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Celebrations have always been a peculiar occasion for Sandrone.
Not that she hates them, per se. She’s fine with tagging along to people’s parties and sipping on a low-percentage cocktail as everyone else loses themselves to carousal and vodka overdose. Being the responsible friend that drags everyone home after they’re black-out drunk has come as second nature to her by now.
However, there’s one thing she doesn’t like, and that’s being the center of attention.
Never mind the fact it’s her first time hosting a New Year’s party. She’s barely even used to the fact she’s got a girlfriend.
Actually, this whole thing had been Columbina’s idea. She’d been harping on about it ever since she’d moved in with Sandrone— she likes to do a New Year’s get-together with her impossibly large group of college friends each year, and now that they’re dating, Sandrone is automatically obligated to get in on the action.
Honestly, she knows Columbina would’ve agreed if she’d just put her foot down, but she could never be so cruel as to deprive her girlfriend of the life she’s always wanted, knowing how lonely it’s been for her before Sandrone came along.
So be it. Even if it comes at the cost of her own comfort.
And that’s how she finds herself, on New Year’s eve, curled in a corner polishing off their entire supply of hors d’oeuvres to look as if she’s got something to do. She’s more than satiated by now, and the taste has grown saccharine in her mouth, too dense, too sweet, but somehow she finds herself unable to put a stop to the stress-eating. She wonders how many it would take until she gets violently sick and can spend the remainder of the evening bent over the toilet vomiting her guts out.
It isn’t a risk she wants to take, but even that’s better than sitting around and having people approach her willy-nilly to try and coax her into a conversation. Columbina’s guests are all tenfold as chatty as she is, and she keeps finding herself swept up in unnecessary prattle, forced to talk about inane things like house designs and career plans that she honestly couldn’t care less about. She can feel the scowl overtaking her face as she stirs her drink, prodding at the berry bobbing in the alcohol that’s two seconds away from being mashed to a pulp.
She swears, if one more person comes up to make small talk to her tonight, she’s going to… to—
“Hey,” comes a soft voice from behind her, and Sandrone turns to find Columbina in her pink party dress, cocktail in one hand and charcuterie platter in the other.
All thoughts of violence immediately evaporate from her mind.
“Hey,” echoes Sandrone, tiredly, and then immediately regrets her response because now she sounds terrifically, awfully stupid.
Say something, she reprimands herself in her head as she scrambles for a better response. You always have something to say. Why are you clamming up now? Stupid, stupid, stupid—
The commotion in her head is put on hold by the sound of Columbina’s voice, cleaving smooth through their panicked silence like a ship through waves.
“I think I need a break,” she says, though Sandrone’s never seen the girl run out of social battery since they met. “Do you want to come with me?”
Sandrone suspects she simply doesn’t want to say the silent part out loud— I noticed you standing there, you seem sad, I feel sorry for you. To which… well, the tact is appreciated, but she’s not stupid, and she definitely doesn’t want Columbina to stand around pitying her on what’s supposed to be a happy night for them both.
“But you’re hosting,” she blurts out, cheeks pinking. “Columbina, the sentiment’s well appreciated, but they’re going to want you to be there the whole night.”
Personally, Sandrone couldn’t care less if her own reputation took a fall, but knowing how much Columbina treasures her social life, she doesn’t think she’d ever be able to forgive herself for tarnishing it.
“I’m sure Rosalyne can handle it,” dismisses Columbina, setting her plate aside. “She was always better at making toasts than I was, anyway.”
She squeezes Sandrone’s hand in a way that says, You’re more important.
To that, Sandrone’s first instinct is to stiffen; her second is to relax and let be. She’s still yet to unlearn the hesitation to touch that comes with being alone for the better part of a lifetime.
But Columbina’s warm. Gentle. It’s what unravels the rigid force of habit inside her, prods at the hard shell in search of the girl deep under. It’s little pinches like these she’d balk at from most, for attempts to get to her usually end in disaster, and she tends to think she’s better off on her own.
When it’s Columbina, though, it’s… comforting. She slackens into the girl’s touch, against her better judgement, and looks her straight in the eye.
“You’re sure?” she repeats, giving her a last chance to back out.
Columbina doesn’t miss a beat when she replies, presumably since she’s already made up her mind.
“I did say I needed a break as well. If not for you— then for me, okay?”
—For you?
