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"Is this too slutty?" Gee rubs the eyeliner around her eyes until it goes smoky, then flips her hair over her shoulder and turns around to face Mikey.
Mikey's sprawled across Gee's bed, more interested in the issue of Doom Patrol under his nose than his sister's half-assed attempt at a fashion show. He looks up, finally, and skates his eyes over Gee's outfit and general coiffedness. Gee's gone for a cut-off denim skirt and tights with skulls on them, a Misfits t-shirt with the neck hacked out of it, and makeup that she hopes falls somewhere above "cute" without reaching the lofty heights of skanky.
Mikey quirks an eyebrow. "I don't think there's any combination of clothes in your wardrobe that could qualify as slutty."
Gee frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?" She turns back to the mirror, trying to see herself with fresh eyes, trying to look past the baby fat and too-pale skin and hair that hasn't seen a hairdresser in years. She just wants to look nice.
Actually, fuck nice, she wants to look hot. She's dating a drummer, she should look hot. Girlfriend-of-a-hot-guy-in-a-band hot. "I want to look hot," she tells the mirror.
"You look good," Mikey says, but he sounds bored. But then, Mikey always sounds bored. Gee glares at him, hard enough that some waves of displeasure must make it through the comic book, because he looks up and rolls his eyes at her.
"Aren't you going tonight?" Gee asks, because Mikey isn't exactly dressed for going out. Unless sweatpants have suddenly become the next big thing and she missed it.
"Later. It won't really get happening until like, one."
That makes exactly zero sense to Gee. "You'll miss all the bands."
"I've seen all the bands."
"Mike said they were gonna be doing some new songs tonight," Gee tries, but Mikey isn't even going to be bribed with the promise of new music tonight.
"Yeah, I'm not really into The Bled and that other band sucks ass. I'll just go after and catch up with everyone."
Gee nods and tries to keep her expression blank. She really, really doesn't want to have to go this gig on her own, but she's not going to drag Mikey along out of pity so she tries to shake it off. Mikey and Mike don't really get along that well anyway.
"Okay, I guess I'll see you later then." She ruffles his hair before slipping out of the room.
*
The venue isn't very big, but that means it's packed. Gee weaves her way through the throngs of bodies, ducking elbows and scooting past carelessly waved cigarettes. The so-called backstage area is nothing more than an old cellar, and the guy minding the door recognises her from other gigs and lets her by.
The room is crowded with more than just the band; Gee pushes up on her toes and peers over as many heads as she can, trying to spot Mike. She gets a glimpse of his shaved head - it looks like he's talking real close with someone - and charts her course for that corner of the room, pushing past a whole bunch of people who really don't need to be crowding this room up. It's fucking hot back here and she's already sweating in her tights.
Clutching her messenger bag close to her hip, she weaves through a few more bodies and her view of Mike clears enough to see that no, he's not actually talking to the girl with the blue dreads, they're making out. It takes a moment for what Gee's seeing to compute in her brain - their lips are locked, chests pressed close and Mike's got one hand on the girl's ass. It doesn't look new. It looks really fucking friendly.
For a long moment all Gee can do is clutch her bag and stare. Mike's other hand is on the girl’s neck, his thumb drawing slow circles on her skin and she shakes with revulsion when she realises he's done that to her, that it's not just for her, it's like a stock move of his, and oh my fucking god-
"No," she says, and it comes out louder than she planned. Loud enough that Mike startles and breaks the kiss, blanching when he sees her. He quickly replaces the look of shock with an easy smile.
"Hey Gee." He's a little breathless. Breathless from kissing that girl - the one with longer legs and bigger tits than Gee. The one who's glancing between them now, looking unsure.
"Gee, this is Natalie." Mike doesn't even take his hand off her ass. "Natalie, this is Gee," he adds with a nod at Gee, still smiling like this is nothing, like this is okay. Like this is something they do.
Gee is livid. She can barely breathe, her vision blurring around the edges, her blood singing in her ears with rage. Mike's smiling at her like he wants her to play along, like he wants her to just accept this, be cool with it, be the cool girlfriend who doesn't care that her so-called boyfriend is going around sticking his tongue into random skanks. Well fuck that.
"No," she says again. "You don't get to do this."
"Do what?" Mike asks, his expression blank, shifting on his feet a little. Natalie takes a step back, looking uncomfortable and Gee just wants her to keep on stepping.
"Her."
Mike glances at Natalie and back at Gee, like he's only just figured it out. "Babe, we never said we were exclusive."
Gee's mouth drops open. "We never said we weren't." Her voice rises unsteadily and fuck, fuck she can't do this here. She can't do this in this crowded airless room, she can't do it with Mike's fucking hookup staring at her. She wills Mike to take it back, to apologise, to tell Natalie he's sorry, it's not happening.
He doesn't. He just fucking… doesn't.
"Look, if you just-"
"No." It comes out so much louder this time and she knows people are watching them. Fuck, she can't do this. "This is not-" she stumbles over the words, trying to figure out what she needs to say. She shouldn't even have to say it, it should be so obvious. All she ends up with is, "No."
Her face is hot and it's not until she starts blinking that she realises just how close she is to tears. She flashes back to Mike two nights ago; the soft smile on his face as his hand crept down the front of her jeans as he whispered, "It's just you, baby girl. It's just you." It's like a punch in the gut and Gee spins around, suddenly sure she's going to fall apart and she can't. She fucking can't. Not here in front of all these people.
She's pushing out of the room before she's finished the thought, stumbling through the crowd, just needing to get out. The night air hits her face as she steps outside, cool against her burning skin. She fumbles through her pockets for her cigarettes, hands shaking as she lights up. There's a steady stream of people still entering the venue, but they either don't know her or don't want to approach the chick in the army boots who is clearly freaking out.
She smokes two cigarettes down to the filter. By the time she's grinding the second butt out on the pavement, she's got a mild head rush and her hands are pink from the cold. She glances at the venue doors but all the movement near them is people going in, not coming out.
Mike's not coming after her, that much is clear. She drills her shoe into the ground until the filter is a smear of white fluff on the pavement and stamps off down the road, her eyes damp and cold, vision blurry with tears.
She drops her keys twice trying to get the front door unlocked, and then it just magically opens. Mikey's on the other side, in his skinniest jeans and the Ramones t-shirt he wouldn't let her cut the neck out of last week (even though he'd wear it anyway). He's clearly about to go out, but he takes one look at her mascara-streaked face and wraps his arms around her, tugging her inside.
Mikey's chest is too bony to be comfortable, but Gee tucks her face into it anyway, sliding her arms around his waist and hanging on so tight she can feel all his ribs digging into her. They stand in the kitchen for a long time, Gee snuffling and leaking all over his shirt while Mikey cards gentle fingers through her hair.
"I'm sorry," she says snottily, between deep sobbing breaths. She's not sure if she's apologising for spoiling his night by being a drama queen, or for crying all over him and ruining his shirt. Mikey just makes soothing nonsense noises until her shoulders stop shaking.
When she can finally breathe he tucks her bangs behind her ears and says "You're better off without him," because he's fucking psychic and can totally tell she's having a Mike-related meltdown.
She palms her eyes and takes a steadying breath. "Sorry," she says again, "I'm okay now. You should go."
"Yeah, sure you are," he says with gentle sarcasm, the angle of his eyebrows clearly stating his disbelief. "Go wash your face, I'll put on Empire. I think we've got some microwave popcorn."
Gee nearly starts crying again from sheer relief. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, rubbing her nose into his shoulder. "You're the best brother."
Mikey pats her back gently, "I know."
*
They end up marathoning the original Star Wars Trilogy until Gee passes out with Ewoks singing in her ears. When she wakes up, Mikey's passed out on her bed beside her, the covers littered with empty chip packets and popcorn kernels. Gee slides her legs carefully out from where they’re tangled with Mikey’s and goes to the bathroom to pee.
Washing her hands afterwards, she glances up, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the dusty mirror over the sink. She's pale and drawn, streaks of mascara augmenting the dark shadows under her eyes. She leans in closer, water still rushing over her fingertips, her gaze locked to the girl in the mirror's. She's not pretty - she'll never be pretty, the best she can hope for is 'cute'. She's definitely not hot.
She shuts off the faucet, shaking the droplets off her fingers, glancing back into the mirror unwillingly. The girl in the mirror isn't a drummer's girlfriend. She isn't anyone's girlfriend. Really, Gee should embrace this. She should just give up on the whole idea of a boyfriend-partner-whatever. Maybe she should shave her head, join a nunnery - no, a cult. Just, not a sex cult, that would be counterproductive.
She wipes a wet hand across the mirror, smearing her reflection and turns away, rubbing her hands dry on her tights as she walks back to her bedroom. Mikey's still asleep, and he's taking up way more of the bed than he was before. There isn't really enough room to curl into a ball and sulk, not without waking him up, so she heads for her desk instead.
Her hair halos around her face as she bends low and sketches, fingers and pencil dancing over the page. Her romantic wounds are still too raw to draw Mike as the victim of various grisly deaths (her usual antidote to heartache), so she sketches herself instead. She makes herself a comic book character, a heroine with a mane of flowing hair and awesome boots. Comic book Gee's legs are longer, her tits bigger, her features prettier.
When the drawing is finished, she leans back and studies it. It's not her. It's not even close. She frowns, letting her fingers close around the page until it crumples, and drops it on the floor. She crawls back onto the bed and rests her head gently on Mikey's shoulder. He smells like cigarettes and hairspray; familiar and comfortable.
She doesn't manage to go back to sleep.
*
"Gee?" Mikey's voice is muffled through the door.
Gee looks up from her sketchpad, her eyes all bleary from staring at the same point inches from her face for so long. "What?"
Mikey slips inside the room, slowly coming into focus as Gee's eyes adjust to looking at things that aren't her sketchpad. He's wearing his good jeans and one of the shirts he reserves for going out.
"There's a show on at the Loop tonight. You should come." Mikey seems intent on ignoring the fact Gee's been wearing the same pajamas for three days and she's surrounded by empty coffee cups and crumpled paper - clear signs she's in no fit state to deal with the outside world.
Gee wrinkles her nose at Mikey and pulls her sketchpad closer to her chest. "I've got a lot of work to do." It's not a lie, she does have a lot of coursework due, she's just not doing any of it.
"You know the period of mourning for a relationship isn't supposed to go longer than the length of the actual relationship, right?"
"Fuck you; it's not even been a week. I'm allowed to mope." Gee scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes.
"Well come and mope at the Loop. The music will be better."
"Shut up, you love the Smiths."
"Not when it's the same album on repeat for a week." Mikey hits pause on Gee's CD player and levels her with one of those stern looks that make him look more like a big brother than a baby brother. "You need to get out, you're getting all…" he waves a hand at her general state, "you know."
Before Gee can protest about all the very important work she needs to do, Mikey pries her sketchbook from her hands and drags her off the bed, giving her a shove towards the bathroom. "Just come for the first band. If you hate them, I promise we'll come home."
"Mikey-" she tries to argue, but he bats her away and gives her another push toward the bathroom.
"Three songs," he insists. "After that I promise I will leave the club and drive you home if you hate it." He crosses his heart with a quick hand gesture. "But you have to come. You owe me for last week."
Gee opens her mouth to argue, but Mikey totally has the upper hand here. She does owe him. What the hell, she might as well go; it might even help to shake her out of this funk, as long as- "Wait, he's not-"
"Mike won't be there."
"I would prefer if you called him That Cunt. He doesn't deserve to share a name with you."
Mikey doesn't manage to completely hide his smile at that, he just keeps pushing her forwards until there are tiles under her feet. "Don't worry; this lineup is totally not his scene, okay? There's no way he suddenly developed taste."
Gee glares at him. ”Musical taste”, Mikey clarifies. “Now get ready, We're meeting Ray in an hour."
Gee sighs a loud, put-upon sigh, but she does as she's told. Sometimes Mikey is right about things.
*
Mikey's not always right about everything, though. The moment they step into the club Gee starts to think this may be one of the rare occasions when he's wrong. She's not ready to be here. There are just too many people. Also, despite Mikey's many repeated assurances that there's no way Mike would show up at a gig that's entirely female-fronted bands, she's still nervous as hell that she's going to turn around and come face to face with the asshole.
