Chapter Text
It starts as a joke. Just a joke.
“Of all things I could do in the world,” April asks Hannah one night when they are semi-drunk and sprawled on April’s bed, one of those horrendous reality television series playing in the background, “what do you think would make him the most mad?”
No one has to speak the specific Him into existence, which April is grateful for. She’s freshly 22, freshly out of college, and freshly out to her parents, which went just about as poorly as could be expected.
What she didn’t expect was this bubbling joy, this giddy freedom. She didn’t expect to come home and not cry, to just have Hannah waiting for her with champagne and a banner.
“Of all the things in the world?” Hannah repeats seriously, pondering.
On the TV screen behind her face, some girl with a spray tan makes out with a guy with far too many abs. April has no idea how this shit keeps getting greenlit.
Hannah’s eyes look back to the TV, then she grins.
“That.”
“What do you mean, that?”
“If you went on a TV show like that, but like, super gay, and were just, macking on girls left and right on national television, then would make your dad absolutely lose his mind.”
April laughs, wondering if this high will ever fade, will be replaced by the sinking realization that those who raise her concretely want nothing to do with her. It hasn’t yet.
“Well, good thing these shows are disgustingly heterosexual, so I won’t have to do it.”
Hannah’s eyes perk up, a danger sign. In the time they’ve been roommates—something April never would have dreamed of when they were in high school—April has gotten very good at reading Hannah’s facial cues.
“So you’re saying,” Hannah says, giggling, “if this kind of show suddenly got very queer, you’d go on one to piss off your dad.”
April rolls her eyes, laughing. The girl on the TV takes off the guy’s shirt, while the cameras zoom in.
“Sure, Hannah. If they ever make one of these tropical shows where they just hire hot dumb people to fuck, but for lesbians, which they won’t, I will be the first contestant to audition.”
It’s research. It starts as field research.
Sterling is pretty sure she wants to go to grad school to be a therapist. She’s like 80% sure. She just likes knowing what’s going on in people’s brains. Like what traumas someone would have to go through for them to decide they want to give up their only child to their sister, never speak to her again, until a decade and a half after the fact when they kidnap said child.
Just for example.
Anyway, Sterling majored in psych.
She does this thing, this thing that Blair hates, when they’re watching various offshoots of The Bachelor, where Sterling theorizes about each contestant, what led them here, what they will offer for a relationship, what holds them back.
“You should be one of those relationship psychologists,” Blair says one night after Sterling monologues for twenty minutes about Ashley F. the nurse’s neglect in her youth.
“Like a couples counselor?”
“Kind of. Or like a sex therapist. Or that person they hire on Are You The One? that tells the contestants if they’re compatible.”
“I don’t think that’s a real job.”
“Who cares? You know, you would have been great on that show during the season they did all bi contestants—missed opportunity.”
“Oh darn.”
Ashley F. gets sent home. Probably won’t help with her abandonment issues.
“Would you do it?” Blair asks, grinning, “be on one of these shows you love to pick apart. Imagine how much armchair psychoanalysis you could do right there in the middle of it.”
“It’s not armchair if I have a degree!”
“Whatever.”
Sterling thinks about it then, actually. Maybe because she’s bored. Maybe because she’s been going to school for the last two decades over her life and it would be nice to do something dumb and fun.
“I think I would if it was something like that season of Are You the One? Any one of The Bachelors would just be too straight. But it would be kind of cool to purposefully be put with hot queer people and then figure out what all their shit is.”
“Here.” Blair tosses Sterling her phone.
“Ow!”
“Look at the article.”
Sterling looks.
“Blair. No. Blair. No. I am not doing this.”
“You just said!”
“That was a very hypothetical situation! This is a very real link to a casting call next week for an all queer dating show.”
“All queer women. Hotter.”
“Not hotter! Maybe more exploitative!”
