Sunset ^beta

Chapter Text

A day after Harrow kissed Gideon up against the sliding glass door for the very first time, Gideon met Coronabeth Tridentarius for lunch and broke the news. Upon arrival at the restaurant—agreed upon before either of them arrived this time—Corona hugged Gideon a bit too long, a bit too close, and Gideon felt herself tense up. Corona noticed right away. She pulled back and sat down, brow furrowed.

“What’s happened?” Corona asked, leaning in toward Gideon across the table. “What is it?”

Gideon was glad they’d chosen a spot with outdoor seating. She felt grounded by the sun on her shoulders, and shielded by the glasses that covered her eyes.

“It’s not you,” Gideon started, and then winced at her choice of opening. She was always starting things out all wrong. “Sorry, that sounded—but it’s true, because this is all me. I’m not sure this is going to work. As much as I want it to.”

“Oh,” Corona said, surprised. She sat back in her seat and adjusted the brim of the straw visor she wore. Gideon thought it might look silly on anyone else. It looked as hot as anything on Coronabeth. “I thought we—”

Gideon squeezed her eyes shut. “I know, and you thought right, but the thing is, the night of our first date, I stayed out after you left and I, well—I’m married now.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m married. I’m not sure how yet, exactly, or why, but yeah. After you left, one thing led to another, and—” Here Gideon pulled out the chain she wore tucked into her shirt to show Corona the ring she’d hung there. It felt weird to put the ring back on, but after they made out against the sliding glass door of Harrow’s house, it felt weird not to wear it at all either. Gideon settled for the chain around her neck, like how cheerleaders wore their boyfriend’s class rings in high school if they were too big to just wrap a bunch of string around it. Something like that.

Corona was silent for two seconds and then she burst out with a laugh. “Oh! Oh, Gideon, you ridiculous sweetheart!”

Everyone always seemed to think it was so very funny. A waiter came by with two glasses of water. “Can you come back in a few minutes?” Gideon asked, pained, when Corona couldn’t seem to control herself long enough to speak. Corona managed to hold up a splayed hand to indicate she’d need at least five minutes.

It was probably like thirty seconds before she stopped, but it felt like an excruciating long time.

“Who?” Corona asked. She was still giggling a little, still had her hand partially covering her mouth.

Gideon shook her head. She was still holding out the ring and was starting to feel a little silly about it. She let it drop down to rest against her t-shirt. It fell right between her tits, which she tried not to think about, because then it also got pretty weird. The whole thing was still pretty weird, like should she take it off at the gym? She didn’t that morning, just tucked it into her bra, but then she caught herself thinking about it like, yeah, that was her wedding ring all right, the ring that symbolized her spontaneous marriage to Harrow, bouncing around in there, totally covered in her tit sweat? So yeah, then she showered with it on too. Also weird.

“How?” Corona asked, still sputtering, just a little.

Gideon stopped thinking about Harrow’s ring in relation to her tits and said: “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you going to stay married to this mystery woman?” Corona asked. She paused. “I’m sorry if I—I’m just assuming you married a woman.”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be weird or a jerk about it, but I promised her I’d keep the details between us.”

Corona nodded. She used her straw to stir the slice of lemon in her water. The sound of the ice made Gideon think of how, after they shifted away from the sliding door, Harrow paused to take a cool sip of her drink and then she kissed Gideon with the taste of it on her mouth. It made her think of the press of Harrow’s chilled tongue between her lips. Gideon took a sip of her own water, swallowed it down a little too hard.

“Harrow has always been a very private individual,” Corona said, slowly, as though she was trying to tread lightly.

Gideon choked on her water. “No, it’s not—I’m sworn to secrecy. Legally. I can’t confirm or deny anything.”

Corona reached out to set a hand over Gideon’s. “I swear I won’t mention it to my sister. Not a word about any of it. That’s the concern, isn’t it?”

“Legally sworn to secrecy,” Gideon repeated, adamant.

They left it at that.

Peony infused gin, butterfly pea tea, lemon juice and prosecco. Brown butter fat washed bourbon, pineapple liqueur, meyer lemon juice, turbinado syrup and spicy bitters. Vanilla bean & cinnamon infused vodka with pear nectar, lemon juice and prosecco, finished with a chai tea sugar rim. Bourbon and cardamom bitters, apple cider, freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pomegranate/malbec float. Kafir lime leaf and lime zest infused tequila, bergamot liqueur and a cranberry black pepper scrub. Pear nectar, ginger liqueur and lemon juice with a cinnamon sugar rimmed glass.

They were the flavors of hours spent kissing in the dry afternoon heat. Harrow gave them names like Fallen Fruit and Fever Dream, like Closing Kiss and Morning Regrets.

