City of Dreams: A TessNia One-Shot

City of Dreams

"Hey! Glad to see you back, Tess. and nice to meet you, Nia. Welcome to New York!" He gave the girls a big smile. "You here to play ball?"

"Duh!" Tess grinned, and knocked the basketball out from under his arm with ease. She skillfully dribbled over to an empty net and made an easy three-pointer, yelling in excitement. There was something about basketball in New York that just made it feel different to Tess. A good kind of different.

Nia watched with pride and cheered for her girlfriend as she continued practicing her throws. "What about you, ready to hoop?" Lucas asked, gesturing to the court.

Nia shook her head, "Basketball is definitely more Tess' thing, I'm so bad at it."

Lucas nodded in understanding. "Same here, I'm more of a baseball guy myself. But you don't have to be good at it to enjoy it." With that, he jogged over to Tess and attempted to steal the ball back to no avail.

For an hour, Nia watched happily as Tess beat Lucas over and over. She let him win once or twice by pretending to be distracted, but her girlfriend saw right through it.

When the two walked back over to the tent, Tess had barely broken a sweat whereas Lucas was breathing heavily. "Do you guys-" He took in another breath. "Wanna grab lunch?"

Tess pulled out her crumbled itinerary and pretended to fix her non-existent glasses to read better. "Well, we were going to head to the Waverly Sub Station, but what else you got in mind, cowboy?"

"Oh, those subs are magical." Lucas commented, and Tess nodded in agreement. "But, my girlfriend's mom owns a bakery right down the street."

The two girls looked at each other and shrugged, gathering their things. Soon enough, they'd made their way to Topanga's Bakery, a cute little place that reminded Tess and Nia of the little café near their apartments.

As soon as they walked in, Lucas lead them over to two girls who were sharing a cupcake rather closely. The blond looked at them curiously, while the brunette grinned in greeting. "Yay! New friends!" She held out her hand immediately "I'm Riley!"

Tess shook her hand, then Nia, and the two girls sat across from them while Lucas squeezed himself into the booth next to Riley. "This is Tess and her girlfriend Nia, we play basketball together." Lucas explained, and the blonde perked up at that.

"Oh, you guys are gay?" She high-fived Tess. "Fuck yeah!"

Lucas laughed "This is Maya, our girlfriend."

"Our?" Tess asked, confused at his word choice.

Lucas put an arm around Riley, who had been holding hands with Maya since the group sat down. "Yeah, these are my girlfriends." He said confidently, and Riley grinned as she kissed each of their cheeks. Despite her best efforts, Maya blushed.

"Damn, Cowboy, I didn't know you had game like that," Tess said, in an effort to not make it uncomfortable. She and Nia wouldn't judge them, anyways. Besides, they all looked cute together.

Maya's eyebrows raised in surprise, her face pulled into an amused smile. "No way, you call him cowboy too?"

Lunch from there went smoothly, the table engaged in conversations about making plans for the Pride Parade, the best places to visit in the city, and whether or not the trio would ever visit Chicago one day.

Before they knew it Tess' alarm went off, signaling the next stop on their itena-whatever. The two groups shared social medias and said their goodbyes and soon enough Tess and Nia were on another train.

They arrived in Central Park and Tess had to admit, nature was lowkey beautiful. They walked, hand in hand past a pond and each time two ducks would interact, Tess pointed at them and whispered "thats us!" to Nia, who giggled every time.

They even took a stroll through the Central Park Zoo, where Tess made a Madagascar reference every chance she got as Nia told her very useless, yet cute, facts about the animals. She tried her best to listen to the ones about how global warming affected them, since she knew Nia cared about that the most.

The two made sure to visit every place on Tess' surprisingly detailed itinerary, so by the time they got back to Uncle Jimmy's apartment, washed the New York grime off, and collapsed on the pull-out bed, they were rightfully exhausted.

Nevertheless, as teens tend to do, they scrolled through their phones before bed, Tess' head on Nia's lap as she played with her girlfriend's hair absentmindedly.

"Hey, Tess?"

She turned from laying on her side to her back so she could look up at Nia better. "Whats up?"

"Thank you. " She continued to run her hands through Tess' hair as she spoke, much to her delight. "Today was amazing. I really loved it, and I really love you."

"I really love you too, Nia." Tess replied, as though second nature.

"No," Nia shook her head, and Tess sat up, sitting right across from her on the creaky bed with a confused expression. "I meant, I love you. I am in love with you."

"Oh!" Tess said in a surprised whisper. They'd said they loved each other hundreds of times. After all, they'd been best friends for so long. But, being in love? It was new. It was different. Becoming girlfriends took their relationship to the next level, and this felt like another level, too.

"Oh?" Nia repeated, worry etched on her eyebrows at the fact that Tess hadn't responded yet. Tess reached for her hand, and squeezed it gently in reassurance.

"I'm so so in love with you, Nia, you don't even know. You're my favorite person in the world, I can't imagine my life without you."

Without another word, Nia leaned in for a kiss, and Tess happily obliged, closing the gap between them. The kiss was short and sweet, but it still left both their heads reeling.

"You're my favorite person, too." Nia whispered, and Tess laughed lightly.

"I sure as hell hope so, or else this whole day would be embarrassing. Can I tell Ms.B?"

Nia rolled her eyes half-heartedly. "If you tell my mom, you're sleeping on the floor."

Tess put her hands up in surrender. "Damn, Nia, have you no mercy?"

Nia tried to keep in a laugh and just held out her arms for Tess. "Stop being so dramatic and come sleep, I'm tired."

Tess didn't need to be told twice, she cuddled up in Nia's arms and soon enough the girls drifted off to sleep, lulled by the sounds of the city and each other's breathing.