Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The door to the faculty room slams open, the handle hitting a well-worn mark on the wall, and Agatha Harkness makes a beeline for the coffee pot, all but elbowing a student teacher out of the way to get to it first. With barely contained rage she fills a coffee-stained Westview High mug to the brim with what’s left in the pot. When the student teacher eyes her she gives a half-hearted shrug and makes her way to the couch where Jen Kale is sitting, nursing her morning tea.

“Wow, you’re even more chipper than usual this morning,” Jen says drily, fiddling with a long, dangling earring.

“I hate when you drink that tea in here, it smells like a foot,” Agatha sneers, gulping down her coffee much faster than anyone should be able to drink something so hot.

“It’s yerba matte,” Jen intones with her self-satisfied air.

Agatha makes a face. “That’s only the second worst thing I’ve heard all day.”

Jen says nothing. Agatha stares her down. In the near decade they have worked together, Agatha has learned that Jen never rises to bait, forcing her to share more and more of her own personal life until, against all her efforts, they became something resembling friends.

“If you must know,” Agatha says after a moment, “I got a call this morning from a debt collector who said that apparently I have an unpaid line of credit to the tune of five grand.”

“I thought you kicked your online shopping thing,” Jen says almost sympathetically, the first bit of it Agatha’s received all morning.

“It’s not me,” Agatha emphasizes, annoyed. “It’s been open for over a year and someone fucking stole my identity and opened it in my name.”

Jen scoffs. “You didn’t notice five k missing from your bank account?”

“It’s my—“ Agatha lowers her voice and speaks out the side of her mouth, “—other account.”

“Oh, the one where you put your dead mother’s social security checks,” Jen says, full volume.

Agatha slaps her arm, glancing around the faculty room. They haven’t drawn any eyes, as far as she can tell. But being a high school teacher is surprisingly like, well, high school, and she can never be too careful.

“Please, no one here is judging,” Jen says, unfazed by her alarm. “We’re all teachers, we know how much we make.”

“Exactly,” Agatha continues. “And now I’m out five grand and I can’t report it—“

“Because you’ve been cashing your dead mother’s social security checks for twenty years,” Jen supplies oh so helpfully.

Agatha sighs and feels a headache forming behind her eyes, and it’s not at all lessened when one of her students approaches her, a large stack of papers in hand.

“Billy, why are you in here?” Agatha sighs. “I told you, Mrs. Hart said I can’t let you use my copier code to print your zines anymore.”

“Oh, these aren’t my zines,” Billy says cheerfully. “They’re posters for auditions for the school play.”

Agatha tries to muster a smile but it feels more like a grimace, and beside her, Jen gives a half-hearted thumbs up.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” he continues. “But Ms. Harkness, are you trying to figure out who stole your identity?”

Agatha huffs, her face flushing. Ever since he’d taken her freshman English class three years ago, Billy has taken it upon himself to treat her like his fun aunt, which she has no interest in being. She’s not anyone’s fun anything. “Billy, you might want to stay out of this one,” she manages as gently as she can at 7:30 in the morning, which is not very gently at all.

“I can come to your classroom during lunch and show you, if you want,” he offers, undeterred as always by her candor. “I learned a lot about cybersecurity when someone hacked my finsta last year.”

“You can find out who stole her identity?” Jen asks, sipping her horrid tea.

“It might not actually be that hard,” Billy continues. “With my alternate VPN I should be able to get around the school’s firewall because a lot of the sites I use are not exactly what you’d call kosher.”

Agatha holds up a hand and makes a face. “Stop. You know I don’t understand all that computer nerd stuff.”

But Agatha can’t think of a good enough reason to say no, and Billy eats lunch in her classroom practically every day anyway. She almost feels bad for him, but she does very much want to find out who the fuck stole her identity. And he does kind of bring it upon himself, with the zines and everything.

“Fine,” she sighs with a wave of her hand, finishing her coffee.

So a few hours later, he bounds into her classroom, fighting his way through the sea of freshman trying to flee from 9th grade English.

“Parker, no vaping!” Agatha calls out over their heads. A middle finger rises out of the crowd of students.

“I don’t understand your generation,” Agatha sighs as Billy sidles up to her desk and pulls out his laptop.

“Me either,” he says, typing away.

Agatha is overcome with a sickening wave of fondness for him, not for the first time. Billy was one of her only students who seemed to take a genuine interest in her creative writing class, the highlight of her week. His parents had died some years earlier, when she’d first had him in class, but he’d shown amazing resilience. She’d wondered then and still wonders now what it must be like to mourn the loss of a parent.

“Okay,” he says slowly, then flips his laptop around to show her. “You said the bank told you the withdrawals were coming from a bank in Newark?”

“Yeah, First Bank of Newark, the Broad Street location,” Agatha says, reading off an email she’d had to practically coerce the bank teller to send her this morning.

Billy presses a key on his laptop and a video starts to play, grainy footage from what Agatha has to assume is a security camera at the bank.

“You found this on the internet?” Agatha asks, putting on her glasses to squint at the screen.

“Sort of,” Billy says.

A dark-haired woman approaches the counter with a withdrawal slip and waits impatiently, her fingers drumming on the countertop. The teller disappears for a moment, and the woman sighs, turning to lean against the counter, and giving the camera a direct view of her face.

“Pause it,” Agatha commands, and Billy taps another key on his computer. The screen freezes. Billy taps again and the screen zooms in, filling the frame with the woman’s face.

“Always wanted to do that,” Billy whispers conspiratorially.

Agatha stares at his computer. She’d assumed the only people who committed identity theft were loser computer nerds, snot-nosed incels with nothing better to do than fuck with people’s lives. But this woman is, by all accounts, and certainly by Agatha’s, very pretty. Dark hair, big dark eyes, a roguish mouth twisted into a displeased pout at being made to wait.

“Now how do we figure out who she is?” Agatha asks.

“That’s the hard part,” Billy says, flipping his laptop back around, as if hacking into a bank’s security system or whatever the hell he’d just done was easy. “Deepfakes have made reverse image search basically unusable for this sort of thing but the fact that we know she’s in New Jersey definitely helps us…”

He trails off as he clicks and types, and Agatha slumps back in her desk chair. She pulls her lunch out of her desk and picks disinterestedly at her sandwich and chips, especially after she realizes she and Billy are eating almost the exact same thing. She’s not sure when she became a fifty-year-old woman with the eating habits of a teenage boy. She almost asks him about the school play to distract herself but thinks better of it.

“Okay, this looks promising,” Billy says slowly after a few minutes. He turns his laptop around to face Agatha again and the screen displays a Facebook profile. Finally, a name.

“Rio Vidal,” she says aloud. She takes the computer and clicks around. In her profile photo she flashes a mischievous smile with teeth, her hair pulled into a ponytail that brushes her shoulders. Agatha clicks through the next few photos, watching her age in reverse. In the next photo Rio wears a sharp navy colored suit with a white collared shirt underneath, unbuttoned just a little lower than necessary. Agatha swallows. In the one after that, she’s in a t-shirt and athletic shorts with a running number pinned to her waist, throwing up a peace sign to the camera and looking like it’s a breeze, like she runs a half marathon every morning. The next picture is a selfie, Rio’s heavy-lidded eyes smudged with eyeliner. Her tongue sticks out of her mouth and she wears a Slayerfest ‘98 shirt. Agatha smirks.

“Lives in Newark, originally from Delaware,” Billy intones, reading over her shoulder. “Single,” he throws out there.

Agatha turns and glares at him. “I’m not gonna let you eat in here anymore if you keep talking,” she threatens.

“Well you’re welcome for finding the very beautiful woman who stole your identity.”

“I can revoke your letter of recommendation any time,” Agatha drawls, and that finally, mercifully, shuts him up.

She scrolls through Rio’s profile a bit longer, absently clicking around, making sure not to linger too long on any photos, in case Billy gets any ideas. She clicks on the friends tab in Rio’s profile, and at the same time, she and Billy gasp.

//

“How do you know her?” Agatha shouts over the din of dismissal chaos in the hallway.

“We went to college together,” Alice shouts back, leaning against a locker.

“And was she in the habit of stealing people’s identities back then too?”

“No, she was totally normal.” Alice frowns and corrects herself. “Well, more than normal. One of those people who’s annoyingly good at everything. Super smart, plays piano, does roller derby. She’s single, by the way, if you were—“

“I wasn’t,” Agatha says emphatically. “Why does everybody keep saying that?”

Alice gives her a look that’s almost too friendly and Agatha stares her down. “I’m just saying, if you want me to make an introduction, I can,” Alice says, holding up her hands in surrender.

And that’s how Agatha finds herself driving to a nauseatingly cute breakfast place on Sunday morning, Alice babbling away in the passenger seat.

“I can’t believe she responded, I kind of thought she’d forgotten about me,” Alice says.

“You weren’t close?”

Alice shrugs, adjusting her feathery hair in the rearview mirror. “We had a lot of friends in common but didn’t really run in the same circles.”

“Don’t do that thing where you pretend to get a phone call and leave me alone with her,” Agatha instructs. “I’m trying to confront the woman who stole my identity, not have a brunch date.”

“Are you wearing lipstick?” Alice asks, reaching to touch Agatha’s face. Agatha slaps her hand away.

“It’s… tinted chapstick,” she mutters.

There is a line wrapped around the corner when they arrive but Alice has made them a reservation, so they slip past the people bundled up for the first chilly weekend of the fall. The restaurant is too warm, radiators hissing to life for the first time in months as the host shows them to a table in the corner by a window. Agatha takes off her coat and fidgets with her necklace.

“She says she’s walking up,” Alice says, glancing at her phone, then looking around the restaurant. Agatha purposely does not look, because she’s not anxious for a reason she can’t explain, because this is not anything close to a date.

But then there she is, Rio Vidal. She strides confidently to their table, briefly waving at Alice. She’s wearing an oversized hoodie that says Devil Roller Derby and a pair of loose athletic joggers. Even dressed down Agatha can’t deny that she’s incredibly attractive. Which would matter if she was here for any other reason than getting her money. Which she’s not. So it doesn’t matter.

Rio pulls Alice into a side hug and then looks Agatha up and down appraisingly. Agatha feels warm under her gaze but she can’t look away either.

“Hello,” she says, her voice low and playful. “I’m Rio.”

“Rio, I think you know my friend, actually,” Alice says as Rio makes her way to the other side of the table and into her seat. “This is Agatha Harkness.”

Rio lands in the chair hard and her mouth falls open, brown eyes huge. “Really?” she says, smiling a little too wide.

“Really really,” Agatha says, plastering on her own simper.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick,” Alice says, that bitch. “If they ask I just want water.”

“Oh I’m sure you do,” Agatha says as she goes, shooting her a death glare.

“Alice was always so subtle,” Rio sighs fondly, and Agatha wants to strangle her.

“As a heart attack,” she growls. Is that a phrase? Subtle as a heart attack? She can’t remember. Her brain seems to be short circuiting because Rio’s tongue is poking into her cheek and she’s narrowing her eyes like a cat stalking its prey.

“I gotta admit, you’re not what I expected,” Rio says once they’re alone. She leans back in her chair like someone who has five thousand dollars that aren’t theirs would.

“What did you expect?” Agatha asks, bristling.

“Honestly? I pick people with old timey names because they’re usually octogenarians who don’t pay close attention to their finances.” Rio says this like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “So I wasn’t expecting…” she waves her hand in between them. “This.”

“What’s—“ Agatha mocks the gesture, “—this?”

“Well, you’re hot.” Rio crosses her arms as she looks Agatha up and down again in that hungry way. Agatha is wearing a black sweater and jeans, nothing crazy, and she feels exposed, taken off guard by this entire interaction. She crosses her arms over her chest to mirror Rio but then realizes it’s pushing her breasts up, so she puts her arms down again with a breathless toss of her hair over her shoulder. Rio watches all of this with her cat-like grin, her face nearly splitting in half with it.

Agatha scoffs, exasperated. “What’s happening here?”

“I’m attracted to you,” Rio says, monotone. “Do you really find that so hard to believe?”

“You stole my identity!” Agatha says, loud enough that the couple at the next table over turns to look at them. “Mind your own business!” Agatha snaps at them.

Rio tries to hide a laugh but fails, her head dipping forward and her long lashes brushing her cheeks. Agatha’s stomach does backflips.

She manages to regain her composure enough to say, “This isn’t funny! You stole five thousand dollars from me and have probably tanked my credit, which I’ve worked very hard to rebuild, not that it’s any of your business.”

“I know. The online shopping.” Rio sucks her teeth. “It’ll get ya.”

“I’m a public school teacher, do you have any idea how much I make?”

“Enough that you didn’t notice five thousand missing dollars.”

“Well that’s because—“ Agatha stops herself before she tells this woman the only thing she doesn’t already know about her finances.

But it’s too late. The wheels in Rio’s twisted little mind are turning, Agatha can see it as she leans in and rests her elbows on the table. “If you went to all this trouble to track me down yourself,” Rio begins, her voice low, “there’s a reason you haven’t already reported the fraud to your bank. You’re not supposed to have that money.”

Agatha shifts in her chair, once again squirming under Rio’s stare. Where the hell is their server anyway?

“Where is that money from, Agatha?” Rio asks, and Agatha feels a shiver run down her spine when Rio says her name.

“Okay, Miss Marple,” Agatha snarks, trying to ignore the flush rising in her cheeks.

Rio chuckles at the name calling, then sits up straight. “Wait, is that why you have an old woman’s name? Are you named after Agatha Christie?”

Agatha can only stare, mouth agape. No one has ever asked her that before and Rio is, of course, right, and becoming more and more maddening by the minute, a fact the younger woman seems acutely aware of.

“Look,” Rio says finally, a set in her jaw that indicates she thinks she’s won—she hasn’t. “You don’t have to tell me where the money came from. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give it all back to you, with interest even, if you go on a date with me.”

For the second time in thirty seconds Agatha is rendered speechless, an event so rare that she can’t remember the last time it happened.

“Just think about it,” Rio says with a shrug, like she’s just asked Agatha to split an appetizer, like she isn’t the most brazen woman Agatha’s ever met.

At that moment, Alice returns from the bathroom with a fuss, blaming a long line and the brunch crowd.

“They still haven’t taken our order?” she huffs, ruffling her bangs.

“No,” Agatha says, glaring at Rio. It’s her fault somehow, Agatha just can’t figure out how yet.

“Gosh, it is crowded in here,” Rio says, glancing around. “And hot.” In one swift movement she takes her hoodie off over her head, giving Agatha a glimpse at the majority of her abdomen as she does so.

“For the love of god,” Agatha mutters under her breath, and across the table, Rio flashes a toothy smile.

//

Agatha does think about Rio’s offer, and after a ride home that mostly consists of her berating a not at all sorry Alice, house chores that take longer than she wants, and finally grading a stack of papers she’s been avoiding, she texts Rio at the number she entered into her phone outside of the breakfast place that morning.

Fine. One date.

I mean, she isn’t getting any younger. Why not go on one date with one incredibly attractive woman a decade younger than her, probably, to get back five thousand dollars? What did she have to lose? She’d already lost five thousand dollars.

Rio’s response comes almost immediately. Two smiley faces. Then, Tuesday?

School night. Friday.

Agatha doesn’t care that it’s a school night, actually. But she needs time to mentally prepare and to pick something to wear that won’t have Rio ogling her like she was at breakfast. Or maybe something that will. She hasn’t decided yet.

It’s a date

Don’t sound so smug

How can you sound smug over text?

I’m sure you’d find a way

I’ll pick a place. For Friday

Nowhere fancy. No dim lighting. And not one of those places where it’s $18 for a burger with no fries

Yes ma’am

Don’t call me ma’am

Yes Agatha

Somehow that’s so much worse. Or better. Agatha hasn’t decided yet.

//

The week creeps by and Agatha finds, much to her disgust, that she is looking forward to Friday. Not because of Rio, she tells herself, but because it’s a change in her usual routine. It’s not her and Lilia’s occasional book club wine nights, it’s not Survivor Wednesdays at Jen and Alice’s. It’s something new, something different besides taking an edible and falling asleep on the couch watching a nature documentary.

“What are you going to wear?” Jen asks as they eat lunch on Friday, her voice sing-songy in the way that it is when she’s smug about something.

Agatha leans back in the folding chair in Alice’s office, pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Ugh, can we not do this?”

“Where is she taking you?” Alice asks.

“She’s not taking me anywhere, she’s not a greaser picking up a girl in a poodle skirt,” Agatha snips, though now she can’t get the image of greaser Rio out of her head. But Alice and Jen are still staring at her with big, expectant our-chronically-single-friend-finally-has-a-date eyes so she huffs and pulls out her phone to remember the name of the place where she is meeting Rio tonight.

