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Porto Cheli, Greece.
August 2025.
"This is so excessive."
Maryse's eyes can't look away from the cool blue waters of the Aegean Sea as they stretch out in front of them, beyond the walls of this obscenely fancy villa that Jia rented for them.
As they'd walked up to the private villa, Maryse had actually physically stopped—to gawk at the groves of olive trees that dotted the external property.
She remembers bringing up the idea to Jia as a joke.
Jia had stopped by her house after dropping Aline and Helen off at the airport, sometime in March, and had complained about not getting to see Maryse often enough.
Maryse had only quietly chuckled, steeped Jia's tea carefully and pushed the mug in her direction, offering no words of consolation or apology as she sat down next to her.
"I'm serious." Jia glared at her. "I ought to have words with the people monopolising your time. Kadir."
It got a vibrant laugh out of Maryse. "What do you think he's doing to me?"
"I don't know," Jia muttered. "Your kids don't live at home anymore—"
"Max."
"Yes, he's sixteen. Hardly a baby." She shot a small smile at Maryse. "Although, I suppose he'll always be your baby."
Maryse nodded. "Thank you."
"Still." Jia turned to face Maryse entirely, propping her arm up on the kitchen counter. "I should get to see you a little more."
"Sure," Maryse allowed.
"I'd appreciate if you would take this seriously, Maryse. We're best friends!"
Maryse laughed again. "I agree! We should see each other more."
"I miss us."
Maryse swallowed. She nodded firmly, willing her heart to settle—it should not be finding itself worked up at the mention of three simple words. "I do, too."
"Then let's do something. We used to do things!"
Jia looked younger when she got like this, all passionately frustrated. She looked younger than her forty-nine years in her righteous disappointment towards her decades-long best friend.
"You say this like you're not the one going around the world having a career," Maryse said harmlessly.
Despite retiring a handful of years ago, Jia still kept a busy calendar of work. She commentated, stepped in for shorter-term coaching gigs when the need arose, and even spent a few years being the US team Captain for the Billie Jean King Cup.
Jia's glare turned harder. It's still playful.
Maryse rolled her eyes. "What, you want to whisk me away to a remote vacation spot somewhere nobody can reach me?"
Jia stilled. "Can I?"
Maryse had laughed again.
Then she'd realised that Jia wasn't joking.
Jia had ended up recruiting the help of anyone she could—Helen, Izzy, any other moderately rich athlete she could get in contact with—to find recommendations for a place remote enough for them to take a "much needed" getaway.
She had dropped by the house again a couple weeks later, coincidentally when Alec was there after the Sunshine Double.
"Say, Alec, would you know of any vacation spots where we might not be bothered by—anybody?" Jia had asked Alec out of the blue.
Alec's eyebrows had raised, she had asked for more of an explanation, and once Jia had offered one—and Alec had laughed about it—Alec had offered, "Um, you should ask Magnus Bane."
Maryse had fixed Alec with a very pointed look. "What would Magnus Bane know about remote vacation spots—that you know of?"
Alec had harrumphed and rolled her eyes and said, "She vacations all the time, that's all. And like, um, Izzy said."
Maryse wanted to follow up on it, this suggestion of Alec's, but Jia's eyes had glimmered with excitement in the meantime.
Magnus had been a great help. Izzy had done the getting-in-touch for them, and Magnus' influence had allowed them a premier spot at one of the fanciest resort chains in the world, putting them in a remote corner of the Peloponnese region of Greece.
"Oh, come on," Jia says now, coming up to stand next to Maryse to look out the view. "It's too late to back out now."
Maryse turns to Jia with a small smile on her face. "I am most certainly not backing out. But this is excessive."
Jia turns too, her smile a lot more playful. "You are a very rich woman of very rich kids—and a rich best friend. Let yourself have this."
Maryse bobs her head. "Well, I'm not backing out, so I'll just have to, right?"
Jia flashes her a toothy smile. She really never looks old, the way Maryse thinks she herself does. Jia never got the memo to grow old. Her body only decided to age physically, her youthful joie de vivre left behind to make smile anybody who encounters it.
It makes Maryse smile. All the time.
Jia was right. It has been too long. Years, maybe.
