Evie
Evie had played dirty, giving up Tilly’s flight info to Sean.
But she didn’t really care. Tilly would have put it off for days, avoiding Sean as long as she could. Maybe Evie wasn’t giving her the benefit of the doubt, but at least this way it was all done. Plus, her ankles had been swollen and after being on her feet all day at work, covering for a casual worker who’d called in sick, she’d not wanted to go to the airport at ten at night.
Well, a part of her had wanted to.
But she’d also known she and Tilly would have gone to bed and then…
And then what?
This was all new and Tilly had only just opened up and there was still the whole question of what the hell were they doing?
Kissing her at the airport had been incredibly spontaneous and felt incredibly right but now, Evie had no idea what was next. So, she did what she always did as a last resort when she had nowhere left to go when lost about what to do.
She went to see her mum.
“Honey!” Her mum opened the screen door with a whack and launched herself out, wrapping her arms around Evie and giving her a gentle squeeze, hands rubbing up and down her back in the same way she’d done since Evie could remember.
“Hey, Mum,” she breathed.
“Let me look at you, it’s been weeks.” She stood back, hands on Evie’s shoulders, and looked her up and down, eyes lingering on Evie’s belly. “Oh, look at you. You look amazing.”
“I feel like a beach ball.”
“Beach balls can look amazing.” Her mum winked and turned, leading the way through the house into the smaller kitchen.
Evie slid onto one of the stools at the small kitchen bar, her mum switching the kettle on.
“Tea or coffee?” she asked, hand hovering on the handle of the cupboard that held her thousands of types of tea.
“Tea, mint.”
“Your tummy?” she asked, plucking down the packet.
“Yeah, heartburn for days.”
Her mum chuckled, dropping a tea bag in each mug as the kettle started to bubble. “I had the same with you and your brother. Lasted for weeks on end.”
Evie slumped on the bench top as the kettle clicked off and her mum reached for it. “Well, that’s encouraging.”
Her mum put a steaming cup of mint tea down in front of her, and stood across from Evie, her own cup in hand. “Not to sound too cliché, but you forget it all when you hold the little thing.”
Evie tried to pick up her mug, the ceramic burning hot. “Ow. I still don’t understand how you hold your cup when it’s just been filled.”
“Mum tricks.”
Evie snorted. “Sure.”
“So, what’s up?” her mum asked.
Wriggling guiltily, Evie asked, “Why do you think something’s up?”
“You barely ever come see me during the weekend. We chat on the phone. But when you’ve got something on your mind, you appear.”
Evie gave her a wan smile. “You know me too well.”
“I’m your mother.” That smile faltered and her mum put her mug down, her look intensifying. “What’s up?”
“What makes you a parent?”
Her mother’s mouth opened, then shut. “Huh.” She chuckled. “I thought that would be an easy question to answer.”
“Right?”
“I think…” Her mum was being so considerate of her words. Evie held her breath. “It’s wanting the best for the little person in your care. Wanting them to be healthy and happy and safe, of course. But also wanting to help them learn. And be good people.” Her mum bit her lip. “But it’s also all the little moments. It’s being vomited on at three a.m. and having the energy and patience to clean it up, even though you know it could happen again in ten minutes. It’s endless pages of finger paintings that all look the same and you hope your kids don’t notice mostly go in the recycling. It’s listening to the same joke twenty times and pretending to laugh so you can see the little flash of pride on their face because they’re so happy they were funny.” Her mum shrugged, picking up her tea and blowing on it. “It’s a lot of things. It is, I think, unquantifiable.”
Evie flicked her thumb against the rim of her mug. “Not once did you say it’s giving birth or carrying a baby.”
“Because it’s not. Are you… Evie, are you thinking of not keeping the baby?”
To her mum’s credit, she kept the same calm look on her face.
“No, no, that’s not it. Tilly…”
Her mother’s brow finally wrinkled. “Was Tilly adopted?”
“I—” Evie paused. Was this hers to tell? It may not be.
“Does Tilly want to adopt the baby?” Her mum’s eyes lit up. “Are you two going to raise the baby together?”
