Once again I find myself in the same cute pid dress, staring in the mirror. My makeup is good, and my hair falls in sheets of color around my face. Am I trying too hard…? I shake my head and leave the bathroom to throw on my boots.
As I’m cing them up, I hear my mom call out to me. “Emmy! Paige is here!”
“Coming!” I shout, and hurriedly tie the bows. After throwing my bag onto my shoulder I rush out to the living room. “How do I look?”
“Gorgeous.” My mom responds with a smile. “Paige won’t know what hit her.”
“Moooommmmm!” I whine.
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t want Paige to think you’re pretty?” She asks with a teasing smile.
“No…” I say softly. “I don’t know what I want… but it definitely includes Paige thinking I’m hot.”
“That’s what I thought.” She responds with a smile. “Don’t forget her gift.”
“Right!” I say with a grin, and grab the wrapped package off the table. “Love you, Mom. See you tomorrow.”
“I love you too.” She says, as she stands and gives me a hug. “See you tomorrow.”
With my goodbye said, I race out the door, letting it sm shut behind me, and straight up to Paige’s SUV. She gives me a grin as she walks around the front.
“You look beautiful, Emmy.” She says, and pulls me into a hug. “I love your hair!”
“Thanks.” I murmur into her neck. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” She says with a smile. “Ready to go?”
“Yup!” I reply energetically, and hop into the front seat.
The drive to her house goes by quickly, and I spend most of the time staring at her, and fretting over whether she’s going to enjoy my gift. She smiles over at me occasionally while we drive, and eventually speaks up.
“We’ll probably be there a bit before the others show up.” She says contemptively. “Would you want to like, properly meet my parents?”
“Sure!” I say brightly. This is definitely a romantic thing but… I definitely have some form of romantic feelings for her… Maybe this is a good first step to figuring out what I want.
We pull into the driveway and up into the garage. I happily follow her as she leads me inside. Instead of going down to the basement, we go up and exit the stairs into a nice looking living room.
There is a man sitting on the couch, staring intently at a small piece of yarn in his hand, and a crochet hook that is weaving in and out of the craft project. A pretty looking middle aged woman is sitting on a recliner in the sun, happily reading a book.
“Hey, Mom.” Paige says with a wave. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Paige!” Her mom says brightly as she looks up from her book.
“Hey.” Her dad says, and puts down his crochet project. ‘Who’s this?”
“This is Emmy.” Paige says with a grin.
“Oh!” Her mom says with a smile. “So you’re Emmy.”
“Hi.” I say with a soft wave. “I’m Emmy.”
“Paige has told us so much about you.” Her dad says with a grin.
“More like,” Her mom says with a cheeky smile. “Hasn’t been able to stop talking about you.”
“I think we counted, what, a hundred something mentions of your name since you were st here.” Her dad says, and gives me a wink.
“And like that,” Paige says, her face bright red. “We’re going to my room.”
She grabs my hand and tugs me towards the stairs. I smile bashfully at her parents. “It was nice to meet you!”
I leave my hand in Paige’s as we walk down the stairs to her room. She turns the lights on, and leads me over to the couch, before turning to look at me with a thin smile.
“Sorry about them…” She says. “I hope they didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“They seem nice.” I say simply.
“They are…” She says happily.
“Sooo…” I say, and flick my eyes up to hold her gaze. “A hundred times, huh?”
Her face goes from slightly pink to very red, in just a few heartbeats. “Um… They were exaggerating…”
“Were they?” I tease.
She sighs deeply. “No…”
A door opens upstairs, and I hear someone speak before footsteps sound on the stairs. Chloe and Thalia enter the room, hand in hand, and smile at us. Paige immediately pulls her hand from mine and looks at them.
“Hey!” She shouts excitedly.
Chloe walks up and pulls her into a hug. “Hey, Paigie, happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday, girl.” Thalia says as she joins in on the hug.
“Thanks.” Paige murmurs before pulling away. “You’ve already met her, but this is Emmy.”
“Good to see you again, Ems.” Chloe grins.
“Just Emmy, please.” I say with a wan smile.
“Okay.” She responds, before turning back to Paige. “Rachel and Faye are almost here as well.” We all turn as the sound of the front door can be heard once again. “Or, they’re already here.”
Two girls who I vaguely remember seeing before walk into the room, and wave at us.
“Hey, Paige!” The red head says brightly. “Happy birthday!”
“What she said.” The other blonde says with a soft smile.
“Thanks, you two.” Paige says happily. “Right, this is Emmy.” She says with a grin. “Emmy, this is Rachel and Faye.”
