Chapter Text
“So wait, hold on, you called the prison?”
Eve knew it had to be good when she called in to say hi to Suki and was immediately whisked across the road for a coffee. It was Saturday morning and Kathy’s was busy, but Suki was seemingly too distracted to care about the occasional look cast their way.
“Yeah. I told them that I’d heard Nish has been getting drugs off one of his visitors.”
Eve considered this. “That could come back on Ravi, you know.”
She couldn’t tell if he was really a bad egg - what with the dealing and his apparent contact with Nish - or if he was just misguided. Her gut told her that he was like a lot of defendants she’d seen, up on drugs charges - a kid who’d fallen through the cracks and had no adult in their lives with enough of a moral compass to help them up.
“Good,” Suki said, bluntly. “If he’s smart, it’ll spook him into staying away from Nish. If he’s stupid, he’ll go down for dealing, eventually, and I won’t have to keep going through my son’s drawers for drugs.”
“And either way, the visits and calls will stop and Nish loses his man on the outside.” Eve was getting used to the chaotic plans Suki came up with when she felt back into a corner. She just hoped she was never on the receiving end of one. “What did his lawyer say?”
“That Ravi wasn’t lying. He’s refusing to sign divorce papers.”
Eve nodded. “Right, well, he can’t hold you hostage. A judge will grant it eventually with or without him.”
“Yeah, but that could take months couldn’t it? Years?” Suki rubbed her forehead. “Everytime I think I’m free of him…”
“Hey,” Eve said, taking her hand across the table. “You are. He can throw whatever tantrum he wants to - you have the kids, the business, the dashingly hot girlfriend.” Suki’s smirk was slight, but it was there. Eve stroked the back of her hand. “You won, Suki.”
“Alright, ladies?” They were interrupted then by Kathy, with their order of two coffees and two pastries. Suki slipped her hand out from under Eve’s, a habit she had yet to break.
“Oh, I’m not judging ya,” Kathy said, giving a little shrug as she passed them their cups and plates. “The luck I have with men, might try it myself.”
Eve couldn’t keep from laughing at that. As Kathy left them to it, Suki gave her a look. In their nightly phone calls, they had taken to ranking the various reactions of her neighbours to the news she was a lesbian. So far, Eve’s favourite was Kim Fox, who’d bought a packet of sponge biscuits from the shop and then hastily clarified they were the only lady fingers she was after.
“Aw come on, that one was funny.”
“Yeah, well, I’m bored of it now.” Suki sulked from behind her coffee. “The Slaters had better have some drunken row in the street tonight to give everyone something else to talk about.”
She was referring to Stacey’s hen party, which was the reason Eve was spending the weekend in Walford. Stacey didn’t want a fuss, but Kat had locked down a group of male strippers and the karaoke machine was being set up in the Vic.
“Watch it, you,” Eve said, tucking into her croissant. “That’s my honorary family you’re talking about. You’re gonna have to get over this grudge you have before Stacey’s wedding.”
“Oh?” Suki blotted at her mouth with her napkin. “Why’s that?”
Eve couldn’t tell if Suki was being coy or oblivious. “Eh, cause you’re my plus one, obvs.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, aye, might have known you’d play hard to get.”
Suki pulled a face. “Stacey’s not gonna want me there.”
She wasn’t wrong. When Eve had brought it up, Stacey had whacked her arm hard enough to leave a bruise. “I thought it was a fling, Eve! Now you want her in my bloody wedding pictures?!”
“Let me worry about Stacey.” After the amount of alcohol Eve planned on them consuming tonight, Stacey would be easy to wear down. “I’m wearing blue, by the way. We could match. Have I ever told you how stunning you look in blue?”
She wasn’t kidding. Suki’s royal blue jumper was still her favourite. Eve, who had spent years dodging anything deeper than a one-night stand, was familiar enough with her girlfriend’s jumper rotation that she had a favourite. It was almost comical.
“You can charm me into a lot of things. A Slater wedding is not one of them.”
“I love a challenge, me.” Eve‘s smile slipped. “Seriously though. Will you think about it?”
“I’d have to get someone to keep an eye on the shop. And then there’s the kids.” Suki smirked. “Don’t worry. I’ll go to her next one.”
“Oi.” This time, Eve wasn’t messing. There was heat behind her warning. Suki looked a little surprised. “Stop it. Stace is…like a sister to me. I don’t need you two to be best mates, but the jabs need to stop.”
She let Suki huff in silence for a minute or two, and then she changed the subject, got her talking about the business loan she was in the midst of applying for. She wanted to expand, which sounded like a massive undertaking to Eve, but in her matter-of-fact way, Suki made it sound like the natural next step.
“Sorry,” Suki said, a little shy, the way she always did when she caught herself being too animated. It made Eve want to throttle Nish Panesar. “All this must be so boring to you.”
