Please remind me (who I really am)

Chapter 9

Jennie gave her an exasperated look, but smiled to take the edge off it. "Yes, Lisa. Now come on, I want to go to sleep."

That was all the encouragement needed for Lisa to slide into the bed; she lay on her back and stretched out, keeping her eyes shut, but she could feel Jennie shuffling around on the bed as she made herself comfortable. Jennie turned the light off and rolled over to face her in the darkness. Lisa glanced over and could just about see Jennie's eyes. Christ, what am I doing? She wouldn't be surprised if Jennie could hear how fast her heart was beating.

She jumped slightly as Jennie slid her hand gently into Lisa's. "Relax, Lisa," she murmured. "It's supposed to be me that's stressed, not you!"

Lisa felt nervous laughter bubbling up in her throat, and squeezed Jennie's hand. She closed her eyes again. "Goodnight, Jennie," she said in a voice that sounded much steadier than she felt.

"Goodnight, darling," Jennie whispered, before letting go of her hand and turning over onto either her back or her side, Lisa didn't know. She was so tired that despite the extraordinary circumstance she found herself in, she was asleep before she could look over at Jennie once more.

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Lisa woke up slowly in the morning, the sunlight shining through a chink in the curtain directly into her eyes. She screwed up her eyes against the light, wondering why it was so bright. It took her a second to remember why she was in her bed and not on the sofa, and her eyes shot open. All of a sudden, she became very aware of four very specific things.

First, Jennie was still fast asleep, pressed up against Lisa's back, and she was breathing softly into her neck. Second, Lisa was using one of Jennie's arms as a pillow, her right hand on Jennie's elbow. Third, Jennie's other arm was thrown across Lisa's waist, her hand falling down towards the bed, and the fingers of Lisa's left hand were tangled with Jennie's. Fourth, they must've got hot in the night and thrown the duvet off, but Jennie had clearly got a bit chilly... or something else, because her right leg was pushed between Lisa's thighs.

Internally, Lisa groaned to herself. She was pretty sure this was torture of the most exquisite kind. Everywhere Jennie was touching her, she was soft. Lisa couldn't pretend that she hadn't dreamed about this. Sleepy mornings were one of her favorite things about sleeping in a bed with someone, but she and Jennie... they hadn't even...

For Lisa, sharing a bed with someone wasn't something she did lightly. The soft, sleepy cuddles the morning after were intimate in a way that made Lisa think things like long-term and anniversaries. Lisa was pretty sure how things would've gone had she been able to go up to Jennie's hotel room that time, and that spoke volumes about how much she liked Jennie. And she did like Jennie; she was aware of that fact. But they were already having sleepy cuddles, even if Jennie wasn't aware of it. Unless she was...

Jennie shifted slightly and pushed her leg up higher, pressing into Lisa in a way that left her in absolutely no doubt as to what her body felt about Jennie being curled around her. She needed a cold shower and now. But first she had to extricate herself. Slowly, slowly, she eased her hand out of Jennie's, and lifted her leg gently to move closer to the edge of the bed. She was almost off the bed without having woken Jennie up, but she didn't have time to feel proud of that. Just as she put her feet on the floor, she slipped on the hoody that Jennie had been wearing the night before and she felt herself overbalance. That dread feeling you get when you know you are going to fall shot through her, and she grasped at nothing as she fought to stay upright, to no avail.

She skidded forward on the hoody and her legs went out from under her. She turned in midair to avoid landing on her back, but landed on her side instead, crashing into the floor heavily and loudly.