Begin Again | ongoing - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Luke is here. That's a surprise. Fenfen doesn't usually repeat a guy but that's definitely Luke that Sunny just walked in on in the shower because the bathroom lock has been broken since 1998 and they've never got round to fixing it because neither of them care enough. Fair play to Luke, he didn't seem to care about being walked in on – he saluted Sunny when she blushed and stammered at the sight of his naked body, grabbing her toothbrush and toothpaste and almost knocking herself out as she left. Fenfen must really like this guy to bring him back a second time.
Sunny doesn't have time to dwell on it because today's her date with Viv. They're due to meet in an hour and Sunny's already been up for two hours with nervous butterflies in the pit of her belly. She had to eat two bananas to stop their flapping wings and she only hopes she hasn't spoiled her appetite because then Viv will worry that she's not eating enough. There's no problem with the quantity of food that Sunny eats, though, more that it isn't confined to three strict meals a day. She's a grazer, far more suited to several snack breaks when her stomach rumbles than any sort of rigid structure.
"You're up early." Fenfen comes out yawning, barely covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "You know it's Saturday, right? What're you doing looking all ... dressed and put together?"
"Saturday isn't the weekend for everyone, you know," Sunny says. She has to keep reminding herself that she has a shift at five because, knowing her and the way her mind works, she'll get tangled up in the date and forget all about work. "And I have a date."
Those words still make her fizz inside. It feels different and exciting and terrifying and she knows it's no big deal because it's Viv, and Viv already knows her inside out, but to Sunny, it's the first date. It may be a do-over for Viv but for her, it's all new.
"Oh yeah?" Fenfen wakes up fully at that and winks, giving Sunny a hair flip and a shoulder wiggle. "Hot date with your hot lady?"
"You know it!" Sunny pastes on a grin but she balls her hand into a fist and rubs at her sternum with the heel of her palm, an anxious tic that comes out when she doesn't know how to feel, doesn't know what to do with her limbs.
"Why d'you look so nervous?" Fenfen laughs as she flicks on the kettle and grabs a couple of bowls ­– two bowls, for the first time in the years Sunny's known her; she must really like Luke – and starts cutting the heads off strawberries.
"'Cause I am nervous."
"What the fuck for?" Fenfen laughs. "Tenny, you and Viv go on like two dates a week." She straightens, her smile vanishing. "Wait, is this, like, a big one? You're not gonna propose, are you?"
"Jesus, no. No, god, no." Sunny guffaws. "We're not at that stage yet, don't worry."
"Gonna ask her to buy a house with you?"
"No, it's just a normal date. It just feels like it's been a while," she says, remembering how little Fenfen knows – or, at least, how little Fenfen realises she knows considering she has laughed it off every time Sunny's told her the truth.
"In my experience, nerves mean one of two things: either you're really excited and want it to go well, or you're totally dreading it." She whips the lid off a pot of Greek yoghurt and blobs it into the bowls on top of the chopped fruit. Sunny's never seen her put this much effort into breakfast before. Ordinarily it's buttered toast, maybe with jam if she's feeling festive.
"I'm excited and I want it to go well," Sunny says.
"Then you don't need to be nervous because that girl loves you." She bops Sunny's shoulder with a teaspoon. "Honey, she is just waiting to wife you up."
"She'll be waiting a while considering that's still illegal."
"Shit. Still? Kinda fucked up that you can't get married and my dumb shit of an uncle's on his fifth wife already and that's no big deal." She waves her spoon around as she talks, her eyes rolling. "So dumb. Let the lesbians get married and limit how many wives the straight dudes are allowed before it's clear they're the problem."
Sunny chuckles quietly to herself. "If only you were in government," she says, and she tries not to stew on how mad it makes her. She's far from ready to settle down with a ring on her finger but yeah, she'd like to get married someday and the fact that she doesn't deserve that, in the eyes of the law, boils her blood.
"Mate, I'd be a fucking awesome politician. I'd whip all those boring old white dudes into shape. Higher minimum wage – boom! Let the gays get married – boom!"
"Time to get you elected. I'm pretty sure Black Sands has had the same turgid old white dude as an MP for the last, like, twenty years."