Evie, finally attempting to pick up her mug, jolted in surprise, boiling hot tea sloshing over the side and missing her hand by a hair. “What?!”
“Is that it? It took you two long enough, wow. I thought I was going to be in my grave by the time you two got your act together. This is just… This is perfect. How fantastic. The two of you will be such great mums.”
Evie stared at her mother, mouth agape.
Her mum finally paused. “Wait. Is that not it?” She blinked. “I mean, what? You and Tilly? What a ridiculous notion.”
Evie kept staring at her.
Her mum winced. “I mean… Who would think of you and Tilly as a couple? Certainly not I. Nor your brother. Nor all of my friends in my book club. Or Beryl next door. Nope.”
“You—You know?”
Her mum cleared her throat. “Know…what?”
She knew when her mum was trying to feel her out for information. “Mum, what do you think you know?”
“What do I know I know, you mean?”
Evie glared at her.
Her mum rolled her eyes. “You’re in love with Tilly.”
“I—” Evie pressed her lips together. “I am not.” Because no child wanted to live in a world in which their mother was right.
Her mum managed to keep her snort of derision fairly quiet. Fairly. “Right. And I’m the pope.”
“What do you mean, my brother? And Beryl? What the hell does Beryl know?”
Beryl was eighty-five if she was a day, and lived alone with three dogs and two cats and was livelier than Evie had ever been in her life.
“Well, Beryl said you two reminded her of her and her roommate back at nursing school. I’ll give you a hint…they weren’t just roommates.” Her mum’s eyebrows raised. “She has got some fantastic stories if you ever want to sit down and talk with her with a bit of gin or some chocolate.”
“You knew? This whole time?”
And her book club, apparently. Christ.
“I mean… Oh, honey.” Her mum finally took pity on her clearly distressed daughter, reaching across to grasp her hand. “I’m sorry. I thought that’s what this was about. Which now I think of the question you asked, was maybe me projecting.”
“I mean, it’s not not what it was about. Just not, the point.”
Her mum’s entire face lit up. “Are you two together?”
“No…we’re… I have no idea what it is, Mum.”
Her mum squeezed her hand. “All of the best things take a bit to figure out when they’re new. You’re not used to having something that great, so it can take a bit to recognise it.”
“Tilly has a lot of…stuff.”
“Well, that’s also obvious. Is she going to stop disappearing?”
“I think so?”
“Hm.” Her mum’s look hardened a little. “She needs to stop that if she’s going to be there for you and the baby.”
“I don’t know if she wants to be there yet, though, Mum.”
And she so wanted to tell her mum. To talk it out. But it wasn’t her place. “Tilly told me why she leaves. And I want to share it with you, but I think she needs to tell you, when she’s ready. But I don’t know what she wants. Because that’s a lot for her to be dealing with. Will she stay because she wants to? And what if she doesn’t want a kid? What if she stays because she feels obligated? What if she doesn’t think she deserves it?”
Her mother let out a slow breath. “I think you two need to talk.”
Evie slumped into her arms, half sprawled out on the bench. “That was not useful, Mum.”
“Do I think Tilly’s erratic behaviour since you met her is without reproach? Of course not. I can’t say much for sure until hearing the story from Tilly, but it sounds like a lot makes sense to you now? But people, especially when a huge weight is lifted off their shoulders, can, well, not exactly change. I guess it’s more become who they were meant to be without being burdened by something.”
Evie turned her head and stared up at her mum from behind her frizzed-up hair.
Her mum was looking down on her, face fond. “Also, when Tilly is in Perth, which is most of the time, she’s been so very present in your life, and Sean’s. The three of you are thick as thieves. She’s been there for you. She’s reliable when you need her.” Her mum shrugged. “Maybe that’s who Tilly really is, when stripped of something she’s been punishing herself for, or whatever it is she’s been doing.”
Hard, against her ribs, Evie’s chest thumped in sympathy for Tilly at those words. “I think that is her, Mum. I think that is who she is.”
“Me too.”
