Lily has to pull away a bit to let out of a giggle. Carina's eyelids flutter open and her pupils are dilated with nothing but desire and passion. "God, you're so cute," Lily whispers, nudging her nose against Carina's. "I feel like I could kiss you forever."
Carina's lips are swollen and erratic breathes slip past them as she tries to regain the oxygen that she was deprived of. She grins, the corners of her eyes crinkling happily and she uses one of her thumbs to run it along Lily's bottom lip slowly.
"Well I'm not stopping you."
---
Call her cliché, but when Lily kisses Carina, suddenly everything else around her vanishes into thin air and the only things that she's aware of is the taste of Carina's lips, which taste sweeter than all of the pastries that Lily devoured downstairs; the feel of the subtle curve of Carina's smile and her fingers grabbing and tugging at the hair on the back of Lily's neck; and the quiet sounds of their breathing filling up the room. Nothing else is on her mind except the girl she's kissing because nothing else matters right now.
They kissed for God knows how long. They would only be able to get away from each other for a few seconds before one of them would grab the other eagerly, reconnecting their lips. But Carina and Lily never knew who would initiate it. They both just couldn't get enough of each other.
It wasn't until Carina eventually pulls away that Lily can finally take a breather. Literally. She's surprised she didn't die from her heart beating at an alarmingly dangerous rate and the lack of oxygen. But she's also never felt more alive.
Lily cheeks rise in a face-splitting grin as she stares at the precious human being sitting in front of her and Lily hides her face in her hands, so overwhelmed with emotion. Everything seems too good to be true right now and she can't even properly express it. She feels like she's about to spontaneously combust if she doesn't calm down soon.
Carina laughs out loud and gently tugs at Lily's wrists, forcing her hands away from her face. "What, Lily?" she giggles.
Lily shakes her head softly, the huge smile on her face refusing to wipe off of her face. "I'm just ... happy. You make me happy."
Carina's eyes go softer than Lily's ever seen and she stays completely still as Carina affectionately tucks her black hair behind her ears before caressing Lily's cheeks with her thumbs.
"You make me happy, too," Carina whispers sincerely. She leans in and places a quick kiss on the tip of Lily's nose, making her laugh. Carina then crawls up to the top of her bed and rests her back against the headboard. She motions for Lily to come over to her, which she gladly does.
They sit beside each other and Lily immediately places her arm around Carina's shoulders and pulls her in against her body. Carina's smiling face tucks inside the crook of the older girl's neck and she places a hand on Lily's stomach and the other snakes around behind her back.
Lily can feel the warmth of Carina's hand on her stomach and she watches her thumb leisurely drag over the fabric of her shirt. "Hey, Lily?"
"Hm?" Lily hums, resting the side of her jaw on top of Carina's head.
"In case you couldn't already tell with the whole kissing thing and me wanting to always be near you thing," Carina begins a bit nervously, her lips tickling Lily's exposed collarbone with every word, "I like you and I like you a lot."
Although Lily already technically knew, her vocal confession still doesn't falter the immediate swelling of her heart and it doesn't stop the swarm of butterflies from fluttering in her stomach. Just hearing her boldly say it means everything and more to Lily. It isn't easy telling someone you like them for the first time, especially if the other person hasn't really said anything either but lately, Carina's just been a brave little trooper. She's been the one to initiate everything from the kiss to the invitation to sleep over to this confession. She's definitely more courageous than Lily in that aspect. Carina gets Lily so weak-kneed regardless of how self-assured she is in herself overall. Carina's her Achilles heel.
But Carina's declaration suddenly gave her a boost of confidence, now knowing that the feelings are very much mutual. Discovering the person who you've been crushing on is crushing on you back is undeniably one of the most relieving feelings in the world and relief is just one of the many things that Lily is feeling at this moment.
Lily affectionately kisses the top of Carina's head and she can feel the younger girl let out a small and relaxed sigh. "In case you couldn't already tell with the whole me acting like a flustered idiot whenever I'm around you thing," Lily says with a smile, "I like you too and I like you a lot."
Carina giggles softly and tightens her hold around Lily's waist. "I love it," she says happily, "I think it's one of the cutest things about you."
"Hey now," Lily retorts playfully, "don't be making fun of me. You may think it's cute, but it's so embarrassing on my side."
"I love it because it shows just how human you are," Carina replies simply. "Everyone who doesn't get the absolute blessing of seeing you in the way that I've been lucky enough to see would immediately think of you as this badass and confident girl all the time. But I like the fact that I am able to see that you still sometimes get a little shy and a little self-conscious and a little nervous. And I especially like the fact that I'm the reason for that."
