2025-06-17 - You're a Little Gay

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: So that's some very rhythmic, intense spring cleaning you've got going on there 👀

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: I plead the fifth.

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: The court denies your right to protection against self-incrimination. Especially after three nights of this. 🤼

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: It's been two, okay, there was one night we spent at the hotel.

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: Not gonna share anything? Come on, I need the distraction, everything's pretty much packed.

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: Wow, can't believe you'd play that card, but since you did: it's not anything serious. He's a tourist from Miami. We met when I was off-duty at Paradise. He also said he was sorry about the noise and he offered to send a gift basket but I told him you would just want the tea.

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: ofc I was right

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: Ah okay. So he's in and out? (:angel:)

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: You really twisted to make that work.

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: did you have to?

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: whew

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: she's on fire tonight

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: whew. i'm coming over. get the wine bottle.

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: okay but it's cheap stuff

[TXT to Dodge] Hayley: girl when have you ever known me to be even a little fancy

[TXT to Hayley] Dodge: yeah that's fair

A few minutes later, there's a knock at the door, and a very, very curious Hayley has her eye at the peephole like she's trying to catch things in the process of happening. It's, honestly, pretty ridiculous, but when is she not? She's dressed down for the evening, wearing just a camisole, joggers, and a pair of comfortable slippers, her hair pulled back into a lazy updo and looking like she's been working all day.

Which, to be fair, she almost definitely has. She's that kind of girl who only stops when she's reminded.

Dodge looks through the peephole directly into Hayley's own peeping eye, laughs and rolls her eyes, then pulls the door open. "Come on in," she invites, holding a bottle of wine (cheap, as promised) in one hand. She's wearing a pair of Calvin Klein joggers, thick Bombas socks, and a tanktop that says Rockaway Beach on it.

Koda is sprawled out on the floor, and opens one eye to peek at the new arrival. When he sees that it's Hayley, he lifts his head and wags his tail, anticipating pets.

There's an open grin on Hayley's face when she is let in, and she good-naturedly shoulder-checks Dodge, quipping lightly, "Sinner," without any actual heat or judgment in the word as she walks right over to Koda, sinking down next to him and instantly starting to pet him with two hands, making the kind of burbly, lowered-tone baby talk that drives dogs wild. "Yes you are! Yes you are!" she finishes as she steals belly rubs, before standing and motioning over to the couch with her head, looking to Dodge.

"So, tell me everything," she says with the vivid interest of someone who is just starved for safe conversations around sex but is keenly interested in having them.

Dodge rolls her eyes again at Hayley's light-heated condemnation and shuts the door behind her, going to the kitchen to grab two wine glasses, to open and pour the wine, and then bring the glasses over to the couch, passing one to Hayley when she's done giving Koda his due attention and belly rubs.

"What do you want to know?" she asks, sitting down on the couch and taking a sip from the wine. You know, it's actually not bad for cheap stuff. She glances over in the direction of the bottle. California.

She turns back to Hayley. "Let me see here, he's a football player, I photographed him in LA a few years ago when he was a hot up-and-comer, we ran into each other at Paradise. I expected him to be a little dull, maybe that's just my uncharitable stereotype of football players, but he wasn't, he was actually really funny." She sips from her wine again. "If I tell you his name, are you going to Google him?"

At the mention of him being a football player, Hayley, southern girl that she is, has her brows lift high in approval as she nods a few times eagerly, then reaches for the wine as it gets handed to her. "I want to know everything," she replies again with a smile, leaning and getting herself comfortable and relaxed against an armrest. "I was thinking you were one of them ace girls, which, you know, hey, I wasn't holding that against you."

Then the final question, and she nods. "Yes. Instantly," she informs Dodge. "I want to know!"

"Noooo," Dodge groans, pinching her brow. "You're supposed to lie and say you won't Google him." She sips from her wine again but can feel Hayley's expectant gaze on her, so she exhales a sigh. "Alright. His name is Shaun. Shaun Burr. He plays for the Miami Dolphins."

She reaches out with her foot and sets it on top of Koda's big body, rubbing his side. "What else do you want to know?" she asks. "What he's like in bed? Obviously good enough that I keep going back for more. Wait, why would you think I'm ace?"

"Yeah, but you know me, I ain't a liar," Hayley claims to Dodge, drinking deeply from her wine as she watches, and then when she's given the name, she grins, pulls out her phone, and instantly looks him up. "Dolphins," she says, and there's maybe just a touch of disappointment there in that, but she smirks at hearing he's good in bed. "Yeah, he sounded like it," she says with just a soft tease.

