Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Andrew
I never realized how many defects my studio apartment has.
It’s homey and cozy, perfect for a single man who mainly uses it as a place to eat and sleep and occasionally lounge around while eating leftover pizza.
But the second I decide to have company over—and not just any company, but a woman—I realize how much it’s lacking.
I don’t have a large French door fridge with an ice dispenser or a balcony overlooking sixteen stories with a view that includes a small section of the ocean and the Port of San Diego.
My view is unremarkable with the tops of other two-story apartment buildings and a freeway overpass.
In fact, my apartment doesn’t even have a wall separating the bedroom from the kitchen.
It’s all one small open space where the only area with privacy is the bathroom.
I’ve spent the last hour cleaning. Picking up trash, wiping down surfaces, going around all the hidden outlets to see where I can covertly plug in a few scent diffusers.
I even made sure to switch out the towels to newer, fluffier ones and laid out some toiletries I bought when I shopped for some flavored Perrier.
Grace is coming over to my apartment. She’s heading straight over for dinner after work.
We’ve been spending the past few nights at her place and when she casually mentioned she’s never seen my apartment, I invited her over.
I, of course, immediately regretted it. I’ve become so comfortable in her condo, I didn’t know how she was going to adjust to my much smaller dwelling.
Not that she seems to be the type of person who cares.
Her digs aren’t something that defines her.
It’s almost as if her home is just her home.
Something that happened by chance and luck, and she’s just enjoying the amenities.
Still, I want to impress her. I want her to see that this place, as much as it’s not grand or swanky, is very much me.
I’m cleaning up some leftovers in my fridge that turned out to be a container of chow mein from two weeks ago when I hear a knock at my door. I abandon the stinky noodles, shoving them deep in my trash can while hoping it’ll be enough to mask the smell.
When I open the door, nothing could’ve prepared me for what’s on the other side.
It’s not that Grace looks any different.
She’s wearing a pair of wide, flowy slacks that touch the floor with a V-neck sweater-shirt.
Resting just at the dip of her neckline sits a small diamond stud hanging from a gold chain.
Her hair is swept up in a sleek bun with wispy strands framing her face and neck, and gold earrings that look like teardrops dangle from her earlobes.
She has a leather tote bag slung over her shoulder, along with a look of frazzled weariness.
But aside from how stunning yet unimposing she looks, it’s the sudden sight of her that has a physical effect on me.
I’d been so busy cleaning I didn’t have a moment to realize how much I missed her.
I hadn’t seen her in over twenty-four hours since I had to work late last night, and it seems that short period of time allowed my heart to grow fonder.
I forgot how much I love being near her, running my hands over whatever exposed skin she lets me touch or even just spewing random things to each other.
Questions that run on a tangent with no purpose or thought.
Just things that pop into our minds we don’t find the need to filter or hold back.
Even the moments when we stay quiet and bask in the silence, not needing to fill it with superfluous words.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” I answer. I open the door wider, and as she walks through the threshold, I slip off her bag and place it on the chair tucked under my drop-leaf dining table. A set made for only two.
We skip past a formal greeting, and I swoop her into my arms. I nuzzle my nose into the dip in her neck, and I feel her fingers rake into my scalp.
The tension in my shoulders melts off my bones and muscles.
I hadn’t brought up anything work-related to her, but today wasn’t different than any other stressful workday.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing her all day, and it seems it’s more than just a simple date night in.
I feel okay around her. I don’t feel wound up or anxious or irritable. I feel calm and just…okay.
“I missed you,” I whisper into her hair.
“I missed you too.” She pulls away, brushing her lips to mine.
“You don’t want a tour?”
I feel her shoulders shrug while her lips continue to seek out mine. “Sure. If you want.” Her hands tuck under my shirt, fingers looping over my belt. “Or we can keep doing this.”
