Work Text:
[Summer 2012]
“Heads up!”
Dylan leans up onto her elbows, just in time to catch the frozen cherry Mikey’s aimed at her, right in her mouth. They both cheer, and Dylan flops back onto the ground, throwing her arms up in victory as she goes.
“Dude, we’re so good at that. If you had to do that in hockey games we’d dominate the O next year for sure!”
“Don’t jinx it!” Dylan groans for what feels like the hundredth time.
“C’mon, I’m not, I’m just saying.” Mikey stretches out her leg and pokes Dylan in the shin with her bare toes. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
They’re on the grass in Dylan’s backyard, laid out on the blanket from the back of Dylan’s couch, because it’s far too hot to do anything except flop down in the sun and eat frozen things and try not to die. Mikey’s been aimlessly flicking through some magazine and trying to eat her frozen cherries before they melt and stain everything red; Dylan’s just lying here, daydreaming, planning teams in advance for the road hockey they’re going to play later on once it cools off a bit.
“Catch!” Mikey says, and this time the cherry just about misses Dylan’s mouth, but she throws a hand up and catches it before it hits the ground.
She shoves it in her mouth, then wrinkles her nose at her fingers, which are now covered in cherry juice. “Mikey, I really think these things are past the melting point now,” she says, bringing her hand up to lick the juice off it.
When she looks up, Mikey’s looking at her sort of weirdly. Dylan frowns at her. “What?”
Mikey jumps, then shakes her head as if to clear it. “Nothing. Hey, d’you know what Matty told me the other day?”
“Which Matty?” Dylan says, pulling herself up to sit cross-legged so she can see Mikey properly.
“My Matty. Girl Matty.”
“Oh. What was it?”
“She said sometimes--” Mikey leans closer, drops her voice “--sometimes her and her friends practice kissing with each other. So they’ll know how to do it right, you know.”
Dylan’s suddenly really, really glad she’s already finished her cherry, because she’s pretty sure she’d choke on it. “What?”
“Yeah! ‘Cause they don’t wanna have to kiss someone for real and not know how to do it, right?”
Dylan feels blindsided in a way she can’t quite explain. “Like… like Matty and her… girl friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Huh.” Dylan finds she suddenly doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Wanna try it?” Mikey says, grinning at her.
Dylan’s eyes widen. “What? Now?”
Mikey shrugs. “Why not? There’s nobody here to see us, right? And then we wouldn’t have to do it for the first time without knowing anything!” Mikey suddenly looks unsure. “Unless - unless you’ve had your first kiss and didn’t tell me--”
Dylan shakes her head quickly. “No, I - I haven’t.”
“Well then!” Mikey scoots closer to Dylan on the blanket. “Why not, right?”
Dylan shoots a look back at her house, but Mikey’s right - both Dylan’s parents are at work, Ryan’s off with his girlfriend, and Matt’s actually at the McLeods’ house, Dylan thinks. Nobody to see them. Nobody else would even know.
She turns back to Mikey, who’s looking at her hopefully. “Yeah… yeah, okay. Let’s try it.”
Mikey smiles, just a little, and scoots even closer to Dylan on the blanket, so their knees are almost touching. Then she leans in expectantly, closing her eyes.
Dylan takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and goes for it.
Dylan didn’t know what kissing would be like, but she wasn’t expecting it to be like this. Mikey’s mouth is soft, and warm, and she tastes like cherries and also somehow like sunshine. The kiss only lasts a few moments, but Dylan feels like the ground has shifted under her feet when she opens her eyes. Her face is still right by Mikey’s, and she can see Mikey’s dark eyelashes resting on her cheeks, the soft dusting of freckles across the bridge of Mikey’s nose. Something in her wants to trace a finger across those freckles, and she fists her hands in the blanket to stop herself.
Mikey opens her eyes, then, and smiles at Dylan, leaning back. “It was okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Dylan says a little breathlessly. “Yeah, it was okay.”
She almost goes to lean in again, but Mikey’s already moving back across the blanket towards where she dropped her magazine, saying something about whether they should get ice cream after ball hockey later. Dylan remembers what Mikey said - they don’t wanna have to kiss someone for real and not know how to do it - and thinks about how this doesn’t count as for real, and something bitter settles in the pit of her stomach.