Lily laughs to herself when she hears Carina's smug little grin in that last sentence. "I'm going to hurt myself contemplating how and why someone as sweet and as gentle as you could scare me to death sometimes," Lily says as she adjusts herself so they're both lying down on the bed completely. Carina snuggles up closer to her and Lily blushes when Carina places her leg over hips.
"Well, I do have that effect on people."
Lily rolls her eyes lightheartedly as she pokes Carina's cheek. "So arrogant."
Carina giggles adorably and hides her face in Lily's neck even more. Lily smiles as she mindlessly and lightly uses the tips of her fingers to caress Carina's spine. Carina's quiet for a while as Lily continues to do that leisurely, knowing how much she likes it herself, and she assumed that the younger girl fell asleep when she hears her small voice speak up, a hint of hesitation present.
"Is it okay if we, uhm, take our time with things?"
Lily stops scratching Carina's back. "What do you mean?" she asks inquisitively. "You mean take our time with us?"
"Wait, keep doing that, please," Carina innocently asks, trying to search for Lily's hands. Lily chuckles quietly and obliges to her request, resuming her gentle scratches on the younger girl's back. "But, yeah, I mean with us. The last thing that I want is to mess up our amazing relationship right now simply because we started dating after knowing each other for about two weeks, you know?"
They've only been formally speaking for about two weeks? It feels like an entire lifetime. But Lily isn't upset. She's extremely glad that Carina was able to voice her concern and talk to her about it because she does have a legitimate worry. Things tend to be so good at the beginning of any budding relationship because of the whole honeymoon phase concept and she's worried that after that phase, things won't be so good all of the time. The last thing Lily wants is to lose Carina because they moved too fast too soon. It's definitely happened to Lily before and she doesn't intend on making any of the same mistakes that she's made before with Carina.
But Lily's situation is so much more different than hers. Carina thinks that they've only known each other for a couple of weeks but in actuality, it's been almost three months. Of course, only Lily is aware of that fact. But she'd be willing to wait even longer for her.
Two months of constant wondering who the nameless person could be has left Lily with the patience of a saint. She's just happy with the fact that its Carina on the other side because she's the most amazing person Lily's ever had the pleasure of knowing. Carina is in no rush and Lily isn't either.
"No, Carina, you're right," Lily says. "You do have a valid point and I agree with you. We can take as long as you need to because I don't mind waiting for you at all. Thank you for talking to me about it upfront."
Carina lifts her head from Lily's neck and they look at each other's faces for the first time in a while. Lily notices how tired her eyes are, her blinking sluggish and her eyelids slightly drooping. "Wait," Carina says, placing a hand up, "you're sweet as hell for saying that you'd wait for me, but I'm not saying that I want to wait 20 years before we can date," she laughs. "I just don't want to officially dub us as a couple since we just became friends, you know? It might hurt us in the long run because of the current and potentially false illusion that things are perfect when tomorrow we can wind up hating each other for all we know."
"God, I could never ever hate you," Lily says with slight horror at the thought of ever feeling something so negative towards her. She could break every bone in her body and Lily would still find some reason to adore her.
"And I could never hate you either," Carina smiles, "but I was just saying it as an example because we never know. Something could happen within the next few days that'll make you change your mind about me or vice versa."
Lily smiles back at her as she shakes her head. "Doubt it," she says, "but I understand where you're coming from and I promise that I'm on board 100%."
Lily's about to pull herself away from Carina and sit on her reading chair in the corner of the room to officially start the whole "taking their time" thing when Carina grabs her arm. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Uhm, giving us some time?"
Carina stares at her with a funny look for a few seconds before she laughs and tugs at Lily's arm again. "Don't be ridiculous," she scoffs. "Taking our time doesn't mean we have to maintain a minimum distance of five feet away from each other at all times like we have some contagious disease. Hell no. You're not going anywhere. I refuse to give you up."
A wide and hopeful grin begins to spread across Lily's face. She sincerely thought that Carina meant that they were going to remain completely platonic but now she is jumping over the moon to know that that's not the case. "So we can still kiss and stuff?" Lily asks expectantly.
Carina giggles and cups Lily's face. "Yes, we can still kiss and stuff," she says as she presses their foreheads together.
Lily places her hands on Carina's waist and looks into her tired eyes that are nevertheless still so bright. "Good because there wasn't going to be any way that I would give that up," Lily says in a hushed whisper.
"You're so lame," Carina smiles happily and before Lily can say anything else, she closes the small gap between their mouths and tenderly presses their lips together once again for a few seconds that left Lily wanting more.
