Chapter 7: The Friendly Hand
The kitchen was a pocket of sudden, electric quiet. The roar of the party—the classic rock blasting from the Bluetooth speaker, the clatter of tongs on the grill grate, the burst of male laughter—muffled into a distant thrum against the sliding glass door Gabi had slammed shut behind them.
Lea’s kitchen was chaos. A mountain of used paper plates sat weeping ketchup and grease. Bottles of craft beer and open wine crowded the counter. The air was thick with the smell of grilled onions and citronella.
Gabi didn’t pause. She pushed Mia back against the edge of the granite countertop, the edge digging into the small of her back. Her hands came up to frame Mia’s face, but it wasn’t a caress. It was a cage.
“His hand,” Gabi hissed, her breath hot against Mia’s lips. It smelled of the Cabernet they’d been drinking. “On your back. Lower than it needed to be. Lingering. Did you feel it?”
“Yes,” Mia whispered. Her heart was a frantic, trapped thing in her chest.
“And his eyes. All night. Like he was calculating how to peel that dress off you with his teeth.” Gabi’s thumbs stroked her cheeks, a gesture at odds with the fire in her eyes. “And you were so good. So fucking perfect. Smiling. Laughing at Lea’s stupid story about the landscaper. Talking about the lemon groves in Capri. You were a vision. And he was devouring you, bite by bite, right in front of me.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t,” Gabi cut her off, her voice dropping to a raw scrape. “That’s not the point. The point is I wanted to break the bottle in my hand and shove the jagged end into his neck for looking at what’s mine.”
The possessiveness should have chilled her. Instead, it ignited a fuse deep in Mia’s belly. A primal, terrifying thrill. She was a disputed territory, and Gabi was planting a flag.
Gabi’s mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn’t a kiss of passion, but of reclamation. A brutal, branding pressure. Mia kissed her back, her hands coming up to clutch at Gabi’s shoulders, the linen of her shirt rough under her fingers. Gabi’s tongue pushed past her lips, a conquering force. The taste of wine, of Gabi, of a simmering, dangerous rage.
Behind them, the sliding door whooshed open. Lea bustled in, her arms laden with empty bowls. “Oh! Sorry, you two! Just grabbing the potato salad—” She stopped, taking in the scene: Gabi pressed against Mia, their bodies locked, the charged silence. A knowing, tipsy smile spread across her face. “Don’t mind me! The guest bath is free, you know. More privacy.” She winked, dumped the bowls in the sink, and shuffled back out, humming.
The interruption was a dash of cold water. Gabi broke the kiss, resting her forehead against Mia’s. Her breathing was ragged. “We’re leaving.”
“Now?”
“Right now.” Gabi stepped back, her composure sliding back into place with a visible, physical effort. She smoothed her tank top, ran a hand over her bun. “Go out first. Find Tom, say I’ve got a migraine coming on. That I need to get home. Be sweet. Be apologetic. I’ll get our things.”
Mia touched her lips, which felt swollen, sensitive. She nodded, adjusting the strap of her sundress where it had slipped off her shoulder. She pushed through the sliding door back into the wall of sound and heat.
The backyard was a tableau of golden-hour contentment. Tom was at the grill, brandishing a spatula like a scepter, holding court with a few other guys. Jake was among them. He saw her immediately, his gaze hooking onto her like a physical pull. He raised his beer bottle in a slow, suggestive salute.
Mia ignored him. She beelined for Tom, placing a hand lightly on his sweaty arm. “Tom, the food was amazing. Thank you so much.”
“Hey, Mia! You’re not leaving?”
“Gabi’s got one of her wicked migraines coming on,” Mia said, layering concern into her soft voice. “I need to get her home before it really takes hold. She’s miserable.”
Tom’s face fell with genuine sympathy. “Aw, man. Tell her I hope she feels better. You two drive safe.”
She felt Jake’s eyes on her all the way across the patio. She collected her small purse from a chair, offered a general wave to the group of women at the table, who called out cheerful goodbyes. Gabi emerged from the house, a strained smile on her face, her sunglasses already on. She linked her arm through Mia’s, a gesture that looked supportive but felt like a steel clamp.
The drive home was conducted in a silence so profound it seemed to swallow the engine noise. Gabi stared straight ahead, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. The setting sun painted the interior of the car in bloody orange stripes.
Mia watched the city blur past. She could still feel the ghost of Jake’s gaze, the proprietary weight of his hand. It had felt vulgar. Insulting. And yet, a small, hidden part of her—a part that was learning to speak with Mia’s voice—had noted the power it gave her. The ability to disrupt, to enthrall, to make Gabi’s control crack and splinter. The thought was immediately followed by a wave of shame.
Gabi parked in their building’s underground garage with a sharp, precise turn. The engine cut. The sudden quiet was deafening.
They didn’t speak in the elevator. Gabi stood facing the doors, her arms crossed. Mia watched their reflection in the brushed steel—a beautiful, furious woman and a blonde stranger trembling beside her.
The apartment door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in. The familiar space felt different now, charged with the negative energy from the party.
Gabi didn’t turn on the lights. The last of the dusk bled through the windows, casting the living room in deep blue shadow. She shrugged out of her shirt, letting it fall to the floor. “Take off the dress.”
Mia’s fingers went to the zipper at her side. It whispered down. The blue fabric pooled at her feet. She stood in just her lace underwear and the silver necklace.