She tries to push the feeling aside and listen to Mikey’s debate about which ice cream place has better toppings.
She’s not sure she succeeds.
--
It happens a few more times, that summer. Mikey suggests it, every time - Dylan feels weird about asking, not sure she’d be able to bring it up with the same level of casual nonchalance Mikey does. Dylan has to remind herself a lot that it’s not real - it’s practice, for the future.
Presumably, that also means practice for boys - at least for Mikey. Dylan’s started to realise, this summer, that maybe she liked it so much with Mikey for more reasons than just because it was the first time she’d done it. Figuring that out felt like coming home - in a way Dylan thinks she’s always known it, but it’s nice to be sure.
She tells her mom, before the summer is over, and her mom cries and hugs her while Dylan squirms awkwardly. Her mom tells her she’s proud of her, and loves her, and doesn’t mind who she ends up loving, and it’s sweet while also being far more emotion than Dylan wants to process about the whole thing.
At the end, still sniffling, Dylan’s mom says carefully, “And, sweetheart, well, I don’t want to make any assumptions, but - is there - is there anyone you’ve been… been seeing?”
Dylan shakes her head. “No, mom. There isn’t anybody.”
Dylan’s mom pats her on the arm. “That’s okay, sweetheart. I just - you spend a lot of time with Mikey, you know, and I had to wonder--”
“No, mom, we’re just friends,” Dylan says. She pushes back the memory from the evening before, Mikey’s lips soft and pliant under her own on Mikey’s basement couch. “Mikey likes boys.”
--
That year, they get drafted to the O, to different teams - Mikey’s going to play for the Steelheads, close enough to home she won’t even have to billet, and Dylan’s going all the way to Erie. Dylan knows they won’t actually be that far apart, knows it’s only maybe three hours in a car, knows she’ll see Mikey a bunch during the season and they’ll still only be a few houses apart any time they go home. It makes her heart ache a little, anyway.
Mikey doesn’t bring up the kissing thing again, after that. Maybe she’s learned all she needed to, Dylan thinks, trying not to be bitter. Maybe she feels ready for boys now, for real kisses, kisses that mean something.
Dylan tries to forget about it. Mikey’s still her best friend. She doesn’t need anything else.
--
[November 2014]
Dylan’s used to hearing fans yelling all kinds of nonsense from the stands - even in Juniors, the crowd can get pretty riled up, and she’s heard a lot of very unsavoury things being shouted over the glass, to her and to the rest of her team. Connor, in particular, gets a lot of nasty things shouted her way, and while Dylan’s never seen her do anything on the ice other than look more determined when she hears them, Dylan’s witnessed enough tearfully angry throwing around of hockey pads in the locker room to know Connor’s not immune to any of it.
It’s weird, though, when they play Mississauga at home, because now the crowd are yelling things at the Steelheads, Mikey included. Dylan’s not an idiot, she knows Mikey probably gets as much shit as anyone, but it hurts Dylan’s heart to hear it, in a way it doesn’t even when she hears insults aimed at herself.
Halfway through the second, Dylan finds herself across a faceoff circle from Mikey. They don’t even smile at each other, just meet each other’s eyes across the circle, but it makes Dylan feel warm knowing Mikey’s here. They’re going to hang out after the game, probably, if there’s time; Dylan’s billet parents have a ping-pong table in their basement and Mikey owes Dylan a rematch.
Then -- in the moment of silence before the puck drops for their faceoff, Dylan hears someone yell something from the stands. She doesn’t even hear all of it properly, but she hears enough to know it’s something unsavoury about Mikey getting on her knees for the boys on her team. She flicks her eyes up and over to Mikey, concern fighting her instinct to act all Stoic Hockey Player, but Mikey just looks irritated, setting her jaw in that Mikey way that Dylan knows means trouble. Unsurprisingly, Mikey wins the faceoff, and in the scramble afterwards the whole thing goes clean out of Dylan’s head.