Lily juts her bottom lip out in protest, which makes Carina laugh in amusement. "My kisses are pretty great," she says, "but I'm exhausted. To be continued until afterwards, okay?"
Lily lets out a dramatic sigh of defeat. "Fine." She then holds a pinky up and Carina looks confused for a second before she rolls her eyes so hard that Lily thought they would get stuck.
"Are you seriously going to make me pinky swear that we can kiss again later?"
Lily simply nods.
Carina places her face in her hand and shakes her head as she connects their pinkies and seals the promise. "God, why am I so enamored by you?" she mutters against her hand.
Lily grins with huge pride as she places a hand on the back of Carina's head and pulls her in to kiss her forehead sweetly. They then settle back down to their previous position because Lily can tell by the weary look in Carina's face that she is about to fall asleep any second now.
And Lily's presumption was correct.
Carina fell asleep not even five minutes later when her breathing suddenly became slower and steadier and the thumb that was grazing against Lily's side stopped. That girl can literally fall asleep any time, anywhere and on the endless list of things that Lily finds adorable about her, that's one of her top favorites. One minute she was comfortably lying down with Lily and then next she's in a peaceful slumber.
Now that Lily thinks about it, Carina sleeps a lot. And she eats a lot. And she's insanely cute. She's like a newborn baby trapped inside a 17-year-old's body. Lily has to shake her head out of that thought before she creeps herself out.
Lily smiles in pure bliss as she takes the moment in. The entire right half of her body is so warm with the comfortable weight of Carina cuddling against her. She looks down at the girl. When she's sleeping, she looks years younger. Absolutely no sign of stress or tension is present on Carina's precious face like there's not a worry in the world. Lily wishes that were the case for her because she would do anything to protect Carina from any heartache that she could ever come across. The thought of ever seeing any more sad tears fall from her eyes makes Lily furrow her eyebrows and frown.
Lily's grown to care so much about Carina in such a scary amount of time. Normally how crushes begin with Lily is she will first notice someone and suddenly she will have this vision of them that they're undeniably perfect and have no flaws and everything they do gives her butterflies. But eventually as time goes on, those feelings may start to disappear.
But with Carina it's different. Yes, they just started to really get to know each other and spend time together, but she can't see herself ever getting used to the younger girl. Lily feels like she's never going to get over the cute little quirks she has like scrunching up her nose when she doesn't like something or using her hands to help emphasize her words when she's passionately speaking about something or always needing to double knot her shoelaces. Lily's notices everything about her and she continues to pick up on new things every single day.
Lily is about to doze off herself about an hour later when her phone vibrates inside her pocket, scaring her a bit. She grumbles as she grabs it and an unknown number appears on her screen, but the area code is the same as hers. Curiously, she picks up.
"Hello?" she answers in a quiet tone, careful not to wake Carina up.
"Lily!" She immediately recognizes Amanda's bubbly voice on the other line. "Is Carina with you?"
"Oh, hi Amanda! And yeah, she's actually sleeping right now," Lily replies, instinctively holding her closer. "Why? Are you okay?"
"No, no, everything is okay. Actually, her parents are on their way home right now and they were trying to get ahold of her but she wasn't replying to texts or calls. I knew that she was with you so I asked Naomi for your number. I hope that's alright with you?"
Lily smiles. Amanda's such a sweetheart. "Of course it's okay. But yeah, Carina's sleeping right now so she's perfect. Wait, did she know that her parents were going to be here today?"
"No, actually. It was supposed to be a surprise but when Carina didn't pick up the phone when they called to make sure she was home, they got a little worried and called me all freaked out and stuff so it kind of backfired."
"Should I wake her up?"
"She won't wake up even if you try," Amanda laughs. "Once she's out, she's good as dead. Plus when you do wake her up, she gets super cranky just a warning."
Lily tilts her head in confusion. Normally it's Lily who wakes up cranky, not the other way around. Carina's always has been as energized as a little bunny in the morning from what she's seen.
"Do you know when they'll be h-"
Lily stops when she hears the house alarm beep once, signifying someone just opened one of the doors. She hears footsteps and faint conversation from downstairs and she can make out two different voices, one male and one female.
"They're here," Lily whispers on the phone to Amanda.
"Oh my god, she's going to be so happy!" Amanda exclaims excitedly. "I wish I could be there to see because she's really missed them and they've really missed her. Anyways, I'll let you go now, okay?"
Lily smiles. "Alright, Amanda, thank you for giving me a heads up. If I didn't know any better I would have that we were getting robbed and I would've thrown Carina's sleeping body out the window and leaped out after her."