"I thought you were because you just never seemed interested in any of that that I saw, or maybe I was just so caught up in my own stuff I never even noticed," Hayley says as she chews on her lip, contemplating that. "He here for long? You going to be okay when his trip's done? I'm sure he has the money to be a long-timer, but still."

Dodge shoots Hayley a little look at the soft tease, but she only snorts a small laugh and grins, shaking her head before she sips more of her wine.

"Oh, I mean, I wasn't interested in dating or seeing anyone, that's true. I went through a pretty messy breakup right before I started at Spellbound and it just put me off the whole thing for a while. Not exactly ace, more like... rehabbing. But Shaun is a tourist. He won't be here that long, it can't go anywhere, it's just, you know. For sex and fun."

"That makes some sense, too," Hayley answers Dodge, nodding sympathetically. "I don't ... know that I'll be real interested in seeing anyone else for a long time now," she says, sighing as she leans back, taking another long drink. "I might be a little more annoying, come bug you more, if I'm feeling lonely. That alright?" she checks. "Promise I'll knock before I barge in on you and Mr. Football."

"You'd better knock," Dodge playfully warns, taking another sip from her wine before setting the emptied glass to the side. "But of course it's okay. Have you already written the letter?" she asks, changing the topic.

With her own glass emptied, Hayley holds it out for a refill as she smirks at that warning, her toe reaching out to poke Dodge in the shin before saying, "Or maybe I won't and I'll make it awkward," she warns, impish and devious.

Then Dodge asks about the Serious Thing, and she pauses, her lips turning down in a small frown, and she shakes her head. "Every time I start, I get to 'Dear Paul', and I don't know what to say after," she admits quietly.

"Won't be awkward for me," Dodge counters as she rises to her feet and goes over to get the bottle of wine, re-filling both their glasses before she sits back down.

About the Serious Thing, she nods her head sympathetically. "It's hard, I know," she murmurs. "Do you want help? You can also just say, you know, I'm done. You don't have to explain every little thing."

"Wouldn't be awkward for you having another girl walk in on you and a guy?" Hayley asks Dodge in surprise, blinking. "I think I would pretty much be mortified if that happened to me, I can't even imagine it."

She chews her lip, then says, "I could just say that, but ... we been together a while now. He deserves some kind of explanation. I -- we shared so much, and I..." she turns her head down. "It feels like such a fake thing, it becoming real. This thought I've had forever."

"Nah," Dodge says, shaking her head. "It would probably bother them more than it bothered me. I'm powerful like that," she quips.

She gives Hayley a sympathetic look and pats her leg gently, consoling. "I know," she murmurs. "The right words will come to you. It might be easier to practice what you'd want to say, then just write that down, rather than staring at a blank page. You can practice on me, if you want."

Hayley groans at that, bending over for a moment and saying, "This would be so much easier if I could just say I wasn't into guys," with a long sigh, before she sits up and rubs at her face again, leaning back against the couch. "I might cry," she warns Dodge quietly. "So, you know, if I do, that's -- I'm sorry." Her nose wrinkles, her jaw works, and she tries to find the words -- parting her fingers enough to let herself look at Dodge. "Also, like, this is just practice? I'm not saying these things to you."

Yes, Hayley, that was obvious.

She draws a long breath in, then lets it exhale as she tries to steady herself. "Paul, it's just not working anymore. I feel like -- I feel like..." she closes her fingers again, her eye closing as she does and her voice starting to choke up. "I feel like I've given so much, given up so much for you, and you're just taking me for granted now. And we talked about this, and you -- you promised, you promised me you were going to change, and it's just been getting worse and worse." Her chest starts to rise and fall, her fingers clenching a little tighter against her forehead.

"That's a good start," Dodge encourages quietly, reaching out to rest a hand on Hayley's shoulder and give it a soft squeeze. "Do you want to pause and write that part down? And that way you can just chip away at what you want to say, write it down, and then come up with the next part. And it will suck, but you'll get it done," she murmurs.

"I don't want to have to do this," Hayley admits, her hands falling and wiping at her eyes as she does, leaning into Dodge's hand at the contact. "Maybe I should just cheat on him so he just breaks up with me instead." Though Hayley's dubious expression says how likely she thinks that is, her hands falling to her lap as she chews on her lip, then she brings out her phone, starting to tap away so that Dodge can see she is, in fact, writing it (along with getting constant push notifications from social media, come on, girl, manage those better).

