notfaking_it | [Eden]

[Eden]

While trying to come up with something that she and Eden could do together, Lily had a moment like the one in the bar. On the island it wouldn't be difficult to find something to slip into a drink, easier than finding something in New York and she'd done just fine there, but the consideration lasted barely a moment. There was a reason Eden didn't drink and whatever it was, Lily doubted it had anything to do with her inability to loosen up.

She would leave that alone.

Instead she'd instructed Eden to meet her at the smaller of the two waterfalls near dusk and to wear a bathing suit. It wasn't the most original of evenings, something she'd done plenty of times already and she was sure Eden had, too, but no one could deny that it was relaxing. She'd brought a bag with drinks -- both alcoholic and non-alcoholic -- and food, more than enough to mean they didn't have to go anywhere else unless they wanted to.

And for the time being, there was no one else around. The waterfalls weren't a well kept secret, she knew that, and it was just luck that there was no one swimming yet.

In the fading sunlight, Lily set the bag and her towel down by a tree, then rose up on her toes, stretching absently as she waited for Eden to join her.

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Still lifted up onto her toes, Lily turned, smiling and shook her head. "No," she said, dropping back down to stretch her calves briefly. "I just got here." For a little while, she'd considered inviting some of the other women she'd met, gone forward with the idea of a girls night out, but Lily found that she wanted to keep Eden to herself. At least for the time being. She could be selfish with her friends in that regard, she knew. Sharing wasn't the problem, but when she was with someone, she liked being focused on that person.

"So, most predictable plan ever?" she asked with a grin. "I brought food and drinks. Some juice and water for you, of course."

"Hey, nothing wrong with predictable occasionally," Eden said. It was difficult at times like these not to let her gaze linger on the stretch and pull of Lily's legs, but she'd had more than a little practice with things like that (so she'd had an attractive set of friends over the years, so what? There was never any harm in looking. It didn't change their friendship any).

"I like this," she added, walking over to set her bag down near Lily's. "And you've somehow managed to get us this place to ourselves, bravo."

"I've positioned guards around the perimeter. Big, burly men with swords," she said, laughing and, at the same time, wishing that was possible. The view alone would make that worth it, although it would also guarantee them the waterfall for the rest of the night, too, something she knew she couldn't promise.

"This is probably the only place in the world where that could be true," she said, considering. "I really should have tried that."

Eden laughed, working carefully at the knot at her waist to loosen the sarong. "Next time," she said lightly. "With a little more advance planning, it could be doable. Although it might be a little weird having all those guys just standing around watching over us." It was easier and more fun to goof around in private, after all, so long as that lasted. "Well, in this setting, anyway."

"Depends on how hot they were," Lily said with a grin, stripping her t-shirt off and leaving it by the bag she'd brought. What was true about most dancers was that they didn't mind an audience, even if they pretended to be coy. Even Nina liked being watched when she was on a roll, that much Lily felt certain of.

"I don't think it would be all bad," she added, stepping out of her shorts and then up to the edge of the pool. "But this is nice." It was more than nice. It was exactly what she'd planned.

Shaking her hair from its short ponytail, Eden followed Lily over to the edge, stepping neatly down into the water. It was cold, the first step or three always were, but she enjoyed that as much as the rest, the slow adjustment to the temperature as she moved forward.

"Oh, I agree," she said. "I like having it to ourselves." For one, she enjoyed Lily's company. For another, hot men still weren't doing her much good. She'd met a couple at the speed dating night, and one had even showed interest, but she wasn't yet sure anything would come of it but an interesting friendship or two. "We can always find hot guys later."

"The island doesn't have a shortage of them, that's for sure," Lily agreed as she followed Eden into the water. Nor did it have a shortage of hot women, another thing she appreciated about the island, though she was still working on finding someone for Luce.

"So how did the speed dating go, anyway, speaking of attractive men?" she asked as she sunk into the water up to her shoulders, shivering at the sudden change in temperature. "It kind of sucked that we were in different groups." But she hoped Eden had had fun anyway. It had been interesting and Lily thought she'd probably do it again if the opportunity came up.