“I’m Faye.” The blonde girl says. “Nice to see you again.”
“Again?” Chloe asks.
“We saw her at the mall a bit ago.” Rachel expins.
“Anyway, where do you want your gifts?” Faye asks, and holds up a wrapped box.
“Just on the table is fine.” Paige responds, and gestures to the low table in the middle of the room.
The five of us all deposit wrapped presents onto the table, and then just stand there for a moment. After a few seconds of awkwardness, Chloe speaks up.
“So, what do you want to do?” She asks.
“I figured we could start with some games.” Paige says with a smile. “Did you all bring your character sheets?”
“Character sheets?” I ask. “What character sheets?”
“Right,” Paige says sheepishly. “I forgot to tell you. We’re starting a Legend’s and Lore campaign today.”
“I’m DMing.” Chloe says with a grin.
“I’ve never pyed…” I say softly. “Could you help me make a character?” I ask Paige.
“Sure!” She says brightly. “I’m sure I have an extra sheet somewhere.”
“Got one right here.” Chloe says, as she pulls some paper from her bag.
Paige pulls me to the couch, and we sit down. Faye takes a seat on the other end, Chloe pces a cushion right up to the table and sits down and the other girls pull up bean bags that I hadn’t seen before and sit in a circle around the table.
“So how does this work?” I ask, as I look at the complicated designs on the page.
Chloe passes a book to Faye, who passes it down to me. “First, you decide on a species and a css.” She says.
“Let me show you.” Paige says, and leans into me.
She opens the book, and we look through the options. I eventually settle on an elf, and write it down on the sheet. Paige helps me fill out the other stuff reted to species, and flips to the csses.
After looking through them for a while, I groan. “I can’t decide. I like both sorcerer and warlock.”
“Well,” Chloe says. “We are starting at level three. You could multicss.”
“How does that work?” I ask.
“Basically, you just take a level in a second css, instead of getting more in your existing css.” She expins.
“Okay.” I say softly. “Two levels of sorcerer then, and one of warlock.”
Paige grins at me, and Thalia groans. “You don’t know this, but sorlock is considered a sweat build.”
“Why?” I ask. “Should I change?”
“No, you’re fine.” Paige says quickly. “Sorcerer and warlock together is just really overpowered, but you don’t know how to do it, so it’s fine.”
“Okay.” I say simply, and fill out the rest of the sheet.
Once I’m done, Chloe smiles, and speaks in a dramatic voice. “Alright,” She pauses, “You are all on a cart, weaponless, hands bound in front of you, moving slowly through the forest. Cassandra is gagged.”
“Ooh!” Paige says excitedly.
“‘Shut up back there!’ A guard shouts from the driver’s seat of the cart.” Chloe says with a grin.
?????????????
“Hey girls,” Paige’s mom says as she pokes her head through the door. “How was the pizza?”
“Good.” Chloe says brightly.
“It was great, thanks, Mom.” Paige says with a smile.
“Well, not that you’ve eaten, let’s do cake and presents!” She says excitedly.
“Sounds good.” Paige says happily.
Chloe and Thalia stack the presents, and carry the pile up the stairs behind us. We all gather around the rge dining room table, and watch as the two girls set the gifts down. Paige’s dad pulls out a camera, and smiles at her.
“Go ahead.” He says.
Paige ughs, clearly a little embarrassed at the attention, and picks up a rge present off the table. She quickly tears into the paper and unwraps a dark box with a bunch of female soldiers in armor carrying machine guns.
“Oh my god!” She shouts. “I needed this cohort! Thank you!”
“You’re welcome, Paigie.” Chloe says with a grin.
“What is that for?” I ask.
“It’s for a game called GreatSword Future that I really like.” She says happily. “I’ll show you it some time.”
“I’d like that.” I say with a grin.
“It’s really expensive to get into.” Thalia says. “At least a couple hundred to set up an army, and that’s not including supplies to build and paint them.”
“Oh wow…” I say softly.
“I can buy for you.” Paige says happily.
“I can’t ask you to do that.” I say. Paige starts to protest, but I stop her. “Keep opening your presents, hon.”
She smiles, and picks up another rge wrapped box. Paige opens it, to reveal a rge shoebox. Inside is a pair of rge boots, simir to my tall ones, but longer. Damn, she would look so good in those…
“I love them!” She says excitedly. “I already have a few outfits I want to wear them with. Who got this for me?”
“I did.” Faye speaks up. “I’m gd you like them.”
“They’re perfect.” Paige says happily, and reaches for another gift.