"I know," Dodge sympathizes, drawing her legs up under her where she sits on the couch. Even Koda exhales a weighty sigh. "But once you've got it all out, I promise you, you'll feel better," she swears.

"Besides, you don't want to go and cheat and just give him ammunition to guilt you with. You're not that person, anyway," she adds, shaking her head. "This is the better way."

"I almost did, once," Hayley admits to Dodge, head not lifting to meet her in the eyes. "Was at a party, I was really trashed, and..." she opens her mouth to say more, then closes it, waving it off, as she gets back to typing more.

It doesn't take an empath to see that there's something she wants to get off her chest about it, though.

"I guess I just talk about like, one or two recent things, mention there's been a lot. That I tried, that he knew I was at the end of my rope, and that I'm just ... tired? Tired of always being sad, and unhappy, and worried about how he's going to react?"

Dodge studies Hayley sidelong after that admission and she can tell there's more there, but it's probably better, she reasons, to help Hayley get through this one miserable task before dragging her into and through another difficult topic. Still, she stows the information away for later.

"I think that's perfect," she encourages. "Pick a recent example, then another one, and say you tried and that you're tired of this not working anymore. That you deserve to be happy."

"I don't want to be mean to him," Hayley muses as she taps against the screen a couple times more, her hand coming up to rub at her face. "He's still a good guy." Is he? "I'm not trying to tear him apart, I just ... I need him gone." Her hand comes up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "I'm not going to say I deserve to be happy," she says finally. "But I'm going to let him know that it's over, and block him, immediately, from everything. I don't want to talk about it again with him. If I do, I'm going to backtrack. Is this why people always end up hating their exes?" she asks, glancing toward Dodge.

Dodge raises her shoulders. "Sort of, yeah," she answers candidly. "People hate their exes because their exes hurt them and didn't make it right, or fix it. Because they let them down. Promised to be one thing and ended up being something else. Relationships are hard and people's emotions are complex," she murmurs. And she should know.

She lets Hayey type a little bit more before she leans over and peeks over the blonde's shoulder. "Let me see what you've got so far. Read it to me."

"Yeah, I think ... I wish I could be friends with him, but I think the longer I get away from him, and the more I process -- I think I'm angry," she admits.

Not that Dodge hasn't heard that anger about a dozen times by now. Hayley can yell.

"But okay," she says, and takes a deep breath.

"Paul,

It's just not working anymore. I feel like I've given so much, and given up so much for you, but I've just been taken for granted for ages. We talked about this, you promised me you were going to change, and I believed you. And you did! For about two weeks. Then, it just got worse and worse, and I can't keep asking you to change only to be disappointed.

You won't let me decorate, you won't let me feel like I share space with you, it feels like I've just become another shiny thing you keep around the house. If this is who you are, then it's who you are, but it means you're not right for me. I can't be that for you.

We shared so much. I did love you. I gave you myself, and it was supposed to be forever. I can't put into words how sad I am that I've accepted it won't be.

Don't beat yourself up. I honestly wish you the best. You'll find someone right for you. And let me ease your mind -- there's no one else, there was no one thing you said or did that could have changed this, this wasn't anyone else's doing but my own. It's been building for the last year.

I'm just tired of fighting. I think, if you look into yourself, you are, too.

Your things are by the door. It's all packed well. Please don't try to contact me, I need time to grieve and move on.

❤️Hailstorm"

Dodge squeezes Hayley's shoulder. "I think you did a good job," she says gently. "Are you happy with it?"

"I'm not happy at all right now," Hayley says, her tone tense. "But I'm debating that heart. It feels right, though."

"Then leave it," Dodge murmurs. "It kinda softens the blow a little. I'd leave it in," she supplies quietly. "So what will you do, write it out and leave it in your place, wait over here until he leaves?"

"He's supposed to be gone for a couple days yet," Hayley says as she tilts her cheek against her shoulder. "I think maybe a letter on the bed." Her hand comes up, wiping at her eye again. "There's really no 'right' way to do it, is there?"

Dodge shakes her head. "No, there isn't," she murmurs. "But if there was, this would be pretty close."

Hayley lets out a long sigh, then nods. "There's a printer in the shed," she mutters. "I'll print it tomorrow, then if I can stay here, just in case he comes home early? He sometimes does that," she murmurs. "Says it's because he misses me, but I think maybe he didn't trust me."