"Twenty-six," Fenfen says. When Sunny raises her eyebrows, she follows it up with, "I had to do a module on local politics in my first year of uni and the dude we have now was elected in 1974. Literally my entire life, that stodgy porridge bowl of a man has been an MP."
"That should be illegal."
"At least he's not a Tory."
"Good point." Sunny downs a nervous half pint of water, knowing she'll be cursing when she has to pee halfway round the crazy golf course.
Luke emerges from the bedroom and nods at the two of them on his way to the bathroom, and Sunny fixes Fenfen with a questioning look. Fenfen just winks and picks up both bowls to carry to her room.
"I think we'll have breakfast in bed."
"I think we need to have a catch up," Sunny says. "What's going on here? Are you dating?"
Fenfen gives her a coy smile and lifts a shoulder. "We're seeing where it goes."
"Wow. Never thought I'd see the day."
She laughs and shakes her head. "Your girl's growing up, Tenny."
'What other surprises have you got hiding up your sleeves?"
Fenfen pings the thin strap of her nightie and says, "Baby, I've got no sleeves for hiding. I'm an open book. Wide open."
"Wow, are you feeling all right?" Viv asks when she walks up to Sunny at the entrance to the pier, which won't open for a few hours yet. There's no-one else hanging around the closed donut shops except a clutch of pigeons feasting on what's left of last night's scraps of dough.
Sunny looks around and wonders if she looks as nervous as she feels. She hopes not, though she isn't known for her poker face. "Yeah, why?"
"You're on time. Actually, no"—Viv shakes her wrist to check her watch—"you're early, seeing as I'm bang on time."
"Oh. Yeah, I've been up for a while. I've been watching the seagulls since nine."
"Aw, bambi. Are you nervous?" Viv's natural smile – she's blessed with resting pleasant face – turns cheeky and amused.
Sunny doesn't want to admit it to her girlfriend that yes, she's nervous because this is so brand new, but she shrugs and smiles and says, "A bit."
"Don't be nervous." Viv reaches out and her fingers graze the inside of Sunny's wrist, which sends a fresh swarm of butterflies flapping in her stomach. Her touch is electric. She has a magnetic force about her, a spark that draws Sunny in until she almost loses her footing because her body is subconsciously leaning towards Viv's, as though being close to her feeds her energy.
"I've never been on a proper date."
Viv's smile flickers but it doesn't disappear. Like the almost imperceptible twitch of a lightbulb when there's a dip in power and the light dims for a fraction of a section before it's back to its full wattage. "You've got nothing to worry about, Sunny," she says. This time it's not just a graze of her fingers but her hand in Sunny's, and Sunny's heart just about stops because as much as she's tried to rationalise this to herself, this is still a girl holding her hand and that is not a sensation she's used to. It takes her by surprise, makes her jump, but Viv isn't fazed. She tightens her hold.
"As far as my memory's concerned, we've never done this before. It's ... an adjustment. Sorry, I don't want to be weird."
"If it's any consolation," Viv says, "we've never had a bad date. You don't have anything to be nervous about. Don't get in your head – it's not like you're out to impress me. I'm already crazy about you."
Whether it's because Viv has addressed her fears or because she's stroked her ego, that does make Sunny feel better. She squeezes Viv's hand before she lets go and paints on a calm expression to hide how flustered she is, and she starts walking along the promenade.
"Thank you. That helps," she says, with a twinge of guilt that she can't say the same back to Viv yet. She wants to, god, she'd love to be able to say she's crazy about her, she'd love to feel that and she's pretty sure she will someday, but not yet.
"So, where're we going for breakfast?"
"So impatient, Viv. Can't I surprise you?"
"I don't like not knowing where we're going. How much are my feet going to be aching by the time we get there?"
"Not at all. I hope. How prone are your feet to achiness?"
"Depends what they're doing?"
"Well"—Sunny comes to a stop a few moments later, catching Viv's elbow—"we're here. Tell me, what's your achey level at? Reckon your feet will be okay?"
Viv's grin is wide and buoyant. "You're ridiculous," she says, in that fond tone that turns Sunny's tummy into tumble dryer.
