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That was totally a straight line.
No question about it.
There’s still no question about it - Alex is just wondering how she ended up leaning against a brick wall. So it’s not a question.
But maybe her walk wasn’t as straight as she proudly thinks it is. Whatever. Fuck Kelley for betting she couldn’t do it and fuck herself for doing. It’s not like Alex even had that much to drink anyway.
(Or maybe she had.
Maybe she had so many drinks - it’s not like she asked for them, those boys just kept buying and the bartender just kept giving - that she actually took Dom’s joke about ditching the lock on the apartment and just climbing through the window seriously. “It gets jammed so just go through the window. You’ll be fine.”
Maybe that’s why her legs are dangling feet above the ground.)
Or at least that’s what she tells Sydney when her friend finds her sprawled across their leather couch in the outfit she wore last night.
“What the fuck were you actually thinking?” Sydney laughs after noticing the small knick-knacks Dom’s left on their windowsill scattered across the floor.
There’s a hole in Alex’s blouse from where it caught onto the edge of the window and she’s pretty sure the stinging in her elbow isn’t something to be proud of either and--
“Did she actually go through the window?” Dom’s laughter is loud and filled with disbelief and way too much for a hungover Alex. “Babe are you sure your best mate isn’t mental?”
Alex surely doesn’t have an answer to that.
Or maybe she does.
“Fuck Kelley.” The blue eyed woman groans before throwing in an afterthought.
“And tequila.”
--
Really, she should’ve known after how badly the first time ended that she shouldn’t do it again.
But it was Mana’s birthday and Alex has never been able to say no to a good pina colada or a cute umbrella drink.
So when the door handle to the apartment is as stiff as the sexist idiot she ditched the week before - he said women's sports were a joke, so excuse her for leaving him high and dry in the middle of the dance floor (he did not deserve to be graced with her blessing of an ass against him if he thought her passion in life was a joke. He was the joke, Alex concluded.) - her next move involves the window that leads to the living room of her friend’s apartment and drowning hope that Dom hadn’t locked it.
It was unlocked.
--
Syd and Dom find her again, knocked out on the floor propped up against the back of the couch.
They take a few pictures before helping her.
--
By the third time Syd and Dom aren’t sure if it’s entertaining anymore. Alex is giggling, arms out wiggling as they reach out to her friends.
“Guys, I’m stuck.” The blue eyed woman slurs. (Dom snickers when Alex hiccups but Syd glares at him to get her down. Their stare down ends in Dom letting out a tsk before he groans and heads over to his wife’s best friend.)
The next morning Dom heads out to find someone to fix the damn lock.
--
“Okay guys, come on,” Alex whines.
When no one comes to her rescue Alex knows she’s alone on this mission. She closes her eyes for a few seconds(more like ten sober minutes) trying to get the room to stop spinning. It doesn’t work but Alex doesn’t know that. She manages to hoist herself almost entirely over the wall and into the living room with a swing of her hip. She would’ve been proud - should have been proud - if she didn’t lose her balance and slip over the edge of the windowsill.
This is it. This is how I lose all my teeth and become the 43rd girl in my high school class to get a nosejob. Alex blames the amount of whiskey she had on her terrible choice of last thought before she breaks her face.
Except she doesn’t break her face.
Her face is perfectly unharmed and she won’t be needing that nosejob because she lands on the softest cushions she’s ever felt in her entire life.
“When did--I fucking love them.” Alex purs melting into the couch. They bought me a couch. My own couch. And they put it along the fucking wall. Under my window. My couch. My window. You must be one badass bitch Morgan.
It’s some ungodly hour and all the woman can process, aside from her new couch - and being a badass bitch, apparently - is that her skinny jeans are too hot for sleeping in. Slipping out of them, Alex spots a hoodie on the other end of her couch. A wave of something washes over an already giddy Alex Morgan. They fucking love me. She slips out of her top and bra, taking a moment to revel in the freedom of ridding herself of the fifty dollar “boob holder”, Kelley’s words not hers, before slipping the hoodie on.
The sigh she lets out when she feels the soft fabric against her skin is the last thing she remembers before she dozes off.
--
The first thing Alex noticed is that her toes are freezing.
The second thing she notices is that she has to piss, like right now. Quickly, Alex gets up from the couch and scurries off to the hallway bathroom.