She swallows the urge to flee and reminds herself that she only needs to survive three songs. She will absolutely hold Mikey to his promise and she refuses to feel bad about that. Her fingers itch for a drink, so it's a relief when they start heading towards the bar. Ray's leaning up against it, his fro visible above the bulk of the scattered crowd. The moment he spots Gee and Mikey he puts down his beer and scoops Gee up in a hug that pulls her up on her toes. She smiles into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his broad back. God, why can't she like guys like Ray? Ray is an honest-to-god good guy. If only he didn't feel like as much of a brother to her as Mikey.
"Hey," Ray says, pulling back to ruffle Gee's hair, "you made it."
"Mikey wouldn't let me stay home," she complains.
Ray nods, "I'm glad you came," he tells her with a genuine smile, as he leans across to catch Mikey in a one armed hug. Mikey extricates himself to lean across the bar and immediately gets the bartender's attention without even trying. It's his superpower.
When Ray speaks again, it's to tell Gee about the headlining band and she's so fucking glad he knows her well enough not to try to talk to her about Mike right now. Even the idea of a sympathetic mention of the whole situation feels like pressure behind her eyes.
"I know the drummer," Ray explains. "He's really good. I haven't seen these guys play with this exact lineup, they've got a new bassist now, but they rocked the Battle of the Bands pretty hard last month, so we're in for a show."
"Is that your professional opinion?" she asks, right about the time Mikey turns around with a beer in each hand.
"No," Mikey slips into the conversation seamlessly, handing Gee her beer, "he's got a hard-on for the lead singer." Despite the low light in the club, Gee can see Ray's cheeks darken with a telling blush.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" she teases.
Ray shakes his head and shoots Mikey a weighted look. "You know, Mikey, people tell you things because you look like you know how to keep a secret, but really you're the worst gossip I've ever met."
Mikey flips Ray off and takes a drink of his beer. The house music dies down and the tell tale shriek of feedback tells them it's nearly show time.
"C'mon, we should get down the front," Mikey says, grabbing Gee's wrist and leading her through the crowd. Gee's thankful she's got Mikey in front of her and Ray behind her, as she clutches her glass to her chest and they wade through the sea of strangers.
They score a good spot near the front and off to the side, out of the way of the likely-to-form moshpit. The band - all dudes - are onstage, the drummer, bassist and keyboard player in position, instruments primed. The guitarist is bent over fiddling with the knobs on an amp and there's no sign of the singer. Gee tugs on Ray's t-shirt. "Where's your girl?"
Ray shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the stage. "Wrong band, Gee. She's in the headliner."
"Oh," Gee says, and then the guitarist on the stage turns around and Gee has to make a swift reassessment of gender. From behind Gee would have sworn it was a guy, but front on Gee can see that it's actually a girl with a pretty impressive mohawk, bleached at the sides and dark up the middle. She's wearing a white wifebeater over a black bra and shredded jeans that hang low on her hips, leaving a flash of inked skin visible between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her jeans. She steps up to the mic, greeting the crowd with a handful of insults in a harsh, throaty voice and Gee can't do anything but stare.
Then they start to play.
It's fast and loud, a wall of sound. It hits Gee right in the chest, vibrates down her body to the soles of her boots. The singer is vicious, spitting, snarling, screaming down the mic as her fingers blur over the frets. There's ink on her knuckles too, but her fingers are moving too fast for Gee to figure out what. The music is heavier than Gee would usually go for, the lyrics screamed rather than sung, but Gee can't look away from the tiny singer. She's fierce, and fast, and fucking scary. She's amazing.
She's not someone's girlfriend. She's not anyone's anything. She's a fucking force. Gee doesn't know if she wants to be her or fuck her. By the time they hit the first big solo, she's spinning across the stage, kicking out, crashing into the bassist who barely even reacts. She falls to her knees and plays through another solo before leaping up and running back to scream down the mic again. Gee feels like she should be exhausted just watching, but the energy coming off her is electric.
Mikey's eyes are heavy on Gee at the end of the third song. She glances over to find him looking so fucking smug she wants to punch him. Damn him. Why does he always have to be right? She shoves her half-drunk beer into his hand and wades into the moshpit.
The rest of the set is just as loud, just as shattering, and Gee lets it sweep her away. She loses herself in the crush of bodies, taking hits in the ribs and legs, bouncing with the beat, letting the crowd throw her around. She still can't take her eyes off the singer, leaning up on tiptoe to watch her through shifting crowd. The blur of black-and-blonde hair screams and spits, winds herself up in the mic cable and fires venom into the crowd between songs. It's not a massive crowd, but she's giving as much as if this was a full stadium. Gee is entranced.
At the end of the set Gee joins in the enthusiastic applause, yelling and cheering. The singer looks out into the crowd, smiling for the first time in the whole set, and she's so pretty Gee can't believe she mistook her for a guy.
When she turns to leave the stage and the house lights come up, the spell is broken. Gee drags herself, sweaty and covered in newly-earned bruises, over to the side in search for Mikey. She finds him not far from where she left him, chatting to the guy who does sound for some of the gigs - Bob or Ben, Gee can't remember.
Mikey takes in her battered appearance and smiles. "That good, huh?"
Gee doesn't try to fight the grin that stretches her mouth. "I fucking needed that," she tells him, and doesn't manage to listen to anything Mikey and the sound guy talk about for the next few minutes. Her mind is still completely lost in the moshpit.
It isn't until Mikey stumbles into her, splashing her arm with beer, that she notices Mikey's struggling to stay upright after being nearly-tackled by an interloper. It takes a moment for Gee to decode the black-and-white blur as the singer of the band who just played, currently wrapped around Mikey like a spider-monkey and yelling, "Mikey, you fucker! I thought you weren't coming!"
Mikey manages to stay upright and grabbing her around the waist so she doesn't fall down. "I never said I wasn't coming, Frankie."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't commit!" She jumps down and pokes him in his bony chest. "From you, that's like admitting you're not coming."
"It's like you don't trust me at all," Mikey says, swatting her hand away lightly. "I even made Gee come," he adds, inclining his head towards Gee and then suddenly this girl - Frankie - is looking at her with wide eyeliner-smudged eyes.
"You're Gee?" she asks, and launches herself at Gee before she even has time to answer, grabbing her in a breath-stealing hug. She's squirmy and a little sweaty but it feels nice - weird, but nice.
"Um, yeah," Gee manages, still a little freaked out that the girl she's just been watching on stage is hugging her.
"Mikey has told me so much about you, I feel like I met you already." Frankie leans out of the hug but keeps her hands tight on Gee's shoulders, like she's worried Gee's going to try to run away. She's half a head shorter than Gee; her singlet nearly transparent with sweat, and her chest mottled with ink, and a red flush that's likely due to her throwing herself all over the stage.
Gee doesn't know how to respond, because Mikey hasn't told Gee shit about Frankie. Well, he might've actually, but Gee isn't good at remembering stuff about people before she meets them. She struggles for something to say and remembers that Frankie just played a set. "Great show, you guys are vicious."
"Yeah?" Frankie tilts her head to the side, "You liked it?"
Gee can't actually find words that encompass how much she liked it. She struggles through words like transcendent and revelation, but before she manages to get any of them to leave her mouth, Frankie's being dragged off, protesting, by the bassist from her band. Gee can't hear what he's saying, but the words "label guy" and "I told you, down the back" and "unprofessional" make it through to her ears.
Frankie's yells, "I'm coming, god" and "we don't want to look too eager" back at him. Gee tries not to frown as the tiny ball of energy gets dragged away from her.
"Hey, you're staying after, right?" Frankie yells, and Gee can't tell if she's yelling at Mikey or Gee, but she nods anyway, and Frankie flings her hand above her head, fingers curled into a fist with her pinky and index fingers straight. Gee's mouth stretches into a smile and she raises her own hand in a metal fist in response.
Mikey's smile is all too knowing. "You like her, don't you?" It's not even a question, because the answer is obvious.
"She's amazing." Gee says, and Mikey just nods, like he knows what Gee really needs right now is to see a hot chick being fierce. He's like Yoda, only way more smug.
Luckily the next band doesn’t take too long to get started, so she doesn't have to put up with Mikey giving her shit all that long. The second band isn’t anywhere near as earth-shaking as Frankie's band. If Gerard had to choose a word to describe them it would be "folky", but it's not a bad thing. There's only so many times you can have your world shifted under your feet in one night.
She, Ray and Mikey drink companionably, trading notes on the band between songs. There’s one more band playing after these guys - The Interrobangs - the headliner Ray's so fond of. Gee resists the temptation to wind Ray up about his supposed crush on the lead singer, so Mikey does instead, because he has no soul.
When the headliners finally get up and play, they are pretty damn good. They're tight where Frankie's band had still been a little loose, tuned and harmonised and so in synch the two guitarists even head-bang in tandem. Gee can see why Ray likes them; they're technically perfect, marketable enough to appeal to the mainstream, but heavy enough to still be edgy. The lead singer is a pretty brunette with a throaty voice and when Gee sneaks a look at Ray he's beaming up at her, his face a mixture of awe and admiration, his beer halfway to his mouth like he was about to take a drink and forgot about it.
Towards the end of the set, Gee starts to get fidgety. Some part of her doesn't want to stick around and talk to Frankie again. She'll never admit it out loud, but she's a little scared Frankie is going to figure out Gee isn't actually cool and scene, like Mikey; she's just a loser who doesn't know how to talk to anyone who's not her brother, or Ray.
In the end, she chickens out. She tells Mikey she's tired - fine but tired - and insists he doesn't have to drive her home. He looks skeptical, but she knows he really wants to stay - the aftershow partying is his favourite part of the night.
"Are you sure?" he presses, like she's secretly going to run off and cry in the bathroom or something.
She waves him off. "I'm fine, just tired, I promise. I had a good time, I swear." She gives him a hug, "I'll see you at home."
Mikey's fingers are warm on her back as he hugs her.
Gee knows she's being stupid, but she goes home anyway and crawls into bed still wearing her gig clothes. She lies on her back, her own hand warm on her chest and she nods off thinking about Frankie spinning across the stage.
*
The next morning (or afternoon, really, by the time Gee is awake) she Googles Frankie's band. She looks at every picture and listens to every music clip on P.S. Don't Write's MySpace page. The recordings are rough and they really don't capture the energy and spunk of the band live. The pictures are sparse, mostly black and white, and Frankie's glaring in almost all of them; in one she's even flipping off the camera.
Gee bummed she can't find one of Frankie smiling, but it probably doesn't fit with the band's aesthetic. She tries to conjure it from memory, wondering if she remembers it enough to sketch it.
Okay, this is getting creepy.
She shuts down the old clunker of a laptop and goes upstairs looking for coffee. What she finds in her kitchen is so unexpected at first she thinks she's hallucinating. But no, there's a tiny, tattooed, mohawk-sporting girl at Gee's coffee machine, wearing a pair of boxer shorts with Batman on them.
"Ah, hi?" Gee says, figuring if the Frankie-hallucination talks back, then maybe she is actually here.
"Oh thank god," Frankie says. "Can you show me how to work this thing? I'm having caffeine separation anxiety and Mikey's like, dead to the world." Frankie asks, turning around and Gee can see now that she's wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt. Mikey's favourite Anthrax t-shirt.
"Oh." Gee's brain suddenly catches up. Because of course Frankie and Mikey hooked up last night. Of course that would happen.
Her stomach twists up at the idea, making her feel all sick and gross and she can't figure out why. Why should she care if Frankie and Mikey hooked up? It's not like Mikey hasn't had a thing with half the girls on the scene at some point or another and it's not like Gee is interested in Frankie like that, is it?
Is it?
Shit, she can't think about this right now, she's been quiet for too long and it's getting creepy.
"It's cool, I'll do it. It's not the best coffee or anything, but it's all right." Gee finally answers, giving herself an internal shake as she heads for the coffee machine. She can make coffee in her sleep; she can sure as hell do it now. Conversation, maybe not so much. Frankie doesn't seem to notice.
"At this point I'd drink flat, warm Pepsi just for the caffeine hit." Frankie flops down into one of the kitchen chairs, her legs sprawling awkwardly. She's even got tattoos on her calves. Gee tries not to stare, but they look amazing.
"I feel I should point out at this juncture that I really fucking hate Pepsi," Frankie adds, with a smile.
"I kind of figured that," Gee says, fiddling with the coffee machine even though there's nothing that really requires fiddling at this point, she just doesn't feel ready to turn around just yet.
"What happened to you last night, I thought you were going to hang around after?"
