For one month, three weeks, and four days, it had been Reagan who said things first. The first to reveal, the first to share, the first to laugh, hell, she'd been the first to let out a low moan during a kiss.
Amy might have taken over the lead on that one though. Once the seal had been broken, Reagan quickly discovered that her girlfriend wasn't particularly quiet when she was turned on. Which, since about the second week of that one month, seemed to be Amy's perpetual state around Reagan.
But in every other way, it was Reagan who went first. And now, she'd done it again.
She hadn't planned to say it. Really, she hadn't. Not then. Not in the Hester High hallway. Not with Shane standing like three feet away. Not in that blurting, I just can't hold it in case you are just so fucking adorable and if I have to keep this in one more minute I might just die kind of way.
As she steered the car toward her apartment, she resisted the urge to bang her head on the steering wheel. The urge to leap from the car and run as fast and as far as she could. To turn to Amy and tell her look, I didn't mean that thing I said back there, you know, the love thing and how about we just pretend it never happened and go back to my place and maybe I can make you moan enough that you forget I ever opened my mouth....
She couldn't do that. She couldn't take it back. And, truthfully, even if she could, she wouldn't. She'd change the how of it, the where and when, but she would never take it back. She couldn't do that to Amy.
Or to herself.
Reagan might have regretted a lot about the last fifteen minutes, but she could never regret loving Amy. Even if this was the thing that ruined it all, even if she had spoken too quickly, if letting her guard down for those thirty stinking seconds had fucked up the best thing she'd ever had?
She would never regret the feeling. Loving Amy did something to her. She couldn't quite describe it, not without sounding like a cheesy pop song about fireworks and swelling hearts and while she was secretly a little bit of a romantic at heart, she had a rep to maintain, and cool DJ's didn't ramble on about hearts and flowers and sweet nothings like some grade school girl with her first crush.
Reagan let her eyes flick from the road to Amy, staring out the same window she'd had her gaze fixed on since they left the high school parking lot. And she felt, literally fucking felt, her heart skip a beat.
Fuck reputations. She was a goner. She'd wear flowery sun dresses and skip through fields of wildflowers and dress their kids - twin daughters, of course - in matching Christmas dresses for the family holiday card photo, if it meant spending every waking moment with Amy.
God, she was screwed.
And the fact that Amy hadn't said a word, hadn't made a sound, hadn't even breathed audibly since Reagan's sudden blurt? That didn't concern her at all. Nope. Not even a little.
Her heart always raced like this. Her palms were always this sweaty. That slowly spreading gnawing put in her stomach? That was there 24/7/365.
Nope. No problems whatsoever, she thought. Everything fucking five by five over here.
She had a brief moment of panic - absolute fucking terror - and thought about spinning the car out. Slamming into tree sounded mildly better that the deafening fucking silence - and oh, how she understood that phrase now - she'd endured since they left Hester.
But that would only fix the short term.
It wasn't the short term that worried her. Try as she might - and her imagination was trying awfully damn hard - Reagan couldn't imagine Amy breaking up with her just because she'd said... that. She might not know everything about Amy yet, might not be the expert on her that Karma was, but she knew that wasn't Amy's style.
No, Amy wouldn't just end it. She'd try. She would shove her own fears, doubts, and feelings way down deep and try for Reagan. Because that's what Amy did. That was who she was.
So, in the short term, Reagan knew they'd still be together. But long term?
Why couldn't that gnawing pit just swallow her whole?
She tried to focus on the positive. Amy had said she was falling. That was good, right? Falling meant possibility. Falling meant Reagan was floating completely alone out here. And maybe Amy wasn't done falling, maybe she hadn't... landed, yet. But that didn't mean she wouldn't. That didn't mean this had become some bad one-sided unrequited mess where they couldn't be around each other for more than five minutes because it was just so fucking uncomfortable.
Oh, shit, she thought. I'm her. I'm Amy. And she's my Karma.
She took a corner a little too sharply, found herself slamming on the brakes to keep from rolling up on the sidewalk, and when even that didn't get a reaction from Amy, Reagan finally couldn't take the silence anymore.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Really? Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me here? First the chemistry bit and now 'a penny'? I need to get my brain and mouth re-fucking-wired.
And then she remembered. There was the little matter of those three other words too.
Amy smiled, but didn't turn from the window. "You're a DJ and a cater-waiter. You sure you've got a penny to spare?"
The sound of her voice was like a rush of oxygen and Reagan couldn't help but gasp. She recovered quickly. relieved that at least they could still joke. "Cheap shot, Shrimps," she said, reaching out hand and slapping Amy's thigh.
When Amy caught her hand and laced their fingers together, Reagan was sure she'd be able to feel her pulse slamming the blood through her veins at an unhealthy rate.
"Seriously, though," she said. "Whatcha thinking about over there?" Amy brushed her thumb across Reagan's skin and the older girl started searching desperately for some place to pull over. If the feel of Amy's thumb against her knuckles was enough to make her feel like her heart was going to drum right out of her chest, then she was in no condition to drive.
Amy turned from the window, her fingers squeezing tightly around Reagan's hand. "I was thinking about you," she said. And Reagan felt a moment of hope swell up out of that pit in her stomach. "I was thinking about what you said."
'Oh." It was all Reagan could manage and even that one word, that one syllable, scratched against her throat as it worked its way out. As that hope disappeared back down to whatever foolish place it had come from.
"Can I ask you something?" Amy shifted in her seat so she was facing Reagan, but she never let go of her hand. "You remember the other night? At your place? When things got... heated?"
