“Are you nervous?”

“Hmm?” Mel looked up from her phone, nestled between her thighs on Bekah’s comfortable passenger seat. “No, not really. I don’t think, at least. Should I be?”

“I would be if I was you.” Bekah said, never taking her eyes off the road even as she spoke. “I mean, you quit right? How can you be sure that they’ll take you back?”

“Ummm, well first off I texted Andy and he sent me back three star eyed emoji and an all caps “YES” so like…”

“Right okay sure, but what if he changes his mind? What if he’s mad at you and just hiding it?”

Mel stared at Bekah. “Do you… live like this?”

That was enough to startle Bekah from her single minded focus on driving enough to glance over at Mel with a shocked expression, if only for a moment before her eyes were pulled magnetically back to the road. “What does that mean?”

Mel flushed, embarrassed. “I mean… are you like, always worried that people are lying to you? And like, being nice to lure you in?”

“Umm. Yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Wow. That kinda explains a lot, actually.” Mel leaned back and sighed. “Do you feel that way about me?”

Bekah took a moment to think. “Huh. No, I don’t think I do. That’s new.”

“Something to talk to Hana about?”

“Seriously,” Bekah laughed. “God, it’s so weird that we have the same therapist.”

“I think it’s sweet! She can tell you the things I have a hard time saying, so you know what’s going on and stuff.”

“Mel, no, what? No I’d never do that. You have a right to your privacy, everywhere but especially in therapy. Christ, that’s fucked up.”

Mel mumbled.

“What was that?”

“I said don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“That wasn’t all you said.” Bekah said, a hint of sternness in her voice that made Mel’s tummy go a little soft.

Mel stayed silent for a second, feeling the heat rise to her face. “I said ‘what if I don’t want a right to privacy’.”

“Wow. Um. Woof. Okay, we’ll unpack that later.”

They’d found a sort of truce, after the chaos of their first day together. Bekah still didn’t accept her role as Mel’s Hypnotist, but she had, Mel thought, come around to the idea of taking some kind of dominant role in their relationship. And there would be a relationship, a fact that kept Mel’s heart warm when doubt crept in. Her Soulmate did want her, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how. As far as Mel was concerned, the rest would work itself out with time and God’s grace. Whenever something like this came up though, Bekah pulled back. It would take Mel a while to convince her new owner to embrace the role, but she had faith. For now, she waited.

***

Bekah sat in silence, tense enough that she could feel her neck muscles tightening. Why had she said that? They were doing so well, but whenever Mel brought up one of her what Bekah was starting to mentally call “slave beliefs”, Bekah just couldn’t help but recoil. When Mel said that she didn’t want a right to privacy it was like touching a live wire, her mind shying away from fully exploring that concept, scared of what it might mean if it was real. Scared for Mel, of course. Not for how she might feel about it.

After her curt dismissal, the best she could manage under the circumstances, Mel sat silently and Bekah couldn’t think of anything to say. And so they drove in silence until she pulled into a small parking lot. A sign indicated the cute squat building that perched there was indeed Frog’s Bottom, the coffee shop Mel had used to work at. And would work at again, if today went as well as Mel hoped. Bekah was less confident than the buxom blonde sitting in silence to her side seemed to be, but then again she’d always had trouble finding confidence in anything that still had even the smallest potential to go wrong. She really should bring that up with Hana.

“Well, we’re here.” 

Mel perked right up like nothing had ever happened. Bekah genuinely couldn’t tell whether she really wasn’t as bothered as Bekah was, or if she was just really good at hiding it. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it, like she did normally. It was true, what she’d told Mel. She… trusted her, trusted her to be open and honest with her emotions instead of hiding it behind polite veils and hidden agendas. Bekah didn’t know why, but she did. Another thing to talk to Hana about, she supposed.

“C’mon, lets go!” Mel’s smile shone brilliantly through Bekah’s rolled down window, mere inches away from her face.

“What?” Bekah said, startling backwards. “How did you get there?”

“While you were grumping I got out of the car and walked around it? Like a normal person?”

“I- what? I was not grumping.”

“Sure boss, whatever you say.” Mel said, smiling broadly. “Now are you coming?”

“I thought I was just dropping you off? I have class in like an hour and-”

“C’mooooooooon.” Mel grabbed Bekah’s arm and tried to pull her bodily through the open window. Goddamn that girl is strong. “I wanna show you off to my friends! And besides, won’t class go better with some coffee in you?”