Sandrone looks into her girlfriend’s eyes. They sparkle, rosy-pink, with sincerity and conviction, imploring her to just come already.
She sucks in a breath, love and hate in one, still unable to come to grips with the imprint this girl’s managed to leave on her; and for all her misgivings Sandrone’s stupid-soft heart ends up caving in to her whims anyways.
“Okay,” she relents, sagging her shoulders. “Let’s go, then.”
And she makes no further argument as Columbina loops her arm in hers and slips out of the commotion of the living room.
Unlike the rest of the house, their shared room is nice. Uncluttered. Quiet. It’s the only spot that hasn’t been completely taken over by the party, and Sandrone senses Columbina relax against her as they open the door and fling themselves onto the bed.
She realizes it must take a lot out of Columbina to be hosting, too, because the girl already has her face in the pillow, hair all mussed and dress wrinkled, smearing her makeup all over their shared duvet.
But Sandrone doesn’t admonish her for that, mostly on account of how stressed-out she seems. She inches closer to Columbina and reaches out, rubbing circles onto the back of her neck by way of comfort.
On the nightstand, her phone buzzes, and Sandrone flings out her free hand to swipe aside the notification. Through bleary eyes, the lockscreen illuminates, displaying the time, and she recoils a little, surprised to find that it’s almost twelve.
Huh. She hadn’t noticed how long had passed in her wallowing.
It’s a minute to countdown, and now the radio is blaring generic celebratory tunes as the city prepares to make the leap into the new year. Sandrone hears the chants— from the channel, from the party— in between notes, fifty-five, fifty-four, and all she feels is grateful that she’s not downstairs with the rest of them.
The distance is nice, as is the feeling of having Columbina all to herself. She’s a little taken aback, though, by how happy her girlfriend is for the reprieve, given how energetic and bubbly she’d acted during the party.
But she, like the moon, is a woman of many faces. Sandrone learns something new about her every day— it’s part of the process that comes with dating this enigma of a girl, and one that she’s come to love, the accumulation of little puzzle pieces until she can put them all together to make up the full picture that is Columbina Hyposelenia.
“You always know how to handle me,” murmurs Columbina, sighing happily at Sandrone’s touch on her nape, massaging the bump of bone rising where her neck and back meet.
“Because you’re easy to please,” replies Sandrone. She doesn’t accept the compliment, as is customary of her, and Columbina understands her well enough by now not to push it.
“Closer,” she insists instead and with no hesitation at all Sandrone falls into her arms like putty, sheets rolled aside as their limbs entangle, so easy it’s like breathing. The air is rife with electricity, and their movements cut through it with no trouble at all, brought alive by the buzz in the atmosphere instead of weakened.
Forty, goes the countdown, and Sandrone’s barely listening, distracted by the hands roaming down the side of her ribs, by the feel of those fingers, nimble as ever, finding the line at Sandrone’s collarbone where her blouse begins.
“Columbina,” begins Sandrone, and from there she cannot even bring herself to finish the sentence, because by then the top button’s already undone, fabric pulled apart to expose crisscrossing lattices of white lace.
The blood rushes to her cheeks, not at all of her own volition.
A million times over, and it still gets her every time. She lifts her hands to cover them, embarrassed, and Columbina pries them off, fingers skimming Sandrone’s cheekbone with feather lightness.
“You’re flustered,” murmurs Columbina, lips pulled into an amused smile.
Thirty seconds to twelve. Sandrone’s face flickers, caught between annoyance and flusterment.
“I didn’t need you to point that out,” she says, doing her best to come across as snippy, but Columbina knows her too well by now to believe her theatrics in the slightest.
She snickers and reaches for the second button, undeterred.
“Oh, I know.”
The music’s loud in the background, but Sandrone can barely hear, for any sound out there is made distant by the blood pounding in her ears. Before she can get another word in, a brief burst of warmth grazes her torso, and she lowers her gaze to find that Columbina’s already gotten half her blouse off, hands pressed against the ridges where her ribs end and stomach begins, tracing patterns like winding pathways on a mountain range.
Twenty, says the radio. Sandrone’s breath hitches at the gentle push of fingers, stroking the line of her breasts— she registers that as a playful threat to go deeper, to which she shows no protest.
(And she can’t, anyway, because she’s all busy staring at the pretty girl lying inches away from her.)
