Honey Girl(34)

Yuki dumps Grace’s duffel bag on the floor. “Before this devolves any more,” she says, “let me introduce you. That’s Dhorian.” She points to the guy on the counter. “You probably won’t see him much today because he’ll be cleaning up all this goddamn glitter. That,” she says, pointing to the guy meticulously cutting out hearts, “is our token white boy, Fletcher. We love him but will kill him first when the revolution starts.”

Fletcher shrugs, holding a pink heart up to his face. “I’ve accepted my place in this household.”

Yuki moves to wrap her arms around the guy with the swollen black eye. She pinches his cheek. “And this absolute looker is Sani. Don’t let the black eye scare you. He almost always has one. Happens when you’re a big ol’ softie in the boxing ring.”

She ducks, cackling as Sani whips around to grab at her. “Behave,” she screeches, slung over his shoulder. “We have company. Grace, this is my commune. Commune, say hi.”

“Hi, Grace,” they intone out of sync. “Or Porter,” Fletcher adds, not even flinching as more glitter gets thrown at him.

Sani puts Yuki down. “So,” he says. “You’re the girl that got Yuki drunk and married in Vegas.”

“Relax.” Yuki frowns. “Technically, I think I got her drunk.”

“You did,” Grace says, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack. “And I can’t remember it, but from the picture, the wedding seemed really nice,” she admits.

Yuki makes a surprised noise. “You kept it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It makes me happy when I look at it.”

The room is silent, and she stares down at her feet.

“Did you bring the picture?” Dhorian asks. He shakes a spoonful of cookie dough at her. “You can share this with me if you say yes.”

“Yes,” Grace says. “Why?”

He lets out a shriek. One of their neighbors beats on the wall. “Yuki refuses to let us see it,” he says. He lifts his mixing bowl like an offering. “Today, girls and gays, we feast on drunk love.” He jumps down off the counter. “I think I have vodka stashed somewhere. Reconvene in fifteen. Hut hut!”

“Hut hut!” Sani and Fletcher yell.

They scatter, and Yuki grabs Grace’s hand and pulls her down a hallway. The grip has started to feel familiar, as does the way Yuki sends shy glances at Grace out of the corner of her eye, like she’s checking to make sure Grace is still there.

Are you there?

“I’m here,” she says quietly. She feels an unhindered sense of acceptance. She can just be here, without any heavy, weighed down expectations.

She says it now, standing in the middle of Yuki’s room. She is surrounded by posters and old radios and a little altar, as Grace suspected, with crystals and herbs and vials of sea salt.

Yuki looks at Grace to check that she is really there, and yes, she is.

The first lesson Grace learns about Yuki Yamamoto is that she’s a blanket hog.

It would bother Grace, if she was someone who slept much. Instead, she climbs out of the full-size bed and the memory foam topper Yuki splurged on. The apartment doesn’t have a balcony like Grace’s back in Portland, so she makes do with cracking the window open. Yuki doesn’t wake.

She has to be careful with the windows because Yuki has little statues lined up along the sill. They go in between burned down incense, and Grace leans down to smell the lingering remains. She finds herself wondering, sleepy and alone under moonlight, what Yuki was thinking when she lit these. If she was thinking about the stars or work or the lonely creatures in the dark. If maybe she lit these once and thought of Grace, and watched the incense burn down to its stumps.

“Honey Girl?” Yuki murmurs, voice hoarse with sleep. The half-moons under her eyes are part of their own galaxy. “What are you doing?” She doesn’t lift her head off the pillow, so her hair falls in her eyes and covers them up. “Sleepy.”

“Sorry,” Grace whispers back, carefully closing the window and tiptoeing back toward the bed. Her body sinks into the mattress as she crawls back in. “Insomniac.”

Her hair falls around her in streaks. Yuki reaches out hesitantly, watching Grace’s face as her fingers start to twirl in the sleep-flattened curls. She hadn’t said anything when Grace changed out her pillowcase for a silk one. Had only rolled toward it and said it smelled like jasmine.

Now she tugs lightly at Grace’s hair, the strands meandering over the sheets. “This is what I remember,” she croaks out. “It never really got dark that night in Vegas, and you were passed out on the bed. All the lights hit your hair. Honey gold,” she tells Grace. “A girl with hair from the sun.”

Grace sighs. She closes her eyes, cocooning herself in the quiet intimacy. “That’s not me,” she says.

Yuki makes a soft noise and shifts closer. “It’s a good story,” she says.

“It’s just a story.”

She feels Yuki’s gaze on her, sharpening by the second. “Can I tell you something I’ve learned from stories, Grace Porter?”

In a fit of spiteful bravery, she tugs half the covers away from Yuki. “Yes,” she says finally, burrowed underneath. “What have you learned?”

Yuki takes her half of the covers and burrows under, too. The two of them are underneath, a hidden fortress for whispering secrets. “People may not believe the stories,” she says, pink mouth cracking open with a yawn, “but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.”