“Fine, fine, let go of my arm you weirdo!” Bekah laughed, unable to hold it in in the face of Mel’s overwhelming puppy-like joy. “I’m coming.”

They approached the door together, Mel walking ahead for once instead of her usual side by side or pace or two behind. She threw open the doors and yelled out “Mommy’s home!”

Bekah’s mouth hung open. Mommy’s home?? She shook herself out of the momentary daze at the seeming shockingly out of character behavior from her soulmate. We’ll interrogate that later. Or never. Maybe never.

Following Mel through the open she was immediately treated to the sight of a charming if disheveled cafe, complete with cute frog designs sprinkled throughout and a framed kitschy poster with “Deny Defend Depose” written in wine mom font hanging behind the counter. She didn’t have much time to contemplate the decorations as her attention was immediately drawn to the cluster that had formed around Mel. An older Asian man with greying shaggy hair and a young alt women straight out of 2007 MySpace had enveloped the blonde girl in what could only be described as a glomp and were chanting “Sandwich, Sandwich, Sandwich!!” at the top of their lungs. Bekah would have been alarmed if not for the thousand megawatt smile beaming out at her from the center of the sandwich, making her heart ache. Oh. So this is what she looks like when she’s happy.

“Bekah!!! Guys, back off a moment!” Mel pushed her way through the grasping arms of what must be her coworkers and ran to take Bekah’s arm, giggling all the while. “Bekah, this is Andy, my old boss, and my friend Viv.” She ignored the man - Andy - pantomiming a dagger to the heart moaning about how he didn’t count as a friend anymore, and continued. “And guys, this is Bekah. My- My soulmate.” She flushed a bright red and Bekah pulled her tight against her side without thinking.

“Um. Hi.” 

Viv, the girl with the dramatic eyeliner walked up to Bekah and glared at her, lips drawn taut in a serious expression. “You get points for bringing her back, but if you hurt our Mel I want you to know that I will kill you.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Sorry, to clarify. You can hurt her as much as you want, I know she’s into that. But if you hurt her, I know how to hide a body.” Without giving Bekah a chance to respond, she plucked Mel’s arm from her grasp and pulled the shorter girl towards her. “Now c’mon Mel-belle, let's surprise Jed! I bet we can make him burn himself if we time it right!”

The conversational whiplash left Bekah stunned. She didn’t even register Andy moving towards her until he patted her on the shoulder with a companiable sigh. “Sorry about Viv. We’re all a little protective of Mel. I’m sure you get it.”

“I… I guess I do. I’ve only known her for a couple days but…”

“Something about that girl, you just know she’s worth protecting, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she really is.”

A high pitched shriek rang out from the door Mel and Viv had disappeared down moments before. Andy sighed again. “Aaand that’ll be Jed. I really hope they didn’t make him drop the cookies. Mrs. Potts has been waiting for ages for a fresh one.”

“I’m really sorry to have just dropped in on you like this, I didn’t even think of how disruptive this must be…” Bekah trailed off as Andy laughed and shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it. Seriously, don’t worry about it.” He took a deep breath, face drawing together tightly. “We’re just grateful to see her. When she left… we weren’t sure if she’d ever come back.”

Bekah’s chest tightened in sympathy with the grief that lurked just beneath those words. This was what she fought against, this system that pulled people apart and destroyed communities because of some stupid tattoo. She’d spent barely any time here, but it was already clear that Frog’s Bottom and the people that worked her were Mel’s home. And they’d been ready to give her up, to give her over to Bekah, someone none of them had ever met. If Bekah had been more like your average ownership marked type, Mel might have disappeared from their lives forever and spent the rest of her life in a basement. It sparked a fire in her chest, thinking of her beautiful bubbly girl, locked away and reduced to nothing but a thing. Andy was right. She was worth protecting. 

“I-, I mean, she wants to keep working her. If there’s any chance she can get her old job back.”

Andy raised his eyebrows at her appraisingly. “You’re going to let her come back to work.”

A wave of anger rose up from the fire in Bekah’s chest. “Not my call to let her. She wants to, that’s what matters.”

“You’re not what I was expecting, for Mel’s Princess.” Bekah didn’t bother to correct him. “But I’m certainly not going to complain about getting her back.”

