New Twist (closed for NauPaka

[siobhancan99]

New Twist (closed for NauPaka)

Sofia Stamatakos hovered over the sink, wolfing down a piece of toast. The Twenty-year-old was late for work, and her roommate was unfortunately her supervisor. She’d never been late before, but she was sure it would make for some awkward times in the apartment if she got a reputation at work for being a bit of a slackass. After getting hurt last year, she’d changed her major from Dance to Finance, and she’d lost some of her scholarship money. She’d moved out of the pricey dorm she was in, answering an ad for a recent graduate looking for a roommate. It had been lucky, the girl was older, but seemed to remember her from James Madison, where they’d both gone to school. She’d graduated with Sofia’s sister Stephanie, though Sofia didn’t remember her at all.

With the room also came the added benefit of the job, as the older girl’s company was hiring. The hours were enough to fill the rest of the gap left by losing her small scholarship, though she didn’t really have a lot of money for extras. Resultingly, she had to get her butt in gear as the job was pretty important and domestic tranquility was potentially at stake.

She slipped into the bathroom, at least having done her makeup already. She looked at her unruly mane, thick and falling across her face, over her shoulders, down her back. The hint of dark roots was threatening the blonde dye job, but there certainly wasn’t anything she could do about that. She gathered her thick tresses back into a sloppy pony-tail. It would have to do for today. She paused to look at herself in the mirror, taking stock.

Since quitting dance she’d put on a few pounds, but they took her from emaciated dancer to looking like a real human being. Her legs were thick, culminating in a nice round bottom that strained her yoga pants a bit. The extra pounds had put a little shake in her step, but just enough to be pleasing. At least she thought. She continued to work out, and her stomach was still flat even if she no longer had a six pack. “Maybe this is the week you meet a guy” she muttered. She’d had an older boyfriend, Mike, a former dancer. He’d dumped her on her ass when she left the program, wanting someone “more dedicated to things.” It had been a little lonely. She wasn’t going to meet anyone though if she didn’t get out of the apartment.

She tugged her crop top off and shrugged into a bra, drawing a white blouse over it. She peeled off the yoga pants hugging her toned legs, then slipped into a pair of khakis and threw some low heels in a bag before slipping into some running shoes. Grabbing her purse and her keys she muttered “fuck” as she saw the time. She’d only be 20 minutes late but she was still late.
Bounding down the stairs she ran down the street, fortunately not far from work.

 

[NauPaka]

Liora "Ora" Tapper
23 years old
5'8 of maverick smolder

Ora knew she was different from the moment she could remember. All the girls wanted to play house and fought over the boys in class all the while she just wanted to be left alone with her sticks pretending to be a knight. In the fourth grade when Mark asked her out, instead of feeling pleased with herself because he was the claimed hottest boy in class, she felt slightly annoyed and grossed out. It also didn't help that his twin sister was the much better looking of the two of them. In the sixth grade she talked about what she was feeling to her parents and where she had feared their reactions for years, they embraced her and accepted her and what she was feeling. So when she brought a girl home a few months later they weren't surprised.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The advertisement for a roommate had been online for close to two months but everyone Ora had met with at Story Time, the used*bookstore made café coffee house made local artist gallery, just seemed wrong the feeling off or like they would be too much trouble. Her last roommate had started off cool and then about six months in flipped. It was unexpected, one day they were hangout on the couch the next Brit was yelling at her for the most random things, and while Ora didn't give a shit who Brit brought over it became a whole different story when she woke up to find some tweaker masturbating at the foot of her bed.

So she had been a little slow on the draw to get caught up in roommate drama again. Yet bills had to be paid and some things were just harder to deal with alone with your own thoughts... It came as a relief when Sofia answered the ad, she instantly recognized her as the cute dancer girl from her high school. It seemed too much like a wild coincidence to let it go and tried to play it cool when she invited the girl to the apartment, reminding herself that Sofia was just looking the place over, purely professional and not a hot fling.