“You could overhaul your entire menu with these,” Gideon pointed out as she sipped from a creation Harrow called Last Dance. They were sitting in two weathered chairs Gideon had pushed into the corner of Harrow’s yard, under a small amount of patchy shade cast by the neighbor’s Acacia tree. Dog sat in front of Gideon, attentive, patiently waiting for Gideon to lift the water gun she held in her left hand and spray a stream of cool water right into Dog’s waiting mouth. Dog kept trying to bite the water, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared as it dripped out the sides of her mouth and slipped off her tongue. She looked ridiculous and Gideon was obsessed.

Harrow shook her head and traced a finger through the sweat collecting on the outside of her glass. “They don’t fit the theme.”

“So change the theme,” Gideon reasoned, her finger pressing the trigger of the water pistol again. “It’s your place, right?”

“No, it isn’t."

That was a first. Excessive make out sessions must make Harrow more ready to admit the truths she usually skimmed past. Gideon didn’t really get the ins and outs of the ownership of the Tomb. She understood that Harrow’s parents owned it. She knew that they signed it all over to Crux before their death, and she understood that eventually, Crux was going to sign it back to Harrow, but when? Harrow wasn’t a child. She was fast approaching thirty! If anyone knew how to run a place like the Tomb, it was Harrow Nonagesimus. Hell, look at how she lived! She obviously wasn’t a frivolous spender.

Gideon chewed at a dry spot on her lip as she shifted so that she could see Harrow. She looked at her old favorite spots, the two marks on Harrow’s nose and the one on Harrow’s cheek. Harrow was wearing sunglasses, but they were a different shape than the prescriptionless pair of glasses she wore to look cool, and the marks were still visible. Gideon didn’t visit them as often now that she wasn’t as scared of the rest of Harrow’s face. Or at least, she didn’t visit them as often with her eyes. She pressed kisses to them instead, revelled in the absolutely embarrassing sound Harrow made the first time she pressed her lips to those spots, and then made sure to do it again and again.

She studied the angles of Harrow’s eyebrows and the industrial studs in her ears. Harrow’s lips looked dry and chapped, the result of too much kissing and not enough chapstick. Gideon carried a tube with her now, made sure to apply it liberally in the morning and then again after she parted ways with Harrow on their way to work in the evening. She doubted the thought ever occurred to Harrow, even after Gideon pressed a tube into the palm of Harrow’s hand.

Gideon took another sip of her drink and remembered back to the stagnant menu that sat on the bar within the Tomb. She’d thought that meant Harrow had simply stopped experimenting, but that was obviously not the case. She’d just moved all of her creative energy out of the Tomb and into her home instead.

“What if it was yours now? Would you change it?”

Harrow shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“We could just come up with spookier names,” Gideon offered. “This one’s Last Dance, right? But what if it was Death’s Dance? Dance of Death?”

Harrow stood from the chair. “Come inside,” she said. “It’s too hot out here.”

It was too hot because Harrow was wearing too many clothes, all of them black. Gideon followed Harrow, back into the house. The cool shaded interior made her sag a little with relief. Harrow waited for Gideon to settle onto the old orange couch before she physically advanced. Her lips brushed against Gideon’s and Gideon shivered.

“Devil’s Dance?” Gideon suggested just before Harrow’s proximity pushed her brain into automatic shut down.

“Let it go, Griddle.” That old hard edge was creeping back into Harrow’s voice.

Gideon let it go. She let it go even though, in her very humble opinion, drinks with names like Fallen Fruit and Fever Dream already fit the theme close enough.

She let a lot of things go. There was a lot they didn’t talk about anymore, like what they were doing, why it was happening, or where they were going. They also stopped pretending it wasn’t going to happen again. That part was refreshing. That part was new.

**

Most days, Gideon woke up in her own bed, late morning, sometimes early afternoon, and she walked Abigail and Magnus’s dogs. She went to the gym with Camilla. After the gym, more often than not, she went over to Harrow’s. She knew where Harrow hid the spare key now, in the pot of cilantro on the second tier of her garden. Gideon plucked it up from the dirt and she let herself in. If Harrow was still asleep, Gideon walked Dog. Sometimes she washed Harrow’s dishes and made Harrow breakfast. And then once Harrow was up and ready for the day, the kissing began.

Sometimes Harrow was up when Gideon arrived, sometimes she was already beside the glass doors, waiting as Gideon fiddled with the lock. Sometimes she pulled Gideon into the cool of the house and pressed Gideon’s back to the wall and kissed her in greeting.

They were making out like they were in high school and just discovered making out, except that Gideon didn’t make out with much of anyone in high school and if she had to place bets, she’d bet that Harrow didn’t either. Gideon had known Harrow what felt like forever, but in truth their shared history was full of big holes. They were never really friends, but they went to school together until Harrow moved into a different district at nine, and then again when Gideon’s mom skipped town for the thousandth time and Gideon moved in with Aiglamene at sixteen. Gideon was there at eighteen when Harrow’s parents died, and then Harrow was gone again and Gideon didn’t see her until she was twenty-two, until she arrived for her first day of work at The Locked Tomb. She didn’t realize then, didn’t make the connection between the bar that Harrow’s parents owned growing up and The Locked Tomb run by the cantankerous Crux. By twenty-two, it seemed to Gideon that Harrow had only ever existed within the Tomb. The childhood that came before seemed like a strange dream, impossible.

