Siempre Hay Algo Más - Chapter 5
Title: Siempre Hay Algo Más
Rating: R
Pairing: Pepa/Silvia
A/N: Didn't make y'all wait tooo long for this one, did I? Hope y'all enjoy!
A/N 2: Okay, I edited the chapter a bit to clear up some of the confusion. Sorry for making it too ambiguous! I hope it makes more sense now...
Chapter 5
The lanky agent, running late to work, tromped down the aisle of the bullpen to her desk. She was wearing a dark pair of large sunglasses and carried a bottle of water in one hand. Her free hand made its way up to her forehead to give her temples a squeeze.
Her pounding headache limited her ability to think, so her singular goal was to reach her desk where she knew she'd find a bottle of pills in one of her drawers. A few of the other officers greeted her as she passed by, but she could barely manage half-hearted nods in their directions as she continued plodding along.
Desk, desk, desk, desk....pills, pills, pills....
She chanted the words silently, matching the rhythm of the drums banging in her head.
After what seemed like an endless march, she finally reached her desk, plopped herself ungracefully onto her chair, and grabbed for the bottle of tylenol. She quickly washed two down with a swig of water and hefted her shoulders to breathe a sigh of relief. A sudden wave of nausea immediately cut the sigh short, though, transforming it into a pathetic groan as she collapsed forward, crossing her arms across the top of her desk and letting her head rest on her forearms. The position wasn't particularly comfortable because of the sunglasses, but she was afraid to make any more movements and risk further upsetting her stomach.
She spent another minute taking slow, deep breaths to let her stomach settle, and just as she was starting to feel like she just might not die after all...
"Pepa!" Curtis yelled out. The sound of her name reverberated in her ears like the tolling bells of a church. Before she could recover, she was smacked, hard, on her back. She could do nothing but quietly moan in response.
"Pepa, we need your help..." Rita added, quickly trailing off as she realized the state the other woman was in. Curtis wasn't quite so kind.
"Pepa! Wake up!" He used his index finger to poke her in the back, but she still didn't move. "I think she's dead."
"I wish I were dead," she mumbled darkly, her lips brushing across the surface of the desk, warm from her breath.
"Oh, good, you're not dead after all...must've been a hell of a night, eh?" He asked, raising his brows insinuatingly.
The brunette finally lifted her head, keeping the sunglasses in place, and pleasant flashes of the previous evening flitted through her still-groggy mind. She shot Curtis a smirk in response to his question and took another drink of water, remembering just how flexible the blonde from last night was...
Once Rita saw that her friend was looking a little more alive, she didn't hesitate to perch herself on the corner of the desk and start firing away questions. "Ay, Pepica, did you drink too much last night? Where did you go? Who'd you go with? Why didn't you invite me?? I could've gone...Jose Luis could've stayed with Sabinica," she said while she waved her hand over at Pove, "right, cariño? Next time, I want to go with you. I know how to have fun, too, you know. Did you meet anyone??"
"Rita, shhh, please. My head is still..."
"Is that a hickey?!"
"What?!" Pepa's hand flew up to her neck as if she would somehow magically be able to locate the bruised skin with her fingertips.
"Well, well, well...a hell of a night indeed," Curtis added in a suggestive tone.
Pepa could only imagine what kind of images were running through Curtis' mind. She'd ask him to stop fantasizing about her night, but she knew it'd be pointless. The pounding in her head started to pick up again, so she put her head back down on the desk, hoping that her co-workers would just conveniently disappear.
"Hola! Buenos días! What's everybody doing over here, hm?" Silvia had walked up to the crowd with no one noticing, taking in the scene.
Another unhappy groan emanated from Pepa's buried face when she heard the redhead's voice.
"Pepa had a late night, and she met someone," Rita cheerfully offered.
Curtis returned to nudging the agent in the back. "Was she hot?" He shook his head, thinking his question sounded ridiculous. "What am I asking? Of course she was hot..." A goofy smile sprouted on his face as his imagination began to run wild once again.
"Oh, I see," Silvia said with an odd grin and she walked around to Pepa's side of the desk. She leaned against the edge of the desktop, right next to Pepa, and softly patted her on the back. "Did you take something for your head? Do you need some more water?"
Everybody stared at the redhead, noting her strange behavior. It wasn't exactly a secret that the two didn't get along, and nobody had ever heard the forensics inspector use such a gentle tone with the other woman before.
Pepa was also taken by surprise, so her head lifted again, and she stared quizzically at the redhead from behind her glasses. "I've already taken some pills, and I have enough water. Thanks."