She remembers it later that night, though, lying in bed fresh off a beautiful ping-pong victory against Mikey (and then a rewatch of the Mighty Ducks while curled up on Dylan’s billets’ basement couch, sloppy and familiar in sweats and t-shirts, trading a single illicit Natty Light).
People shout trash at girl hockey players. Dylan knows this. Dylan’s heard more times than she can count about how Connor’s let every boy on her team fuck her one way or another. To Dylan that’s more comical than anything - how anyone could look at Connor McDavid, the absolute most single-mindedly hockey-focused person Dylan’s ever met in her life, and imagine she wastes any time sleeping around with pimply teenage boys is beyond her entirely.
She hears it about herself, too, of course, but. Dylan knows what she looks like. Dylan’s worn a snapback every day of her damn life, she’s sure nobody actually has any illusions she’s ever been on her knees for any of her very male teammates.
But Mikey, though. Not that Dylan thinks Mikey’s hooked up with her whole team - it’d be far too time-consuming, if nothing else - but. Dylan thinks back to the last time Mississauga played Erie, how she’d gone to say hi to Mikey after the game and found her laughing with Nathan Bastian, how the two of them had shared a ride home. She thinks of all Mikey’s Snapchats and how many of them have Bastian somewhere in the background.
Her brain carries on without her wanting it to, and she pictures Mikey’s perfect mouth kissing Nathan Bastian, Mikey’s arms around his shoulders, Mikey’s beautiful long legs coming up to wrap around his waist--
Dylan feels sick. She turns over and tries her very best to think of nothing but hockey stats until she finally falls asleep.
-
[Summer 2015]
Dylan goes third overall, right behind Connor and Jack Eichel, and ahead of Mitch Marner. (She’s learned not to hate him - they’re even kind of friends now - but it’s still satisfying to beat him out, even if he does get to be a Leaf.)
Mikey sends her about a thousand texts about it.
!!!!!!!!!!! omg way to go!!!!!
lorne park REPRESENT
u fuckin superstar!!!!!!!
There’s a Snapchat, too, which Dylan only sees hours later. It’s Mikey - she must have had someone else take the photo - standing beside her parents’ TV, holding her hands out in a heart over the screen, where Dylan’s bright red face is struggling into her brand new Coyotes jersey.
Dylan screenshots the snap.
-
Dylan gets sent back to Erie.
She tries not to take it personally - she loves the O, she’s excited to have another shot at the Memmer, she’ll get to see Brinksy again. She tries harder not to take it personally when both Connor and Jack stay up. Mitch is back in the O, too, she reasons. And this way she’ll still see Mikey a bunch of times during the year.
She pretends it doesn’t sting when Connor sends her a Snap from Edmonton just before her first game.
-
Mikey gets drafted that summer, and Dylan sends her every different colour heart emoji in her phone, and a hundred little devil faces too.
The night after Mikey’s draft, Dylan’s lying in bed lazily Google Mapping the distance from the Coyotes’ stadium to the Devils’ when her phone chimes with a FaceTime request. It’s Mikey, and when she picks it up, Mikey’s flushed and grainy in a hotel bed in, presumably, Buffalo.
“DYLAN!” Mikey squeals over the dodgy FaceTime connection, making Dylan’s phone speakers hiss, and Dylan realises Mikey may not be entirely sober. “I got drafted!”
“I saw,” Dylan laughs. “Congratulations! Did you get my texts?”
“It was amazing,” Mikey says, before Dylan’s even finished speaking, “they took me twelfth, and I’m gonna play for the Devils, and--”
Dylan curls up under the covers and lets Mikey’s tipsy, giggly happiness wash over her. She’s smiling into the phone, listening to Mikey talking about how her mom cried and her dad took a thousand photos and the Devils people were so nice to her, and Dylan feels warm and glowy from her head to her toes.
“--and they made us take so many pictures and I wanted to go watch the rest of the draft, you know, and then - oh my god did I tell you about Nate?!”
Dylan frowns, a little of the glowy feeling receding. “Nate? You mean Bastian? What about him?”
“I got them to take him too!” Mikey says, and starts into a long story about how she apparently told the actual Devils GM to actually draft Nathan Bastian and they actually did it and isn’t that so cool, Dylan?!