Now she saw Harrow almost every day again, spent afternoons in the cool confines of Harrow’s home, in that time capsule of a house where everything was a shade of yellow or orange or brown, even the dog—fuck, even Gideon. Harrow, dressed all in black with her dark hair and her dark eyes, was the only exception. But even then, Harrow’s kisses were red hot. Harrow’s kisses left embers that glowed, orange-yellow-red. They flickered and flared in Gideon’s gut; they lit her up and left her burning for more.

**

Warming to Harrow (or at least to Harrow’s drinks and Harrow’s orange-yellow-red kisses) did the trick of warming Gideon a little toward the always chilly Tomb again as well. She found herself talking up Harrow’s talent at a now rare dinner with Dulcinea, Palamedes and Camilla. They indulged her, let her go on about it for a long time. Dulcinea watched Gideon with a small smile playing at her lips and her face propped on one hand. The other hand was somewhere beneath the table, probably clutched tight to Pal’s. Gideon couldn’t even tell her to stop, because Gideon was smiling too.

“All I’m saying is, most of the people who work there are awful, like really heinous, but the drinks are actually good, worth going good, and I think you’d be impressed.”

“By Harrow,” Palamedes clarified.

“Look at her,” Dulcie said. “Our Gideon sitting here promoting the very bar she made us all swear we’d never ever patronize. You once told me Harrow was evil incarnate, an extremely nasty beast from hell, and now you’re—just look at her, Pal. She’s glowing. You all see her glowing, don’t you? True love.”

Gideon snorted. “That’s a stretch.”

Dulcinea tilted her head and regarded Gideon from a slightly different angle. “Is it?”

“Come on.”

“You’re allowed to love your wife,” Palamedes pointed out. “In fact, it’s generally recommended.”

Gideon pulled her napkin up from her lap and set it on the table beside her plate. She leaned back in her chair until the front legs lifted and the back began to creak. “You know that’s not how any of this is. I’m just saying she’s good at this. Like, really good.”

“She’s good at other things too though, isn’t she?” Dulcie asked, eyebrows high.

“We aren’t sleeping together,” Gideon said, perhaps a little too quickly.

“No one said you were,” Cam pointed out. Damn, even Cam was having a laugh at Gideon’s expense now.

Dulcinea nodded. “We just can’t help but notice that it seems you’ve purchased stock in lip balm over these last couple weeks. You dropped a stick in the living room and Mia’s been playing with it for days. There are two in the hall bathroom, and you’ve reapplied twice during dinner. Feeling a little...chapped?”

Gideon pressed her lips together and resisted the urge to tell them all to fuck off. “We’re just getting to know each other. And then we’re getting divorced, look—do you want to come to The Locked Tomb one night or not?”

“Not me,” Dulcinea said. “It’s obvious just from what you’ve said that they don’t have an elevator. I propose that you bring Harrow here, instead. I would love that. We’ll make dinner, Harrow makes the drinks?”

Gideon sucked at her teeth.

“That would be nice,” Palamedes agreed. “Until then—just promise you’ll be careful. Don’t get so caught up that you forget to watch out for you.”

“Yeah, of course,” Gideon said. She nodded, then shrugged. “We’re taking it really slow. I told you, we haven’t even—”

“What definition of slow are we using? You’re married,” Cam pointed out.

Gideon groaned, frustrated. “So which is it?” Gideon asked. “True love and I’m legally allowed to love my wife, or watch your back, Gideon, you’re being reckless and moving too fast? Can we pick a side here and then move on?”

Dulcinea was still smiling despite Gideon’s mounting frustration. “It’d be easier to pick a side if you brought her over for dinner.”

That wasn’t happening. Not yet and maybe not ever. Harrow would probably laugh in Gideon’s face if she even suggested it. Harrow would shut the whole thing down, shut herself down, and they’d end up with Juno Zeta’s stack of forms spread across the coffee table. And even then, Harrow would probably refuse to sign. Why let Gideon go with a clean break, when she could just kick her out, but keep her tied up in the marriage anyway instead?

Whatever the case, Gideon wasn’t ready to call it quits yet. She still didn’t understand what drove them to the altar. If she fucked this up now, she’d never know. She’d always wonder. They’d get there eventually anyway—no one was pretending divorce wasn’t inevitable. Or at least, Gideon wasn't pretending that divorce wasn't inevitable—but in the meantime Gideon was holding onto the afternoon heat, to Dog’s wagging tail and Harrow waiting by the glass doors to pull her in, to welcome her home with a red hot kiss.

Four A.M. was when things started to get pretty fuzzy. Gideon kissed Harrowhark Nonagesimus in the bathroom between the lady still obsessively picking at her mascara and a group of women who screeched and began to clap as Gideon fell into Harrow. Some spoiled sport shouted “Get a room!” but she was shushed by the less jaded drunk women in the bathroom line.

