Imperfectly Perfect

Chapter 21

twenty-one

Fallon gripped the small gift tightly in her hand as she stood in front of Tia’s door. This was still awkward. She didn’t want it to be, but she didn’t know Saylor well yet, and she hadn’t put in the time and effort to get to know her. Fallon had been stubborn in still living her own life and focusing only on her relationship with Tia, not with Saylor.

Which was why she was here.

Saylor’s birthday bash, as Tia had explained it. Even Monti had mentioned it and how they should be getting together and supporting Tia in the same ways Tia had supported them throughout their life. And the guilt had eaten away at her long enough that she was here.

Although she wasn’t as good at gift giving as Savannah, she hoped the book Tia had suggested would be good enough. As she entered the apartment, it erupted with noise. Fallon instantly tensed at the onslaught. Tia was in the kitchen, mixing up a drink. Saylor was standing in the center of the living room, surrounded by her friends, and Monti better be somewhere, because Fallon couldn’t do this without a friendly face.

Sliding next to Tia, Fallon dropped the gift on the kitchen counter. She seemed to be the only one who’d brought one, which didn’t surprise her. She wouldn’t make a big deal out of it either. “Anything I can help with?”

Tia lifted her head up, beaming as her eyes fell onto Fallon’s face. She shook her head, setting the bottles of liquor down and wrapping her arms around Fallon’s shoulders. “Nothing.”

“Okay.” Fallon held on a little tighter and longer than she normally would, but she needed that centering.

Ever since her last night with Savannah, she’d been off. It felt as though she was walking on the deck of a ship in the middle of a storm, barely able to catch her balance before the next wave rolled her over. And she had no idea what to do about it.

They’d texted on and off every day, and the closeness was still there, but Fallon suddenly faced so much that she was unsure of. All she wanted to do was pull away and go right back to the way it had been before, when she knew and understood what was happening. When the rules were clearly in place, and when she could see what they would become—or perhaps more importantly, what they wouldn’t become.

“Everything okay?” Tia asked, giving Fallon an extra squeeze before backing up.

“Yeah. Everything’s peachy.” The sarcasm in her voice was stronger than she’d meant it to be, but this was Tia. And if there was one person she trusted in this entire world, it was her. Tia could help her through anything—she’d proven that time and time again.

“Fallon…” The warning was there, and Tia didn’t have to say anything else.

“It’s nothing major.” That was a lie, and she knew it. “I’ve just been feeling off this week.” Another lie. This was more than off. It was as if something disastrous were about to happen, and Fallon could do nothing to prevent it. Was she in a relationship or not? How massively would she screw this up?

“All right, well, I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“It’s Saylor’s birthday. Let’s just focus on that.” Fallon glanced up to find Monti across the living room, giving her an odd look. Screw her sister for being so observant sometimes. Monti could surely sense everything that was going through Fallon’s mind. She’d always been able to do that when Fallon least wanted her to.

The knock on the door was startling. Tia wiped her hands on a towel, threw it on the counter, and immediately headed for the door. Fallon couldn’t break her gaze from her little sister. What was Monti thinking? Could she see the cracks that were about to shatter her?

A laugh trilled through the air, and a shiver ran up and down Fallon’s spine. She winced. Monti’s gaze narrowed in concern, and Fallon shook her head. Not because Monti shouldn’t be concerned, but because she couldn’t believe it. She turned slowly, needing to see with her own eyes, the voice that she knew viscerally, the laugh that haunted her dreams.

Savannah.

Their eyes locked, and Savannah paused in her step, her smile faltering briefly. What the hell was Savannah doing here? Invading Fallon’s safe place. Barging into her world in a way that Fallon absolutely wasn’t ready for.

Tia must have caught Fallon’s gaze, because the smile that had been on her lips faded instantly. She furrowed her brow in confusion. Savannah half-ignored her and walked directly to Fallon, already shaking her head. “How do you know Saylor?”

Saylor.

Savannah was here because of Saylor, because someone had invited her. Not because she was too close to Fallon’s life.

“She’s with Tia,” Fallon answered, pointing at her aunt. “Tia’s my aunt.”

“Fuck,” Savannah whispered under her breath. She glanced furtively around the room, wringing her hands together and biting her lower lip. “Saylor’s one of my coaches. She just started with us a few months ago. I didn’t realize Tia was…” Savannah stopped. “Please don’t flip out on me.”