Dylan hates it. She kind of hates herself for hating it, too. There’s nothing actually wrong with Nathan Bastian, every time she’s met him he’s seemed like a decent guy, but -- she remembers those thoughts from a long time ago, Mikey kissing Nate, Mikey letting Nate hold her, and Dylan feels cold.
“It’s so cool, isn’t it, we’re gonna be on the same team in the NHL too!” Mikey’s saying, and Dylan nods and says, “Yeah, it’s awesome,” and tries very hard to mean it.
-
[November 2016]
Dylan gets sent back again.
She really thought she had it this year. She’d made the roster out of camp, she’d really felt like things were clicking for her, and when she heard Mitch was definitely staying up in Toronto she figured this had to be her year.
And then they sent her right back to Erie.
Connor sends her a text, just a heart emoji and a sad face. Dylan looks at it, sends back a single heart emoji, and then locks her phone and throws it into the middle of the pillows on her bed, as hard as she dares. She loves Connor, but. Connor just got named the youngest NHL captain ever. Talking to Connor kind of grates, right now.
She’s contemplating flopping onto the pillows after her phone when there’s a knock at her bedroom door, and a moment later Brinksy sticks his head round. “Hey Stromer, you awake?”
“Why do you always just come in,” Dylan grumbles, but she sits down and scoots over to make room for him to sit beside her.
Brinksy flops down onto the bed and it creaks ominously - this bed wasn’t really designed for two pro hockey players at once. He elbows her in the side. “You wouldn’t kick me out, would ya, Stromer?”
She elbows back. “Don’t test me.”
“What, they already teach you to fight up in the big leagues?” he laughs, reaching a hand over to tickle that exact place under her ribs that always gets her. “Gonna be throwing out Gordie Howe hatties our next game, huh?”
Dylan squeals, and aims for his arms with her fingernails, and when they finally calm back down again the bedcovers are halfway onto the floor and Dylan’s flushed and laughing.
Brinksy settles against her shoulder, the way they’ve cuddled together for years now, one hand still trying to comb his hair back flat. He’s quiet for a minute, then says softly, “I know it sucks they sent you back, but I’m still glad you’re here.”
Dylan sighs, then throws an arm around his shoulder. “Sucks less when I’ve got you and the boys to come back to.”
-
The one bright spot in the timing of Dylan’s return is that they play Mississauga a week later, which means she gets to see Mikey in person instead of over grainy FaceTimes. The morning of the game, Dylan gets three blurry Snapchats from Mikey showing the Erie city signs, and then a stream of messages:
yoooooo cant wait to see u!!!
after the game we are having a party no arguing
gotta welcome u back!!!!! [bicep emoji]
ill bring some of my team only the nice ones promise promise
and some BEVERAGES [wink][wink][wink]
bring ur boys!!!!
i know ur billets still got that soundproof basement
and ur billet mom L O V E S me so were gold
seeeeeee uuuuuu at the PARTY
well ig see u at the game but then see u at the PARTY
[sixteen heart emojis]
Dylan smiles. As much as it sucks being sent back - and boy, does it ever suck being sent back - she can’t wait to see Mikey.
-
True to her word, Dylan’s only home from the game for maybe ten minutes when Mikey shows up with Nathan Bastian, Alex Nylander, and two very large bottles of vodka. At Dylan’s raised eyebrow, Mikey only shrugs, and smiles her soft Mikey smile that Dylan loves so much. “It was on sale, and besides, I gotta get the serious stuff for my best girl’s homecoming!”
Dylan throws her arms around Mikey, who nearly drops the vodka bottles, but rights herself by passing them off to Alex and then pulls Dylan closer. “Thanks, Mikey,” Dylan murmurs in her ear.
“I got you,” Mikey whispers back.
The noise of Alex moving the bottles around abruptly reminds Dylan that they’re not alone. She pulls back, red-faced, and leads the three down to the basement, where a small assortment of Otters are already sprawled across the threadbare furniture and drinking shitty beer Darren Raddysh bought with his fake ID.