“Oh, we’ve been there,” Alice says immediately. She looks fondly at Jen. “That’s the place with the—“

“Oh yeah, I remember,” Jen says, a rare wistful look in her eye.

“Well whatever happy memories you have of this place are not getting recreated tonight,” Agatha assures them, reaffixing the lid to her Tupperware and standing from her chair. “We’re having dinner, I’m getting my money back, and I’m never seeing Rio Vidal ever again.”

Agatha repeats it to herself like a mantra as she gets ready that evening, throwing her hair up in a clip and finally settling on a pair of jeans and a black blouse that’s a little too nice to wear to work. She’s not trying to look sexy but she doesn’t want to look like a schlub either.

She looks herself in the mirror in the entryway and says under her breath, “We’re having dinner, I’m getting my money back, and I’m never seeing Rio Vidal ever again.”

//

They walk up to the restaurant at the same time, and Agatha’s usual very strong self-control wavers when she sees Rio practically dressed like the greaser she’d joked about earlier. Tight black jeans hug her legs—her ass, which Agatha hadn’t gotten a proper look at in her joggers—and she looks effortlessly chic in a white tee and leather jacket.

“You look amazing,” Rio says, hands in her pockets like she doesn’t know what she’ll do with them if they’re not contained.

“You clean up nice,” is all Agatha can think to say, her tongue suddenly thick in her mouth.

Rio holds the door open for her and they enter the surprisingly cute restaurant, a counter order place with a million different sliders and sides. Rio pays and Agatha lets her, because she does owe her, after all.

“Does this meet your criteria?” Rio asks when they sit down with their food.

“Do you want a pat on the head? Do you want to know you’re a good girl?” Agatha teases, feeling relaxed now that they’re seated and the date is actually happening, it’s no longer this looming thing she can pretend she doesn’t care about.

“Not no,” Rio says around a smile. “How was your week?”

Agatha is taken aback by the ease of the question, how natural it feels, but she just shrugs, honesty taking over, or maybe it’s the half a beer on an empty stomach. “Uneventful, like most of my weeks.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Rio says.

“If you’ve spent the last few days harboring some sort of delusion that I’m at all interesting, I hate to burst your bubble,” Agatha says. “But I’m a high school English teacher who’s been a high school English teacher for twenty-five years. I got unironically invested in The Voice and I microdose and I’ll probably never finish the book I’ve been writing for the last five years.”

Rio perks up. “You’re writing a book.” It’s not a question.

Agatha waves a hand. “Again, it’s not as interesting as it sounds.”

“Just let me enjoy the fact that you willingly divulged like, five things about yourself,” Rio says.

“Well now that you said that I don’t want to tell you anything else.” Agatha hears the petulance in her voice but she can’t stop herself. Her palms itch.

“Fine,” says Rio. “We can talk about me.”

“Whatever you do for work they’re not paying you enough if you need to steal people’s identities,” Agatha says, wiping ketchup from the corner of her mouth with a flick of her finger.

“I do consulting for engineering firms,” Rio says. “I started my own company like ten years ago and then sold it. So I don’t need to work, technically, but a girl gets bored, you know?”

“Bored enough to commit identity theft,” Agatha supplies.

Rio at least has the decency to look sheepish. “It’s the only thing that feels like a challenge. I graduated Harvard at twenty. I created and sold a company by thirty. What do you do after that? Where do you go from there?”

Rio almost seems like she’s asking, eyes studying her food very intently all of a sudden.

“I don’t know,” Agatha answers honestly. She takes a sip of her beer. “How do you pass the time? Besides preying on unsuspecting school teachers?”

Rio smirks. “You’re not all teachers. The last guy was a hedge fund manager, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does,” Agatha says smugly.

“And it makes me feel better when the teacher has a secret savings account,” Rio says, that cocky smile flashing again.

“You aren’t gonna let that go, huh?” Agatha says, resting her elbows on the table.

“Something tells me that money was acquired about as honestly as a hedge fund manager,” Rio says, and it’s a challenge, daring Agatha to say it.

Agatha considers the fact that Rio is maybe the only person who can’t judge her for this, considering their mutually assured destruction, and the fact that she is, despite her best efforts, warm under the gaze of the stupidly beautiful woman across from her.

“It’s my mother’s social security money,” Agatha says finally, after she takes another bite of her food. “My dead mother, I should say.”

Rio laughs, and Agatha finds she loves the sound. “Oh wow, that’s even better than I thought. I was thinking embezzled PTA funds or something.”

“Please, as if I would do something so obvious,” Agatha says with an indulgent toss of her hair. Rio laughs again and Agatha feels something warm ripple in her stomach.

“She must be dead a long time, for it to be that much money,” Rio says after a moment.

“Not long enough,” Agatha says without really thinking, and then pauses picking through her fries when she realizes Rio is staring. “We didn’t get along,” she says with a shrug. “And it was months after she died before I even knew, and that’s when I found the checks and… well.”

Agatha thinks for a moment that she’s shared too much, something too personal, too honest, but then Rio says, “If she didn’t like you she must not have been all that great anyway.”

“Come on,” Agatha groans. She feels her face getting hot and it only makes her angry. God, what is wrong with her? Her first date in over half a decade and she’s got butterflies because a pretty girl is batting her eyes at her.

“You still don’t believe I’m attracted to you,” Rio says, reaching for a napkin. “Which is absurd, by the way, I mean have you seen yourself?”

“I believe you,” Agatha says evenly, fighting the thrumming of her heart from overpowering all her other senses, namely the urge to jump across the table and strangle Rio. Or maybe stick her tongue down her throat. She hasn’t decided yet.

Rio sips her beer and nods thoughtfully. Agatha tries not to notice how long her eyelashes are. “Okay,” Rio says finally.

“Okay,” Agatha says, and they fall into a comfortable silence as they finish their food.

“Busy weekend?” Rio asks as they stroll back to their cars, parked on opposite sides of the street. Her hands are in her pockets again.

“Grading papers, laundry, mowing the lawn,” Agatha answers honestly. “I told you, boring.”

“I bet your lawn mowing outfit isn’t boring,” Rio says with a toothy smile.

“Oh, it’s very butch,” Agatha says, and then she laughs, genuinely, and hates how wonderful it feels.

The evening is unseasonably warm and wet. If it had rained while they were eating she didn’t notice.

“What about you?” she asks, and her arm knocks into Rio’s pleasantly as she elbows her.

Rio looks up sharply, startled at the sudden contact. “Uh—just roller derby on Sunday.”

Had Agatha taken her by surprise, nudging her like that? A thrill goes down her spine at the idea of having the upper hand with Rio, who seems hell bent on keeping her on her toes. Agatha is heady with it as they arrive at her car. She leans against the driver’s door and faces Rio, who looks down at her with a soft smile. Her body feels loose and something akin to anticipation churns in her gut.

“Well I hate to admit it but this was a nice time,” Agatha says. God, why does she sound so breathless?

“I had a nice time too,” Rio says, and Agatha can tell she’s trying not to grin.

Agatha fumbles for her keys in her purse and when she looks up again Rio is standing very close to her, her arm reaching out.

“Oh, I’m—“

“Your door,” Rio says, and Agatha sees now that she is reaching for the handle of her car door. “I was going to open the door for you. You know, like a gentleman or whatever.”

“Yes,” Agatha says haltingly, “I know.” She hadn’t known.

She clicks the button on her keys and Rio pulls the handle. “My lady,” she says, dipping into a bow, and Agatha rolls her eyes as she gets into her car. “Get home safe,” Rio says, leaning down, pleasantly close. Agatha can smell her perfume, something crisp.

“Have a good night,” Agatha says tightly, and Rio closes the door. She gives a small wave when Agatha drives away. “What the fuck…” Agatha whispers aloud to herself. Her body is practically vibrating with pent up energy that she can no longer pretend is simply rage at Rio’s mere existence. She is, unfortunately, deeply attracted to her.

At a stoplight a few minutes later, Agatha grabs her phone and types I thought you were going to kiss me, then deletes it. As soon as her message is gone, she sees three dots appear as Rio types something, and her heart thuds hard. The dots linger for a moment but then they disappear. Agatha frowns. The light turns green and she drives home in silence, annoyed at herself for how hopeful she’d felt.

It’s not until later, when she’s brushing her teeth and about to get into bed, that she realizes Rio never said anything about the money. She lurches for her phone, muttering to herself about letting her stupid feelings distract her from the whole point of this evening. But when she checks her banking app it’s all there, every cent, with interest. This pisses her off for some reason, and it takes her hours to fall asleep.

The only thing that helps, after she pushes the thought away over and over, is letting her hand fall between her thighs while she thinks about Rio’s dark eyes. She imagines her tongue tracing circles around her clit until she comes hard, with a shuddering yell. After that, Agatha sleeps soundly.

//

Agatha’s Saturday is, as she promised Rio, uneventful. Over two decades of school mornings have conditioned her to be an early riser, unable to sleep in even on the weekends. She wakes early and makes coffee, then opens the file of the working manuscript for her novel. She stares at the screen for a few minutes, rereading what she wrote last weekend, but can’t bring herself to add anything, feeling grouchy and uninspired. She checks her phone (nothing from Rio, not that she was expecting anything), then closes her laptop and goes outside to rev up the lawnmower, not really caring that it’s too early and her neighbors are probably still asleep.

When she’s done mowing the lawn, she briefly entertains the thought of sending a photo to Rio, her shirt damp with sweat and a grass stain on the knee of her old, tattered jeans. Her hair is in a long messy braid over her shoulder. She takes the photo but doesn’t send it, annoyed at herself for thinking so much about a woman she’s been on one—and will only ever go on one—date with.

“Get it together, Harkness,” she mutters at herself. She doesn’t delete the picture though.

Agatha distracts herself by finally cleaning out the upstairs hall closet, where she’d unceremoniously thrown all of the boys’ discarded things when she and Wanda had broken up. They’d been sitting there—soccer balls and Lego sets and a ridiculous amount of hot wheels—untouched for close to a decade, and she chooses not to think about why she’s finally doing this now. Instead she lets herself feel a sense of accomplishment when she drops them off at the thrift store.

It’s one of those warm fall afternoons not yet tainted by the looming threat of daylight savings, and on the way back home she finds herself stopping by Lilia’s a few streets away, just to see if she’s there. She is, sitting on the porch with a joint, which Agatha is more than happy to be offered.

“It’s happening again,” she tells Lilia, and then she exhales, the smoke hazy in the late afternoon light. “That thing where I deny myself something I want for no reason.”

“Nothing is happening to you, Agatha. You’re doing it,” Lilia says, in that way she has that sounds somehow wise and condescending at the same time.

“Do you think it’s because I was raised catholic?” Agatha asks. She still hasn’t changed out of her yard work clothes and she pulls her flannel tight against her chest to ward off the creeping chill in the air as the sun sinks lower in the sky.

“I think you’re afraid of change,” Lilia says simply.

“I’m not afraid of anything. I just like my life the way it is.” Agatha fiddles with the end of her braid.

Lilia takes a long, slow look at her. “Uh huh.”

“I like my freedom,” Agatha amends, almost a whine.

“And you think you can’t have freedom in a relationship?” Lilia asks. When Agatha glares at her she adds, “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“No,” Agatha snaps petulantly, taking the blunt back from Lilia. “Yes,” she sighs after another inhale and exhale.

“The woman who stole your identity?”

“I’m gonna kill Alice,” Agatha grits. God, she’s got to stop grinding her teeth. She massages her jaw.

“Do you like her?” Lilia probes.

“She’s beautiful and obsessed with me, so yes, I—“ Agatha sticks her tongue out like she’s tasted something bitter, “—like her.”

“So why not just see where it goes?”

“I’m fifty, Lilia, I can’t exactly be dating for fun.”

“Are you going to wait til sixty to do that?” Lilia asks, and Agatha lets her head fall into her hands with a frustrated grunt. “If you’re going to use me as your therapist I would appreciate it if you at least occasionally took my advice.”

Agatha looks up at her fondly and puts a hand on the arm of the Adirondack chair Lilia is sitting in. “Oh Lilia, you’re so much more than my therapist. You’re also my drug dealer.”

Lilia scoffs, snatching the joint back from Agatha. “Call her. Text her, whatever, I don’t know. Either way, get off my porch. It’s time to cook dinner and I only bought enough for one.”

“Always a pleasure, Lilia,” Agatha says, standing as she brushes off her hands. Lilia sees her off with a wave and Agatha drives the few blocks home, dusk settling over Westview like a warm cloak.

When she gets home she feels light and heady, and while she warms up her leftovers on the stove she takes out her laptop and searches devil roller derby.

//

Roller rinks still exist, apparently, and Agatha arrives at Newark Neon Wheelz the next morning just before 10am. Actually, she’d been in the area since 9:30 but waited in a CVS parking lot because she didn’t want to accidentally run into Rio, on the off chance that Rio would recognize her car. She probably would, Agatha thinks, her stomach churning as she enters the building and is immediately greeted with a familiar smell she didn’t know she missed.

Up front there is a guy selling merch, and she impulse buys an overpriced baseball cap with the team’s logo on it before taking a seat high up in the bleachers on one side of the rink. After a few minutes the teams skate out to a smattering of applause, Rio all arms and legs in a tiny pair of shorts and a tanktop. Agatha swallows. Rio’s helmet and pads are all neon green, making her pop against the more drab colors of her teammates. The announcer introduces the players by their derby names, and Agatha chuckles as Rio is pronounced Della Beware.

Agatha knows nothing about roller derby except what she’d read on Wikipedia this morning in the CVS parking lot, which is enough to glean that Rio is the jammer this round, the one trying to score her team some valuable points. When the game starts she takes off, gliding like it’s the most natural thing in the world as her teammates scrap to keep the other team from catching up to her. She bobs easily through the other players, barely even looking winded as she avoids rogue elbows and arms. Alice had said Rio was annoyingly good at everything, and it appears roller derby is no exception.

The jam ends with Rio scoring several points for her team. The applause is lackluster but Agatha whoops loudly, making several other people in the bleachers turn around and stare. But most importantly, Rio hears her, and her head snaps up to the stands. When she sees Agatha her grin nearly splits her face in two.

In the next jam Rio is a blocker and she goes hard, elbowing her way around the rink with ease. Showoff, Agatha thinks, and feels a thrill knowing Rio is showing off for her.

The game ends sooner than Agatha expects but the Devils win by a landslide, and she exits with the crowd of people leaving the game, making a point to walk slowly, glancing over her shoulder to see if Rio has come out yet. Pathetic. She lingers by the merch table, takes an extra long time using the bathroom, and finally, when she’s stalled long enough that the rink workers are starting to regard her with something much too close to pity, she steps outside and sits on a bench by the entrance. Agatha tells herself she’ll wait five more minutes before admitting this was all just a huge mistake, when the doors to the rink slam open and a throng of players exit, some still in skates, others in street shoes.

She picks Rio out of the crowd quickly, her dark hair bobbing as she laughs at something her teammate said. Not for the first time in her life, Agatha feels as if she is standing just on the outside of some big party, some great joke, but she can’t figure out how to get inside. Her melancholy is shaken when Rio turns her head and catches her eye, giving her a wink. Agatha inclines her head to Rio in a nod, standing lamely with her jacket in her arms as Rio says goodbye to her teammates and works her way through the crowd.

“Hey,” she says warmly, reaching out a gentle hand to squeeze Agatha’s arm. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Me either,” is all Agatha can think to say, her arm hot from Rio’s touch.

“So you had to like, google where we were playing, huh?” Rio says, her body loose, swaying. Her tongue pokes the inside of her cheek. Goddammit.

“Don’t rub it in,” Agatha says, her lips pursing as she tries to restrain her own smile.

“You want to get something to eat? I’m starving,” Rio says. She holds her hands up. “Not a date, of course.”

“Of course not,” Agatha intones, and their bodies fall into step on the walk to Rio’s car.

Rio tosses her gear in the back and when she closes the trunk Agatha takes a step toward her, crowding her against the back of the car.

“Good game,” she says, not sure why her voice is so throaty all of a sudden. Maybe because it feels like her heart is in her esophagus.

“It’s called a bout,” Rio says, but her argument is half-hearted. Her dark eyes roam Agatha’s face hungrily.

“Whatever,” Agatha sighs. She leans in and tilts her head up at the same time Rio tilts hers down, and then they are kissing, mouths open and wet. Agatha’s hands cup Rio’s cheeks and Rio surges into her, gripping her arms, her shoulders, like she needs to hold onto her to stay upright. Their bodies lock together, tongues sliding along each other until they finally part for air, breathless.

“I wanted to do that on Friday,” Rio says, and Agatha looks up at her, wondering why she would say something so stupid and sweet that makes Agatha’s brain feel all funny.

