templemarker

Tripped Up
by templemarker

Notes: Thanks to for beta services. Originally posted here for jamponygifts‘s 2010 challenge for shopfront.

***

“Who knew a girl named Trudy could be so damn hot?” Original Cindy said moodily, flinging cards from an old-beat up pack into a trash bin.

“She better be hot, the way you’re trippin’ over her,” Max replied, head bent over her boots, working in black polish with an old toothbrush.

“Boo, this momma was so fine she made me twinge just lookin’ at her,” OC frowned, flinging a jack of hearts and missing.

“What, was she not feeling you or something?” Max asked.

Original Cindy snorted. “She was feelin’ me. She was feelin’ me so hard half the club turned to watch, and the other half were lookin’ away ’cause they jealous. Girl had curves like fucking danger zone, and attitude to match. And you know how I feel about attitude.”

Max looked up, hair falling carelessly on her face, and grinned. “I don’t know nothing about you and attitude,” she teased.

OC flung an ace of spades at her, making Max giggle. It was a nice sound. Original Cindy sighed. “And then she’s not finding me in the bar, she’s not answering my messages. I thought we had a thing, but no, girl be lovin’ and leavin’.”

“Them’s the breaks of loving at all,” Max said, like she knew from love. Well, she did. OC wouldn’t front about that, homegirl knew a thing or two about love. But it was hard for OC to remember, sometimes; lookin’ at her she still was so damn young.

Max finished working on her left boot and picked up her right. “So is it just the booty wiggle on this girl, or did you get to talking to her at all?”

“Naw, she could talk, too,” OC said, setting down her cards and lying horizontal on the couch. “She was talking up how she’s a pilot, she flies helicopters over the city for the po-po and the military. She’s all educated and shit, and now she’s breaking my heart.”

Max laughed. “Babygirl, you didn’t give her enough of your heart for her to break. It’s other things that are missing this girl. Did you even see any action, or are you hurtin’ for it now? Is that why you’re so pissy, you need some bump and grind?”

“Hush, just because you’re getting something-something don’t mean you need to be hatin’ on your friends,” Original Cindy said, making a face in Max’s direction. Max, of course, just laughed.

“And no, I didn’t get any action, and yes, I am all kinds of sad about that fact,” OC said primly, tucking her hands in her hoodie pockets. “Girl’s got needs, and this girl more than most.”

“Speak the truth, my boo, speak the truth,” Max said, finishing her other boot and setting it down.

“You ready to be seein’ the world now that you got your shoes in order?” OC asked, turning a bit to look at Max better. Max had a funny look on her face, like the ones she got when she was thinking of things she was better off not not thinking about. Like she was relieving some kind of memory, and not the good kind, either.

“Babygirl,” Original Cindy said sharply; sometimes that would jolt Max out of wherever nasty-bad place she went up in her complex pretty head. True enough, Max blinked and was back in the apartment, where she was safe. More or less. Loved, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Max apologized; she meant it, too. “What were you saying?”

“I said, are you ready to step off or can I get a beer to cry into?” Original Cindy said, tone softer than her words.

“We’ll get you two beers to cry into,” Max promised, standing up and stretching.

OC sighed. “This girl’s messing with my damn head,” she said, annoyed. “I just want to be seeing her again, and instead I know all I’m gonna see is the sad-ass faces of the same people we go to work with every day.”

“Aw, girl, it’s better than that,” Max said, coming over to sit next to OC. She hooked her arm around OC’s knee, pulling at it to pull Cindy up, and threaded her arms around OC’s waist. “If that girl don’t call you, she don’t deserve you,” Max promised, like it was true and it meant something.

OC frowned into Max’s shoulder; she wasn’t sure that was true, but it sure was nice to hear anyway. “Let’s go to the bar,” OC mumbled, and they got their shit together and hoofed it down to the Crash, which looked exactly the same as it did every day before.

Cindy found them a table and Max got them a pitcher; OC was going to need every drop of that to stop feeling sorry for herself. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned: it was Trudy.

“Hey there, homegirl,” Trudy said with a smile. “I heard you hung out at this bar.”

“Girl, where you been?” OC said, disbelieving. “I been waiting for you to show up on my doorstep with your own damn self for days.”

Trudy grinned; OC felt something in her twinge, something pretty and dangerous and hot. Not unlike the girl herself. “I thought you said you kicked it at the Planet,” she said, taking Cindy’s hand and running her thumb across the knuckles. “I’ve been drinking shitty beer there for two days waiting for your fine ass to walk in and being disappointed. Yet here you are.”

“Here I am,” Cindy echoed, tugging Trudy around to sit next to her. Max came back with the pitcher, raising one eyebrow.

“Max, Trudy; Trudy, Max,” Cindy said, not taking her eyes off her girl; she’d only gotten finer since that night, it was truth.

“I’m gonna go get another glass,” Max said, not suppressing her grin. OC waved her away, dropping a hand onto Trudy’s leg and shifting closer. “Honey, you and I need to be making up for lost time.”

“I feel you,” Trudy said, pulling Cindy close and kissing her thoroughly. Hell, it was almost worth the wait.

***

n.b. This is my girl Trudy. Me and OC feel exactly the same way about her.