history shared in the present day

Abbie felt her stomach tighten. The wine had loosened her tongue, and Claire's intensity was making her feel cornered. She glanced at Rachel, who was staring at her with wide, pleading eyes.

"I mean ..." Abbie started, then stopped. She could lie, deflect, change the subject. But something about Claire's smugness, her certainty that she knew all of Rachel's secrets, made her want to push back. "Actually, yeah. Once. Back in college."

The silence that followed was deafening. Rachel's face went pale, and Claire's wine glass stopped halfway to her lips.

"What?" Claire's voice was barely a whisper.

"It was nothing," Abbie said quickly, realizing she'd just detonated something. "Rachel was figuring herself out, and we were drunk after some party. It was just ... experimentation."

Claire's eyes snapped to Rachel, and the look on her face was unlike anything Abbie had ever seen from her. It wasn't just jealousy -- it was betrayal, raw and wounded.

"You never told me," Claire said, her voice tight.

"Claire, it was nothing," Rachel said, reaching for her hand. "It was years ago, before I even knew what I wanted --"

"Nothing?" Claire jerked her hand away. "You made out with your roommate and never thought to mention it?"

"Because it wasn't important!" Rachel's voice rose slightly. "It was one night, sophomore year, and it never happened again. It had no bearing on us, on our relationship --"

"That's not your decision to make!" Claire's voice cracked slightly, and Abbie could see tears forming in her green eyes. "Five years, Rachel. Five years and you never once thought to tell me that you and your precious roommate had history?"

"It's not history," Rachel said desperately, standing up from her barstool. "Claire, look at me. It meant nothing. I was confused, I was drunk, I was trying to figure out who I was--"

"With her!" Claire pointed at Abbie, her hand shaking. "You figured yourself out with her!"

The accusation hung in the air like a physical blow. Abbie felt sick to her stomach, watching the woman she cared about most in the world try to salvage her relationship because of something Abbie had stupidly revealed.

"Claire, please," Rachel moved closer, her voice dropping to that soft, intimate tone she used when she was trying to calm someone down. "Look at me. Please."

Claire's breathing was ragged, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "I can't believe you never told me."

"I'm sorry," Rachel whispered, reaching out to touch Claire's face. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you. But baby, it doesn't change anything about us. About how I feel about you."

"Doesn't it?" Claire's voice was small, **** in a way that made Abbie's heart ache. "How am I supposed to believe that when you've been living with her all this time? How am I supposed to trust that there's nothing still there?"

Rachel's hands framed Claire's face, forcing her to meet her eyes. "Because I love you. Only you. I've loved you for five years, Claire. One stupid, drunken kiss, many years ago, doesn't change that."

"But you think about it," Claire said, her voice breaking. "When you look at her, you remember --"

"No," Rachel said firmly, her thumbs brushing away the tears that had started to fall down Claire's cheeks. "I don't. When I look at Abbie, I see my best friend. When I look at you ..." Her voice softened, became almost reverent. "When I look at you, I see everything I want. Everything I've ever wanted."

Claire's breathing was still uneven, but some of the wild panic in her eyes was beginning to settle. "Rachel ..."

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Rachel continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The way you laugh, the way you move, the way you look at me when you think I'm not paying attention ..." Her hands slid from Claire's face to her neck, fingers tracing the delicate line of her collarbone. "You drive me crazy, Claire. Every single day." Her finger teased further down -- Rachel knew exactly the spots on Claire's body that made her tingle, and that spot just beneath the collarbone was one of them. "And in every single way."

Rachel leaned in, slowly, as if leaving a window for Claire to pull away, but Claire didn't. The two of them held each other close in the small circle of countertop light, framed by the clatter of ice in the fridge and the barely there sound of Abbie's soft breath nearby.

Rachel pressed her lips to Claire's -- a lingering, hungry kiss that was at once apology, explanation, and demand. Claire gasped, making a tiny, **** sound, melted against Rachel, and let the wine glass in her hand tip gently against the countertop with a soft ping. Rachel's finger remained just beneath Claire's neck, softly drawing lines and circles on the small are of exposed skin above the top of her shirt. The kiss continued, though Rachel began to smile in the midst of it, feeling Claire's practically predictable response to her touch.

Abbie sat very still, holding her wine glass with both hands, mentally debating her focus between the stem of the glass between her fingers and the captivating and unignorable scene in front of her. She felt something -- not jealousy, not for either of the women -- but a longing for what she just witnessed from Rachel. A single kiss, a single word, and the entire script changed.

"Say it again," Claire whispered.

"I love you," Rachel replied, her lips still brushing against Claire's face.

"Again."

As Rachel leaned forward to kiss Claire, she slid one hand down Claire's side to cup her hip while the other hand teased her chest more, that single exploratory finger moving delicately closer to the assumed line between where she probably shouldn't touch Claire in front of Abbie -- and where she definitely shouldn't.