Gabi closed the distance. She didn’t touch her. She just looked, her eyes traveling over Mia’s body in the gloom as if inspecting for damage. For marks left by another’s gaze.
“He wanted you,” Gabi stated, her voice flat.
Mia said nothing.
“You knew it. I knew it. Everyone at that fucking party knew it.” Gabi’s hand finally lifted. She didn’t cup Mia’s breast or stroke her thigh. She took the silver necklace between her thumb and forefinger, the chain they’d bought on a sun-drenched street in Capri. The signal. “You never touched it. You never gave me the signal.”
Mia’s breath caught. “I… I was handling it.”
“Were you?” Gabi’s tone was dangerously soft. She gave the chain a slight, taut pull. “Or were you enjoying it?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.” The chain pulled tighter, not enough to hurt, but enough to feel like a leash. “I saw the way you held yourself when he looked at you. That little tilt of your chin. The slight arch in your back. You were performing. For him.”
“I was performing for everyone,” Mia protested, her own anger sparking. “That was the whole point! To be convincing! To be your beautiful, charming, mysterious girlfriend! What did you want me to do, Gabi? Shrink? Disappear?”
“I wanted you to be mine!” The words erupted, ragged and loud in the quiet apartment. Gabi released the chain as if it burned her. “In that space, with those people, I wanted you to be so clearly, unquestionably mine that no one would even dare. But you weren’t. You were just… available. A beautiful object on display. And it fucking killed me.”
The truth of it hung between them, ugly and raw. Gabi’s jealousy wasn’t just about possession. It was about vulnerability. The world saw Mia, and in seeing her, erased Marc completely. Gabi was the only one holding onto a ghost, and the ghost was slipping through her fingers.
Mia reached for her then. She took Gabi’s face in her hands. “I am yours,” she said, each word a deliberate stone placed in a river. “Every part of this. Every look, every breath, every shudder you pull from me. It’s all for you. It’s only ever for you. His looking means nothing. His touching would mean nothing. This body doesn’t want him. It wants you. It wakes up hungry for you. It comes apart for you. Only you.”
She saw the fight drain from Gabi’s eyes, replaced by a desperate, hungry need. A need for the affirmation only Mia could give.
“Prove it,” Gabi whispered, the challenge still there, but softened now, threaded with want.
Mia kissed her. Slowly. Deeply. A kiss of absolution and promise. She walked her backwards towards the bedroom, their legs tangling, their mouths never parting. She pushed Gabi onto the bed and followed her down, her hair a pale curtain around their faces.
She made love to Gabi with a focused, slow intensity she’d never used before. She used her mouth, her hands, the soft, whispered words against her skin. She worshipped her. She mapped every scar, every freckle, every known and beloved inch with a tongue that spoke a silent, fervent liturgy: This is my religion. You are my country. I am your subject and your sovereign.
When Gabi finally broke, her climax was a silent, shuddering vortex that pulled Mia down with her. They lay intertwined in the dark, slick with sweat, the only sound their slowing breaths.
After a long time, Gabi spoke into the hollow of Mia’s throat. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of how much I need this. Of how much I need you. Not him. You.” She drew a shaky breath. “The timer. It’s in five days.”
Five days. The words were a cold stone dropped into the warm pool of the moment. The app. The irreversible countdown. The end of the experiment, and the beginning of an unimaginable after.
“I know,” Mia said.
“What happens when it rings?”
Mia thought of the locked metal box in the closet. The coffin-shaped bruise. She thought of Dr. Evans’ voice on the phone. She thought of Jake’s evaluating eyes.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She pressed her lips to Gabi’s hair. “But I’m not going back to being just a piece of paper in a box.”
They slept fitfully. Mia woke near dawn, thirsty. She slid out from under Gabi’s arm, pulled on one of Gabi’s oversized t-shirts, and padded barefoot into the kitchen.
She drank a glass of water at the sink, watching the city lights begin to dilute with the first grey hint of morning. A movement in the periphery caught her eye. She turned.
On the floor by the front door, sitting neatly side-by-side, were Marc’s running shoes. A pair of expensive, ugly neon-green trainers he’d loved. She must have kicked them into the corner when they’d first come home, and they’d sat there, untouched, for nearly two weeks.
She walked over and stared down at them. They were just shoes. But they were his shoes. A part of the uniform of a life that was waiting, patient and empty, for its occupant to return.
Without thinking, she bent down. She picked one up. It felt alien in her hand, clunky and heavy. She slid her foot inside. Her slender, pale foot disappeared into the vast, masculine cavity. She stood, wearing one neon shoe, one bare foot on the cool hardwood.
She took a step. Then another. The weight was wrong. The balance was absurd. She walked a slow, clumsy circuit around the living room—clump, step, clump, step—a grotesque parody of a man’s gait. The ghost of Marc, animated by the wrong body.
From the hallway shadow, a voice, thick with sleep and heartbreak, said, “What are you doing?”
Mia froze. Gabi stood watching her, her face pale in the dim light.
Mia looked down at the stupid, garish shoe on her foot. A wave of such profound disorientation washed over her that she swayed. She wasn’t Marc. She wasn’t Mia. She was a lost thing in the dark, trying on skins that didn’t fit.
She kicked the shoe off. It skittered across the floor and hit the wall with a dull thud.
“I don’t know,” she said, and the emptiness in her voice was deeper and more terrifying than any desire either of them had yet explored.