“Nah, definitely hotter. Especially for you, Sterl.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, come on. You’re normally a pretty level headed person, but a certain type of girl comes along and you lose it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Savannah Whitmore. Cass Davis. April Stevens. Rachel McAdams in The Family Stone.”
“You leave Rachel McAdams out of this!”
“All I’m saying, Sterl, is that a specific type of mean lesbian comes along and you lose it. Now you can be on an island with them.”
Sterling hesitates for just a second.
“Ha!” Blair shouts. “You’re tempted!”
“I am not!”
“You so are!”
Sterling puts her hands in her head.
“Ugh, maybe.”
“Oh just do it! Come on. You’ve been hard core studying since like, the third grade, and you’re finally out of school. Unwind! Go fuck whoever they make the ‘villian’ of this show, and study their behaviors. It’s perfect.”
And, loathe as Sterling is to admit it, it kind of is perfect.
Of all the children who have wanted to piss off their parents across the span of human existence, April wonders if any of them have done something like this.
She’s currently in some sort of changing room which has several options of revealing swimsuits, of which April has to choose one to wear and then go out into this resort with several other women who will all be wearing revealing swimsuits and will all be looking at each other.
It’s a lot.
Not that April is insecure about her body. She has a magnificent body, she’s well aware. She just might not be thrilled about that body being broadcast for millions of viewers. She has one rant up her non-existant sleeve prepared about how forcing a bunch of queer women to be scantily clad is simply fodder for the myth that women are into each other for the men to stare at, and another rant up her other non-existant sleeve about how, if she was still a teen, and everyone she knew was talking about a show where women were set up to fall for each other, it would shatter her world.
Fucking Hannah and her fucking follow through. April really should have considered just not going through with it, telling Hannah she was drunk and silly and no way was someone who her college girlfriend affectionately, then less affectionately, used to call “queen of being uptight” should go on reality television where the goal was to hang out and flirt with other woman.
There’s gotta be a twist though. In the years she’s lived with Hannah, she’s seen her fair share of these shows. They either will have to kick people off to win money, or pair up in a certain way, or vote other lesbians off the island or whatever. And besides, the way the casting people had sucked every ounce of personal information from her, they’re definitely planning something. There’s definitely a catch.
But either way, no matter what happens on this show, even if April gets immediately sent home or if she loses a million dollars or if she gets her heart broken, her appearance here will, no matter what, make John Stevens absolutely furious.
She chooses the skimpiest two-piece that the wardrobe team has to offer.
Time to make some helpless women fall in love with her so her father will lose his mind.
Listen, Sterling has her doubts about this whole thing. Like, it’s kind of gross to have cameras on a bunch of queer women sipping cocktails by the pool and then eyeing each other when the next woman comes on.
But it’s also pretty freaking fun.
Sterling’s the third person out and is greeted by two women with feet dangling in the pool. Their names are Anisha and Jess and they’re both gorgeous, because of course they are, they’re all here because they’re gorgeous.
Which is a little weird, confidence wise, both knowing she was hot enough to be cast, but also feeling very very weird about what constitutes “hot enough” on one of these shows.
Sterling thinks this would be genuinely awful if this was one of those straight people shows, but as it is, both Jess and Anisha say hello with hugs and compliments. Sterling grins at them, lets her feet hang in the perfectly temperate water.
“Sterling, that is a gorgeous name,” Jess says, all smiles. She’s got a sleeve of floral tattoos up her left arm. It’s lovely.
“Thank you,” Sterling says, “y’all are so nice.”
“Southern?”
“Atlanta, born and raised.”
Which is only half a lie.
“So,” Anisha says, sipping a drink with about five umbrellas into it, before she leans a bit closer. “Sterling. We’ve been asked to talk about our ‘journey of self-discovery,’ but make it seem natural.”
Sterling laughs.
“Of course we are.”
“They want to make it palatable for straight people,” Jess says with a grin. “Like, hey we’re just like you, we can have fun in the tropics and be messy and explain to you very much in detail about our gayness.”
