Time thinned. The pot steamed, emptied, filled; the bowls on the table developed their own small histories—garlic clinging to the rim, a stray cilantro leaf like a green boat in sesame. Bottles turned light. The room blurred slightly at the edges, as though someone had softened the focus of the world. Laughter around them seemed no longer a scattering of separate voices but a tide, ebbing and swelling, carrying them with it whether they noticed or not.
Grace rescued a rolling bottle with two fingers before it made the jump; the quickness of the gesture surprised even her. She set it down and pressed her thumb and forefinger into the hinge of her brow, as though trying to remind her body to stay alert.
Oakley's head throbbed faintly, not painful, but insistent—like a little bird fluttering its wings inside her skull. She squinted at Grace, then gave up on squinting because even narrowing her eyes seemed to make the room sway. "I think… I'm drunk."
Grace bobbed her head in agreement, words slurred, her tone unbothered. "Mm. Drunk."
Oakley peeled another prawn, hands slower now, thumbs slipping once against the slick shell. She laughed at herself softly, then—in a betrayal of muscle memory—tossed the body into the trash and lifted the triangular head toward her mouth. Before she could bite down, Grace's hand closed lightly around Oakley's wrist. The touch wasn't hard, but it was decisive; the prawn head changed direction midair and landed with a soft thup in the discard bowl.
Oakley blinked at the interception. For a beat she watched Grace's hand, the way her fingers had known exactly where to place themselves, how the palm felt both warm and steady where it had met her skin. The warmth lingered like a phantom even after Grace let go. Oakley's lips parted, but no words came; she only stared for a heartbeat longer before her gaze unfocused again, dazed.
Grace wiped her fingertips with a napkin, lashes lifting as she glanced up. "Looks like you're drunk," she said, and there was fondness where there might have been scold.
Oakley's cheeks burned, wine-blush deepening beneath her skin. Her body felt strangely uncooperative, as though her bones had loosened inside her, her joints turned to soft hinges. "I guess… so."
Grace made her decision quietly, as if it had already been decided long before. "No more drinks. Let's go home."
Oakley beamed, docile as a child being promised a bedtime story. "Okay."
Grace closed her eyes briefly, like a pilot collecting herself before take-off, then called the server and settled the check—her signature spare and even on the keypad. She rose and waited while Oakley braced her palms and tried to stand.
It took three tries. The room, suddenly mischievous, seemed to tilt minutely under Oakley's feet, just enough to confuse the line between up and down. She laughed once, helpless and breathy. "I can't get up?"
"No?" Grace held out her hand. "Here. Lean on me."
Oakley placed her palm in Grace's; Grace closed her fingers and pulled, a steadying force. Oakley came up like something lifting out of water, a little slower than usual, hair sliding over one shoulder in a glossy wave. Her laugh died into a small, obedient murmur. "Next time, less."
Oakley nodded obediently, brow furrowed as if writing the promise down in her own head.
Outside, the wind had sharpened while they'd been inside. The night nipped at any skin it could find. Oakley's hair broke rank and flew, strands catching the streetlight like threads of metal. Gooseflesh rose along her forearms where the sleeve had slid.
Grace felt her shiver. "Cold?"
"Very," Oakley said, hugging her arms, her breath a white ribbon in the air.
Grace's gaze drifted, briefly and against her will, to Oakley's mouth—soft from heat and beer, a little parted for breath. The sight pressed against her like a temptation too close. She swallowed and looked toward the corner. "Wait in the car? I'll grab some milk and be right back."
But as she turned, she felt the gentlest tug on the hem of her coat.
She looked back down. "Hm?"
Oakley bit her lip and smiled up at her, guilty and guileless at once. "It's okay," she said. "It won't kill me."
"So?" Grace tilted her head.
"So…" Oakley stepped closer as if persuaded by the logic of her own desire; her hands settled lightly at Grace's waist, a fragile anchor against the restless wind. "I'll go with you."