Amanda laughs on the other line. "Oh, I don't doubt that for one second. Bye, Lily!"
She hangs up the phone just in time to hear a knock on the door and suddenly Lily doesn't know what to do. Carina's knocked out like a bear and slightly drooling on her shoulder so Lily can't answer for her. Maybe if she stays quiet enough they'll walk away....
Nope. Shit.
Her parents turn the knob and barge into the room with huge grins on their faces. Until they spot Lily's wide-eyed look of horror and their hibernating teenage daughter sleeping on her. Their grins slowly and gradually come tumbling down and contort into confusion.
"Hi," Lily says awkwardly with a small wave. "You must be Mr. and Mrs. Cabero?"
Carina's mom is the first one to say something and a strong accent is prominent in her voice. "Yes, we are, honey," she smiles warmly. "But please, call us Salvia and Antonio. Are you one of Carina's friends?"
Sure, if "friends" mean we-like-each-other-but-aren't-dating-but-still-kiss-and-stuff.
Lily nods and smiles back. "I am. I'm Lily and I would get up and formally greet you but Carina kind of..." she gestures at the sleeping girl leaning snuggling against her.
Antonio shakes his head happily as he walks around the bed to the side closest to his daughter. The closer he gets, the more Lily is able to see that Carina resembles her dad so much.
She watches as he gentle leans over and kisses Carina's cheek affectionately, making Lily smile at the interaction. They may not be around as often as they would like to be, but there is no doubt that they love Carina more than anything.
"She's not going to wake up any time soon," he chuckles. "She could sleep through an earthquake. Lily, can you do us a favor?" she nods and sits up a little as she listens obediently. "When she wakes up, can you not tell her that we're here? Just bring her downstairs because that's where we'll be."
Lily smiles politely. "Of course I can do that. I know that she'll be really excited because she's missed you both a lot."
"We've really missed her too," Salvia replies longingly. "I'm glad she called us. Things definitely need to change around here."
Lily hears nothing but sincerity and genuineness in her voice. She knows that they're now well aware of how precious time with their kid is. They're not going to have them around forever and it's obvious they feel guilty in somewhat neglecting Carina for so long and being completely unaware of how she felt while they were gone.
"Come on," Antonio says to Salvia, "Let's leave the girls alone. It was very nice meeting you, Lily, and we'll see you in a bit, okay?"
"Yeah, you too," Lily replies with a smile as she watches Antonio place a hand on the small of his wife's back before heading out the door, letting it shut quietly behind them. Not that it would matter. They could've slammed it shut and Carina would still be peacefully snoozing away.
Lily laughs quietly to herself at how surprisingly well that encounter went. That definitely turned out a lot better than she thought it would be. It could've been filled with awkwardness seeing as it was their first time ever meeting and Carina just happened to be practically on top of her the entire time. But they didn't even seem to think twice about it. Salvia and Antonio are sweet, just like Carina is. Lily knew she had to have gotten it from somewhere.
Lily low-key wants to shake and rattle Carina awake just to be able to see her reaction to her parents being here right this second. Carina's already an easily excitable person considering she was about to faint in joy over seeing a purple butterfly while they were walking around in the woods. It was cute to see her gasp and marvel in amazement and wonder over what Lily thinks is a creepy looking little insect. After that one SpongeBob episode with the repulsive close-ups of the butterfly that was terrorizing the town, she's been disgusted by them ever since.
Carina's now snoring softly and Lily rolls her eyes. Oh God. She's actually going to be here forever. If her parents weren't downstairs, she would love to just lay and nap with her all day, but frankly, Lily just wants to see that smile on her face when she sees them for the first time in who knows how long.
Fuck it.
"Carina?" Lily singsongs gently, poking her cheek repeatedly.
Nothing.
"Wake up, love." More cheek poking followed by some shoulder nudging.
Nothing.
"Carina," she says firmly as she pokes her tummy.
Nothing.
"If you don't..." Lily lets out a determined huff as she rolls her body out from under Carina. That's finally enough to get her to wake up.
"Cold," Carina whines, her voice deeper than usual. She still keeps her eyes shut as she sprawls her arms out in front of her, searching for Lily again.
"Under normal circumstances, I would want to snuggle you all day," Lily says, "but I have a surprise for you downstairs."
Carina hugs herself and just barely peeks her eyes open. "What surprise?" she asks, her voice still laced with sleep.
Lily rolls her eyes. "If I tell you then that would defeat the whole purpose, princess."
Carina grumbles something along the lines of "you suck" before turning her back towards Lily and throwing the blanket over her.
"Oh no you don't."
