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And August, who has spent most of her life taking everything seriously with the occasional detour into cynical jokes for survival, has to admit—Jane has a point.
“Okay,” August says. “You got me.”
“I know I got you,” Jane says, and there it is: the dull scrape of short nails against the cotton of August’s underwear.
Fuck.
“Jane,” she says, even though nobody around is remotely paying attention.
Jane’s hand stills carefully, but she leans up, into August’s neck, lips brushing her earlobe when she says, “Tell me to stop.”
And August should. August should tell her to stop.
She should really want to tell her to stop.
But Jane’s fingertips are brushing against her, teasing out her nerve endings and making her hips ache, and she thinks about all the months of wanting honed down to an exquisitely fine point, sharp against her skin until it feels like it could draw blood.
Caution and a knife. She used to swear by it. But this is sharper, and she doesn’t want it to stop.
So when Jane’s thumb swipes up under the cotton, and Jane looks into her eyes for an answer, August nods.
The thing about Jane is, she’s exactly what August isn’t, and it works. Where she’s soft, Jane is hard. Where she’s harsh and prickly and resistant, Jane is all generous smiles and ease. August is lost in something dangerously like love, and Jane is laughing. And here, between stops, between her legs, she’s anxious and tense and Jane is confident and smooth, dragging her fingers, finding her way, slick and maddening.
Her mind is softening at the edges, sinking into the feeling of not having to be in control, letting Jane push her right to the edge of her limits.
“Keep talking, angel,” Jane whispers in her ear.
“Uh—” August stammers, struggling to keep a blank face. Jane’s middle finger does a tight circle and August wants to push into it, press down, but she can’t move. She’s never been so thankful for people who bring Ikea furniture on the subway. “Shit.”
She feels the warm burst of Jane’s quiet laugh against the side of her neck.
“We could—” August attempts. It takes everything to keep her voice level. “We could try rebuilding everything from summer of ’76 on. I can break—fuck—um, into the office at Billy’s and see if there’s—oh—uh, if they have any records that would be helpful.”
“Breaking and entering,” Jane says. The car sways into daylight, and August has to dig her fingernails into Jane’s knee to keep her composure. “Do you know how hot that is?”
“I’m, uh—” A short gasp. She can’t believe this is happening. She can’t believe she’s doing this. She can’t believe she ever has to stop doing this. “I guess criminal behavior isn’t as much of a turn-on for me.”
“That’s interesting,” Jane says conversationally. “Because it seems like doing things you’re not supposed to do kind of gets you off.”
“I don’t know if you have enough—ah—evidence to support that theory.”
Jane leans in and says, “Try not to come, then.”
And August thinks, she has to find a way to get Jane out of here, just so she can kill her.
It goes slow at first—from the tension in Jane’s shoulder, it’s obvious she can’t move like she wants to, so she settles for working short and precise and deadly—until it doesn’t, until it’s quick and shallow and August is talking, trying to make words happen from her mouth, to swallow down sighs, trying not to look at Jane looking at her. It’s the stupidest thing she’s done since she jumped between train cars, but somehow it feels like her body finally makes sense. She bites her lip through the build, the whiteout, her eyes screwed shut and her hips burning from the effort not to move. Jane kisses the side of her neck, beneath her hair.
“Well,” Jane says casually. August’s cheeks are burning a furious pink, and Jane looks coolly unfazed, except for her pupils, which are blown wide. “It sounds like you have a pretty good plan.”
So that’s how things will be, August deduces as she walks home, goodbye kiss lingering on her lips. She works the case, and Jane kisses her, and they talk about the first thing but not the second.
Sometimes it feels like there are three Augusts—one born hopeful, one who learned how to pick locks, and one who moved to New York alone—all sticking out knife blades and tripping one another to get to the front of the line. But every time the doors open and she spots Jane at the far end of the car, listening to music that shouldn’t even be playing, she knows it doesn’t make a difference. Every possible version of August is completely stupid for this girl, no matter the deadline. She’ll take what she can get and figure out the rest.
She gets to be an adult who has sex, sex with Jane, and Jane gets to feel something that’s not boredom or waiting, and it’s fun. It’s good, so good that August’s mouth will start watering in the middle of a graveyard shift at Billy’s just thinking about it. Jane seems happier, which was the point, she reminds herself.
They’re friends. Cross-timeline friends with semi-public benefits, because they’re attracted to each other and lonely and there, and August has learned to like feeling a little reckless. She never thought she was meant for any kind of danger until she met Jane.
Not that she’s meant for Jane.