“That’s good too.” I guide her to my bed a few steps away where we fall in a heap on top of my covers. And I realize, like how I missed our conversations and even the silent moments that fill our time together, I miss this just as much.
“I like your apartment.”
“Yeah?”
“Hm,” Grace hums against my skin. “It’s nice and cozy.”
We’re lying in my bed, our bodies a little flushed and heated from the last hour we’ve spent over and under each other.
I know I don’t have much time before Grace has to leave and we should probably eat something soon, but the thought of ditching our warm nest doesn’t sound the least bit appealing.
I want to stay here until the moment she needs to get back home to Buster.
A part of me wishes she could stay the night.
I could even offer to go and bring Buster back here.
We could enjoy a leisurely dinner and shower together.
Do things under the water until it runs cold and have her slip into one of my shirts before we go to bed.
We could wake up together, possibly have a cup of coffee or a light breakfast before we head off to our respective jobs.
I could maybe even pack her a lunch. The perfect way to continue the work week.
My thoughts of an imaginary sleepover are interrupted when I hear Grace’s stomach grumble against mine. While I could stay in this spot forever, I know it’s time for me to get up and feed her.
“All right,” I announce, gently removing Grace’s arm from across my stomach. “We have to get up.”
“What? Why?” she objects. She tugs at my hand, attempting to force me back down on my bed.
“You need to eat,” I tell her.
“No, I’m okay,” she argues. “I just want to lie here with you.” I watch as she settles back on the pillows, letting the comforter slip low so the rounded side cleavage of her perfect tits tempts me back to her.
But I don’t give in. I shake my head and say, “Your stomach seems to disagree.”
“That was your stomach.”
I look back at her with a quizzically confused look.
I could’ve sworn it was her. Just as I’m starting to question and reconsider her claim, she giggles, smothering her laugh with the comforter pulled up to her cheek.
I fall into the temptation of letting the both of us go hungry and slip under the covers with her. “You’re hilarious, you know that?”
“Of course,” she answers. She runs her fingers through my already rumpled hair and tugs me closer to her.
I take another five minutes before finally slipping on a pair of sweatpants and sauntering into my kitchen. Grace trails behind me, throwing on one of my oversized shirts, and she keeps me company while I boil some water and pour it into two separate instant ramen cups.
“Sorry it’s not much,” I tell her apologetically.
We’re sitting at my cramped table, a stack of mail pushed to the side, with our dinner squished close together.
Grace has one bare leg drawn up to her chin, and I’m growing infatuated with the smooth slope of her neck as the collar of my shirt falls to the side.
She stirs a pair of chopsticks in her noodles and swirls a heaping first serving. “What are you talking about? This is amazing.”
I’d call her bluff, but it doesn’t seem like a bluff at all. Either she really is enjoying it, or she was really that hungry.
“You want a drink?”
She nods with rounded cheeks that make her look like a chipmunk. I grab her a can of Perrier from the fridge, and I open a fresh bottle of beer for myself, and she looks at me with a look I can only describe as adoration.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “It’s nothing.”
“No, what is it?”
She pauses, contemplating her answer, and plucks at the cold can in her hand. “How’d you know these are my favorite?”
I look at the grapefruit-flavored sparkling water before saying, “I noticed you were drinking it at Teeny’s, and you have a few cans stocked in your fridge, so…”
“And you thought to keep some in your fridge too?”
I nod, and she continues to eat, that look of awe settling over her smile.
Under the dim kitchen lighting, while we sit at what is probably the smallest dining table in the world, I feel like anything is possible.
We can be this bare, completely vulnerable form of us without having to worry about consequences or an aftermath that may or may not come.
I can hold on to this moment where the night seems to stand still, and morning never comes.
I don’t have to face my job, and she doesn’t have to go home.
And maybe in some alternate universe, we make complete sense.
There’s no one who would question the idea of us.
She wouldn’t be my sister’s best friend, and I wouldn’t be her best friend’s younger brother.