Her eyes glimmered, softened by alcohol, dangerously tender.
Grace faltered, heart tightening. "…Alright. Together, then. Milk first, then we'll wait for a driver."
"Mm-hm." Oakley nodded, the world pleasantly unstitched around her.
They took the corner slowly. The convenience store's doors hissed open, warm air exhaling cinnamon and detergent and the faint metal smell of coins. The cashier scanned them with a bored kindness and went back to his phone. Grace took milk from the fridge, the plastic cold against her palm; she added two small bottles of water to the basket and paid, the receipt printing out like a ribbon of snow.
Back on the sidewalk, two women passed by, talking about love and disappointment in low voices. Oakley, half-dazed, caught fragments.
"I don't think he loves me," one said. "He doesn't notice anything about me. Except when we're in bed."
Oakley's attention snagged and held, as if a hook had found fabric. The words slid under her drunken skin and stayed.
"Last night," the woman went on, "I said I was exhausted. He still—" She made a wordless sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "I just lay there thinking, this isn't about me. It's never about me."
Time did its drunk trick again and stretched a second into something larger. Oakley turned her face into Grace's shoulder for one small moment, then spoke without lifting it. "Maybe you were right," she said. The words were fogged with beer but clear in intent.
"About?" Grace asked, soft.
"The body thing." Oakley's sigh showed as a plume. "It doesn't prove anything. It has nothing to do with love."
Grace let her eyes fall to the pavement, watched the puddle near the curb furrow once in the wind. "Probably."
"What a bastard," Oakley muttered, heat returning to her cheeks, the clean impatience of the drunk and the righteous married in her voice. "She said no to him, but he still forced her. Can't he… take care of himself?" She rolled her wrist in a delicate, vague spiral. "Useless."
Grace sighed. "That's why most men are devils in disguise. They only see themselves."
Oakley sneered openly. "I don't understand them. I never will."
And in the fog of drink, she whispered with reckless honesty. "Good thing I have the talent to scare men away."
Then, almost cheerfully. "If it were me… if my partner wasn't in the mood, I'd handle it myself. It's 2025, technologies advanced. Plenty of toys online." She wiggled one finger in a vague circle, then grinned, unashamed. "Some are useless, but some… very much not."
Grace froze, speechless.
"How many do you...?" she asked at last.
Oakley smiled serenely, eyes curving like crescent moons. "Not many. Four or five."
She smoothed her hair back onto her shoulder with three even fingers, then frowned, concentration creasing her brow as if she were trying to remember a lyric. "But I can't… you know… use the ones that go in." She looked up, sincerely puzzled. "Do you think I'm broken, Grace?"
Grace's back went straight as a ruler. Something like heat struck the base of her skull. "No," she said, and the word came out lower than she meant.
Oakley's eyes were already too pretty. Drunk, they deepened, glossy as if wicking light. She leaned into Grace's arm again, as if the closeness itself were a small relief. "But even if it's just outside," she said, thinking aloud in the way of people tipsy and honest. "It's enough."
Grace looked at her, really looked, and something in her chest loosened and tightened at once. "Mm?" she managed.
Oakley nodded—the smallest, most guileless nod—then lifted onto her toes to reach Grace's ear. Her breath was warm where the wind wasn't. "Embarrassing," she whispered, lips shaping the word against the air. "But I'm… very sensitive."
"Very... sensitive?" Grace repeated, and it was not a question so much as a surrender.
Oakley nodded, head tilting against her shoulder, her words barely coherent yet laced with an intimacy that seared. "I don't know if everyone's like that… or if it's just me. If it's normal. Or it's not."
"What do you mean exactly?" Grace asked, careful with the volume of her own voice, as if sound could spook the moment.
Oakley set her mouth a breath from Grace's ear, lips curving around the words so they were half sound, half warmth. "I mean I flood the banks… easily."
Grace's mind went white, a noiseless explosion of light behind her eyes, erasing thought, leaving only sensation..