Chapter 21: The Morning After the Rooftop
The first thing Y/n was aware of was warmth. A solid, breathing warmth along her back, and a band of molten sunlight across her closed eyes. She was on her side, Margot curled around her, one arm slung possessively over her waist, a leg tangled between hers. The sheets were expensive, cool linen, but the air smelled like them—sleep and sex and skin.
Margot’s breath hitched, a soft, waking sound against the nape of Y/n’s neck. The arm around her tightened.
“You’re still here,” Margot murmured, her voice rough with sleep.
“Where else would I be?” Y/n said, her own voice a low rasp.
She turned slowly within the circle of Margot’s arms, facing her. Morning light cut across the vast penthouse, gliding the dust motes and making Margot’s blonde hair a chaotic halo on the pillow. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, blue and unguarded.
No words were needed. The promise from the rooftop was here, in this bed, waiting to be reaffirmed. Y/n leaned in and kissed her, slow and deep. It tasted like yesterday and tomorrow. Margot sighed into it, her hands coming up to cradle Y/n’s face, her thumbs stroking her jaw.
It was different from the frantic heat of the roof. This was a lazy, sun-drenched exploration. A mapping of morning textures. Y/n kissed the corner of Margot’s mouth, the delicate skin beneath her ear, the pulse at the base of her throat. Her hands, under the rumpled sheet, traveled the familiar landscape of Margot’s hip, the curve of her waist, with a reverence that was new.
Margot arched into the touch, her fingers sliding into Y/n’s short curls. “No rush,” she whispered, as if reading the meticulous care in Y/n’s movements.
There wasn’t. Time had dissolved. The only sounds were their breathing, the distant sigh of city traffic thirty floors below, and the rustle of linen.
Y/n moved over her, bracing her weight on her forearms, her grey-blue eyes holding Margot’s. The sunlight gilded the sweat from their night on her collarbones, the muscle definition in her shoulders. She was a solid, real weight. An anchor.
“You’re beautiful,” Margot said, the words simple and devastatingly sincere.
A faint flush crept up Y/n’s neck. She ducked her head, kissing Margot again to hide it, but Margot just smiled against her lips.
Their joining was a slow, deep slide. A homecoming. Y/n buried her face in the pillow beside Margot’s head, her body trembling not with strain, but with a feeling so vast it threatened to crack her open. Margot’s legs wrapped around her, pulling her deeper, her heels pressing into the small of Y/n’s back.
They moved together in a rhythm that was theirs alone. It wasn’t about crescendo. It was about presence. Each thrust, each shared gasp, was a silent word in the vow they were making. Y/n’s hands found Margot’s, their fingers lacing together against the sheets.
When the peak came, it washed over them like a slow tide, not a crashing wave. A shuddering release that left them breathless, clinging to each other as the sunlight pooled around them.
The coffee maker in Margot’s pristine kitchen gurgled its final sigh. Y/n, wearing only her jeans from the night before, handed Margot a heavy ceramic mug. Margot took it, wrapped in a silk robe that probably cost more than Y/n’s power tools, and leaned against the granite counter.
“So,” Margot said, blowing on the steam. “When did you first know? About me living here, I mean. Before the rooftop.”
Y/n took a sip, leaning against the opposite counter. The cityscape behind her was a postcard. “My nephew, Mateo. He was, like, nine. Suicide Squad had just come out. He begged me for weeks to take him. I finally caved, bought the tickets, suffered through two hours of neon and chaos.”
Margot grinned, a real, un-actressy grin. “Hey, I got an Oscar nomination for that chaos.”
“You were the best part,” Y/n conceded. “Anyway, after, we’re walking back, he’s buzzing about Harley, and he points up at this building. Says, ‘That’s where she lives, you know.’ Just this kid-ass certainty. I laughed it off. Then, a month later, I’m moving in, hauling my couch off the elevator, and I see you down the hall, arguing with a locked door. In sweatpants. Holding a potted fern.”
Margot laughed, a bright sound in the quiet kitchen. “That fern died. I have a plant graveyard on my balcony.” She took another sip, her eyes playful over the rim. “So, seeing me in sweatpants with a dying plant… that was the moment? Pretty glamorous.”
Y/n shook her head, a faint smile on her lips as she stared into her coffee. “No. The moment was in the theater.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Y/n cleared her throat, the memory vivid. “There’s this scene where you… I don’t know, you’re swinging a bat or something. You had this look on your face. This totally unhinged, glorious joy.” She paused, shifting her weight. “Mateo elbowed me, whispered, ‘Tía, you’re sweating.’ I was. And I was, uh… realizing other things.”
Margot’s eyebrows shot up. A slow, delighted smirk spread across her face. “Other things.”
Y/n kept her eyes on her mug, her ears turning pink. “It was a very physical movie, Margot.”
“Are you telling me,” Margot said, setting her mug down and stepping closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “that you got a little… excited… watching me play a psycho clown in hot pants?”
Y/n finally looked at her, mortification and amusement warring in her eyes. She mumbled something into her coffee.
“What was that?” Margot teased, slipping her hands into the waistband of Y/n’s jeans, pulling her close.
“I said,” Y/n muttered, leaning down until their foreheads touched, “I got hard during the movie. Okay? Happy? It was embarrassing. And confusing. And… yeah.”
Margot’s laughter was a warm, triumphant thing. She kissed her, a quick, smacking kiss. “That’s the best review I’ve ever gotten. Better than The New Yorker.”
Y/n rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, wrapping her arms around Margot. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” Margot rested her head on Y/n’s chest. They stood like that in the silent, sunlit kitchen, the memory of a confused arousal in a dark theater now a private, hilarious foundation stone for everything that had come after. The rooftop, the turned-down money, this morning.
Y/n’s phone buzzed violently on the counter, shattering the peace. She glanced over. It was Leo. Then a second buzz. And a third.
Margot felt the shift in her posture. “Work?”
“Yeah.” Y/n sighed, the real world rushing back in through the electronic pulse. She didn’t let go, though. She held on a moment longer, breathing in the scent of Margot’s hair and expensive coffee, fortifying herself before reaching for the buzzing device. The city waited below, and her life, her real one, was demanding its due.