Eve bumped their knees together. “Life with you could never be boring.” She leaned across the table. “It’s actually really hot. My girlfriend the mogul.”
Suki snorted. “Hardly.”
“I’m telling you. I could see you building a - I dunno, an empire.”
“Shut up,” Suki said, but Eve could tell she was flattered. “Anyway. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Being very very hungover,” Eve admitted. “Why, what did you have planned?”
“Nothing. But my Sunday’s are freed up indefinitely at the moment.” Oh. Right. Suki couldn’t face going back to the gurdwara right now. “So if you manage to drag yourself out of bed before noon, we could have the house to ourselves.”
“See what I mean?” Eve said, grinning. “You’re a mastermind.”
Eve had materialised at the front door within minutes of the children leaving.
“You’re keen,” Suki teased, letting her in. It amused her to think of Eve across the square, peeking out from behind Stacey’s front room curtains, waiting for the coast to be clear.
“That’s me.” Eve acknowledged the hamster cage on the hallway table. “Alright, Kiah? You know, she’s really hanging in there this time. I reckon you’ve broke the curse.”
“Hm. How was last night?”
“It was the most obnoxious display of heterosexuality I’ve ever seen.” Eve ran a hand through her more-tousled-than-usual hair and shrugged. “And y’know, it was a laugh.”
“No female strippers then?” Since she’d heard Kat Slater on the phone arranging the night’s activities, the image of a naked blonde in Eve’s lap had started to form.
Eve laughed and stepped into the space between them. “Would you be jealous if there were?”
“As if.”
She absolutely would be.
“Well, you can rest assured, my honour remains intact.” Eve looked around the hallway. “Suki, we have an empty house. So, are we gonna talk, or…?”
The way Eve was looking at her quickly put out any flicker of insecurity she had, at least for now. Eve wanted her. Eve wanted her so badly that her breathing shallowed when she leaned forward, her eyes on Suki’s lips, her hands hesitating just short of pulling her to her.
Suki moved her head back. Eve followed.
“What, are you gonna make me beg?”
“Yeah,” Suki said, turning towards the stairs with a smile. “Beg.”
She gasped in delight when Eve caught up to her on the landing and wrapped her arms around her waist. In the bedroom, Eve did beg, but she also touched Suki in ways that rendered her speechless, which she seemed to take great pride in. Lately, she had taken to whispering I love you in Suki’s ear right as she was about to come. It was gonna be the death of her.
They lay wrapped up together for a little while, until Eve started to doze off. Usually, Suki quite liked watching her sleep – she looked so peaceful – and she knew Eve had been out late the night before, but she’d had a week from hell and she wanted to be reminded it was worth it.
Eve hardly seemed to mind being woken up with impatient kisses. “You’re a menace,” she mumbled, grinning against Suki’s lips.
“You love it.”
Wide awake now, Eve’s mouth worked greedily at Suki’s neck. “Too right I do.”
After another round of sex – this time, she left Eve speechless – Suki rolled on top of her. “We should make a start on dinner.”
Eve blinked up at her. “What, you want me to stay?”
“I told the kids you might eat with us, but you don’t have to. If you have plans with Stacey or you need to get back – ”
“No, I’d love to,” Eve said, quickly. “I just – I dunno. I didn’t expect it.”
Maybe the shock of her offer accounted for the nerves coming off Eve as they stood together in the kitchen.
“You make the dough,” Suki said, passing her a mixing bowl and the necessary ingredients from the cupboard.
“Eh, are you sure? That feels like a crucial part of the samosas.”
Suki laughed. “It’s mixing flour, oil and water in a bowl, Eve. You can’t mess it up.”
“You underestimate me.”
Eve did seem to be genuinely concerned she would screw up even the few instructions Suki had given her. Suki noticed her glancing over her shoulder, as if waiting for her to approve what she was doing.
“You don’t cook much?”
“Not got much need to.” Eve shrugged as she started kneading the dough. “Working late all the time, living alone… it’s easier to stick something frozen in the oven or order take out.”
There had been plenty of times over the years that Suki had fantasised about a life where she didn’t have a family to worry about. It was nice to think about coming and going as she pleased, never having to explain herself or worry about someone else’s feelings, only having to clean up messes she herself made.
She had never considered how odd it would be to prepare meals for one, to have to adjust the measurements in the book of family recipes that had been passed onto her. Yes, she would save a lot of money, but surely she’d waste so much food without teenage boys around to devour the leftovers? Would she bother to put the radio onto the Punjabi station while she made breakfast, if not for Vinny’s love of music? And cooking dinner together had become the one constant in the ever-shifting relationship she had with her daughter – regardless of whether they’d spent the day arguing about Nish or the eyeshadow no ten-year-old had any business wearing to school, Ash was dutiful about reporting to the kitchen just in time to chop some vegetables and set the table.