The redhead's hand reached out and Pepa flinched in reaction. Silvia didn't stop her movement, though, and took a strand of the other woman's hair to pull it behind her ear, noticing the red mark on her neck as she did. "You might want to use some concealer on that. I have a compact you can use if you'd like..."
Pepa sat still, not taking her eyes off the apparent alien creature that was now inhabiting Silvia's body. Everybody stood around tensely, unable to get a handle on Silvia's uncharacteristic demeanor.
The brunette finally blurted out, "Okay, what the hell's going on? Why are you being nice? Why are you even talking to me at all??"
Silvia smiled pleasantly, "Oh, I don't know. I guess I'm just in a really good mood today. I'm just feeling so...relaxed this morning." She emphasized the word while looking directy at Pepa. She popped up off the desk to stand next to the stunned agent, still wearing a grin. "Oh, and I wasn't kidding about covering up that hickey. You were an hour late to work today, so my father wants to see you in his office immediately." Her smile widened as she made this last statement and took a few steps away. "Everybody back to work, yes?"
She turned around, sauntering up the stairs to her lab, still smiling and mumbling about how "relaxed" she was.
The officers gathered around Pepa's desk looked on at her with pity. The brunette groaned once more as her head made contact with the desk again. "Joder, somebody shoot me."
Curtis clapped his hand against her back, this time in sympathy. "I hope last night was worth it."
The group broke up, drifting away from the agent's desk to get back to work. Pepa groaned one last time, wishing her head would just explode and put her out of her misery.
~*~*~*~
12 years before
"Where the hell is she? Dammit, she should've been here an hour ago!"
"Papá, I'm sure...I'm sure she's on her way..." Paco offered, knowing what a short fuse his father had and trying to calm him down.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
Paco ran to the front door, throwing it open to find his younger sister standing in the doorway. She was sporting what had become her signature look, black army boots, torn jeans, a threadbare band t-shirt under a leather jacket, and to top it all off, a surly expression on a heavily made-up face.
"Sorry I'm late," she said by way of greeting.
"It's okay, Pepa, dinner took a little longer to prepare anyway," he replied in his gentle but jittery way, leaning forward to kiss his sister hello.
"Where the hell were you?" The demanding voice bellowed from behind Paco's back.
"I lost track of time, sorry," Pepa responded, not really answering the question and avoiding making eye contact with her father.
Before he could really lose the tight rein he was holding on his temper and let loose on his teenaged daughter, Lola swept into the room to announce that the table was set, diffusing the situation.
"We're going to have a little talk about your behavior later, you hear me?"
"Si, papá," she replied with a tired sigh, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.
As everybody made their way to the table, Silvia ran up to her friend. She had watched the tense scene unfold from the kitchen doorway, so she gave Pepa a smile and took her hand to give it a little squeeze in hopes of comforting the tall girl. Pepa responded with a lackluster smile, and they both took their seats next to each other at the table.
Dinner carried on fairly well considering its inauspicious start. The adults mostly conversed amongst themselves, and while Silvia repeatedly tried to engage her friend in conversation, the redhead's attention was routinely commandeered by their chatty, seven-year old niece.
It was just as well for Pepa. She was still feeling the effects of the weed she had smoked earlier, and her mind was pleasantly occupied with recalling the evening's events. She grinned and nodded at the appropriate times throughout the dinner, but she was miles away in her thoughts.
She thought about the party she was at earlier, all her friends hanging out at Julia's place since her parents were away for the weekend. Everybody had been smoking and drinking all evening. She refrained from drinking, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get away with showing up to dinner drunk...if she managed to show up at all. She sure as hell smoked, though. She had no idea how many joints were rolled and lit up, but she clearly remembered how she walked into the kitchen while Julia was serving herself another drink. She thought about how she boldly walked behind the blonde and pressed against her back, dropping a kiss on the side of her neck. She remembered how, not much later, after rejoining everyone in the living room, Julia looked pointedly in her direction before standing up and walking down the hallway. She quickly stood up, too, following the other girl. She remembered making her way to Julia's bedroom and locking the door behind her as she watched the other girl stand near the edge of her bed and raise her drink to her lips, finishing the contents in one long draw before placing the glass down on the nightstand. She thought about how she walked up to the blonde, the combination of weed and lust accounting for her sure strides. Still sitting at the table, her eyes glazed over and became unfocused as she recalled pushing the other girl onto the bed, both of them fumbling to remove clothes. Then came hot, open-mouthed kisses, hands traveling everywhere, the feel of Julia's small body bucking beneath her own...
