Week 1: Natalie's Date, Part 3

As Aífe and Natalie were leaving the labyrinthine garden of flowers, two sets of eyes observed them from around the corner of a tall hedge.

“It seems like it’s a bit early for them to be leaving, right?” Mallory adjusted her sunglasses as she ducked her head in and out of the cover of foliage. “Do you think something went wrong?”

“They probably ran out of stuff to talk about and got bored,” Diona sighed, plopping herself down on the grass. “Unlike yours truly, Nat’s not an expert on plants. There’s no way she remembered enough of what I told her about them to last the entire time. And she doesn’t really strike me as the type who’s good at coming up with small talk.”

“Aren’t you even a bit concerned with how this date is going?” Mallory diverted her gaze back to her current partner in espionage. “I’d’ve thought you’d be more interested in seeing how things go between them.”

“Mal, the thing you’ve gotta understand is that the fun of snooping around for date deets lies in grilling the suspects after the fact,” Diona explained, “because then you get to see them get all flustered and shy about it—especially once you get to the juicier questions.” Diona made a scissoring gesture with her fingers to illustrate her point.

“What?! No, this isn’t like that!” Mallory started, red-faced, before hastily covering her mouth as she realized she was being too loud. She returned to a more hushed tone. “Obviously they’re not going to do anything like that. I just want to make sure that… I don’t know, ok? I just want to make sure things go fine between them.”

“Mhmm, now tell me—what are you planning to do when they catch us peeping on their date?”

“If they catch us,” Mallory rebutted, “we’re obviously out on a jog. That’s why I had you change clothes in the first place.” She gestured to the sports bra and yoga pants Diona now wore—matching her own outfit. While most of Diona’s clothing was focused on covering as little as possible, and ideally leaving her large chest more easily accessed, the shortstack made an exception for what she acknowledged as one of the single sexiest outfits that a woman can wear outside without risking arrest.

“When they catch us,” Diona quipped back, insistent on her terminology, “that excuse isn’t going to hold up. I know you’ve seen these tits. Hate to burst your bubble, Mal, but this body isn’t built for jogging. The only exercises it’s built for are the ones that are done prone… or supine… or cowgirl… or upside down that one time… You get my point.”

“The targets are on the move again!” Mallory whisper-shouted, conveniently ignoring the holes her partner was poking in their alibi as she leaned back out of the cover of the hedge. “Looks like they’re heading to Location Charlie—come on, Cherry Blossom!” Mallory began tip-toeing from hedge to hedge as Diona begrudgingly followed along.

“I don’t know what that means, Mal—we never discussed code words,” The shortstack sighed in exasperation. “Also, Cherry Blossom is a lame code name. Couldn’t I be ‘Carolina Reaper’, or something?”

Do they think they’re being stealthy? Aífe wondered to herself as she sat down on the red & white checkered blanket. From the corner of her eye, she could make out a head of brunette hair bobbing in and out of the cover of a tree trunk periodically, and she could swear there was a bit of bright pink poking out of the bush growing next to it. She and Natalie, meanwhile, were sitting under their own tree—the shade and the gentle breeze feeling pleasantly cool after their long walk. Aífe glanced over to see Natalie checking the contents, or lack thereof, of the picnic basket that had already been lying there when they’d arrived.

“Nothin’ in there, yet,” the model said as she closed the lid, “Maybe it’s magic? Could be that Ember’ll send the food through ‘round lunchtime. It is still early for it.”

“Hmm… could be Umbra,” Aífe speculated, “since it’s dark inside the basket. Maybe Ember prepares it and Umbra sends it through with her shadow travel. She did use it to bring Aoba and Aria to the dining hall that morning they slept in.” Real question is how she hasn’t noticed those two. Aífe paused mid-thought as she had a fun idea, her eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint. “You know,” Aífe put her theatrical experience to use, projecting enough that her onlookers could hear without Natalie noticing the difference, “since we’ve got some time to kill, I’ve been wondering—what do you think of Mal?”

“Oh?” Natalie’s face was still fairly measured, but Aífe could see hints of red coming to her cheeks. Their onlookers, meanwhile, both snapped to attention—Mallory practically straining her neck to get her ear even one inch further into hearing range, and Diona peeking through the leaves hoping for some juicy gossip. “U-um… she’s a sweet girl. We’ve uh… gotten pretty close over the week… I guess I’m just real glad I got her as my roommate. I… don’t know that I would’ve handled things as well if I’d been with one of the other girls.”

“True…” Aífe was debating how to press for more details without pushing too hard. “Looks like the two of you are pretty good friends. Has it been tough dealing with your TFs together? Hers was definitely pretty drastic, but I imagine yours can be a bit difficult, too.” As she was saying this, she realized that she’d been loooking in Natalie’s direction. She averted her eyes, in case she’d accidentally been getting the blonde worked up, herself.