“I thought you were going to,” she manages.

“I almost did,” Rio says, loosening her grip and letting her hand fall to Agatha’s waist.

“Should we eat?” Agatha asks after a moment, though it’s not what she wants to say. Rio nods slowly, like she’s thinking of what to say next.

“We should,” Rio says evenly, her eyes raking Agatha’s face again, making her cheeks feel hot.

“How far do you—“ Agatha clears her throat and starts again. “How far do you live from here?”

“Ten minutes.” Rio’s eyes are so dark they’re almost black.

//

Agatha’s hand grips Rio’s thigh the whole drive to her apartment, her knuckles turning white. Rio doesn’t turn to look at her, eyes fixed on the road ahead like it’ll disappear if she glances over. She finds a good spot in the parking garage and they hurry into the vestibule, Rio nearly stepping on the back of her shoes as she follows her into the elevator. When the doors close Rio presses her into a corner and Agatha moans into her mouth, the pressure of her kisses almost too much to bear. Rio licks a thick line up her neck and sucks at her jaw, making Agatha gasp and throw an arm over her shoulder.

They stumble through the door to Rio’s apartment in the same way, arms and legs knocking together as they try to kiss and walk at the same time. Agatha is distantly aware that the apartment is huge, with tall ceilings and big windows.

Rio guides Agatha by her elbows to her bedroom, shucking off her coat and stepping out of her shoes without missing a step. Agatha goes to remove her own jacket but Rio commands, “uh uh,” against her mouth and does it herself, letting it fall to the floor with a swish.

“Lay down,” Rio says. Agatha does, resisting the urge to argue because she feels heat building between her legs and her mind has turned to mush. Rio lays out long on top of her and kisses her, slowly this time, both of them sinking into the soft cushion of the mattress. She winds her hands in Agatha’s hair, her grip tightening every time Agatha sucks on her bottom lip. Agatha is needy with the sharp pain of it, gasping into Rio’s mouth and rocking her body up, her legs falling open to let Rio’s knee slip between. When her knee makes contact at the crux of her thighs Agatha cries out, making a sound she’d forgotten she was capable of. She grinds into Rio and worries she might come like this, the two of them dry humping like teenagers with all their clothes on.

Her hands scrabble at Rio’s torso, her back, trying to get rid of the layers between them. With a chuckle, Rio sits up and pulls her sweatshirt over her head, then her shirt, and unhooks her bra. Agatha pulls her back down and props herself up on her elbows to meet her halfway, taking one of Rio’s dark pink nipples into her mouth. Goosebumps erupt on Rio’s skin and she makes a hissing sound, leaning into Agatha’s mouth as her hand returns to Agatha’s hair, thumb stroking her temple. Agatha sucks the side of one breast, then the other, hoping to leave a little bruise. Rio keens and presses her hips down, sending a jolt through Agatha’s body.

They both sit up, unable to remove Agatha’s clothes fast enough. She fumbles with the buttons on her own sweater, the zipper of her jeans. Rio shucks off her own pants and there is nothing between them now but their flimsy underwear, the soft skin of their bellies pressing together. Rio makes a show of removing Agatha’s underwear, plucking first at the waistband with her teeth, then dragging them down her legs slowly while Agatha’s chest heaves. When Rio finally, finally touches her they both gasp at how wet she is.

“Fuck,” Rio says. She slips a finger inside, then another, and sets a steady rhythm. Agatha’s eyes flutter shut and she has to stop herself from moaning at every thrust, all the nerve endings in her body alive with the feeling of Rio.

“You feel so good,” Rio breathes against the soft skin of her thigh, her teeth teasing the skin there. She kisses a path toward Agatha’s center, and when her mouth finally finds her clit Agatha yells, a wanton sound that fills the room and makes Rio hum against her. The pressure is intense, building inside of her with every dexterous twist of Rio’s hand. When Rio nips at her clit Agatha comes hard, loud, and afterwards she licks the taste of herself from Rio’s lips, her chin, the apple of her cheek.

Rio crawls back up to lay beside her and Agatha flips her over onto her stomach, palm flat at the small of her back. She kisses her once there, hands trailing over the curve of her ass, fingernails gripping just enough to make Rio hiss. Agatha chuckles in her throat and slips two fingers inside her from behind. Rio cries out and pushes herself up on her elbows, craning her torso around to look at Agatha, her eyes wild, but Agatha guides her back down with her hand on Rio’s back.

“Patience,” she hisses, a long finger coming to her lips. Rio buries her face into her pillow with a frustrated moan, but she lets Agatha work her up slowly with curling fingers while Agatha rocks her hips against Rio’s leg. She’s still so wet herself, heady with power and lust watching Rio move beneath her. When she delivers a smack across Rio’s ass she lets Rio square her shoulders and push herself up this time, deepening the angle and turning to look over her shoulder.

Agatha feels overcome with want, and reaches forward to grab a fistful of Rio’s hair. Rio tilts her chin up with a stuttering laugh of pleasure, the column of her neck glowing in the dim light of her bedroom. Agatha wants to sink her teeth into it, to tear her apart, but then Rio’s rhythm falters as her orgasm takes over and her head drops, a long, slow moan ripping from her throat. Agatha comes again, slick against the back of Rio’s leg and then she tumbles down beside her, a pile of hair and sticky fingers as they reach for each other’s faces.

Rio kisses her like she’s trying to consume her and Agatha wants her to, her body loose and free in a way she hasn’t felt in ages. Rio bites her earlobe with a needy whine and Agatha’s hand trails down her stomach, reaching between her thighs to bring her to the edge again and again and again.

Much later, Agatha stumbles out of bed to use the bathroom and Rio murmurs something about getting water. She pads to the kitchen in slow, confident strides. A moment later Agatha hears music playing out in the living room, some vaguely familiar song Alice would definitely know the name of. She takes the waffle knit robe off the back of the door and goes into the living room to find Rio sitting at the gleaming piano that occupies a large corner of the living room. She is naked still, and looks incredibly small against the baby grand, a single red scratch mark down her back.

Agatha goes to her, bare feet silent on the smooth floor, and presses herself against Rio’s back. Rio doesn’t stop playing but she sits up straighter, molding to Agatha’s touch. When the song ends Agatha hums her approval, letting her head fall to rest her cheek atop Rio’s head. Her hair smells like coconut. They breathe together.

“It’s very supervillain of you to have a fancy piano,” Agatha says quietly.

“Thanks. I bought it with all the money from stealing people’s identities,” Rio deadpans. Her fingers ghost over the keys like she’s looking for something.

Later still, Rio makes them a very late lunch slash very early dinner, something with eggs and potatoes and lots of different vegetables that she cuts with surgical precision. Agatha watches from the barstool on the other side of the counter.

“I don’t know about you, but this is one of the better not-dates I’ve been on,” Rio says, laying a plate in front of Agatha. It smells delicious.

“Oh, definitely,” Agatha says, taking a bite. “Top three, at least.”

Rio swats her playfully and comes to sit beside her on the other barstool. “Top three,” she grumbles. “I made you come like seven times.”

Agatha hums a laugh, her body still relaxed in a way she hasn’t felt in years, but she knows they’ll have to break the spell eventually. The sun is already casting long shadows through the tall windows of Rio’s apartment, and the thought of driving back down the parkway to go home makes her lose her appetite.

It’s too real all of a sudden, wrapped in a robe in Rio’s apartment on a Sunday afternoon, playing happy. Or maybe she really is happy and it’s just been so long that she doesn’t trust the sensation. Either way it makes her stomach twist.

“If you have to go you’re not going to hurt my feelings,” Rio says, like she can sense the shift in her energy.

“I’m not—“ Agatha splutters uncharacteristically. Is this who she is around this woman, a blubbering idiot rendered speechless any time she opens her stupid pink mouth? Agatha can’t say what she wants to say, that she feels like a live wire, raw and exposed and crackling. She can’t admit that all this is too much in the best way, like being teased after you’ve already come. She clears her throat and pushes her hair away from her face.

“It’s very hot when you do that,” Rio says, her mouth full.

“Do what?” Agatha snaps.

“Your whole flustered thing, it’s very charming,” Rio chuckles. “If you’re trying to let me down easy you don’t have to. I’m very realistic about what this is.”

“And what is this, exactly?” Agatha asks, tossing a hand between them.

Rio counts on her fingers. “You’re attracted to me. You don’t want to be attracted to me. But you do want to sleep with me. So we’ll do that for as long as we can until you break my heart or…” She trails off, her thumb jutting out.

“Or what?” Agatha almost sneers, jumping at the opportunity to regain the upper hand.

“Or until you fall in love with me,” Rio says, brazen.

Agatha can only scoff in disbelief, but her stomach drops. “No offense, but I don’t think that will happen,” she says breezily.

Rio nods and goes back to her food. “Okay, Agatha,” she says.

It’s becoming maddening already, how Rio rolls over and shows her belly when Agatha wants to fight, and how she seems bent on riling her up when Agatha tries to disengage.

“You’re so…” Agatha is gritting her teeth so hard she can barely get words out, “…annoying!” She can hear the petulance in her own voice and it makes her sick.

“Good, you’re a quick learner,” Rio says with a devilish smile.

Agatha shoves her so hard Rio nearly falls off her stool. Then Agatha kisses her again before she can think better of it, and as she lifts Rio onto the kitchen countertop she is vaguely aware of the fact that her car isn’t even parked here; she still has to Uber back to the fucking roller rink.

//

“Can you stop doing that?” The girl’s voice cuts through the silence of her classroom, and Agatha jumps at her desk.

“Excuse me?” she asks.

It’s her student Michaela, in the second row. “Can you please stop clicking your pen? We’re like, trying to concentrate on this quiz.”

Agatha suddenly realizes she’s been gripping a pen in her hand and, apparently, clicking it. Which is news to her because she’d been thinking about the sounds Rio made when Agatha had called her a good girl. It had been indulgent of her but what else was she supposed do when Rio sucked her own slickness off Agatha’s fingers so hard it hollowed out her cheeks?

Agatha clears her throat. “Yes. Sorry.”

“You good, Ms. H?” asks Chris, tall for a freshman and always wearing a hat.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Agatha says. She clears her throat again. “Five more minutes.”

Her students mutter their disapproval. Agatha puts her pen down and picks up her phone, which is also a bad idea because Jen has been harassing her since Friday asking how her date went.

What did you talk about?
Did you find out why she stole your identity?
Did she kiss you?
Did she give you the money back?

Got my money and I didn’t even have to put out for it, Agatha replies, which is true, technically. They’d fucked each other’s brains out after she already had the money, so.

But she hides in her classroom during lunch so Jen doesn’t see that she’d had wear a turtleneck sweater this morning when she couldn’t get the bruise on her neck to blend in, even with makeup. Jen is too observant for her own good and would suspect immediately.

So does Billy, apparently. As he walks by her desk before taking his seat for her creative writing seminar, he chuckles, “Nice turtleneck.”

“Hey!” Agatha says sharply. “I’m your teacher, you know.”

Billy gives a sheepish shrug and picks a chair next to Summer, which Agatha immediately finds unusual because he normally sits next to his boyfriend, Teddy. And when Teddy slinks in the door just before the bell rings, he takes a seat in the back. Billy also doesn’t share his writing today, something he’s usually all too eager to do. It’s nothing revelatory, but at least his enthusiasm usually convinces one or two other kids to participate. Without his gusto the seminar drags on slowly, and Agatha catches his eye after class and asks, “Everything okay?”

“I’m your student, you know,” Billy quips, then slings his backpack over his shoulder and walks out.

Agatha sighs and realizes faintly that Rio hasn’t texted her all day. Not that she wants her to. But she sort of expected she would by now.

The text does come, of course, at the worst time, when she and Alice are lined up outside for dismissal. She sees the notification—Rio Vidal 2 iMessages—and immediately shoves her phone back in her pocket.

“So I’m guessing your date went well,” Alice says smugly.

“Did you and Jen just sit around all weekend speculating about my love life?” Agatha snaps.

“Duh,” Alice says. “What else are we supposed to do now that The Voice is on hiatus?”

“Ugh, I know.”

“But it was good?” Alice elbows her.

Agatha signs and almost gives her an a honest answer: that the sex was great and that she’d gone to the derby game—Jen can never know about that, she decides—and that she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Rio fucking Vidal for the past 72 hours but instead she says nothing. She bites her tongue and shakes her head and that seems answer enough for Alice.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me,” she says knowingly. “But I’m very happy for you.”

“Shut up,” Agatha says, crossing her arms and making a face, hoping it hides the traitorous smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

When she gets back inside she finally reads Rio’s text, which is actually a photo and a message. The picture is of her underwear, tan with a strip of lace across the back, and the message reads, you forgot something

Just mail them to me, Agatha replies hastily, face burning at the image of her panties hanging off Rio’s crooked finger.

But I don’t have your address, comes the snarky reply.

I’m sure you could find it if you try hard enough. It’s a challenge, one that Agatha is interested to see if Rio rises to.

She doesn’t get a reply, so she takes her time tidying her classroom, reorganizing returned copies of Fahrenheit 451 and prepping Julius Caesar. Agatha empties her inbox—faculty meeting next week, homecoming chaperone reminders, an incoherent email from a parent begging her to raise his child’s grade—and finally leaves work as the sky is getting pink around the edges.

It’s only when she gets in her car and starts to head home that her phone pings again: Rio Vidal 1 iMessage. Agatha opens it immediately, suspicious.

It’s another photo. In this one, a selfie, Rio grins at her from Agatha’s own front porch, unmistakable with the Afghan thrown over the back of the bench that sits to the side of the door.

“That little—“ But Agatha barely has time to curse Rio’s name before another message comes in.

Honey, I’m home!

Chapter Text

Rio is sitting on the bench on the front porch when Agatha pulls into her driveway. She throws her car door open and stands there for a moment, taking in the sight of Rio swinging the tan pair of underwear on her finger, that toothy grin plastered on her face. Agatha wants to destroy her.

“Really cute place,” Rio says as Agatha climbs the front steps.

Agatha points a long index finger directly into Rio’s chest and walks her backwards until her back hits the door. “This is bold, even for you.”

“I stole your identity, did you think it would be that hard for me to find your address?” Rio asks. Agatha can see her pulse in her neck, can feel her chest heaving under her hand. Rio loves this. “If you wanted to see me again that badly you only had to say so,” Rio teases, like she’s not the desperate one.

“You texted me, remember?” Agatha says with a growl. She removes her hand from Rio with a shove and fumbles for her keys in her pocket.

“Maybe you should keep a key under the doormat,” Rio says, leaning against the frame.

Agatha looks up at her slowly. She does keep a key under the doormat, which means Rio looked and Rio knows but Rio didn’t use it. It still makes her blood boil.

“What, I’m not a total animal,” Rio says.

Agatha finally slips the key in the lock and Rio follows her inside like a loyal dog, practically nipping at her heels. Agatha drops her messenger bag in the entryway and turns around, palm up.

“My underwear, please,” she says.

To her surprise, Rio hands them over immediately. “See what happens when you say please?” Her voice is thick and low.

“You can go now,” Agatha says, not moving. Rio’s head lolls to the side as Agatha studies her. Her dark hair brushes her shoulders, the ends slightly curled. Her cheeks are pink from waiting outside. Waiting for her. It makes Agatha feel heady. “Is there something else you need?” she asks, pinching the bridge of her nose instead of jumping Rio’s bones.

Rio shrugs one shoulder lazily, like she has all the time in the world. “It would be a shame to come all the way here and not get the tour.”

Agatha stands there for a minute, then realizes she’s serious. She throws off her jacket in irritation and lets it land on the back of the couch. “Fine. Take your shoes off.”

She and Rio both remove their shoes and then Agatha turns her back to Rio and spreads out her arms. “This is the living room.” She stomps towards the kitchen. “This is the kitchen.”

“Beautiful countertops,” Rio says, following after her slowly, hands clasped behind her back.

“Dining room.” Agatha points to her dining room table covered in unopened mail and magazines, discarded cardboard boxes, and plastic bags. Seeing it through Rio’s eyes makes her unusually self-conscious suddenly.

She clears her throat and sweeps the other way. “Office, study, whatever, in there.” She points to the half-ajar door and is halfway up the stairs before she realizes Rio isn’t following her.

Agatha hurries back down to find Rio standing in the office, face close to the bookshelves as she tries to solve the mystery of Agatha Harkness or whatever the fuck it is she thinks she’s doing.

“Stay with your tour guide please,” Agatha says drily, leaning in the doorway. Absently she realizes she’s still holding her underwear. She balls them up and stuffs them in her pocket.

Rio meets her eyes and smiles, not her Cheshire grin that she seems to reserve for driving Agatha insane, but a genuine, real, smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. Agatha swallows and tries not to think about how beautiful she is. Rio juts a thumb at the bookshelf.

