Night Like That (gxg)

21. the friends to lovers trope

Now 

Chastity had dolled herself up that morning. Everything was supposed to go perfectly. The weather, according to Google, was going to be fantastic and Brent had sent her a link to the best café near work. He'd also seriously requested that she never bombard him with as many pictures as she'd had to which she promised nothing. Things could arise and pictures could have been the only way to solve said occurrences.

Christ she wanted to sing out loud.

Love, she had realized, did do very interesting things to the ones afflicted. One smiled and danced and constructed sentences like, "I burn for you," without a lick of irony. She did burn for Ivy and it was that fire that was reminding her she had a habit of being rush. But then the love thing took over and reminded her some people across the world had gotten married after two weeks of knowing each other. She had known Ivy for most of her life. It stood to reason she was the one for her.

Ivy had been out of sight for most of the morning – it hadn't been a bad thing. In fact, it had been marvellous because it meant she was going to see her in her beautiful state and that was surely going to play things to her advantage.

Brent, who had become one of her favourite people ever, had wandered into her office and promised her she looked glorious. "If I wasn't so hung up on Ali, maybe I would have been the one to ask you out." She had giggled and he had walked away, convinced his work there was done.

Five minutes to lunch hour, she sent Ivy a text.

Still up for lunch?

Her answer had been instantaneous.

Sure.

She gathered all the sprawled out documents, touched up on her make-up and made sure to send her supervisor a notice about her having an extended lunch. She'd not had one of those for a long time. She was due a couple.

At lunch, she made her way to Ivy's space, finding her trying to complete as much as possible in such a short period of time.

"We can get to that later. Let's go now." She pulled her hand and ignored the weak protests as they made their way out of the office.

The weather was just as fantastic as google promised and that was probably why her palms were so sweaty. Not in the mood of embarrassing herself, she pulled her hand out of Ivy's arm and mumbled on about making it difficult for passers-by to rid themselves of them. Ivy said nothing. Just gave a curt nod and walked on.

"I'm the one taking you out to lunch in case you forgot."

Ivy slowed her pace. "Sorry," she said in a clipped tone. It was always a joy being part of slightly bossy Ivy world. Joyous and hot. She wondered what she would do if everything fell apart and had to contend with only the memories of being fucked by her.

Maybe, with the thought of them being friends for so long, the only logical step after the lunch thing was either becoming lovers or sworn enemies. Not that they would be good enemies. They didn't have the thing that made enemies parallel lovers.

They got to the café and Chastity made sure she didn't miss any of Ivy's reactions. It was a beautiful space and when Ivy looked at beautiful things, she simply stepped up. She looked more beautiful than usual with the whole glowing thing. Chastity cleared her throat. She was becoming one of those weirdos who said they saw beauty in weird ways no one ever really could.

"Let's sit by the balcony. I want to be surrounded by fresh air." Ivy did not object as she followed after Chastity.

They hadn't even made themselves comfortable when a waiter came to their side, holding big menus and smiling brilliantly at them. "Welcome to Zoea Café. I'll be your waiter today." He pointed at the pluck on his shirt. "Samuel. Take your time. Anything you choose will be delicious, I promise. Raise your hand once you are done and I will be with you shortly." He disappeared into the commotion inside, leaving a sweaty Chastity to her own mumbles.

"The weather is fantastic, isn't it?" Weather talk was the sure fire way of making everything awkward. She mentally slapped herself. "And the cars, they are moving so fast." She internally groaned. How was she making everything worse?

Ivy had cocked her head to the side. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay? Yeah. Totally! Just making small talk." She toyed with the lone salt shaker on their table. "So what do you think about this place? Brent recommended it. It's quaint, isn't it?"

Ivy sighed. "Look, I'm okay with you calling everything off. Don't make it weirder than it already is. I'm a big girl. Whatever you want to talk about, I can handle it."

"You are. Of course you are. Here goes then." Chastity sat up right, folding her hands over the table and maintaining eye contact with Ivy. "I want us to do the real thing. The whole relationship and stuff."

Had Ivy been drinking anything, Chastity was sure it would have been splattered everywhere. At the moment, her mouth had fallen wide and her eyes tripled in size. Chastity tried to ignore the voice in her head telling her she had just blown everything out of proportion. She was going to lose her only friend because she had skimped over clear set boundaries.

Noticing Ivy was not saying anything, she went on. "Obviously you are allowed to say no and we can forget this ever happened and I will find a way to get rid of these love feelings – not that it is a problem for me. I just don't want it to be a problem for you. I am rambling. Feel free to chime in so that I can make my grave as shallow as possible."

Ivy recovered herself. "I thought you were going to call off our friendship all together."

"What? Why?"

"I figured," she dropped her gaze, looking shyly at every other thing around them, "you realized how I felt and it weirded you out and you wanted nothing to do with me anymore. And the pegging thing. That too. That mostly actually."

Chastity couldn't help the giggle of relief. Everything was going better than she expected. "I wasn't kidding. I do want to try that but after we talk about it."

"Sure, yeah. Of course we are going to talk about it."

It was Chastity's turn to drop her gaze and look everywhere else but at Ivy. "So, what do you think about what I've said? Are you up for it? Again, you can say no and everything will be fine."

"I thought you didn't do the whole commitment thing."

"Never had a reason until now." She heard Ivy's sharp inhale and wanted to high-five herself for her smooth talk. That was a very stellar job of being suave.

"If I say yes, I get to call you my girlfriend, huh?" The sentence did things to Chastity's insides. Both good and bad things.

"I guess?"

"You guess? You're not sure if I'll get to call you my girlfriend?"

Chastity laughed. "I'm sure we'll get to call each other actual girlfriends. What do you say?" She returned her gaze back to Ivy.

Ivy had been looking at her as her face broke into a wide grin. "I'd like to be your girlfriend, thank you."

She exhaled and slapped the table. Ivy laughed. "I think I am a menace to society at this exact moment." Ivy laughed even more.

They raised their hands to order. It had been a quick and efficient thing. The food had been marvellous, the drinks, the devil's tonic. The company though, that was the thing that had made everything all the more delectable. Chastity felt as though she was at the beginning of her life and she could not wait to see how it went.

With their glasses half full, she lifted hers up and tilted it forward. "To the friends to lovers trope."

Ivy mirrored her. "That is a lousy toast."

"A toast that summarizes us perfectly!"

Ivy could not argue back as she clinked her glass with hers. "To the friends to lovers trope."