“Flip out?” Fallon scoffed.

Savannah reached out to grab Fallon’s hand, but Fallon jerked back. This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t ready for this. Nothing good could come of this.

“Excuse me.” Fallon pushed past Savannah and right past Tia. She nearly left the apartment, but she took a sharp turn and walked directly into Tia’s bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Fallon paced the bedroom, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t ready for it. Savannah shouldn’t be there, meeting her family. Fallon shouldn’t be there because all she was trying to do was get to know Saylor a little better. And now she was thrown into a chaotic disaster of a mess.

“Fallon.” Monti didn’t bother to knock, but she shut the door behind her.

Shaking her head wildly, Fallon tried to catch her breath or even find words to explain what was going on, but she couldn’t. She literally could not think of a single thing to say. Which was so unlike her.

“Savannah’s more than Athena’s client.” It was a statement. Something that Monti probably already knew, but Fallon was also aware of the question Monti wasn’t asking.

Fallon could cry. Everything was coming to a head, and she wasn’t going to be able to fix it. Savannah was going to bring her down in one swift move, and it was nothing more than simply being someplace she shouldn’t be.

No, not that she shouldn’t be. Someplace unexpected. Just like the first time they’d met.

“Fallon…” Monti trailed off, trying to get her attention.

But Fallon’s brain spun circles so fast that she couldn’t even breathe her way out of them this time. The walls started to close in on her. Her chest constricted tightly. Her head was light and dizzy. Monti grabbed her arm sharply and tugged her to a stop.

“Breathe.”

Fallon sucked in cold air, thankful that Monti was there to put some sense back into her head. The door opened again, and Fallon whipped her head around, scared to death that Savannah was going to be the one standing in the doorway.

Tia.

“What’s going on?” Tia’s concern was evident, not just in her gaze but in the wobble in her voice.

Fallon looked to Monti, hoping that she wouldn’t have to actually say the words out loud. Monti must have seen the panic, because she turned to Tia but still kept her hand on Fallon’s arm.

“It’s complicated.”

“Well, explain it to me.” Tia put her hands on her hips and stared the two of them down.

“Savannah is Athena’s client,” Monti said.

But that wasn’t really the problem, was it? They both knew that it was so much more than that. But Monti wasn’t going to out her to Tia. Fallon was going to have to be the one to tell them both everything, tell them that Savannah was more than a client, that she was more than a friend, that Fallon had no clue what they were to each other, but she was panicking because she didn’t know what to do or say.

“We’ve been…” Fallon stopped short. Fucking really would be the right word here, but she wasn’t sure she could say that out loud to both of them. But how else would she explain it? Dating wasn’t quite the right word either, was it? “…seeing each other.”

There. That fit. Mostly.

“Oh.” Tia’s face lit up slightly, although the smile faltered and moved back down into a frown. “What’s wrong, then?”

Fallon rolled her eyes and flopped onto the edge of the bed. She put her hands in her lap, wringing them together, afraid that she wouldn’t ever be able to get her sense of balance back after this. “I didn’t know she was Saylor’s boss. Why is everything six degrees of separation or less?”

Monti chuckled, sitting on Fallon’s left and holding her hand. “Because it’s truly the way things work out most of the time.”

Wincing, Fallon looked at Tia. “I met Savannah at the cemetery and found out shortly after that she was Athena’s newest client.”

“Shit.” Tia plopped onto the other side of Fallon. “I can’t imagine you handled that well.”

“No, I didn’t.” Fallon stared down at her toes, wishing her shoes were off so she could dig her toes into the rug to distract herself. “There’s a lot that I haven’t handled well when it comes to Savannah.”

“Are you in love with her?” Monti pushed, knowing far more about the situation than Tia.

As much as Fallon would have liked to avoid that, she knew she couldn’t. Not anymore. “This is the first time in fifteen years that I’ve gone beyond the physical with someone.”

Tia scrunched her nose, surely not wanting details, but Fallon had to share at least that much for them to understand what was going through her head and heart.

“So you’re dating?” Monti asked.

Fallon shook her head. “No. Yes. I mean, no. I don’t actually know. We haven’t discussed it.”

“But it’s more than sex?” Monti wrapped her hand around Fallon’s.