“Agatha Christie,” she says. There’s an almost childlike wonder to her voice that disarms Agatha. Rio extends a finger and brushes it along the spines of And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Death on the Nile, and a few deep cuts that Agatha is lame enough to admit she’s proud to own.

“The tour continues upstairs,” she says irritably, shaking the unfamiliar sensation of warmth blooming in her chest.

Rio strides out of the office and takes the stairs two at a time. Agatha has to practically scurry to keep up with her stupid long ass legs. Before Agatha reaches the upstairs hallway Rio is already opening doors, peering into the bathroom, the linen closet, the hall closet that Agatha cleaned out last weekend, thank god.

“I don’t remember this tour being self-guided,” Agatha sighs, knowing it’s no use.

Rio reaches for the doorknob to what had been the boys’ room and only opens it a crack before Agatha’s hand curls over hers and slams the door shut.

“No,” she says sharply, and for once, Rio obeys, the expression on her face unreadable.

“This must be where the magic happens,” she says as they arrive at the end of the hallway and what is clearly Agatha’s bedroom.

The bed is made, mostly, though Agatha feels her cheeks burn at the small pile of dirty laundry on the floor on her side of the bed. Rio walks around the room like it’s a museum, leaning to look at the jewelry on top of Agatha’s dresser and what soap she uses in the en suite bathroom. Finally, satisfied with her tour, Rio plops down on the bed, bouncing a little.

“You may exit through the gift shop,” Agatha intones, gesturing back down the hallway.

“This is a great bed,” Rio says, ignoring her. “So plush. I bet you get a great night’s sleep on this thing.”

“It gets the job done,” Agatha admits. It is a great bed.

“I’m going to need a good night’s sleep,” Rio continues. “I start a new job in the morning.”

“Good for you,” Agatha says. She’s not rising to whatever bait this is.

“I’m really excited about it actually. Getting to shape the minds of today’s youth.”

“Uh huh,” Agatha grumbles. “Wait—what?”

“Poor Mr. Badalamenti.” Rio clucks her tongue. “Nervous breakdown? Tough way to go. But I get it. Kids can be so cruel.”

“Rio,” Agatha says, her voice low and catching in her throat. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything except step up and offer to provide a good education in his absence,” Rio says innocently. “Besides, they asked me.”

“Wh—what are you saying?” Agatha thinks she might actually pass out from rage. Is that possible?

“I’m the new long term sub for computer science at Westview High.” Rio leans back on Agatha’s bed, propping herself up on her elbows.

“No you’re not,” Agatha insists. She can practically feel the vein in her forehead throbbing. Or maybe that’s because Rio is posing on top of her bed like that. Either way, she’s irate. “You don’t know anything about teaching.”

“I TA’d in college,” Rio says simply.

“Everybody TA’d in college!”

“Yeah, but did everybody go to Harvard?” Rio says with a bratty grin. “Is everybody a wunderkind who built and sold her own tech company before her Saturn return?”

“You can’t call yourself a wunderkind, that’s not how that works.”

“Well I just wanted to give you the good news,” Rio says, finally standing up.

“I’ll tell Mrs. Davis about your extracurricular hacking!” Agatha threatens, a last minute attempt to have any sort of control over this entire interaction, but even as the words come out she hears the hollowness of them.

Rio chuckles, a dark sound. She stalks across the room to Agatha like a panther. “But then you’ll have to tell her about mommy’s checks.”

She extends a finger and crooks it under Agatha’s chin. Agatha snatches Rio’s hand away but Rio doesn’t let go. She fixes her gaze on Agatha and brings their joined hands to her lips, kissing the pads of every one of Agatha’s fingers before releasing her hand.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Agatha asks, trying to keep her voice even when she can still feel Rio’s mouth on her fingers like fire.

Rio just laughs. “Not everything is about you, Agatha.”

“Yes it is!” she snaps petulantly, because she can’t think of anything else to say.

Rio laughs again. “See you tomorrow, Agatha.”

//

The faculty meeting is already in full swing when Agatha sneaks in the back with a large cup of coffee and plops down next to Jen and Alice.

“What did I miss?” she asks, glancing at Jen’s notes. God, she’s taking notes? What a loser.

Jen shushes her and points the end of her pink pen towards the front of the room, where Rio sits smugly with her arms crossed beside a few teachers Agatha hasn’t bothered to learn the names of. Rio wears an impeccable navy suit with a white button down shirt underneath and a pair of loafers. Her hair is clipped up and her eyes are rimmed with liner, like they’d been when they ate at the burger place together. Agatha tries to look anywhere else but her eyes keep returning to Rio. Stupid, annoying Rio in her stupid, sexy suit.

“God, overkill much?” Agatha mutters under her breath. “Didn’t anyone tell her she doesn’t have to dress like that?”

“She looks hot,” Jen says without looking up from her notes.

“Super hot,” Alice agrees, finishing a donut.

“There’s donuts?” Agatha asks.

“For people who are on time,” Jen says with a sickly sweet smile.

“Rio brought them,” Alice informs her.

“What a kiss ass,” Agatha scoffs.

From the front of the room Mrs. Davis glares at their table, which is about as threatening as a bunny rabbit trying to look menacing. Then she drones on about the school play, homecoming, and myriad other events that Agatha no longer has the energy to be excited for after twenty-five years of teaching.

The faculty is mercifully dismissed shortly after, and Agatha makes a beeline for the door, all thoughts of donuts forgotten as she tries to get to her classroom without Rio catching up to her. Rio is, unfortunately, faster than she anticipated.

“Ms. Harkness, can you tell me how to get to room 144?” she says in a teasing, breathy voice. Even though she’s joking it still makes Agatha’s skin prickle with goosebumps.

“So is this your thing?” Agatha asks, still heading down the hall to her classroom. “Hot for teacher?”

“If you’re the teacher, yeah,” Rio says with her wolffish grin.

“Let’s get something straight,” Agatha says, stopping in her tracks. She looks both ways down the hallway before continuing. “This wasn’t going to happen before, but it’s definitely not going to happen now.”

“Oooh, forbidden romance,” Rio says, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Forbidden nothing,” Agatha snaps, her voice a thready whisper. “I don’t want to date another teacher, it’s too messy.”

“I never said anything about dating, I just have a hard time parting with such an incredible lay,” Rio says, shrugging a shoulder.

Agatha’s face burns with equal parts embarrassment and pride. “Nonchalance doesn’t suit you,” she drawls.

“You’re right.” Rio takes a step closer, crowding Agatha against a bank of lockers. Around them, the hallway is starting to fill with oblivious students. “I’m good for you, and you’re good for me. And all these little rules you’re making up to deny yourself what you actually want are stupid. So when you decide to grow up, you know where to find me.”

Rio steps away and off down the hall, and blood pounds in Agatha’s ears. She’s cold suddenly without the heat from Rio’s body, and she tosses her hair over her shoulder with a huff before stalking off to her own classroom.

Who the hell does Rio think she is, anyway, to steal Agatha’s identity, then seduce her, then get a job at her place of work, and have the audacity to tell her that she’s being ridiculous? Agatha hadn’t asked for any of this, and now Rio is acting like—

Agatha rounds the corner to her classroom and almost collides with Billy.

“Oh. There you are,” he says glumly. His eyes are red like he’s been crying.

She doesn’t want to have to deal with whatever teen crisis du jour is going on here, but it’s a welcome distraction from the Rio of it all and her own righteous indignation, so she ushers him into her classroom.

Before Agatha can even ask what’s wrong, Billy blurts out, “Teddy and I broke up.” Then he collapses into a desk in the front row and buries is head in his hands.

“Oh,” Agatha says, not sure what else to say. “Okay.”

He’s come to her like this a few times over the years, distraught about not getting the part he wanted in Grease, or when the cafeteria stopped serving chocolate almond milk, and each time she is more flummoxed than the last, unable to understand what this boy thinks she’ll be able to do for him.

“It’s definitely not ok,” Billy says, voice muffled by his hands. “Because homecoming is in two weeks and we were gonna go together but I can’t go by myself like some loser, not for my senior year—“

“I’m gonna stop you right there, hon,” Agatha interrupts. She figures tough love is the best medicine when it comes to matters of the heart, especially for a twink who writes zines in his spare time. “The second you leave this place,” she continues, “everything you just talked about does not matter.”

“I know,” Billy sighs. “I didn’t think we were going to last forever or anything. But we’ve been together for so many seasons of Drag Race and I just don’t think I can do that with another person.”

Agatha raises her eyebrows and nods. “Hmmm.” She gets an idea suddenly, and before she can think too hard about it, she blurts out, “Guess who’s the new computer science teacher?”

Billy looks up at her hopelessly. “What?”

“Badalamenti’s out for the rest of the year and guess who his long term sub is?”

“I don’t know… Steven Hawking? Is he even still alive?”

Ugh, he is taking all the fun out of this and now she doesn’t even want to tell him. “No,” Agatha sighs, exasperated. “It’s—ugh, nevermind. Just go see for yourself.”

“That sounds ominous,” Billy says, standing and gathering his bag. Agatha’s homeroom students are starting to arrive and he seems to get the message that it’s time to move on.

“It is,” Agatha says with an indulgent lift of her eyebrows.

Billy cracks a smile and waves goodbye as he heads out. As she unpacks her own things, Agatha still can’t get Rio’s words out of her mind, so she’ll just have to find her on her planning period and tell her how ridiculous she is. Rio with her sexy little ass in those stupid pants—

“Fuck,” Agatha says out loud, pressing a hand to her forehead.

One of her students walks by and points at her, saying, “Felt.”

Agatha gives an unsure thumbs up and a grimace.

“Real,” the boy says, and takes his seat.

//

Agatha has second period off for planning, so she takes the long way to the tech hallway, stopping first at the teachers’ lounge to refill her coffee, then striding purposefully to what is now—temporarily, she reminds herself—Rio’s classroom.

From the printed out schedule taped to the door, Agatha can see that Rio also has planning during second period. She lets herself in and is immediately met with the almost imperceptible hum of dozens of computers. The only thing written on the whiteboard at the front of the room in small, neat print is Ms. Vidal. Agatha chuckles; something about Rio being reduced to Ms. Vidal fills her with cruel satisfaction. What doesn’t satisfy her, however, is that Rio is nowhere to be found. Her suit jacket is draped over the back of her desk chair and Agatha thinks about running her fingers along the collar.

Instead she uses the opportunity to poke around, slowly opening desk drawers and wiggling the mouse of Rio’s computer—it’s password protected, of course. On a whim she tries 1-2-3-4 but it doesn’t work and the computer makes a loud thunk—wrong.

“Did you really think my password was 1234?” says a voice from behind her.

Agatha whirls around and there is Ms. Vidal, emerging from what Agatha assumed was a utility closet, but appears to be a storage room of some sort. Agatha jams her hands in her pockets, appropriately chagrined.

“Statistically it was worth a try,” she says, trying to sound breezy. “They say most people use it as their password.”

“Including you,” Rio parries. The sleeves of her shirt are rolled up, exposing her smooth forearms.

Agatha gives her a snarling smile. “They eat you alive yet, Ms. Vidal?”

Rio shrugs. “I think I’m doing alright for my first day.” She inclines her chin toward Agatha. “You finally come to your senses? That didn’t take as long as I thought.”

Agatha scoffs and brushes her hair over her shoulder. “I came here to tell you—to ask you who the hell you think you are.”

Rio crosses her arms and sticks her tongue into her cheek. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” Agatha says, getting haughty. “You’re the one who waltzed into my life, stole my money, got a job where I work. I mean, this could almost be considered stalking.”

“You mean like when you found where my roller derby team plays?” Rio asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Agatha ignores her, her body practically vibrating with rage. “And then you have the gall to accuse me of being immature and selfish—“

“I actually didn’t say any of that, but it’s interesting that that was your takeaway,” Rio says. She pulls a keycard out of her pocket and swipes it at the pad outside the door to the supply room.

“What are you doing?” Agatha snaps, rapidly feeling herself losing the high ground.

Rio tilts her head towards the open door, leaning on the handle. “Come on. If you’re ready.”

It slowly dawns on Agatha what is happening and she feels herself walking forward, like she’s not the one controlling her body. Her feet feel heavy, leaden, but she can’t stop walking towards Rio, can’t stop staring at her mouth. Agatha stops just short of the door.

“That is why you came here isn’t it?” Rio says, her voice impossibly quiet, very close to her suddenly.

Agatha narrows her eyes. She can feel her heart pounding at the back of her mouth. “It’s why you came here. To my school. To this job.”

Rio chuckles, her body loose as she enters the supply closet. She looks so warm and real amidst the shelves of old computers collecting dust. Agatha follows her in and shuts the door behind them. She presses her back against it, like she can’t stand up on her own. Maybe she can’t, she feels insane right now.

“Admit it,” Agatha hears herself say, but her voice is all breathy, not sharp like she wants it to be. “You took this job for me.”

Rio stalks toward her like a cat, a wolf, a goddess. “Did I?” she says. Her eyes are so dark Agatha can’t see her pupils.

Rio’s body presses against hers and they both inhale sharply at the contact. She slides a hand up the back of Agatha’s neck and winds her fingers in her hair. Agatha tries not to moan and instead what comes out is a strangled gasp. Rio dips her head and kisses her, her lips warm and wet. Agatha responds immediately, her tongue sliding into Rio’s mouth obscenely, and finally she doesn’t have to pretend she hasn’t been thinking about this since the last time they did it. Rio kisses her hungrily, like Agatha is about to slip through her fingers at any moment. Agatha yanks the clip out of Rio’s hair so she can run her fingers through it, making Rio keen softly.

The sound makes something pull in Agatha’s stomach, wrenching behind her bellybutton. Her heart is in her mouth again, beating traitorously, and she keeps kissing Rio, afraid of saying something stupid if her lips aren’t otherwise occupied. She leaves little bites along Rio’s neck, wet and stinging. Rio palms Agatha’s breasts through her blouse, hands fumbling at her buttons. Her nails are neat, short crescent moons and Agatha hums in delight as Rio leaves little marks with them on her stomach, her breasts. She pulls down the fabric of her bra and plucks at a nipple, making Agatha’s hips buck forward into Rio’s. Rio laughs against her chest and takes Agatha’s nipple into her mouth. Agatha presses her lips together to stop herself crying out, and Rio continues her wicked little laughter as she kisses her way down Agatha’s torso to her waistband.

Rio’s hand is in her pants, deft fingers pushing aside the fabric of her underwear before Agatha has time to quip out some remark that will make her feel like she can maybe still regain the high ground. But it’s no use. Rio knows exactly how to touch her and Agatha is coming in minutes, a sharp “fuck!” escaping her lips as Rio brushes her clit and kisses her, stealing Agatha’s breath into her own mouth until they’re moaning together, pressed against the door of the supply closet.

“Come here,” Agatha says roughly, refastening her pants. She spins them around and shoves Rio against the door, working a knee in between her legs. Rio grinds down against it immediately, and Agatha’s hand comes to her jaw, stroking against Rio’s pulse. Rio’s eyes are wide and dark, all-consuming as her chin cants up in a challenge. Agatha gives her neck a squeeze and Rio’s eyes roll back.

“Yes,” she whispers sharply, and it sends a jolt through Agatha’s body. Where did you come from, she wants to ask Rio, where have you been? Instead she snakes her other hand down Rio’s body, taking a handful of her ass. These pants should be illegal. She finally releases her grip on Rio’s throat and Rio whines, panting as Agatha unbuttons her slacks. Rio’s underwear are so thin they’re practically nonexistent, and Agatha shoves them down, driving two fingers up into Rio, hard. Rio comes even faster than she did, making them both swear breathlessly, their laughter dancing in the space between their mouths. Agatha feels invincible and incredibly light, almost euphoric in the poorly-lit storage room with Rio flushed beside her.

“Do you always have second period off?” Rio gasps out, looking around absently for her hair clip.

“Usually,” Agatha says. She smoothes her hair away from her face and tries to slow the beating of her heart.

“See you tomorrow then,” Rio says, and Agatha is smart enough to know that no matter how much she protests, she will be there tomorrow. She is beginning to feel that there is some sort of pull between them whether she cares to admit it or not, that even if she tried not to heed Rio’s siren call, she would find herself beside her anyway.

The next day Agatha wears a skirt—uncommon but not out of character for her school wardrobe—and Rio does exactly as Agatha hopes now that she’s given her easier access. With her mouth against her cunt Rio makes Agatha come twice; the second time her cries are masked by the bell announcing the changing of classes. Rio looks up at her, chin wet, and grins like an idiot. Agatha feels herself grinning back.