Her next two gifts are a box set of a manga she wanted to read, and a fountain pen with ink, from Rachel and Thalia respectively. Finally, my present is up, and Paige gives me a cute grin as she tears open the small parcel.
I smile at her as she pulls out a small faux-leather bound book. She flips it over, probably searching for a title. “What is it?” She asks.
“Open it.” I say with a smile.
She flips open the book to the first page, and blushes furiously. “Oh, Emmy…”
“What is it?!” Chloe asks excitedly.
“It’s my short stories…” Paige says slowly. “Did you make this?”
“Yeah…” I say softly.
I jump slightly as Paige’s arms wrap around my neck and she pulls me tight to her. “You’re so fucking amazing.” She sobs.
“I’m not all that…” I murmur into her neck.
“You printed out my short stories,” She says incredulously. “And bound them into a book. You are genuinely so fucking wonderful.”
“Thank you.” I say shyly.
“Geez, Emmy.” Chloe says teasingly. “You didn’t have to one up all of us so hard.”
“Sorry…” I nearly whisper.
Chloe ughs loudly and throws an arm over my shoulder. “Don’t apologize, dumbass. You got her an amazing gift. I wish I’d thought of that.”
“Thanks…” I say softly.
“Alright,” Paige says, as she wipes her face. “Let’s eat cake, and then go watch a movie.”
The cake is delicious, and the movie is… Well, the movie is not my main focus right now… I think, as Paige nuzzles my neck with her nose. I happily hold tight to her, as the credits start pying.
I gnce around the room, and see that no one is awake, not even Paige. Chloe snores loudly on the couch, and her girlfriend nudges her without either of them properly waking up. I shift slightly, and stretch my legs, trying hard not to wake the girl whose limbs are tangled with mine.
“Can’t sleep?” Paige whispers into my ear.
“No.” I respond softly.
“Neither can I.” Paige says. “Wanna go outside for a bit?”
“Sure.” I say, and carefully extricate myself from her.
She stands, and pulls me along to the doorway. I step carefully to avoid waking any of the other girls. We walk up to the living room, and I follow her out into the deck. She smiles and leans against the railing, and looks up at the stars.
At first I just stare at her, enjoying the way the moonlight paints her face. After a few uncomfortable moments, I look up at the sky with her.
“The stars are really pretty today.” She says softly.
“Yeah…” I agree, and smile as I see a small light streak across the sky. “Hey look, a shooting star.”
“Oh, wow…” She says softly. “I haven’t seen one in a while.”
“You know…” I grin. “You could make a wish on it. Maybe with two sources of magic, your wish could come true.”
She chuckles at me. “Sure, why not.”
We stand there together in companionable silence. I shiver slightly, my bare legs feeling the chill of the wind. She sidles closer to me, and leans against my shoulder.
“Do you want to know what I wished for?” She asks.
“It won’t come true, if you tell me.” I say, joking about the old superstition.
“I don’t know about that…” She says softly. “I think it’s less likely to come true if I don’t tell you.”
“What did you wish for?” I ask, turning to face her.
She takes another step closer to me, so that our faces are barely an inch from each other. I blush slightly as I inhale the soft scent of her breath. My heartbeat quickens, and I force myself to take another breath.
She takes my hand in hers, and smiles warmly at me. “I wished to kiss you…” She says softly.
I move the st inch or so closer, and press my lips to hers. With no hesitation, she tugs me into her, and pces her other hand on my cheek. I groan softly into her lips, and pce my hand on her waist.
We stand there, pressed together, nearly writhing in each other's arms. She tilts my head back slightly, and deepens our kiss. I part my lips slightly, and feel her moan against my mouth before her tongue gently slides along the inner flesh of my lip.
I graze my tongue across her own, and she gleefully presses her tongue against mine. She rotates me to the side and presses my back into the railing, our lips never parting. A shiver travels up my spine as I feel myself pinned between her body and the metal banister.
After a couple more long wonderful minutes of our tongues caressing each other’s, and our bodies pressed together, she finally pulls back. Our breaths come ragged and heavy, and I stumble forward into her arms.
“You’re wonderful, Emmy.” She murmurs into my hair.
“So are you.” I say softly. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“Yes, please.” She says, and guides me back down to her room.
We crawl into bed, and she immediately tangles her limbs with mine, and presses my head to her chest. I try to let the warmth of her body calm my mind, but it fails to fill the hollow void in my heart. An image pops into my mind of the only other girl I’ve been with like this. Why did I have to think of her right now…
Paige’s breaths become deep and slow almost immediately, and I struggle to keep still as the tears roll down my face. I want to move on from Holly so badly… Why can’t I stop thinking about her…?