Gee swallows, trying to keep her voice casual as she tells Frankie the same lie she told Mikey last night. "Yeah, I meant to, I just, you know, I just hit the wall. I would have been shitty company, I was so tired." She nerves herself to turn around, leaning back on the bench to see Frankie.
Frankie frowns at her, "You gave me the metal hand, that's like a promise. Not cool." Frankie chases the comment with a ridiculous face that makes Gee smile. She takes the two steps to the kitchen table and flops down into a chair next to Frankie's.
"I know. I'm sorry." Gee brushes a hand through her hair to give her hands something to do. When she glances up, Frankie doesn't look mad, she's just picking at a crack in the plastic tabletop.
"I get it. Mikey said you'd had a rough time recently."
"Oh god, he has such a big fucking mouth." Gee's going to kill Mikey. The last thing she needs is for Frankie to know she's a loser who can't keep a guy.
"Hey, it's not your fault you hooked up with a douchebag. It's happened to us all, you know?"
"Sure it has," Gee counters, because she can't imagine Frankie falling for stupid Mike stupid Pedicone's fucking nice guy act. She gets up to pour the coffee.
"Hey I'm not immune, girl. I've been there. I'll tell you from experience you have free rein to be man-hatey and angsty as fuck for at least another week, two if he used the L-word. Go on and break out some Alanis Morissette."
Gee snorts out a laugh, nearly spilling the coffee as she pours. "Yeah I'll just be down in the basement with Jagged Little Pill on repeat."
"Doesn't it ever bother you that none of the situations she describes in “Ironic”, are actually ironic?"
Gee smiles in spite of herself and places the two mugs on the table. "You know it didn't before, but now it kind of does."
"False advertising," Frankie states with surety. "You got any sugar?"
Gee slides the sugar onto the table and fetches the milk from the fridge, sniffing it surreptitiously to make sure it smells okay before putting it down. She watches Frankie spoon in at least four sugars into her mug and they end up just shooting the shit over the table, drinking their coffee and talking about random stuff. Somehow it's easier talking to Frankie this way; having it sprung means she didn't have time to get herself all wound up like she did last night. She's still not sure exactly why that happened, but she likes Frankie; she's funny and irreverent and she has great taste in comics and movies.
They've finished the pot of coffee and started eating cereal out of the box when Mikey finally emerges from his sleep cocoon. Frankie springs up from the table, mussing up his hair and setting his glasses askew. "Hey sleeping beauty, nice of you to join us."
Gee looks away. She busies herself putting on another pot to brew, because she doesn't really want to be around for the next part, where things will no doubt get weird and awkward. Mikey's hook-ups don't tend to hang around that long. Or rather, he doesn't let them hang around that long. For a moment she's irrationally annoyed at Mikey for hooking up with someone as cool as Frankie, because Gee could totally see herself being friends with her.
She waits for the pot to brew, leaning against the bench by the coffee machine instead of sitting down again; listening to the coffee percolate underneath the soundtrack of Frankie teasing Mikey over how much he drank last night. When the pot’s brewed, she tops up her own cup and makes one for Mikey just the way he likes it. She slides it in front of Mikey and starts to head back downstairs.
"Where are you going?" Frankie asks, and she looks concerned.
"Oh, I've got, um," Gee waves a hand towards the basement, "stuff. To do. School stuff."
"Oh," Frankie says, looking disappointed and Gee's brow furrows in confusion. "Is it like, all day stuff? Because we're hanging at Gabe's later - you should come."
"Yeah Gee," Mikey adds, nodding like this is something that is actually going to happen and he's not going to blow Frankie off for some other gig or girl or boy later.
"Ah. Sure. Okay," Gee stutters. Frankie looks so hopeful she can't seem to bring herself to say no, even though it's totally not going to happen. Plus she finds Gabe a little creepy sometimes. (She's pretty sure he and Mikey have some kind of booty-call arrangement going on, but she totally doesn't want to think about that right now. Especially when he's sitting next to the girl he hooked up with last night, oh my god.)
"Cool!" Frankie says, bouncing a little in her seat.
Gee tries to smile, but it feels more like a baring of teeth. She escapes to the basement, still not sure what to do with all these feelings she's having against her will.
When she re-emerges hours later in search of coffee and her fingers stained with ink, she's surprised to hear more than once voice coming from the living room. She peers around the doorway, to find Mikey and Frankie in the midst of what looks like a pretty fierce game of Mortal Kombat. Gee blinks in confusion, because what the hell? Frankie's still here? In the entire history of Mikey's hook-ups he's never kept one of them around this long.
Frankie's shriek of defeat startles Gee out of her trance. Frankie throws down the controller and starts smacking Mikey in the arm. "You asshole, I totally had you, what the fuck was that?"
Mikey just grins smugly at the screen, and when Gee glances over she can see he was playing Sub Zero. "Oh yeah, you shouldn't let him play Sub Zero he'll just pull that Ice Blast shit on you."
"Thanks for the totally-too-late-to-be-helpful advice!" Frankie says, and gives Mikey another kick. Mikey elbows her, grinning wide and he and Frankie look way too cute together. Gee's stomach dips and she's not sure why.
Frankie looks up at Gee, "So are you done being boring McBoringpants now? We're gonna head over to Gabe's soon."
Gee shrugs,"Sure, I guess."
Frankie beams at her and Gee knows she's going to have to go to the damn party, whether she wants to or not. The thing is, she kind of wants to now.
*
Gabe's parties are usually an exercise in discomfort. When Gee, Mikey and Frankie arrive he cruises over and does his usual number of sleazing on each of them in turn. It's weird. Gabe is totally skeezy but he's so obvious about it, it's almost charming. The few times in history he hasn't sleazed onto Gee were strangely disappointing, leaving her with a distinct sense that maybe she just wasn't looking cute enough that night.
Tonight is not one of those nights. He leers at Frankie and then at Gee, and he's still groping at Mikey's waist even as he grins at both of them. "Looking good girls."
Frankie rolls her eyes at Gee and pats Gabe on the face. "You too Saporta, but if you touch my ass I'll punch you in the face."
"Ooooh," says Gabe, trading a grin with Mikey. "She's a feisty one."
Frankie snags Gee by the wrist and drags her off in search of beer. Somehow they manage to lose Mikey on the way there, so Gee grabs an extra can for him. Frankie notices and says "ooh, good idea," and shoves an extra can in her hoodie pocket as well. That wasn't what Gee meant, but she doesn't bother to explain. They squeeze out of the overcrowded kitchen and manage to find a couch that no one else is sitting on and flop onto it. The beer is cheap and crappy, but it's free so Gee drinks it anyway.
"What happened to Mikey?" Gee asks, not so much for herself, more for Frankie since she's kind of his date, sort of.
Frankie just shrugs and pops her can open with a hiss of air. "He'll find us eventually. He's probably stalking that band from Chicago - Armless Angels or whoever; he's such a scene whore."
Gee snorts out a laugh. She should probably come to Mikey's defence as his sibling, but the truth is, he is totally a scene whore. She shifts on the couch, which makes Frankie move, wriggling around until her feet are tucked under her. It presses her knees lightly into Gee's thigh. Gee feels like she should shift sideways and give Frankie some more space, but she doesn't. She waits for it to get awkward, but Frankie just starts talking about the band playing on the stereo - some local act that played the Boiler Room recently and just signed to Eyeball. It isn't until Frankie describes the singer that Gee realises she's seen them play.
"Oh yeah, the front man, he's huge, right? And angry? He's got a tattoo of a bear on his chest."
"Yeah - that's them!" Frankie chimes in, wiggling again so she's facing Gee more and launches into a story about how he and his drummer had a huge fight before a show once and they both played the set with blood all over them. She's really animated and Gee's laughing her too-loud, honking laugh before she can stop herself. She claps a hand over her mouth to try and stifle it, but she's still grinning hard enough to have a cheek ache by the time she can gasp in a breath. When she looks up, Frankie's watching her, her own mouth pulled up at one side in a smile and her eyes shining.
"What?" Gee says, feeling suddenly on-the-spot.
Frankie just smiles, shaking her head, "Nothing, you just," she regards Gee again, "it's just good to see you laughing, is all. Mikey was really worried about you for a while there."
And boom, just like that the shadow of Mike fucktard Pedicone casts itself over Gee's night. She looks away, picking at a hole in the couch arm, fighting back that icky drop in her stomach she still gets when she thinks about the whole fucked up situation.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up. You don't have to talk about it," Frankie adds, and she does sound genuinely sorry.
Gee rolls a few sentences around in her head, ones that change the subject, or drop the subject, or give her a reason to leave the room. She takes a swig of her beer to work up to saying one of them out loud, but what comes out is,
"I don't think it's so much that I liked him. I think I just liked the idea of him, you know?"
"Like, the idea of being with someone?" Frankie asks, her voice neutral.
"Yeah, I mean, someone like that, someone talented who's trying to like, express themselves and stuff."
Frankie makes a weird snorting sound and when Gee looks at her she's got a hand smushed over her mouth and her shoulders are shaking.
"Are you - are you laughing?" Gee asks, and oh my god, Frankie is totally laughing.
Frankie wipes her mouth off, blinking as she tries to swallow the rest of the laughter down, "I'm sorry Gee, I'm not laughing at you, I swear, it's just;" she snickers again, her mouth all twisted up as she tries to keep herself under control. "Look I'm friends with some of Pedicone's friends and he so totally isn't in The Bled to express himself musically." Frankie does air quotes around the last part, or at least, as much air quotes as you can do with a can of beer in your hand.
"Why else would he be in a band?" Gee asks her, genuinely confused.
"Um, for the pussy?" Frankie says, her eyebrows arched up like it's the most elementary thing in the world.
"Is that why you're in P.S. Don't Write? For the sex?" Gee asks.
"No!" Frankie says, then thinks for a beat, "well, maybe a little. It's not a bad bonus, but no. I'm not in it for the pussy; I'm in it for the music. It's like therapy for me. If I couldn't get up there and let all this shit out, I'd probably end up like, robbing a convenience store or something, or screaming at random people in the street. I just need to get my shit out, you know?"
Gee nods, "It looks pretty cathartic, what you do up there." What she doesn't say is that it also looks amazing. She's still a little in awe of Frankie-on-stage, even if Frankie-off-stage is actually someone funny and cute and endearing.
"I'm just glad people let me keep doing it. I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't get my shit out on stage the way I do. Is that what art is like for you? Do you just have stuff you need to get all out on the paper, or whatever?'
"Sometimes," Gee admits, tracing the coded numbers on the top of her beer can with her fingernail. "Sometimes I feel like if I don't get, like, this image out of me it'll just build up and fester, or worst that it'll decay - like, blur away in my memory, or whatever, and I'll lose it."
Frankie nods, "Yeah, I get that with lyrics, like if I don't find something I can write on like right now I'll lose the words, so I end up with shit scrawled on the back of napkins, or newspapers, and once I had to steal a menu from this diner because I'd written this block of text on the back of it. I actually felt really bad about that."
"You'd make a terrible thief."
"Yeah, I really would," Frankie agrees, and the conversation dies for a moment while they both take sips of their beer.
Gee's the one to start it up again, and in a way she doesn't even mean to, the words just fall out. "I guess I just worry that like, what if that was my one shot at having something with someone, and I chose the wrong person, and now I won't be able to find someone else, you know?"
"You don't get just one shot at having a relationship, Gee. And it sounds like it went south because he was a lying, cheating, scumbag, and not because of anything you did."
"But what if he was a lying, cheating scumbag because I wasn't, like, good enough? Because I wasn't enough?"
"Hey." Frankie tugs the beer out of Gee's hands and presses their hands together. Her fingers are cool and a little damp. "Don't make me make you a mix-tape of chicks kicking ass music, because I will. That shit's not true. He's the fuckup, not you. He doesn't deserve you."
"Easy enough to say," Gee says with a self-deprecating smile. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough," Frankie says, and squeezes Gee's fingers. "I know you’re Mikey's sister, and he adores you; you've got excellent taste in music and comics and you're really fucking cute, too."
Heat crawls up Gee's neck and she knows she's blushing. Frankie doesn't call her on it though, just keeps looking at her all earnest and sincere. She's got the prettiest smile.