On Thursday Agatha stains the waistband of Rio’s chinos with her lipstick, and Rio pretends to be annoyed but Agatha knows she secretly likes it, being marked in some way. Agatha tries not to notice the way Rio looks at her, like she wants to eat her alive. Agatha wonders what it would be like if she let her.

On Friday morning Jen corners Agatha in the faculty lounge, her cup of tea steaming as she intones brightly, “So you’re coming to karaoke tonight, right?”

Agatha’s head snaps up from picking through the box of days-old donuts on the table. “That’s tonight?”

“Yes,” Jen sighs, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “And no backing out this time, it’s no fun with just Alice and me.”

“It’s not my fault I’m your only friend,” Agatha says. She settles on a chocolate donut but regrets it immediately after one bite.

“Speaking of my only friend, where is she these days?” Jen asks. “She’s not answering my texts, she’s not coming to secret second period smoke breaks…”

“I’ve been busy,” Agatha says with a shrug.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Jen accurately summates. “But you don’t have to. I like Rio, you know.”

Agatha nearly chokes on her coffee. “Who said anything about Rio?”

“You’re not as subtle as you think,” Jen tells her, not for the first time in their friendship. “She can come too. To karaoke, if she wants.”

Agatha stews about it all morning and doesn’t go to Rio’s classroom during second period. She doesn’t have a secret cigarette with Jen either. She sits in the bathroom in the English hallway and stares at her shoes, trying to figure out why the thought of double-dating is making her feel ill.

She likes Rio, that much she will admit to herself. She likes her laugh and the tiny gap between her two front teeth. She likes pressing her tongue against it when they kiss. She likes the way Rio fucks her, confident but still seeking her approval, looking up at Agatha when she makes her come, like she needs to see it happen to believe it. She loves Rio’s eyes. And if Agatha thinks about Rio’s eyes for too long she strays into unfamiliar territory—at least, unfamiliar to her for the better part of the last decade.

Wanda’s boys would be in high school now, sixteen instead of eight, all long arms and legs, Agatha has to assume. She has to assume because when Wanda decided to get back with the boys’ father, Agatha came home from work one day to find them gone. Disappeared, like they’d never really been there at all. Sometimes, in those early days, Agatha wondered if she was crazy and she had dreamt it all up. It certainly sounded like a dream: hot young mother of two seeks solace in capable, middle-aged lesbian.

Agatha hadn’t been middle-aged then, she supposes, but after she spent five years with Wanda she was very aware of the fact that she was suddenly in her early forties with the same job she’d had for fifteen years, alone in a house she’d bought with her dead mother’s stolen money. That part didn’t feel like a dream at all. But Agatha is not self-indulgent enough to say it was a nightmare either.

She filled the post-Wanda years with a handful of flings, some more enjoyable than others, and when she rounded the corner to fifty at the end of the past summer, she announced at the small party in her backyard, “I think I’m done dating.”

Lilia had laughed, and Alice and Jen tried to sympathetically convince her that she was still beautiful and she still had time to find someone, all of which had made Agatha nauseous. Some people were meant to be alone, and Agatha had come to enjoy her solitude.

And then two months later Rio Vidal just had to fucking hack her bank account and flirt with her and make Agatha wonder if she’d spoken too soon that night. Maybe she isn’t done, she thinks, head in her hands as she hides in a bathroom stall like one of her students, avoiding the girl she doesn’t want to avoid at all.

Fifteen minutes before the bell rings, she gets a text from Rio: everything ok? Agatha almost doesn’t answer, but eventually replies, lesson planning. Rio doesn’t respond, but in the afternoon she texts, just ran into Alice. You going to karaoke tonight?

Kicking and screaming, Agatha replies.

I bet you’re a great singer.

It doesn’t seem sarcastic, if anything it’s too sincere. So Agatha just replies with an eyeroll emoji and, see you there.

//

The bar is just busy enough to be loud, just crowded enough that they barely fit at a high top, and Rio is standing just close enough to Agatha that she could put her arm around her waist if she wanted to. Agatha could put her palm at the small of Rio’s back, over the thin fabric of her white t shirt, maybe even hook a long finger through a belt loop and lift Rio’s shirt slightly, brushing her knuckles over her soft skin. If she wanted to.

A guy they don’t know finishes butchering a Red Hot Chili Peppers song and Rio cheers loudly, giving the man a clearly ironic double thumbs up.

“Don’t encourage him,” Jen says with a roll of her eyes. She’s had enough fruity cocktails that her facade of toxic positivity has dissipated and Agatha can actually enjoy spending time with her as opposed to tolerating it.

“He booed Alice’s song choice, he needs to pay for his crimes,” Rio explains.

Agatha tries not to stare at Rio’s face lit up from the neon lights of the bar, the reds and blues splashing across her cheekbones making her look like some sort of pop art painting. Agatha hasn’t touched her all day, and her fingers are starting to itch.

“I should have known this isn’t the right crowd for Welcome to the Black Parade,” Alice sighs.

“This isn’t the right crowd for anything,” Jen says, wrinkling her nose.

Agatha thinks everyone in here might have a combined IQ of 100, and that’s being generous. In the near decade since she and Jen started coming here it’s changed a lot, becoming a haven for college kids and drunk, balding townies.

“We’ve got to find a new bar,” Agatha says over the sound of someone beginning a terrible rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

“No, this place is awesome!” Rio says with that earnestness only she seems capable of. “Sticky floors, shitty lighting, this is a bar!”

Her voice cracks slightly at the end and Agatha realizes Rio might be drunk. Which puts a wrench in her plans of taking Rio home and making her come so hard she cries. Unless Agatha also gets very drunk, which is sounding more and more like a good idea, especially because she cannot be sober when her name gets called for karaoke.

“Another round?” Agatha asks the table, and no one protests.

“I’ll come with you,” Rio says, following behind her. As they weave through the throngs of people who seem to have descended on the bar out of nowhere, Agatha feels Rio grasp her hand so they don’t lose each other in the crowd. Rio gives it a squeeze and Agatha’s stomach flips.

They elbow their way to the bar, finally posting up on a corner as they wait for the bartender to come take their order.

Rio leans in too close, not close enough. Her lips almost brush Agatha’s ear when she says, “Do you think they’d notice if we went to the bathroom?”

“I’ve never really been a believer in the buddy system,” Agatha drawls, but she leans into Rio, her body feeling open and loose.

“You didn’t come see me today,” Rio says, not meeting Agatha’s eyes.

Agatha studies the curve of Rio’s lips, wet from her drink, and wonders why she ever does anything besides kiss them. “That wasn’t very smart of me, was it?” she hears herself say.

Rio smirks. “Agatha Harkness admitting fault. Wow.”

“Not fault,” Agatha says, squaring her shoulders. “Poor judgment maybe. Ill-advised.”

Rio does that thing where she sticks her tongue in her cheek. “Uh huh.”

Agatha waves a dismissive hand. “I’m sure I can find a way to make it up to you.”

Rio’s eyes are obsidian, pupils blown with desire. It makes Agatha feel insane, to be wanted like this, to want someone like this. She acts on her thought from before, pulling Rio close by her belt loops. Rio hisses as their hips touch, flush against each other at the corner of the bar. She leans in close again, her breath hot on Agatha’s neck. “I want you to take me home and fu—“

“What can I get you, ladies?” The bartender interrupts them.

“Jesus Christ,” Agatha snaps.

They jolt apart, but Rio’s arm settles around Agatha’s waist, warm against her back. She orders another round of drinks for their table, nonplussed. When the bartender turns away, Agatha blinks.

“Should we kill him?” Rio asks.

“Definitely,” Agatha says. Her tongue feels thick in her mouth and she pictures christening every room in her house with Rio. She can’t stop picturing it as they return to the high top with full hands—her and Rio on the couch, on the floor, on her messy table, in the shower, on top of the washing machine—

“You feeling ok Agatha?” Jen asks, annoyingly nonchalant. “You look a little flushed.”

Agatha feels herself flush more. “Well there’s only a million people in here, what do you expect?”

Suddenly Jen’s name gets called for karaoke and Agatha believes in karma. They all cheer as Jen takes the stage, almost comically out of place in a pink chenille sweater. The opening notes of White Flag by Dido blast through the bar and Alice groans, “Why does she always go for soft rock?”

Agatha barely hears her, hyper focused on the fact that Rio’s hand has worked its way into the back pocket of her jeans. She clears her throat, tosses her hair over her shoulder, and Rio gives her ass a squeeze. Agatha covers the gasp it elicits, turning it into a whoop for Jen.

Alice turns and smiles at them, and Agatha stiffens, fearful for a moment that Alice can see Rio’s hand in her pocket. But then she feels Rio relax into her, their bodies warm against each other, easy and comfortable, and she lets herself enjoy it, not caring suddenly if Alice sees. Jen seeing is another issue, but that has everything to do with Jen and nothing to do with Rio.

“You scared?” Rio asks when Alice has turned back around.

Agatha squares her shoulders. “I’m not scared of anything.”

Rio laughs. “God, you are so bad at lying it’s actually funny.”

Somehow, Agatha can’t bring herself to take offense to that, her stomach only tightens at the ease of familiarity.

Jen returns to their table when her song comes to an end, and is met with a chorus of cheers. They all toast to her but Agatha can only think of how cold her backside feels without Rio’s hand there.

“I think everyone in here wants to murder me now,” Jen says, “present company included.”

“True, but it has nothing to do with your karaoke choice,” Agatha says. “Personally, I’m always irritated with you.”

“And I with you,” Jen says, raising a glass.

“How are you liking teaching, Rio?” Alice asks, leaning her elbows on the wobbly high top.

“I love kids,” Rio says. “They’re all such little weirdos trying to act cool. And some of them already know how to code.”

Agatha hears herself ask, “How old were you when you learned to code?”

Jen and Alice’s eyes are on her suddenly, wide and stunned that she is making pleasant conversation. But Rio looks at her warmly, appreciatively, and answers, “Eight, maybe? It’s changed a lot since then so I’ve had to keep up with it but I almost don’t remember learning for the first time. It’s like I’ve always known how to do it.”

“In college she knew more about coding than some of the professors,” Alice brags.

“Some of them,” Rio says, looking down, and Agatha can’t believe it but Rio might actually be embarrassed. Her cheeks are pink and it’s not from the crowded bar or the many old fashioneds she’s already finished. Agatha is surprised Rio is capable of embarrassment; in the few weeks they’ve known each other she has only known Rio to be so self-assured that it borders on arrogant. Embarrassment is cute on her.

Agatha’s name is called next for karaoke and Jen and Alice drum on the table, hyping her up. As she heads to the stage she hears Alice telling Rio, “She brings the house down every time!”

Agatha doesn’t believe in bragging—she prefers to show and not tell—but Alice is right. She loves karaoke and she’s good at it, and her song choice tonight will hopefully ensure that Rio’s cheeks stay pleasantly flushed.

The lights onstage are hot and bright and the screen with the lyrics is too small to read without her glasses, but Agatha doesn’t need them. Past the cheap lights she can make out their table: Jen with an arm draped over Alice’s shoulders, both of them swaying, a little drunk, and Rio, one hand in her pocket and the other around the neck of Agatha’s abandoned beer. She’s going to love this.

Rio must recognize the opening electronic notes of the song because Agatha can see her groan and cover her eyes almost instantly. Alice jumps up and down and cheers, shaking Rio’s shoulders playfully.

“You’re a bird of paradise… Cherry ice cream smile,” Agatha sings, realizing for the first time how stupid these lyrics are.

Rio’s eyes are huge, and from far away Agatha can’t tell if she’s trying to bite back a smile or extremely pissed. Either way, her song choice is having the desired effect. She grabs the mic off the stand for the chorus, which almost the entire bar sings along with her.

“Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand, just like that river twisting through a dusty land. And when she shines she really shows you all she can. Oh Rio, Rio, dance across the Rio Grande.”

During the instrumental break, which is longer than she remembers, Agatha catches her breath and Rio’s eyes. No matter how hard Rio tries to appear pissed, Agatha can tell from the rise and fall of her chest that something is coiling inside her like a snake, and Agatha wants to be there when she strikes.

She delivers the rest of the song directly to Rio, even as the bar sings with her to close it out. “Her name is Rio, she don’t need to understand, and I might find her if I’m looking like I can. Oh Rio, Rio hear them shout across the land, from mountains in the north down to the Rio Grande.”

There are cheers as she finishes and takes a wobbly bow, feeling more out of breath than she should. She slips back into the crowd with a wave, but then the DJ is calling Rio’s name up next. And then Rio is beside her, pulling her back up onstage before Agatha realizes what’s happening.

“Rio—wha—“ All she can feel is Rio’s thumb in the sweaty crook of her elbow, anchoring her.

“It’s a duet,” Rio says simply, as if that explains everything. She hands her a foam-covered microphone from the DJ and the song begins, some overplayed acoustic song from a movie.

“I’m Bradley Cooper,” Rio tells her into the mic.

“I don’t know the song!” Agatha insists.

“Everyone knows this song, it’s amazing,” Rio says. She begins singing, slightly off key and looking Agatha straight in the face. “Tell me something, girl. Are you happy in this modern world? Or do you need more? Is there something that you’re searching for?”

Agatha chuckles, glancing over to Jen and Alice who seem stunned into silence, for once. She does know the song, and that Rio’s given her the harder part to sing. But Rio obviously brought her up here knowing Agatha wouldn’t be able to resist putting on a show. So let’s give them a show, she thinks.

She turns back to Rio as she begins her verse, delivering it directly to her. “Tell me something boy, aren’t you tired trying to fill that void? Or do you need more? Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore? I’m falling…”

Rio has the same satisfied smirk on her face she does after she makes Agatha come, which makes Agatha falter for a minute, almost forgetting the words to the chorus. But then, incredibly, Rio reaches out and takes her hand, giving it a squeeze. When Agatha meets her eyes again they’re dark, and her lips are mouthing the words along with her, “we’re far from the shallow now…”

Agatha hears Jen and Alice find their voices, cheering for Rio and hyping Agatha up for the loud, belting bridge. She’s just drunk enough to let it all go and she does, wailing, making the entire bar erupt into cheers again as she heads into the final chorus.

“I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in…”

Rio joins her with some iffy harmonies, with a grin so wide it might split her face in two. As the song ends Agatha’s ears are ringing, partially from the applause and partially because Rio is holding her hand again, guiding her off the stage and back to their high top where Alice and Jen wait, their faces gathered into polite expressions.

“That was awesome!” Alice says enthusiastically, though she looks like she wants to say something a lot more suggestive.

“You guys sing really well together,” Jen says, trying not to laugh.

“We’ve been practicing,” Rio jokes, finishing the rest of her drink. She doesn’t seem nearly as flustered as Agatha feels.

“Oh, so that’s what you’ve been doing during second period,” Jen says knowingly. Alice chokes on her drink.

The jig is up, Agatha supposes, and she turns to Rio and says, “Do you want to call the uber or should I?”

“I will,” Rio says coolly, and ten minutes later they’re making out in the back of a Chevy Cruze. Rio tastes like whiskey as she slides her tongue against Agatha’s, pushing further into her mouth. Neither of them are wearing seatbelts and she almost bites Rio’s lip when they go over a bump. A minute later they come to a sudden stop in front of Agatha’s house. Rio stumbles out after her, thanking the driver.

Agatha is too tipsy and too turned on to dig through her bag for her key so she uses the one under the doormat, and they push through her front door, a flurry of shoes and purses and coats.

“Couch,” Rio says, steering Agatha by her elbows in the dark. Rio lands in her lap with a grunt, reaching for something out in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Agatha asks, pawing at the hem of Rio’s shirt.

“The light,” Rio says, like it’s obvious. “I wanna see you.”

She flicks on a lamp and time stills for a moment. Agatha studies Rio in the yellow light, her hair falling out of its ponytail, her pulse throbbing in her neck. Her eyes search Agatha’s face hungrily, questioning. The leather couch squeaks as she sinks down into Agatha’s lap and their lips meet. Agatha doesn’t remember how many beers she’s had but she feels sober, extremely present when Rio kisses her, like she’s the only real thing in the world. Agatha’s hands slide up Rio’s back, pressing her all the way into her body, their chests flush. Rio grinds her pelvis down and then winces suddenly.

“Knees,” she grumbles, and Agatha thinks of a few days earlier, Rio kneeling on the unforgiving tile floor of the supply closet in her classroom.

Agatha chuckles. “Poor baby,” she says with a pout.

An inscrutable look passes over Rio’s face and then she dismounts Agatha’s lap, laying down flat on the couch, her chin canted up, her eyes wild. Something rips through Agatha then, a possessive desire that makes her almost feral. It’s a feeling she’s never had before but the thought echoing in her mind is that she’s finally met her match. Rio is hers.

