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It’s after midnight by the time she slips through the door of Carla’s flat.
She’d had the best of intentions when the day had begun; ‘Welcome Home’ banners hung, a bouquet of flowers picked up from Preston’s Petals, Roy on his way with a cake.
But it’s always the good plans that seem to be derailed and her phone had rung before she’d made it halfway back across the cobbles.
The flowers are half-dead now, roasted beneath the afternoon sun on her passenger seat. She’d had to toss them in a bin on her way home, desperate to rid her car of the rotting smell.
There’s been enough of that for today.
She’s quiet as can be as she closes the door behind herself, mindful of the soft embrace of night that’s enveloped the living area. There’s a single lamp illuminating the room from Carla’s desk and it casts a golden glow across the floor that Lisa finds endlessly comforting.
It’s been years since someone left a light on for her.
The thought takes her miles away as she shrugs off her coat, so far that she jumps when a lump on the couch begins to move. “Lisa?” comes Carla’s voice from beneath the pile of blankets. “Is that you?”
It’s scratchy in that way it gets when she’s halfway to dreamland and the sound of it – the familiarity of it – draws Lisa closer. Yanks the rush of fear and adrenaline straight out of her veins. She drops her coat on one of the stools, already seeking out Carla’s face in the dark. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispers.
“You didn’t,” Carla mumbles. “Was just resting my eyes.”
Lisa chuckles at the blatant lie. Feels how it makes the heat rise in her cheeks, the warmth spread in her belly, the love swell through her limbs. “Were you now?”
It’s been years since someone waited up for her, too.
“Mmhmm,” Carla hums, her eyes fluttering open in the low light. She puckers her lips expectantly, waiting for Lisa to close the gap.
And so, she does; leans towards Carla’s mouth like it has its own god damn gravitational pull.
She means it to be chaste, to peck and step away, but Carla seems to have other plans. A hand winds around the back of Lisa’s neck, holding her in place, keeping her close, keeping her breathing the air that dances across Carla’s lips. “I missed you,” Carla exhales.
Lisa swallows it, gulping, desperate to drown the guilt that’s been simmering in her gut all day, to keep it from bubbling into a boil. She’s too near, too warm from the press of Carla’s nose against her cheek, to give in to the inclination to hide. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs instead, lips brushing Carla’s as she speaks, “I should’ve been here.”
Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve. It’s been echoing like a mantra in her head for a week, now; all the ways she’s still managing to fail blaring across the film screen of her consciousness.
But Carla breathes. Warm, and alive, and home beneath Lisa’s fingertips. Here and lovely and wonderful and hers, despite the downfalls. Despite the failures.
Choosing them.
“Lisa,” Carla half-scolds. The other half…. God, it’s so gentle and forgiving Lisa can barely look at her. Can barely stomach the bloom of a blush she can feel flooding her cheeks.
Carla cups her face, drags her eyes back. Doesn’t say anything more.
I don’t just mean tonight.
The growl of Lisa’s stomach breaks the spell, tension snapping like an overstretched coil. Lisa blushes for an entirely different reason, found out as Carla tuts. “Have you eaten at all today?”
There’s a little huff as Carla rises from the couch, not waiting for an answer – she already knows. Has already heard enough times, I meant to, I just didn’t get a chance.
She doesn’t press for the details of Lisa’s day, doesn’t reopen the wound of having to tell a family that their loved one has been senselessly murdered, doesn’t make Lisa repeat the phrase that so often sends Betsy stomping away in frustration. No, Carla just leads the way across the flat and opens the refrigerator door and bathes the kitchen in its chilled light.
“What is that?” Lisa gasps as she sidles up behind her, eyes falling quickly to the half-eaten monstrosity on the shelf. “That is not what Roy and I discussed.”
Carla chuckles, the sound warm and soft and throaty, and it draws Lisa back in. She wraps her arms around Carla’s waist, mindful of the still-tender spots, and sets her chin atop Carla’s shoulder. She dips her nose into the crook under Carla’s jaw, inhales the scent of sleep on her skin, the smells of Carla’s home finally reattaching themselves to her.
“Ryan thought it needed jazzing up.” Carla hums, tipping her weight into the embrace. “Speaking of, he’s got a secret sweets stash in here an’ all.”
“I know,” Lisa murmurs. She presses a kiss into the side of Carla’s neck, feels more than hears the appreciation in Carla’s throat. “Betsy said as much.”
But that – that earns a grumble of dissatisfaction. “Now I’ve got to find it.”
She squeezes Lisa’s arm before she pulls away, reaching into the fridge for the cake tray and the elaborate concoction atop it. “And you,” Carla instructs as she carries it to the counter, eyes narrowed in a way that tells Lisa she is absolutely not allowed to try to take it from her, “Are going to eat some of this so we have room for some real groceries.”
Lisa laughs, warmed further by the feeling of adoration that washes over her. In another lifetime, she would’ve held back from the rush in her gut that tells her to step forward, to pull Carla’s lips against her own and try, with action, to convey the heat coursing through her limbs.
But in this one, it’s as natural as breathing.
Carla giggles as they connect, her mouth pliant and willing beneath the onslaught of Lisa’s own. Alive and responsive to the opening of Lisa’s lips, welcoming to the tongue that slips between her teeth, inviting to the bites and the moans and the push.
And, God, she’s so real and so Carla that Lisa could cry with relief.
Instead, she nudges the fridge door closed. Instead, she lets Carla back her up against it. Instead, she holds the woman that she loves as they kiss, insatiable, in the home they’ve finally both returned to.
It’s Carla who pulls away first, who sets her forehead against Lisa’s and shudders for a breath. Who hums when Lisa’s arms wrap around her tighter, holding her up, not saying a word.
Not letting go.
They stay like that for a moment – solid and connected – until Carla lifts her head again. Until Carla says okay, I’m alright, not with words but with the stubborn squaring of her jaw.
And Lisa will take it, will take it a thousand times over for this. For a place – a person – to come home to and togetherness and barely awake kisses in the half-light.
“Right, you,” Carla directs, playful despite the obvious exhaustion licking at the edges of her words, “Time to get in that bed.”
She steps away from Lisa, one hand behind her back in invitation, a smirk tossed over her shoulder as she rounds the corner to her room.
As she leads the way into the next chapter of their life together.
“Bring that cake.”