Gideon ignored them all. All that mattered was Harrow’s fingers on her neck and Harrow’s mouth hot on hers.

This wasn’t the first time she’d kissed Harrow. It wasn’t the first time Harrow kissed her. This had all happened already, once before, years ago when they were the only two in the Tomb, when the doors were shut and locked. A few hours before it happened the first time, Gideon was tossing glasses behind the bar like she was Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail. It was very impressive, a real crowd pleaser, until she missed one and it shattered at Harrow’s feet. That was when the night took a turn. Gideon was flustered and Harrow was pissed, and Crux made a stink about breaking a glass being the equivalent of Gideon stealing money from Harrow’s pockets and flushing it down the toilet, which seemed extreme for a fucking glass, but that was Crux for you. He made her give him the cost of the glass from her tips. Absolute shit manager, always and forever.

Things got a little better once Crux left Harrow and Gideon to close up for the night (or morning, really), but only a little better. Harrow started ordering Gideon around, reminding her to do things that were part of Gideon’s job, that she successfully managed to do every single night she worked and had been doing for like five years at that point, things that Gideon was obviously going to do, things that didn’t require Harrow’s reminders. That made Gideon feel petty, so she said something like, “You gonna make me, Pipsqueak?”

And Harrow said, “Don’t make me make you, Griddle.”

And Gideon countered with “Go ahead, Harrow. Make me make you.” She paused long enough to realize that didn’t quite add up. She added, “Make me.”

It was probably important to point out that they were already full grown adults at this point, like mid-twenties adults. So in hindsight Gideon understood why her response pushed Harrow over some ledge, caused her to shriek and come at Gideon with arms raised. She didn’t actually try to hit Gideon, just pressed her fists to Gideon’s chest with a frustrated cry. Gideon took a step back anyway, right into the back counter. The bottles shook, and Harrow advanced, pressing into Gideon, pushing her back harder.

Gideon didn’t understand what exactly about this exchange drove Harrow to follow up the fist-to-chest frustration with kissing, but it’s not like Gideon was complaining about it at the time. She was into it. She kissed Harrow back. They legit made out, no question. And then the next day Harrow acted like Gideon had run over a puppy, like she’d pissed in Harrow’s Cheerios, or kicked her in the shin. Everything was one thousand percent worse after that.

Everything would probably be worse after this too. Didn’t matter this time. Gideon didn’t care. She didn’t care because she was the perfect amount of drunk, because Harrow’s hands were on her face holding her close. She didn’t care because even if Harrow acted like this was all Gideon’s fault tomorrow, it wasn’t like Gideon was forced to see Harrow every day from then on anyway. They weren’t coworkers now. They weren’t tomb mates. Harrow definitely wasn’t Gideon’s boss anymore.

Gideon thought about kissing Harrow again pretty often after that first time, but the thoughts were never all that nice after Harrow’s kicked puppy response. It all centered around doing everything possible to make herself irresistible to Harrow, to drive Harrow back to that point where she had no choice but to admit it had happened the once and that she wanted it to happen again.

Except that Harrow didn’t want it to happen again. Apparently. Not even when Gideon lifted the bottom of her shirt to wipe nonexistent sweat from her face, or when Gideon did press ups against the bar, or when Gideon was really fucking nice and also great at her job and did everything she was supposed to do extra early before Harrow had time to note the things that still needed to be done. None of it mattered. Harrow wasn’t interested. Maybe Harrow only liked femmes or something. Maybe Harrow didn’t like anyone. Maybe Harrow just absolutely hated Gideon specifically.

Whatever the reason, it made an already not great situation way worse, and Gideon, who had started looking for work elsewhere well before that with no luck, decided to go to the Erebos instead, decided to learn to deal tables. And unlike all of the past jobs she’d applied to, this time she didn’t ask anyone in the Tomb for a character reference or a recommendation. This time she got in on the first try, and when that happened it really drove home how fucked up everything was, how Harrow would do anything to keep her around, and everything to keep her at arm’s length.

It didn’t matter now. None of that mattered now.

Now they were in the bathroom at Club Nine sucking face like they’d never stopped, except that the kiss they shared now was better than the kiss Gideon remembered in the Tomb (even though, again, she was pretty into the kiss then too).

This time, Gideon was going to make sure she really performed her best. This time Gideon was going to make sure it was a night Harrow wouldn’t want to erase, wouldn’t be able to wipe from her memory even if she wanted to. Gideon kissed Harrow with all she had, with all she’d learned about herself since that moment three years prior. She kissed Harrow with the reduced inhibitions that alcohol was renowned for, a magical confidence boost, a skill strengthening elixir.

Okay, yeah, that was absolutely the alcohol talking, and it was definitely telling some lies, but either way, it worked, because Harrow kissed Gideon back like she’d been starving, like Gideon was the first meal she’d had in three very long years. Like maybe she really hadn’t been smacking lips with Ianthe Tridentarius all this time after all.