"Of course you can stay here," Dodge answers with a little nod, squeezing Hayley's shoulder again. "Whenever and for as long as you need to. Koda will be thrilled."

"If you need me to bail for any hot football player visitors, I'll pop in headphones and go take Koda for a walk," Hayley offers with a weak smile, before she looks back to Dodge. "... Am I single now, or when he reads it? How's that all work?"

"We'll just go to his hotel room," Dodge assures, laughing faintly and shaking her head, curving a smile that fades at the follow-up question.

"I guess you're single as soon as the other person knows? I'm not really sure about the chronology of breakup letters. But that seems right."

Hayley rolls her eyes, and gives another of her ultralight punches to Dodge's arm. "It's your home, you should be able to live in sin in it if you want," she remarks without any real venom -- Dodge likely would have picked up this is, more than anything, something she's self-critical about. "... I'm worried about my family's reaction."

"Your family's reaction is their problem, their burden, not yours. Don't let yourself stress out about it before it happens. If they care about your happiness, then they'll be fine," Dodge assures.

"You're probably right, I'm just scared," Hayley admits as she draws her knees up, curling into the corner of the couch before reaching a hand down to try to summon Koda. "Just a couple days left of thinking about him, I guess."

Koda is easily summoned with the offer of pets and gets up off the ground, trundles over to Hayley, and sticks his head in her lap.

Dodge sips from her wine again and bobs her head in a slow nod. "It'll be hard at first, but it will get easier," she promises.

"What's up, Koda? You ready to become the main man in my life?" Hayley asks, ruffling at the fur on his neck before more gently petting at his head for a slow while, one finger idly popping up a floppy ear now and then.

"I thought I would be more of a wreck than I am. I guess I just... was ready, huh?"

Koda is ready to be Hayley's main man, which he makes clear by opening his mouth and letting his tongue loll out of it, nuzzling his face into the pets.

"You probably were," Dodge murmurs. "It had been a long time coming. At least it seemed to me like it had. You were never happy to talk about Paul, he never hung out with you or wanted to do anything or let you do anything. It was just a shitty situation and he couldn't have been that happy, either. He just better not act out, or I'll put the critters on him." And by that, she means Koda and Poe, of course.

"I think I honestly checked out four months ago," Hayley admits to Dodge as she smiles down at Koda, fingers moving quickly against him in quiet pets. "We stopped even really being a couple before then. We didn't even really... you know... anymore," she admits, blushing a tinge.

"Hopefully he behaves. Can you do me a favor and not let me know if he asks you about me?"

Koda licks Hayley's hand, encouraging more pets. Always more pets. "You need to get laid," Dodge prescribes.

"I will not only not let you know, I will pretend I don't even know who you are," she adds.

"I probably do," Hayley admits to Dodge with a sigh as she focuses, instead, on grinning at the lick and offering her palm while getting the other hand in on the action. "The whole Tinder culture isn't for me, though."

"You're a good friend," she adds to Dodge, with a side glance. "That's the one advantage to not having many roots here now. He won't know who to even bother."

"All the apps suck," Dodge agrees. "Everything becomes really transactional, down to the conversations. It's just a boring way to meet someone." She leans over and ruffles Koda's fur; the big dog is very much enjoying all of the attention from Hayley.

She glances back at Hayley and raises her shoulders in a shrug. "Don't worry about it. He'll throw a twenty-four hour temper tantrum and then he'll make peace, hopefully, and move on. Hell, maybe he'll even leave Spellbound."

"Maybe. Not like he ever did anything interesting with his magic, anyway," Hayley grumps. "So he'll probably just go work on an oil rig in North Dakota or something where he can make stupid money." She runs both thumb and forefinger along one of Koda's ears, then leans back, patting him twice on the side to let him know she's good for the moment.

"I'm not really looking to meet someone, not wanting to date. Maybe I just do what you're doing. Find a cute tourist."

Koda looks up at Hayley as if to make doubly sure she's very sure that she's done petting him, and when he realizes she is, he slumps back down on the floor, rolling around until all four paws are up in the air. He lightly paws at her foot with one of them, just to check.

"Yeah, the last thing anyone should do after getting out of a serious relationship is immediately start dating again, that's my take," Dodge agrees. "Find a tourist, or someone who is in a different department from you, who lives in a different apartment complex, something like that. Have a ton of attachment-free sex."

