𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ℂ𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ➶

𝔽𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕟: ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕪'𝕤

An indiscernible amount of time later, Valentina jerked awake. To be fair, she hadn't even been aware she was sleeping. It felt like she just blinked a little too long. One second she was on her back watching her roommate write at her desk, the next she was on her side with Morticia spooning her.

The girl's grip was tight, too, leaving little wiggle room. Thank Goodness she didn't have to pee. Getting up without waking her would be a nightmare.

Why did she wake up, though? She wasn't deep enough in REM sleep to have a nightmare.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky outside their floor-to-ceiling Gothic window. It illuminated the dark room for just a moment. What she saw shocked and frightened her.

There was a man standing at the foot of Morticia's bed.

Immediately, her mind raced with questions as her heart beat frantically against her ribs. How did he get in?! What was he doing here?! What-- What did he have planned?!

She tried to suppress her trembling as best she could, not wanting to give away that she was awake and knew something was wrong.

She was gathering enough air in her lungs to scream, alert the dorm mother to the intruder, when she heard Morticia murmur, "Mon cher, you don't intend to stand there all night, do you? Come to bed..."

"Il mio angelo e il mio diavolo," an all-too-familiar voice cooed. "Vi amo, vi amo, vi amo!"

"Gomez?! What the hell are you doing here?" Valentina asked incredulously as the figure climbed onto the foot of the bed. With a snicker, he crawled the length of the mattress before laying down on his side facing her. He was freezing cold and soaking wet. "And why are you all wet?"

"I merely followed the call of my heart through the storm," he sighed, throwing an arm over both girls and pulling them close. Valentina was all but pressed to his chest. She tried to squirm away, put more distance between the two of them, but Morticia was as unmoving as a brick wall behind her. It was like she was stuck between two magnets.

"You were outside in this weather?! You could have gotten yourself killed!" She protested.

"To be away from the both of you is a fate worse than death!" This overdramatic son of a...

His sudden appearance threw her for a loop, put her in a sticky situation. If she reported him to the dorm mother, he would undoubtedly be written up and made to leave the girls' dormitory, regardless of the dangerous weather conditions.

Valentina let out a little huff before pulling the covers up under his chin. "This is only for tonight," she warned, tossing an arm around his waist. "Don't get used to it."

Gomez pressed his mouth to her hairline in what wasn't quite a kiss. She could feel the curve of his smirk.

Like a heat sink, he rapidly tapped the warmth from her, until she was shivering in her pajama shorts, rubbing her legs together to feel the spark of friction.

"Hey, cariño? Are you still awake?" She sighed and nodded. Of course, he followed this up with another question, "Can I ask you something?" Another sleepy nod. To be honest, she was close to nodding off. "Why won't you let us kiss you?"

And, just like that, she was wide awake! But, dear Lord, did she not want to have this conversation right now.

Valentina faked a little snore.

"Valentine, I know you're awake," Gomez crooned, like a singer on one of her vinyls. "If you keep teasing me, I just might tease you back..."

Oh no. "There's no teasing allowed in bed," she quickly said.

"I disagree. I think bed is the best place for teasing... Plus, you started it!"

"Well, now I'm ending it."

"You can be so cruel..." She was just starting to feel bad when he followed it up with, "I like that about you."

She cuddled up a little closer in the hopes of derailing his train of thought. So close that, when she sighed, her breath tickled the side of his neck. He was so near that she could smell him. He smelled like Cuban cigars and Kentucky bourbon, expensive and forbidden.

Gomez let out a contented hum, tucked her head beneath his chin, but remained steadfast. "Do you not like kisses?"

"I wouldn't know whether I liked them or not. I've never had one before."

That must have thrown him for a loop. Valentina could practically hear the sound effect of a cassette getting stuck in a recorder going off in his head. "You mean you've never been kissed?"

"Don't say it like that!" She scolded. "Like-- Like it's so preposterous!"

"Maybe not preposterous but definitely unreasonable. Why not?"

"I don't know... It just never seemed like the right time. I never felt that spark before, like I wanted or needed to kiss someone." Which wasn't necessarily true. She felt like that tonight, with Morticia, but she didn't want to tell Gomez that. For some reason, she felt it was better to keep it to herself. "I want love, I want romance, I want magic! I'm just-- A bottomless well of want."

"I understand completely," he answered.

"You do?" Her tone was dubious at best.

"You need to be at the right place, at the right time, in the right mood. Otherwise your first kiss will feel like an experience you lost as opposed to one you gained. My first kiss was... Nothing special. It wasn't until my first kiss with Tish that I realized what I was missing out on. I want your first kiss to be everything you've envisioned."

"So you don't mind waiting?"

That's when Morticia, who was apparently still awake, piped up. "Gomez and I have talked about this before. So long as we're moving forward, we're willing to move at your pace."

That was just the thing, though. Valentina so desperately needed to take a step back, assess whether this relationship was even something she wanted. But she had two people waiting behind her, matching her step by measured step, that this was impossible. It was so frustrating that it made her want to cry.

"Thank you, guys. You have no idea what this means to me."

"We love you, mon chou," the other girl said before burying her face in the crook of her neck.

Not knowing what to say, how to put her feelings to words, she said, "I feel something for you as well. Something I'm not able to put into words right now."

"It's okay, you don't have to," Gomez told her.

"And you're... Okay with that too?"

"Of course! I believe that, when you really love something, it loves you back in whatever capacity it can." That was a surprisingly sunny outlook. For some reason, she hadn't expected that.

Morticia was silent behind her. And not because she had fallen asleep, like she previously thought. And that in itself was the loudest protest necessary.

Let us love you, her silence seemed to say. Love us back. Is that so hard? Is that so much to ask for?

And, for Valentina, it really was. She slipped into unconsciousness feeling remorseful,had dreams about being put on trial and found guilty. Which was fair. She had committed a great crime, after all.