"Pepa, Pepa," Lola's voice cut through the brunette's hazy thoughts. "You've barely eaten a bite. Did you not like the rice?"
Pepa shook her head, looking down at her still-full plate. Now that her train of thought had been derailed, she realized just how hungry she really was. The munchies, definitely. Instead of replying, she just dug into the food and shot Lola a happy smile.
When dinner was finished, both Silvia and Pepa offered to help clean up, but Lola brushed them off. She knew that the two girls hadn't been spending much time together lately, so she let them go with a dismissive wave, telling them to go talk or gossip or whatever it was that they did before it would be time for the Mirandas to leave. An enthusiastic little Sara attempted to follow them, but Lola quickly caught her by the arm and rounded her back into the kitchen to let them have some time alone.
The girls made their way to Sara's room. They settled onto the small bed, Pepa at the head and the redhead about a foot away. Silvia eventually broke the rare uncomfortable silence between them by asking why Pepa was she so quiet during dinner.
"I'm just, uh, kinda stoned right now, Silvia."
"Ah, uhm, vale," the girl replied. "I didn't know. I mean, I couldn't tell." She began to awkwardly play with the fabric of the quilt beneath her. She had never been around her friend while she was under any sort of influence, so she wasn't quite sure how to behave around her now. "Does it...does it feel funny?"
"A little bit, yeah. I guess."
"So, was that why you were late?"
"Yeah, I was at a party."
"Oh," the redhead let out dejectedly. "With Cristian and Julia and all of them I'm guessing...?" One of the reasons they had been seeing so little of each other in the past few months was because of how much time Silvia spent studying while Pepa was always off with her other friends. Her group didn't exactly consist of the most popular kids at school, and they were almost always partying and getting into some sort of trouble. Silvia just had no place in their fringe circle.
"Yeah, all of them."
"Well, I hope it was lots of fun," she said in a manner that made the words sound insincere.
"I'm sorry my friends don't live up to your high standards, Silvia."
"It's not that," the girl admitted with a sigh, pulling her hands onto her lap. "It's just that, well, some of them just have...reputations," she finished hesitantly.
"And? So do I, don't I?" The brunette asked sharply before continuing, feigning a nonchalant shrug. "As if I don't know what people say about me..."
"But you're different!"
Pepa scoffed, "Different...yeah, right. I'm a fuck-up just like the rest of them. My dad says I'll never be a cop...that I won't amount to anything. He's probably right, you know." A mirthless chuckle escaped her lips as she picked up the teddy bear that was propped against the pillows. She pulled it onto her lap where she played with it, turning it over on its head and back again, her eyes focused on the continuous movement.
A few seconds ticked by in silence. Pepa's eyes didn't lift from her hand's nervous activity until the other girl's smaller hand clamped over hers.
"Pepa, you're not a fuck-up. Not to me. I know what people say, what your father says, but that's not what I say. You're my best friend, and I love you no matter what. You know that, right?"
Pepa stared back at the redhead, her eyes glistening with the tears she wouldn't let fall. She fought the tears...and she fought the pull she always felt around Silvia now. She imagined how sweet it would be to hear those words in another context. How sweet it would be to hear "I love you" and be able to lean in and kiss the lips that uttered them. She thought about how different a kiss from Silvia would be from the ones she shared earlier that day with Julia. The thought made her tremble, so she quickly shook her head to clear her thoughts and turned one of her hands around to grasp Silvia's. "Dios, pelirroja, if I had known you were going to get so mushy on me, I wouldn't have brought anything up."
"Oh, shut up!" Silvia said, pulling her hand away to smack her friend on the shoulder. "You're the one who's about to cry!" She knew it was safe to call attention to Pepa's unshed tears now that they were joking around.
"Me? Cry?! I never cry!" She rapidly ran her thumb under her right eye, swiping away a tear that was threatening to escape.
"Oh, please, you just wiped a tear away right now, and I've seen you cry a hundred..."
"I must've had something in my eye, that's all!" Pepa interrupted.
"Vale, vale...whatever you say, Pepa. You're a big, bad rebel who never cries."
"Now you've got it."
Silvia launched herself across the space between them, wrapping her arms around her friend's neck, "A rebel who gives hugs."
The brunette sighed in defeat, snaking her arms around Silvia's slim waist. "Vale...a rebel who gives great hugs," she conceded as she pulled the other girl in closer, hiding her face in the curtain of red waves.