Gideon didn’t remember leaving the bathroom, but they left it at some point, and before Gideon knew it they were dancing, bodies pressed close, nice and tight to each other. Harrow kept her eyes closed and Gideon guided them, moved Harrow with her, and then they were kissing again there on the dance floor, Gideon bending to meet Harrow’s lips and Harrow holding on tight. Another drink, another song, and they were on a bench, her body curved toward Harrow, Harrow’s curved in toward Gideon. Gideon sucked at Harrow’s teeth, pressed lips to Harrow’s jaw, tongue to the acrid paint on Harrow’s neck.

Cam was there for a while, quiet and discreet. Gideon let herself be pulled aside and she couldn’t follow everything they discussed, but she assured Cam that she knew what she was doing, that everything was fine, that Cam could just go home if she wanted to, go cuddle up to Dulcinea. Cam said, “Okay.” and then Cam was gone (but not gone gone, just went to the bar for another drink gone) and it was Gideon and Harrow and Harrow and Gideon. They were back on the dance floor, pressed together and moving, kissing, kissing, kissing, so close that it felt like the boundaries between them, layers of fabric and layers of skin, might just dissolve completely. It felt like if Harrow held Gideon any closer, Gideon might just melt into Harrow and disappear, and she’d feel nothing but relief. She might even feel complete.

The thought should have been frightening, the realization that in that moment, Gideon wanted nothing more than to be consumed by Harrow—Figuratively, obviously. This wasn’t that kind of horror movie—Still, it should have been frightening, and it wasn’t. It was thrilling. It was a long time coming. It was about fucking time.

At some point Gideon’s shirt came untucked, and Harrow’s fingers crept up beneath the fabric, hot fingertips pressed to Gideon’s torso and touching the skin along Gideon’s flanks, and all Gideon could think was I knew it. I fucking knew it. Harrow gave herself away. She remembered how hard Gideon tried all of those years ago, how Gideon wiped away that invisible sweat from her forehead with the bottom of her shirt. Gideon was certain that Harrow remembered now. She was certain that Harrow was into it.

Gideon’s stomach grumbled and Harrow pulled back, her hand slipping away from Gideon’s torso. She looked up at Gideon with a surprised blink.

Gideon laughed and kissed her, nice and slow. When she was finished, Harrow pushed up onto her tiptoes, grabbed Gideon by the neck and pulled Gideon down until she could get right up close to Gideon’s ear.

“Come on,” Harrow said. She had to shout to be heard over the music. It was a wonder she’d felt Gideon’s stomach growl in protest at all. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

I’ll buy you breakfast! What an absolutely insane thing for Harrow to say!

It was like Gideon had used her mouth to transform Harrow into someone who had feelings with a neutral pH, feelings that didn’t burn holes right through whatever she touched, and now Harrow was offering to buy Gideon breakfast. Harrow probably didn’t even eat breakfast, or if she did eat breakfast—because she clearly ate something to fuel her burning anger and hatred—she certainly didn’t like it. The offer was so remarkable, so unprecedented, that Gideon laughed and buried her face against Harrow’s painted neck, and Harrow didn’t even try to push her away!

Gideon’s stomach rumbled again. She lifted her head and the room spun for just a second. Gideon held on tight, refused to stumble. “Yes, okay. Breakfast is a fucking fantastic idea. Let’s do that.”

The beauty of a casino resort was they didn’t even have to go outside. They stumbled out of the club into the Mithraeum’s corridors and made it a total of five steps before Gideon actually did stumble. Harrow laughed and then they were kissing again, leaning against the wall in smeared skull paint under lights as bright as the afternoon sun. It was hard to say how long they were there. It could have been minutes. Gideon wouldn’t be that surprised to learn it was hours.

They were interrupted by the buzz of Gideon’s phone in her back pocket.

“Oh,” Harrow said. She pressed her hand over the phone. “Someone’s happy to see me.” Harrow’s other hand found Gideon’s other pocket, empty, phoneless. Harrow grabbed at it anyway, the press of her fingers firm over Gideon’s butt cheek.

Gideon froze, shocked by another insane response from Harrow, by this butt-grabbing move she just pulled. It was further proof that Harrow had been snatched away and replaced, some kind of soul-swapping incident, maybe. Body snatchers. Who was this woman and what had she done with Harrow Nonagesimus and why was it all so damn funny? It was the funniest thing Harrow had ever said to her, the most hilarious thing she’d ever done, and Gideon couldn’t stop laughing. She was laughing so damn hard she couldn’t breathe, and Harrow was looking at her with shiny black eyes, like she was seeing Gideon Nav for the very first time, like for the first time she looked at Gideon and absolutely loved everything she saw.

Fuck, Harrow was gorgeous like that. Gideon looked back at Harrow, at her missing marks, her painted cheeks and her paintless mouth, at her shining dark eyes. She saw Harrowhark Nonagesimus standing there, for probably the very first time, and she loved it. She loved absolutely everything she saw.