Eden shrugged, wading further out. "Yeah," she said, because she'd been looking forward to sharing a group with Lily so they could, if nothing else, gossip about the guys later. Still, she figured, this was just a variation on that. It meant more to share. Ducking quickly under and slicking her hair from her eyes as she emerged again, she shook her head from one side to the other, weighing her answer. "It was fine. Fun, even, you were right. You and Claire. It's like a conspiracy, but I think her aims are a little more serious. Anyone worth meeting in your group?"

"I actually knew half my group already," Lily admitted with a small grin as bobbed gently in the water, wet hair trailing out behind her. There had been some new faces as well and there was Sawyer. She hadn't put him on her list at the end of the night, but not because she hadn't liked him.

"I met one guy who was particularly interesting," she said. "I don't really do relationships, but I liked him." Well enough to not try to sleep with him. "What about you? Anyone worth your time?"

"I don't know," Eden said, thoughtful. She turned in the water to better face Lily even as she waded further out. It was always beautiful out here, but she loved the way the fading sunlight through the trees dappled the water, all that reflecting light. "I mean, you know, they mostly seemed pretty nice, but God, some of them were so young. And of the guys I liked best, one was, you know, kind of old-fashioned and the other was insanely old-fashioned. You know, like, they were sweet, but I don't know if I see anything but friendship cropping up."

"Old-fashioned generally means you're not going to get laid," Lily agreed, though there were other reasons to be friends with a man, of course. She wasn't against making friends at all -- she enjoyed Jeff and Eames beyond the arrangements she had with them -- but speed dating hadn't been just about making new friends. "At least, not until there's a ring on your finger," she added, grinning.

"But if you liked them..." Lily trailed off and shrugged, still smiling. "Have you arranged to go out with either of them again?"

"See, I'm still looking for the one where I get laid," Eden said with a laugh. "I seriously doubt a future of ring-wearing. But yeah, yeah, one of them. Zhuge. He's... really sweet." If nothing else came of it, she would make a new friend, something she very much needed, and if it turned out that the difference in eras wasn't as much of a wrench in proceedings as she'd expected, she couldn't have said she would mind. "And pretty cute, too."

"Now that is good news," Lily said with a grin before she ducked under the water. When she came up again, she'd drifted closer to Eden and pushed her wet hair off her face before it tangled. "There was one guy in my group, Sawyer... I don't know what it was about him."

But there had been something, that much was certain. Even now, Lily couldn't quite put her finger on it and she wasn't used to not knowing where she stood with a person. It unsettled her and she sort of liked that.

"Ooh, do tell," Eden said, splashing gently at Lily. She thought she'd heard the name around before, but couldn't place it, which meant he was probably just another of those people who'd been around a while whom she didn't really know. There were plenty of those and, unless someone caught her attention like Lily had or proved to be from home, she rarely paid much heed to who was around anymore.

"No, it's not that," she answered, laughing at the splash. "I didn't even put his name down at the end of the night." It was hard to explain, partly because Lily wasn't even sure what it was she was trying to explain. There was a sense of mystery about him, that much was certain, and she wondered if that was what she liked about him.

"Sometimes if you sleep with someone right off the bat, that's all there is," she said slowly. "Not always, but sometimes. And I didn't want to run the risk of that being all there was, which sounds like I want to date him and that's not the case either. No matter how I say it, it sounds bad." But that wasn't how she meant it, even if she couldn't put it into words.

"Dating doesn't sound bad," Eden said, voice light and brow raising. "It's just more my style. I know what you mean, though." Years ago, when she'd been happily running around L.A., that had been all she'd really wanted, to keep things simple, limited to just what they were. These days, she wanted more, though a little sex wouldn't have gone amiss either. "It doesn't sound bad. You just... want to get to know him. So have you talked to him again?"

"I ran into him on the beach one day," Lily answered with a nod before she stretched out on her back in the water and let herself float. They'd talked about many things and although some of it had been serious, she still wasn't sure she knew him any better. It was almost as if there was some sort of wall there, maybe something similar to the way Lily held herself apart from some people.

"So when's your big date?" she asked, lifting her head out of the water to grin over at Eden. "What was his name? Zhuge?" He wasn't anyone she'd met before, but it was possible she'd seen him around in the Compound or on the beach.