“It’s a very silly question,” Sterling says, laying up a joke in her mind to impress these beautiful women, “there’s not one specific thing that made me bi, it’s a big nuanced journey.”
“Exactly.”
“That said, April Stevens, junior year. So hot she changed my life.”
They all laugh then. Touchdown. Sterling might be mixing up her sports metaphors, but who cares.
A couple more girls arrive with waves and names and beautiful smiles and Sterling migrates over to a table where more fancy drinks have been set. It only takes half of one to get her a bit tipsy; as she has no idea what time zone she’s in and it’s very hot out.
Later, she will blame that half of a piña colada for what happens next, but it’s a weak excuse.
By the time the sixth woman comes out, Sterling is standing by the edge of the pool, talking to a redhead named Willa about the stark difference between high school and college dating scenes. With the drinks and the sun and the conversation, she almost doesn’t look at the new girl walking in, it’s already a lot.
But then she does look.
And she thinks she’s hallucinating.
But she’s not, because there are witnesses and cameras and a group of girls staring at April fucking Stevens walking across this resort like she owns it, sunglasses on her eyes, grin on her face and wearing essentially nothing.
Sterling is attempting to do something akin to processing, yet she is suddenly sixteen, her world being expanded and shifted all at once, the reality she once knew being torn from beneath her.
And she can’t stop staring at April Stevens’ tits.
April doesn’t see Sterling at first, just does the standard wave and smiles at the group.
“Hello, I’m April,” she says simply and confidently, like she’s walking into a seminar she’s teaching, not a reality tv series.
“Hi April!” The girls echo.
“April,” Anisha says, “Sterling, wasn’t that the name of your…”
Something changes in April's demeanor then, at the mention of Sterling’s name. She stops short, head turning slighting toward Sterling.
Sterling’s heart beats hard against her chest. She tries to remember how to breathe, how to behave in social situations.
April lowers the sunglasses to the tip of her nose, and meets Sterling’s gaze directly. God, she’s fucking gorgeous, eyes wide and more joyful than they ever were when Sterling knew her. A familiar devastating smile curves on April’s lips, one that absolutely ruined her when she was sixteen.
“Sterling Wesley?” that fucking perfect mouth says.
That’s her name. April just said her name. April Stevens—who Sterling hasn’t seen since high school graduation when they parted with what Sterling would generously call a truce and ungenerously call a gaping hole in her chest—just said Sterling’s name and it’s the best sound in the world.
Sterling needs to say something, needs to do something. She needs to not just stand there like an idiot gaping at how fucking good April looks now.
“Hi,” she says lamely. She should go to her. She should hug her. Or just, touch her in some way. She needs to make sure that April is real—not some jet lag hallucination.
Suddenly, that’s her prime directive. She puts her drink down, backs up from the table, and tries to remember how to use her motor functions for anything but staring at April Stevens in a bikini.
“You alright there, Sterl?” April asks, with a familiarity that shouldn’t exist after four plus years of not speaking, with a warmth that shouldn’t exist after almost an entire adolescence of antagonism, with a smooth quality that shouldn’t make Sterling imagine April saying that in a context that involves even less clothes than the nothing April is currently wearing.
“I’m great!” Sterling squeaks out.
Then she falls right into the pool.
When April was twelve, Donny Matheson would stare at her in science class. It started small, nothing conspicuous, but then it kept growing, his eyes finding her every day, looking up and down her body like it was something for public consumption. April hated it, hated the way it implied he thought about her, hated that any boys had the freedom to look at her like that, to think about her like that.
Over the next few years, it would happen more and more. She tried to offset it. Tried to be harsh and cold toward everyone, but especially boys who looked at her like that, tried to make it stop as much as possible. It only partially worked; she still had some boys look at her in a way that made her feel gross and powerless and nauseated.
