She flashed a grin at me. “What’d you say?”
“Well…” I blanked. “That you compulsively sweep the floors.”
“Hey. I’ll be tidy if I want to.”
“I’m just saying, I’m not that filthy that it needs scrubbing every day. You just keep needing to be working.”
She laughed. “I’ll take it, I suppose. Hardly the worst descriptor of me.”
Hardly the worst descriptor I could have given her. And it was true because Ihadmentioned it to Gina at one point. Technically true was the best I was getting right now.
We got our cinnamon rolls, and we headed out, taking my car back home, and I was so enjoying the little rhythm of chitchat Victoria and I had found that I let my guard down too much, and I brazenly checked my mail on the way back into the house, just about having a heart attack at the sight of a small cardboard box addressed to my online creator name. I grabbed it a little too quickly, holding it up against me in a way that I hoped read as casual while hiding the shipping label.
“More keepsakes?” Victoria laughed, and I died a little bit. This wasn’t the time to remember she’d found one of my vibrators that I’d lost in the back of a drawer. I didn’t even rememberwhyI’d shoved it into the back of a drawer in the firstplace. God knows how long it had been sitting in there. I had too many toys to keep track of them all, my blog popular enough that companies sent me free ones to test out and review. Normally a good problem to have.
“You could say that,” I said with a forced laugh, and I took her back into the elevator, which, for some reason, was crowded right now, a bunch of college kids coming up from the underground garage, and I was about to just wait for the next one, but when Victoria squeezed in, I couldn’t explain why I wasn’t about to press up against Victoria while holding this box, so… I pressed up against Victoria while holding the box. To say I was hyperconscious of what was in it was an understatement. The only distraction was being uncomfortably—or maybe too comfortably—aware of Victoria’s chest against my back as we squeezed in, and I stood like a statue, not even daring to breathe, until we stepped out on my floor, and I was a tangled mess with spaghetti in my stomach by the time we got back into the apartment.
“Just gonna toss this in my room and then be right back for cinnamon rolls,” I said with a practiced casual air. Maybe too practiced. She smiled knowingly.
“Seal it off in your little lair of secrets.”
“S-secrets?” That sounded cool. I didn’t stutter.
“I’m still curious about what types of content you make. You keep it very secret. Are you writing malware?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” I laughed nervously. “Yeah, you know, the occasional malware, hacking into bank servers, spreading propaganda on behalf of foreign dictators. You should see what those friends of mine in the industry do.”
“Oh, I believe it,” she said, her voice loaded, and I thought I’d die. I think she was just having fun with how awkward I got, and not that she actually knew anything. She gave me a playful push on the shoulder, and I saw stars when her fingers lingeredthere a second too long. “All right, evil instigator, get a move on, then. If I’m having special non-Christmas-morning cinnamon rolls, I want them while they’re still warm.”
Right. So no stopping to use my new product, then. Or maybe I could, because it’d probably take me about thirty seconds. “You and me both,” I said. “Be back in a minute.”
I ran off to my room and hyperventilated.
Chapter 6
Victoria
The curiosity was eating me alive. If Bridgetwasa hacker and foreign instigator, I didn’t think I’d even hold it against her at this point, I just desperately wanted to know.peachykeendidn’t feel like a good name for an agent of a foreign dictator, though.
I could have looked it up, and it hung in my mind all day—the mall in the morning, and then a breakfast where she seemed distracted with something but brushed it off when I asked. Disappeared for a while back into her room after, and I took the opportunity to sit in the living room for a bit, because my idea of a weekend was to do work in the living room instead of at the desk in my bedroom, and I spent a good ten minute withpeachykeen narrationtyped into my search bar, but in the end, I didn’t hit enter. Felt like a breach of privacy, especially given she clearly didn’t want me to see what was written on the package and had no idea I’d seen it earlier.
I wondered if she narrated something like… raunchy romance novels. The type with a shirtless man on the cover and some sexy forbidden trysts. She had a friend who’d narrated an audiobook, and it had sounded a little suggestive, talking about the POV characterlooking overthis woman on a chaise with her legs doing something. She’d been a little fast to turn it off.
I didn’t have such delicate sensibilities as to be offended by romance novels. I’d never actually read one, but… it hardly seemed like the worst thing in the world. Maybe I’d look her up and listen to one of them, just so I could drop it on her and see how mortified she’d look.
The thought passed through my head that she had a nice voice for it, before I realized how strange the thought was—like I was thinking my roommate had a good bedroom voice. Bridget didn’t seem like the type to have a problem with my sexual orientation, but I felt like the whole thing would be easier if I didn’t bother coming out, since I wasn’t likely to be dating anybody of any gender as long as I was here, and I definitely didn’t need to come out by saying I thought her voice was… sexy.
I’d probably just been too repressed. It had been a long time, to put it lightly. I was too busy, was the nice and tidy reason I would give people if they asked. The real reason? That was a whole other can of worms.
I almost went through with the search, but I got a text in the last instant, Kevin’s name on it, and I took it as a sign, clearing the search bar and closing my laptop, opening the message.
I hear you’re bringing Bridget around tomorrow?
I typed in quickly.Mom was weirdly insistent on inviting her, and Bridget said yes.
You don’t sound too enthusiastic about it.
I chewed my lip.I’m just a little confused, if I’m being honest. We were never a “having friends over for dinner” household.