"The apartment is roughly 1,000 sq ft or so..." She had never been so nervous to show anyone the apartment before and tried to play it off as indifferent. "The loft is mine, your bedroom is there," She said pointing to the door directly under the loft room. "The closet is a walk-in and there is a secondary door that leads to the bathroom hallway. Not a private bathroom but it'll be mostly yours, see it's the only shower in the apartment. I got a bathroom up in the loft but it's a tub only and I'm not really one for baths. But you're more than welcome to use it." Ora turned and stepped back to give Sophia space to look around, plus she didn't need to think of her in the tub...

Yet her eyes roamed and her mind went wild with scenarios. The years had been kind to her, she had thickened in all the right places and Ora could see her body laid out on her bed, body glistening and breath quick and deep as she recovered, the room spiced with the scent of sweat and lovemaking. "Umm, it's also $200 bucks cheaper than the ad listed." Ora lied, her palms sweating at the discomfort but she wanted Sofia to say yes to her- err the apartment and it wasn't too big of a deal in the long run. Plus at that price it would have almost been too much for Sophia to say no to, and she didn't.

Deity of luck smiled at her when in the same meeting Sophia mentioned something about a job and Ora was quick to offer her a job at Story Time. Technically*there was a manager over her but she wasn't worried about it. In truth they needed another person and her and Kate had been talking about hiring someone for a few weeks now but neither*girl had taken any steps to move past just talking about it.

Sophia had honestly been the best choice Ora could have made both in terms of a roommate and an employee. She was tidy, hardworking, friendly with a good head on her shoulders... and she smelled nice, moved like water and made the cutest faces in the morning when she first woke up, her hair wild and as she stretched...

"Sophia isn't here yet."

"What?" snapped out of her daydream of Sofia by the sound of her name felt incriminating, as if Conner knew what she had been thinking about. "Not possible." She corrected him standing up from the bar stool. "She's never late, late for her is fifteen minutes early." But when Ora looked at her watch* it was fifteen past and dread formed in the pit of her stomach. Was Sophia okay, what happened to her, what if- shit there was too much to unbox down that road and she took a deep breath. "She'll be here." It was delivered with more confidence*than she felt but nonetheless Conner just nodded. "You can leave, I'm not going to make you stay over if you don't want to."

"Thanks."

With that Conner was gone for the day and Ora tried not to worry over Sophia as she took Conner's place behind the counter.

 

[siobhancan99]

Sofia burst through the door, bag over her shoulder, face flush with the run and the worry. She blanched when she saw Conner was gone and Ora was standing where she was supposed to be. She swallowed, then put on her most apologetic face, and a stream of consciousness burst from her slightly overwide mouth. “oh my god oh my god I’m so sorry please don’t fire me. I was up late and then I had tutoring in calculus which I haven’t had in like three years and I have to for my major now that I’m not in dance and that kid that tutors me, Phil, he like… picked the most inopportune time to tell me he liked me and asked me to get coffee and I was all … Phil that’s….you know I mean I wanted to say ‘wildly inappropriate since I need your help to pass calculus’ but I had to give him the whole ‘you’re eighteen you have your whole life ahead of you and you’ll find a girl who loves you for you but I just got out of a relationship and gosh two years is just such a long time difference at our age’ speech and still you know, get him to explain shit.”

She moved behind the counter, looking over at her roommate and noticing she was kind of cute. It was strange she never seemed to have a guy around, or a girl for that matter though she’d never pried into her roommate’s preferences. Some doors were better unopened, particularly with your supervisor. The rent was fabulously cheap at the apartment and the job was easy while still being demanding enough she didn’t feel like she was doing nothing all day. In short, she had hit a really sweet setup. Plus Ora was a good housemate. She was clean, and she put up with her shit. Plus she was over twenty-one which was a bit of a bonus for sure.

“I’m never late and it won’t happen again I promise. I was gonna get you coffee or something but then I realized that we have coffee here and it is dumb to bring someone coffee when there is free coffee and I was kind of hoping it would be Conner still here because you know he’s like… not super punctual. Please don’t be mad. I’ll do the dishes. I’ll take your week cleaning the bathroom.” She brushed a stray hair that had escaped her sloppy ponytail back out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. She bit her lip, looking up at her roommate with her big brown eyes. “I swear. I swear it won’t happen again.” Though she knew of course that everyone with a punctuality problem says that sort of thing, she was for the most part extremely conscientious about things like this. “Is there anything you want me to be doing?” she gestured around the store, hoping to through sheer force of continuing to talk, brush past her lateness and into another topic.