Then one day, when she was sixteen years old, someone looked at her like that who never had before. And for the first time, April didn’t hate it. Sterling Wesley would stare at April’s arms or her mouth or her hair, and April welcomed it, felt the gaze like a warm flame on a cold evening. She relished it, relished the way, when she was in the room, Sterling couldn’t look anywhere else. Instead of the powerlessness that boys’ eyes brought on, Sterling looking at her made April feel full of power, like she could take on anything.
It still does, apparently.
April is in a tropical resort with a handful of some of the most gorgeous queer women in the world, but nothing else matters besides Sterling Wesley’s eyes on her skin, like in the years they hadn’t seen each other, Sterling had been thinking about this. Had been thinking about her.
She doesn’t even process how absolutely weird it is that Sterling happens to be on the same show as April. All that matters is that she’s here, and she smiles the uninhibited way she did when they were kids, and that she’s looking at April the same way she did when they were kids, and that April is free in a way she never was when they were kids.
God, Sterling is still so fucking beautiful.
Then she falls into the pool.
April would never admit it, but it’s all the more endearing.
April doesn’t really know what’s happening, vaguely knows there are other women and cameramen and people with headsets on, but right now all she knows for certain is that her feet are taking her over to the edge of the pool.
Sterling comes up for air, and April crouches next to her.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
Sterling gasps a little, then grips the edge of the pool.
“Peachy.” She grins, a little self-deprecating thing that has no business being so cute. “Just had the most embarrassing moment of my life, but what can you do?”
April grins back. She sits on the edge of the pool, dips her legs in, her calf semi-accidentally grazing Sterling’s arm.
“Most embarrassing? Really? I remember you peeing your pants on the third grade field trip to the zoo.”
Sterling laughs, loud and full.
“Oh my god, how dare you? I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Of course I do.” I’ve remembered everything about you, Sterling, how could I not?
Sterling smiles at that, like April spoke the unsaid part aloud. She hoists herself up out of the water, skin glistening like she’s a Bond girl or something. She sits next to April, her wet thigh almost touching April’s. April wishes it were.
Which is batshit, she tries to tell herself. Sure, Sterling Wesley absolutely opened a world to her when she was sixteen. But she spent the rest of high school either avoiding her or hating her, until she silently and privately forgave Sterling, but didn’t have the guts to tell her.
And now, over four years after that, Sterling is sitting next to her, sun bouncing off her skin, eyes alight on April, and April has the shocking and distressing revelation at just how overwhelmingly she’s missed having this person in her life.
“What are the fucking odds, right?” Sterling is asking.
Which is an incredibly valid question.
“It must have been planned,” April says, the truth becoming apparent as she speaks it. “Like, we had to say where we went to high school, and I bet they did the rest of the math.”
Sterling nods. “That makes sense. I never, uh, said your name or anything to casting. Oh shit, I did literally say your name like five minutes ago though, but it wasn’t saying that we were a thing back then or anything, just that I was so into you, it literally changed my sexuality, so nothing about your sexuality. Though, wow, as I’m saying this you’re clearly all good on that front because you’re one this show, duh, sorry I’m just—”
April puts a hand on Sterling’s knee. It shuts her right up.
“Sterling. I definitely appreciate the effort, but I’m not really hiding that part of myself anymore. In fact, I’m mostly here just to make my dad lose his shit.”
“Oh wow.” Then Sterling grins. “You know what will make him more mad than just you being here.”
“What’s that?”
“You being here with me.”
April laughs. “Excellent observation.”
Sterling beams at this, cheeks red from the sun. Her hair is already drying from the water, but it shines, almost blindingly so. April’s hand is still on her leg and she feels no temptation to move it.
“So,” April drawls, “you were so into me, it literally changed your sexuality?”
“Oh my god, shut up.”
“Well said, Sterl, your vocabulary skills have improved immensely since high school.”
“Hey, watch out, it was you saying that kind of stuff that literally changed my sexuality.”