"They do the best breakfast here."
"Better than mine?" She raises an eyebrow.
"Make it for me and I'll let you know."
Viv elbows her in the ribs and Sunny feigns agony but really she's thinking, okay, maybe it won't be long before I'm head over heels for this girl.
"Cheeky sod," Viv says, but she's chuckling as they join the queue and order a couple of hefty breakfast baps complete with steaming lattes and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
At the customisation bar, Sunny squeezes two sachets of ketchup and one mayo onto the contents of her oversized bap, which is overflowing with bacon and sausage and a perfectly fried egg. She adds more milk to her latte and shakes the cinnamon so hard she almost empties the entire thing into her mug. Viv is a little more reserved: she adds a sprinkle of sugar to her coffee and a shake of salt onto the yolk of her egg, and when she spills a few grains, she throws the rest over her shoulder. Sunny watches her every move as though she's a one-woman play, filing away every little titbit of information – how Viv likes her coffee; how she talks to the girl who takes her order; how she smiles and waves at the toddler in front of her in the queue.
The food is good. So good. Beyond good. Sunny salivates at the thought of her next bite even as she's eating, even though she's already had one breakfast today. Her stomach gurgles in appreciation, devouring the salty bacon and the herby sausage meat and the rich yolk that bursts and dribbles out the sides.
"Why do I have the feeling you've got some kind of intense plans for this date?" Viv asks cautiously. She's a much neater eater – she makes full use of the knife and fork provided, whereas Sunny goes straight in with her hands. "This is, like, stoke yourself up for a hike kind of breakfast."
"I hope you know me well enough to know I'd never take you on a hike," Sunny says. The thought alone is horrifying. "I can barely manage the hill to Delilah's flat. Climbing that behemoth is a week's worth of cardio." She lowers her bap and grimaces. "Oh, god, please don't say you're a fitness freak. I'm sure we wouldn't be together if you were but just in case..."
"I was at the gym for two hours before we met this morning," Viv says.
Sunny's shoulders tense and the butterflies in her stomach turn sour because of course she had to go and put her foot in it right at the start of this second chance at a first date. "Shit, sor—"
"I'm joking. Oh my god, Sunny, I do not go to the gym." Viv's laugh is bright relief. "You think I'd pay to have a bunch of sweaty guys leer at my arse? You really don't know anything about me." She doesn't say it in a mean way – she's amused, and Sunny's glad they can joke about it.
"That's what this is for – a normal date like totally normal people, like two normal girls getting to know each other in a normal way that definitely doesn't involve black holes and multiple universes."
"Right. Totally normal," Viv says, hiding her mouth behind a forkful of food. "Not at all mind-boggling or time-bending."
"Nope. Because that would be weird."
"So weird."
Sunny delights in the easy back and forth. It's a good sign for things to come, she thinks – lure Viv in with banter over breakfast before things get messy when they play Monopoly later. And things will get messy, because that's how Sunny plays. She doesn't have much time for rules and regulations when she can make her own, and if she can get away with in-game murder, she will absolutely try.
They make it to the crazy golf place just after ten, and Viv bursts into laughter when she looks at the course with its lazy windmill and garishly painted obstacles and realises what the second part of the date entails.
"Oh my god, Sunny. You know this is where we had our first date, right?"
Sunny winks. "Why do you think I chose it?"
Viv catches on then, realises what today is about. "Oh, okay, I see. I see how it is. You've been gathering intel, haven't you?"
"Maybe..."
She presses her lips together, nodding. "I'm impressed. Good choice. Ready to have your arse absolutely whipped into oblivion? I'm amazing at crazy golf."
"Hey." Sunny fixes her with a severe stare. "What was one of the first things I made you promise me?"
"Hmm?"
"You promised not to lie. And I'm pretty sure that was a whopper of a fib because from what I hear, you can't play for shit, Miss..." She goes red, trying to dig up Viv's surname from the depths of her memory. Delilah told her, she's sure, but it's one of those snippets of information that slipped through the holes in the sieve that is her brain.