"Gee," Frankie says, and her voice is kind of throaty and rough, and she looks more nervous than Gee would have thought possible. "Have you ever thought about-"
She doesn't finish the sentence because Gabe bellows loudly over the crowd in the gathered room, "Shots! We're doing shots! Drink or we will mock you and think less of you!" and he starts throwing plastic disposable shot glasses around like confetti. One lands in Gee's lap and she picks it up, pinched between her thumb and forefinger. Gabe's got another freakishly tall guy with him, who looks vaguely familiar. He's so pretty it's almost feminine, thin as a rake, and he's holding a bottle of vodka in each hand, wiggling them around showily.
Frankie glares at both of the tall dudes pushing vodka on the gathered crowd before sighing and snatching her own tiny cup off the couch. She looks at Gee, cocking an eyebrow, "Are we doing this?"
"You mean, are we going to fold to peer pressure to avoid the mockery of our peers?"
Frankie shrugs. "Free alcohol?"
Gee grins and holds her cup out towards Gabe and his offsider, who fills both hers and Frankie's without getting too much on the carpet. He gives her an assessing smile as he lifts the bottle back up and Gee manages to fight the urge to look away. He's way too pretty, and way too tall, and way too much like Gabe, but it's a nice little bump to her ego all the same.
She glances over to Frankie just in time to see her shoot her vodka. It doesn't go down that well, because Frankie sits up coughing after, glaring at the tall pretty guy.
"You didn't wait for me - we're supposed to do them together," Gee chides, trying to figure out why Frankie looks so suddenly annoyed.
"Sorry," Frankie says, but she doesn't really sound sorry. She shoves her empty cup towards the guy whose name Gee should probably figure out already. "Fill her up."
The guy rolls his eyes but does as he's told, somehow managing to glare at Frankie without really moving his face, before sauntering over to the next section of the room where there are lots of vocal kids waving cups at him.
It's in the back of Gee's throat to ask what the hell just happened, when Frankie turns back to her and raises her tiny cup, spilling a few droplets of vodka on the couch. "We can do this one together," she says, and smiles at Gee - big and wide, and Gee can't fathom saying no to that. She raises her own cup and touches it gently to Frankie's then they both shoot the vodka together.
It's cheap and awful and it burns all the way down. Gee comes up for air with a rough breath, her throat burning and her face scrunched up in what she's sure is a highly unattractive expression. "Ugh, that's fucking awful."
"Exactly," Frankie says, and snatches Gee's empty cup. "We totally need another one." She bounds across the room before Gee has time to protest and comes back with another two shots for them to drink. And Gee drinks hers, because Frankie wants her to, and somehow that's enough reason to do it.
The night gets hazy after that. There's more vodka, a lot more vodka, and Mikey returns to the fold with some guy with emo hair and a lot of tattoos. There's even more vodka and possibly some Sambucca, and a definite moment in the night where Gee can't feel her knees.
She pokes at them, then gets Frankie to poke at them, and Mikey too, but she just can't feel them.
Frankie presses some ice on her knee, "Can you feel that?" and shit, okay Gee can, even through her tights, and it's fucking cold. She grabs for the ice, but it's too slippery for her to get purchase. Frankie ends up putting it down her shirt, and Gee shrieks. Before she knows what's happening it devolves into a really pathetic drunken wrestling match that ends with Frankie and Gee in a pile, laughing too hard to keep trying, the ice already melted away.
Gee lies on her back, her chest still bubbling with laughter, smushed up against Frankie, who's laughing so hard it's making them both shake. Her cheeks are rosy from exertion or alcohol and the dark part of her mohawk flops over one of her eyes. Her eye makeup is smudged and her mouth is stretched into the most gorgeous smile. Gee loses her breath for a moment just looking at her.
"Nice one girls." Gee looks up to see Gabe towering above them. "All that needed was some Jell-o. And bikinis." He nods solemnly.
"Bikinis hey?” Frankie counters. “I thought you'd want us topless." She pulls up the bottom of her shirt, flashing her stomach at him and Gee catches a glimpse of ink she wants to see so much more of.
"Don't let me interfere with your artistic vision, ladies. If you want to get the girls out, I won’t stop you." He grins wide, leering and waggling his eyebrows at them. Somehow it's even funnier after all the vodka and Gee laughs until she's breathless.
The night continues in a haze of vodka and laughter and in the end they don't make it home, crashing out wherever they land.
When Gee wakes up, she's more relaxed and comfortable than she's ever been in her life. There's a warm body lying up against hers, an arm lying loosely around her waist, and breath feathering over the back of her neck. She enjoys that sensation for one stunning moment, before her hangover kicks in with a vengeance, a splitting pain in her head vying for attention with a roil of nausea in her stomach. She groans and goes to flip over, but she can't move because she's all wrapped up by someone who is probably Mikey (he's been known to stealth cuddle attacks.)
She reaches down to tug his arms away, blinking blearily when she notices the ink across the knuckles of the hands around her. It's not Mikey. It's Frankie.
Gee turns her head slowly to peer behind her. Frankie's still asleep, breathing softly into Gee's shoulder, her face slack and relaxed. Gee looks down at her hand where it's covering Frankie's, her thumb on Frankie's pulse, their fingers entwined.
She doesn't want to get up, she realises. She doesn't move, just glances around the room, which is scattered with sleeping bodies, empty cans and broken plastic shot cups. No one else is awake that she can see. No one needs to know she woke up. She lays her head back down, closes her eyes and enjoys the feeling of Frankie pressed against her.
She falls back asleep almost instantly.
*
When Gee wakes up the second time, it's to a pointy finger jabbing her in the arm. "Ow," she squeaks. The finger jabs harder, "Ow!" she says, louder, and tries to slap the hand away, but it doesn't work.
"Gee. Gee, wake up, we've gotta go. Gee. Gee." Mikey keeps chanting Gee's name and poking her in the arm until Gee grabs his hand and says, "What! What? I'm awake!"
"You're not awake 'til you open your eyes," Mikey argues and fine, fucking fine, Gee opens her eyes. The view is a hell of a lot less nice on this awakening; it's just Mikey glaring down at her over his glasses, his hair all messed up and sideways. Frankie's nowhere to be seen.
Gee flattens a hand to her forehead, but it doesn't stop the painful pulsing in her head every time her heart beats. "Oh god, I drank too much vodka."
"We all drank too much vodka," Frankie's voice chimes in. Gee turns her head squinting into the too-bright sunlight filtering in from the window behind the couch Frankie's sitting on, curled up in a ball and looking as miserable as Gee feels. "I blame Gabe," Frankie adds.
"Gabe and that tall guy, the one with the vodka bottle," Gee says. "The bottle full of evil."
"That's Bill," Mikey says, "and he's really not a bad guy."
Gee just glares at him. "How are you not hungover?"
Mikey shrugs. Gee kind of hates him. She sits up and the room spins around her and the contents of her stomach start to press at the back of her throat. She lies back down again.
"Kill me. Please. Do me the favour." She flops a dramatic hand across her eyes, her other hand resting on her queasy stomach. "Or just leave me for dead, go on without me, I'll only slow you down."
Mikey sighs, blowing air up out of his mouth and making his stiff bangs tremble. "You're such a drama queen." He shoves her upright and holds her shoulders until the world stops spinning. Frankie grabs Gee's hands and tugs her to her feet. She weaves a little, but doesn't collapse back to the ground, which she decides is a win.
"Why do I have to move?" she asks in a piteous voice, as Mikey drapes her coat on her shoulders and steers her out of the room.
"We're getting food," Frankie explains. "Greasy, healing food. And then we are going to find a couch to lie down on and not move for the rest of the day."
"I like this plan." Gee says, leaning on Mikey more than she probably has to. "This is an excellent plan."
They totally stick to that plan, couching out at the Way's with bellies full of greasy diner breakfast to work their way through a chunk of Romero's back catalog. Frankie's feet are tangled up with Gee's and she's warm up against Gee's side where they're all smushed together on the couch.
She knows most of the words to the good parts of Dawn of the Dead just as well as Gee and Mikey.
"Dummies! Dummies! Dummies!" They yell in harmony. Frankie's the first to crack up, but soon they're all laughing until Gee's headache is threatening to return.
It's a shame when they run out of time and Romero flicks and Frankie has to go. She throws herself across Mikey and Gee on the couch in some kind of slam-hug and mumbles something about next weekend into Mikey's shirt.
She sweeps out in a rush, still wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt and the house feels weirdly quiet after she's gone.
Gee picks at a hole in the couch cushion, trying to put together words to tell Mikey that whatever he's got going on with Frankie is fine by her. Mikey spent the whole weekend with her, obviously this is something special, Frankie might even be girlfriend material. It puts a weird feeling in her stomach to think about that, but fuck, it's about time Mikey got serious with someone, and Frankie is awesome.
She tries to find a way to tell Mikey she's cool with it, but she doesn't want to say she approves, like she's got some kind of say in his love life. Instead she just bumps shoulders with him, "So, Frankie's pretty cool."
"Yeah, I like her." Mikey says, and it sounds casual enough but Gee can see the smile pulling at his mouth. He's totally into her.
Gee ruffles his sticky hair and smacks a kiss on his forehead before she goes back downstairs. Her baby brother is growing up.
She crawls into bed relaxed and worn out in that way she only gets after a big weekend. She rolls onto her side, and shifts when she feels the crunch of paper under her shoulder. She pulls it out and finds a sketch of Pedicone, crushed to death under a falling elevator, dark pencil shading all around his head to indicate a pool of blood. As she stares at the picture she can barely remember sketching, she realises this is the first time she's thought about Pedicone all day.
She wrinkles her nose at the page, scrunches it into a ball and tosses it towards the wastebasket.
She misses, but it doesn't matter.
*
Gee's rushing to make it to class after an abnormally long queue at Starbucks messes with her coffee schedule when her phone beeps. She scrambles for it, juggling her coffee and her notebook until she manages to see the screen - it's a text from an unknown number.
G, it's Frank, I got yr number from Mikey. How do you feel about Fiona Apple?
Gee's frown of confusion tugs into a smile, and she taps out a quick reply as she scoots into a seat at the back of the hall, quickly flipping her phone onto silent.
extraordinary machine > tidal, why?
Her leg bounces impatiently under the desk and she doesn't manage to absorb one word the professor says until her phone vibrates in her hand. She flips it out to read.
that would be telling. I knew you had good taste.
Gee gives her phone a quizzical look, but the screen doesn't give away any new clues.
Gee doesn't find out the answer to the mystery until the weekend, when Gee answers a tap on the basement door to find Frankie on the other side.
"Hey!" Gee says, immediately running hands through the wreck of her hair, and suddenly all too aware that she's wearing an ancient Ninja Turtles t-shirt with no bra, and sweat pants that are so worn they've got holes all through them. There's no way to turn it around, but she wasn't expecting company, and she's barely able to string two words together after spending the whole morning sketching and being generally nonverbal.
"Sorry," Gee flaps a hand at her general appearance, "I didn't know you were coming."
Frankie smothers a laugh against the back of her hand, "Really? I thought you'd dressed up for me." She waltzes into Gee's room like she's been there a million times before. She perches on the end of Gee's bed, bouncing a couple of times before digging through her backpack and shoving something vaguely CD-shaped towards Gee. "I brought you a present."
Gee edges closer to the bed and takes the CD jewel case from Frankie. She pops it open to see a disc; scrawled across the front in red sharpie it says, "Ass-kickin' chick music".
Gee's laugh is so sudden and loud it startles her. "Frankie-"
"I told you I'd do it. I promise there's no Alanis Morrissette on there." She grins, and pokes her finger at the tracklisting.
Gee's eyes skim down the carefully handwritten list of songs and artists, seeing a lot that she knows well and a few she doesn't recognise at all. There's even some Ella Fitzgerald, mixed in with rough punk bands and the last track just says "Self-titled" and the artist is P.S. Don't Write.
"That last one is special," Frankie says. "Unreleased. Only a privileged few have heard that one."
"Oh," Gee says, and immediately wants to listen to it. "What's it about?"
"Let's just say that instead of drawing pictures of my ex dying in various gross ways, I wrote that. It's less about healing and more about rage than the rest of them but, you know, your mileage may vary."
"Thanks Frankie," Gee says, clutching the CD to her chest. It's probably not a big deal, she tells herself. Frankie probably threw it together quickly, a nice gesture to her new boyfriend's recently dumped big sister. She shouldn't read too much into it.
Even still, she can't fight the wide grin that splits her face when Frankie says, "I think you're gonna like it. Let me know what you think, okay?"