Columbina’s eyes are half-lidded; she looks positively angelic, swathed in shiny pink fabric and body glitter. Her jewellery drapes, cool against Sandrone’s cheek, a Christmas gift they’d handcrafted together just the week prior— encrusted with alternating pink-and-yellow gems on a delicate platinum-gold chain.
You, Sandrone can’t help thinking, are a sight to die for.
Ten seconds to twelve. Her skirt goes sideways, hitched at an angle by a hand trailing quick down her thigh, and oh how it trembles at the touch, how weak-kneed she goes at the sight of her.
Nine. She shifts, and feels the gentle tug of fingers threading through her hair.
Eight. Her hand comes away smeared with Sandrone’s blush, dusky-pink in the low light.
Seven. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered.” Six. Trimmed nails, on the solid jut of her hipbone. Five. “Don’t call me that.”
Four. Sandrone thinks she’s seeing stars.
Three.
Columbina leans in, lips ripe and glossy pink.
Two.
The world tips sideways.
One.
And then the radio blares its congratulations, and it’s the new year, and then they’re kissing, grasping with reckless abandon, all over each other like lovers separated for decades.
Sandrone has a habit of holding back, perhaps on account of how touch-starved she is, so most of the time it is Columbina who initiates. And though she will usually accept these advances, it’s rare she throws herself into it with equal vehemence.
Now she does. She loops her arms around Columbina’s waist and pulls her in, hungry for more. She’s gripping, nails digging, with tongue, and everything about their motions should be rough but all she can feel is dizzy and flushed and so, so loved. She throws her head back onto the creasing sheets, savouring the glossy drip of her lipstick that’s bitter on her tongue, her breath a mix of cocktail and sugar.
Now, Sandrone knows what they all say about love: that it’s better than being drunk, being high. But neither of those have ever appealed to her in the slightest and so she’d always taken it to mean that love is complete and utter nonsense.
Maybe, she thinks quietly as Columbina presses in, it is not so nonsensical after all.
“Happy New Year,” murmurs Columbina into the kiss and Sandrone nods in reply, shaking, unable to formulate any other response, even as Columbina breaks it off to trail her lips down the line of her girlfriend’s neck.
Sandrone’s thighs go heavy; her heart starts thumping against her ribcage. Every noise that escapes her mouth next is involuntary. No amount of foreplay could have prepared her for the overwhelm of emotions that’s washing over her now.
Gods, she’s so weak for Columbina.
Happy New Year, she gasps in return, and is rewarded with another kiss right above the line of her collarbone.
—And then, just when she’s about to start pulling at her dress, they are rudely interrupted by the sharp sound of knocking from outside, followed by a jiggling of the knob that ceases once it realizes it’s locked.
“—Columbina? You there?”
Damn it!
Sandrone curses quietly and tries to roll off Columbina; Columbina stops her with a quick fling of the arm across her waist. A quick noise of protest is quickly silenced, hand ghosting along the line of her jaw, a warning for her to stay quiet.
“Coming!” she calls cheerfully to the intruder, and then turns to Sandrone, whose lips are pulled into a tight sulk at the unwelcome visitor as she fumbles with her shirt, trying to get it back on before she’s caught like this.
“Don’t worry.” Columbina drops her voice to a whisper, soft against the shell of Sandrone’s ear. “I won’t be too long. We can resume…”
She toys with the folds of Sandrone’s blouse, teasing, smile ever-present, and nips gently at the skin there.
“...later, when they’re all gone.”
With that, Columbina releases her grip on the girl, brushes her fingers through her hair, and stands. A flounce of her skirt, a quick hand through her hair, and then she turns to skip out of the room looking impeccable as ever.
Columbina blows Sandrone a final kiss, and just like that she’s gone.
Sandrone stays like that, for a while. Stares at the door, still ajar, and lets the sound of revelry from down below numb her ears. She brushes the back of her hand against her cheek and it comes away warm from the blush.
She huffs and buttons her blouse back up, then turns to the mirror to reapply her lipstick. She is fine, she tells herself. She should return downstairs. No one will notice the stains if she keeps them under wraps.
And when she thinks she has convinced herself of all that, she then glimpses her reflection, still breathless and starry-eyed.
—Still hung up and in love, says her mind.
Ridiculous, she replies to it. She pins the partygoer’s-smile back on her face and heads for the door, determined not to overblow the issue.
It takes the whole remainder of the night to wipe those stars from her eyes.