“Taste this,” Harrow said. She pushed a glass into Gideon’s hand while Gideon was still standing at the front door.

No welcome kisses today. Harrow called three times before noon, woke Gideon up and demanded that Gideon skip the gym and come over right away. Gideon assumed it meant the worst. She assumed it meant—okay, so Gideon never did tell Harrow that they were apparently so obvious that Corona guessed correctly right away. She also didn’t admit a thing to Corona. She held fast. She kept her word.

It was now three weeks since their lunch, and Harrow had not exploded at Gideon over it, which meant that Ianthe still did not know, which meant that Corona kept her word too, even from her twin sister. It meant Gideon was free to explore whatever was happening with Harrow, that she didn’t need to sweat at every text with Corona’s name attached. By the time they parted ways, Gideon thought they might even, eventually, be friends. After Gideon announced her marriage, Corona admitted that there’d always been something unspoken between her and Judith, and that now they were starting to speak about it. In the end, it was nice. Gideon hoped they really would end up friends.

But then she woke up to all these urgent early calls from Harrow demanding Gideon come over right away. What was she supposed to think? Of course she was going to assume the worst, so when Harrow opened the door, expression tight with determination, two glasses in her hands, Gideon fixed her eyes firmly on Harrow’s nose marks and took the glass that Harrow pushed into her palm.

“What happened?”

“Just taste it,” Harrow said, impatient.

The glass contained crushed ice, a wine-colored drink, and a sprig of mint. Gideon sipped it and then nodded. “It’s good.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“It’s fruity,” Gideon said. She mentally reviewed the list of Locked Tomb cocktails and then recognized the combination. “It’s the Raven’s Wing, right?”

Harrow nodded. “It is.” She grabbed the drink from Gideon’s hand, then thrust the second glass toward her.

Gideon squinted out toward the street. “Am I allowed in?”

Harrow stepped back to give Gideon room to step inside. That also gave Dog room to push up against Gideon’s legs, to lick up her right leg in two wet swipes. “There’s the greeting I was hoping for.”

Harrow rolled her eyes, but she leaned in and kissed Gideon firmly on the mouth. Harrow’s greeting wasn’t quite as slobbery as Dog’s. Harrow pulled back and nodded toward the glass in Gideon’s hand. “Okay, taste that one.”

“So this isn’t like—I didn’t somehow fuck up?”

Harrow frowned. “No, not yet. Why do you think you fucked up?”

“I don’t,” Gideon said. “But you called four times.”

“I know.” Harrow waved a hand toward the drink. “Taste. Please.”

Gideon tasted the drink and knew immediately that she was about to fail this test. “It’s another Raven’s Wing.”

Harrow waited, eyebrows high. Gideon took another sip and shrugged.

“That’s it?” Harrow asked.

Gideon shrugged again. “It’s good?”

Harrow pushed the first glass into Gideon’s empty hand and then grabbed her by the elbow and led her to the couch.

“Sit down.”

Gideon was still wearing her shoes. She was still wearing her bag. She had her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, and she stood there, awkward, the two drinks held in her hands.

Harrow huffed, and then reached out toward Gideon. She plucked the glasses from Gideon's head and discarded them on the coffee table. She navigated Gideon’s bag over Gideon's head and down her shoulder, while Gideon tried not to let the drinks spill on Harrow's carpet. Once Gideon's bag was extracted from Gideon's body, Harrow dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor.

Gideon sat down with a grunt, one drink in each hand. Harrow stayed standing. She looked down at Gideon, her arms folded over her chest. “Taste them both again.”

Gideon tasted them both again.

“Now tell me which one is better.”

“They taste the same. They’re the same drink.” The Raven’s Wing was made with a red blackcurrant liqueur combined with a raspberry lambic beer, poured over crushed ice and served with a sprig of mint. Usually the mint was sprayed black with a food coloring spray so it looked a little like a creepy bird wing stuck in your glass. It wasn’t Gideon’s favorite drink by any stretch, but these were fine. They were good.

“They aren’t the same,” Harrow said. “I need you to choose.”

Gideon took a deep breath. The afternoon was going to be severely lacking in lazy make out sessions based on Harrow’s current level of agitation. All Gideon could do was play along, do as she was told, and hope to be rewarded by the end.

She sipped the version in her right hand again. Cold. Tart. Pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you were someone who once had to know every drink on the menu.

She sipped the version in her left hand. Cold. Tart. Pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you were someone who once had to know every drink on the damn menu.

No, hold on. She sipped the one on her right again, then left. Harrow was right. They were slightly different. The one on the left was somehow warmer than the one on the left, but just barely. Not like temperature warm, they were both ice cold, but like...flavor palette warm. Fuck, Gideon was not the person Harrow should be playing this game with. Gideon was the only one there though (unless Harrow wanted to try to interrogate Dog), and Gideon wanted to stay, so she went with it. She held up the glass on the left. “This one.”

