Page 32 of Couple Goals

Maeve feels destabilised, and doesn’t know what to do, going from feeling lusciously confident to doubt creeping back in. She wants to go back to when they were two bodies, clearly wanting each other, instinctively knowing what the other wanted. Now, she feels thrown by the sudden end to their encounter. She rummages in the pile of clothes on the floor for her own shorts, putting them on to match Kira’s. She doesn’t bother putting her pants on, they’re completely unwearable now and just rolls them up. Maeve starts reaching for her t-shirt, wondering what on earth she’s meant to say next, getting in her head about it.‘Thanks?’ ‘That was incredible?’ ‘That was a mistake?’ ‘That felt so right?’

‘Hey,’ says Kira, from behind her. Maeve turns to her shyly. Kira’s gesturing with an arm. ‘Come here.’

Maeve goes to her. Kira takes Maeve in her arms, and squeezes her in a warm hug. Maeve breathes out, her whole body relaxing again.

Kira leans them both back gently, so that they’re both lying down on the wooden slats of the changing room bench. It’s not comfortable, not at all, with the wood pressing into their bodies in odd unmanageable places. But Maeve nestles into Kira, a little bashfully. Her head is on Kira’s toned bicep – frankly, too hard to be a comfortable pillow – until Kira seems to sense this and shrugs a little, so that Maeve’s head falls into a softer part, her head on Kira’s chest.

‘I can’t believe we’re cuddling in here,’ says Maeve.

Kira laughs.

‘You didn’t strike me as the type who would cuddle after…’

‘Are you kidding me?’ says Kira, sounding genuinely offended. ‘You reallyhavemisunderstood me. Do you think I’m some kind of psychopath?’

Kira pulls her in more tightly so Maeve’s face rests in the nook; and she feels their bodies relax into each other. It’s strange, how this person who makes her feel so wound up can also make her so at ease.

Maeve wonders whether they’re going to talk about it, what each other wants next. She would feel like a pathetic teenager if she were to say ‘what are we?’ after one heated encounter, and she wants to seem cool. Plus, Maeve doesn’t even really know what she wants, except that she wants the captaincy,andshe wants Kira. Even more so, now that she knows how incredible it feels to hook up with her. Her body shudders again at the thought of what they’ve just done. At the training ground. Where anyone might walk in.

‘Sooo…’ says Kira. ‘We should talk about it, huh?’

Maeve laughs lightly, nodding her blushing face into Kira’s shoulder. Her ex-girlfriend Hannah had always just left things unsaid, and Maeve had felt too paranoid and scared of messing up to bring it up herself either. It had taken Maeve’s transfer to the Tigresses for Hannah to finally say that she didn’t think their changing lifestyles would suit them and voicing what they’d both secretly been thinking for a while – that they weren’t happy together anymore.

‘Well,’ says Kira. ‘I can go first. That was really fucking hot.’

‘Mmhmm,’ agrees Maeve fervently.

‘And,’says Kira, ‘we’ve also got our careers to think about. I sense that you’re like me, and your career is kind of, well, everything to you?’

Maeve nods into Kira’s chest, worried about what’s coming next.

Without even realising she’s doing it, she starts tracing her hand down Kira’s soft side, running her fingers over where her torso becomes her hips, over the lines of her abs, over the beautiful lines of her chest.

‘Maeve–’ Kira’s voice strains. ‘If you keep doing that I’m not going to be able to keep this conversation going.’

‘Oops, sorry,’ Maeve apologises, giggling.

‘No you’re not,’ says Kira. Maeve loves hearing the smile in her voice, even when she can’t see it.

Oh shit, she thinks. It would be very easy to actually… like Kira. Properly like her. She needs to be careful.

‘Because the thing is, we both want the same thing–’ says Kira.

Maeve tenses. Does Kira mean that she wants to date her?

‘– to be Captain?’

The words are an unwelcome bump back down to earth.

Maeve sits quickly up, putting her t-shirt on, the embarrassment building inside her.

‘Maeve. Maeve?’

Maeve can’t cope right now, with what it does to her to hear her name in Kira’s voice, when she’s still there, sitting up on the bench, topless and confused.

Kira reaches a hand out, grabs for her more roughly. ‘Murphy, come on! Talk to me!’

‘What do you want me to say! You’re right! We both want the same thing, there can only be one captain! So,’ she shrugs angrily.

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