Time has moved strangely since both of them stopped being on tour. Stranger than it was when Jia played and Maryse didn't. Jia's career keeps her busy in a myriad of ways, and Maryse has four children who—despite being mostly grown up—need her in rotating crises. Jia has Patrick. And Maryse has—
She thinks she might have Kadir.
She's not sure.
Not because Kadir is ambiguous about it, but because she is.
It's all too complicated, this well of feelings in her body towards any romantic interest. She doesn't know how much of a place she can ever earn in their lives. It's so much easier to not bother.
There is also, of course, the Jia issue.
When she smiles at Maryse the way she is doing now, all of Maryse's feelings complicate themselves in her body, in configurations that are impossible to untangle.
She has resigned herself to this. To accepting this. It makes her feel good, when it comes.
Just like now.
Jia makes a gentle pass to hold Maryse's hands. Maryse gives them to her willingly, letting herself get pulled close enough to share breath.
"Hi," Jia says, smiling.
"Hi," Maryse answers.
And then Jia releases Maryse's hands to cup her face instead, and kisses her.
Her lips are impossibly soft.
Before she knows it, Maryse's hands are going to the curve of Jia's waist, fingertips digging into her skin just so. She sighs against Jia's lips, eyes fluttering closed, and relishes the way Jia pulls her even closer.
Jia directs Maryse's hands to go around her shoulders, and Maryse lets that happen, too. She winds her arms around Jia and finds their bodies pressed together wherever they can be, and they kiss on the patio of their villa for long moments in complete and utter privacy, while the waves of the Aegean Sea crash against the shore and the sun shines brilliantly above them.
*
The villa has two bedrooms.
Maryse had read the booking notice that Jia had forwarded to her very carefully—like she does most things. There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a stunning kitchen that will be appointed with a private chef around mealtimes if they choose, an outdoor shower that Maryse tries not to think too much about, and a private pool, despite the ocean being literal footsteps away.
Still, when Maryse grabs her bags from near the doorway and heads towards one of the bedrooms to claim it, she finds that Jia follows, dumping her own bag right next to Maryse's in the very same room.
Maryse turns to Jia to try and ask if this means they're going to share the bedroom—or perhaps to try and make a jokey quip the way people like Jia herself are able to manage.
But the cardinal rule—the one Maryse has made up in her own mind and must follow strictly—states that she doesn't talk about it.
She must not acknowledge it, this thing of theirs, lest she spook Jia into pulling away altogether.
So she doesn't. She lets Jia throw open the curtains of the bedroom and look out at the ocean again, while Maryse peeks into the bathroom and makes sounds of amazement at its expanse.
They spend that first day doing nothing.
Which, for them, begins with Jia mussing up the carefully made bed and getting under the covers and declaring they need a nap to decompress from the travel.
They sleep until noon. They make coffee in the the kitchen, and when Jia says, "This is a rich people place, Maryse, we can do anything," Maryse agrees to take their mugs down to the beach so they can drink their coffees with their toes in the sand.
The unbridled time with each other is not awkward at all. It's deeply fulfilling, to be able to talk to Jia at length, about whatever she pleases, without the fear of a lurker—most likely Max—overhearing what they are talking about.
Jia has long been the person who knows all of Maryse's secrets. And now she shares them.
She listens to Jia, too, as she gossips about the Blackthorn family—Aline's in-laws—and makes remarks about some of the people on the tennis commentary circuit that she often works with. Maryse, for her part, finally confides in Jia what she suspects is approaching steadily—her eldest daughter's tumble into falling in love with Magnus Bane.
Maryse does not talk about Kadir. Jia doesn't ask.
It's so freeing. The incredibly heavy weight on Maryse's chest that makes her feel like she's underwater—and sinking steadily by the day—loosens. She legitimately feels physically lighter.
When the sun gets too hot, they move back inside and nap again. Maryse laughs deliriously when they get under the covers again but she lets it all happen. This is what they came here for. Jia's fingertips come to rest on Maryse's shoulder right before she sinks into sleep, and Maryse does not dare move them. Their bodies remain touching in some capacity the whole time, there in the cool dark of the bedroom, despite being curled around opposite ends of the bed.
Maryse wakes up first, turns her head to find Jia still asleep, her face soft and unguarded and tempting to touch.
There was a time when Maryse would run her hands through Jia's hair and find stray strands of silver. Now, it's almost all gray, prematurely so. She gently lifts her hand to Jia's short hair, tries not to jostle Jia awake as she does it again, that action that is as good as muscle memory to her. She finds stray strands of black hair.
