I try not to let it knock my confidence. She enjoyed last night; I know she did. The way her pussy squirted for me – twice – tells me everything I need to know. I guess the whole one-night-stand thing is just Calla’s style and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the twenty-first century, she’s a single woman and she can do what she wants with her body, how she wants, with whom she wants.
But it’s just as okay to admit that’s notmyjam. I’m not a one-night-stand type of guy and this morning awkwardness on my part is only proving that.
Calla squints at me but I avert her gaze.
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No thanks, I’ll um… I’ll have this” —Calla gestures to the coffee cup in her grasp— “and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Are you sure? You—”
“It’s fine, Blake. Really.”
The rest of the words sitting on the tip of my tongue dry up. What else can I say? I’m so confused and out of sorts I don’t even know whatIwant. Do I want Calla to stay?
This—this whole morning is so out of character for me. The lack of routine, the change… it’s messing with my head.
I stay quiet as I drink my coffee, attempting to fix my attention on anything but the blonde bombshell sitting beside me. Not an easy task when she looks the way she does; rumpled from our rough sex-capade, lips plump and kissable, neck marred with a red rash frommybeard.
But I don’t like the slight furrow to her brow, a crease forming in her otherwise smooth skin. My stomach flips at the sight of it, creating an easiness I’m not fond of.
When I notice Calla’s cup is empty, I grab it from thecoffee table, standing to dump it in the kitchen sink to be rinsed later. I need away from whatever the hell tension is rising in my apartment, clawing at the walls with its sharp talons, awaiting to strike.
Although why, I’m not so sure. Isn’t this what Calla wants? A single night together before she falls back into the wild waves of her life, and I slip back into the steady stream of mine?
“Could I borrow some tracksuit bottoms?”
I raise my head to find Calla standing, too, her fingertips plucking at the short hem of my shirt. Nodding silently, I see Calla’s small grateful smile and then her retreating form as she disappears back into my bedroom.
Once she’s gone, I grip the faux marble kitchen countertop, hanging my head forward, shoulders scrunched together as tightly as my eyes are screwed shut. The sound of a drawer being pulled open and then shut again, grains of wood rubbing against other grains of wood, echo loudly through my ears. My apartment feels so different now there’s someone other than myself in my space. It feels smaller, each sound Calla is making, abrasive.
“Blake?” The feeling of a small, soft palm coming to rest in the centre of my spine ghosts along my bare skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. It’s gone before I can barely recognise it. “Are you okay?”
I blink, turning to find a now fully dressed Calla beside me. Well, if you can class last night’s princess costume with a pair of my black tracksuit bottoms shoved beneath it, fully dressed. I notice her feet are bare and she’s still wearing that frown between her eyebrows, before I find my tongue.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and straight up. “I’m okay, just a bit of a headache. Are you?”
Calla searches my face for a heartbeat and then takes astep back, nodding. “Mhm. I’ve called a taxi. It shouldn’t be long, and it looks like it’s going to be a nice day.” She peers over my shoulder, as if to double check. “So, I’m just going to wait outside for it.”
“Calla—”
She cuts me off before I can speak. “Thanks for last night. It was fun while it lasted.”
I want to say something, anything, but my tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth. With a painful swallow, I manage to unstick it just as Calla reaches the door to my apartment, clutch tucked under her arm, phone in hand.
“Where are your shoes?”
Calla smirks. “They’ve cut up the backs of my heels, so I’ve left them in your room. I won’t need them again.”
“But—”
I’m interrupted again; this time by the sound of Calla’s phone lighting up with a notification.
“Taxi’s here.” She twists my key in the lock. “See you, Blake.”
“See you—”
Shoeless, Calla slips through into the hallway; a flash of honey blonde hair and then she’s gone.