Gee assures Frankie she will, and that should be that. She waits for Frankie to excuse herself and go back upstairs to find Mikey, but she doesn't. Instead she asks, "Hey, are you doing anything tonight?"
Gee's heart stops for a moment, before she reminds herself that she's not the Way who's dating Frankie. She forces herself to act calm. "Does it look like it?" she asks, waving a hand at her less-than-chic outfit.
Frankie giggles. "Okay, point. Look, I'm on my way to band practise, we're trying out some new songs tonight and it'd be good to have some fresh ears, you know? You want to come?"
"You want me to come to practise with you and give you feedback on some songs?" Gee asks carefully, because somehow she's certain she must have this wrong. Why would anyone want Gee's opinion on music?
"Yeah, I mean, if you don't think it sounds too boring," Frankie says, a little crease forming between her brows.
It's about as far from boring as Gee can imagine, but she doesn't say that, she just says, "Okay, let me get changed," and starts to head for the bathroom.
"Don't get dressed up on our account," Frankie says lightly. "I mean those sweatpants are seriously hot. I love how the holes in the back show off your ass."
Gee hopes she made it into the bathroom before her face turned bright red, but she can't be sure.
*
P.S. Don't Write rehearse in their drummer's dad's garage. The house and the neighbourhood are the picture of suburbia, manicured front yards and tasteful gardens. When they open the door to the garage revealing a mess of cables and instruments and three tattooed band guys it's like going through the looking glass.
Frankie greets her band with hugs and punches and Gee hangs back, feeling out of place and excess to requirements. Frankie doesn't let her stay there, tugging her forward to introduce her to Hambone, Sean and Tim. "Guys, this is Gee, she was at the last show we did with the Interrobangs."
"Are you Mikey's sister?" Shaun asks, eyeing her, "Mikey from Eyeball?" Gee nods, used to the question. Most people in the incestuous Jersey music scene only know her (or of her) through Mikey. She's still kind of confused that Mikey didn't come with them, but apparently it's not his scene – in Frankie's words, he doesn't have the attention span for rehearsals. Gee isn't all that surprised to hear it.
She perches awkwardly on a battered couch that's pushed over into one corner of the garage and picks at a hole in her jeans while she waits for them to tune up. She wishes she'd brought a sketch pad so at least she'd have something to do with her hands.
When they start to play she forgets everything that isn't Frankie's fingers on the frets, her voice blasting through the practise amp. Seeing her up close like this, it's so much more than it was at the show. Even though Frankie's not turning it up as much as she did on stage, it's still mesmerising. She struts, and screams, and more often than not she's looking at Gee when she does it, like Gee's the audience and she wants to put on a show. Gee can't help but stare, tap her feet, let the music pulse through her chest.
She doesn't know what Mikey's problem is. There's no way she'd describe this as boring.
Okay, so it's a little boring when they have to stop between songs for Frankie needs to re-string her broken E string.
"So, are we doing the Richmond prom gig, or not?" Hambone asks, and Frankie groans.
"I thought we said we weren't. We're not a fucking covers band." She says with a snarl.
"No, you said we weren't. We haven't actually decided yet."
Frankie rounds on her band, "You actually want to do it? Teenagers and shitty covers?"
"They don't have to be shitty covers." Shaun says, looking a little like he's hiding behind his keyboard. "We could do like, Joan Jett and Black Flag, that sort of thing - the stuff we already know anyway."
"It's a paid gig, Frankie. Proper money. And you know need I new amp." Hambone presses and Frankie sighs. She glances over at Gee, who's feeling a little uncomfortable witnessing this.
"Tim's little sister's prom." Hambone explains, "they want a proper band, and they have real money." He turns back to Frankie. "With your cut you could totally pick up that pearl electric you've been staring at in the window of Dillon's for weeks."
"Fuck you." Frankie says, but she's smiling. She kicks Hambone's foot gently. "Fuck you for knowing so much."
"So are we going to the prom?" He asks, looking like he already knows the answer.
Frankie glances at the rest of her band who are all looking back at her expectantly. It's obvious to Gee that Frankie's the only hold-out, but they won't do it if she doesn't want to.
Frankie sighs and picks up her guitar. "Fine, but I'm not singing any fucking Avril fucking Lavigne."
She presses her face into her pillow and thinks about what Frankie would look like playing them, how her fingers would look dancing over the strings, the letters tattooed on her knuckles flashing in and out of view as she plays fast and hard, the twist of her mouth as she shapes the words and spits them out.
It's about the music, she tells herself. That's why she can't stop thinking about her. This connection she's got with Frankie is all about how the music speaks to Gee and how Frankie is one of those people who knows how to express herself with it. It's something that's always fascinated Gee.
Of course, it has nothing to do with Gee sneaking glances at Frankie's tattoos where they peek out from under her clothes, the way when her shirt is damp with sweat it goes a little see-through and Gee can make out the lines of her bra and tattoos underneath it. It's not about the way when Frankie smiles it sometimes hits Gee like an electric shock.
No, it's not about that at all.
"Does it hurt your throat, all the screaming?"
Frankie shoots her a smile, "Only if you do it wrong."
Gee smiles back and casts her eyes forwards again. She's nowhere near as entranced by Arma Angelus as she was by P.S. Don't Write, but then, these guys don't have Frankie. Mikey, on the other hand, can't seem to take his eyes off Pete.
Gee really should have realised that meant something, but at the time she puts it down to Mikey's professional interest. It's not until later in the night, after the bands have finished and she and Frankie are pushing through the sweaty crowd trying to find Mikey that Gee realises her own blind spot. She rounds the corner of the bar to see Mikey pressed up against Pete, making out sloppy and intense up against the dirty wall beside the bathrooms.
Oh. Oh shit. Gee spins 180 degrees so fast she nearly loses balance, trying to place herself between Frankie and the scene of Mikey and Pete making out. "He's probably gone outside!" Gee shouts unconvincingly and drags Frankie in the opposite direction, making their way to the side entrance. Gee has no idea what she's doing, only that she needs to save Frankie from the same moment she had only weeks ago with fucking Pedicone.
Fuck Mikey. She should have seen this coming. People don't change overnight. Just because Gee can tell Frankie's something special doesn't mean Mikey can. She swears at him internally the entire journey outside, trying to come up with something to say to Frankie.
"He's not out here," Frankie says, when they get to the dirty steps outside the side entrance.
Gee's already reaching for her cigarettes though, half to buy them time, but mostly because she needs some fucking nicotine to calm her nerves. She's going to kill Mikey for putting her in this situation. "I need a smoke," she says, trying to sound casual and she offers one to Frankie, who takes it.
Gee gets a few moments to quietly panic as she lights Frankie's cigarette and then her own, then she's got to figure out what to fucking tell Frankie about her scenewhore brother.
"So, um, Frankie," she starts, her hand waving unsteadily and sprinkling ash over her jeans.
Frankie looks at Gee with a quizzical expression, "So, um, Gee," she says, copying Gee's intonation in a way that would make Gee laugh if she wasn't about to leap out of her own skin.
"You know, Mikey, he's not really, um. Look, he's my brother and I love him and all, but he's not what you'd call," Gee reaches around for a phrase to use, "He's not really relationship material."
Frankie snorts out a laugh, "You're telling me. I think he's slept with half the scene."
"He has?" Gee blurts out. She can't help it – she didn't really expect Frankie to know.
"Oh come on, like you don't know? No offence, I know he's your brother and all, but the guy's practically a rite of passage for scene kids." She looks sideways at Gee, "Seriously, this can't be news for you."
"No, no, it's not um. It's not news to me," Gee admits, "but you knew? and you're like, okay with that?"
"What do I care? It's not my business where he puts his dick."
"It's not?" Gee asks, her voice pitching even higher.
"No way, I'm not gonna slut-shame, what's it to me?" Frankie says, taking a long drag of her cigarette and puffing out a cloud of smoke. "Live and let live."
Gee gapes at her. "But you; you and him, aren't you-"
Frankie stops in the middle of a breath out. For a moment her eyes are bright and wide on Gee's then she doubles over coughing. Well, it's coughing at first, but then it morphs into laughter, until Frankie's laughing so hard she's palming at her eyes and cackling at Gee.
"What. What?" Gee asks, a little hysterical, not sure if she wants to slap Frankie or shake her. "Why are you laughing?"
"Oh my god," Frankie cackles, wiping her eyes. "You thought- oh my god Gee, you thought me and Mikey." Frankie laughs again, deep and musical. "Oh god you thought we were together didn't you?"
"Maybe? Um, sort of? Mikey doesn't exactly date, but you guys-" Gee doesn't get any more words out before Frankie cuts her off.
"Oh my god, no. Gee, babe, I don't do dick."
"You… you don't?" This is really, really fucking confusing.
Frankie shakes her head, still cackling a little, "Oh wow, you really had no idea, did you?"
"But you - I mean, you guys slept together."
"We slept near each other, but we didn't sleep together" Frankie explains, her voice hoarse from all the coughing and the laughing. "I was so drunk there was no way I was gonna make it home, so Mikey let me crash.He knows better than put his hands on the merchandise. I'd kick his ass."
"But… you were wearing his Anthrax t-shirt." Gee's still racing to catch up. She tries to remember the conversation she'd had with Mikey about Frankie, his secret little smile when he talked about her, but the thought is pushed out of her brain by another, more immediate revelation. "Wait - you mean, you're not into guys at all?"
"No," Frankie says matter-of-factly, her eyes settling on Gee like she's seeing her for the first time. "You really didn't know that?'
"How was I supposed to know that?” Gee can't help the way her voice pitches up. She feels so fucking stupid.
Frankie leans back a little, her eyes lingering on Gee as she twirls her fingers in the general direction of herself, "I don't know Gee, I thought the mohawk might have been a dead giveaway. And when did you ever see me in a skirt?"
"You mean I'm supposed to categorise you based on stereotypes?" Gee sputters, still feeling unsteady, like the rug just got pulled out from under her.
Frankie snorts out another laugh, "They're stereotypes for a reason, Gee. They're cues, like - I don't know, signals." She shakes her head. "Your gaydar fucking sucks."
"Are you really making fun of me for looking at you as an individual person, instead of assessing you on your clothes, or hairstyle or whatever?"
"No, I'm making fun of you because you thought I was sleeping with Mikey." Frankie hides her smile in her fist.
"It's not like I've needed gaydar before," Gee protests, and really she's getting way too het up over this.
"Mikey said you had a girlfriend at college for a while."
Gee's eyes bug out at Frankie. "He told you about Lindsey?"
"Well he didn't give me a name, but sure."
"Oh," Gee says, because it's not like it’s something that comes up that often. Her gaze drops to her knees as she remembers the girl with the too-bright lipstick that she crushed on and messed around with for three brilliant weeks in her freshmen year. It was an experiment that ended earlier than Gee wanted it to, when Lindsey decided she was the opposite of Frankie and only liked dick. "That wasn't really a revelatory experience. I don't think I learned the secret handshake that time."
"There is no secret handshake," Frankie says with a shrug. The back of her hand brushes against Gee's thigh and it sends tingles all up her leg. Gee glances up at Frankie and when their eyes meet, something twists in Gee's chest. "I could teach you a few things though, if you wanted to like, learn." Frankie's voice drops lower with each word, and her usual easy confidence is suddenly absent. She looks so unsure, so far from the confident girl spitting venom onstage, almost shy the way she's watching Gee now, so closely.
It takes Gee one more too-long moment to put it together,It's suddenly way too clear why Frankie's been hanging around so much and spending so much time with Gee and Mikey. And it's not about Mikey.
Gee's heart beats too fast, and the feeling she gets when she watches Frankie play, or sees her electric-shock smile is warm in her chest. She's not fast enough to react and Frankie's expression falls a little as she clearly misreads Gee's silence. She starts to say something, to withdraw, but Gee grabs Frankie's hand before she can get too far. "Hang on. I just need a minute here," Gee admits, and just the touch of her fingers to Frankie's skin sends a zing of sensation up her arm.
She glances up at Frankie and it's an alien sight to see her so still. Her eyes lock with Gee's, but that's all, she doesn't move. Gee lets her fingertips trace up Frankie's arm, over the ink etched in her skin, over her shirt and up the slope of her neck until Gee's fingers can cup Frankie's cheek. "I just need to get my head around this." Gee says, her thumb tracing over Frankie's skin.