Viv cracks up. "You know all about my crazy golf skills but you don't know my last name?" She juts out her hip and plants a hand on it, those cacao deep eyes pinning Sunny in place, but she refuses to wilt under her girlfriend's stare.
"I know my priorities."
"You need to get them in order, Miss Shelley."
Sunny's still digging. It's in there somewhere, she remembers asking Delilah if it was Italian. Her eyebrows are scrunched together, deep in thought, until it comes to her like a bolt of lightning. "Galanis!"
Viv jumps. To her credit, she looks surprised and even impressed, and then curious. "Wait, did you remember that?" She clutches Sunny's forearm, her expression suddenly serious. "I haven't told you that since you ... came back, or whatever. Did you remember it from before?"
If only. Sunny meekly shakes her head and Viv shrinks back. "Delilah told me."
"Oh. You got me all excited. I thought maybe the last year was squirreled away in there somewhere." She taps Sunny's temple and sighs.
"I don't think it is. But that's what this is for." She paints on a smile and spreads her arms wide in front of the entrance to the golf course. "We're recreating our first date so I can remember it like it actually happened to me, and Ravi filled me in on how it went down so don't you dare pretend you beat me, 'cause I know we both fucking suck."
Viv loops her arm through Sunny's and says, "Let's fucking suck together."
They pay two pounds each to hire a couple of putters and two balls, painted neon pink to stand out against the sand when an overenthusiastic punt inevitably launches one over the boundaries of the course. The location may be picturesque but it's hardly ideal, Sunny thinks, considering the potential for damaging sunbathers or losing balls to the sea. Although considering each hole is no more than a few metres from the tee, there's no reason to give the ball any more than a swift tap.
When they reach the first hole, Viv stops and rests her club against her thigh to tie her hair back.
"This is serious business," she says severely, taming her curls into a sensible ponytail befitting of a professional golfer. Holding the club out in both hands, one at each end like it's a prop cane, she lunges and stretches and Sunny can't rein in her amusement at the sight. She tries her hand at stretching, but gives up when she attempts to touch her toes and it feels like the backs of her thighs are being torn apart. It turns out she's even less flexible than she thought.
"You talk the talk, Tennyson," Viv says, "but can you walk the walk? I don't see you limbering up and as we know, crazy golf is the most physical of in the realm of crazy sports."
"If you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. I stretched this morning, of course." She stands with both hands on top of the golf club, which she isn't sure how to hold. Come to think of it, she can't remember ever playing this game before today – is it like hockey? That's the only sports she can vaguely remember the rules of from school, when she had to struggle into a PE kit every Wednesday afternoon and try not to die on the sandy AstroTurf. They played tennis in the summer, which she enjoyed a lot more, but she never got a hang of the rules. Her only aim every game was to get the ball over the net; she didn't care if it went so far out that she relinquished a point.
"You're a terrible liar, babe," Viv says.
Every time she calls Sunny by a nickname – bambi and Sunshine and babe – it's like the strike of a match. It's only a matter of time before a flame ignites.
The first hole is easy. It's a straight shot, nothing between the tee and the hole but a few metres of flat turf, and yet it takes Sunny eight goes to land the ball. It bounces out of the boundary twice when she hits it with too much force and it reverberates off the three-inch-high barrier around each of the eighteen miniature holes.
"This stupid fucking ball is cursed!" Sunny cries after the seventh shot. Viv made it in three and was promptly branded a show-off, despite it being a popular site for holes-in-one, usually from children.
"Oh, woe is you," Viv says, leaning on her club. She's standing off to the side and cups a hand around her mouth to yell, "A poor workman blames his tools, Sunny!"
"And I bet sometimes he does have a defective drill," Sunny mutters as she zones in on the ball, mere inches from the hole, and squints with the tip of her tongue sticking out as she focuses all her energy on not overshooting. She taps; she scores; cheers erupt. Viv whoops, almost flinging her club across the course, and when she lifts her hand for a high five, Sunny fervently slaps it.
"One down, seventeen to go," Viv says, collecting Sunny's ball and chucking it over. "I hope you set aside a good three hours minimum for this."
Sunny checks her watch and says, "Six and a half hours until I have to be at work. We should be okay."
"Fingers crossed. This could take a while. They're not all as simple as that one."
