Chapter 1

Usual disclaimer: the events and characters are dependent on Mentor and other works, but this story should still stand by itself. See the recommended reading order at my author page. This story overlaps Part 2 of Wedding Dances (not yet posted).

Tonight at Gabby’s was rave night. Rave-light, really, the music and some of the atmosphere, but the club was still the club. Dance floor lighting was lower than usual and the DJ was playing a dark techno mix. She was a regular at the club, but I hadn’t heard her play anything so heavy before. I was dancing by myself, when I saw Kennedy come through the curtain with a tall girl in a tank top with long black hair. I didn’t recognize tank top girl, but I didn’t feel like watching them together, so I decided it was time for a drink. Non-alcoholic, unfortunately.

Outside the curtain, there were signs all around reminding us that doing drugs here would be a Very Bad Idea, rave or not. So maybe choosing a rave theme was inviting trouble, but it was a good set. I picked up a grapefruit tonic mocktail. It was a fancy drink with slices of grapefruit and a sprig of rosemary. Then I looked around.

A girl I hadn’t seen before was sitting at a table with Kayla, Anita, and others of that couple’s friend group. She had blonde hair with green streaks and a green fringe, large red glasses, and was wearing a bright red crop tube top. I was moving toward the table when she looked up to see me approaching. I saw her eyebrows rise. She nudged Kayla, who looked up and smiled at me.

Kayla raised a hand, welcoming me. I moved to the table and took the free chair across from the new girl.

“Ready for the weekend?” I asked Kayla. “Last week of freedom?”

“The wedding’s still on, if that’s what you’re asking. Anita hasn’t figured out yet that I only want her for her body.”

“I knew that from day one,” piped up Anita, in a sing-song voice, without looking around from her conversation.

“I love your hair,” said the new girl.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was admiring yours.”

“Mine’s just a color. Yours is a statement,” she said.

My hair had been colored a pale lavender for a long time, but I’d lightened it almost to white and added light blue and pink stripes a month earlier.

“It kinda is,” I agreed, with a shrug. “With the hate trans people are getting right now, I wanted to show where I stand.”

“I thought that might be it,” she said.

The girl turned to Kayla. “Are you going to introduce us, Auntie Kay?” She smirked, as if at some private joke.

Kayla rolled her eyes. “I should, but I’m not her auntie,” she said to me. “Grace, this is my cousin Tara. Piers, same as me. Tara, my friend Grace.”

Friend might be pushing our connection a little, but she did invite me to her wedding. “Hey, Tara,” I said. “Hasn’t anyone asked you to dance yet?”

She gave a quick shake of her head. Her light brown eyes darted over to Kayla, then back to me. “Has she been scaring the girls away?” I asked her. Her lips twitched, but she didn’t answer. I turned to Kayla. “Can I have her if I promise to bring her back unbroken, Auntie Kay?”

“I am an adult,” Tara said, “and I don’t think any boys are going to ask me to dance, here, are they?” She pushed her chair back. I hid my disappointment at being second best to a male dance partner.

Kayla sighed. “I’m her ride, though,” she said, “so get her back to me at some point.”

I moved around to the other side of the table to walk with Tara to the curtain. “Looks like we have a similar style,” I said.

Her eyes gave me a quick once-over.We both wore crop tops, denim cutoff shorts and sneakers with bare legs. Her top was not much more than a wide band over her ribcage, while my black top didn’t expose quite as much of my belly, but it was a tie front top with a deep V, so it showed more skin on the upper side. Though I think she filled hers out better than I did.

She was taller than me, and maybe younger than I’d first thought. We stood close, bouncing in place. The music was loud, and I had to lean close and look up to make myself heard. “Are you at college, Tara?” I asked.

“Not yet, but I’m starting this year. Here.”

“Nice! It’s a good place. I’m a senior this year. But are you transferring in? You have to be older than eighteen.”

“Nope, I just graduated high school.”

Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t have asked her to dance if I’d thought she was under twenty. I’m not Kayla, to seduce a first year.

“Why do you call her Auntie Kay?” I asked.