Frankie lets out a breath, and it dances over Gee's fingers. Frankie's gaze drops low, the cadence of her breathing getting faster and Gee gets transfixed by her eyelashes, dark against Frankie's pale skin. Frankie remains still, letting Gee's eyes rove over her, take her in.
Gee presses her fingertips lightly under Frankie's chin until her head tilts up. Frankie moves with her easily, but she still doesn't take charge. It's Gee who leans in and presses their mouths together, kissing Frankie gentle and slow, hardly any pressure behind it at all. Frankie's lips are so soft, and she doesn't push, just lets Gee kiss her, lets her set the pace. Gee's the one to push it forwards, to lick over the seam of Frankie's lips until she opens them, to slide her hand to the back of Frankie's neck and press her tongue in her mouth.
Frankie's fingers curl into Gee's shoulder and she pulls her close, enough so their bodies touch, the soft rise of Frankie's breasts meeting her own through layers of clothing. Gee makes a soft noise and slides her other hand to Frankie's back, pulling until the press is a crush and they're necking. Frankie pushes up on tiptoe and deepens the kiss, catching Gee's bottom lip gently between her teeth before licking inside Gee's mouth to taste her.
It stops being slow and careful, turning dirty and wet; all hands and mouths as heat rushes through Gee's body. They stumble until they hit something solid, a wall, and then Frankie's kissing Gee up against it, getting her leg between Gee's and fuck yes, that's good. They both moan into it as Frankie presses closer, until they have no choice but to move as one, their bodies sharing the same heat.
It's gone from zero to a hundred so fast Gee's head is spinning, but she doesn't want to stop, she can't. She grabs a handful of Frankie's ass, and Frankie rolls up into her, grinds on her, like she wants to climb her. And yeah, that's the Frankie Gee was expecting, taking what she wants, no apologies. Gee gives it up easily. She sinks her fingers into Frankie's hair and kisses her until she's breathless and wanting, until it's getting too intense to be happening right outside the venue doors.
Gee's the one to break it, separating their lips to pant damply in the air between them, their foreheads still pressed together. Frankie's fingers tighten in Gee's hair, pulling gently until Gee eases back, so Frankie can look at her. Her eyes are dark with want, her lips wet, a flush in her cheeks. She's beautiful.
"You okay?" Frankie asks gently.
"Yeah." Gee says, feeling her mouth tug up in a smile as she realises it's completely true. "Yeah, I'm totally okay."
Frankie's mouth pulls into a full smile that lights up her whole face. She starts to say something, but is cut off by a loud bang as a couple of drunk people burst through the venue doors, shouting Green Day lyrics at the top of their lungs. Frankie rolls her eyes at Gee, "We should probably-" she nods towards the doors and Gee nods back, a little reluctantly. She's not really ready to go back inside, but if they stay out here she's only going to want to do more things that she probably shouldn't do in public.
Frankie grabs her hand. Her fingers are warm around Gee's as she squeezes before turning to go back inside, Gee following behind.
The noise and heat of the club is a shock after the quiet cool of outside. Gee's flight response kicks in immediately and she can't think of anything except how much she wants to kiss Frankie again, how much she wants to get out of here. She clings to Frankie's hand as they weave through the club, looking for Mikey and, by association, Pete.
Mikey finds them first. He doesn't have Pete with him, but he has two fresh lovebites on his neck.
"Hey," he says when he sees Gee. "Where'd you go? I've been looking all over."
Gee jerks her head at the side doors. "Went for a smoke."
It's too loud for Gee to hear the 'oh' she can see Mikey's mouth making, but his glance down to where Gee's clinging to Frankie's hand with both of hers speaks volumes. And there's that fucking smug look of his again. Gee's going to punch him.
"Pete and I are going," he tells Gee and Frankie. "You can come if you want a ride." He turns and heads for the doors without bothering to wait for an answer. He knows Gee well enough that he already knows it.
The ride home is awkward. Pete's all over Mikey, or as much as he can be with the bucket seats and Mikey needing both hands to drive. Gee and Frankie don't really talk, just shoot little sideways glances at each other across the backseat. Frankie keeps licking her lips and Gee can't stop watching her do it. Fuck, they need to get home.
Mikey doesn't even bother to say goodnight when they get back to the house; the moment they're inside he's dragging Pete down the hallway by the arm and Pete's already unzipping his hoodie. Frankie manages to contain her laughter until she and Gee are alone in the kitchen.
"Your brother is kind of a slut," she says, her huge smile taking any sting out of the words.
Some tiny thread of sibling loyalty makes Gee say, "How do you know it doesn't run in the family?" tilting her head and peering at Frankie from under her eyelashes.
"Um, yeah, no," Frankie giggles. "If you rated anywhere near Mikey on the slut scale, you would totally have noticed me hitting on you this past week."
Gee's brow furrows. "You were hitting on me?"
Frankie rolls her eyes. "Oh my god, I made you a mix tape, Gee. That's fucking old school wooing right there. If you didn't click to that, I was gonna have to sit outside your house with a boom box."
"Oh fuck you. I thought we were bonding. I thought you were trying to impress your boyfriend's sister."
Frankie sidles closer, suddenly right up in Gee's space and Gee's breath catches in her throat. "Okay, so here's a clue," Frankie says, slipping a hand up Gee's arm, trailing fingertips sending goosebumps all up her arm, "This is me, telling you Miss Way, that I think you're pretty amazing." She leans in, pressing up on her toes, until she's so close Gee can feel her breath on her lips. "And if you don't have any objections, I'm going to kiss you now."
Gee licks her lips and lets her eyes flutter closed. Frankie's lips are so close she can almost taste them already and she wants, God she wants.
Frankie leans back a little, quirking an eyebrow at Gee. "No objections?" Her lips curl up into a smirk and Gee wants to smack the smile right off her face. She doesn't, she kisses her instead, finally getting her mouth back on Frankie's. Frankie grabs a handful of Gee's hair and kisses back hard, pushing herself up against Gee, devouring her mouth with swift licks and soft bites.
It's so good. Frankie knows how to give just a little pain with the pleasure. Her fingers run gently over Gee's arms and back, her guitar callouses catching on skin, just a touch of rough, just enough. Gee doesn't even notice she's backing up, moving as Frankie presses her back until the fridge door is cool against her back, bottles inside jiggling musically as their bodies make impact. A few fridge magnets fall to the floor and Gee's dimly aware that they should probably move this out of the kitchen, but Frankie's mouth is too close, too insistent, she can't think about anything else right now.
They move against each other, Frankie's hands all over Gee's back, Gee's in Frankie's hair, so soft under her fingers. Their lips move wet against each other's and Frankie makes these amazing throaty noises as she gets into it. Gee can't get enough.
It isn't until Frankie's hands start to slip lower, until rough-tipped fingers dip under the waistband of Gee's jeans, tracing down her lower back and sliding over the curve of the top of her ass that Gee really starts to think yeah, okay, this probably isn't kitchen activity.
It's hard, but Gee manages to break the kiss, panting.
"Um," she says, so eloquently.
"Um?" Frankie mimics Gee's tone, turning it into a question.
Gee closes her eyes, her face starting to flush before she even gets the words out. "You want to come downstairs?"
"Downstairs?" Frankie asks, "like, where your bed is?"
"Yeah, down there," Gee says, her voice so low it doesn't even sound like her own.
Frankie's fingers pass lightly over the curve of Gee's eyebrow, and Gee opens her eyes to Frankie's smile. "Fuck yeah, I do."
Gee snorts out a laugh, loud, honking and embarrassing, but Frankie just giggles along with her, shoving her towards the stairs. Gee's not nervous, she isn't. Except for how she's never really done much more than kissing with a girl and she has no idea how to do this. It's cool, it's cool, she promises herself, she can figure it out. They're working with the same equipment, or whatever. She's so distracted by her own predictions of failure she nearly falls down the last two stairs.
Frankie catches her arm, steadying her, "Careful. There's probably someone out there with a fetish for broken legs, but I can tell you it isn't me."
Gee smiles, because she can't think of a witty rejoinder, and palms a handful of hair back from her face, closing the door behind them.
"So," she starts, and immediately loses the rest.
"So," Frankie says, and kisses her, deep and long and hard, until Gee's breathless and the hot melt starts up between her legs again. Frankie's palms are warm against her cheeks, her chest shifting against Gee's on every breath. Gee hangs on to Frankie's waist and kisses back with everything she's got, losing herself in Frankie's mouth, her taste.
When Frankie breaks the kiss her lips are wet and a little swollen; she regards Gee with hazy eyes. "Bed?" she asks, sounding so hopeful Gee snorts out a laugh.
"Yeah, okay," Gee agrees, because she can't, not. Frankie backs them up, until the backs of Gee's knees touch the mattress and she flops down onto it. Frankie climbs into her lap and presses her onto her back, using her slight weight to press Gee down into the covers. She doesn't stop kissing Gee, robbing her of any brain capacity for nervous thoughts.
It's good. Fuck, so good. Gee lets herself forget everything that isn't Frankie's weight on top of her, the slide of her lips, the touch of her tongue to her own. Frankie's all motion, her hands roving Gee's skin, rocking her body against Gee's until their legs scissor and their hips align and then -
"Fuck, that's it," Gee whispers as Frankie's thigh slides between hers and they just fit. Frankie grinds down on her and Gee's groan bubbles between their lips as she gets pressure right where she wants it. She arches under Frankie, sliding her hands up Frankie's back, slipping under her shirt to trace over the tattoos she knows are there.
Fuck, Frankie's tattoos. She tugs the hem of Frankie' shirt up, exposing her soft stomach, little birds winking at her. "Show me all of them," Gee says, suddenly bold, her need outweighing any embarrassment.
Frankie grins at her, but thankfully she doesn't tease. She sits up and pulls her shirt off, tossing it aside with a smile. Gee can't concentrate any further because suddenly there's all this ink on show and Gee needs to trace her fingers over it; follow the lines of the word "And" across Frankie's belly, flatten her palms over the two swallows on either side. Gee's fingers trace upwards to where a heart-shaped design peeks out from the cup of Frankie's bra. Gee pulls fabric away without even thinking about it, just needing to see what's underneath. It doesn't occur to her until afterwards that she's jumped ahead a whole base, her fingers hesitating over the curve of Frankie's petite breast.
Frankie doesn't call her on it, thank god. She just yanks her other bra strap down, unhooking it at the back with a one-handed flick so it falls away. Gee's breath rushes out of her lungs. She's not just looking at the tattoos anymore, now she can see all the skin in between. Her eyes rove over Frankie's tits, the dip between them, the soft curve of her stomach, the jut of her collar bone. She traces her fingers hesitantly up Frankie's full sleeve.
"You're beautiful," she can't help blurting out, awe in her voice.
Frankie chuckles, "You are."
Gee's head shake is automatic. She knows she's not beautiful - cute maybe, but that's all.
Frankie's fingers are gentle on Gee's cheek, tilting her head up until their eyes meet., "You don't get it, do you?" Frankie asks, her brow furrowed in confusion. "You really don't see it."
"See what?" Gee asks, a little afraid of the answer.
Frankie rests warm hands on Gee's shoulders, pressing her down onto her back again and leaning up over her, her crazy hair sticking out everywhere. "You're fucking gorgeous, Gee. You really don't see it?"
Gee turns her face away, pressing her too-hot cheek into the pillow, unable to meet Frankie's eyes. Frankie doesn't push it; she reaches for Gee's shirt instead, pushing it up under her armpits and trailing her hands over all Gee's naked skin. Gee's breath comes in pants. She feels so exposed, but Frankie's fingers don't shy away from the soft curve of her belly, the crease mark above it. Frankie's fingers trace up Gee's arms, tickling lightly and Gee squirms on the bed. Frankie chases her fingers with her mouth, painting a warm wet line up the inside of Gee's arm.
When her mouth gets to Gee's neck, Frankie settles her weight over Gee's, her breath cooling the damp skin over her collarbone and making Gee shiver. "You're gorgeous, Gee. So fucking gorgeous. Especially like this." Frankie's voice is a hot whisper, her hands falling to rest on Gee's hips, her thumb slipping under the waistband of Gee's jeans. "Do you have any idea what you look like right now?"
Gee gives a tiny headshake. She's having a hard time concentrating on Frankie's words, her focus stolen by Frankie's fingers, exploring lower and lower. "Frankie, Frankie…" she whispers, not sure what she wants, just that she wants.