“It’s… been fine so far,” Natalie lied. The truth was that both roommates had been struggling to keep their eyes under control. Natalie could feel Mallory’s gaze on her repeatedly whenever they were alone together, and she certainly felt a few stray glances several of the times she was changing or had just returned to the room after bathing. For Natalie’s part, however, she couldn’t claim innocence, either. She was a healthy lesbian with a healthy sex drive rooming with a woman who kept in good shape and spent all her time wearing clothing that left little to the imagination, regardless of how much it covered. She wasn’t blind, after all—she knew exactly how good Mallory’s ass looks in latex. “We do our best to work with each other’s TFs. It’s just a bit of a learnin’ curve.”

“Totally fair.” Aífe nodded. “Mal told me all about just how happy she is that you’re her roommate. She’s super thankful for all of the help you’ve been giving her with her wardrobe and her date planning.”

“Please, I can’t take all the credit.” Natalie waved off the compliment. “A bunch of that was Diona. It’s not like I have any real date experience to go off of, so she came up with most of the ideas when we were brainstormin’.”

“So who came up with the idea for her big surprise? I was pretty stunned when she showed off her outfit for when we were swimming.” Aífe snuck a glance at Mallory and Diona’s hiding spot, confident that that one would get a reaction, and it certainly did. Mallory was suddenly as still as a statue, her face turning bright red. Diona, meanwhile had completely turned her attention away from the show in front of them, and had now fixed her gaze directly on her partner in crime, her eyes gleaming with curiosity and a lewd grin plastered on her face.

“I can’t say I know anything about a big surprise,” Natalie answered, completely lost, “maybe somethin’ she talked about with Diona while I was busy with somethin’ else?”

Behind the bushes, Diona kept her eyes locked with Mallory’s, shaking her head. She mouthed out a sentence that Mallory couldn’t be sure of, but swore it was something along the lines of “who could it have been?”

“Real shame you weren’t there for it.” Aífe cast her voice just a little bit louder still as she leaned back, resting on her hands. “She was a real knockout. Maybe she can take you swimming sometime and show it off to you. I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise by telling you too much.” She decided that this was as good a moment as she was getting. “What do you think? You wanna go on a swimming date with Mal?”

“O-oh! I-I… can’t say I’ve put too much thought into it…” Natalie half-lied. While she hadn’t necessarily thought about a swimming date, there had certainly been other date ideas she’d been mulling over, planning to potentially use practice runs for her dates with Aífe as an excuse. “I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘no’ to one if she asked me…” She glanced over at the tree, making eye contact with Mallory, who’d just peeked her head out. Mallory panicked and lost her balance, falling onto Diona and pushing both of them out of their cover. When she recovered enough to look around, she looked up to see Aífe and Natalie standing over them.

“Heyyyyy, Nat…” Mallory put on a shaky, guilty smile. “Fancy meeting you two out here! Diona and I were just out on a jog, and—”

“They’re not buying it, Mal,” Diona cut in, her voice somewhat muffled by Mallory’s cleavage, “I was literally hiding in a bush.”

“‘Bout time you two stopped tryin’ to be sneaky,” Natalie sighed.

“Wait—you knew they were there?” Aífe looked at her in surprise. “For how long?”

“Since we left the flower garden,” Natalie explained with a shrug, “I can feel when someone’s lookin’ at me, remember? Felt eyes on me even when you were lookin’ away. I didn’t have a problem with them watchin’ for a bit ‘cause I figured they’d get bored after a while and leave. Didn’t become a problem until someone decided to steer the conversation into askin’ embarrassin’ questions!” She pouted at Aífe.

“Sorry, sorry—” Aífe put up her hands in surrender. “I was just having a bit of fun with Mal! I really missed those times I’d get to tease her a bit while we were working together.”

“Fine. But you’ll have to make it up to me later.” Natalie huffed, crossing her arms and turning up her nose for the few moments it took for her to realize how that sounded. “N-not like that, though!” The tension among them broke as Aífe and Mallory chuckled before being interrupted by Diona nudging Mallory to remind her get off of her.

“Well, it’s been fun—” Diona groaned as she got up, “but we should probably head back for lunch. Leave you too lovebirds alone. We can ask for the juicy details tomorrow. Right, Mal?”

“Oh come on, we already caught you. Might as well stay for a bit.” Natalie walked back over to the picnic blanket, gracefully lowering herself back onto it and motioning for them to sit with her. As they started to head towards her, Aífe stopped—another idea popping into her head as she grabbed Diona.

“Actually,” Aífe started, pointedly making eye contact with Diona, “someone should probably tell Ember that she’ll need to send more food along. Why don’t Diona and I go tell her while you two hold down the fort?” Diona quickly got the message and nodded along eagerly. As they walked away from Natalie and toward Mallory, they both mouthed something at her. This time, it was clear to Mallory that they were saying “Ask. Her. Out.”