Lily slides one arm under Carina's knees and one arm under her back, swooping her up and carrying her like the small child she clearly is acting like right now. Carina looks up at Lily with a hard scowl on her face. Even when she's half awake, cranky as hell, and hating everyone right now, she's still the loveliest thing Lily's ever seen.
Lily slides off of the bed and stands up, carefully dropping Carina on her feet, but making sure to hold her hand securely in case she wants to make a mad dash back to bed. And with the mean look on her face and the longing gaze at her irresistible bed, it looks like she's just about to pounce any second now.
"I hate you," Carina mutters with a yawn.
"That's okay. I don't hate you," Lily says with a smile as she leans down and kisses the corner of Carina's frowning mouth. "I kind of like you, actually."
"Stop kissing up to me."
"But you're shorter than me."
That lame joke causes Carina's hard and tough demeanor to break and her face cracks into a small smile. "You're so stupid."
Lily's jaw drops, and she does her absolute best to look as offended as she can. "Okay then."
She turns around and walks away from her out towards the bedroom door. Lily's not actually mad at her, but it would be the perfect opportunity to get Carina to finally follow her downstairs in 3...2...
"Wait, Lily!" Carina calls out, voice with so much guilt that it actually hurt Lily a little bit to be messing around with her like this, making her think that she's seriously upset. Carina catches up and takes a hold of her hand, but Lily fights it and keeps walking down the stairs, knowing sooner or later she's going to see her parents. "Wait, no. I didn't mean it. I was ju-"
They reach the bottom of the steps and Carina isn't able to finish her apology before she sees her mom and dad sitting in the living room, smiling brightly at her. She looks at them in shock, then at Lily in confusion and when Lily grins and nods, that's when Carina knew that that was all a lure to show her the "surprise".
"We're going to be seeing you around here a lot more often, mija ," Antonio says, his voice deep yet gentle at the same time, "starting right now. You get to have us for the next couple of weeks and then after that, we're actually going to be here every evening. It took a hell of a lot of talking with the managers but lucky your mom and I are good at negotiating."
Lily watches Carina the entire time, nothing but excitement and joy present in her face and body language as she listened to the news she's been wanting to hear for so long. But she still hasn't left Lily's side. She's just smiling excitedly at her parents from afar.
"What are you waiting for?" Lily laughs as she whispers in her ear. "Go say hi."
She gives the younger girl a little push of encouragement and watches as she slowly walks up to her mom first, giving her a long and much needed hug then her dad, who picks her up from the ground easily.
Lily's happy. Watching how happy Carina is is probably one of the best feelings she's had in a while. She's missed her parents so much to the point of tears and she never spoke up about it until recently and now things are going her way. Yeah. Lily's really happy right now and it's all because of the girl in front of her.
--
Carina ran upstairs looking for Lily about an hour or so later to find her curled on the bed listening to music and scrolling through Tumblr on her phone. She drags Lily downstairs to eat the pizza that they ordered and there, Lily was finally able to formally greet Carina's parents and give both of them a polite handshake but Salvia surprised her by gently pulling her by the hand and giving her a warm hug instead. Nevertheless, Lily was touched by it.
"Carina told us a lot about you just now," Salvia explained with a kind smile.
"Oh, god, Mom," Carina groaned in embarrassment, hiding her face in her hands.
Lily laughed as she threw an arm around the flustered girl. "Oh, really? She did? Well, what did she say?"
"She-"
"-Mother, please, " Carina begged before her mom could say anything more.
Salvia laughed and raised her hands up in surrender. "Alright, honey, I won't say anything." However, she does give Lily a quick and subtle wink.
Then at dinner, Salvia, Antonio, and Lily watched Carina practically devour an entire pizza all by herself while making friendly conversation. They asked Lily just the simple things that parents tend to ask their children's friends like school, parents, interests, hobbies, etc. But it was really nice and not at all awkward.
Carina couldn't wipe the smile off of her face the entire time. Lily would like to think she was cheesing so much because she was happy to have her parents again, but it was probably because she was eating one of her favorite foods in the world considering all the orgasmic faces she was making. It's a good thing Carina's parents were sitting right there otherwise Lily would have teased her mercilessly about it.
After they ate and pushed their stomachs to the limit again, the two girls head back upstairs, preparing for food coma 2.0 to hit.
"Bad habits are so hard to break," Carina says uncomfortably as she lies back on her bed, placing her hands on her tummy. "I don't think I can eat again for another week."
Lily sits on Carina's chair, leisurely spinning herself around. "Yeah, you say that now but you know that your ass will creep on downstairs at midnight in a few hours to sneak a banana," she laughs.