Reagan's heart twitched. Did she remember the feeling of Amy's naked skin against hers? Did she remember seeing Amy fully for the first time, stretched out across her bed, the light from the one lamp on her small bedside table casting shadows across Amy's body in all the right places? Did she remember them falling into bed together, wrapped up in one another, the feel of Amy's breasts pressed against her back and Amy's fingers tracing endless little swirls all across her skin until she'd fallen asleep cradled in the younger girl's arms.
Reagan nodded. She might have had a vague recollection.
"You stopped it," Amy said. "We were... well, I think we were going to... and then you stopped it. You kissed me and cuddled me and we slept together, but we really slept, even though we were naked and we hadn't gotten there before -"
"Amy," Reagan's voice snapped the blonde out of her ramble. Something a thinking about her and Reagan all naked and fingers and lips and touches seemed to make her lose her train of thought.
"Sorry," Amy said, blushing she stared down at their linked hands. "Why?" she asked. There was no judgment in her tone, just genuine questioning and confusion. "If you're in love with me, then why did you stop?"
And now Reagan had to stop because there was no way she was even close to capable of having this conversation and driving. She swung across two lanes of oncoming traffic, steering them into the parking lot of one of the about 1 billion nondescript office buildings in Austin. She chose a spot as far removed from everyone else as possible and parked.
Her hand dropped from the wheel and into her lap. Amy was still clutching the other one, though Reagan suspected that might have had more to do with a sudden rush of fear at her stunt car driving than it did with romance.
She stared straight ahead for a minute, trying to pull it all together. She knew the answer. She knew exactly why she'd stopped them the other night. But even in her head it was a bit convoluted and confusing and if she didn't tell Amy this exactly right...
"You remember when I told you about my old girlfriends?"
The way she felt Amy's grip on her hand loosen slightly told her that she probably hadn't chosen the best way to start. But fuck all, she was in it now.
The only way out was straight on through.
"Anna was a fling," she said. "A hot fling, but nothing serious. She was my training wheels girlfriend. It was all new and different and nothing I'd ever done before... I got to learn about all things lesbian and she got.. well..."
"I get it," Amy said gently. She knew somewhere in here there was a point. Reagan always had a point. But she wasn't sure she wanted to hear about her girlfriend's past sexual adventures as a way of explaining why she's refused sex with her.
"Shelby was something different." Reagan allowed herself a small smile at the memory. Yeah, it had ended badly, but sometimes the trip was worth the ending. "I loved her," she said. "And she loved me. And that made all the difference."
Reagan turned in her seat, pulling their conjoined hands into her lap. She wanted Amy to see her face, to look in her eyes. She wanted there to be no doubt. "Anna was my first, but Shelby was... my real first in every way that mattered. First real love. First real lover." She let out a shuddering breath, praying she'd find the words to make Amy understand. "You know how they always say sex is better with someone you love and someone who loves you back?"
Amy nodded. She'd said that to Karma more times than she could count.
"Well," Reagan said. "For once, they speak the truth. Sex with Anna was hot and amazing, but with Shelby... being in love, together... I've never felt anything like that."
Amy wanted to pull her hand away. She wanted to leap from the car and curl up and cry. She didn't care what Reagan's point was anymore. She didn't care about the answer to her question or why Reagan had chosen today to say those words or anything else.
All she could think was that she never wanted to hear the name Shelby ever again.
"That's why I stopped us that night," Reagan said. She saw Amy's eyes snap up to meet her own. "I don't want to be your Anna," she said. "I can't be. It would fucking kill me. I want.. I need to be your Shelby. Because what I had for my first is what I want for you. I want your first - and fuck that shit with Liam, we're going to be your first - I want that to be between you and someone who loves you. And someone you love back."
"But you do love me," Amy said softly.
Reagan nodded. "I started falling for you the moment you climbed that ladder to be with me at the rave." She squeezed Amy's hand tightly. "I've loved you since the night you chased after me when I found out about you and Karma." She brought Amy's hand closer and brushed her lips across the blonde's knuckles. "And if I'm lucky enough that someday you feel that for me... I'm willing to wait for that day. As long as it takes."
"Why?" Amy asked. She hadn't meant to. It wasn't what she wanted to say. But after everything, every rejection, every heartbreak, some part of her need to hear it.
"Because," Reagan said. "Because if what I felt for Shelby made being with her that incredible..." She blinked back tears she hadn't even known were there. "Then what I feel for you and being with you... " She smiled ruefully. "Being with you might well ruin me for all other women. Ever."
Amy laughed and cried and felt her heart shaking within her chest.
"I'm sorry I told you the way I did," Reagan said. "That wasn't how I wanted to do it. I wanted it to be sweet and romantic and like something out of a movie -"
She fell silent as Amy pressed two fingers to her lips. "I don't need a movie, Reagan," she said. "I just need you."
Amy scrambled out of her seat and into Reagan's lap, moving those two fingers aside and crashing her mouth against Reagan, slowly, deliberately devouring every inch of her girlfriend's lips, before she suddenly pulled back to stare into Reagan's eyes.
"You didn't have to stop the other night," she said. And the look that flickered behind Reagan's eyes as she realized what Amy was saying? No look had ever made Amy feel more wanted or loved in her life. "I love you, too."
Amy ran her hands through Reagan's hair and pulled her into a kiss And then another. And then another. And somewhere along the way they both lost count and track of time and neither one of them gave a damn.
Throughout the entire one month, three weeks, and four days (give or take), they'd been dating, Reagan had always been the one to tell Amy things first. And she'd been so sure this time she'd made a mistake.
As she felt Amy's hands tangle in her hair and felt her murmur "I love you" against her lips, Reagan realized she never been so happy to be wrong in her life.