She is still the most beautiful person Maryse has ever seen.
Beofre dinner time, Jia engages their private chef in breezy chit chat while Maryse takes a bath. There is a clawfoot bathtub in their bathroom, and Jia practically pushed Maryse in its direction while their food was being prepared for them.
Maryse has her eyes closed, warm water lapping at her shoulders comfortably, when she hears the door swing open. She opens one eye to find Jia standing in the doorway, wine glass in her hand, watching Maryse.
Maryse sinks lower into the water, trying not to display any of the consciousness she feels. "What?"
"Brought you some wine." Jia slides over the stool from the corner of the room until it's right next to the tub, and places the wine glass on it.
"Thank you," Maryse says softly, smiling up at her. "I'll get out soon."
Jia lowers one hand to Maryse's hair, running her hand through it once. "Take all the time you want."
Long after Jia is gone, despite the extremely potent wine breathing right at level with her face, all Maryse can smell is the lingering jasmine of Jia's perfume.
*
Jia wakes her the next morning with a kiss to her shoulder.
Maryse is a light sleeper. Of all the ways she has been woken up out of sleep by someone else—and my, are there a lot of ways, she has four children—this might be the best one.
One kiss turns to many more, while one hand traces up and down the length of Maryse's spine.
"I'm up," Maryse says groggily.
"Be up properly," Jia chuckles. "I've snagged us private court time."
If she weren't just surfacing after a night of sleep in a very comfortable bed, she'd roll her eyes—it is second nature to her.
"Must we?" she asks.
Jia chuckles again. "I asked you to bring your racket bag for a reason."
"I'm retired."
"Come on," Jia says wistfully, sidling up to Maryse again. "Don't you miss us? I miss us. I managed to make them shoo whatever coach guy they've got out there, too. Just for us."
Maryse really tries to blink the sleep out of her eyes this time. "Magnus Bane said they have ex-pros."
Jia nods. "Adam Whitelaw."
"Small world," Maryse mumbles. She can't help the smile that creeps up on her. "We're way better than Adam Whitelaw."
Jia beams. "There's my girl."
The Har-Tru tennis court is surrounded by the natural landscape of the earth all around it. Trees, flowering shrubs, and rocks are scattered in no precise patterns, and it is stunning enough that Maryse forgets that Jia is forcing her to play tennis on vacation.
Her racket bag is a familiar weight over her left shoulder. It's been a while since she's even looked inside it, but her body will always remember.
She places her bag down on the singular bench right by the gate to the court and turns around, putting a hand up to her face to shield herself from the sun. Jia is a few feet away, making conversation with Adam, who sees Maryse looking and beckons her over.
They'd been acquaintances in New York briefly. Adam never liked Robert too much, and if Maryse's instincts were right, it also made him dislike Maryse.
He's very pleasant to her now.
He bids them adieu quickly, trusting that Maryse Trueblood and Jia Penhallow know their way around a tennis court.
Maryse slips a visor on, tightens her ponytail, and pulls a racket out of her bag. It's a brand new racket. She may not play regularly, but she keeps her kit current.
She runs her fingers over the taut strings, pressing so she can really feel it.
"Hey!" Jia calls, from where she's already standing at the baseline on the far end of the court. She's bouncing a ball with one hand and gesturing to beckon Maryse over with the other.
Maryse goes.
"Rally?" Jia calls.
"You've given me no choice," Maryse calls back.
They play. It starts easy. They trade groundstrokes from the baseline until they find their rhythm.
Maryse was afraid that it wouldn't happen at all. That her body had forgotten how to do this altogether, like a machine that has gathered enough rust that its parts don't move anymore.
It was how she had felt all the way back then, too. She'd avoided picking up a racket until she was made to do it. Alec had been no older than eleven or twelve months, and Jia had come by to try and coax Maryse out of the house, to try and rouse her into a very easy, low-stakes round of tennis.
Robert had hovered uncomfortably and said, "She doesn't want to, Jia, she just said it."
Jia had ignored him completely. She had known what was best for Maryse, even if Maryse had wanted to remain inside her house and hold her baby girl close to her own body and never let go.
She'd thought her leg would simply collapse, all those years ago.
She felt that way now, about her entire body.