A Black man about Bekah’s age burst through the door to the kitchen precariously balancing a tray of steaming cookies in front of him and trailing two women, each holding onto a shoulder and trying to drag him back with them. He shook them off with a snort and the sudden lack of resistance sent them stumbling backwards. Setting down the cookies by the glass display case that took up much of the counterspace, he dusted off his hands and gave Bekah a quick once over and a firm nod. Jed - for it had to be Jed - started shifting the treats into their proper place and pointedly ignoring the two giggling girls who’d finally managed to push their way back into the main space. 

“If you’re done harassing my pastry chef…?” Andy asked Mel, flushed a bright pink with excitement and joy. It was a good look on her. She stifled another giggle and offered Andy a salute.

“At your service, boss!”

That little sobriquet, pointed at someone who was definitely not her sent a spike of emotion through Bekah’s body, even if she couldn’t immediately identify what exactly it meant. Was she… jealous? No. No that couldn’t be it.

She was spared further self-interrogation, thankfully, by the squeal of joy Mel let out in response to Andy’s comment, presumably letting her know about getting her job back.

“Now why don’t you run down to the basement and grab some fresh beans to make your Princess a latte, Possum?”

“Oh she’s not my-”

Bekah cut her off, not wanting to get into the conversation about how much of a degenerate pervert the universe had declared her to be with a man she thought she might end up seeing as a friend. At least not yet. Thankfully her Mark was small enough that it was difficult to make out the words unless you were right up close. “Possum?” she asked Mel.

“I’ll explain it to her kiddo. You get started.” Mel snapped Andy a tight salute and he chuckled before continuing to Bekah. “So, first of all you gotta understand I’m a bit of a nerd. Taught classics for a lot of years before losing all hope in academia and getting started in food. ‘Possum’ means something like ‘I can do that’ in Latin. And well, you’ve met Mel.”

Bekah laughed. “Aha. I understand completely.”

Andy returned her grin, but his expression sobered quickly. “Beyond that… how much has Mel told you about her past?”

She paused for a second, thinking it through. They… hadn’t really talked that much about the past, had they? Bekah had told her a little bit about her moms and her school, and Mel had mentioned the coffee shop but nothing before. She didn’t really know anything about Mel, did she? Bekah was completely ignorant about the life of the woman she now legally owned. She flushed a shameful red. “I, uh. We’ve been more focused on the present, and figuring out what to do next. It hasn’t really come up.”

“Sure yeah I get you. Well, um, it isn’t exactly my story to tell. Suffice it to say that Possum came about cause the first time I met your girl she was rummaging through my trash for something to eat. She was about fifteen, I think.”

“Oh.” Oh. Bekah’s ears rang, her pulse beating a tattoo just as deep as the Mark that played its way across her cheek. “Um, yeah, maybe this is something I should talk about with her.”

He nodded, the kindness in his eyes almost painful to her. “Sounds like a good idea.”

She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve kindness, or understanding, or anything. Bekah didn’t know anything about Mel, and she’d completely taken over her life. Sure, some of that was legal nonsense, and there was working with Mel’s own misconceptions, but. Oh god, no wonder Mel was so messed up. She must have some serious trauma, to have ended up on the street eating out of the trash as a teenager. And Bekah hadn’t even bothered to ask, just assuming her problems were from societal conditioning, easily fixed by her superior knowledge and reasoning. What a fucking moron she was. 

“I um. I have to go. Would you tell Mel that I’ll pick her up at five?”

“Oh, sure no problem. You sure you can’t stay for a coffee? I promise, our Possum is as quick as a whip with Old Betsy, that’s the espresso machine. It’ll only take a minute.”

“No, no, sorry I really have to run.” If only she could run, run out into the cold fresh air until her blood cooled and her pulse stopped pouding and she could think again. “I really have to go,” she said mechanically, already turning towards the door. “It was nice to meet you, Andy. Thank you for taking care of Mel.”

Without waiting for a response she strode back outside and flung herself into the drivers seat. What she needed was a minute, an hour to compose herself. To tell Mel she wasn’t abandoning her and running away again, that she was just being stupid and letting her emotions get the better of her. That she wouldn’t leave Mel on the street, the way somebody had to have done before. But she didn’t have time for that, didn’t have time to think things through and calm down and explain.

Bekah had a meeting to get to.