Harrow cursed. She turned and she cursed again. An entire string of fuck-words, followed by some truly adorable foot stomping.

Eventually Harrow turned back toward Gideon with a pointed finger. “Why?”

“It’s, like, just a tiny bit warmer?” Gideon offered, though they were really so similar that she felt like she was making it all up.

Harrow swore again. She grabbed both glasses from Gideon’s hand, ordered Gideon to stay put, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Gideon stayed put. She listened to the sound of Harrow shifting around bottles and glassware. She scratched Dog’s ears when Dog came to sit beside her. Dog settled her face on Gideon’s leg and Gideon stopped bouncing her knee in an attempt to make Dog more comfortable.

Eventually Harrow returned with two glasses that both very obviously contained a drink that was called The Conjuring on The Locked Tomb’s menu. This one, with its combination of coconut, chocolate, and licorice flavors, had always been a polarizing menu item. It was one of Gideon’s favorites.

It was easier to pick out which one of these was different. There were no new flavors involved, no hidden depths that Gideon had never delved before. The proportions were adjusted, just slightly from the menu, and the adjustment just worked to highlight everything Gideon already loved about the drink. She raised the glass on the right. “This one.”

Harrow cursed again, another adorable foot stomp.

“Can we pause now while you tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Gideon asked. She took another sip of the drink.

“Someone’s trying to fuck with me,” Harrow said. “He must work at the Languid Lounge, or maybe Bar Cotta. He sat there all night, just ordering drinks and critiquing them. It was infuriating, but worse than that, he followed each critique up with suggestions! Ortus had to hold me back." Harrow's fists clenched at her sides. "This guy was lucky Ortus was on, anyone else and he might never have left. Ianthe would have helped. I’ve never met anyone so—” Here Harrow just made a tight twisted knot of her hands and then an exaggerated growling sound. “Not even you, Griddle.”

Dog perked up at this compliment—was it a compliment?—and abandoned Gideon in favor of sitting at Harrow’s feet. Harrow ignored her. She was still staring at the drinks in Gideon’s hands.

“Could he have been sent over from Hazlewood? It doesn’t make sense. I’ve made no changes, there’s no reason—And I think he was hitting on me. Why?”

“Wow,” Gideon said, not because someone hitting on Harrow was unbelievable, but because it had to be really blatant flirting for Harrow to notice it at all. Gideon learned that one the hard way. Flirting aside, there was something in Harrow’s story that had Gideon’s spider senses tingling. “What did this guy look like?”

“He just looked like some man. Tall, a little unkempt, but in a way where it might have been on purpose. Brown, but his skin was lighter than yours. His eyes were really the only thing of note. They were a very clear grey. They seemed bright even though the lights were dim. Like how yours always seemed to catch what little light there was.”

“Oh. Shit, okay,” Gideon said. She set down her drinks and sat up a little straighter. “Grey eyes. Thin and pointy with thick glasses?”

Harrow frowned. “How did you know?”

“That might have been—okay, so you know I have housemates, right? You met Cam and I think you ran into Dulcinea, but there’s also Palamedes. I think maybe you’ve met him now too.”

Harrow blinked a few times in an apparent attempt to absorb this information. “Your housemates are spying on me?”

“Not spying,” Gideon clarified. “I mean, they’re my friends, so yeah, they want to make sure I’m not tangled up in something totally fucked up, but they trust me, and they’re all weird romantics even if they won’t admit it.” They mostly admitted it.

Harrow made a small horrified noise. It was a warning sound, an early alarm to let Gideon know she was once again going about this in entirely the wrong way.

Gideon stumbled on. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—okay, so a week ago I was talking you up over dinner, like you know, oh, you should taste some of the drinks Harrow makes, she’s really a genius at this blah, blah, blah, and I might have said they should go to the Tomb and try a few. I meant with me, and they all kinda brushed it off, but Palamedes must have been more curious about it than he let on at the time. Because at the time, they wanted you to come over for dinner instead, and I was like, well, that’s obviously not happening.”

Harrow looked up at that, a slight frown on her face. “Does he work at Hazlewood?”

“No.”

“Bar Cotta?”

“No, of course not.”

“So then what does he do?”

“Palamedes? Nothing, really. He’s getting his PhD in… something. History, maybe? Honestly, I love the guy, but I tune out every time it comes up.”

“Hm,” Harrow said. She chewed at her lip, her arms folded over her chest. Eventually she said, “When is your next night off?”

Gideon pulled her phone from her pocket and scanned her calendar. “Monday.”

Harrow nodded. “I can be available Monday. ”

“For what?”

“You just said your friends want me to come to dinner. I need to know the menu a minimum of three days in advance.”

“Yeah, but—” Gideon considered the best phrasing for what she needed to say next. “Should I also invite Ortus to hold you back from tackling Pal?”