She undresses Rio quickly, efficiently, while Rio’s hands scramble to get Agatha’s pants off. Rio’s cunt is hot and wet as Agatha pushes two fingers inside of her, and they both gasp at the sensation. Agatha brackets Rio’s hips with her knees, bending to kiss her, the space between their mouths electric. Their teeth gnash together, snapping at nothing, and Agatha feels heady with lust. Rio slips a hand into Agatha’s underwear and Agatha moans into her mouth, every nerve ending of her body on fire. She guides Rio’s other hand to her throat, thumb settling over her pulse.

Rio murmurs yes with every thrust of Agatha’s hand and Agatha moves in sync with her, matching her movements. Rio’s grip on her throat tightens and Agatha almost comes right then, whispering, “God, yes baby.”

But Rio says, “Wait. Wait for me.” Her voice is sharp, urgent, and Agatha nods, thrusting into her whispering, “Come on baby. Come for me.”

Rio’s hips stutter and she comes hard around Agatha’s fingers with a shout that fills the room. Agatha follows right after, Rio’s hand tight around her neck, squeezing.

Agatha slumps on top of Rio, taking in the scent of her neck as they both catch their breath. The air in the room is warm and still, like the bar, and Agatha is alarmed to find that the possessive urge that she’d felt earlier hasn’t gone away. She grips Rio tightly, nails digging into her shoulders, loosely pinning her to the couch.

Rio’s breathing slows finally, and she nudges Agatha’s cheek with her nose. Agatha sits up, her shirt half-unbuttoned and hanging off one shoulder. Rio stands and stretches, the muscles in her back pulling and rippling beneath the surface of her skin. She turns to Agatha and holds out a hand.

“Take me to bed.”

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, Agatha sleeps soundly, waking only when the light filtering through the curtains is midmorning bright. She rolls over and there is Rio, propped up against the headboard reading a slim book. Agatha rubs her eyes, not sure if Rio’s warm smile is real or a trick of the light. She is naked still, one arm crossed over her small breasts while the other holds the book aloft.

“What are you reading?” Agatha asks, her voice softer than she means it to be.

Rio holds out the book and Agatha balks. It’s her own collection of short stories, over a decade old and no longer in print.

“I found it downstairs,” Rio explains, almost a little sheepish.

The light in the bedroom is so soft that it feels like they’re the only two people in the world and something is tight in Agatha’s chest, something she hasn’t felt in a long time.

“I was right, by the way,” Rio says. “This bed is excellent.”

“Come here,” Agatha says, rolling her eyes.

Rio sets the book down and stretches out on top of her, her skin impossibly warm, her teeth nipping at Agatha’s bottom lip. Agatha touches her slowly and then not slowly at all, making Rio gasp as she curls her fingers inside her.

In the shower, Agatha asks, “Why were you reading my book?”

Rio turns over her shoulder, away from the spray of the shower head, blinking water from her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Agatha feels her cheeks flush. Rio has an annoying habit of saying very stupid things sweetly, obviously, in a way that makes Agatha’s chest ache.

“Which one was your favorite?” Agatha asks later still, nonchalant as they sit at her cluttered dining room table sipping coffee. “Which story?”

Rio takes a sip from a mug that says I’m not bossy, I’m the boss. “The one where the girl drowns her mother in the lake,” she says.

Agatha chuckles fondly. “Oh, right. That’s a good one.”

“Autobiographical?” Rio queries.

“I wish,” Agatha jokes. “It’s the least she deserves.”

Rio pauses for a minute and then asks, “How did she die, your mother?”

“Unremarkably,” Agatha says stiffly. “She had a heart condition. Her neighbor found her propped up on the couch. Said a Red Sox game was on tv. I never understood that. Mom hated sports. She hated everything.”

Agatha looks up at Rio and she is staring, eyes wide like a startled animal caught in a clearing with a hunter.

“Why do you care about that anyway?” Agatha asks, something mean rearing its head inside her after sharing something so stupidly personal.

Rio speaks slowly, gripping her coffee mug. “Because I care about you.”

Even Agatha finds it difficult to be truly cruel in the face of such earnestness and she feels her ears burning as she looks down into her cup. “I know you do.”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?” Rio asks.

“It confuses me,” Agatha admits.

“Because you don’t feel the same way or because you don’t understand why I care?”

Agatha sighs and rubs her forehead. “Because I thought I was done with—“ She gestures between them, “—all this.”

Rio doesn’t say anything but Agatha understands that it is still her turn to talk and she sighs, tired of secrets and fronts and the bunk beds in the second bedroom upstairs.

“My last serious relationship,” Agatha explains, making a face at the use of the expression, “was complicated. She had two young kids and was a lot younger than me and it all happened so quickly. And before I knew it I was applying to preschools and bringing snacks to soccer practices. And after five years she decided the boys needed their father. I came home one day and they were all gone. There were a few rambling texts, a lot of I’m sorrys.”

“Jesus,” Rio interjects.

Agatha waves a hand. “I moved on. Wrote half of a book. But I thought that was it, you know? One great love. And now—“

She stops herself, realizing she’s just said the word love in a conversation that is turning towards Rio.

Mercifully, there is only a moment before Rio asks, “Was she younger than me?”

Agatha lets out a nervous, exasperated laugh. “I pour my heart out to you and that’s your only question?”

“I’m just asking if that’s a thing for you,” Rio says, smiling. Agatha can see the gap in her teeth.

“Not specifically,” she answers, smoothing her hair back. “But she was younger than you, yes.” Agatha stands up, starving suddenly. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Rio says slowly, lazily following her into the kitchen. She sits on the countertop as Agatha pulls things out of the refrigerator. “You’re very good at that, you know,” Rio says after a strained minute.

Agatha cracks four eggs into a pan. “Good at what?”

“Changing the subject.”

“There’s nothing else to say! Yes, you and Wanda are both younger than me. I should be asking you why pretty women with big eyes always want mommy to spank them.”

“Choking’s more my thing but if you’re offering,” Rio says, grinning.

Agatha shoves her shoulder and they settle into a comfortable silence, the food simmering in the pan. They eat out on the back porch, at the same table where Agatha had announced that she was “done dating.” The late morning air is still cool, and Agatha watches as Rio’s nipples pebble beneath the Westview High t-shirt she’d swiped off Agatha’s bedroom floor.

“I’d tell you anything you wanted to know, by the way,” Rio says. “If you asked.”

Agatha regards her with a confused expression.

“Unlike you, I’m not allergic to human conversation,” Rio says, a challenging edge to her voice. “If there’s something you want to know about me, all you have to do is ask.”

Agatha’s not sure if Rio’s trying to make some kind of point or if she’s just being a brat, but she realizes she does know precious little about Rio in terms of facts and figures.

But the truth is that there are many things about Rio that she knows simply from being in her presence these past few weeks, things she never had to ask and things Rio never had to tell her. She is pretty sure Rio is a vegetarian; even though she’d picked a burger place for their date she’d only eaten black bean and mushroom sliders. Agatha would bet money that Rio is an only child—she’s petulant when she doesn’t get her way, something Agatha is self-aware enough to identify in herself. And as far as she can tell Rio doesn’t have a lot of close friends, in that way that hyperintelligent, peerless people often do, especially women—another trait Agatha is big enough to claim herself.

But there is one thing Agatha doesn’t know, something she’s been curious to ask Rio about since they haven’t been able to keep their hands to themselves.

“Has this ever happened before?” Agatha asks. “Has someone whose money you’ve taken ever found you and…”

“Made me an omelette?” Rio supplies, gesturing with her fork down to her plate. “No, you’re the first.”

Agatha doesn’t think she can ask her actual question, so she clumsily drawls, “First and only?”

Rio puts her fork down, a smile tucked in the corner of her mouth. “Are you asking me if we’re exclusive?”

A bird trills loudly in the yard, making Agatha jump. When she looks back across the table Rio is still staring at her expectantly. God, why does everyone act like it’s so easy to talk about how you feel? Agatha tastes bile in her mouth but she responds, as calmly as she can, “Yes.”

Rio grins. “You’re more than enough for me, sweetheart.”

Something clenches in Agatha’s stomach, in her cunt, and her voice is dark when she hears herself demand, “Say it again.”

“There’s only you,” Rio says, making a little show of it this time, breathy and loose in her shoulders.

“No.” Agatha wets her lips and almost falters, for a moment. “The other part.”

Recognition passes across Rio’s face and she at least has the decency to not look as thrilled as she obviously feels. She leans towards Agatha, forearms pressing into the wooden tabletop. “Sweetheart,” she whispers.

Agatha has never had sex on her back porch before, but all of a sudden she is seriously considering it.

“Does mommy need to know she’s a good girl too?” Rio continues, jutting out her bottom lip.

“See, now you ruined it,” Agatha sighs, but even as she relaxes back into her chair with a good-natured sigh, her stomach still coils tightly and it takes a while to shake the feeling of needing to devour Rio.

They go for a walk, Rio in Agatha’s shirt and a pair of Agatha’s navy sweatpants that are slightly too short. The sidewalks are yellow and orange with leaves. Rio picks one up that’s as big as her face and carries it with her, twisting the stem between her thumb and index finger. Agatha’s chest swells with affection and she wonders what life would be like if she was the kind of person who would take Rio’s other hand in hers, lacing their fingers together.

“Agatha!”

She doesn’t even realize they’ve turned on to Lilia’s street until they’re almost past her house and Agatha hears the familiar voice call out to her. She freezes and turns in place to see Lilia pulling weeds in the garden with a large sun hat perched on her head.

“Hey… you,” is all Agatha can think to say. It’s not that she doesn’t want Rio and Lilia to meet, it’s just that if Lilia knows, then everyone who needs to know knows. And then when Agatha inevitably fucks it up, they will all need to know.

“I love your hat,” Rio says, hands in the pocket of her leather jacket.

Lilia touches the hat where it sits on the crown of her head. “Why thank you.”

Agatha gestures between the three of them. “Rio, this is Lilia. Friend, confidant, former Westview High librarian.”

Lilia’s eyebrows shoot up toward the brim of her hat. “Wow, friend?”

“Don’t tell Jen.” Agatha feels a wide smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“I’m Rio,” Rio says before Agatha has a chance to introduce her. She extends her hand to Lilia, who takes it.

“Good handshake,” Lilia says, nodding approvingly at Agatha. “You two hungry?”

“More than enough for one today?” Agatha barbs. Lilia glares at her and they follow her inside.

Agatha forgets that a first-time visitor to Lilia’s home will be immediately bowled over by the stunning amount of stuff she’s able to pack inside, and Rio is no exception. Agatha catches her staring, mouth agape, at several vintage trinkets in the curio cabinets that populate the hallway to the kitchen.

“So you were the librarian at the high school, huh?” Rio asks, double-taking at a framed ticket for passage on the Titanic.

“Technically,” Lilia tells Rio over her shoulder, “my title was Media Center Manager, which they started using when they put all the computers in there.”

“Yeah, fuck computers,” Rio says a little too enthusiastically. Agatha elbows her.

“Lilia, if it’s not a good time—“ Agatha starts, but Lilia cuts her off with a wave of her hand. They stand in her cluttered kitchen as she flits about, throwing together a snack tray.

“At least let me spend five minutes with the woman who stole your account information and then your heart,” Lilia tuts.

“Wow, I’ll let you write the synopsis for my next book jacket,” Agatha drawls, willing her cheeks not to blush.

“Well you have to finish it first,” Rio chimes in.

Lilia narrows her eyes, studying Rio for a moment, then says, “I like her.”

Agatha resents the implication that all her prospective partners must receive some seal of approval, but she is surprised at how good it feels to know that Lilia likes Rio. It does matter to her, she realizes, that the two of them get along.

It makes her palms sweaty, how neatly Rio’s life shoehorns into her own. They work together (for now), live close but not too close, Agatha’s friends like her. No kids, no pets, no strings. She’s running out of excuses as to why this can’t work. It’s a startling realization to have in Lilia’s kitchen, that she and Rio could be something real, mostly because she hadn’t been looking for something real. She hadn’t been looking for anything at all.

Rio can tell something is up on the walk home, a few hours later with full stomachs and tongues that taste like wine. The sun is low in the sky and Rio’s leather jacket is zipped up, Agatha’s shirt sticking out the bottom like a worn cotton tutu over her sweatpants.

“Earth to Agatha,” Rio says, and the way she widens her brown eyes tells Agatha it’s not the first time she’s said it.

“The wine,” Agatha jokes, touching her temple feebly.

Rio rolls her eyes. “So I was thinking. I have practice in the morning and I should probably go home and get some clothes that are, you know, my own.”

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Agatha says.

“You could come with me, if you like,” Rio offers, and if Agatha didn’t know any better she’d say she looks shy. “Practice gets done at one, so there’s plenty of time for… whatever.”

“Whatever,” Agatha says with a smile. While she loves doing whatever with Rio, there is still something tugging at her insides telling her to run. To run from Rio’s gap-toothed grin, from her offers of whatever, from the feeling blooming in her chest that is too much like love, scarcely thought of and never said aloud.

“I have um, a lot to do around the house—“ Agatha begins, but Rio waves a hand.

“It’s fine,” she says, in a voice that sounds very much not fine.

Agatha expects her to say something else but she doesn’t, and she realizes that she is suddenly speed walking to keep up with Rio.

“This isn’t a rejection, I just have stuff to do tomorrow,” Agatha says, painfully aware of how desperate she sounds.

“I know,” Rio says breezily.

They turn onto Agatha’s street and she calls out to Rio, now half a block ahead of her, “The silent treatment is real cute.”

“So are your mixed signals,” Rio shoots back over her shoulder.

“What mixed signals?” Agatha splutters, stalling for time.

Rio comes to a halt at the end of the block and waits for Agatha to catch up to her. “You’re fine with sleepovers until you’re not. You’re weird about your friends seeing us together but you’ll sing an entire song to me in front of them.” Agatha tries to protest but Rio pushes on, “When you came to my classroom I thought that we were on the same page.”

“We were,” Agatha insists. “We are.”

“So all these hang ups you have about relationships, all the reservations you had about me, your pig-headedness, that’s all gone?”

“Pig-headedness?”

“Because the second we try to do something on my terms you get all cagey and weird that you can’t keep me at arms’ length,” Rio says, hands shoved so far in her pockets Agatha can see her knuckles pressing on the leather. Rio looks down at the ground suddenly, shaking her head. A piece of hair falls from her ponytail and into her eyes. “My mistake, actually. You told me you didn’t want a relationship and I don’t know why I tried to convince you you did.”

“I don’t ‘not want a relationship’,” Agatha says, using finger quotes, wondering why they’re even arguing right now.

“Aren’t you in one? What would you call this?” Rio asks, gesturing between them. “Friends with benefits? Fuck buddies?”

“I don’t know!” Agatha answers honestly, desperately. “Tell you the truth, I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well it’s all I think about,” Rio says quietly. She is looking at her shoes again. “You’re all I think about.”

Agatha is stunned into silence, as she often is with Rio. Rio turns slowly, her lips a thin line as she walks away, briskly making the remainder of the journey to Agatha’s house. Agatha wants to say that of course she’s thought about Rio; this past week as she got dressed every morning she picked out her underwear knowing Rio would see it for god’s sake. But more than that she’s thought about Rio’s mouth with a smile always tucked in the corner, or how her pulse bobs in her throat when she’s turned on, or the smell of her shampoo.

Agatha has to actually run to catch up with Rio, blocks ahead, panting as she finally comes to a stop in her driveway.

“Rio, please,” she sighs, hand working at a stitch in her side. “Will you just come inside and we can talk?”

“I’ve said what I need to say,” Rio says, monotone, like it pains her to use any inflection at all. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you this entire time.”

“Fine,” Agatha huffs. The warm, coiling feeling in her stomach is gone, hardened into something bitter. She brushes past Rio to march up the front steps but when she feels Rio following at her heels she turns.

“My stuff is still inside,” Rio says, like duh.

Agatha rolls her eyes and reaches for the key under the doormat.

It’s not there.

She whips her head over her shoulder to glare at Rio.

“Why are you looking at me?” Rio snaps.

“Well do you know where it is?” Agatha asks.

“I don’t know. Didn’t you use it last night to let us in?”

Agatha remembers hands and mouths and the smell of whiskey against Rio’s temple and lets out a grunt of frustration. “I don’t fucking believe this,” she mutters. She flips the rug upside down and scours the porch like it’s going to suddenly appear out of nowhere.

“I don’t think it’s here,” Rio intones.

“Well do you have any ideas, wunderkind?” Agatha snaps.

“Are any of your windows open?” Rio asks like she’s talking to a stupid child.

Agatha makes a face and stomps down the stairs to examine the side of her house. Hands on her hips, she looks up at the two-story home with its fading siding and peeling paint on the trim around the windows.