But it doesn't happen. Her body remembers everything. Her body remembers the feel of the court when she's actually playing on it. It remembers the feel of a racket in her hand. It remembers the sight of Jia across her, alive and strong and beautiful.
She realises soon that Jia's forehand is still quite lethal. And that her own slice—the one many athletes today cannot replicate—is still so smooth it's obscene.
They're breathing hard enough, and Jia comes close to the set to challenge, "One set?"
Maryse grins. "You're so on."
It's really not serious tennis. They're not keeping official score—they try, but they keep getting distracted. They're not really trying to kill each other. But the competitive spark lives inside Maryse's body, in her heart, the same one she's imprinted onto her daughters, and so its almost impossible to not try to do some damage.
Jia wins 6-4, and Maryse is somehow not even that mad about it.
They sit at the end of the bench catching their breaths when they're done, passing a water bottle back and forth and coming down from the high.
Maryse, as she finds her breath again, says the same words she said to Jia all those years ago. "Thank you."
And Jia says, if Maryse can recall correctly, pretty much the same thing in response. "I can't have my gold star girl staying on the bench forever."
Maryse looks down at her feet and tries not to smile like an idiot.
*
They spend the afternoon in the water.
The ocean is absurdly blue. The water is warm and clear and perfect. Maryse swims until her shoulders ache, Jia floats on her back and lets the current rock them. They keep catching each other's eye, smiling uninhibitedly and really, truly enjoying themselves.
When Maryse has had enough, she wades out of the water and collapses front-first onto the gigantic blue beach towel they'd spread out. Her book is nearby, and once her hands are dry, she will pick up where she'd stopped reading.
She does exactly that while Jia stays out in the water. There is sand that dries crisp on her fingers and she finds that she doesn't mind, even if it does lodge some in between the pages of the book. It will be a nice reminder of this vacation later.
When Jia does come back to Maryse, she says as a greeting, "Don't move."
Maryse obeys, but asks, "What?"
"Don't move."
Jia sits down cross-legged next to her, but Maryse keeps her eyes on her book, trying to focus on the words.
She feels Jia's fingers come to her back, and then feels a seashell come to rest gently on the very top.
"What are you doing?" Maryse asks, trying not to laugh too much and displace the seashell.
"Nothing," Jia says distractedly.
She keeps feeling it. A row of seashells, trailing all the way down to her lower back, placed there carefully by Jia. She even senses Jia rearrange them occasionally, and when asks, she gets told that they are being arranged by size.
Maryse abandons her book. Instead, she folds her arms into the soft sand and rests her head on them, turning her head to the side to try to catch a glimpse at Jia.
She stays like that for as long as she can. She hears the shutter of Jia's camera once or twice, but still, she does not move.
Later, Jia picks up each and every seashell in a cupped palm.
Maryse says softly, "We can't take those. They're an integral part of the ecosystem—"
"Maryse," Jia laughs. "You don't think I've learned that, in all my years of knowing you?"
Jia scatters the shells back out into the sand, and Maryse tries not to feel bereft about it.
When they finally head back to the villa, they're sunburned and salt-sticky and there is sand everywhere.
Jia showers first. Maryse goes after, standing underneath the rainfall shower head and letting the water sluice away the ocean and the sand and the lingering touch of Jia's fingers along her back. She's aware, distantly, that Jia is just on the other side of the bathroom door, probably stretched out on the bed in the bathrobe they've been provided, hair damp and smelling like jasmine.
When she emerges, wrapped in a towel, Jia is indeed on the bed. Maryse considers briefly heading back into the bathroom and pulling on the bathrobe. She resists.
Jia is sitting up, however, contrary to how Maryse pictured her. She's holding something in her hands.
"I was looking for sunscreen," Jia says carefully. "I know you always keep some in your racket bag."
"Yeah?" Maryse says, one hand placed to her chest to needlessly hold up the already-secure towel.
"I found this instead," Jia says, and stands up.
She is holding a sheet of stickers.
Gold stars.
Maryse feels her belly give a complicated swoop.
The stickers are practically ancient—the edges of the sheet are curling and yellowed, the backing is peeling slightly.
She'd bought them as a joke years ago. Decades ago. Jia had a habit of saying gold star after each good rally, every clean winner, every well-played match, as if rewarding Maryse with something just by saying those two words.
