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.
She tells herself very seriously that if anyone is meant for anything, it’s Jane meant for the ’70s. That’s the job. That’s the case.
That’s all.
* * *
August starts a sex notebook.
It’s not that they’re having that much sex. When one person lives on the subway and the other is busting their ass to get them off the subway, there are only so many opportunities.
But she’s used to taking notes on Jane, and, well, it never hurts to have a reference guide. So, she starts a notebook to catalogue everything she discovers that Jane likes.
She starts with the things she already knew. Hair pulling (giving and receiving), August writes at the top of the first page. Below it, lip biting, followed by thigh highs, and, leaving marks. She pauses, sucks on the end of her pen, and adds, semi-public sex* and notes at the bottom of the page, *unsure if