Carina opens her mouth to protest, but she drops whatever she was planning on saying. "Yeah, you're probably right."
Lily gazes over at Carina and a smirk grows on her face when a certain pinky swear that they made earlier comes to mind. She promised they would continue their little kissing session later.
It's later.
She stands up from the chair and skips over to the bed and grins creepily at Carina, who gives her a funny look in return.
"What are you smiling at, creep?" Carina asks, her eyes narrowing at her in question.
Lily simply holds a pinky up and Carina looks at her, completely puzzled. But Lily gives her a few moments more before it finally hits her. Carina then starts to laugh so hard that she has to clutch her aching sides and the sounds of her amusement bounces off the walls and fills the room. "You are absolutely despicable! Are you joking right now?"
Lily points to her now serious and expressionless face, which is just dying to crack at any second now. "Does it look like I'm joking?"
Carina stops laughing for a mere second to look at Lily's hard before continuing with her infectious laughter. Lily's self-control breaks when Carina snorts a bit and she herself starts to laugh too, not necessarily at her, but with her. It's impossible not to.
Their laughter dies down once it physically hurts too much to continue and Carina smiles as she pats the spot on the bed beside her, inviting Lily over, which she willingly does. Now it's Lily who curls against Carina's side this time with her arm draped across her stomach. Lily follows through with an impulse and she places a sweet kiss on the back of the younger girl's jawline before nuzzling her face in her neck.
Carina caresses Lily's arm soothingly as they lie together and bask in each other's calm presence. After a while, Carina breaks the comfortable silence. "I said I was happy earlier, but I spoke too soon because right now I'm just over the moon. I haven't felt this great in so long."
Lily smiles at her words, eyes closed as she herself feels beyond happy right now. "I'm glad," she says honestly. "I would do anything to make you happy."
"Yeah? Then I guess you're stuck with me."
That smooth little shit.
Lily lifts her head up from Carina's shoulder and doesn't even hesitate to lean down and connect their lips for a short yet sweet kiss. Lily props herself up by her elbows, which are placed on either side of Carina's head and Carina places her hands on the sides of Lily's neck.
"You can't say stuff like that and not expect to get kissed," Lily mumbles against her lips.
"Why do you think I said it?" Carina replies with an irresistible smirk.
Lily smiles before planting kisses all over her face from her cheeks to her nose to her lips to her forehead. Carina giggles uncontrollably before carefully pushing Lily back by her shoulders. She sits up and leans her weight against her arms behind her. "You're like an affectionate little puppy," she says, even reaching over and ruffles the top of Lily's head for extra emphasis.
Lily puts on her best puppy-dog face and leans over to repeatedly nudge her nose against Carina's face, even making little whining noises for good measure. God, the things that Lily does just to see Carina smile. Next thing she knows, she'll be walking around with a dog onesie on with a snout and whiskers painted on her face, doing tricks at her command for Sour Patch Kids.
Carina laughs as she pats Lily's thigh twice before crawling off of her bed and disappearing into her closet. "I'm going to go take a shower now so try not to break anything while I'm in there, okay?"
Lily rolls her eyes. A couple of years ago during a sleepover at Naomi's house, Naomi was taking a shower and Lily and Desi stupidly thought it would be a good idea to chuck pillows at each other from across the room. It got out of hand quickly and Lily knocked over one of Naomi's lamps and the next thing they knew, they were cleaning up broken shards of the light bulb.
"That was one time ," Lily calls out, "and in our defense, Desi and I were immature little 15-16 year olds."
"Whatever you say," Carina says with a light laugh as she walks out of her closet with clothes in hand. She gives Lily some things she could sleep into before heading into the bathroom and locking the door behind her.
Lily takes the time to slip into Carina's Spiderman hoodie, shaking her head at her ridiculous infatuation with the fictitious superhero. She wouldn't be caught dead wearing this out in public and she hopes to god Carina hasn't done so.
She then puts on the sleeping shorts and hops into bed, her upper body snug and warm from the hoodie and her legs free and tangled up in the smoothness of Carina's cool, fresh sheets. She inhales deeply Carina's lingering scent on her pillows and blankets and closes her eyes.
She hears Carina turn the water on and a few minutes later, she hears her singing in the shower. Lily smiles as she switches up the songs after every few lines, never staying with a single one for long. She ranged from Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Parachute, Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, and The Goo Goo Dolls. Who needs a radio when she has Carina to sing songs of any genre to her?
Lily yawns after Carina's been in there for almost an hour. She's been tired all day and her food coma is about to come and hit her any second now. Plus the soothing sound of the shower running mixed with Carina's singing doesn't help either.