The second hole is already a massive spike in difficulty level. This one has obstacles – multiple obstacles – and it curves at a ninety degree angle around a series of random concrete blobs for the ball to crack against and bounce off. Sunny stands off to the side while Viv lines up the ball and spends way too long analysing her angle and approach.
"Tell me about your family," she says, her eyes trained on Viv's legs – long and tanned in jean shorts that hug her thighs; toned calves that flex as she moves; a couple of woven anklets around her left ankle.
"What about them?" Viv asks. She doesn't tear her eyes from the ball.
"Literally anything. I don't know anything about them." Her eyes drop to Viv's feet, her battered gladiator sandals and her peach pink painted toenails, and then to the golf ball that's about to take a pounding. "Are you an only child?"
"Nope." Viv crouches down to get eye-level with the ball, hands flat on the ground as she peers at the course ahead of her. "I've got a sister, Stella. She's twenty-eight."
"Are you close?"
"We were really close when we were kids. We shared a room until I was fourteen," she says, brushing Astro sand off her knees when she stands and realigns her feet and her club. "We're still close now but, you know, adulthood gets in the way. She got married last year and moved to Exeter and that made me realise I was only staying in Bristol to be near her."
"That's when you moved here?"
Viv doesn't answer for a while. She's too busy taking her shot at last, cursing when the ball hits one of the concrete blobs and rolls halfway back. "Yeah," she says at last. "I needed a change."
Sunny rolls her ball into place with her foot and after witnessing all of Viv's efforts come to nothing, she doesn't think about her shot – in her attempt to tap it further than Viv's ball, she chips it with the perfect amount of force and air to sail over the obstacles and land a few inches from the hole. "Holy shit!"
"Damn it, have you been practicing?"
"Total fluke." She grins and does a cringe-worthy victory dance that resembles a mermaid getting tangled in kelp. "I'm so gonna beat you, Galanis. You better get your head in the game."
Viv smirks as the sun comes out from behind a wisp of a cloud and its rays illuminate her: she is radiant, sunlight pouring through her curls and highlighting every freckle. "I'm just letting you get a head start before I show you how it's really done."
"Oh, yeah, sure." Sunny takes a bow as she lets Viv take her place. "Why here?"
"Huh?"
"Why did you choose to move here, of all places? Not exactly close to Bristol or Exeter," she says with more confidence than is warranted, because Sunny's geography is atrocious and she's not entirely sure where Exeter is. Somewhere down south, she reckons. She's fairly certain.
"I was born here. Felt right to come back." Viv adopts her girlfriend's approach this time and hits the ball without overthinking it. It bounces off the same bit of concrete and lands even closer to the tee-off. "Fuck's sake!"
"Thanks for the head start, babe." The word just drops out of Sunny's mouth. She isn't expecting it. Neither is Viv, by the look on her face. Sunny can feel her cheeks turning pink, a hot blush that will soon be scarlet because that's the first time – since the black hole spat her out in 2000, at least – that she's called Viv anything but her name. Viv rolls her lips together like she's trying to suppress a grin, though it comes out in her dimple and Sunny thinks oh god, that dimple.
"Music to my ears," Viv says quietly, no longer fuming about her shitty golf ability because Sunny just took the next step. Sunny tries to brush it off with a roll of her eyes and a twirl of her club as she steps up to the green, but she can't deny that her heart is suddenly making itself a lot more known and the beat sounds suspiciously like Viv-Viv-Viv. Distracted as she is, though, she manages to get the ball in the hole in only two shots and for the next six minutes, she watches Viv try to do the same and she wonders if this is what it feels like to fall in love.
If only she could ask herself that question, the version of her who has already fallen hard. This fullness in her chest, this tingle of her skin every time Viv touches her, the butterflies in her stomach and the way her heart skips a beat when she sees that pink hair, those coffee-brown eyes – is this love? Or some kind of allergic reaction? It could be an arrhythmia.
Her mind wanders so far and fast that by the time Viv finally makes the shot, Sunny's halfway through an imaginary conversation with her GP's receptionist as she tries to explain that she needs an appointment to see the doctor because she can't tell if she's falling in love or if there's something horrifically wrong with her heart.