“She’s eight years older than me. When I was seven, she was fifteen, and a very bossy fifteen…”

“I can believe that,” I said, interrupting her.

“So I decided she was too old to be my cousin. She had to be my aunt. Now I say it to wind her up.”

“You’re here for the wedding?” I asked.

Tara frowned. She set her hands on my shoulders and drew me closer. “Try again,” she said. It was much easier to hear her over the music like this. There was a slight press of her chest to mine.

“You’re here for the wedding?”

I felt her nod against my hair. “I’m a bridesmaid. On Kayla’s side, of course. Will you be there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Your auntie invited several of the girls here, though I think she invited me because I was dating a friend of hers.”

“Are you still?” she asked.

I glanced around quickly. “Behind me and to the left. See the girl facing us with long greasy hair, in the tank top that has a neckline around her ankles?”

Tara laughed. I felt her body shake where my bra pressed into her top. “That’s her?”

“No, Kennedy’s the girl dancing with her with her back to us,” I said.

“So I guess you’re not still with her,” she said.

“Not for about ten months,” I said.

“Do you still miss her?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “but let’s not talk about her right now. Talking about your ex when you’re dancing with a cute girl is rude.”

Tara’s quick smile was merry. “I’m cute, am I?”

“You are,” I said, “but you’re also eighteen.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty-one,” I admitted.

“Well, I think you’re cute, too,” she said. “Were you really coming over to ask Kayla about the wedding?”

She had me there. “Uh, no. I was coming to ask you to dance. But I didn’t know you were eighteen. Or straight.”

Her fingers slid up my shoulders, then around my neck, lacing together, pulling me closer. “I’ll let you into a secret,” she said, her lips by my ear. “I’m only one of those things.”

She was close enough to me that keeping my hands raised while I danced, the way I had been, was likely to cause an embarrassing incident, and letting them hang at my sides would be weird, so I parked them on her waist. Under my hands, she didn’t feel at all like a teenager, especially with the now-constant pressure of her breasts against mine.

“Why the charade about dancing with a boy, then? Surely Kayla won’t care if you’re queer.”

“Kayla has been good to me,” she said. “She’s paying for my hotel, and she’s letting me house sit for her when she’s on honeymoon, so I can visit for longer. I don’t want to come out to my parents quite yet. I think they’d be supportive, but these days, who knows? If they find out before the wedding I could disrupt it with family drama. And she’s been an icon to me, you know? I didn’t even realize I was like her until I heard she was with a girl.”

Somehow I couldn’t see Kayla as an icon, but whatever. “Do you want to move further through the crowd?” It wasn’t a big crowd, honestly, but a few more gyrating bodies between us might make it harder to see into the dark.

“Good idea,” she said, steering me through the dancers as she walked me backward. Before we hit a wall, she turned us to face me away from the curtain so she could keep an eye on her cousin. “The DJ’s great,” she said.

“She’s a regular,” I said, “though I haven’t heard her play industrial or EDM before. I like it.”

As always, the DJ was performing in what seemed little more than lingerie. She was a treat to the eyes as well as the ears.

“Hiding from Auntie Kay like this reminds me of the rave I went to back home,” said Tara. Shouted, really.

“Oh, no, the hiding part, not the Kayla part,” she said. “I spent over an hour hiding in a closet with my friend Carlie so her boyfriend wouldn’t find us.”

“Why were you hiding?” I asked.

She didn’t say “Well, duh,” but it was obvious in her tone. “Because we were making out?”

“Was it worth it?” I asked.

“Well, yeah?” Tara said. “Though she wouldn’t speak to me afterward.”

“Did her boyfriend find out?” I asked.

“Uh, no. She decided she hadn’t wanted my hand down her pants. But she didn’t try to stop me at the time. And then she didn’t try to stop me again.” After a second, she added, “Uh, TMI?”

“Maybe. Guess you’re not the innocent teen.”

“I’m innocent!” Tara squawked. “Carlie’s the one who lost her, um, composure.”