Frankie's hand slides over the top of Gee's jeans, pressing heavy over her cunt through the denim and cotton. Gee groans low in the back of her throat, unable stop herself from pushing up into the touch. Frankie mouths behind Gee's ear, hot and wet as she grinds her palm down. Gee starts to whine. She's hot all over, her skin prickling with sweat under her clothes. She can't help feeling like if she doesn't concentrate right now she's going to float right out of her body.
"Fuck, Gee," Frankie pants, and the pressure on Gee's cunt disappears as she starts tugging Gee's belt open. Gee's past caring what she looks like, she just wants Frankie's hands on her, wants to touch her too. Gee slides her palms up Frankie's back, around her sides to cup her breasts. Frankie swears, "Fuck Gee, yes… yes touch me. More of that." The words press warm against Gee's neck as Gee shapes Frankie's tits, her nipples hard against Gee's palms.
Frankie doesn't stop moving, rolling and grinding down on Gee, panting against her neck, her hands still struggling with Gee's button fly. When she finally gets the buttons open there's a rush of cool air against Gee's hot skin, the sensation chased away as Frankie gets her hand inside. She doesn't hesitate, she just fucking goes for it, sliding her hand into Gee's underwear and covering Gee's cunt with her fingers. Gee's face heats up, god she's so wet and Frankie must feel it, all over her fingers.
Frankie lets out a long breath, sliding her fingers over Gee's slick folds and whispering, "Yeah, fuck babe, so fucking wet."
"Jesus Frankie," Gee's flushed, desperate and she can't stop moving, can't stop pushing down against Frankie's fingers. It's so good. It just feels so good. "Frankie," she whispers, like a prayer, and turns her head to find Frankie's mouth. They kiss, wet and messy, all tongue and teeth as Frankie finds a rhythm with her fingers. Gee's so turned on she can smell herself; can hear the wet sounds as Frankie's fingers move on her cunt. Gee wants to touch too, wants to make Frankie feel like this, but there's a malfunction between her brain and her hands, and all she can do is keep touching Frankie's tits, keep kissing her until they're both breathless.
In the end, Frankie makes it happen; she gets her own belt and jeans open one-handed, never losing her rhythm on Gee's cunt the whole time. This is why Frankie's so good on the guitar, Gee thinks, it's the way she can move both hands independently, something that's beyond Gee; why she'll never be able to play guitar worth a damn when Frankie can give Gee goosebumps with a single solo.
Frankie doesn't try to be smooth, or elegant, she just gets her jeans open and shoves them down. The curve of her ass is pale, and it's strange, Gee thinks, to see such a large swathe of skin on Frankie's body that doesn't have any ink on it. Then Gee's gaze skitters lower, to the tuft of dark brown hair between Frankie's legs and Gee moans, a shock of pure want arrowing through her.
She hasn't gone this far before with another girl. With Lindsey it didn't even get below the waist before it all fell apart and the prospect that she's about to do just that, but with Frankie this time, is thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. She doesn't let herself freak out, she just slides her hands down Frankie's body. Down over Frankie's ribs, fingertips trailing over the soft skin over her belly, anointing the heads of the swallows on their journey down. When she sinks her finger between Frankie's legs, she so, so hot. So wet. So slick Gee can't really feel what she's doing, but she doesn't stop. She circles her finger lower, dipping into the wetness, slicking her fingers with it. Frankie moans and tosses her head, rolling her hips against Gee's hand, shoving against it until all Gee can do is try to hold her hand steady while Frankie writhes on her.
She's so uninhibited, so free, just taking what she wants, no embarrassment and no apologies. It's mind blowing. It's white hot. Gee wants to be like that. She's not sure if she ever can.
"Frankie," she whispers. "Frankie, I…"
Frankie's next moan somehow sounds like a question.
"I just," Gee stumbles, because Frankie's thumbing her clit now, putting more pressure behind every slick stroke and it's stealing Gee's concentration. "I just, I might not be very good at this. I haven't really, um… done this before, um, like, with a girl." Gee's face is on fire, her skin burning right to the tops of her ears.
She waits for some kind of reaction from Frankie, some change in the status quo, but there isn't one. Frankie's still grinding on her hand, still picking Gee apart with her own steady touches. The smell of sex is warm and present in the air between them.
"I like what you're doing so far," Frankie says, her voice all breathy and throaty and fucking sex. Frankie trails her lips across Gee's cheek and whispers right near her ear, "so far you're doing really fucking well, babe."
Gee's breath comes out in a relieved rush, smiling. She can feel Frankie's answering grin pressed into her cheek for just a moment, before Frankie slides down her body, settling between her legs where Gee can't reach her any more. It clicks into Gee's brain what Frankie's about to do a moment before she opens her mouth over Gee's cunt and just breathes, making Gee gasp and tremble, her body flushing with heat, her pussy tingling under the warm rush of air.
Gee groans out a broken noise, pressing her wet fingers into her mouth and tasting Frankie's salt and musk as Frankie starts to lick. She slides her tongue over Gee's clit and tickles underneath it until Gee's grasping at her hair, her hips rocking up off the bed against Frankie's mouth.
"Oh god, oh fucking god, Frankie." The words are garbled against her fingers. She's squirming so much Frankie grabs her hips and holds her down, just fucking devouring her with skilful licks and strokes until Gee's sure her spine is dissolving.
"Fuck. Jesus, Frankie fuck," she cries, writhing on the bed. Frankie's good at this, so fucking good at this. Gee can already feel her orgasm trembling in her belly, every movement of Frankie's lips and tongue intent on shaking it loose.
When Frankie opens her mouth over Gee's clit and sucks, Gee can't contain herself. She groans and pants, fists her hands in Frankie's two-tone hair, swearing, and muttering endearments, unable to fucking shut up. Frankie's harsh breaths bounce off Gee's belly, cool air against her hot skin as Frankie drives her out of her fucking mind.
Just when Gee's nearly ready to beg, to plead though she's not entirely sure what she wants, Frankie pulls off with a wet noise, replacing her mouth with her fingers. "So pretty," she says breathlessly, "So fucking pretty, baby."
Gee looks down to where Frankie's nestled between her legs, stroking her with strong fingers, her entire focus on Gee's pussy and it's so… god, she just feels so exposed, so vulnerable. Frankie's seeing parts of her Gee hasn't even seen properly, and from what Gee can tell, she really fucking likes the view.
"So pretty babe," Frankie says, circling her fingers around Gee's clit until she trembles and gasps. "You don't know, do you? You have no idea how good you look like this." She presses down on Gee's clit, and then up again just quickly and Gee throbs under her fingers, her hips pushing up off the bed.
"Oh fuck, Frankie," Gee says, desperate, pulsing under Frankie's hand now, god she wants, she wants. "Frankie, please,"
"Please, what?" Frankie pushes down with her thumb again, then keeps stroking and Gee nearly chokes on her tongue, "Tell me Gee, what do you want?"
"Oh god, Frankie anything, everything, just please don't stop, please-"
She doesn't even finish before Frankie's ducked her head, sucking hard and rhythmic on Gee's clit until she's panting and moaning, her breaths uneven and staccato, her toes curling into the sheets. God, Frankie is just undoing her, licking and sucking until Gee's arching off the bed, finger dug into Frankie's hair, moaning nonstop and trying not to shove her cunt into Frankie's face, fuck her mouth, and she's not really sure she's succeeding.
Gee's moans keep getting higher in pitch, and Frankie's not letting up, not slowing her assault at all, sucking and stroking with her tongue, and then… then she's stroking at Gee's opening, sliding just the tips of her fingers inside until Gee's fucking herself down on them, unable to hold back, just needing everything, anything to get her closer, to get her there.
She groans higher and louder, her body bowing up off the bed as Frankie plays her like an instrument, her fingers and tongue working in concert until Gee's pulsing underneath her, babbling and bucking and then fuck - fuck. She comes, twitching and bucking under Frankie's hands, trying to squirm away when it gets too much, but Frankie won't let her. She holds tight to Gee's hips and keeps working her tongue on Gee's clit until she's nearly delirious, riding out spasm after spasm until she's a sweaty giggling mess, swatting at Frankie's head lightly to make her back off. It's just… god, so much.
She has to lie on the bed in a starfish and breathe for what feels like way too long before her brain finally comes back online again.
When she comes back down to earth, Frankie's lying beside her, her eyes on Gee's face and her chin propped on her fist. She's smiling. "Hey," she says, looking smug. "Welcome back."
Words are too hard, so Gee sighs a happy noise that turns into a giggle halfway out. She feels light and bubbly, little aftershocks twitching her cunt. Frankie just watches her, her face alight with the most gorgeous smile and god, Gee's so gone for her right now. She pries her limp arm off the mattress, reaching over to trail her fingertips over Frankie's skin, tracing the lines of ink. Frankie's skin is hot to touch and she pulls in a shaky breath, her body arching up just slightly towards Gee's hand.
Gee trails her hand downwards, letting her fingernails play against Frankie's skin scratching lightly until Frankie sucks in another breath. As she skates her hand down further she lets herself look her fill, taking in Frankie's skin, so pale in contrast to the dark ink of her tattoos. "I want to do that for you," she tells Frankie, as her fingers slide lower, over the coarse thatch of hair, slipping down between Frankie's legs until she can sink her fingers between her folds, feel her heat, her wetness.
"Don't feel like you have to," Frankie says, the catch in her voice betraying her light tone. "But I'm not going to say no," she adds, a little growl in her voice as Gee dips her finger, slicking it up, and stroking up over Frankie's clit. Frankie sighs and wriggles down, settling in. Gee rolls closer to her, leaning in to take her mouth in a lazy kiss. Frankie's lips taste like pussy - salt and musk - and Gee likes it so fucking much.
They kiss, wet and slow as Gee keeps touching Frankie, moving her fingers until there's a hitch in Frankie's breath, and she squirms against Gee, rocking down on her hand. Frankie breaks the kiss, her breath panting hot against Gee's cheek. "Fuck yeah, Gee, so fucking good." Her voice is throaty and shot and god, Gee loves her like this. She's so undone. She can't stop moving, her hands sliding over every part of Gee she can reach.
She pants shaky breaths when Gee slides down the bed, painting a winding line down Frankie's body with her tongue as she makes her way down. Frankie's hands are in Gee's hair before she’s even halfway there, easing her legs open and Gee has to stop for a moment just to look because god, what a view. She presses a kiss to Frankie's inner thigh, and skates her lips upward slowly, so slowly.
"Gee, c'mon," Frankie says, and it's breathless and desperate. Gee has to just look for a moment, sliding her thumb over Frankie's clit and pulling up, her eyes drinking in the shiny pink folds of Frankie's pussy, and she's so fucking pretty even down here.
"God, Frankie," Gee whispers. "So pretty." She circles her thumb around Frankie's clit and Frankie's hips push up off the bed, pushing her moist cunt against Gee's palm.
"Gee, c'mon," Frankie says again, more desperate this time. "Don't fucking tease."
Gee doesn't mean to tease, she doesn't. She's just… figuring out how to do this. She wants to, fuck she really wants to, but she doesn't want to fuck it up either. "I'm not, I just," she says, circling her thumb down to dip into Frankie's wetness and smear it up over her clit, Frankie's skin warm and slick under her fingers. "I want to make it good."
"You are," Frankie says immediately, her fingers brushing through Gee's hair. She pushes up into Gee's hand again, her thighs flexing. "Just keep going, please, please keep going."
Frankie sounds so desperate, Gee has to move. She slides her thumb up over Frankie's clit and holds, making her clit stick out. Gee dips her head and licks a stripe over it, tasting Frankie from the source for the first time and the taste is new and yet somehow familiar. Frankie whispers, "Yeah, fuck, just like that," and if Gee wasn't concentrating so hard on what she's doing with her mouth she'd probably smile.
Instead, she stiffens her tongue and keeps licking, stroking up under Frankie's clit, her tongue dipping into Frankie's heat each time she goes back down and works her way up again. She concentrates on finding a rhythm, her entire focus on Frankie. Her scent fills Gee's nose, her heat and taste flooding Gee's mouth.
Frankie can't keep still. She keeps rocking up under Gee, writhing against her and it makes Gee want to squirm against the bed. She's so into it, so responsive and all Gee can think is that she's doing this, she's making Frankie react this way. It's addictive, the coil of heat that shoots down her body then, and she's pushing closer without even thinking about it, until her nose is pushing into Frankie's pubic hair and she's sucking lightly on Frankie's clit.