Sleep was trying so hard to pull Lily under and it must have worked for a bit because the next thing she remembers is Carina sliding in behind her and spooning her with the lights off. Her arm drapes over Lily's waist and she rests her palm flat on Lily's stomach. Their legs entwine with each other while Carina presses her nose against the nape of Lily's neck.
"Goodnight," she whispers softly, her cool breath hitting Lily's skin.
Lily mumbles something dreamily in return, too comfortably wrapped up in Carina's body to really make sense and too tired to care. The last thing Lily feels right before she falls back asleep completely is the feeling of Carina's lips repeatedly placing light kisses on the back of her neck.
--
Because Carina's parents are on break for the next couple of weeks, Lily purposefully gives her some space so she can spend time with her parents to make up for a bunch of lost time. They'll still speak at school of course, but they didn't have any one-on-one time in those couple of weeks. It didn't bother Lily in the slightest because she knows that this is what Carina needed.
Besides, they'll still text throughout the day and they'll call each other at night on the weekends and talk for hours about nothing until the wee hours of the night before sleep takes both of the girls captive. Lily loves waking up the next morning to see that the call time is like 14 hours. Sometimes if she wakes up before Carina, she can hear her soft snores on the other line.
Since Carina was almost always busy with her parents, it allowed for Amanda, Lily, Desi, and Naomi ample time to hang out together after school. Naomi and Amanda were already pretty close before, but now she's getting really close to Lily and Desi as well. It's just impossible not to like Amanda because her friendliness and positive aura just radiates out to others and she never fails to make people smile. Lily not only got Carina out of this whole English assignment, but she got Amanda too. Things are going absolutely perfect right now.
Carina has also been so happy lately and Lily hasn't seen anything but that contagious smile plastered on her face and she would do anything to keep it there. She's definitely expressed her happiness in the letters every single day. Carina almost always mentions Lily in her letters without ever exactly saying her name. She just vaguely refers to her as "green eyes".
When Salvia and Antonio's long break ends and they have to return back to work, Lily's pleased to see that it hasn't upset Carina even a little bit the following morning at school. They'll still be home every night so it's not like she'll go back to never crossing paths with them again. She's been so happy lately and Lily hasn't seen anything but that contagious smile plastered on her face and she never wants it to disappear.
Now, Lily and Desi are spending some time together at Desi's house this Saturday evening while Naomi and Amanda are off somewhere working on a project they were assigned to for one of their classes.
"Tell Carina I said hi," Desi says as she twirls the end of Lily's long, wavy, black hair, which sprawls across the younger girl's lap.
"How do you even know that I'm even texting her?"
Desi gives her an obvious look. "No one else would hold your attention as much as she does since you're whipped as hell."
To her defense, Carina was being ridiculous so of course she would be focused completely on her phone. She and Lily are having rather heated debate about whether or not they believe lemonade falls under the same category as juice.
LJ: i think it does because if you think about it, it's the same thing as orange JUICE. you're still extracting the juice from the pulp in both lemons and oranges does that make sense like you still have to cut it in half and then squeeze it out. the definition of juice is the liquid obtained from a fruit or vegetable
CC: but why don't we call it lemon juice then
LJ: because lemon juice is an actual thing but its sour so when you mix in 20 pounds of sugar it evens it out. that's why they have a separate name aka lemonade. but they're still both technically juices I feel like because of the way that its OBTAINED
CC: NO. i don't like that. that shit doesnt sit well with me. lemonade and lemon juice are NOT the same thing at all. take your ass to the grocery store and get yourself some lemon juice expecting lemonade and you'll be very surprised. I just don't think that lemonade is a juice sorry case closed
LJ: how many times do I have to tell you that lemon juice and orange juice are still obtained and extracted in the same way its not so much as the taste you little
Lily drops her phone on her chest with a huff of annoyance.
"Trouble in paradise?" Desi laughs as she continues playing with Lily's hair while watching TV, specifically Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Lily's never really been a fan of reality TV, but she does get the giggles sometimes when she watches this weirdly entertaining family with her friend. Desi and Naomi sure as hell seem to find it enjoyable.
"I love you guys both individually," Desi begins, "but I think I love you together more. You guys complement each other so well. I think the fact that it's so mutual is what makes it work and click, you know? You both benefit and you are able to bring the best out of each other."
Lily smiles up at her friend, whose eyes are glued to the TV. "Very insightful, D," she says. "But thank you. She's lovely." Except she isn't being so lovely right now. She's being so stubborn about this whole argument.