Hayley isn't heartless, and she reaches down to give a quick belly rub, and then rests her foot against Koda with a quiet, "Shh, I'll be here a bit now," before she looks toward Dodge. She looks skeptical at the advice, looking down at her hands for a moment rather than at her friend, then shrugs.

"I just worry I'm going to freak out if I try and leave the guy hanging, and then feel awful about that. I'm, um, pretty sheltered with this kinda stuff," she admits, looking down. "I do see the appeal."

"Sheltered with what kind of stuff?" Dodge asks, quirking one of her dark brows. "Sex?" It hardly computes to her, but then Dodge is a few years older and has had more than one relationship. "Well, if you think you're going to freak out, don't do it. You'll know when you're ready to move on," she supplies. "For the most part."

"Yeah, I mean... yeah," Hayley says, even unsure how to word it all. "I was going to wait for marriage and all that, but that's out the window, then it was just going to be with one guy and -- well, now I guess I have to figure out what it's going to be on my own." A long sigh, then, her hands running through her hair.

"I know, I know, I'm the weird one."

"Oh that's what you meant, when you said you rushed into everything," Dodge realizes, withholding a small laugh for Hayley's sake. "I thought you just meant like, emotionally and whatever."

Hayley just shrugs her shoulders, smiling weakly. "Yeah, that's what I meant. We were together a while before it happened, and it felt right and I've made my peace with it. But there's the things you know and there's how you feel, and I feel like -- I don't know. Anyway. It's weird thinking about that as even an option for me. A random hookup, I mean."

"You're young," Dodge rationalizes. "You know? There's no schedule, no pace but your own. But if it would freak you out, don't do it. That will be a bad experience for everyone, especially and most importantly, for you." She sucks the back of her teeth. "I still think it would help you feel better, but only if you think you're ready."

"I mean, I'm saying all this, and at the same time my body's yelling at me to just go for it," Hayley admits with a sheepish grin, sitting up and leaning back, looking over to Dodge, adding, "I'm kind of jealous stuff like that's so easy for ya."

"Don't waste your time being jealous of other people whose circumstances you don't know," Dodge recites like she's heard it somewhere else, like the words aren't hers, only borrowed. "It took me over a year to get over my last breakup. You'll feel completely differently a year from now. It will all be behind you, and sometimes you'll think about it and have a sad moment, but otherwise, you'll be fine."

"From the book of 'Get Your Head On Straight', Chapter 22, Verse 11. Alright, yeah, I got it," Hayley says with a rueful, apologetic tone as she considers Dodge quietly. "If you ever need to talk about things, I'm an okay listener. No pressure." She drops that, then immediately moves on.

"I do kind of feel like doing something reckless," she admits, chewing on her lip. "Just -- get some of the frustration out of my system. But I should let him read the letter first, at least."

Dodge gives Hayley a small smile at the offer, but doesn't say anything; she just lets the topic turnover to the next.

"Define reckless," she prompts.

"Without reck," Hayley answers promptly and, of course, senselessly. Then she's looking to Dodge, and shrugs. "Run naked on the beach and grab the first guy I find? I don't know. That's probably a little too far."

Dodge drains the remainder of her wine and sets the glass on the sidetable. "That is probably a little bit too far, but you can compromise. Do what I did. Go to Paradise or some other fun place with no agenda and just see where things take you. Maybe you'll meet someone hot, or maybe you'll just have fun dancing. Let yourself forget about Paul and the bad relationship vibes. Let yourself start having fun. It doesn't mean you need to jump in the sack with someone. It might just mean cutting loose a little."

"That seems like a good compromise," Hayley admits as she finishes her own glass of wine, then asks, "It's okay if I sleep on your couch tonight? It feels... wrong, over there." It all still smells like him. Humans are animals.

"Of course you can," Dodge murmurs, patting Hayley's foot. "Do you want to go over there and grab some of your stuff? Plan to be here for a few nights, you know, just in case?"

Hayley flexes her toes, then nods quietly. "Yeah, I should," she decides, getting up and stretching her arms above her head. "Just a handful of clothes changes and toiletries," she reasons. "Why does it feel like a sleepover?"

"Wanna watch shitty movies and get tossed on cheap wine?" Dodge suggests, to really bring the sleepover vibes home. "Koda will probably crawl in the middle at some point."

"Yes, but you're picking the movies, or else we're watching Prince of Egypt and you have to listen to me singing along," Hayley quips back to Dodge -- and that suggestion really seems to shake her brain loose. "Back in five!" as she heads out the door.