April grins, feels warm down to her toes still in the water. She’s aware this is unlike her, aware that she thrives on holding grudges, and spent her youth trading in one grudge against Sterling Wesley for another one. But Sterling is here, and smiling and teasing her and April doesn't want to hold grudges.
Four months ago, April sat in the cold house she grew up in and told her parents she was gay, and was met with fury and disappointment and pamphlets for places that could change her. And then she left that house and drove far far away. There were a million reasons she did it, tacked up over a decade of feeling afraid and small and like she was drowning.
But maybe one of those reasons was that she could sit side-by-side next to Sterling Wesley, and feel nothing but anticipation for what’s to come.
Sterling knows that she has a mic around her neck, knows that there are cameras all around them, knows that there are several other hot women in close proximity, but boy, does she not care.
She’s always fantasized about running into April again, thought of April’s eyes looking at her, April’s mouth smiling at her, April’s words like butter. Also, she’d pictured about 50 different surfaces April could press her up against.
But it was never as good as this in her mind. Never had April been so alight, so engaged, so fucking gorgeous Sterling almost can’t look at her. Sterling always thought this was insanely one-sided, that after April found out about Sterling sending her dad to jail, April immediately replaced all positive thoughts with negative ones. Even when April seemed to be partially over it, Sterling never thought April would still think about her with anything akin to affection.
But now April is by her side, laughing, eyes on Sterling’s, like she wants nothing else than to be by her side.
And it’s better than Sterling could have ever imagined.
“Do you want to take a walk?” April asks, after sitting by the pool for a few minutes. “Actually have a private conversation?”
Sterling looks around at the cameras.
“I’m not sure if that’s a possibility.”
April laughs. “Fair. But still.” Her eyes focus in. “I’d really like to talk to you. Just you.”
Sterling has to stop herself from falling back in the pool.
They wave a goodbye to the eight other girls, a couple of them giving little cheers at the retreating form of Sterling and April as they make their way down the beach. There’s a camera trailing them, but it’s a little too easy to ignore it, with the ocean breeze in April’s hair and the soft sand beneath their toes.
“I’m happy you don’t hate me,” Sterling blurts with no transition. “I thought… I don’t know, I was afraid you’d hate me.”
April shakes her head slowly.
“It sure would have made my life easier back then if I could hate you, Sterl.”
“I like when you do that,” Sterling says, absolutely no filter today.
“Do what?”
“Shorten my name like that. It’s like we're still friends. Like we didn’t just spend four years not speaking.”
“Well, I think we can be.”
“Can be what?”
“Friends.” April tilts her head, smiles. “Or something adjacent to that.”
“Something adjacent, huh?”
“Well, we are stuck on an island for a month, let’s see where we end up by the end of it.”
It’s so effortlessly smooth, that Sterling feels all warm and gooey in a way that Blair would endlessly mock her for.
“Sounds like a plan,” she says, giddy. Her fingers brush against April’s as they pass.
April grins at her, wide and bright. If Sterling wanted to, she could lean right up and kiss her. And she does want to. But she’s had April back in her life for maybe 30 minutes, and is not going to rush it this time.
So they walk down the beach and try to fill the gaps of the last four years. Well, at least they try to. Sterling asks April one question about a religion class she took, and April takes the entire length of the beach talking about the specific timeline of when American Christianity took a political slant and the resounding effects that has on our philosophy as a nation. The sun is setting behind her, while she talks and Sterling thinks it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
“Ladies! We need to head back to the cabana!” A producer shouts at them.
“Right,” April says, a little sheepishly. “Sorry, I promise I actually wanted to know what you’ve been up to, I sometimes… go off a little.”
“No, I like it,” Sterling says. “It’s… I’ve always liked that about you.”
April smiles at her, almost shy.
“We should turn around.”
“Yeah, we should.”
Then, in a move that would have made sixteen-year-old Sterling jump for joy, April takes her hand and leads her down the beach.