Alex, who for some unknown reason is sitting upside down on the couch so his head’s nearly on the floor and his feet are over the back, cheers when he sees the vodka bottles. “The real deal! What up, Girl Alex, give ‘em here!”
Alex Nylander laughs and holds the bottles above her head. “Can you reach ‘em, Little Alex?”
Dylan laughs, throwing herself down onto the couch, and Mikey flops down beside her a minute later. She’s somehow reclaimed one of the vodka bottles from Alex, and reaches into her ridiculous purse - Dylan doesn’t like to judge, because she knows she just doesn’t really get style, but this thing has bows on it - to pull out a big bottle of Diet Coke and a sleeve of Solo cups. Dylan bursts out laughing.
“Really brought the party, huh, Mikey?” she sputters out, and Mikey elbows her cheerfully while she pours Coke and vodka into two cups.
“Only the best for my best friend,” Mikey says, handing Dylan a cup. Best friend, Dylan thinks, and takes a long drink.
-
By the time it’s just Dylan and Mikey left, sitting on the basement floor with their backs against the couch, Dylan’s so drunk she’s not sure she could stand even if she wanted to. The vodka took the edge off, for sure, but now that it’s quiet again and there’s nothing to distract her, she feels anger filtering back in through the haze. Mikey’s saying something about the movie that’s playing on the beat-up basement TV, but Dylan can’t focus on what she’s saying because she’s started thinking about everything again.
Halfway through Mikey’s sentence, Dylan explodes, “It just sucks, you know?!”
Mikey, to her credit, doesn’t look particularly phased by this, just stops talking and nods - which is good, because now that she’s started, she doesn’t feel like she’s ever going to be able to stop.
“It just - everyone’s left me!” She waves her Solo cup around the now-empty room in emphasis. “I know there’s Brinksy but it’s not the same! Edmonton made Connor captain, Mikey! Youngest captain ever! She’s the fucking saviour of Edmonton! And it’s not like I don’t want her to be doing well, but she’s in Edmonton, and Jack’s gonna be up with Buffalo once his ankle heals and Mitch is a Leaf for sure now and - and - and I’m just here! There’s only me!”
Mikey reaches over, a bit wobbly, and pokes her in the bicep. “You’ve got me, though.”
Dylan sighs, deeply, and drains the end of her drink - which at this point is pretty much straight vodka, but she’s so far gone it hardly even burns. “Yeah, but you’re in Mississauga, and you’re off with your boyfriend half the time anyway.”
Mikey wrinkles her nose. “What boyfriend?”
“You and Nater.” Dylan tries not to sound too bitter saying his name. She picks up the cup again and peers into the bottom, remembering too late that it’s empty now. She aims it at the dartboard on the wall instead. “You guys are adorable.”
Mikey’s frowning for real now, looking more serious than Dylan can make sense of. “Dyls, he’s not my boyfriend, what the fuck?”
Dylan rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay, don’t give me the same shit you give your team. I know he’s your boyfriend. C’mon, I’m one of your best friends, yeah? You can tell me.” She goes to bump shoulders with Mikey, but Mikey moves away from her.
“Dylan, what? He’s not my boyfriend! Come on, I don’t need this shit from you too!”
Dylan huffs at her. “Mikey, c’mon. We’re supposed to be best friends, why the fuck won’t you even admit it to me? I’m not gonna be - be weird about it or whatever, you know? Just ‘cause I don’t like guys doesn’t mean you can’t tell me about--”
Mikey sits up straight and turns to face Dylan, and she looks suddenly furious. “Dylan! What is wrong with you?! He’s not my goddamn boyfriend! You’ve known I was gay for years, Dyls, what the hell?!”
Dylan sputters. “Sorry, you’re what?”
“Dylan!” Mikey’s on her feet now, looking at Dylan like Dylan’s said something awful. “Dyls, don’t act like you don’t remember! We spent half that summer making out, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about!”
Dylan’s standing now, too, and the room is swaying a little but Mikey’s crystal clear. “Mikey - I don’t - I mean, I remember, of course I do, but--”
“But what?”