I laughed. I may not be planning to take Tara to bed, now or ever, but I liked her. “So what are you coming here to study?” I asked.

“CS,” she said, “but I want to do a double CS with Math. I think I want a job in robotics, but that will be good for any kind of animation or automation, too.”

“My ex was a mathematician,” I said. “It isn’t an easy choice.”

“Maybe I’m smarter than she was,” she said.

“The arrogance of youth,” I commented. “I’m in engineering, and her work seemed harder.”

“Oh, cool, you might be a good person to get to know.”

Not gonna lie, her enthusiasm, her obvious interest, and the way her breasts kept rubbing against mine when she leaned close to talk, were all uniting to tickle my libido. I really had to get her back to her table before either of us had more carnal ideas.

“If we’re here any longer, your Auntie Kay might come looking for you,” I said, “and we’re not hiding in a closet.”

“More’s the pity,” Tara said, and I felt a thrill as I considered what she’d told me about sharing a closet with her friend. “How busy are you in the next few days? Could you show me around?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s get back to your table so we can hear each other.”

Tara nodded, and we left the dance area.

It was surprising how much the heavy mesh drapes cut the sound. Back at Kayla’s table we could talk almost normally.

“Auntie Kay, Grace is going to show me around the University,” Tara said, as she sat. The seat opposite her was still free, so I took it.

“I said maybe,” I corrected her. “Depends on the time. We only have two days before wedding activities, unless you’re skipping the axe bar.”

“Oh! Right, I’m not missing that,” Tara said, “though I’ll be around while I’m house sitting, too. How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“I could do a couple of hours after two,” I said. Really, all of my time was my own right now. My summer internship had ended, and all I had to do was buy groceries and supplies, but I got the impression Tara would try to take as much of my time as she could.

“What’s your number?” she asked, then gave me hers.

I left the table. I was going to pick up another drink, but tank top girl was leaning against the counter, Kennedy well within her personal space. She caught my eye and gave me a cold look. I decided I didn’t really need more grapefruit tonic and headed home.

There was no trace of the green in Tara’s hair when I met her the following day. Without it, her hair was medium blonde, loose and relaxed. She wore a pale blue zip-front halter, unzipped far enough to show a little bra-enhanced cleavage. The top wasn’t as short as her tube top had been, but it still left her navel exposed. Her gym shorts were dark blue with white, and covered more than her cutoffs had. Her legs between the shorts and a pair of Nikes were long and lean.

With her height and build, the thinly-drawn eyebrows and light eyeshadow, I’d have defied anyone to guess her age at under twenty. She looked like my peer, not a newly-minted first year. Not yet newly-minted, that is.

I showed her around the science buildings. The computer labs that were open were also occupied with summer classes, so we couldn’t see much there. We saw some of the larger classrooms. There wasn’t really anything she needed to see ahead of time, but we toured some of the more attractive parts of the campus. There was a rocky pond with fountains and fish which delighted her.

“If you like fishponds, we should go to the botanic gardens,” I said, surprising myself perhaps more than I did Tara. I hadn’t intended to suggest any additional tours, or anything that might seem date-like, but seeing her innocent pleasure in watching the fish, I knew she’d enjoy the gardens, and I found myself inviting her.

“Sure,” she said. “Are you free tomorrow?”

“I can be,” I said, trying to sound less enthusiastic than I felt.

I suggested we leave campus for better coffee, so we walked a couple of blocks to the coffee shop. Her eyebrows rose at the name, “Level Grind,” and she grinned at the cutesie game characters adorning the menu and coasters.

Neither of the two baristas was familiar to me. We waited for our coffees and took them to a table. “I’m surprised Auntie Kay didn’t tell me about this place,” she said. “We play the same games.”

“Yeah, we have a regular group,” she replied. “Kayla and Anita, then a woman they work with, and Nyssa. Do you know her?”

I shook my head in the negative.

“We try to get together weekly,” she said. “And being the computer chick, I host a few private games for us. While I’m here I’ve been testing that I can admin them remotely. My parents can maybe find the power button four times out of five, and I’m not going to fly home if there are problems.”