Taking a Bite from the Big Apple (Complete)

6

Toni downed her second cup of coffee that morning, hoping it would help perk her up a bit. Tuesdays were her busiest days, she had a full schedule of classes, then just enough time to grab something quick to eat before she had to get down to the bar to play her set. She’d only been doing the piano gig four nights so far, but was finding the job wonderful, she hadn’t played in a while, so had gone in early the first day to brush up and quickly fell back into the swing of it. Her grandmother had insisted she learn the instrument, and she had forgotten just how much she enjoyed playing, having stopped when Ruth got sick. Today, however, she definitely wasn’t the mood to sing old love ballads.

She’d woken up early on Saturday morning, the night after the party and finished cleaning up, having been too distracted after her kiss with Cheryl to do it the night before. The redhead had woken up a few hours after her and had had a terrible hangover, as Toni had suspected she might, and had spent the day drinking coffee and taking a steady dose of painkillers, seemingly oblivious to what had gone on after her forth or fifth beer in the night, which had still been relatively early.

Toni tried to act as normal as possible, figuring that the redhead either genuinely didn’t remember the kiss, in which case the brunette had no idea how to even approach bringing it up, or Cheryl did remember but was pretending she didn’t because she regretted it and didn’t want it to jeopardise their friendship or living situation by telling Toni so.

What Toni didn’t know was that Cheryl, initially, couldn’t remember a thing, but after sleeping for the afternoon and nothing short of a bucket of coffee, she had remembered. Everything.

Drinking, talking to a bunch of people, then trying to dance, failing, and Toni being kind and gentle, getting her into her room safely. And then…then she remembered practically attacking her roommate, pulling her into a kiss, then going asleep. She didn’t remember, or wasn’t lucid enough to comprehend the fact, that Toni had responded quite eagerly to the kiss. In her mind, she’d forced herself on the other girl and now Toni was just being kind by not mentioning her drunken indiscretion. Even if the ‘indiscretion’ happened to be what both girls wanted most in the world.

Toni checked her watch and groaned at the time, going over to the table and grabbing her laptop bag, to take notes in class. Cheryl came out of her room, still in her silky red pyjamas and robe, but also wearing fluffy bunny slippers and the brunette couldn’t help but smile at how adorable she looked.

“Morning,” the redhead said groggily, wiping her eyes.

“Morning. I’m just heading out to class.”

Cheryl looked at her and gave her a shy wave.

“Have a good day. Learning and so forth.”

“I will,” Toni chuckled, “You too. I’m working tonight so I may not get a chance to get home between class and that, so I’ll see you later?”

“Okay. Bye, TT.”

Tara left with an echoing ‘bye’ and moved quickly down the stairs, out of her building and towards the university campus.

*

Cheryl put her feet up on front of her on the sofa and placed the bowl of pasta she had made on her lap. She picked up the remote and turned the television on, flicking through the channels, and smiled when she saw one of the old movie channels was showing ‘Butterfield 8’, one of her favourite Elizabeth Taylor movies, underrated in her mind, but one she enjoyed nonetheless. She settled down to enjoy her dinner and relax for the evening, letting the images of the movie in front of her play out.

A couple of hours later, the credits were rolling and Cheryl was thinking she maybe hadn’t chosen the best movie, one where love – and one of the protagonists – dies at the end was not good for her already mopey frame of mind regarding relationships. She turned the television off before walking over to the kitchen and started loading her dishes from dinner into the dishwasher. It didn’t take long and she turned the machine on before going into her room and getting some of her notes from her classes that day. She had already read over and added her own comments to the pages, but figured going over it again couldn’t hurt.