Nodding ever so slightly, Fallon closed in on herself. She could admit that openly now. She hadn’t managed that before, but tonight was the night for new things. Hell, this week was. She wanted to be in a deeper relationship with Savannah, but she still desperately clung to the independence and privacy that she’d had all of her adult life. She wasn’t ready to bring Savannah into the fold that was her family.

Not yet.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for that, but she at least wanted the opportunity to do that in her own time. She hadn’t gotten that chance with Athena because of Monti. At least with Savannah she should get that choice, right?

“We decided that it’s more than sex last week.” Fallon bit the inside of her cheek. That was all the details they needed. They didn’t have to know what a fool she’d made of herself that night. “But we haven’t decided what we are.”

“Then you should probably be talking to her, not us.” Tia ran her fingers up and down Fallon’s arm like she used to do when Fallon was a kid and upset about something. The gentle touch was exactly what Fallon needed. It had the calming effect she’d been longing for.

“Yeah.” Fallon stared at the door, knowing that out there her world was going to crumble. Because she couldn’t do this. Savannah deserved far more than her pitiful effort at an attempted relationship. Fallon would hurt her—she already had. She’d seen it in the look that Savannah had given her when she’d barged her way out of the kitchen and into Tia’s room. That hurt had stung, not just Savannah but Fallon herself.

She wasn’t doing either of them any favors by keeping up the ruse that they could be more than fuck buddies. She would only end up hurting Savannah in the process, just like her father had hurt her, Monti, and Tia. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. She wouldn’t be the person who would ever put someone else in that situation.

“Sometimes I think you’re too much like me,” Tia said, squeezing Fallon’s hand. “Monti, would you give us a minute?”

“Uh… yeah. Sure.” Monti said nothing else as she stood up and left the bedroom.

Fallon was cast into silence again, but this time it was a pregnant pause as she waited for the lecture she knew Tia was going to give her. There was no other reason she would have banished Monti from the room.

“I was scared for way too long that I would become him,” Tia’s words echoed through the room and ricocheted straight into Fallon’s heart.

That same fear had eaten her away since she was nine years old. She never wanted to be like him. It was why she’d pushed so hard to live into the ruse that she was like her mom. Because her mom was the victim, not the perpetrator.

“No one’s perfect, Fallon, and that includes your mom. What she failed to do was to ask for help, to stand up to a bully and abuser, and to protect you and Monti from what was happening in that house.”

“I really don’t want to rehash this,” Fallon muttered, already feeling herself closing off. She didn’t want to be any more shattered than she already was.

“We have to talk about this.” Tia squeezed her hand sharply. “It wasn’t until I met Saylor that I realized just how isolated I’d become. I have friends, yes, but I never allowed myself to be loved because I was so scared of becoming him. But I’m not him. And neither are you.”

“I know that,” Fallon whispered.

“But you’re afraid of that.”

Fallon couldn’t even make herself answer. She nodded, but that was it. She couldn’t look at Tia to confirm her suspicions.

“Do you know how I know you’ll never be like him?” When Fallon didn’t respond, Tia continued, “Because you’re so adamant that what he did was wrong, and you have taken great pains throughout your entire life since leaving that house to be the exact opposite of him. But it also means you’ve been alone.”

“Yeah.” Fallon wrinkled her nose. “But I can’t make her go through that again.”

Tia tensed, her hand tightening on Fallon’s. “What do you mean?”

“Savannah has her own family drama, and I won’t force her to relive that if she doesn’t want to.”

“I don’t think you’ll force her into anything she doesn’t want to do, but one major part of being in a relationship with someone is that you have to open up to them. You have to be vulnerable with them. You have to be willing to share a side of yourself that you’ve never shared with anyone else, including me and Monti.”

“You were there for all of it,” Fallon whined.

“And she wasn’t, and if you want more than a simple physical relationship with her, you’re going to have to put in the effort and open up.”

“I know.” Fallon understood, she really did, but that didn’t mean she was ready for it. “You should get back out there. It’s Saylor’s birthday.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Go on,” Fallon doubled down. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“And you’ll stay?”

“Yes, I’ll stay.” Fallon rested her head on Tia’s shoulder for a minute before straightening her back. She needed to put herself back together long enough to go out there and face Savannah. They could talk about their problems later, when there weren’t so many people around.

Tia dropped a kiss onto the top of Fallon’s head as she left the room.

The silence had never been more welcome.