wow, so sorry for the lack of revising on this chapter. i was hit with the need to put it out there all of a sudden, many months late. thanks for sticking around and reading!

Chapter Text

Saturday morning came with a wine headache on Angela’s end. She had slept alongside Amélie in her bed with room for two more. Angela spent the morning making coffee and enjoying it out on the balcony by herself. Amélie almost always stayed in bed until at least eleven in the morning on the weekends if she didn’t have a performance to attend.

The morning air felt different than the night before. Wine drunk and a little flirty, Angela knew she might have made an ass of herself. If she did, Amélie said nothing of it. They went to bed without incident. After all, they had shared a bed on many weekends. The increased tension made no difference this time. Angela almost felt disappointed.

Her phone jerked her from thought with a loud ding that she nearly dropped her coffee. She assumed it was probably Amélie from inside the house asking where she ran off to-

UNKNOWN NUMBER: (PHOTO)

Angela blinked at the preview, unlocking her phone and opening the message. It was a picture of a canary yellow camisole with lace trim thrown across a messy desk. She squinted harder before realizing- it was her camisole.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: Are you missing something?

It was obvious, but still, Angela felt heat rush to her face. How did Moira get her phone number? She certainly couldn’t recall giving it to her, unless along with hooking up with her she also had a mild stroke. To add to the trauma of this, why was that mawkish excuse of a teacher’s assistant-pretend scientist taunting her like this?

She locked her phone angrily and placed it in the pocket of the robe borrowed from Amélie’s closet bathroom. Angela wore it often while she visited, and somehow it still managed to smell like her best friend. Clutching the softness of it around her closer, she felt like she needed to cover herself- as if she were being watched.

“Good morning.”

Angela startled once more as she turned and met Amélie’s eyes, soft in the morning rather than so calculated and piercing like they could sometimes be. She laughed at Angela when she jumped and sidled up beside her.

“Did I scare you?” Her smooth voice was a purr too close to the blonde’s ear this early in the morning.

“No-” Angela shook her head and tried to repress her blush from Moira’s message and her surprise of her best friend’s sneak attack. “Well, perhaps.” She laughed.

"It is not like you to be so jumpy.” She smirked and sat down in one of the lounge chairs with ease- that calculating presence had returned all too quickly.

“There’s coffee.” Angela piped in before Amélie could point out anymore of her embarrassing shortcomings.

The dancer hummed softly with a nod and looked out over the water, it glistened in the morning sunlight. She seemed content and completely unharmed by the previous night’s wine indulgence.

Another notification ping rang out from Angela’s bathrobe pocket and Amélie tipped her head slightly.

“Early for a conversation that is not me, no?”

“It’s nothing. There’s a chat for a group project in one of my physiology classes.” The lie slipped from her tongue easier than she meant for it to, this time.

Amélie’s eyes could see right through her friend, but she spoke nothing of it. A moment’s silence ticked between them before she rose from the chair, her longer pale lilac robe dragging the balcony floor.



“We should get ready and go out for something sweet for breakfast.” Her voice left no option for a change of plan and Angela could only nod.

“As soon as I finish my coffee.” She laughed softly and Amélie lingered in the doorway before she walked through and went towards her master bathroom.

A heavy sigh passed through Angela’s lips, listening as the other’s footsteps receded. Her hand found her phone once more to read the awaiting message.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: What does a straight laced self-proclaimed medical student prodigy do on a Saturday morning?

She glared at her phone, as if it could translate the emotion to Moira that way. Swallowing her last dregs of coffee, she placed the mug on the balcony railing and began typing furiously.

ANGELA: I never said I was a prodigy, you did. And I do plenty!

A response came all too soon, she could practically see Moira sitting smugly at her desk and working away without even breaking a sweat.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: When I said it, it was a taunt.

She refused to entertain this, although a warmth spread across her lower stomach before she stomped back inside and shut the balcony door harder than intended. In the distance, she could hear the shower running and once approached- she noticed the door was cracked. Through it she could see Amélie, not yet inside the shower.

Her long dark hair flowed against her back and in the reflection of the mirror, Angela noticed she wore only her underwear. They weren’t even over the top and detailed as most might imagine a rich girl having- they were black. Cotton, cut simply in bikini style, comfortable. As she analyzed for a moment just why Amélie did bother with underwear- dancers wore such tight clothing- their eyes met in the mirror.

A different emotion was displayed on Amélie’s face. Not shock or disgust, but something darker- half inviting and another half challenging. Pink spread over Angela’s face before she walked past the bathroom and ended the moment. Her heart pounding. What did it matter? They had seen each other change clothes, gone swimming- she had watched Amélie change clothes before and after dance practices and recitals. But that look, that’s what was different. That’s what brought that warmth further into Angela’s stomach and brought a tingle to her hands. It was almost as if her best friend was asking with her eyes to be tempted enough to join her- or stare a second longer, even.

She could not entertain it. They were best friends, perhaps in their last summer together. It couldn’t be ruined by a lack of self control or misreading on Angela’s part. Moira had been enough of a mistake, a big one at that. Her status as an assistant, already college educated and networked far better than Angela herself put everything at risk. Moira held the key to making her life hell, if she wanted. Through all of that- she needed Amélie as her rock and nothing else.

The bathroom door clicked shut. Angela took in a breath as long as the sigh she’d expressed just moments before. Was it all imagined?

Grabbing her overnight bag, she jerked it up from the floor and went down the hall to one of the guest suits to use the bathroom there for her shower. She tossed her phone onto the perfectly made guest bed to ignore for the following time of getting ready to have a hopefully calm breakfast with Amélie in the city.