She'd showed them to Jia as a joke after they'd won the Wimbledon Doubles Final in 1995, and Jia's face had gone utterly soft as she'd peeled stickers off the sheet and adorned Maryse's skin with them.
The remaining sheets—all bought around that same time—have lived in her racket bag since. She's never had the heart to take them out.
"I can't believe you kept these," Jia says, smiling, soft and wondering.
"I forgot they were in there," Maryse says weakly.
It's a lie. She's always had the awareness of them being tucked into an inside pocket. She just didn't think Jia would go looking for them.
"Can I—" Jia cuts herself off, biting her bottom lip. Her finger traces the edge of the sheet. "Can I give you one?"
Maryse's throat goes dry. "I lost today."
Jia laughs softly. "No, you didn't."
She steps closer. She peels one off carefully. Maryse thinks she would be able to hear the sound of it coming off the paper if she were closer.
But when Jia tries to press it to Maryse's bare shoulder, it doesn't stick, and instead goes flying to the floor gracelessly. The glue is too old. It's dried out.
They both laugh, a little breathless.
"Shame," Maryse murmurs, trying to regulate her breathing.
The corner of Jia's lips curls up in a smile. "Hang on."
Maryse watches carefully, unable to look away, as Jia peels another sticker off and brings it up to her mouth. Her tongue darts out. She licks the back of the sicker.
Maryse stops breathing.
Jia steps closer, and they're sharing breath now. She presses the sticker somewhere below Maryse's collarbone, right above the towel. Her thumb presses, trying to make sure the sticker stays, smoothing the edges down mindlessly.
Maryse can feel it. She can feel each edge of the sticker on her skin.
"There," Jia whispers.
She can't breathe.
"Jia," Maryse whispers back.
Jia ducks her head, still looking at Maryse, and presses her lips to the gold star in a kiss. Just barely. It's only a brush of her lips.
Maryse's hands fly to Jia's shoulders, over the soft terrycloth of the bathrobe.
Jia lifts her head again, and this time her lips go to Maryse's.
Maryse accepts.
There has never been a discernible pattern to their—trysts. All the times before, in hotel rooms, in the backs of cars, in Maryse's kitchen pantry while ostensibly looking for something, they've always been… careful. Almost restrained.
They kiss freely, of course. They kiss until they're dizzy, until Maryse is making soft sounds into Jia's mouth, until her hands are trying to tug at Jia's silky hair, but they always stopped at a reasonable point.
But right now, Maryse's hands have fallen away from her towel, and no matter how securely she'd wrapped it around herself, when Jia's body brushes against hers and they move in fluid rhythms as they kiss, it drops right to the floor.
Maryse gasps, eyes shut tight, still kissing Jia, and Jia moans, too, suddenly very aware of everything.
Jia's hands skim the soft skin of Maryse's bare back and Maryse arches into it, letting Jia take whatever, give her whatever, let them have whatever they can.
They kiss each other with equal desperation, each of them at a pinnacle of compatibility with each other. As Maryse's hands tangle in Jia's damp hair, Jia's hands slide lower, until she's palming at Maryse's ass hungrily.
Maryse pushes at Jia's shoulders then, not to push her away, but only in the direction of the bed. Jia understands at once.
Maryse goes first, tumbling onto the bed and adjusting so she can welcome as Jia climbs on too, both of them panting.
Jia's lips go from Maryse's lips to the corner of her mouth, bite gently at her ear, trail lower and lower, until she's whispering against Maryse's throat, "You're still wet."
Maryse feels a jolt of something hot and electric travel up her spine just at those harmless words. "From the shower," she tries, but the arching of her back gives away how she truly feels.
"Mmm."
Jia's mouth trails upwards again. She kisses Maryse once, twice, a third time—deeper—and then pulls away, touching their foreheads together. "You want to take this off me?"
Maryse's heart stops. She worries.
She worries that she will take Jia's bathrobe off and Jia will scamper off her, holding something up to her chest and moving all her belongings into the other bedroom, for Maryse crossed a line.
She worries that Jia might laugh in her face, that Maryse thought this was possible at all.
Her eyes must give her away, because Jia says softly, "Hey. It's okay."
Maryse nods frantically. She feels so much younger in all her insecurity, like this is something a much younger version of herself should be worrying out. Like this is something she should've grown out of by now.
Still.
"It's okay, M." Jia kisses the tip of her nose, and then her lips. "Take it off me, please."