Rating: R
Pairing: Pepa/Silvia
A/N: Didn't make y'all wait tooo long for this one, did I? Hope y'all enjoy!
A/N 2: Okay, I edited the chapter a bit to clear up some of the confusion. Sorry for making it too ambiguous! I hope it makes more sense now...
Chapter 5
The lanky agent, running late to work, tromped down the aisle of the bullpen to her desk. She was wearing a dark pair of large sunglasses and carried a bottle of water in one hand. Her free hand made its way up to her forehead to give her temples a squeeze.
Her pounding headache limited her ability to think, so her singular goal was to reach her desk where she knew she'd find a bottle of pills in one of her drawers. A few of the other officers greeted her as she passed by, but she could barely manage half-hearted nods in their directions as she continued plodding along.
Desk, desk, desk, desk....pills, pills, pills....
She chanted the words silently, matching the rhythm of the drums banging in her head.
After what seemed like an endless march, she finally reached her desk, plopped herself ungracefully onto her chair, and grabbed for the bottle of tylenol. She quickly washed two down with a swig of water and hefted her shoulders to breathe a sigh of relief. A sudden wave of nausea immediately cut the sigh short, though, transforming it into a pathetic groan as she collapsed forward, crossing her arms across the top of her desk and letting her head rest on her forearms. The position wasn't particularly comfortable because of the sunglasses, but she was afraid to make any more movements and risk further upsetting her stomach.
She spent another minute taking slow, deep breaths to let her stomach settle, and just as she was starting to feel like she just might not die after all...
"Pepa!" Curtis yelled out. The sound of her name reverberated in her ears like the tolling bells of a church. Before she could recover, she was smacked, hard, on her back. She could do nothing but quietly moan in response.
"Pepa, we need your help..." Rita added, quickly trailing off as she realized the state the other woman was in. Curtis wasn't quite so kind.
"Pepa! Wake up!" He used his index finger to poke her in the back, but she still didn't move. "I think she's dead."
"I wish I were dead," she mumbled darkly, her lips brushing across the surface of the desk, warm from her breath.
"Oh, good, you're not dead after all...must've been a hell of a night, eh?" He asked, raising his brows insinuatingly.
The brunette finally lifted her head, keeping the sunglasses in place, and pleasant flashes of the previous evening flitted through her still-groggy mind. She shot Curtis a smirk in response to his question and took another drink of water, remembering just how flexible the blonde from last night was...
Once Rita saw that her friend was looking a little more alive, she didn't hesitate to perch herself on the corner of the desk and start firing away questions. "Ay, Pepica, did you drink too much last night? Where did you go? Who'd you go with? Why didn't you invite me?? I could've gone...Jose Luis could've stayed with Sabinica," she said while she waved her hand over at Pove, "right, cariño? Next time, I want to go with you. I know how to have fun, too, you know. Did you meet anyone??"
"Rita, shhh, please. My head is still..."
"Is that a hickey?!"
"What?!" Pepa's hand flew up to her neck as if she would somehow magically be able to locate the bruised skin with her fingertips.
"Well, well, well...a hell of a night indeed," Curtis added in a suggestive tone.
Pepa could only imagine what kind of images were running through Curtis' mind. She'd ask him to stop fantasizing about her night, but she knew it'd be pointless. The pounding in her head started to pick up again, so she put her head back down on the desk, hoping that her co-workers would just conveniently disappear.
"Hola! Buenos días! What's everybody doing over here, hm?" Silvia had walked up to the crowd with no one noticing, taking in the scene.
Another unhappy groan emanated from Pepa's buried face when she heard the redhead's voice.
"Pepa had a late night, and she met someone," Rita cheerfully offered.
Curtis returned to nudging the agent in the back. "Was she hot?" He shook his head, thinking his question sounded ridiculous. "What am I asking? Of course she was hot..." A goofy smile sprouted on his face as his imagination began to run wild once again.
"Oh, I see," Silvia said with an odd grin and she walked around to Pepa's side of the desk. She leaned against the edge of the desktop, right next to Pepa, and softly patted her on the back. "Did you take something for your head? Do you need some more water?"
Everybody stared at the redhead, noting her strange behavior. It wasn't exactly a secret that the two didn't get along, and nobody had ever heard the forensics inspector use such a gentle tone with the other woman before.
Pepa was also taken by surprise, so her head lifted again, and she stared quizzically at the redhead from behind her glasses. "I've already taken some pills, and I have enough water. Thanks."