Frankie's body stiffens and she lets out a loud groan. "Yeah, oh god yes, that, that," she keens. Gee sucks harder, wanting to hear more of Frankie's noises, more of her words. Frankie hitches one of her thighs up over Gee's shoulder, and it changes the angle, opening her up more and forcing Gee's head even closer to Frankie's pussy. Frankie's foot presses between Gee's shoulder blades, like she's holding Gee to it and fuck, Gee likes that.
Gee glances up through her lashes and Frankie looks… amazing. The shine of sweat on her skin makes every line of ink on her body stand out crisp and sharp. Her eyes are half closed, a red stain on her cheeks, her mouth loose and open as she breathes her way through Gee's ministrations. Her nipples are hard and she's got one hand over one of them, thumb moving absently, her other hand locked in Gee's hair. Her fingers tighten as Gee quickens the rhythm of her strokes.
"Gee, just, fuck, put your fingers inside me, please," Frankie says, her voice shot with need.
Gee has to press her legs together and squeeze, the words making her own cunt pulse. She trails her fingertips from Frankie's hip, down over her belly, to slide in between Frankie's legs. She strokes gentle fingertips at Frankie's opening as she sucks Frankie's clit and Frankie makes a strangled noise and grinds her pussy into Gee's face. She keens Gee's name, and please, and yes, over and over and Gee's nearly shaking with how turned on she is.
Gee slides two fingers slowly into Frankie's cunt, and she's so hot, so soft. When Gee sucks hard on Frankie's clit this time, she feels the hot clench around her fingers. Gee moans into Frankie's skin, slipping her fingers in and out in rhythm with her mouth. Frankie's not shy in her reactions, grabbing Gee's head, humping her face, growling and writhing on the bed. Gee has to work hard to keep her lips where she wants them, as Frankie's hips move sharper, faster, more staccato. She's getting closer, the trembling pulses around Gee's fingers getting stronger and more frequent, and Gee almost feels like it's her orgasm she's working towards, willing along.
"Gee, fuck, fuck," Frankie pants, her thighs tightening around Gee's head. Gee concentrates on keeping her rhythm, breathing through her nose and trying not to lose her groove. Frankie gasps and goes still, fingers painfully tight in Gee's hair. Gee swipes her tongue once more, and Frankie comes undone, clenching around Gee's fingers and bucking against her face violently. She swears and moans, her body jack-knifing upright and nearly tipping Gee right off the bed.
Gee rides it out, holding tight to Frankie's hip with her free hand, and not easing off. She works Frankie's clit, feeling it tremble under her tongue as Frankie slick flesh grips her fingers, and god, it's fucking intense. It's like she's coming herself, and she moans into Frankie's skin, sucking in air through her nose and Frankie's all she can smell.
Frankie whines, cooing Gee's name, gasping in rough breaths. "Oh god, oh fuck," she says, shaking under Gee's hands, her thighs squeezing Gee's face. Gee doesn't stop until Frankie yanks on Gee's hair pulling her head up roughly. Gee comes up for air, licking her lips and slipping her fingers from Frankie's body. They're wet and shiny with Frankie's juices and she shoves them in her mouth, licking them clean.
Frankie watches her, her eyes blown and heavy as they dart between Gee's hand and mouth. Then she fits her hand to the back of Gee's head and pulls her in for a kiss, long and wet and tasting of pussy. Frankie licks into Gee's mouth and sucks on her tongue, like she's trying to find every last trace of her flavour in Gee's mouth. When they break apart they're both breathless and Gee's uncomfortably aware that she's made a wet spot where she's siting on the bed, but she can't bring herself to care.
Frankie wraps her arm around Gee's shoulders, pulling her down on top of her as she flops back onto the bed. Gee goes with it, until they wind up in a sweaty tangle, Gee's face nestled into Frankie's neck.
"What were you saying about that maybe not being any good?" Frankie asks, light and breathless.
Gee giggles, pressing her face into Frankie's skin. "So, I did all right?" she asks, trying to keep her voice casual.
"You'll do," Frankie says, tightening her arms around Gee and brushing her lips across Gee's forehead. "I'm keeping you," she tells Gee, decisively, stroking her fingers lightly through Gee's hair. Gee wriggles in her embrace, trying to get impossibly closer. She lifts her head and Frankie meets her mouth in a kiss that leads to a second and a third, no urgency to it, just lazy and wet and gorgeous.
At least, it is until Frankie rolls Gee over onto her back and slides a hand down Gee's body to her cunt, stroking lightly over her lips. "Fuck, you're still so wet," she says, slicking her fingers with it and rubbing lightly over Gee's clit.
Gee groans and pushes up into the touch, ignoring the hot flush in her cheeks as she tells Frankie, "your fault," with a breathless shudder as Frankie keeps touching her.
"Yeah? I did that?" Frankie teases, her face just above Gee's, watching her closely as she keeps going. Gee can't hide her reactions, not when she's being studied this closely, so she doesn't try to. She bites her lip and breathes, letting Frankie hear the whine in her voice, letting her body arch up to Frankie's touch.
"Fuck, you've got another one in you, don't you?" Frankie whispers, sounding delighted and turned on.
Gee's not sure if she can speak, so she just nods. That's all the signal Frankie needs to keep going. She leans up on one elbow and settles over Gee while she circles Gee's clit with knowing fingers. Gee's breath catches and she licks her lips, tasting both of them. Frankie's so close, watching Gee carefully as her hand moves, seeing every reaction, every flutter of Gee's eyelids.
The warm ache is there, building slowly. "This might take a while," she warns Frankie, because Gee's cunt can sometimes be hard work.
"I'm in no rush," Frankie says, her mouth quirking up at the side as she leans her head down, her mouth close to Gee's ear. "I like touching you, Gee. I could do this for a really long time."
"You might have to," Gee groans, letting her legs fall open wider. Her hips hitch up toward Frankie's hand, betraying how she wants more pressure, but Frankie keeps it light, too light.
"Frankie," Gee whispers, "more, please," and she doesn't even try to hide the desperation in her voice.
Frankie grins, and fuck she was totally keeping it light on purpose. She shifts her hand to thumb Gee's clit with deliberate pressure, the guitar calluses on her fingers rough in just the right way. Gee whines and pushes into her hand; she's so fucking good at this.
"Like this?" Frankie asks, too smug but Gee answers "yes" immediately, because fuck, it's already building again, faster than she would've thought. She arches up to kiss Frankie and Frankie kisses back immediately, stroking her tongue into Gee's mouth in time with her fingers on Gee's clit. It gets faster and messier from there. Frankie's tongue laps at Gee's lips and she pants sharp breaths against Gee's mouth, her fingers never losing rhythm, pushing Gee closer, higher.
"Frankie, Frankie," Gee moans, her voice going up in pitch with each breath. Fuck, she's close, so close she can taste it. She bucks into Frankie's hand, her pussy starting to pulse. Frankie leans up then, separating their faces just enough that she can watch Gee intently.
It's almost too much, Gee wants to look away, hide her face, but she doesn't. Frankie watches her, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her hair a sweaty mess and her eyes dark and focused. It sends a thrill through Gee that has nothing to do with what's happening to her body and everything to do with the girl above her, the way Frankie makes her feel, precious, desired, beautiful.
Gee lets out a sharp breath only to gasp in another one, her eyes locking with Frankie's, tying a thread between them. When Frankie says, "C'mon Gee, show me," Gee's eyes flutter, but they don't close. Then Frankie speeds her hand just a little more, slick noises mingling with their harsh breathing as her fingers stroke Gee's orgasm loose.
It hits her hard. Her pussy clenches, her hips buck, her mouth drops open in gasping groan as pleasure spikes through her. She doesn't shut her eyes or turn away from Frankie, letting Frankie see every stupid face she pulls, every noise she makes loud between them as she gasps and comes so hard she shakes with it. Frankie doesn't take her eyes off her the whole time.
"Oh fuck yes, yes," Frankie mutters, slowing her strokes but not stopping. She kisses Gee, messy and wet and all Gee can do is hold on, wrap her arms around Frankie's back and ride it out as long as she can take while Frankie milks every last drop from her, leaving Gee a shaking, twitching mess.
In the end Gee has to reach between their bodies and tug Frankie's wrist to make her stop. She's light-headed and soaked with sweat, her bloodstream fired with adrenaline. She feels high and slightly hysterical.
She flops her arms out onto the bed, feeling the weight of them. "Fuck, Frankie," she says, rolling her head to the side to meet Frankie's eyes. "You're fucking good at that."
Frankie grins, pushing her shiny-wet talented fingers into her mouth and licking them clean. "What can I say? I am the pussy master."
Gee can't help it, she cracks up, giggles bubbling out of her loose and free. "And so humble too," she adds with a snort.
"I don't hear you complaining," Frankie says, trailing her hands over Gee's chest, painting lines across her skin with damp fingers.
"That's because I'm not," Gee says, leaning up to catch Frankie's mouth in a quick kiss. "Complaining, that is," she adds, covering Frankie's hand with her own and interlocking their fingers. "Just in case you were wondering."
It makes Frankie smile, and Gee wants to keep doing that for a long time.
Eventually, exhaustion wins out. They both reek of sex and Gee's limbs are like jelly. They don't even make it under the covers, Gee just grabs the side of the comforter they're not lying on and folds it over them.
"Like a taco," she says absently.
"Hmm?" Frankie's hums into Gee's neck, spooned up behind her.
"It's like we're in a giant taco," Gee says, tugging on the covers before laying her hands back down on Frankie's arms where they're wrapped around her.
Frankie smothers a giggle into Gee's shoulder. "You make the best pillow talk."
"Oh my god, shut up," Gee groans. "You can't expect me to make sense right now, I'm pretty sure I lost a few IQ points through all the fucking."
"Uh oh," Frankie says, rubbing her nose against Gee's shoulder. "Now you'll never be a neuroscientist." She drops a kiss behind Gee's ear, "It's a good thing you're pretty."
Gee's face gets warm, which is ridiculous. She's had her tongue inside Frankie's cunt and yet this is what makes her blush? She's so weird.
"I'm so weird," she tells Frankie, because apparently all the orgasms broke the filter between her brain and her mouth. She winces and pushes her face into the pillow.
Frankie just hums and tightens her arms around Gee. "It's cool. I like weird."
Gee grins into the pillow. It's totally the right answer.
The Richmond High School Prom fucking goes off. A band that look an awful lot like P.S. Don't Write but who call themselves Pencey Prep play to a bunch of teenagers who somehow seem to enjoy covers of Joan Jett and The Bangles even though they probably weren't born when the originals were released.
Their lead singer has a two-tone mohawk and an attitude, but she doesn't actually swear in front of the audience the entire set, though she does flip them off a couple of times. She's wearing a pink taffeta prom dress that dates back to the eighties and a pair of army boots with purple laces. She's on fucking fire and Gee can't take her eyes off her.
When the band leave the stage and the DJ takes over, Frankie comes to find Gee. Her dress is falling off one shoulder, showing her black bra strap. Her hair is sweat-damp and sticking out sideways and her makeup is smeared. She looks fucking gorgeous,
"You look ridiculous." Gee tells her, because the dress they dug out the back of the thrift shop has some serious ruffles.
"So do you." Frankie says with a grin, and Gee tugs at the neckline of her own lurid purple taffeta number. Whatever, it was two for ten bucks at the thrift shop and it has a giant bow on it that Gee has maybe gotten a little too attached to.
"We're a matched set then." Frankie says, and grabs Gee by the arm, pulling her behind a decorative stand and kissing her thoroughly. She tastes like sweat and she's all fired up from playing, so it's far from gentle but it's fucking good.
When they finally break apart, Gee's lipstick is smeared on Frankie's mouth and her eyes are glowing with mischief. She hitches up her skirt and pulls a hip flask out of her boot, wiggling it at Gee, "Want to go get drunk and make out on the football field?"
"Classy." Gee says, but her mouth is already tugging into a telling grin.
Frankie shrugs, "I'm a classy kind of girl. You in?" She sticks out her hand and Gee takes it. She gets stuck for a moment, looking at Frankie's tattooed fingers entwined with hers.
She looks up at Frankie and smiles. "Of course. I thought you'd never ask."
Two girls in ridiculous taffeta dresses, looking rumpled and wearing huge smiles.
~end