.
“And you’re wondering,” Shelby said. “You’re wondering if it’s me. If I’m what’s wrong. Or, more accurately, if it's you that’s wrong.”
“Because you're not me.”
Amy saw her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Reagan. Hurt. Wounded. Head hung low but starting to move. Taking a step forward, pushing past the last of the people between her and the two of them.
And for the first time - but not the last - Amy realized it was all on her. She could stop Reagan’s pain.
And that gave her a strength she didn’t know she could have.
“You’re right,” Amy said and Shelby blinked and Reagan stopped. Quite literally, actually. She stops moving, stops thinking, might even had stopped breathing.
And then Amy looked up And locked eyes with Shelby and Reagan saw something she’d never seen before.
Shelby flinched.
Oh, it wasn’t much. Barely a twitch. Hardly a flicker. Someone else might not have noticed.
But that whole knowing each other thing? It totally worked both ways.
“You are the problem, Shelby,” Amy said and it was a voice Reagan had never heard before
(but would, again, the next time Amy fought for her)
and Amy rolled on. “You’re the problem, the thing that’s between us. You and your lies and your bullshit and the way you used her and threw her aside when you were done.”
Shelby tried to interrupt. She tried.
“I didn’t -”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
Shelby’s eyes grew impossibly wide
(almost as wide as Reagan’s)
and she opened her mouth to speak, to ask Amy just who the fuck she thought she was.
But she didn’t . Because she knew who Amy thought she was. And that Amy didn’t just think it, she knew.
She’s Reagan’s.
“You know what I see when I look at you, Shelby?” Amy asked. “Pain. So much fucking pain. it just kills you, doesn’t it? To see her looking so good, so whole, so not broken.”
Reagan stared at her ex and, for the first time, she saw what Amy did. Not the enemy. Not the liar.
Just a broken woman.
Not unlike her.
“You thought she’d still be waiting, didn’t you?” It was Amy’s turn to press. “You thought she’d just be watching that door, waiting for your smile. For your time and your love and for you to deem her worthy once again.”
Shelby wanted to argue. She really did.
But she just fucking couldn’t.
“You thought she was yours. Always.” Amy stepped forward, crowding Shelby. “But now you know. You know that maybe tonight you’ll take someone home. Maybe someone that looks like her, smells like her, maybe even fucks like her.”
Shelby had serious doubts about the last one.
“But it won’t be her,” Amy said. “Because she is going home with me.”
And that was one step too far, one shot too many, one last push Shelby just couldn’t take.
“Home with you? For what?” she scoffed. “So you can cuddle? Eat some cookies and watch Netflix all night in your jammies? Or maybe braid each other’s hair?”
It was Shelby’s last gasp, her last defense, her last shot and they both knew it.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting a little.
“You’re what? Sixteen?” Shelby asked. “You think you know the first thing about keeping a woman like Reagan happy?”
Amy shrugged. “Not fucking a guy is probably a good start.”
“I made a mistake,” Shelby spat. “One I’ve had to live with. But not anymore. I found her again and if you think I’m going to walk away -”
Amy interrupted. Calm. Cool. Not a hint of the somersaults her stomach was doing even the tiniest bit evident in her voice.
“I don’t think you’re going to walk away, Shelby,” she said. “I think you’re going to run. You’re going to run out of here in tears because yeah, maybe I am new at this, maybe I am… what do they call it?.. a baby dyke.”
Amy stepped forward one last time, so close Shelby could feel Amy’s breath on her skin.
“But I'm her baby dyke,” Amy said. “And she knows that I’m never going to leave. No matter how slow we go, no matter how long it takes for her to trust that I won’t be you.”
That, Reagan realized, might not take as long as she thought.
“You thought this was your second chance, Shelby?” Amy laughed. “This isn’t your second anything. This? This is you seeing the last nail getting hammered into your coffin.”
Shelby felt the tears pooling in her eye and rolling down her cheeks but she refused to give Amy the satisfaction of seeing her wipe them away.
“This is when you run, Shelby,” Amy said. “And if I were you? I wouldn’t look back. Because all you’ll see is her. Living and laughing and loving and yeah, sometimes struggling and sad and angry and crying, but it won’t matter. Because no matter what? Reagan will never be alone again.”
Amy turned and then stopped, finding Reagan’s eyes through the crowd.
“You may only see her,” Amy said. “But you should know this, Shelby. Wherever she is?”
“I’m never far.”
Reagan and Amy didn’t sleep together that night.
They stayed up most of it watching documentaries on Netflix
(making out)
eating cookies
(making out)
and yes, Reagan did braid Amy’s hair
(and made out with her).
And, right before she fell asleep, with Amy tucked in next to her, the blonde’s head on her chest, Reagan sent one simple text message.
Hey Dad. Lunch this week? There’s someone I want you to meet.
A/N: Yeah, it’s been a while. Other stories got in the way. But the next chapter is already started. So, after the next Bartender chapter, I can get back to this. Sooner this time. Gotta get through the hiatus somehow, right?