Harrow actually let out a surprised laugh at that. “I think you can handle us, Griddle,” Harrow said. “Don’t you pride yourself on being built like a bouncer?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon countered. She shook out her arms, then presented a half-hearted flex. “Someone demanded I skip the gym today. I’m probably not up to par.” They were playing this as a joke now, but had Gideon ever really been able to handle Harrow? Gideon felt constantly overwhelmed, overpowered. Gideon had been in over her head with Harrow from the very beginning, always trying to stay afloat. Harrow could pull her under so damn easily.

Harrow didn’t pull her under.

Harrow studied her for a long time, long enough that Gideon’s skin began to prickle under the scrutiny. Long enough that Gideon itched to get up and move already. Gideon was about to do just that when Harrow suddenly announced that she intended to advance. Gideon’s heart leapt, and she settled back. She waited for Harrow to step into range, and when Harrow did, Gideon pulled Harrow down unceremoniously into her lap. Harrow yelped in surprise, and then flailed around until Gideon stilled her with a kiss. Harrow’s hands settled on Gideon’s arms, then slid up to grip Gideon’s shoulders, her fingers scratching over exposed skin.

They’d been doing this for weeks, kissing like teenagers, and neither of them had tried to advance things further than that. It felt, somehow, like a line they shouldn’t cross. It felt like it might make everything too real.

Gideon wondered where they’d be right now if they hadn’t walked down the aisle. How might the night have ended instead? Would they still be here, making out on Harrow’s couch? What if they’d booked a room, or stumbled back to Gideon’s place, and just hooked up instead like normal adults in their late twenties? They would have woken up tangled together the next morning, neither of them remembering much of the night before. A night of not-quite-friendly hate sex, unimpressive due to the alcohol, hardly remembered after a week and never spoken of again.

That would have been so much worse. Fuck, that would have sucked so bad. Gideon never would have gone back to the Tomb. She wouldn’t have posted the ad at Mithras Market. Harrow never would have broken her own rules or pressed Gideon up against her sliding glass door. They wouldn’t have any of this, and it wasn’t until that moment that Gideon realized, like really realized, how much she wanted this to continue, at least for a while. If she was lucky, this might last a long time. It might even last forever, if they could somehow keep it going like it was right now.

Forever seemed like an overwhelmingly long time. It seemed like insanity, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because Gideon had never been lucky.

Harrow shifted. Her foot landed on Gideon’s bag and knocked it over, sliding away from her in the process.

“Fuck,” Harrow said, breaking away from Gideon’s mouth, her hands releasing Gideon’s shoulders. “I forgot that was there.”

“Leave it,” Gideon said. She leaned in and kissed the mark on Harrow’s cheek. She kissed Harrow’s neck as Harrow continued to reach for the bag. Harrow pulled it up by the strap and then leaned down again to gather the contents that had spilled out. Gideon held Harrow’s arm to keep her balanced and used the opportunity to press kisses to the inside of Harrow’s wrist.

“What’s this?” Harrow asked.

Gideon nipped at the pad of Harrow’s thumb. “What?”

“Why do you have this?”

“What?” Gideon asked again. She pulled Harrow’s arm, bringing Harrow with it until Harrow was sitting back upright. Harrow came up holding a stack of papers in disarray. Gideon recognized it immediately as the paperwork from Juno Zeta’s office.

“Oh,” Gideon said. Harrow’s brow was furrowed, and her mouth was turned down in a confused little frown. Gideon shifted her focus to the safety of Harrow’s nose. “I’ve had that for weeks. Pal’s mom is a lawyer, so after, you know, we accidentally got hitched, I went to see her to figure out our options.”

“Our options,” Harrow repeated. She shook her hand free of Gideon’s and flipped the first page so that she could scan the second.

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “So if we both agree on everything, it’s pretty easy. It’s an uncontested divorce. If we don’t agree, then it gets trickier. There are court appearances and stuff.” There had to be more to it, but Gideon barely thought about those papers for weeks. She’d forgotten the details of everything she was told that afternoon as she sat beside Cam and admired Juno. Gideon shrugged. “I think that’s more for people who share kids, not so much people who get drunk and then get hitched on a whim.”

“If you’ve had this for weeks, why haven’t you said?” Harrow asked.

“I was going to. That’s why I came to see you after in the Tomb, but I told Ortus and fucked it up and you were really pissed, and I didn’t understand how we even ended up where we were. Like how did you and I end up married? And then from there—” Gideon waved a hand toward the glass door. “Now we’re here.”

Harrow stared down at the pages. She was still in Gideon’s lap, still awkwardly straddling Gideon with one knee up on the couch cushions by Gideon’s thigh and the other foot down on the floor. Gideon sat and waited for Harrow to do whatever Harrow was going to decide to do next.

“Do you want me to sign this?” Harrow asked eventually.

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. It was the truth, but maybe not the whole truth, because the whole truth would have included 'not yet'. “Do you want to sign it?”

Harrow looked up at Gideon. Gideon resisted the urge to look away. She held Harrow’s gaze, let Harrow look for as long as Harrow needed to, and made sure she was there and looking back.

“I don’t know.”