“I’m really scared.” Evie’s eyes were full of tears, something that happened far too easily these days. “I’m so scared of what this can all mean. Of having a baby, and being a mum, and figuring out how Luke is going to be involved, and then throwing a new relationship with Tilly in the middle of it all?”
Immediately, her mum rounded the kitchen island and wrapped her arms around Evie, pulling her head into her chest, hand soft against her forehead. Evie felt ridiculously childish yet so very comforted: her mum’s hand firm and warm, the hug encompassing and solid.
“Having a baby and then raising a child will never stop being terrifying,” her mum said softly, rocking her gently. “And taking a risk on a relationship can be even more terrifying. But you and Tilly?” Her mum gave a deep chuckle. “That’s the lowest risk I can imagine. I’ve never seen anyone so in love with a person like that woman is with you.”
Evie gave a half-sob, half-laugh and turned her head, burying her face into her mother and letting herself receive the hug.
“Also, so you know, Evie girl?” Her mum murmured. “This is being a parent. When they’re grown up and overwhelmed, and they know they can still come to you.”
Doubt still sat inside Evie’s thoughts, layered a little heavy. But it wasn’t as thick as it had been before she’d got to her mum’s. It had eased, if ever so slightly.
“Have you slept together yet?”
“Mum!”
Her mum cackled. “Couldn’t help myself.” She paused, but only briefly. “But you didn’t say no.”
“We’ve kissed.”
“Yaaay,” her mum whispered.
Evie snorted. “You’re fifteen years old, I swear.”
“I—what do the kids say? I ship it, sorry. Can’t help it.”
“You ship Tilly and me?”
“Big time.”
“Stop.”
“Fine. When are you seeing her again?”
“She’s meeting me at my house tonight. She’s going to cook me dinner.”
“Bow chicka wow-wow.”
“Mum.”
“Sorry.”
Her mum pulled her in tighter, her mirth evident in the rumbling chuckles from her chest where Evie’s ear was pressed. And still her hand soothed her brow.
“Mum?” Evie said, her voice muffled in her shirt.
“Yes?”
“Dad contacted me.”
Her mum sighed, a long, worn-out sound. “Did he just.”
With her eyes still closed, Evie nodded, not ready to look at the world when talking about this. “He’s been trying to contact me for ages. Since before I got pregnant.”
Her mum had tensed a little. “How do you feel about that?”
Evie shrugged, the movement separating her from her mum enough to twist and blink up at her. “Angry, to be honest.”
Her mum brushed hair off her face. “That’s understandable.”
“Honestly though, I want him to…go away. I don’t want a relationship with him.”
“You’re entitled to that.”
“You don’t think I should at least talk to him?”
Her mum pursed her lips. “What I think doesn’t really matter. I let go of my anger towards him a long time ago. Maybe you should let your brother know he’s around, though.”
Evie stared up at her mum. “How? How can you not be angry, even just a bit? He abandoned us. He left you to work your ass off to support two kids, one a newborn.”
“I won’t lie, Evie; I was angry for a long time. Believe me, I was. One night, when you kids were in bed, I called every single person we both knew. The further into my bottle of wine I got, the angrier I got with each of them that had no answers.” She swallowed. “I had a lot of making up to do with some friends. But that anger is toxic, it builds up and sits in you. So I tried to let it go. Of course there’s some anger still there. But it’s done, and mostly I’m sad for him.”
Evie reeled back. “Sad?”
Her mum touched her cheek, her eyes so soft Evie felt as if she were tiny, small enough to fit into her mother’s lap and be wrapped up in arms that felt like everything. “Of course I’m sad for him. He missed out on you and your brother, watching you two grow and become who you are. How sad for him.”
Sometimes, Evie thought, leaning back into her mother, everything could feel too big. But sometimes, someone could make it all feel that little bit more manageable.
“I want to speak more Mandarin with you,” Evie said, switching from English. “To teach the baby.”
“Oh.” Her mum was definitely choked up as she switched to Mandarin, too. “That sounds perfect to me.” Evie’s mum stroked her hair. “Your tones are definitely off.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true. I focused far too much on English when you were a child.” She squeezed Evie even tighter. “No time like the present.”