“Erica used to bake.”
Suki stopped her mixing of the vegetable filling to look at Eve. “Oh?”
They hadn’t talked about Erica since Suki had picked up her photograph in Eve’s apartment. Knowing how upset it had made Eve then, how she hadn’t been able to comfort her despite wanting to, Suki wasn’t sure it was right to bring it up again.
“Yeah. I helped sometimes. Not enough though – now I wish I’d helped more.” Eve laughed sadly. “When I say I helped, I mean she told me what to do and I did it. You two would have got on.”
Suki wanted to believe that, but she wasn’t so sure. From the first day she met Nish’s family, his sisters had hated her and Stacey was hardly her biggest fan.
“What else did you two do together?”
“Aw, everything. Same clubs at school, same mates. We were gonna go to the same Uni and all. She was gonna do teaching. She was the other half of me.” Eve wrapped the dough in the cling film Suki passed her. “The only time we weren’t together was when it mattered.”
“You mean when she died?”
Eve nodded. “I went home, left her at the party. I wasn’t there when she wandered into the road.”
“You really blame yourself?” Suki put her hand on Eve’s lower back. “What, even after all these years?”
Eve blew out a little huff of fake laughter. “You thought you had baggage, eh?”
“Eve.” She wrapped her arms around Eve’s shoulders and stroked the back of her head. She felt Eve’s head drop to her shoulder. As much as she hated seeing Eve hurt, it felt nice to be the one reassuring her for once.
She waited for Eve to step out of her hold before she asked, “Is that where your anger comes from? Is that why you hit Ranveer?”
“I hit Ranveer because he deserved it,” Eve said, bluntly.
“Ravi said it was more than that.”
“I thought you didn’t trust him as far as you could throw him.”
“I don’t.” Even now she’d had time to think about it, she still couldn’t see Eve being capable of the kind of violence Ravi had alluded to. The woman touched her like she was made out of glass, for God’s sake.
But Eve had mentioned a few times that she was wrong to have left Suki downstairs with Ranveer. It didn’t make sense to her why Eve was so keen to blame herself. She’d barely even met the man; Suki had known him for years and still missed the signs.
Suki squeezed Eve’s arm. “I’m just saying – it would make sense if what happened…brought up those feelings up again. If it made you feel, I don’t know, helpless, like you did with Erica.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Eve stepped out of her touch to turn back to the kitchen counter. “What am I doing next? The chutney?”
Suki couldn’t pretend to understand. She felt responsible for Usama’s death, on some level, but she hadn’t known him very well and ultimately, she blamed Nish most of all. It was different for Eve, who had clearly adored Erica and didn’t seem to have anywhere else to put her guilt.
“I’m just saying that I could see how carrying all that around would mess you up.”
“I’m fine, Suki,” Eve said, firm in a way she couldn’t remember being with her before. “Leave it, yeah?”
She hesitated. “OK. But if you’re ever not, will you talk to me? I felt so alone before, and then you walked in front of me that day in the courthouse…”
“- Eh, first of all, you bumped into me. And second – Suki, you have me here preparing dinner for six people. That’s like, the opposite of alone.” Eve still looked much more serious than usual. “Although. What if your kids hate me?”
“What are you on about?” Suki turned the stove back up. “You’ve already met them.”
Eve made a face. “Yeah but not as their mum’s girlfriend.”
They had been largely unfazed when she’d raised it over breakfast. Jags and Ash seemed to genuinely like Eve, for one thing, and Kheerat had backed down from questioning her every decision now they were on good terms again - he was even sly enough to use the opportunity to ask if he could have Mitch’s daughter, Chantelle, over for dinner some night next week. Only Vinny had pouted about it and that was to be expected.
She hadn’t given much thought to how daunting it might be for Eve.
“If it’s too much too soon –”
“- No, course not. I’m just messing.” Eve quickly assumed her usual confidence, but Suki hadn’t missed the moment where it slipped.
She pressed a kiss to Eve’s cheek. “Don’t worry. They’re gonna love you like I do.”
When the samosas were filled and frying, Suki nudged Eve with her hip. “Next week, we should bake something.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. You pick.” She glanced over at Eve – with her smirking blue eyes and her patience and all the sadder parts of her she could see but hadn’t been able to touch yet. She sighed. “And after dinner, you can help me figure out what I’m supposed to wear to this stupid wedding you’re dragging me to.”
Weren’t relationships supposed to be about compromise? She hadn’t had much of that in her marriage, but with Eve, things were already so different. She was so different - lying less and laughing more and not wanting to disappear all the time.
Best of all, Suki could breathe again.