“There,” Rio says from beside Agatha, making her jump. She hadn’t even realized Rio had followed her. “That one’s open.”

Agatha squints and sure enough, the middle window on the second floor is cracked open ever so slightly. Of course it’s that window. To the room she never goes in.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Rio reaching for a branch of the tall oak tree that grows beside the house. She hoists her slim, athletic body up onto a thick limb and then reaches for another.

“Are you insane?” Agatha shouts up at her. She stands at the base of the tree, shielding her eyes against the setting sun as she looks up.

“You know I am,” Rio replies. “Come on!”

“I’m not climbing a tree,” Agatha splutters, exasperated, “I’m fifty!”

“Suit yourself, old!”

Agatha makes a face and stands on her tiptoes to reach the lowest branch she can. The bark is rough and she scrapes her knuckles and her wrist pulling herself up. She steadies herself on a sturdy limb and looks up to see where Rio is, far above her through the leaves, her dark hair almost black against the foliage.

“That one next,” Rio says, pointing, and then Agatha watches her scowl at herself for helping.

Agatha reaches for the next branch, then another, and soon Rio is coaxing her to scoot the six or eight feet across the final limb to the windowsill. Rio has already made it there herself and shoved the window open enough for them to crawl through.

“You probably know this already,” Agatha huffs, trying not to look down as she slides across the limb, “but I’m not exactly what you’d call outdoorsy.”

Rio tries and fails to disguise a chuckle. When Agatha is almost there, Rio swings her legs to the other side of the branch and through the window, slipping inside in one seamless movement. Agatha manages the same, albeit a little less gracefully, nearly smacking her head on the windowpane.

Agatha plants herself in the room and her feet crunch against a small collection of dead leaves on the floor beneath the window. The air in the room is stuffy, like her classroom after being closed up all summer. And even though she knows what it looks like in here, remembers the exact position of the furniture and the posters on the wall, it still bowls her over to see it after all this time.

Wanda had taken their clothing, the contents of their desks, stripped the sheets from their beds and taken their towels from the bathroom, but their beds remained, a lofted twin on either side of the room with a desk underneath it. Their dressers, too, had stayed, littered with stickers they’d tried to pull off when they realized their mistake. A faded dinosaur poster hangs on one wall, and a crumpled map of the solar system drapes over one of the beds, the tape finally giving way after eight long years.

The ceiling still has dozens of glow in the dark stars attached to it. Agatha remembers it took weeks for the crick in her neck to disappear after putting them up.

She has thought about getting rid of it all, donating it or whatever, tossing it out the window, but every time she passes by the door in the hallway she gets a shiver, like she’s just walked through a ghost, and she loses her nerve.

“How old were they?” Rio asks quietly.

Agatha turns to look at her. There’s a twig stuck in her ponytail. “Eight,” Agatha says, “when they left.”

“Fun age,” Rio says with a nod.

Agatha chuckles. “Everyone said that all the time, no matter what age they were.”

Rio shifts on her feet. She unzips her jacket against the stuffiness of the room. Not for the first time, Agatha wishes she could read Rio’s mind, know exactly what she’s thinking.

“I’m sorry they left,” Rio says after a moment. “You deserve better.”

And I’m offering it to you, she doesn’t say, but they both know that’s what she means. Rio turns into her, their bodies close but not touching, and she presses a chaste kiss against Agatha’s lips. Agatha tastes her sweetness, that flavor she’s come to know is all Rio’s, and a bit of sweat on her upper lip. Agatha leans in, reaches to Rio’s neck to pull them together but Rio breaks away and clears her throat. She turns suddenly, opens the door to the room, and heads off down the hall toward Agatha’s bedroom.

Agatha knows she should say something—Don’t go. I like you. I more than like you. You’re all I think about too.—but her feet feel leaden, stuck in place in a room she hasn’t properly set foot in in years. She is finally able to move when she hears a rustling, and peers down the hallway to see Rio pulling her own shirt over her head. Agatha’s borrowed clothes lay in a pile at her feet.

“I don’t suppose there’s some intermediary solution here,” Agatha says, coming to rest against the doorway to her room. “One where you take my politely declined invitation at face value and I come say hello during second period on Monday?”

Rio finishes putting her jacket back on and sighs. “I think I want more than second period,” she says evenly. “And if you’re not ready for that then maybe we should stop doing this.”

Agatha’s breath catches and she tries not to show it. “Rio, I am ready. But I just—“

“Have a lot to do around the house,” Rio interrupts, inclining her head down the hall. “Clearly.”

Agatha scoffs and Rio brushes past her, descending the stairs and gathering her things in the foyer. Agatha hears a soft clink, like metal being set down on wood, then the door opening. She can feel Rio pause, and Agatha suddenly bolts to the end of the hallway, hoping to catch Rio before she’s gone. But she’s too late, arriving at the top of the stairs just as Rio turns to look back inside before shutting the door.

Agatha slumps against the wall and runs her hands over her face. Love, or at least the beginnings of it, is a disgusting thing. There hadn’t been much love in Agatha’s house growing up. Her mother was alternatively critical and hovering, sending Agatha fleeing to Boston as soon as she was old enough, then New York, where her relationships with women were more casual than anything else. She learned that women found her beautiful and a little bitchy, which led to some great sex, but nothing approaching love. Agatha had loved Wanda, she supposes, or at the very least had loved being needed by her. She was hard where Wanda was soft, stern when Wanda was conciliatory. But had Wanda loved her, or like Agatha, was she simply relieved to find a purpose in the mutually beneficial relationship?

Women had pursued Agatha, to be sure, but no one has ever pursued her like Rio. Rio with her indulgent stares and a smile that makes it seem like she knows what you look like naked, makes you want to know what she looks like naked. No one has ever challenged her the way Rio does, makes her so mad she wants to kiss the know-it-all smirk off her face. No one has ever had her sneaking into utility rooms at work, unable to wait til the end of the day to see each other, to touch each other. No one has ever gotten her up onstage for a karaoke duet. Agatha Harkness is a solo act.

But the price of being a solo act is an empty house on a Saturday night and an aching in her chest she can’t ignore anymore. An aching she begins to think about as feelings. God, what an awful word. Feelings for Rio. Feelings for the way Rio looks in one of Agatha’s old t-shirts. Feelings for the way Rio had fucked her in the shower, making Agatha come with needy, shuddering breaths that almost sounded like sobs. Feelings for the way her eyes glinted onstage at karaoke, setting a challenge and rewarding Agatha for rising to it. Mommy needs to know she’s a good girl too.

And that’s the most maddening part of all, that Rio seems to know Agatha as well as she knows herself. Knows what she’s thinking before she’s thought it. That despite all of Agatha’s resistance to being seen, Rio has seen her anyway. Even more horrifying, she likes what she sees. And most nauseating of all, Agatha finds she likes Rio’s attention. She likes the damn feelings. They make her sick, but she can’t stop chasing after them, needing another hit like an addict. It’s obscenely humiliating.

Much later, hours after Rio has gone, Agatha pulls herself out of her cocoon of self-pity to make something to eat, and notices the spare key sitting on the end table in the entryway.

//

“Would you like to buy a carnation, Ms. Harkness?”

The shrill voice chirps at her the second she enters the lobby, already running late. Agatha squints, her eyes adjusting from the sun outside, and finds the voice has come from a student sitting at a folding table with a poorly-made poster that reads HOMECOMING CARNATIONS $2 EACH OR 3 FOR $6.

“You know that’s not really a deal, right?” Agatha asks, gesturing to the sign.

The girl, her hair a sort of colorless brown, doesn’t seem to hear her. “They’re $2 each or 3 for—“

“Yeah, I got it,” Agatha cuts her off. “And no thank you.”

She strides briskly around the table and down the corridor to the faculty lounge. Almost immediately Jen is beside her, a conspiratorial look in her eye.

“How was your weekend?” she asks, her tone nauseatingly sweet.

“Fine,” Agatha replies, clipped. She heads for the copier and pulls a sheaf of papers out of her bag.

Jen frowns. “Just fine?”

“Just none of your business,” Agatha says with a tight smile.

“Um, it was very much my business when you two were eye fucking on stage Friday night,” Jen says.

Agatha jabs her finger at the copier, making more noise than she needs to. “What do you want me to say, Jen?”

“Details, please! Tell me what happened!” She is so giddy that Agatha almost envies her girlish excitement.

Agatha sighs. “What always happens? I screwed it up.”

Jen scoffs. “You can get away with a lot but self-pity doesn’t look good on you.”

“Well it’s the truth,” Agatha says. Beside her, the copier beeps, indicating a jam. Agatha opens the front panel and pokes around, yanking an errant piece of paper from a worn, faulty lever. “This fucking thing,” she grumbles.

“Well whatever you screwed up, fix it,” Jen instructs. “We like Rio.”

“I am so sick of being your fucking charity case,” Agatha snaps, her blood boiling in an instant. “Poor single Agatha. I like being alone. And unlike you, I know how to be. I don’t need you and Alice matchmaking and I certainly don’t need you telling me what to do about Rio fucking Vidal.”

“Got it,” Jen says evenly, her voice like steel.

Agatha flashes her a cruel smile. “Good.” She slams the front panel of the copier shut and presses the button to restart her work.

Behind Jen, the door to the faculty room has swung open and in walks Rio, lunch bag in her hand. If she’s thrown by seeing Agatha she doesn’t show it, her pace barely faltering as she makes her way to the fridge. Rio shoves her lunch in among the dozen other bags, half-eaten birthday cakes, and nearly empty condiment jars that have to be older than some of the students.

“Good to know it’s not just me,” she says, closing the refrigerator door and standing to her full height. She’s wearing a forest green sweater that looks so soft Agatha almost reaches out to touch it. “You push everyone away when you feel out of control,” she offers by way of explanation, leveling her gaze directly at Agatha.

“Thanks, why don’t you sub for psychology next?” Agatha drawls, impressed at her own ability to parry when Rio’s brown slacks are hugging her ass like that.

Rio laughs, but not at the joke. It’s a humorless, pitying laugh, Agatha’s least favorite kind. “I’ll do that,” Rio chuckles, and then she is gone as quickly as she came in.

Jen scoffs but looks after Rio, impressed. The copier beeps again and Agatha kicks it with the toe of her shoe.

//

“So I was like, if I don’t get him a carnation and then he gets me one, I’ll feel like an asshole. But what if I get him one and he doesn’t get me one, then that’ll be super embarrassing. But then I was like, well if neither of us get each other one then nothing changes. And if I just sit around waiting for him to make a move because I don’t want to be embarrassed then that’s stupid. So I finally decided I am gonna get him one. Now I just have to figure out what to put on the note.”

Billy finally falls silent and Agatha looks up from her desk and the stack of papers she’s grading. “What?” she asks, peering over the top of her glasses. Billy rolls his eyes, exasperated, but then she amends, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

“So you think I should? Send Teddy a carnation?” His eyes watch her expectantly, as if she has all the answers merely because she’s an adult. As if her own life isn’t a huge joke and she didn’t climb a tree to get into her house this weekend. As if she isn’t in love with Rio Vidal, something she is begrudgingly allowing herself to feel but will never admit out loud.

“I don’t think you should be taking advice from me,” Agatha answers simply.

“Well who else am I going to ask?” Billy says with a shrug.

She knows it practically, of course, but to hear it said so plainly makes her put her pen down and sigh. Agatha feels a headache forming just above her eyebrow and worries the spot with her thumb.

“You… okay?” Billy asks, smart enough to sound wary as he sticks his hand through the bars of the tiger’s cage.

Agatha chooses her words carefully, still rubbing at her forehead. “So you’re… going to send a carnation to Teddy… even though he’s mad at you.”

Billy shrugs. “I wouldn’t say mad but we’re not exactly talking every day. Or at all, really.”

“And you think if you do this it will… endear you to him in some way?” Agatha continues, trying to sound disinterested.

“Yeah. You know, eating humble pie or whatever. Admitting your mistake.”

“What was your mistake?”

Billy squares his shoulders resolutely with the self-assuredness only a teenager can muster. “I didn’t fight for him. When he said he wanted to break up I just agreed. And I should’ve tried harder. Because I think we have a chance, a real chance—“

Agatha holds up a hand. “Okay, I got it.”

Billy’s voice takes on that careful tone again. “Is there someone you want to send a carnation to? Someone you’re mad at?”

“Don’t end a sentence with a preposition,” Agatha says, waving a dismissive hand, and Billy is smart enough to drop the subject.

Rio doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who could be swayed with flowers and chocolates and novelty cliches. But Agatha buys her a carnation anyway as she leaves school that day, throwing her money at the insipid girl at the table and not waiting around to receive her change. She leaves the “from” line blank but hopes that her message saying only “we’re on the same page” will be indicative enough of its sender.

//

It’s cold finally, and Agatha wraps her coat tighter around her as she steps outside, hands shoved in her pockets as she glances around the parking lot for Jen. She finds her about 5 feet past the sign that reads “SCHOOL ZONE NO SMOKING” with a cigarette dangling between her fingers.

“Can I bum one?” Agatha asks.

Jen startles and turns, then frowns when she sees Agatha. “No thanks, someone told me I didn’t know how to be alone so I’m practicing that.”

Agatha rolls her eyes. “Jen, come on. I’m an asshole.”

Jen points a long-nailed finger at her. “See, this is why I always defend you when people say you aren’t self-aware.”

Agatha practically grunts with frustration. “Look, I obviously came out here to apologize—“

“And I’m surprised you even know how to pronounce that word, let alone do it,” Jen quips. “But I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

“I will fix things with Rio,” Agatha says emphatically. “I’m actively fixing them. I sent her a carnation two days ago.”

“Wow, and she’s not falling over herself to take you back?”

“Will you just give me a damn cigarette before I take one by force?” Agatha snaps.

Jen sighs and reaches into her coat pocket, extracting one. Agatha sighs with relief as it touches her lips and then looks at Jen expectantly. “Got a light?” she mumbles around the cigarette.

“Do you want me to smoke it for you too?” Jen barbs, but she hands over her lighter.

Agatha flicks it and takes her first drag, calm instantly settling over her. “God, this is the perfect way to spend second period.”

“This is better than getting handsy with Rio? Where were you guys even doing it?” Jen asks.

“The supply closet in her classroom,” Agatha says, a smile quirking the corner of her mouth as she thinks about it.

“What like, on the floor?” Jen curls her lip.

“No, standing up, obviously,” Agatha scoffs.

“You or her?”

“Both,” Agatha says. “Or—taking turns, I don’t know. What, you and Alice have never done it at school?”

“No, that’s disgusting,” Jen says, wrinkling her nose.

Agatha coughs, half surprised and half because she inhales too deeply. “Never? But your classroom has those nice long tables.”

“Definitely not in my classroom,” Jen says, flicking her cigarette onto the ground and stomping it out with the toe of her shoe. “I’m not about to put my bare ass on a table that’s had hydrochloric acid on it.”

“Speaking of you and Alice, I might need one of you to get sick on Friday,” Agatha says.

“Why?” Jen asks, suspicious.

“So Rio can take your place as one of the homecoming chaperones.”

“You know I love watching these little white kids try to dance, I look forward to it all year,” Jen whines.

“Then have Alice take one for the team,” Agatha practically pleads.

Jen narrows her eyes, considering. “I’ll do it, but you have to host when we watch The Voice for the rest of the season.”

“Ugh, fine,” Agatha sighs, reaching in for a handshake. She takes one last puff and flicks her cigarette onto the ground.

“What makes you so sure Rio will volunteer to take my place?” Jen asks.

“She’s chronically helpful, to a fault,” Agatha says breezily. “She won’t be able to help herself.”

Jen purses her lips. “I’m not sure if that’s true.”

“It is,” Agatha says, convincing herself as much as Jen. “When you lo—when you know someone it’s easy to guess what they’ll do. Like how I knew you’d be out here sulking having a cigarette without me.”

“Wait, what did you say?” Jen shakes her head.

“That I knew you’d be out here because I know you.”

“No, before that. When you were talking about Rio. You were going to say something else.”

Agatha feels her pulse quicken and her mouth twitch. “No I wasn’t.”

“You almost said love!” Jen practically squeals.

“No, I didn’t,” Agatha insists sharply. “I said know, I said when you know someone.”

Jen puts her hands on Agatha’s shoulders and sways her back and forth gently. “You loooove her,” she says, grinning.

Agatha swats her away, ducking out from under her arms. “Get off me! No I don’t!”

“You love her and you want to make little gay babies with her,” Jen teases.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Agatha says drily.

From afar they hear the bell ring. Agatha immediately starts heading back down the hill, cheeks flushed only partially from the cold. Jen floats behind her, chuckling to herself.