 

[NauPaka]

Relief*washed over Ora when Sofia came bursting*into the shop like a verbal wrecking ball. As a manager*she should have been concerned and she was but Sofia was too damn cute as she verbally vomited every thought that passed through her mind. Ora watched her lips move, the way they shaped words and the breaths between them. Her skin was flushed, she had run here and Ora resisted the urge to stop her worry with a kiss. That would make her worse than Phil, poor child that was just as entangled in the allure of Sofia as she was. Damn. 'Well kids are gonna be kids'* She wanted to say dismissively but what did that make her?

Knowing Sofia she let her finish her thought*process, rolling up the sleeves of her white button down*shirt to distract herself as the younger girl moved towards her. Her scent filled her nostrils, the smell of coffee and baked goods mixed with the sweet smell of Sofia. Ora moved before thinking, regaining her senses just shy of a step from Sofia. "Relax." She breathed, not sure if she was talking to Sofia or herself as she placed her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders. "This is the first time you've ever been late and you have a fantastic performance*record." Her hands warmed at the touch and she squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "It'll be fine." Ora released Sofia and stepped past her fixing her other sleeve, rolling it up to match the other one. "How about you make me a coffee and we call it even? Unless you feel like*being in my debt." Ora hadn't meant it to sound so sleazy or so sexually charged and she hoped that Sofia would ignore it once she flashed her with the most charming smile she had.

Walking away calmed Ora's mind but her body rebelled, balling her fists she closed her eyes and exhaled retreating to the book side of the store. Her palms tingled where she had touched Sofia, tightening until her nails bit into the flesh dulling the lingering feel. Ranking her pain pricked hand through her short dark hair Ora picked up her notebook and pencil and dragged the lead tip lightly over the rough paper, the start of a new sketch. Honestly it would likely just turn out to be another sketch of Sofia but idle hands or however that saying went.

 

[siobhancan99]

Sofia relaxed and shut her eyes at the feel of Ora's reassuring hands on her shoulders. The older girl would feel the tension ebb from Sofia's muscles in the brief moment of contact, and her breathing would visibly slow and soften. She inhaled, then let out a long slow breath "Well I do owe you" she laughed and then felt a sort of vague disappointment when the hands were taken away. She and Ora hadn't really been touchy or anything, but it was nice. Just a simple bit of human contact she'd been missing, but wasn't desperate enough to go seeking in the arms of her freshman math tutor.

She reached out when Ora pulled away, putting her hand on the small of the taller girl's back for a minute "Thanks Ora." Her hand rested there for a long moment then fell away. She walked into the back, getting Ora's mug down and cleaning it before fixing her a coffee. She had at least paid enough attention in the mornings to know how the girl liked her coffee, if not that much else about her.

She bustled about, passing Ora's coffee over to her, but respecting her privacy as she sketched. She moved over to a box of new books one of the night managers had bought and sighed as she went through it "More pulp sci-fi and Nancy Drew. I swear Tom thinks these things are worth a million bucks." She took the box into the back so Tom could sort it later. She came out, straightening up here and there, just being sure to be seen working even if it was a little ridiculous. She kept looking over at Ora, liking the sort of look of concentration on her face as she sketched. "Someday, you'll have to let me see what you're drawing over there." She smiled and laughed "I mean if my High school boyfriends are any indication you're probably just drawing pictures of dicks and swords." She winked to make it clear she was joking, then moved around the back of the counter again. She leaned forward a little, popping her ass out a bit, resting her weight on her elbows on the counter. She was about to make another comment when a customer came in, asking about a particular book. After a long search, they managed to find it, then she went back behind the counter, resuming her prior position. "Since you were nice enough to not ream me a new ass this morning I really will make dinner. Do you eat fish? do you have any allergies or anything?"