It's fifteen, but she has a bag, wine, and a comforter with her as she heads back in.

Dodge has loaded up Stranger Things, season 1, when Hayley returns and looks utterly unremorseful over her choice. "I love this show. Anything spooky and retro, I'm into." She helps Hayley get settled and put all her things down, and Koda assists by sniffing everything very closely.

The brunette climbs back onto the couch on one end and Koda crawls onto the other, leaving the middle seat open for Hayley. Dodge pats the seat next to her and invites Hayley over to sit down. "And bring that wine with you."

"Oh! Stranger Things! Last season of this is finally coming out soon, now that they're all thirty, right?" Hayley asks as she settles into that spot next to Dodge, obliging, and tossing half the comforter over her host.

Surprising no one, it smells extremely floral.

She loops an arm around Koda, then hands the bottle - pinot noir - over, her legs tucking up underneath her and leaving the slippers on the floor. "You ever played dungeons and dragons?" she wonders.

Dodge chuckles at the quip and pours the wine into their glasses and passes one to Hayley as Koda lays across his favorite neighbor, head lolling in her lap.

"I tried once because I had some friends that were very into it," she answers. "I couldn't really get super into it, but it was cute, I can see the appeal." She reaches for the corner of the comforter and pulls it across herself, too.

"I played a gnome paladin for about a year, until she died protecting her friends. I had a few others, but she was the big one," Hayley informs Dodge, her hand resting on Koda's head companionably as the show starts in earnest. "We tried doing it online when people started to move, but it just wasn't the same."

"But anyway, great show. Crazy to realize how beige the eighties were."

"The first season of this show is definitely the best. It goes downhill after that, until season four. Which still isn't as good as season one," Dodge declares.

Koda exhales a deep and world-weary sigh, comfortable where he's situated himself.

"Yeah, I agree entirely. The Mind Flayer thing really didn't make much sense until Vecna, and it felt like they maybe strung things out a little long," Hayley nods along with Dodge's assessment. "I think season one is best, but season four has absolutely the highest high of the show. Made all of us fall in love with Kate Bush."

"I loved that song before it was cool," Dodge mutters. "Placebo has a great cover of it that I've always loved. I think who we all really fell in love with was Eddie. His death was brutal."

"I had the biggest, dumbest crush on Eddie, and I was so mad at Chrissie for not seeing what was in front of her," Hayley admits with a sheepish grin. "And then I was just wrecked. Wrecked! I decided I hated the show." She clearly did not.

"He's going to be the Human Torch. I think it works."

"He was also in Gladiator 2, playing a pasty psychopath," Dodge murmurs as the search party on screen gets underway, then it shifts to a scene at the high school. "Barb! Another devastating loss." She pauses the show and pulls out her phone, navigating to a YouTube video and leaning over to show it to Hayley.

"RIP, rest in peace Ba-a-arb. I'm sorry that monster rolled up on you so ha-a-ard." She sings along.

"What kind of boome-- oh! This video!" Hayley says as she leans in, laughing as Dodge sings along and shaking her head. "But yes, they really did Barb so, so dirty," she sighs.

"If a monster rolled up on you, I would dive into another world to rescue you andalsoadoptadeer," Hayley says, that last part all in one word under her breath.

Dodge starts laughing at that. "Those tiny deer were so cute. I finished editing the pictures I took while we were there, if you want to take a look at any of them. I made an album on my hard drive. I figured they probably shouldn't go in the cloud, just in case of leaks or anything..." she trails off, then re-starts the show: Joyce sits in her living room, clutching her phone.

"Oh! You know I would," Hayley says with a few quick nods. "Your work's always so great," she says, well past her third glass of wine at this point and picking up a slur into her fourth. "You're so talented. You must have worked really hard to get that way."

Dodge laughs quietly and smiles, bobbing her head. "I feel like I'm always looking back at things I did a while ago and thinking, wow, I could do that so much better now. It's a process, an ongoing, continual process," she acknowledges. "But thank you. That's really kind of you to say."

Then she finishes off her fourth glass, setting it down on the table and leaning over Koda to embrace him. "That's how it always is, how you know you're getting better, even when you don't realize it! People think talent just happens, and maybe a little, but you gotta... you gotta cultivate it. Wild plants are never going to grow like the ones done with intention. That's what it's about, Dodge. Intention."

Dodge chuckles softly and glances sidelong at Hayley drunkenly pontificating while Koda basks in the attention. "Yeah?" she asks, baiting Hayley to keep talking while she leans over and re-fills her own wine glass. On screen, Joyce reels from another phantom phonecall from the upside down.