The redhead's hand reached out and Pepa flinched in reaction. Silvia didn't stop her movement, though, and took a strand of the other woman's hair to pull it behind her ear, noticing the red mark on her neck as she did. "You might want to use some concealer on that. I have a compact you can use if you'd like..."
Pepa sat still, not taking her eyes off the apparent alien creature that was now inhabiting Silvia's body. Everybody stood around tensely, unable to get a handle on Silvia's uncharacteristic demeanor.
The brunette finally blurted out, "Okay, what the hell's going on? Why are you being nice? Why are you even talking to me at all??"
Silvia smiled pleasantly, "Oh, I don't know. I guess I'm just in a really good mood today. I'm just feeling so...relaxed this morning." She emphasized the word while looking directy at Pepa. She popped up off the desk to stand next to the stunned agent, still wearing a grin. "Oh, and I wasn't kidding about covering up that hickey. You were an hour late to work today, so my father wants to see you in his office immediately." Her smile widened as she made this last statement and took a few steps away. "Everybody back to work, yes?"
She turned around, sauntering up the stairs to her lab, still smiling and mumbling about how "relaxed" she was.
The officers gathered around Pepa's desk looked on at her with pity. The brunette groaned once more as her head made contact with the desk again. "Joder, somebody shoot me."
Curtis clapped his hand against her back, this time in sympathy. "I hope last night was worth it."
The group broke up, drifting away from the agent's desk to get back to work. Pepa groaned one last time, wishing her head would just explode and put her out of her misery.
~*~*~*~
12 years before
"Where the hell is she? Dammit, she should've been here an hour ago!"
"Papá, I'm sure...I'm sure she's on her way..." Paco offered, knowing what a short fuse his father had and trying to calm him down.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
Paco ran to the front door, throwing it open to find his younger sister standing in the doorway. She was sporting what had become her signature look, black army boots, torn jeans, a threadbare band t-shirt under a leather jacket, and to top it all off, a surly expression on a heavily made-up face.
"Sorry I'm late," she said by way of greeting.
"It's okay, Pepa, dinner took a little longer to prepare anyway," he replied in his gentle but jittery way, leaning forward to kiss his sister hello.
"Where the hell were you?" The demanding voice bellowed from behind Paco's back.
"I lost track of time, sorry," Pepa responded, not really answering the question and avoiding making eye contact with her father.
Before he could really lose the tight rein he was holding on his temper and let loose on his teenaged daughter, Lola swept into the room to announce that the table was set, diffusing the situation.
"We're going to have a little talk about your behavior later, you hear me?"
"Si, papá," she replied with a tired sigh, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.
As everybody made their way to the table, Silvia ran up to her friend. She had watched the tense scene unfold from the kitchen doorway, so she gave Pepa a smile and took her hand to give it a little squeeze in hopes of comforting the tall girl. Pepa responded with a lackluster smile, and they both took their seats next to each other at the table.
Dinner carried on fairly well considering its inauspicious start. The adults mostly conversed amongst themselves, and while Silvia repeatedly tried to engage her friend in conversation, the redhead's attention was routinely commandeered by their chatty, seven-year old niece.
It was just as well for Pepa. She was still feeling the effects of the weed she had smoked earlier, and her mind was pleasantly occupied with recalling the evening's events. She grinned and nodded at the appropriate times throughout the dinner, but she was miles away in her thoughts.
She thought about the party she was at earlier, all her friends hanging out at Julia's place since her parents were away for the weekend. Everybody had been smoking and drinking all evening. She refrained from drinking, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get away with showing up to dinner drunk...if she managed to show up at all. She sure as hell smoked, though. She had no idea how many joints were rolled and lit up, but she clearly remembered how she walked into the kitchen while Julia was serving herself another drink. She thought about how she boldly walked behind the blonde and pressed against her back, dropping a kiss on the side of her neck. She remembered how, not much later, after rejoining everyone in the living room, Julia looked pointedly in her direction before standing up and walking down the hallway. She quickly stood up, too, following the other girl. She remembered making her way to Julia's bedroom and locking the door behind her as she watched the other girl stand near the edge of her bed and raise her drink to her lips, finishing the contents in one long draw before placing the glass down on the nightstand. She thought about how she walked up to the blonde, the combination of weed and lust accounting for her sure strides. Still sitting at the table, her eyes glazed over and became unfocused as she recalled pushing the other girl onto the bed, both of them fumbling to remove clothes. Then came hot, open-mouthed kisses, hands traveling everywhere, the feel of Julia's small body bucking beneath her own...
