“At the bar, we’ll have drinks, and after her second, she’ll be buzzed but not drunk. Perfect time to tell her about you.”
I snort. “Why does she need to be buzzed to find out about me?”
She rolls her eyes, putting a hand on her hip. “Babe. Come on. Learning that monsters freely wander about town is not the same as learning a centuries-old ghost lives in your house, had a close friendship with your late grandmother, and is currently fucking your friend.”
A fair point. I nod. “Right. Wait until she’s buzzed.” I’m not offended by the way she labels our relationship. It seems reductive, but she stated clearly that she wishes to keep this “casual.” She has to know it’s more than that, though, right? It always has been. Since the first kiss, I’ve belonged to her in every way that matters. I thought, by the way she looks at me when my cock is buried deep inside her, that she feels the way I do. That nothing matters outside the pocket of space our bodies occupy when we’re together. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just the first man who gets her off and doesn’t treat her like an afterthought.
My fist clenches against my ribs. Once Lindsay’s visit is over, I’ll talk to her about this. It’s a discussion that’s long overdue, and we should be on the same page. Lindsay better allow myNatalie to stay here. Otherwise, I might set the house ablaze and blame it on a newly discovered spider nest.
“What about the termites?”
She scrunches her nose and growls. “Shit! I forgot about the termites. That should rank third among earth-shattering news I need to deliver, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, probably. She knows termites exist, so that works in our favor.” I come to stand in front of Natalie. She stops pacing and instinctively leans her head against my chest. My arms wrap around her, and I revel in the feel of her beating heart against my sternum. “Everything will be fine. Lindsay will understand. You’ve got this.”
We spend the rest of the evening getting organized and cleaning the house in preparation for Lindsay’s arrival. Natalie doesn’t seem any less nervous, but cleaning seems to be a productive distraction for her, so I simply keep an eye on her as she moves from room to room, stopping her with a glass of water when she seems thirsty, and forcing her to put the antibacterial wipes down for a dinner break a moment before her stomach demands to be fed. She chose breakfast for dinner, which includes my famous French toast. It seems to be her favorite.
We’re cleaning different areas of the kitchen. Natalie is wiping down the shelves inside the fridge, and I’m putting the clean dishes away while her small black speaker plays the greatest hits of a man named Hozier. For such a happy person, my Natalie’s taste in music is awfully melancholic. We move around each other seamlessly, without words, kind of like a dance. It’s as if we’ve been sharing this space for years. That is, until I find a plate with crusted red sauce on it and go to place it back in the sink. It’s at this same moment that Natalie takes the bowl full of ice water from the fridge to dump in the sink, slamming it into my stomach. The dirty plate shatters onthe floor, and the water splashes onto both of us, drenching our shirts equally.
This is the kind of situation that would normally send me into a fit of rage. The carelessness of it, paired with the preventability, would cause me to erupt. I’m shocked when it doesn’t, and even more so when I feel my lips curve into a smile, matching the one on Natalie’s beautiful face.
Laughter bursts out of us as we shake the freezing water from our skin and clothes. She wrings out her T-shirt, shaking her head. “Well,” she says, pushing a wet strand of hair off her cheek, “Iwasworking up a sweat, so at least that’s taken care of.”
She always sees the upside, and I have no idea how she does it. My mind simply doesn’t work that way. Every experience I have serves as confirmation that I’m better off alone, as far from other people as possible––Natalie being the exception––and the more time passes, the deeper this theory burrows itself into my psyche.
Natalie is the opposite, never considering that her troubles are caused by her proximity to others. She’s stubbornly cheerful, like a weed intent on reaching for the sun, but in a way that makes me want to be more like her.
I try to push away the nagging thought of what I mean to her, but it’s next to impossible when I discover more of her quirks that are so cute I want to lock her inside this house for a week and not let her out of my sight. The way she closes one eye to aim when she throws a napkin or anything remotely resembling a ball into the trash bin. The childlike grunt she lets out as she’s searching for the most comfortable position in bed before falling asleep. The scent of her skin in the morning––so warm and fruity andher.
She’s still far messier than I’d like, but when she spills salsa on her shirt while we’re eating the tacos I prepared, or when I find flattened popcorn beneath the throw pillows on the couch,annoyance is not the dominant emotion that registers anymore. It’s amusement.
Taylor Swift is even starting to grow on me. Natalie blasts it as we work, and I must say, the weaving of her tales of heartbreak is…impressive. Eloquent. Undeniably catchy. When Natalie catches me singing along to “The Man” as she passes me sweeping the staircase, she chortles, and I’m grateful that’s where the mockery ends.
Once Natalie’s Thursday night shift comes around, the house is mostly clean. The parts we know Lindsay will occupy, that is. Natalie plans to take a trip to the market tomorrow morning in order to restock the fridge. While she’s gone, I’ve been tasked with alerting Ethel about our upcoming guest, and checking to see why the dryer is taking at least three cycles to dry Natalie’s clothes.
Ethel takes the news well, mostly because she happens to be in a bright mood today. Natalie plans to keep Lindsay far from the garden to avoid any potential unpleasantness.
Grabbing the toolbox from its designated shelf in the basement, I make my way into the laundry room next door. Once I clean out the filter and disconnect it from the power source, I set about taking it apart to get a deeper look.
By the time I’ve cleaned the lint filter housing, the dryer drum, ensured the dryer vent is clear, and screwed the parts back together, Natalie is an hour from her shift being over. I panic at the state of my dirty clothes and lack of a plan for what to cook for dinner, when my gaze lands on her full laundry basket sat atop the washer. On top of the pile is a pair of midnight blue, high-waisted panties. My pulse quickens. These clothes haven’t been cleaned. This is the pair she put on last night before bed. The pair I shoved down to her ankles in the middle of the night so I could feast on her pussy. Now they’re justhere. Unattended.
I check over my shoulder, despite knowing she’s not home yet, before pressing the soft cotton against my nose. My eyes fall closed as her warm, sweet musk fills my lungs. I stuff the underwear into my pocket, hoping she has enough pairs that she won’t notice one is missing. Or wait, this is the second pair I’ve pilfered, isn’t it? Oh well.
Modern women must have vast collections of undergarments, right? Clothing is cheaper than it was in my day. I know that. A new pair of underwear is, what, thirty cents? If she makes a fuss, I could find a way to sell some of Susanna’s old jewelry on the internet to pay her back.
I drop the underwear in my room in the attic before shifting into mist and floating downstairs to the kitchen. The fridge and cabinets are mostly bare, but we have the ingredients for chicken lasagna, so that’s what I make.
Natalie bursts into the kitchen with a wide, toothy grin as I’m taking the lasagna out of the oven. “I got you a present!”
“Is that so?”
She hands me a blue and white polka dot bag with blue tissue paper sticking out of it, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
When I pull out the matte black box, I stare at the photo on the top, confused.
“It’s a phone!” She takes the box from my hands and rips it open, tossing the spare cords, plastic sleeve, and twist-tied accessories on the kitchen island. “Well, barely a phone, compared to the others out there. They practically gave it to me for free.” The phone is a small silver square, and I’m surprised when she unfolds it into a rectangle. She powers it on and starts pressing the small buttons. “You can’t connect to the internet, but you can make calls and texts. I figured that’s all you’d be interested in doing for now. You can upgrade later if you want, once you master the basics.”
I force a smile, hoping she can’t see through it. “This is a lovely gift, but”––I clear my throat, softening my tone––“what would I need this for?” She’s the only one I care to speak to, and when she’s not here, she’s at work, unlikely able to chat anyway.