It's a direct request.
Maryse's trembling hands go to the tie of Jia's robe, sliding it free and pushing the robe off Jia's strong shoulders. Jia wiggles playfully to push the material off her back, and Maryse—in a moment that takes a lot of bravery—bunches the robe up in her hands and flings it across the room.
Jia giggles, reattaching her lips to Maryse's, and it's so fucking perfect, it's all Maryse has ever dreamed Jia's body would feel like pressed against her own.
Her skin is soft everywhere. It carries marks of age, parts of her softer than Maryse remembers, but Jia is still as beautiful as ever.
Jia's hands finally wander. She straddles Maryse instead of hovering over her, sitting down primly over Maryse's torso, and her hands go to Maryse's breasts as if she's been waiting to do it for a lifetime.
"Mary," Jia breathes, and Maryse makes a soft sound, entirely unbidden, at the pet name. Nobody else has ever been allowed to call her that. "You are so beautiful."
Maryse almost wants to argue this. She's forty-seven years old. She's had three children and raised four. Her body is nothing like it once used to be.
But then Jia asks, "Have you always been this beautiful?"
And Maryse can't help but whisper, "I think so."
It makes Jia laugh. Her eyebrows knit together and she laughs, lowering herself to press kisses to Maryse's shoulders, the hollow of her throat, her chest, while her fingers keep touching her wherever she can in desperate motions.
They kiss so much. They kiss as they learn all this new topography of each other. Jia's hands keep mapping Maryse's body like she's studying it, while Maryse's own go where they can—to Jia's thighs and her waist and tracing a line up her belly and between her breasts until she can brush her thumbs over her nipples.
Maryse lets herself be touched with less apprehension she's shown with anybody else in a long fucking time.
She feels worshipped. And adored.
Jia's body moves eventually, lower until her thigh slots between both of Maryse's, and she can feel it at once, pressing against where she wants Jia most, and she makes a sound she doesn't recognise before she can help it.
"Okay?" Jia asks, stilling.
Maryse nods frantically again, feeling her eyes gather with tears, feeling her hands start to shake a little more.
"Hey," Jia whispers again. "Say it's okay."
Maryse breathes sharply, trying to get herself under control.
"I'm not going anywhere," Jia murmurs right by Maryse's ear. "I'll be here forever, if you want. Just say it's okay, M."
Maryse forces the words out. "It's okay."
Jia lifts slightly, smiling coyly. "Just okay?"
Maryse brings her hands to Jia's face, holding it desperately. She looks into Jia's warm brown eyes and finds no doubt in them, and she tries to draw strength from that certainty.
"I want you," she whispers. "So much."
Jia beams. "Good."
She begins rocking against Maryse, slow at first but deliberate right from the start, and Maryse surrenders herself to it. She meets Jia's rhythm enthusiastically, hitching her hips up and down so Jia's thigh grinds against her core perfectly.
Her frantic insecurity washes away in a few quick breaths. It leaves the room, creating space for eagerness and unabashedness, that Maryse welcomes while it is accessible to her.
It's all so good.
They move in perfect harmony, moaning in sync, jolting in sync, meeting each other's lips in perfect sync.
Jia whispers against Maryse's skin, "You're perfect."
Maryse keens, burying her face in Jia's neck. She's close already, wound so tight she might shatter. She's been wound this tight for years.
Jia shifts, gets her hand between them, pressing two fingers to Maryse's clit with the kind of pressure that makes Maryse question how Jia got it so perfect. It's perfect.
Maryse pushes up into Jia's hand, hands grabbing the back of Jia's head, and she cries out, feeling unbearably grateful for this capacious villa now.
"Let me," Jia whispers, "Let me, sweetheart."
Maryse's heart flutters at the pet name. She lets Jia.
Jia's fingers slide up and down Maryse's heat, and with a few wordless nods of their heads, she sinks them inside, slow at first and then insistent and perfect, and she pushes them upwards, making Maryse's toes curl into the sheets, back arching up in a perfect bow.
Jia's hips are moving rapidly now, getting herself off on Maryse's thigh as she touches her, and eventually she bends down, nipping at Maryse's earlobe, and whispers, "Come."