“But I just -- I just thought maybe that was you, like, I dunno, experimenting, or--”
“Experimenting?!” Mikey’s face is red now, her eyes bright, and she looks like she’s two seconds away from reaching out and strangling Dylan. “Are you kidding? Dyls, I played Tegan and Sara every day that summer! I’ve sent you a bunch of texts about getting my nails manicured extra short!”
“I thought that was for hockey,” Dylan says a little desperately. “I didn’t think - I mean, you don’t look like--”
“Dylan.” Mikey’s gone very still, but her eyes are fire. “Are you honestly going to tell me I don’t look like a lesbian?”
Dylan hesitates, but-- “Well, yeah!”
Mikey honest-to-god throws up her hands. “I hate this shit! I thought you were better than this, Dyls! I get this bullshit every fucking day, from everyone on my fucking team and all my fucking friends and I didn’t think I’d get it from you too!” She steps closer to Dylan and stabs her in the chest with one perfectly-manicured - and, yes, short - fingernail. “Why do I have to dress a certain way to show everyone I like girls? Why is the only requirement not, I dunno, liking girls? Why the fuck does everyone assume that because I dress like this--” Mikey waves a hand over her cute skirt and cable-knit sweater outfit “--I can’t possibly be gay? Even you, who I’ve made out with like a hundred times, even you just look at my fucking hair and my fucking lipstick and my - my - my dresses and assume I can’t possibly even like girls?! After all this time, with everything I feel about you, you just-- just--”
Dylan looks at her, Mikey glowing bright red and furious, and says weakly, “I don’t think it was a hundred times--”
“Ugh!” Mikey flings her arms out hopelessly, then turns on her heel and heads for the stairs.
“Mikey! Where are you going?!”
“I’m gonna get an Uber,” she calls back without turning. “Don’t you fucking follow me, Dylan Strome.”
Dylan looks after her helplessly, hears her walk across the kitchen and open the front door and, a minute later, hears a car pull up and then drive away. She flops back onto the basement sofa, head still spinning with alcohol, her side cold where Mikey used to be pressed against her.
What the fuck?
-
Dylan doesn’t sleep that night. She does try, eventually, traipsing up from the basement to lay in her bed and stare at the ceiling and think about Mikey, but she can’t stop going over and over their conversation.
She had always assumed. She had always looked at Mikey, and her perfectly highlighted hair and her manicured nails and the high heels and tiny dresses she wore any time there was a real party, and she had assumed a girl like that wasn’t into girls, couldn’t be interested in someone like Dylan.
Dylan knew people made assumptions about her too, but they were basically always the right one, so she had never let it bother her. People thought she was a lesbian, because she wore snapbacks and flannels all the time and bought her jeans in the guys’ section and could sometimes go three days without brushing her hair - well, whatever, because she was a lesbian. If it ever grated on her, the way those people thought they knew anything about her just by looking, she’d always pushed it down, because they were right. It was hard to get mad at people for jumping to the right conclusion - right?
But Mikey… well, Mikey loved what Dylan often affectionately called “all that girly shit”. Mikey owned more clothes than Dylan had seen anywhere that wasn’t a Forever 21. Mikey got her hair cut and re-highlighted religiously every six weeks. Her favourite thing to do was go to Sephora and spend a million years wandering through the aisles, trying out every single colour of every single product, while Dylan traipsed behind her and pretended to be very invested in what Mikey was saying so the scary sales ladies wouldn’t try to talk to her about her eyebrows again.
Dylan had always just… figured that meant Mikey was straight. She couldn’t seem to put a finger on why, now.
It seemed silly, in retrospect. People assumed dumb shit all the time. People assumed Dylan got terrible grades because she was a hockey player - which, alright, Dylan’s grades were only okay, but Connor was a hockey player too and she was super smart. There were less innocent ones, too - Dylan remembered again all those shouts from the crowd, every time there was a girl on the team, about how she’d been fucked every-which-way by all the rest of her team. Dylan got pissed when she heard that shit.
Through the haze of her oncoming hangover, Dylan replayed their whole conversation, and got stuck at the words with everything I feel about you.
What did Mikey feel about her?