"Yeah, Zhuge Liang," Eden answered. "Actually he came by to see me. We went out for a walk, it was nice. He told me about home. We talked." She wasn't wholly without other possibilities, but she didn't want to get her hopes up on any front. They'd been dashed far too many times, and too many people had vanished on her. She wasn't going to foist her desires anywhere just to want someone again. Nothing like that could pan out, and when she had only so much time, only so many chances, she didn't want to just fake it, just to keep from being alone. "What happened when you ran into Sawyer?"

"We talked," Lily echoed back, which was entirely true, but she was grinning even as she said it. "We talked a bit about a friend of his, a bit about ballet, he asked about my tattoo." All in all, it had been relatively innocent, as talks could go, but there was still a desire to want to know more about him. She wouldn't have called it a crush, just an interest.

Overhead, the sun dipped further behind the trees, pink light creeping into the sky, and Lily smiled up at it faintly. "But I'm not exactly a one man kind of girl," she admitted. "Or a one person kind of girl, I guess."

"I could be," Eden answered. "For the right person." Around Lily, though, it was easier to question if that was natural to her or something she'd imposed on herself with Brodie and Grigg, if it was something she wanted because she wanted that kind of monogamy or because it was what she believed good girls did. It wasn't that she bent herself to become what she thought she was supposed to be, exactly, but adaptation to circumstance had always come easily for her; she metamorphosed, shifting with every new town. On Tabula Rasa, she was the good girl she'd never been before, but she was never sure anymore if that was just another act, another game.

"I want to be. Someday," she says, more certain of that. One chance at real love, at being loved, before she died for good. That's what she wanted, just once. "But that's no reason not to have a little fun now. And I definitely never pegged you for a one anything kind of girl."

Lily laughed, because she was sure she didn't strike anyone as that type. It wasn't something she actively tried to achieve, because if people wanted to see her a certain way, they were going to, regardless of anything she said or did, but she was still sure that she came across that way most of the time. Whether or not she wanted to be one day wasn't something she'd ever considered and she paused, smiling a little, giving that some thought.

"I never think much about the future," she admitted. "I tend do things in the moment for the moment and whatever comes as a result..." Trailing off, she smiled again and shrugged. "Somehow I don't picture myself settling down and I don't imagine any of the men on the island that I'm friends with would be the type either." But that didn't have to stop her from trying to find someone for Eden.

"You mean none of the guys you sleep with," Eden teased, ducking under the water and surfacing a couple feet away, eyes closing briefly as she sighed. "Which is good, of course. Keeps things from getting complicated. But what happens if you meet one who is?"

Of course, that probably wasn't something Lily had an answer for either. It was too much a matter of the future, and Eden envied her that a little. She'd been so much better at that once, but these days, it was hard not to think of it from time to time, knowing that one day all these had to come crashing to an end.

"Honestly?" Lily asked, though she never really went out of her way to lie. Sometimes, though, she simply omitted information that she felt people didn't necessarily need to know. With Eden, however, she didn't think it would be such an issue to be honest.

"I probably wouldn't realize it if it ever happened," she said, treading water as she thought about it. The men she'd met in New York certainly hadn't been the type she'd want around long term -- David, maybe, but only because he'd been such a beautiful dancer -- and there had been no one in San Francisco either. Drifting closer to Eden in the water, Lily grinned and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Call it my blind spot."

Even in the water, she moved with such grace. Eden smiled, head tipping away for a moment. "Those poor boys," she said. "They have no idea what they're in for. You're just gonna break everyone's hearts."

She wasn't sure she even believed that. Lily was beautiful, charismatic, sensual, of that there was no doubt. But it was difficult to fault her for much of anything, and she suspected that, not only were those men not the settling type either, but that anyone getting involved with Lily knew, if not what they were doing, that it wasn't the kind of thing meant to last forever.

"They manage just fine," Lily answered, her grin turning slightly wicked as she thought about men she'd met, men she'd slept with, even the ones she's merely befriended. There wasn't a soul in the world who could say she didn't have a type when it came to men.

"Besides, it's you we have to worry about breaking hearts," she pointed out. "With your big eyes and all that pretty skin." She was teasing, of course, but she also meant the things she was saying.

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