A knock at the door.
A roiling in her stomach.
Evie threw the door open, wondering if this was what they meant when people talked about having butterflies—she’d never been nervous enough to feel them. Not these excited, happy ones, anyway. Tilly stood on the other side of the door, a bag of shopping in her hand, and the same sheepish smile she wore when returning after a disappearance. Her cheeks were tinged pink, probably from the warmth that still clung to the air as daylight still clung to the sky.
“Hey,” Tilly breathed.
Evie took in a breath, letting it out slowly. “Hi.”
“I’m back.” And that smile twitched up, became a grin.
“You are.” Evie raised her eyebrows. “Right when you said you would be and everything.”
Tilly lifted the heavy shopping bag, with what looked like celery leaves bulging out the top. “And I come bearing everything to cook you bolognaise with.”
“I suppose I’ll let you in, then.” Evie stood back.
Tilly stepped in, sliding close past Evie, that smile still splitting her cheeks. “Hey,” she whispered, pausing when she was in front of Evie, their fronts barely touching.
She was so close. Evie’s breath left her in a rush and the familiarity was there, the rightness of Tilly in her home. But now, something sparked in the space between them, something new or something that had always been there, Evie didn’t know. But it chased the uncertainty away, and Evie found herself wavering forward, her nose brushing Tilly’s for a moment, eyes half closed. She couldn’t help her own smile, a reflection of Tilly’s: wide and unrestrained.
Tilly tilted forward and Evie’s eyes closed, and Tilly pressed her lips to hers. A soft pressure, gentle and barely there.
Reassuring and teasing, and everything she could want.
Tilly pulled back, and when Evie opened her eyes, that smile had somehow grown. Tilly was radiant when she smiled like this, untethered to worldly problems, in the moment. Her eyes were the softest of browns, and as warm as honey.
“It’s so strange that I can just, do that,” Tilly whispered.
And Evie laughed, because it was strange they’d finally crossed this line they’d danced along forever.
Tilly’s eyebrows rose, and she laughed too, dropping the bag on the ground and pulling Evie in for a hug, still chuckling. Evie let herself be drawn into Tilly, flush against her, and wrapped her arms around her in return. The softness of Tilly’s neck was warm when Evie turned her face into it and there was nothing weird about this.
“This feels less strange,” Tilly murmured.
Evie murmured her agreement, her lips pressing against the skin. Not an accidental brushing but a deliberate kiss. The skin on her neck was even softer than Evie had realised.
Tilly shivered. “That’s new, though,” Tilly said, laughter still lacing her voice, even as her head tilted in response to the touch of Evie’s lips.
It was tempting to keep laying kisses along her neck. To work her way to Tilly’s jaw, her cheek, to the corner of her mouth. She placed one more, right under her jaw, and Tilly’s breath hitched.
So tempting. But too much, for now.
Evie pulled back. “Dinner?”
Tilly, pupils blown wide, nodded. “Sure.” Her voice was a little hoarse. “Dinner.”
So, they made dinner. Evie pulled herself up onto the bench, heels of her bare feet tapping lightly on the wood of a cabinet. With an ease in the kitchen Evie had never possessed nor probably ever would, Tilly cut onion and garlic and set it to brown on the stove. Tilly started cutting vegetables into similar sized pieces—a feat in itself for Evie, who simply hacked them into whatever size they happened to fall into.
The fact that people, mainly Tilly, pointed out it meant everything cooked at different speeds only made her more stubborn. “How was everyone when you left?” Evie asked.
“Good. Or as good as can be expected. Laura is recovering well, hating her physio, which is good in the long run because she has the energy to abhor something so strongly. Getting her kick back. She’ll be home in a few days.”
“That’s good.” Evie watched Tilly add the now-chopped veggies in with the garlic and onion. “Do you make me pasta because you know it’s the easiest way to get me to eat vegetables by putting them in the sauce?”
