Except You, Love

• 12 •

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"The door of the house opens. It's you, coming out of the house, coming towards me, smiling, pleased. It's you, and it's me, and I knew it would end like this, that you would be there, had always been there; it was just a matter of time. Everything is imprinted forever with what it once was."

- Jeanette Winterson

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Chaeyoung giggles by her side as Lisa locks the front door on the ground floor. This is what she's been reduced to. Goddamn giggling.

Too much sex leaves her boneless, and apparently, infatuated and amused by the smallest things. The ache between her legs is a welcome soreness even if the exorbitant amount of sex they've been having has her reverting back to teenage euphoria.

Lisa cranes for a view over Chaeyoung's shoulder to the bookshop next door before turning back to put a finger to her lips. Shhh, she mimes. Then, reaching for Chaeyoung's hand, she leads them away at a brisk pace like they are escaping the night.

Their first proper day in London is off to an early start. They sneak into the streets moments after daylight slips past the crack between Lisa's drapes, rushing out on the heels of her abrupt timetable announcement, "Date starts now." Not even the leftover muscle burn from last night's activities could impede her To Do list. Too many naps, a completely screwed sleep schedule, and the excitement of finally being together in every conceivable way, motivate a before dawn rise to soak up the waking hours.

The reason for the sneaking around doesn't become apparent until a tube ride later when they are standing in front of a large white sign-two upside down pink triangles sandwiching the words, Gay's the Word-hanging above an awning and a set of doors, both also white. Stacks of books are artfully displayed in the oversize window.

Chaeyoung squeezes Lisa's side, nudging for an explanation.

"We're cheating," Lisa imparts, voice lowered and head bent down to Chaeyoung's level, as if to avoid lurking spies who might be within earshot. "This is my favourite bookshop. Don't tell Phoebe or her grandmother."

It takes a second to jog her memory but then kind and patient grey eyes come to mind. Chaeyoung recalls how Genevieve had lent a sympathetic ear last summer when it seemed like the universe was conspiring with fate to keep her and Lisa apart. The missed timing, the heartache of being so close but not, crying into a stranger's cup of tea, flying home solo and newly broken; it was unimaginable then that she would be here now-Lisa's arm around her shoulder, her hand in Lisa's back pocket, bodies drawn together by familiar smiles and gazes. The small intimacies of love passing between them as quiet and affecting as the soft morning breeze.

The difference a year makes.

"My lips are sealed." Chaeyoung plays along, brushing the underside of Lisa's jaw with closed lips until it causes her set to widen. Another smile, broader around the edge.

"It's one of the few remaining LGBTQ booksellers in London," Lisa briefs but Chaeyoung only partially takes in the information, preoccupied with the small gasps her mouth nearing Lisa's ear elicit. She hums at the appropriate junctures as Lisa recounts the bookshop's storied meaning, how it has remained a stalwart presence in the city for forty years while most others have sadly shuttered.

"Of all the sights and sounds, this is where you take me on our first London date?" Chaeyoung asks once Lisa finishes her abridged version of its pride history, her voice markedly falling in volume towards the end when the warmth of Chaeyoung's breath in the shell of her ear tinges the top pink. "Just when I thought you couldn't get any gayer."