Hayley takes a second before she lifts a single finger in the air, spins her arm in a wide arc, and stops it where it sits in between her and Dodge. "Yes," she says with a quick nod. "Hard work. I seen so many artists, especially, y'all get written off so fast as just having gifts from God or whatever, but y'all built on that gift. You probably had a lot of real bad pictures at first, and now look at you!"

The finger drops, the hand coming to rub at her face, and she says, "Joyce is a great mom."

Then back to her point, "So maybe, maybe that's something I should be thinking about. Cultivating. Making myself better. Being the kind of girl someone actually wants to treat like a person."

Dodge is stifling her laughter as Hayley goes on about the virtues of hard work versus the scourge of talent, just nodding and sipping from her wine. "No, no, you're right. Talent is a lie. And Joyce is a good mom," she concurs.

But at the latter part, Dodge quirks her head to the side at a puppydog angle. "I don't think you need to do anything different to warrant being treated well. That's just something you deserve off the bat," she murmurs. "You know?"

The finger goes back up, and Hayley shakes it once, twice, as she considers that, before letting it fall again and nodding. "You're right. You're right." Her head turns, then, back toward the television as she watches it, and then she admits, "I don't understand what I did wrong to make him start treating me like that. I thought I was a pretty good girlfriend. He's probably going to tell everyone how horrible I am, though. But I was loyal, I worked hard, I bent over backwards for him, and he still just... didn't care."

"Then he can get fucked," Dodge supplies blandly. "The problem wasn't with you. It was with him," she says, for not the first time and most likely not the last, either. "And don't waste any energy worrying about what he tells other people. Exes are always going to run their mouths, it's what they do. Just let it be." She glances over. "I'm sure you were a great girlfriend. The problem wasn't with you," she says again. "So just... you know? Let that part of it go."

"... Okay," says Hayley softly, clearly the kind of person to always try to take responsibility for being the fixer, looking up and at the screen again, watching it silently for a few minutes. "I never told anyone else what I told you earlier. I don't know why it came out."

"That you almost cheated on Paul?" Dodge asks, very casually, almost too casually, almost suspiciously casually... and then she glances over at Hayley. "With a girl?" Empaths.

The first question earns a quick nod of her head, the second has the head whipping around so fast to look at Dodge, eyes wide with panic as she replies, defensively, "I didn't say that!"

Which isn't a no.

"No, you didn't," Dodge agrees, reaching for her wine and sipping from it before she sets it back down. "You didn't have to. I could tell by the way you cut yourself off. Besides. You're such a good girlfriend that you would never cheat with another guy. But drunk enough with the temptation of something different, something that feels kind of wrong but that you've kind of always wanted? That's enough to fuck anyone up. Even a good girl."

She nods matter-of-factly and even Koda seems convinced; he rests his head in Hayley's lap and exhales a mighty huff.

That read of her being so wildly on point has Hayley just staring for a long moment, before her cheeks turn dark red and she looks away, looks down. "I'm not gay," she claims, which is a pretty weak defense right now. "But we were at a party, and she wanted to dance, and I didn't think anything of it until I realized how pretty she was, and that she was looking at me the way I would look at a guy that caught my eye and I just -- got a little caught up in the moment."

"Did you want to kiss her?" Dodge asks rhetorically, though she pauses and waits for Hayley to answer. Even though she seems to very well already know the answer.

A slow blink. "A little, but she beat me to it," she says quietly. "Then, um, whispered something in my ear, and I almost said yes. I kind of ran away instead. I feel bad. She gave me her Snapchat before she left. I saved it but never worked up the courage to add her back."

Dodge gives Hayley a shrug. "Then babe, you're a little gay."

A look to Dodge, then Hayley is reaching for the wine bottle. She doesn't say anything, just takes a swig from it directly. "She was really pretty," is her only defense.

"I believe you," Dodge says, resting a hand on Hayley's shoulder and giving her a companionable squeeze. "Maybe now that you're single again, that's a side of yourself you can explore. I've dated women, I've dated non-binary people. It's not a big deal."

Hayley shifts herself over, then leans her cheek against Dodge's shoulder. "One big life change at a time, okay?" she requests quietly. "It isn't something I ever let myself think about."