But.. It’s not there?
Blaming it on her hangover and the sleep still clouding her entire consciousness, Alex makes her way across the living room and to the door of Syd and Dom’s room. Desperate times call for desperate measures and if she couldn’t pee in the bathroom they gave her then she’ll have to use their--wait.
Since when did Dom have a surfboard? And Alex could bet her life that the TV was on the other side of the living room not---Oh my god.
“Good morning.”
With wide eyes Alex watches as a brunette grumbles past her and into the kitchen. She’s rubs her eyes before glancing over at Alex. The woman tilts her head to the side slightly, blinking a few times. “Nice hoodie.” Oh my god.
“Oh my god!” Alex shrieks, “I am so sor--”
“Dude, too early.” The woman groans with a wince, reaching into a cabinet. “Bathrooms down the hall, last door on your left.” Alex is sure her eyes are still wide but after exchanging a few glances between the hall and the woman, she hurries off. If this is the situation she’s in then she might as well not make it worse by pissing on herself and the woman’s floor.
It’s when she closes the door that she notices another thing, another very important thing: she’s not wearing pants. Fuck.
A slew of curse words and a flush and handwash later, Alex manages to muster up enough courage to leave the bathroom (figuring she’ll never have to see the woman after this morning..right?) Thanking god she spots her jeans on floor by the couch and quickly makes a beeline for her pants. Slipping them on, Alex notices a bottle of water, half a sandwich, and a bottle of aspirin. She barely has a chance to appreciate what the woman had left her when she hears a voice come up from behind her.
“Figured it could help.” The brunette smiles, plopping down onto the couch cradling a bowl of Fruitloops.
Alex tries to say something, anything, but all she manages is a croaked out, “Thanks.” All the woman does is shrug and point her spoon at Alex’s pants.
“You gonna button those?” The woman snickers before taking a colorful spoonful cereal.
Alex is being teased. She knows she’s being teased. By a stranger - a very attractive stranger Alex realizes now that she finally has a chance to look at the woman - in said strangers apartment. Perfect.
“So you’re Syd’s friend I’m guessing.” She asks through a mouthful of Fruitloops. Alex’s eyebrows furrow, her fingers finally buttoning her pants.
“How’d you--”
“My roommate told me Syd introduced you guys.” The woman shrugs nonchalantly, as if Alex is supposed to know who her room--Oh you’ve got to be shitting me.
“The blonde?” Alex asks incredulously, “You’re roommates with the blonde?!”
The blonde being Ashlyn, the woman Alex met a week ago. The blonde AKA Syd and Dom’s next door neighbor. Yeah, that fucking blonde.
So much for never seeing this woman again.
“Yeah, that’s Ash.” The woman says, like Alex needs any reminder. She’d met Ashlyn along with another woman, a brunette, that didn’t much appreciate Ashlyn’s not so subtle flirting. “And I’m Tobin, by the way.”
Oh god, her name would be something like Tobin. Fuck me. Seriously.
“I was supposed to meet you with Ash but her girlfriend was in town and I like to make myself scarce when she’s here.” Alex raises an eyebrow at that, grabbing the water and aspirin. She watches as Tobin’s face scrunches with something close to a grimace. “They’re.. you know, loud.” The blush on her cheeks tells Alex everything she didn’t need to know about the flirty neighbor.
“Oh and you’re not?”
Alex and Tobin turn to find Ashlyn trailing the brunette, Ali, out of a room Alex hadn’t noticed. Probably because she was too preoccupied by her embarrassment to really take in the apartment, shame on her.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear all the banging and giggling last night, Tobs.” Ashlyn smirks, “And on the couch? That’s new.”
“Dude!” Tobin shouts, her eyes flickering between the three women in the room. “She did the window thing! I met her this morning.”
Alex’s jaw drops when something dawns on her. “Wait Syd told you guys?!” She shrieks.
Ali just giggles before settling at the kitchen table, watching as Ash explains how Dom, Tobin, and Ash work out together every now and then.
“He’d mentioned it in passing.”
Alex groans, plopping down next to Tobin on the couch. Her eyes closed regretting every decision she’d ever made that lead her to this exact moment, then she hears Ashlyn laugh, and then regrets even more. Her pity party is short lived when she feels a poke to her shoulder.