“Yes,” Tilly said bluntly. She turned, grinning, cheeks still pink and shoulders at ease and Evie loved her, so easily. Hair frizzing in the heat and looking cheeky. “Hamburgers do not a balanced diet make, Evie.”
“Hey! You can get super gourmet ones now that are full of healthy stuff like mushrooms and greens and…stuff.”
With a roll of her eyes, Tilly went back to her chopping. “I still think you’re supposed to, you know, eat more than burgers.”
“Sometimes I get a veggie one.”
“Sure, Evie.”
“Hey,” Evie pouted. “Don’t make the pregnant woman defensive. I’ll probably cry.”
Tilly chuckled. “How many ads have you cried at already?”
Evie’s silence was enough of an answer.
Tilly let out a bark of laughter as she gave the sizzling vegetables a stir and then turned the heat way down. Now she was free to give all her attention to Evie. Tilly’s hip came to rest against the bench, with Evie’s knees gently pressing against her stomach. Her hand fell lightly to the space between Evie’s knee and thigh.
“Let me guess? You cried at all of them?”
Evie didn’t drop the pout. “I was watching a clip online and didn’t even skip the ad that played first because I was sobbing too hard.”
Tilly looked far too amused. “Yeah, that’s the worst.” She raised a hand, hovering it over Evie’s stomach. “Can I?”
Evie gestured her forward with a wave of her hand. “It’s quiet in there, though, right now. I think it’s napping.”
Tilly placed a hand on her belly, and Evie put one of hers over it. The baby stayed quiet, though, as if everything was settled in its little world.
“When Laura was all quiet in the evening,” Tilly said, bracingly, as if talking about it required all the steel she had in her. Her voice, though, was gentle. Her eyes, big and wide, blinked at Evie and Evie would happily fall into them if it kept her this close and soft. “It would mean she was going to be the exact opposite all night. Like, party central at one a.m.”
Evie placed her other hand over Tilly’s too, so both of hers enveloped Tilly’s, and gave her a smile that felt fragile. “That’s what this one does.”
Tilly’s eyes were swimming, her gaze now on their joined hands over Evie’s stomach. She drew in a shuddering breath and the pressure of her hand increased slightly, as if the tips of her fingers needed some kind of purchase to feel secure.
“Tilly,” Evie said.
A long moment passed, but finally Tilly looked up, eyes red and brimming.
“Hey,” Evie said.
“Hey.”
“What are you thinking?”
Tilly let out another shuddering breath, but she kept her gaze on Evie, blindly reaching back with one hand to flick the stove off completely. “That you make me so happy. The thought of…of letting myself have all of this, it makes me so happy.”
Evie found her own eyes damp, and she looked up at the ceiling for a second, hoping to control any tears, but when she looked back to Tilly, tears on her cheeks, she failed.
“I’m scared,” Evie said, voice low, “that you won’t let yourself have it.”
Tilly nodded, another tear escaping and running unchecked down her cheek, following the same track as the other one had, a pre-set path of emotion.
“I’m scared that you’ll stay as some kind of, of penance, because you feel obliged, because of Laura. And at the same time, I’m scared you won’t let yourself stay if you want, because you feel you don’t deserve this.”
Tilly’s breath held, not quite a sob, not quite simply a breath.
“I’m scared,” Evie continued, “that I want this, and you don’t. Or you do, but won’t let it happen. One of the two, basically.” She gave a weak, watery smile.
Tilly didn’t rush to comfort her with words, which Evie found more comforting than if she had. Instead, she looked as if she were measuring what to say. She bit her lip, skin blotchy like it always was the few times Evie had seen her cry. Finally, Tilly said, “I’m scared, too. I’m scared I don’t deserve this, like you said. I don’t deserve you—” she ignored Evie’s vehement shake of her head “—I’m scared that you want what I want, which is what I want. It’s not a penance.” And she stared into Evie’s eyes, as if she could convince her of it. “I’m scared, that all of this, you and a future with you, where we both want it, aren’t for me. Not because of not wanting it, but because how can I deserve such a thing when I gave up—” and her voice hitched, again “—gave up Laura. Why do I deserve this now?”