Dodge wraps an arm around Hayley's shoulders and lets her lean, rubbing her opposite arm in a calming, comforting sort of way. "I hear you," she soothes. "But if you treat it like it's this great big, crazy thing, then that's how it's going to feel. If you treat it as just something normal, then that's how it will feel. Normal. Because it is normal. Girls are hot."

That just earns a little nudge from Hayley's elbow into Dodge's side, and she's quiet for a moment, before she asks, "Do you think it would be weird if I added her now?"

"No," Dodge answers, shaking her head. "I think it's weird you use Snapchat, but I don't think it would be weird to add her now."

"Huh?" Hayley asks Dodge, confused. "Everyone uses Snapchat. I mean, that and Instagram." Looking at the Millennial like she grew an extra head for a moment, Hayley fumbles for her phone, then opens up the app -- with the long, long load time of a download on a deep sleep app coming back to life.

"Having trouble sleeping?" Dodge asks, seeing the download of the app on Hayley's screen.

"Yeah," Hayley admits, fumbling with the screen until she's able to wrestle it into bringing Snap up, and then opening a note file on her phone. It's buried, but she finds it with a search: Liv. She didn't even need a moment to remember the name.

Handle gets plugged in, and she hits send, looking back up at the show and taking a swig from the bottle. "Just a lot on my mind lately."

Dodge glances up at the television screen and then back over to Hayley. "You mean besides the stuff with Paul?" she asks quietly.

"Oh, no, mostly that," Hayley chirps to Dodge, the smile coming easily on her face. "Honestly, aside from him, life's kind of great? I just -- I'm a dweller, you know, I-" her phone buzzes, and she glances at it, and her eyes widen. "She accepted," she tells Dodge, Very Seriously.

"I get that. I dwell on things, too--and oh, good!" Dodge reacts, reaching for more wine. "Send her something," she encourages. "Say hi."

Hayley lifts her phone, fingers forming a peace sign by her face as she snaps a quick selfie with Dodge's shoulder, then captions it. "Hi! Remember me?"

"I think once I shake this off, I'll be feeling a ton better," Hayley admits to Dodge. "I feel like a crushing weight is coming off me."

"And flirting with a cute girl will help expedite the process tremendously, trust me," Dodge claims, winking at Hayley slyly. "Where did you meet her? Here in the park, or outside the park?"

"Outside," Hayley says as she looks at her phone, pensive and waiting. "My bestie invited me to a college party, and it was my last real chance before I came here, so I took her up on it." There's a glance up at that wink, and another small nudge.

"The distraction will be good for you," Dodge replies, sipping from her wine and draining it, then setting the emptied glass aside. "Show me what she looks like, I wanna see."

Koda snores softly, his head in Hayley's lap.

Hayley is about to say something when her phone buzzes again, and an image comes through. It's taken against a backdrop that looks like the bathroom of a dingy bar or club, and the caption reads: "OMG you kept my tag for two years?"

The woman in the picture is young, about Hayley's age, wearing a slinky dress in silver with large open panels on the side, from rib to hip. Her hair's dyed lavender, hanging to her shoulder, with glittery makeup on and intense lipstick, along with nails that sparkle with a hint of the same silver as her dress. She is stunning -- caramel skin, a heart-shaped face with long lashes, and hazel eyes all accompanying a perfect hourglass figure.

"Oh she's cute!" Dodge says, nudging Hayley in the ribs. She decides to pour herself some more of the pinot noir, filling her glass, and then glances back at the TV screen. "You should tell her you think she's hot," she cajoles.

"Doooodge!" Hayley whines, but it's mostly halfhearted as she just blushes again and makes no effort to pull away, and if Dodge is peeking, she'll see Hayley doing her very best to flirt, and her cheeks turning a little darker every message. "Okay, maybe she doesn't hate me forever for running," she concedes.

"Yeah, it seems like she's forgiven you," Dodge chirps from behind her glass of wine, grinning, eyes still on the screen. She smothers a yawn and stretches out with her free arm. "I think I might get to bed soon," she says to Hayley. "You keep at it with Ms. Cute Thing and update me in the morning how it went. I want a full report."

Whatever it was that was sent to her, Hayley covers the screen with her hand instead of letting Dodge see it. "... Yep, will do," she says innocently, turning to look at Dodge and then lean in to give her a hard hug. "Thank you for everything," she mumbles quietly.

Dodge smiles and returns the hug, nodding her head. "Of course," she murmurs, and then she's rising to her feet to take her wine glass to the kitchen sink. Notably, she does not try to look t Hayley's screen.