“You chillin' here today neighbor or are you gonna go home?” Tobin asks, a warm smile on her face. Alex feels a few heart beats in her throat when she turns to look at the woman.
Right. “Home”. Syd and Dom’s apartment. She should leave.
“I’m just asking ‘cuz Ash said that Syd said that you play soccer and I’ve got a game later and I could use another man.” Oh. “That plus, I wanna hang out. You know, since you’re already here.” Oh.
“I’m kinda gross.” Alex states and promptly regrets opening her mouth. But then Tobin laughs and suddenly she doesn’t regret anything. “Maybe I could meet you sometime after I shower?”
“Noon. I’ll show you this wicked spot a few blocks from here. Their sandwiches are fantastic.” Tobin nods and Alex tells herself not to read into the invitation because she just can’t. She can’t have her best friend’s neighbor be her tokened straight girl travesty.
“Noon.” Alex smiles in agreement.
“It’s a date.”
Dammit.
“What’s a date, Toby?” Ashlyn calls out from the kitchen table. It’s then that Alex sees the realization wash over Tobin’s perfect face.
“Oh wait-no I didn’t--I mean we’re cool and you’re cool and new so I wanted to take you out--wait! I mean like out to show you aroun--” Tobin’s so flustered and it’s showing in the coloring of her cheeks and the flush on her neck and Alex finds it endlessly adorable and also karma for the bullshit she put Alex through earlier in the morning.
Alex barks out a laugh and bravely puts her hand on Tobin’s arm - friends do that, right? are they even friends? - and smiles when she feels her relax under her touch. “I’ll see you at noon.”
Tobin’s eyes flicker down to Alex’s lips and Alex knows life is either trying to fuck her over by throwing Tobin at her or trying to punish her for something she did in another lifetime.
“I should get going.” Alex decides, because she really needs to breathe and being in Tobin and Ashlyn’s apartment is not giving her any chance to do so. Especially not with Tobin’s brown eyes looking at her like that.
“I’ll walk you to the door.” Tobin says as she puts her cereal on the coffee table.
Alex follows Tobin through the living room and passed the kitchen, saying goodbye to Ashlyn and Ali - or at least she planned to but they looked like they were a little busy. When Tobin opens the door for her, Alex smiles thanking her for being so hospitable and understanding considering she’d technically broke into her apartment. Tobin jokes about her having to make breakfast next time and Alex laughs because it sounds so coupley and domestic and shit she’s just met this woman, she should not be getting butterflies over the small joke. Alex simply replies with a, “Next time, then.”
“Yeah, next time.” And the way Tobin says it, a huge smile on her lips and an eager look in her eyes, makes Alex look away because there’s no way she’s going to be able to not kiss that smile off her stupid face if she doesn’t.
“I’ll see you here at noon.” Alex says as she turns to leave.
She doesn’t make it far, not with Tobin reaching out and grabbing her wrist. The spot where Tobin touches her burns but much like a good pina colada, Alex takes her poison with a smile full aware she might die - or have to get her stomach pumped eventually.
When she turns around Tobin has a soft smile, much softer than the bashful one she wore when she made jokes Alex realizes (though she can’t tell which she likes more. Probably both. Most definitely both.).
“Keep the hoodie. For now.” And just before Tobin slips away, back behind the door of her apartment, “It looks better on you.” And just like that, the door is closed and the brown eyed woman is gone.
“Oh my god--you’re a tar heel?” Alex gasps at the school initials UNC sewn into the Carolina Blue fabric. She hears laughter from the other side of the door. A faint “go home Alex!” is heard and Alex rolls her eyes. Of course this girl can’t be perfect. Ugh, why North Carolina? Of all teams.
Still, the compliment flips Alex’s stomach in all the ways a straight girl shouldn’t be doing but then again.. maybe she isn’t as straight as Alex thinks. At least she hopes she isn’t. There was definitely some flirting going on.. right?
Alex shakes her head and walks the ten feet from Tobin’s door to Syd’s door, she feels grimy and really, really needs a shower. But of course--
“Dammit Syd, you said you fixed the fucking door!” Alex shouts, banging on the apartment door.
No way in hell was she about to climb through that fucking window.