"Pepa, Pepa," Lola's voice cut through the brunette's hazy thoughts. "You've barely eaten a bite. Did you not like the rice?"
Pepa shook her head, looking down at her still-full plate. Now that her train of thought had been derailed, she realized just how hungry she really was. The munchies, definitely. Instead of replying, she just dug into the food and shot Lola a happy smile.
When dinner was finished, both Silvia and Pepa offered to help clean up, but Lola brushed them off. She knew that the two girls hadn't been spending much time together lately, so she let them go with a dismissive wave, telling them to go talk or gossip or whatever it was that they did before it would be time for the Mirandas to leave. An enthusiastic little Sara attempted to follow them, but Lola quickly caught her by the arm and rounded her back into the kitchen to let them have some time alone.
The girls made their way to Sara's room. They settled onto the small bed, Pepa at the head and the redhead about a foot away. Silvia eventually broke the rare uncomfortable silence between them by asking why Pepa was she so quiet during dinner.
"I'm just, uh, kinda stoned right now, Silvia."
"Ah, uhm, vale," the girl replied. "I didn't know. I mean, I couldn't tell." She began to awkwardly play with the fabric of the quilt beneath her. She had never been around her friend while she was under any sort of influence, so she wasn't quite sure how to behave around her now. "Does it...does it feel funny?"
"A little bit, yeah. I guess."
"So, was that why you were late?"
"Yeah, I was at a party."
"Oh," the redhead let out dejectedly. "With Cristian and Julia and all of them I'm guessing...?" One of the reasons they had been seeing so little of each other in the past few months was because of how much time Silvia spent studying while Pepa was always off with her other friends. Her group didn't exactly consist of the most popular kids at school, and they were almost always partying and getting into some sort of trouble. Silvia just had no place in their fringe circle.
"Yeah, all of them."
"Well, I hope it was lots of fun," she said in a manner that made the words sound insincere.
"I'm sorry my friends don't live up to your high standards, Silvia."
"It's not that," the girl admitted with a sigh, pulling her hands onto her lap. "It's just that, well, some of them just have...reputations," she finished hesitantly.
"And? So do I, don't I?" The brunette asked sharply before continuing, feigning a nonchalant shrug. "As if I don't know what people say about me..."
"But you're different!"
Pepa scoffed, "Different...yeah, right. I'm a fuck-up just like the rest of them. My dad says I'll never be a cop...that I won't amount to anything. He's probably right, you know." A mirthless chuckle escaped her lips as she picked up the teddy bear that was propped against the pillows. She pulled it onto her lap where she played with it, turning it over on its head and back again, her eyes focused on the continuous movement.
A few seconds ticked by in silence. Pepa's eyes didn't lift from her hand's nervous activity until the other girl's smaller hand clamped over hers.
"Pepa, you're not a fuck-up. Not to me. I know what people say, what your father says, but that's not what I say. You're my best friend, and I love you no matter what. You know that, right?"
Pepa stared back at the redhead, her eyes glistening with the tears she wouldn't let fall. She fought the tears...and she fought the pull she always felt around Silvia now. She imagined how sweet it would be to hear those words in another context. How sweet it would be to hear "I love you" and be able to lean in and kiss the lips that uttered them. She thought about how different a kiss from Silvia would be from the ones she shared earlier that day with Julia. The thought made her tremble, so she quickly shook her head to clear her thoughts and turned one of her hands around to grasp Silvia's. "Dios, pelirroja, if I had known you were going to get so mushy on me, I wouldn't have brought anything up."
"Oh, shut up!" Silvia said, pulling her hand away to smack her friend on the shoulder. "You're the one who's about to cry!" She knew it was safe to call attention to Pepa's unshed tears now that they were joking around.
"Me? Cry?! I never cry!" She rapidly ran her thumb under her right eye, swiping away a tear that was threatening to escape.
"Oh, please, you just wiped a tear away right now, and I've seen you cry a hundred..."
"I must've had something in my eye, that's all!" Pepa interrupted.
"Vale, vale...whatever you say, Pepa. You're a big, bad rebel who never cries."
"Now you've got it."
Silvia launched herself across the space between them, wrapping her arms around her friend's neck, "A rebel who gives hugs."
The brunette sighed in defeat, snaking her arms around Silvia's slim waist. "Vale...a rebel who gives great hugs," she conceded as she pulled the other girl in closer, hiding her face in the curtain of red waves.