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Diya had this way of looking at Tammy. A flirtation and a warning: beware, she knew the thoughts in your head, Tammy, and just what would you do if she permitted them? If she formed them into reality with the curve of her hand over Tammy's forearm, the brush of her knee as she turned to face her, what then? Her eyes could be a dare, some days, even as her lips invited, openly. Take the temptation; she knew how badly Tammy wanted it.

That Tammy fought it sent Diya's amusement and frustration to battle across her features. Unable to decide if she should smile or sigh.

It wasn't a consistent resistance. Every time Tammy pulled back, it was only after swaying forward. Tilting on her axis in Diya's direction. Until the weight of her better judgment yanked her back.

Not that she had any reservations about Diya. Diya was.../amazing/, to put it lightly, and the more she got to know the other woman, the more Tammy found herself leaning. Swaying. Shifting ever closer.

Which made reaffirming her equilibrium ever more dizzying.

Tammy's reservations were entirely internal. Seated deep inside herself. Quiet but watching, and more than willing to snap the trap closed on anyone, even people that Tammy cared for.

The djinn knew no loyalties, not even those formed by the human it possessed.

So she pulled back. She stepped away. She leaned close, teased herself, tantalized her senses, nearly succumbed...then fled. Hid inside the confines of herself, of school and work and anything else, to try and escape the growing burn.

Tammy expected, eventually, that Diya would tire of the constant back and forth, the apparently inability of Tammy to make a decision--she probably envisioned the waitress to be in the bloom of discovering her sexuality, perhaps still experimenting, when nothing could be further from the truth. It wasn't doubt of her sexual desires that hindered her, but let Diya think that. It was far better than attempting to relate the truth to her.

She figured Diya would drift off.

She didn't.

She came into Zeke's restaurant and curved her lips at Tammy, crossing her legs so that her foot brushed Tammy's bare shin when she stood at her table. She asked about the specials, her chin in her hand, eyes on Tammy's mouth as she recited them, making her flush as if listing off pastitsio and youvesti and stuffed grape leaves was some kind of pillow talk.

And she'd touch Tammy's wrist as she placed her plate in front of her, the pressure of her thumb over Tammy's pulse making her heart throb, not realizing that she was still holding the plate until she noticed her hand was shaking, finding herself leaning over Diya, sharing her space and her breath and her heat--

--and she would run, dash into the kitchen and sit in her corner--it was hers, a space Zeke had specifically allotted to her--propping her feet onto the seat of her stool and hugging her knees and reminding herself.

She couldn't.

She /shouldn't./

She wouldn't.

And she meant it.

Until she saw Diya again.