Dylan couldn’t even pretend: she knew she’d been half in love with Mikey since that first cherry-flavoured kiss in her backyard that summer. She’d spent so long thinking being with Mikey was impossible, that it could never happen, that she had to get over feeling that way about her - but she’d never managed it. And now - if there was even a chance -
Dylan squinted at her phone. It had crept around to almost seven in the morning while she lay contemplating. The Steelheads, she knew, were leaving at noon to go back to Mississauga.
Making a decision, she sat up, pulled an old Otters hoodie over her head, ordered an Uber, and then opened a new text message to a number she’d never had to use before, one Mikey had put in her phone years ago “for emergencies, Dylan!”
yo bastian its dylan
dylan strome
i need ur help w something
-
When Dylan gets to the hotel, Timmies in hand, it’s still not quite seven-thirty and the sun is just rising, turning everything soft gold and pink. A very scruffy and still mostly-asleep-looking Nathan Bastian meets her in the lobby, squinting suspiciously at her from under his bedhead.
“You better not be fucking with me, Strome. She was pretty upset when she got back here last night.”
“I promise,” Dylan says. “I don’t want to hurt her, I swear.” She thrusts one of the Timmies cups at Nate. “Look, a peace offering.”
Nate reaches out for the cup slowly. He takes a cautious sip, then another much longer one, and sighs happily. “Yeah, okay, fine. She’s in 304 - she shares with Alex but Alex is… um… not there tonight.”
Dylan’s eyebrows raise in surprise, then she shakes her head. Not the time for gossip. “Thanks, man.” She slaps Nate on the shoulder as she heads for the elevator.
Outside Mikey’s door, she brings a hand up to knock and realises she’s shaking. This is Mikey. Mikey, who she’s known her whole life. That’s an awful lot of history to lose if she screws this up.
Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, Dylan knocks on the door - once, then louder a minute later when nothing happens. She’s about to knock a third time when the door opens and Mikey’s there, looking rumpled and stressed and beautiful in her pink satin pyjamas.
Mikey crosses her arms. “What d’you want, Dylan?”
Dylan holds out the Timmies cup meekly. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Mikey doesn’t take the cup. “How’d you know what room I was in?”
“Bastian is pretty bribeable, it turns out,” Dylan says, still holding the cup out and starting to feel a bit weird about it.
Mikey huffs. “And he let you up here?”
Dylan nods. She hesitates, then says, “I told him I didn’t wanna hurt you.”
Mikey looks her right in the eyes then, with an expression on her face that Dylan’s never seen before. Dylan tries her best to look back, to show Mikey whatever it is she’s looking for. It must work, because Mikey huffs, then reaches out and takes the Timmies cup before standing back and gesturing Dylan into the room.
Dylan stands awkwardly, not wanting to presume, but Mikey pushes her down to sit on the edge of the bed. Mikey herself sits up against the headboard, knees curled up to her chest, holding on to her coffee cup like a lifeline. “Well?” Mikey prompts.
Dylan takes a deep breath. “Mikey, I - I’ve been really stupid. I - I guess I just--” she stumbles, but steels herself. This is her shot. “I’ve loved you for so long thinking it was impossible.”
The cup slips in Mikey’s hands, and she barely catches it in time to avoid dousing herself in scalding hot coffee. “You what?” she whispers. Her eyes are as huge and blue as Dylan’s ever seen them.
“I love you, Mikey. I’ve loved you since that first time you kissed me. But I was so - I was so afraid it was all for nothing, that you didn’t want me like that, and - and being your best friend is the best thing I could ever ask for and I didn’t wanna ruin it, and--” Dylan finds to her horror that she’s getting choked up.
Mikey scrambles to put the coffee cup on the besides table, then reaches for Dylan’s hands. “Dylan,” she breathes. She presses one palm against Dylan’s cheek. “Dylan. It’s always been you.”
Dylan doesn’t know which of them leans in first, but then they’re kissing, soft and warm in the faint morning sunlight filtering around the edge of the curtain. Mikey tastes like coffee this time instead of cherries, but her mouth is as perfect as Dylan remembers, and she breaks the kiss just to smile against Mikey’s lips.
Curling up under the covers together feels like coming home.