Evie leaned forward a little, cupping Tilly’s cheeks and pulling her between Evie’s legs as much as her stomach allowed, so Tilly was unable to turn away. “You do deserve good things. You deserve love, and happiness, and to start a family, if that’s what you want to do. You deserve good things.”
Tilly took in a shuddering breath, closing her eyes, eyelashes wet and casting shadows on her cheeks, they were so long. She moved in closer, so their foreheads pressed together.
Evie lifted a hand to rake her fingers gently through Tilly’s hair. Her other remained cupping her face, one thumb sweeping soothingly over her cheekbone.
“Maybe,” Tilly said, eyes still closed, as if she could ignore all this truth even after acknowledging it a moment before. “Maybe you don’t want me, though.”
“Tilly,” Evie murmured, letting the word wash over Tilly’s lips, wishing it were something tangible she could pass on. So Tilly would be able to breathe in what Evie was about to tell her, take the words into her lungs, let them settle into her veins, pump through her blood, feed the very bones of her. “I’ve wanted you since I first met you in that uni room forever ago.”
Tilly gave a sob, the noise bursting from her; a relieved sound, one of letting go. She pulled back enough to be able to see Evie. “Really?”
“Yes.” Evie nodded. “Really. And I still do.”
“Me too,” Tilly said, surging forward to press her lips to Evie’s, pulling back enough to whisper, “God, me too.”
Evie’s fingers ran through her hair, until her hands cupped the back of Tilly’s head to pull her into a deeper kiss, one hand trailing down, fingers brushing over Tilly’s neck to rest above her collarbone. Her tongue was against Tilly’s, teasing, and Evie thought Tilly could shatter. Or maybe, the shattered parts of her were being pulled back together, the feeling much the same as when they’d first broken apart.
Letting Tilly tug her shirt over her head in the bedroom, the only light that spilling in from the hallway, should have made her giggle at the strangeness of a line being crossed. But instead, she smiled into the kiss Tilly fell back into as soon as that layer was gone, and didn’t think at all. Her fingers fumbled with the button on Tilly’s jeans, and they both laughed at the impossibility of Evie trying to get her shorts off in any kind of acrobatic way. It didn’t matter, though, that it wasn’t film perfect, that Tilly ended up with one sock left on.
Because Evie’s entire body was on fire.
There was a moment of shyness, at the way her body wasn’t what it had ever been before. But it was chased away so quickly by the adoration in Tilly’s eyes as Tilly knelt on the floor between Evie’s legs at the end of the bed, lips tracing up the sensitive skin of Evie’s thigh and leaving heat and goosebumps in their wake. That shyness was nowhere to be seen when Evie tugged a pillow up behind her to lay back on, and Tilly’s hands stroked along her, her tongue following, and Evie’s hand fisted in her hair as she felt her entire being shake apart in an entirely different way.
None of it was enough. Everything was as if, after taking so long to come together, that now it couldn’t be sated. A need created in them both that would take eternity to fill. They tried in just that night, regardless of the feeling chasing them that what was needed was more than just this one night.
They needed forever.
The promise of that forever was in the way that Tilly pushed their foreheads together later, side by side on the pillows, her leg hooked over Evie’s hip and a hand between each other’s legs. The whisper of their breath on each other’s lips and the way that when Tilly came, it was with a smile, tears spilling down her cheeks. The loving way she kissed every inch of Evie’s body, that darkened line down her navel, her breasts, the stretch marks Evie thought she wouldn’t like, but under Tilly’s eye and touch were more than just liked.
They were almost worshipped.
And even after they came apart and put each other back again, when the clock was lit up at some ridiculous time of the morning, Tilly still looked at her like Evie was everything and Tilly was there to show her that.
So Evie spent an hour showing her right back that Tilly was everything, too. Her fingers lingered over scars she’d never seen on Tilly’s abdomen, having once thought Tilly was body shy, when really she’d been hiding. She made sure to lay her lips there. Everywhere. And by the end of it, Tilly’s hair clinging to her sweaty cheeks, Evie thought that maybe she’d convinced her.