186. Chapter 186
She’s in the field and she’s got her game face on – shoulders set, stance relaxed but ready, eyes sharp – and when J Cole’s Hold It Down blasts out of her back pocket, her work partner cocks a grin at you.
“Your kid?”
She grins at the term and answers quickly.
“Adrian, I’m on the job, what up?”
“Can I bring a kid to our dinner tonight? Remember that girl Val I was telling you about? She’s trippin cause she had a rough time in school today – “
“Yeah, course you can, kid.”
“You gotta go.”
Maggie grins at his sensitivity, his perceptiveness. “You could be a detective yourself, Ade. See you both tonight.”
She chews the inside of her cheek – a habit she’s been picking up from her girlfriend – and shoots a quick text off to Alex, telling her to expect one more tonight before pocketing her phone and sighing, squatting to analyze the tire marks leftover by the latest Cadmus lackey getaway car.
She pushes tonight’s dinner – a biweekly thing, dinner with her girlfriend and her college boy (she never tires of reminding him how proud she is that he’s in college) – to the back of her mind until she walks through the door of her apartment several hours later to find in her kitchen Alex, Adrian, and a short kid – must the the Val girl Adrian was talking about – with a dapper, short haircut, make-up free face, collared shirt and khakis, skin darker than hers but lighter than Adrian’s, smile just as bright.
Alex has the look of panicked glee of a pale five year old being caught with her hand in the cookie jar; Adrian’s holding the handle of a smoking frying pan with one hand and pointing at Alex with the other; and the new kid is frozen mid-laugh, eyes wide and nervous at finally meeting the detective she’s heard so much about from Adrian.
Maggie appraises the situation with a single glance and grins.
“Alex tried to cook.”
“I – “
“All good, Danvers, we’ll order in, but I gotta say, I’m still surprised your skills in the lab don’t transfer to the kitchen – “
“Hehe, your skills – “
“That’s enough out of you, young man.”
“Yes, Agent Danvers.”
Maggie laughs and shakes her head at their banter as she drops her gun and jacket on a chair and strides over with her hand out to greet the new kid.
“Maggie Sawyer,” she says, leaving the usual NCPD part out because the girl is looking more nervous by the second.
“Valerie.”
“But you prefer Val?” Maggie asks, and Adrian nods behind Val’s back in case she isn’t brave enough to say yes. She is, and she nods, and Maggie smiles warmly at her.
“Okay, Val, so. What’re you hungry for, aside from whatever my woman charred on the stove?”
“Hey – “
“Is it not true, Danvers?”
Alex scowls playfully and Maggie leans in for a kiss. Adrian squeals and leans into Val. “Told you they were the cutest couple ever. My real life OTP!”
Val smiles, but there’s sadness behind it.
“Bad day, kid?” Alex asks, and gestures her to the couch.
“She likes this girl,” Adrian knocks his shoulder into Val gently, and she shoves him with an embarrassed laugh on her face. Alex ooohs and Maggie squeals, and Val almost cries, because she’s never met grown-ups who were this excited to hear about her crushes on girls before.
“She’s really pretty,” Val confesses in a single breath, collapsing onto the couch with her knees spread wide and heat spreading across her shyly smiling face.
“Okay, tell. Everything. But first, tell me what you want for food.”
“Whatever’s fine. Pizza, maybe.”
Maggie chuckles as she takes out her phone to order. “Always with the pizza in this family.”
Alex kisses her and Adrian squeezes her knee when they catch her family comment, and Val flushes to be so easily included in such a term.
“Nothing, I just… she’s really good at math – “
“A definite turn on – “
“Oh, is that why you like coming to my lowly easy-bake oven lab, Danvers?”
“Ladies! There are children present!”
“I’m not a children, I’m sixteen!”
“Children,” Adrian, Alex, and Maggie all chorus, and Val rolls her eyes and continues.
“There’s the math thing, and she’s just really sweet, she always sticks up for the kids who get picked on, and she’s got these gorgeous curls and she’s – “
“Super duper femmey, and totally into soft little butches like yourself,” Adrian says and pokes her in the belly gently. She swats at his hand and shrugs defeatedly.
“I dunno. I mean, I’m not just into femmes… but she is super femmey… but maybe she wants someone harder than me? Or like, femmier than me? Like, less gay, maybe, or more gay, or – ”
“So, basically, you’re creating a girl who’s anything but you in your mind, right?” Maggie grins with a tilted head, and Val sighs.
“I guess.”
Maggie squints at her and exhales sharply and wets her lips and speaks.
“You know before I met Danvers over here, it was… I dated. A lot.”
“Don’t worry Alex. You won,” Adrian whispers, and Alex slaps him five softly without taking her eyes off Maggie.
“I dated, but it was… it was women who didn’t get me, you know? They saw leather jackets and a cop badge and a bike and darker skin than theirs – god, too many white girls, sorry babe, but that’s a story for another day – so they expected me to be a certain type of way, expected me to be… well, more butch, you know? Like, all the time. They were interested in the role I could play – and I can play it, I can be it, and I like it, I love doting on women – “
Val smiles and nods and Alex blushes and Adrian snickers.
“But that’s not all I am, you know?” She shrugs. “Sometimes I like a little lace under the leather. And we’ve got different styles, you and me.” She gestures to Val’s hair cut, her looser clothes, with a grin. “And I love it. Your style. It’s absolutely fantastic. And you look really at home in it. And that’s the thing. You? How you feel, how you are? That’s the only thing that matters. So if she likes you, she’s gotta like your soft butchliness. And who wouldn’t, I mean look at you, you’re perfect.”
Val scoffs and Alex beams at Maggie and Adrian squeezes Val’s knee.
The doorbell rings and Adrian squeals. “Pizza!”
Maggie glances at Alex, and Alex nods with a grin before getting up to get the door.
“Your girl like pizza?” Maggie asks, and Val nods.
“I saved her the last slice last week at the school paper’s party when she was late from class. She was really happy.”
Maggie slaps her own thigh in excitement. “Damn girl, see, you got game! Wanna invite her over? We can watch crappy Netflix movies, and the three of us will check out if she checks you out and it’ll be awesome.”
Val smiles at the thought and pulls her phone out of her back pocket.
“Do you guys do this for all of us? Open up your home like this?”
Alex beams over the small stack of pizza boxes when Maggie looks up at her, and Adrian grins widely, proudly, gratefully, at them both as he cracks open a box and digs in immediately.
“Only to the cool kids,” Maggie teases, and Val nods, and types out a text to her crush, because she’s nervous but she’s perfect just like she is, and what’s there not to like, right, Maggie said so, and also, pizza.
Pizza with new family.
Even if her crush declines to come over, she’s pretty sure it’s going to be a good night.