"You're really not good at this," she says when a pink-faced Viv holds her ball aloft after what must be at least twenty shots.
"Says you, little miss fluke. Try and do that again, I challenge you." She nods at the third hole, which involves a loop-the-loop. "Reckon you can do that in two shots?"
Sunny gives her a smug smile and takes off her cap to flick her hair back. "Just watch me."
Viv does watch her. She watches her fail over and over and over. The loop is impossible. The ball either rolls up a few inches before sliding down again, or it gets to the peak and succumbs to gravity. Sunny tries again and again; Viv's smile grows and grows.
"You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," she says.
"That's why it's called crazy golf."
"Your technique is all wrong."
"Oh yeah? Please, oh master of the crazy golf, show me the ways of the cursed loop." She throws up her hands and steps aside.
"The trick," Viv says, lining up the ball, "is to ignore the loop completely."
She hits the ball, a swift tap that sends it rocketing through the middle of the loop, never touching the track. It lands square on the other side and bounces a couple of times before it trickles straight into the hole. Viv squints. "Where did it go?"
"Oh my god!" Sunny squeaks. "You got a fucking hole in one!"
"What?"
"It's in the fucking hole!"
"Holy shit. I really am the master of crazy golf."
"How the fuck did you do that?" Sunny stands at the edge of the hole and gawps down at the ball nestled inside. She lifts her shocked face to see that Viv looks equally as shocked, though she tries to quickly rearrange it into casual pride, like she knew that was going to happen.
"I'm a woman of limitless skills and talents," she says with a nonchalant shrug. "Actually, you know what? I think there's a rule somewhere in the gay handbook: every lesbian is entitled to at least one hole in one when playing golf. It kinda goes with the territory." She pulls the scrunchie out of her hair and shakes it out, luscious coils bouncing on her shoulders. She stands with her one foot forward, a hand planted on her hip and her chest thrust out as she tips her face to the sun and pushes her other hand through her hair. Her ribbed tank top lifts when her arm stretches up, exposing a strip of toned Mediterranean-tanned stomach. She may not go to the gym but she clearly works out, her muscles too firm to belong to someone like Sunny, who grimaces at the thought alone of exercise.
Sunny's knees turn to jelly. She has to use her club to steady herself, has to suck in a deep breath to calm the fluttering in her chest (the butterflies must be on the move, she thinks, else she's about to collapse).
"That was incredibly hot," she says after a moment. Complimenting Viv's accidental golf skills is a proxy for complimenting Viv herself – it still feels odd to tell her that she is hot, because Sunny doesn't feel she knows her well enough yet. It's true, though. Vivian Galanis is insanely hot.
"Thank you, thank you very much." Viv bows. Her hair falls over her face but her grin peeks through, and Sunny swoons. She is not a swooner, she has no practice swooning, but oh boy does she swoon: she is taken over, from head to toe, by this potent adoration that leaps up and snakes itself around her limbs, binding her in place until her pulse settles somewhere south of a hundred.
Swooning must look strange to the outside eye because Viv tilts her head and says, "You okay?"
"Yeah." Sunny fills her lungs and grins on the exhale. She can't speak out loud with everything going on in her head right now – and there's a lot going on, which often paralyses her tongue as she sorts through her thoughts – but she can say, "I'm just really fucking happy right now."
"You are?" Viv stands straight, the sea breeze blowing her curls off her face.
"I really am."
"You have no idea how happy that makes me." Viv opens her arms, just a fraction. An invitation. "Can I hug you?"
Sunny appreciates the question, the space for her to decide, and the moment she nods, she is enveloped in Viv's strong arms. She rests her chin on Viv's shoulder and breathes in her scent – that same intoxicating perfume as always, this time laced with a hint of coca butter on her skin – and she holds her tight, her hands splayed over Viv's back.
"I love you so much," Viv murmurs, her words muffled by Sunny's hair. Sunny doesn't say it back yet, she can't say it yet, but Viv knows that. She gets that. But she can squeeze Viv a little tighter, she can double down on her promise to try and she can give her heart the space to explore these feelings.