Maryse does. She shatters around Jia's fingers, arms closing around Jia's body to keep her as close as she can, and she feels Jia shatter with her, crying out into Maryse's shoulder, no doubt leaving evidence of her pleasure along Maryse's skin, and that prospect alone is enough to push her orgasm to higher depths than she thinks she's experienced in quite a while.
Jia leaves soothing kisses along Maryse's overheating skin as they come down from their orgasms. Maryse floats for a moment, boneless as ever.
When she comes back to herself, Jia's lips are at her temple, moving lower to her cheek and then her jaw.
"Hi," Jia whispers, much like she did when they walked into the villa for the first time.
"Hi," Maryse whispers back, trying to hide her face from Jia unsuccessfully.
"Hey!" Jia says, laughing now, "Let me look at you, come on."
"No," Maryse insists, trying to buck Jia off her so she can curl away but Jia's perfect weight goes nowhere. Jia gently turns Maryse's face in her hands to get her to look. Still, as they make eye contact, Maryse whispers again, "No."
Jia laughs. She kisses Maryse once more, quick and chaste. "You are so pretty."
Maryse sticks her tongue out. She feels braver than she has in a long time. She doesn't want to ever stop feeling this way.
Jia slides off her, curling into Maryse's side now, adjusting their bodies so they're tucked together perfectly.
"Gold star girl," Jia whispers.
"Hmm?"
"You'll always be the only gold star girl." Jia meets Maryse's eyes. "Remember?"
She does. Jia used to call her that.
"I remember," Maryse whispers.
They lie like that for a long time, catching their breath, their heartbeats gradually slowing.
Eventually, Jia reaches for her phone from the bedside table.
"What?" Maryse asks.
"Going to tell them not to send the chef," Jia murmurs, putting the phone up to her ear.
Maryse smiles.
When Jia ends the call and indicates for Maryse to put her head on Jia's chest, Maryse goes willingly. She can smell jasmine everywhere.
She falls asleep to the feeling of Jia's fingers in her hair and that of their bodies being perfectly in sync.
*
The rest of the trip is just as easy.
They don't talk about what happened. They simply don't need to.
They play tennis in the mornings. They swim in the afternoons. On the third day they meet a couple around their age who says they used to watch Maryse and Jia on their tiny television in their first apartment. Maryse poses for a picture for a fan in a very long time.
Maryse knows that Jia recognises how important this feels to Maryse. Jia's fingers brush against Maryse's cheek in a silent gesture as they walk away from the couple. Maryse wishes Jia would do it forever.
They have long dinners in various parts of the villa each night. Sometimes prepared by their chef. Sometimes leftovers of last night. One night it is simply a bottle of wine each.
At night, they fall into bed together like it's the most natural thing in the world. Jia presses gold stars to her skin every night, to Maryse's cheeks, her breasts, above her navel, down the line of her spine. She clusters them like freckles around her shoulders and lower back, and she presses kisses to each one in a kind of reverence that will never escape Maryse's memory even if she tries.
It becomes that, to Maryse, over the span of a few short nights. Natural.
It has always been natural, feeling this deeply about Jia.
On their last evening, they sit on the patio of their villa and watch the sunset. Maryse has her legs pulled to her chest. Jia turns to Maryse and makes her untangle her tightly-held posture.
She kisses her right there, outside of the confines of the dark bedroom they're sharing, against a backdrop of stunning yellows and pinks of a setting sun.
Maryse wishes they could stay forever.
She thinks this all the way back, even as they hold hands over the divider of their adjoining first class seats, even as they sync up the same movie on their airplane TVs so they can try to watch together.
She thinks this as she catches the profile of Jia's face at baggage claim, as Jia hauls even Maryse's bags off the belt for her.
She thinks this as her eyes find Kadir in the sea of people outside arrivals.
Jia's hand tenses in Maryse's once before letting go. She turns to Maryse with an easy smile. "I didn't know he was coming to pick you up."
Maryse tries giving her that same easy smile. "I didn't know either."
Kadir pleasantly kisses Maryse's cheek when they meet, and offers a warm smile to Jia. He offers to drop Jia home on their way to Maryse's. Jia takes him up on the offer.
As Jia's getting out of the car where she's been dropped off, Maryse rolls down the window and whispers to her, "Bye."
Jia smiles. She lifts a hand and brushes it across Maryse's cheek. She leaves without a goodbye.
Maryse feels the sensation of Jia's fingers on her skin the whole way home.