They’re still holding hands by the time they come back to the cabana with the other girls.
“Okay, look at you two,” Jess calls when she sees them, “rekindling old flames.”
Sterling blushes a little, but April just laughs.
“Sorry I missed meeting you all,” she says politely.
“Girl, don’t apologize,” Willa says, “if my childhood crush was here, I would not care about any of you bitches.”
The girls all laugh. It’s nice really, an innate support here from eight strangers. The ones that Sterling missed before introduce themselves with grins and hugs, and enthusiasm for whatever Sterling and April’s undefined vibe is.
Sterling is afraid April will be overwhelmed, will drop Sterling’s hand or distance herself. They are here to meet a plethora of new women, not to find one from their past. But April stays calm, laughing at the insinuations of the others, always finding some way to touch Sterling. It’s exhilarating.
It’s also kind of fun to watch the way the other girls are eying each other. Anisha and a very tall woman named River appear to be hitting it off, heads pressed together as they whisper about something. Willa is perched on the lap of a girl named Marta, who has a shaved head and tongue piercing, chatting animatedly with another girl named Ryan, while Jess and the remaining two, Carmen and Monica, rake their eyes over the whole group.
Sterling has to admit, she would watch this show. Even if she will be the most boring part of it. Not that these other girls aren’t insanely hot, but, well, April is here.
“Hello, ladies,” and AI voice sounds from the middle of the cabana.
Sterling jumps about a mile in the air, causing April to laugh at her, but also place a comforting hand on the small of her back. So a net win.
“Welcome to the resort,” the voice says, “I’m Shane, your guide to the show.”
“Is that an L Word reference?” Carmen asks. “Oh, that’s embarrassing.”
“Oh shit,” April says, staring at the AI in dawning realization. “I think I know what show this is.”
“Now,” Shane continues, “you’ve had the whole day to get to know each other, to form connections. And hopefully you've found someone to your liking. Whether it be a beautiful stranger or an old flame.”
Okay, so her and April were definitely planted. Not that Sterling’s mad.
“It’s Too Hot to Handle,” April says declaratively, with a sour note in her voice.
“It’s what?” Sterling asks.
“Oh, fuck,” Anisha says.
“May I finish?” The AI L Word reference asks. They all ignore it.
“It’s this show,” April says, though producers from the sidelines are actively trying to shush her, “where we get to win a lot of money as long as we keep our hands to ourselves.”
“How much money?” Willa asks.
“What does hands to ourselves mean?” Sterling asks. “Also, how are you an expert on reality television?”
“Oh, I live with Hannah.”
“Hannah B.? From high school?”
“The one and only.”
“Hey,” Jess snaps, “clue the rest of us in.”
“Right,” April says. “So basically they put a bunch of hot and horny people together and promise to give them money. But if they have sex or even kiss, then money gets taken away.”
Fuck. Not that Sterling is so out of control that she would lose other people's money just so she could feel April's skin beneath her lips. But, uh, she definitely might do that
“They’ve done a few seasons with straight people,” Anisha adds, “but I guess they’re trying to gay it up with us.”
“Excuse me, ladies, if I may finish,” Shane monotones, “you are correct. There is $100,000 that could be yours. And it will be at the end of 30 days. But if you kiss one another, if you touch inappropriately, and if you have sex, money will be deduced.”
Okay. Okay. Sterling can do this. It’s not ideal; as soon as she saw April, she wanted to feel every inch of her body against her own. Wanted to see if April still makes that little noise in the back of her throat when Sterling kisses her hard.
But she’s waited four years. She can wait one more month. She’s not going to lose these nice girls their money. She’s had her ways of dealing with her overwhelming attraction to April in the past, she can do it again.
“Oh and one more thing,” Shane adds. Sterling wants to kill this robot. “Not only can you not touch each other, you can’t touch yourself.”
“So no masturbating?” River asks.
“No masturbating.”
Oh, Sterling is so fucking screwed.