“Wow, I’m never going to let you live this down,” Jen sighs happily.

“If you do I’ll host for next season too,” Agatha offers.

Jen falls into step beside her. “I’ll think about it.”

//

The homecoming theme this year is Under the Sea, for approximately the fourth time in Agatha’s teaching career. Every few years the students think they have a novel idea, and every few years they trot out the same crepe paper and ugly handmade paper fish, adorning the walls. She and Alice point at them as they make their way to the gymnasium.

“Remember the year they did a hammerhead shark and it looked like a gray penis with eyes?” Alice chuckles.

Agatha cackles. “I had forgotten about that actually, that one was my favorite.”

“Jen was on snack duty, so Rio should be in here,” Alice says with a nod, hands clasped behind her back, trying to look nonchalant. She’s wearing a sort of western-style red and black suit that Agatha is almost jealous of, if rocker cowboy was her thing. Agatha herself has gone for a rare dress, a deep velvet navy with a high neck and no sleeves. It’s simple, sexy, and effective, or at least she hopes Rio will think so.

The fluorescent lights in the gym are off; instead a few trees with red, blue, and green lights flash near the DJ, providing the perfect ambiance for a bunch of sweaty high schoolers to awkwardly dance with each other.

“God, I love homecoming,” Alice sighs, taking in the sight.

Agatha doesn’t register what she’s said, eyes scanning the room for Rio. Agatha hasn’t seen her at all this week since their run in in the faculty room on Monday, which is almost impossible and must mean that Rio is avoiding her. Even after carnations were delivered yesterday she hasn’t heard anything. But Alice is right, Rio is right where she’s supposed to be, slouched behind the concession table and making sure no one spikes the punch. Agatha feels a pang when she sees her, realizing all at once how much she’s missed her this week.

Her suit is powder blue and her white shirt underneath is thin, fluttering slightly as she moves about. All of it fits her perfectly, which Agatha is learning is par for the course when it comes to Rio. Her hair is swept up off her shoulders, exposing her long neck.

Agatha feels Alice’s hand on her shoulder. “Go get em tiger,” she whispers conspiratorially.

Agatha rolls her eyes and shakes off Alice’s hand. “Yeah, yeah.”

Her heart slams in her chest as she walks through the gym towards Rio, dodging gaggles of teens in ugly dresses, arms adorned with corsages. Rio bends down to look for something under the table, and Agatha hurries the rest of the way across the room, clearing her throat to announce her presence as she lands in front of a bowl of Doritos.

Rio startles and almost bangs her head on the table as she comes up with a box of Capri Suns.

Agatha clears her throat again. “Hi,” she says, feeling fidgety all of a sudden. “You look nice.”

“Thank you,” Rio says. Her eye contact is brief, not enough for Agatha to get a read on her, and then she looks away into the box of Capri Sun and starts doling them out onto an empty spot on the table.

“Heard you stepped in for Jen,” Agatha says, saying the first thing that pops into her head just to keep the conversation going.

“Yeah, turns out I actually like all of the weird shit that comes with being a teacher,” Rio says, pressing her lips together. “Who knew?”

“Wait til they make you run detention,” Agatha says, pressing her palms flat on the table and leaning in. “It’s incredible.”

Rio laughs loudly and then looks down, like she doesn’t want Agatha to see her smile.

Agatha lowers her voice. “We should talk.”

“Has anything changed?” Rio asks breezily, suddenly very interested in the plastic tablecloth covered in waves.

Agatha tries not to stiffen at the implication. “Yes.”

Rio finally looks up raises her eyebrows. What?

“Me,” Agatha says. “I have.”

Rio studies her face for a moment then says, “That was fast.”

“Oh I’m sorry, how long were you expecting it to take?” Agatha can’t help snapping at her.

Rio chuckles, her tongue in her cheek—her damn tongue in her damn cheek—and tosses the empty box back under the table. “I just need some time to think,” she says finally.

Agatha feels herself growing irritable with something akin to embarrassment. “A week ago you were ready to be in a relationship.”

“A week ago you weren’t,” Rio counters, crossing her arms over her chest. “And now you are? You can change your mind that quickly but I can’t?”

“I didn’t change my mind,” Agatha grits. “I came to my senses.”

Rio straightens but her arms stay crossed.

“You were right,” Agatha admits, canting her chin to try to keep some sort of upper hand here. “We’re good together.”

“I think I said we were good for each other,” Rio corrects.

“Is there a difference?” Agatha asks.

“For us there is,” Rio says cryptically.

“So now what?” Agatha sighs. “I’m supposed to wait around for you to be ready?”

“That’s entirely up to you, sweetheart,” Rio coos with a wicked smile.

Anger and embarrassment and arousal flare in Agatha’s chest, not a good combination. How dare Rio waltz into her life and make her fall in love with her, only to pull away as soon as Agatha says she’s ready? Agatha gives a huff of frustration and half-heartedly knocks over the rows of Capri Sun Rio so meticulously arranged as she pushes away from the snack table. She stomps back across the gym, eyes blurry as she looks for Alice.

Agatha regrets ever asking Alice to introduce her to Rio. Why had she needed that money back so badly anyway? What was a few thousand dollars, really? She regrets ever seeing Rio, ever being fooled by those big brown eyes and her little tank tops. She regrets sleeping with her. All of this would be so easy if she’d never slept with her, if she never knew how wet Rio’s cunt got for her, how Agatha could feel how badly Rio wanted it. She regrets second period, she regrets karaoke, she regrets telling her about Wanda. She regrets the sweet names she called Rio, the tender things she let Rio say to her. She regrets sweetheart most of all. She’s never let anyone call her that before.

Finally she spots Alice, dutifully chaperoning in a corner of the gym by the stage, where she can see everything.

“Goddammit, why are you so short?” Agatha snaps at her. “It’s impossible to find you amongst all the kids.”

“How did that go?” Alice asks, ignoring the outburst.

“She’s ’not ready’,” Agatha says in a mocking tone. “Which is bullshit because she was so pissed that I wouldn’t stay over at her apartment last weekend. Threw a hissy fit about it and everything.”

“She likes you,” Alice says simply.

“I told you, I’m done with dating. Done. None of it is worth…” Agatha runs a hand through her hair and is surprised to find it is shaking. “…this.”

Something steely sets in Alice’s eyes then, and she steps closer to Agatha, lowering her voice. “You can’t give up with Rio. Not after all my hard work.”

Agatha scoffs. “Yeah, thank you so much for introducing us.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“You know I hate it when you get cryptic like this.”

Alice sighs. Why does she look so nervous? “Didn’t you ever think it was strange that Rio just suddenly got offered a substitute job?”

“No, because she’s obsessed with me,” Agatha says with a shrug. “She’d do anything to be around me, though I don’t know why she went to all that trouble, because now she’s practically ignoring me—“

“God, you’re such a Leo,” Alice sighs.

“I know.” Agatha flips her hair over her shoulder.

“But didn’t you think it was strange that someone with no prior teaching experience was offered a job at a random high school in New Jersey? The one where you happen to work?”

“She TA’ed in college,” Agatha says uneasily. Now Alice is making her nervous.

Alice lets out a grunt of frustration. “Agatha, I got her that job. She doesn’t know it but I recommended her to Davis because… well because she’s my friend, but also because you two are good for each other.”

Agatha’s eye twitches at the mention of the exact phrase Rio used to describe them. All of a sudden she feels clammy, like she might pass out. “Okay,” she says slowly. “But Badalamenti took leave so suddenly, it’s not like you…”

Alice makes a face somewhere between a wince and a grin.

“Alice, what did you do?” Agatha demands. Her voice is a strained whisper barely audible over the music.

“The guy was a creep,” Alice explains, leaning in. “Always gave me weird vibes. And he was always making the grossest comments about me and Jen.”

“So, what? You…”

“Cyber bullied him into a leave of absence, basically,” Alice summates. “Told him I was a student and I was going to come forward with allegations.”

Agatha’s mouth twists into a wicked smile. “Alice, you evil genius.” She clears her throat. “Not that I support you meddling in my love life, when I’ve specifically told you not to.”

“It wasn’t just me, Billy helped,” Alice says defensively.

“What?” Agatha’s voice is so loud that several people turn their heads to stare.

“I don’t know how to do any of that stuff. Fake profiles, whatever,” Alice says. “So he… showed me the basics and I took it from there.”

“That stupid twink,” Agatha mutters under her breath.

“But do you get what I’m saying, Agatha? All of us think you’re perfect together.”

“For each other,” Agatha corrects without thinking, her eyes glancing over at Rio, looking sullen by the snacks.

“Is there a difference?” Alice asks, creasing her brow.

“Yeah,” Agatha says, watching Rio scratch the back of her neck. “Yeah, there is.”

She knows suddenly what she has to do, the kind of crazy thing people do in movies. The kind of thing she does not do, not until Rio, apparently. The kind of thing people do when they are in love, or whatever.

Agatha leaves Alice’s side without a word and feels her body moving towards the stage, climbing the stairs. She takes the mic from the DJ and gestures to him to turn the music down. He looks at her, confused, but obliges.

The microphone squeals and Agatha clears her throat over the chorus of groans. “Hello Westview High, hope everyone is having a good homecoming,” she begins awkwardly.

“Turn the music back on!” a kid yells.

Agatha glances over to the snack table where Rio is standing rigidly, eyes wide like she’s watching a car crash.

“Part of homecoming is about welcoming back former students, and welcoming in new students. And teachers,” Agatha continues. God this was a terrible idea. She’s practically incapable of embarrassment and even she feels her cheeks burning. “And we have some new teachers we need to welcome this year. Um, Ms. Springs, the new chorus teacher.”

Alice cheers and a few students clap. Agatha had pulled that one out of her ass; she only knows the woman’s name because her classroom is directly next to Alice’s.

“And… um, there’s a new social studies teacher, isn’t there?”

“Watkins!” Alice stage whispers.

“Yes, Mr.—“

“Ms.!”

“Ms. Watkins, give it up for Ms. Watkins!” There is another unsure smattering of applause. “And we can’t let our long term subs go unthanked, where would we be without them, right?”

“Bro what is going on?” a student asks loudly.

“Let her cook!” someone else says.

“Please join me in giving a huge, huge thank you to Ms. Vidal, our sub for computer sciences,” Agatha says, extending her arm out to point in Rio’s general direction. Rio shifts uncomfortably under the attention, but she gives a polite wave. There is light applause for Rio, a few whoops, more than the other two got anyway. Agatha takes a big breath, looking directly at Rio. “Ms. Vidal, I think I speak for all of us when I say: thank you for coming to Westview High. You have changed all of our lives, taught us new things about ourselves, and made us feel—“

Agatha clears her throat, suddenly choked up. Mortified, she pushes through. “Uh, anyway. You’ve made us realize we don’t want to live without you.”

Someone coughs.

“At Westview High,” Agatha adds haltingly. “We here, all of us at Westview High, thank you.” She turns back to the DJ and pulls the mic away from her mouth. “Turn the fucking music back on,” she hisses.

All too eager to move past this bizarre interlude, the DJ resumes the music and the students go back to dancing. Agatha dismounts the stage in a daze and Alice meets her at the foot of the stairs, her eyes huge.

“Did you have a stroke up there?” she asks, but she’s grinning.

“Basically,” Agatha huffs, trying to get her heart rate to return to normal. In her head she’s drafting her letter of resignation so she never has to see any of these people ever again.

Alice guides Agatha by the elbow through the crowd. “God, I wish Jen could have seen that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Agatha mutters.

A group of students parts, clearing their way, and then Rio is standing there in her blue suit, brown eyes wide. “Can I talk to you?” she says, pointing at Agatha.

Alice releases her arm and Agatha nods. She falls into step with Rio, who is doing her annoying little speed walking thing across the gym floor and out the double doors into the hallway. Rio’s hand reaches for Agatha’s and she clasps it tightly, interlacing their fingers and tugging them towards the lobby, then out into the night and across the parking lot. Agatha’s heart hammers in her chest as they approach what she recognizes as Rio’s sporty black sedan.

“Is this a kidnapping?” Agatha jokes.

Rio leans in and kisses her softly, her tongue slipping into Agatha’s mouth and her hand coming to rest on her hip. Agatha presses against her in earnest, her hands cupping Rio’s face, in disbelief that her unhinged speech in there actually worked. Rio grips Agatha’s wrists, anchoring them together, walking backwards into Rio’s car. Their lips separate at the interruption.

“That depends on you,” Rio says.

“What?” Agatha’s head is foggy and it takes her a minute to realize Rio is answering her about the alleged kidnapping. They both laugh and Rio kisses her again, quick and hungry against Agatha’s mouth, her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

“That was some speech in there,” Rio says into her ear. She bites Agatha’s earlobe and it makes Agatha cry out.

“All of my best work is improv,” Agatha manages to get out.

“Yeah, I could tell it was very off the cuff,” Rio chuckles. “Ow!” she says as Agatha bites her neck.

Rio reaches into her pocket for her keys and unlocks her car with a short beep. She and Agatha both instinctively get in the back seat, the doors slamming behind them. The air in Rio’s car is cool and humid, and Agatha shivers in her dress. Rio, ever the gentleman, offers her her suit jacket, which Agatha accepts mostly because it means she gets to see Rio’s arms in her loose white tank top. They still, Agatha pulling the jacket around her shoulders as they lean against opposite doors.

“So you can’t live without me, huh?” Rio asks. Goosebumps prickle her arms but she doesn’t ask for her jacket back.

“I believe I said I don’t want to,” Agatha intones, flicking a piece of lint off her dress. “And before you ask if there’s a difference, there is.”

Rio smirks. “You’ve noticed that I’m pretty pedantic, huh?”

“I’m an English teacher, I think I can handle it.”

“And you can handle me?” Rio asks.

Agatha laughs. “Honey, I should be asking you that.”

“You know the answer,” Rio says, her voice low and playful.

“I missed you,” Agatha says finally, lifting her gaze to meet Rio’s eyes.

“It’s very big of you to admit that,” Rio teases.

Agatha kicks her gently with the toe of her shoe, but Rio grabs her foot and lets Agatha’s heel slide off, lets the hem of her dress ride up to her knees. Agatha’s breath catches in her chest as Rio closes her hand around the arch of her foot and presses a wet kiss against her ankle bone.

“I missed you too,” Rio says into her skin.

Agatha lounges back against the door, blissed out at the sensation and the fact that this night is going exactly as she’d hoped. Her knees fall open and her dress hikes up, up, up, her legs almost completely exposed.

“I always wanted to hook up after homecoming,” Rio says absently, running her hand up Agatha’s calf, her fingers teasing that spot behind Agatha’s knee that makes her hips buck.

“Now’s your chance,” Agatha says, only a slight teasing tone to her voice because if Rio stops touching her she might actually have an aneurysm.

“I will,” Rio says, mock thoughtfully, her chin tilting upward, “if you sleep over at my place tonight.”

It’s impractical; Agatha’s place is only ten minutes away as opposed to Rio’s thirty, and she’d had plans to make her daydream of fucking Rio on top of the washing machine into a reality. But Agatha has never been one to deny herself pleasure, and it’s what Rio wants, what she’d wanted a week ago, maybe what she’d wanted from the moment she met Agatha in that stupid restaurant and couldn’t stop staring.

“Is that funny?” Rio asks.

Agatha realizes she’s grinning and explains, “I was just thinking about when we met.”

“Stop stalling,” Rio commands, but there is a smile behind her gritted teeth, a laugh behind the bite.

“Yes, I will sleep over,” Agatha acquiesces.

Rio grins. “All weekend.”

Agatha can only admire her persistence, and the way the orange street light is slanting through the back windshield of Rio’s car, casting a shadow in the hollows of her collarbones and in between her small breasts. She scoots towards Rio in the backseat, her leg folding up between them.

“All weekend,” Agatha agrees, her voice hoarse for some reason. Maybe love or whatever, she’ll think about it later.

Rio kisses her then, hard, winding a hand in Agatha’s hair and moaning when Agatha’s tongue enters her mouth. Their teeth clash between shaky breaths and Agatha mutters “fuck” when Rio’s hands ruck up her dress and squeeze her thighs. She tries to savor it, tries to remember every feeling, every swipe of Rio’s thumb across her clit, every sluice of Rio’s tongue down her neck, every time one of them bumps their head on the roof of the car.

Tonight, it will be breathless and a little ridiculous in the best way. It will be crowded and uncomfortable, without enough room for the right angles. It will be too fast, and then not enough, and then just right. Later, in Rio’s bed, it will be reconciliatory and worshipful, with loud, long moans that fill up the room. Tomorrow it will be easy, natural, indulgent, and in the days and weeks to come they will be good for each other. It will be exactly what it’s supposed to be.