"So what is exactly going on between you two anyways? I mean don't think that none of us have caught you guys occasionally holding hands and exchanging little cheek kisses and all of the lingering hugs."
Lily blushes a bit. She and Carina weren't exactly trying to hide it, but they never explicably did anything in front of their friends' faces. Desi does ship them the most so then again it wouldn't be surprising if she would follow and lurk around behind the corners of the hallways. Or maybe she secretly attached a miniature camera on Lily's backpack strap to spy on them. Lily makes a mental note to check for one later.
"Nothing official is going on," Lily answers honestly. "We had a talk about it a couple of weeks ago and she had a valid point of not wanting to move too fast, you know? We like each other and still kiss and stuff but we just started technically talking for only almost a month now. We know each other, but we don't know each other. At least she doesn't think that we do. Carina knows a lot more about me than she thinks."
"Right... because of the whole letter situation," Desi nods understandingly. "What a mess of a situation, Lily, honestly. Do you have any idea what you are planning on doing? Because it's even stressing me out."
Lily lifts her head up from Desi's lap and runs her fingers through her wavy, thick hair exasperatedly. "I don't know what to do and I've been trying to push it in the back of my mind, but it's still always there. The longer I let this drag on, the worse the repercussions will be. She'll be upset with me considering I've know for almost a month now and she's shared her feelings and stuff within that month and I don't want her to think that I used that confidential knowledge to my advantage. I feel like it's a lose-lose situation no matter what and that's what I'm scared of."
Desi purses her lips in concentration. She reaches over and carefully takes Lily's hand in hers. The differences in size is shocking. "Well, this is one of those times where you have to think about what you want to do and execute the plan as gently as you can. Because I'm imagining myself in Carina's shoes right now and yes, I honestly would be upset with you no matter what you do-"
Lily groans in absolute dread.
"-No, no, wait. Let me finish. I would be upset for a little bit but it all depends on how you handle it afterwards. I mean, there is a reason why you have failed to tell her this entire time, right? So share your reason with her. You wouldn't do something unless you felt like there was good reason to, especially when it comes to Carina because god knows you care about her more than anything and you wouldn't ever intentionally hurt her."
Lily frowns as she thinks about the possibility of Carina being mad at her. She would feel awfully miserable and guilty because this deals with Carina's feelings and Amanda told her that Carina doesn't find it easy to confide in people. She's practically already given Lily her heart and now Lily is torn between lying and pretending she never knew, or telling her and risking her feelings getting hurt in the progress.
"I like her so much and I wouldn't ever want to hurt her deliberately," Lily sighs, "but I would never ever lie to her. I think I have to tell her the truth, even if it means she'll be mad at me."
Desi looks at her with soft, sympathetic eyes and pulls her in for a warm hug. "I'm sorry you're in this situation, but things will be okay. I don't think I've ever seen two people more perfect for each other."
"Thanks, Desi," Lily sighs against her friend's shoulder. "Don't know what I would do without your very, very, very rare wisdom."
"Thank you?" Desi chuckles as she lets her go. She then pats Lily's cheek comfortingly. "But I'm glad you guys are finally finished secretly liking each other from afar with all that sexual tension heating up between you two because it's about damn time. My shipping heart could only take so much waiting."
Lily laughs, nudging Desi's shoulder. Her phone buzzes on the bed and she reads Carina's text. Now she isn't laughing anymore.
CC: nO you're W R O N G. you are WRONG. WRONGWRONGWRONG.
Lily glances up at her friend with a serious expression in her face. "Desi, do you think lemonade is considered juice?"
--
Later that night after Lily leaves Desi's house, she's sitting at her desk working on homework while simultaneously texting Carina, who finally let Jesus into her life and was able to agree with Lily that lemonade is, in fact, considered to be a part of the juice family.
But now they're debating on who the most attractive U.S president was/is.
LJ: John F. Kennedy. hands fucking down. JFK all day every day
CC: okay but you can't forget Obama
LJ: fine but JFK is first then Obama.
CC: excuse me no. switch that are you blind
Lily's just about to reply when she sees a quick flash of lighting, followed by the low rumbling of thunder a few seconds later. She furrows her eyebrows as she quickly checks the weather on her phone and sees that a thunderstorm is coming tonight. It's not raining right now, but it's about to be pretty soon, which explains why Lily wasn't aware of this earlier.
Nevertheless, Lily grabs her keys, hops out of her chair and jogs down the stairs. A second later, Carina's name lights up Lily's phone, followed by the designated ringtone that she set for her: the Spiderman theme song.
Lily accepts the call and brings the phone up to her ear as she swings open the front door, stepping out into the cool night.
"I'm on my way to you right now."