We end up in a sloppy sixty-nine, elbows and knees propped on the wide car seat, windows fogging, hips thrusting and moans staccato, racing each other and drawing each other out. It’s frantic and messy and perfect.
After we come within seconds of each other, I try to lay on the seat next to him only to topple inelegantly into the footwell.
Thio busts up laughing above me.
I swat his knee. “Dickhead. Help me up.”
He complies. I move to tuck myself away, but he does it for me, then takes care of himself before hauling me back to straddle his lap.
I’d first sat here out of brazen need, but now it’s an echo of him holding me in the lab and telling me about his mom, and every muscle previously relaxed by my orgasm wrenches tight.
Thio’s eyebrows flinch together, a wince.
He dusts his lips across my forehead. “We’re almost to school.”
His arms go slack so I can move off him.
I should.
I don’t.
I can feel his smile, the way it curves on my skin when he pushes his face into the crook of my neck.
We fall into a routine.
Thio picks me up in the morning. His driver, a dwarf named Hordon, doesn’t let us know that he definitely knows what we’re doing behind the barrier spell, gods bless him. The poor guy must be going through a ton of air freshener to keep the back seat from smelling like sex all the time.
We get to school and spend the day in the lab. I trek to the library for my job or off campus to eat with Orok. Thio occasionally heads out for stuffy meals with Arasne or calls with Myrdin forupdateson his progress. Those always throw him out of sorts, so I’ve taken to summoning Nick afterward, where he spends a few hours curled on Thio’s lap, getting fed pieces of dog food like grapes at a Bacchanalia feast.
There’s no repercussion from Thio yelling at Myrdin, not that I can tell. I asked Thio once, and he shook his head and cooed at Nick howhis daddy is cute when he worries.
I’m not worried. Or cute. Fuck him.
Thio and I always end up leaving for the day at the same time, and three of the five days, Hordon takes us to my apartment. The other two days, Thio says he can’t give me a ride, and when I find out it’s because he’s going to visit his mom at Blooming Grove, I hop in the car anyway.
Which is how we spend a few hours a week with Thio’s mom, having dinner with her in the garden courtyard or playing checkers in the game room while she sits next to Thio. Even though she doesn’t respond to what we say, occasionally she’ll lean her head on his shoulder with a contented hum or pat his arm.
I don’t hear from my dad anymore. Mom keeps up her usual stream of asking how I am like nothing happened.
My replies were already almost nonexistent, but it’s harder to respond when I expect every text to be news that my dad got the job.
I focus on Thio instead. On the stories he tells about stuff he and his mom did before her accident. On the way she’ll make eye contact with him, and he lights up like a supernova.
I expect Thio to drop me at home and leave after our evenings at Blooming Grove, but even those end with him following me up. Orok’s practices keep the apartment empty on the weeknights, which is good, because we never get farther than the kitchen.
Does Thio kiss me longer the nights after Blooming Grove? Does he linger more, make it almost agonizingly good?
The only time we don’t see each other is on weekends, butgods,that separation turns Monday morning into fireworks, promptingus to findreally funuses for spells that create a temporary extra hand or generate warmth on certain focused body parts.
Orok mocks me for my distracted energy one Sunday, but I quite pleasantly remind him that I’m having sex twice most days. To which he says, “Low blow, dipshit,” and steals the leftover tacos I’d been saving.
But seriously, I’m having sextwice a day.
I’m saving a ton on bus fare.
And I can still barely focus when Thio’s in the lab.
Every eye contact, every brush of our hands, every time he’s standing too close or not nearly close enough—it’s all something I’mawareof, and that awareness eats up my attention like acid. What’s the solution?We’re having sex twice a day. What more does my body want? Sure, we’re keeping it to hands and mouths and that’s more than satisfying, but something tells me that even if we went further, it wouldn’t quench this greed.
