24 Dates

Date Ten

DATE TEN:

Place: Lisa, Jane (and Rosie’s) apartment

Time: July 14th, 2016 7:00 pm

Yelp: n/a | Date: 5/5 declarations

Jane and Lisa (but primarily Jane, of course), are really starting to piss Rosie off. She had said well over a week ago, “I have a date on the 14th, so go be gay somewhere else.” And yet, Jane and Lisa are still here. Being gay.

They watch Rosie as she cooks.

“Hope you made enough for everyone,” Jane says.

“I’m starving,” Lisa adds.

Rosie looks over the tomato based sauce, which is now at a good simmer. Her eye twitches and she lets go of the stirring spoon. Slowly, slowly she turns around. “I told you guys that I had a date tonight, now get lost!”

Lisa’s eyes widened, her lips parting. “You do?”

Rosie takes the apron off from around her neck and then turns to the two of them before pushing both out of the kitchen and then to the door. Jane struggles a little bit more, but Rosie manages to get them to the door. Call it an adrenaline burst.

But as if timed perfectly, Jennie is waiting right outside when she opens the door, so Rosie’s stuck with these two idiots fighting against her and Jennie watching. She drops her hands so that they’re no longer on Jane and Lisa. “Jennie!” she says, letting out a large breath. “Hello!”

“What’s going on?” Jennie asks, her voice steady but cautious.

Jane grins, and Rosie already knows what she’s going to say. “Rosie was trying to kick us out for her date.”

Real fucking cute. Rosie’s gonna remember that.

Jennie frowns. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I thought it would be nice for us to get to know Jennie better, don’t you think, Rosie.”

Rosie forces a smile. “You already know her, Jane.”

“It would be kind of nice,” Lisa chimes in.

She’s got it coming too.

“Fine,” Rosie says. “I still need to finish dinner.”

Jennie follows her into the kitchen, leaning back on the counter, watching. “So what was that about?” she asks. Her lips are tilted up into a frustrating smirk like she knew that Rosie really didn’t want them there.

“One of the reasons I need to find another place,” Rosie says. She stirs the now boiling tomato sauce before dumping shrimp into the other pot.

“Oh. Right.” Jennie’s voice goes distance, so Rosie turns around. “With them getting married it’ll be weird, right?”

Rosie nods, though she really didn’t want to think about this tonight. Especially in front of Jennie because what if she comes off as some kind of U-haul--

“You could move in with me,” Jennie blurts out, and Rosie jerks her head up. Jennie looks away, twirling a strand of the hair that’s now falling in her face. “I mean, it will be a while, and my place is huge, and there are three spare rooms so…”

Rosie smirks. “Okay.” She’s gotta play it cool, which is hard because the love of her life basically asked her to move in at some point in the very near future. That’s kind of, totally huge. Though unexpected.

“...Okay?”

“Well, obviously Jennie is so overcome with love for Rosie that she wants to be around her all the time. How could Rosie deny that?” she winks, but then her expression falls because Jennie’s face has somehow grown redder, more serious. “What?”

Jennie’s finger is now fully wrapped in hair from her twirling so much. “I do.”

Rosie  sets the temperature down so that the sauce will only simmer, then turns to Jennie. “Do what?”

“I--” she pauses, and jeez her expression looks so pained. What did Rosie even say that was so - oh. Oh! “Love you,” she continues. Rosie drops her stirring spoon.

She pinches her lips together, her brow furrowing. Well. That’s good. “I love you too.” Rosie says it simply, like she’s not confessing her feelings and more or so reaffirming that, yes we do have milk in the house. She picks up the spoon casually, only to come up and see that Jennie is kinda smiling in the way that she’s trying to hold back a full smile.

“That’s good,” Jennie says.

“Yes. Good. Now, I gotta finish cooking.” Rosie looks back at the boiling shrimp, sets them aside to make way for the noodles. “By the way, my birthday is coming up,” Rosie says, as if Jennie doesn’t know. “I was meaning to ask - do you want to go with me to see my family? Mama keeps telling me to bring you.”

“Sure. Maybe we should invite Jane and Lisa too,” Jennie says, and now a full grin has bloomed across her ridiculously pretty face.

Rosie points her spoon at Jennie. “Get out of my kitchen.”

“You gonna spoon me to death?” Rosie wiggles her eyebrows and winks, making Jennie roll her eyes. “Alright, I’m leaving.”

“Hey, Jennie - wait.”

“What?”

“I love you.” Rosie turns away and begins to stir the pasta, but her body feels warm from something other than the steam off the pots. She bites her tongue and forces herself not to say it again but it feels so natural. I love you I love you I love you. I love you Jennie Kim.

“I love you too.”