Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Gray
There was a knock at my door on Saturday afternoon and at first I thought about hiding and pretending I wasn’t home, but curiosity got the better of me and I went to see who it was and found Mal standing there.
Oh, shit.
I hadn’t seen or heard from her in a week, but here she was. Taking a deep breath that was only a little unsteady, I opened the door and couldn’t help but smile.
She looked gorgeous in a pair of baggy shorts and a sweatshirt that had seen better days. Her hair was up in a bun, which I’d never seen before.
“Hey,” she said, her voice soft.
“Hi.”
“I was just…” She stopped and took a breath. “Can we talk?”
We both jumped as someone closed a door down the hall too loudly.
“Yeah, of course. Come in.”
She hadn’t seen my place yet and I did a quick frantic scan to make sure there wasn’t anything weird left out.
Dandy ran over to see what the commotion was and inspect the new person.
“Oh,” she said in surprise as Dandy looked up at her.
“That’s Dandy. She’s a menace, mostly, but she likes people.” Whenever maintenance had to come over and fix anything, she had to come over and supervise.
“Aren’t you pretty. Yes you are,” Mal said in a low voice as she held her hand out for Dandy to sniff and butt her head against.
Eventually Mal stood up again and looked at me.
“Can we talk?”
Yes. No. Yes.
“Sure.”
I gestured to the living room and we sat down on the couch. I made sure to keep some space between us. I honestly had no idea where this was going to go.
Her smile was nervous, and that was cute as hell. “Sorry about just knocking on your door, but we never exchanged numbers so I didn’t know how else to talk to you. And I just kept expecting to crash into you, but then I didn’t, so.”
She kept fiddling with the hem of her sweatshirt. I loved how casual she looked.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry, we should have traded numbers, but I wasn’t sure if that was part of the deal.” This whole hookup thing was still a mystery to me.
Mal nodded.
“Anyway, I guess… Okay, I’m just going to say it?”
She peered up at me and I realized she wanted me to agree before she continued.
“Go for it,” I told her.
Another glance down and a deep breath before she met my eyes with her own, brown eyes serious.
“I can’t stop thinking about you. I know it was a hookup, but I’d really like to see you again.”
Oh. Oh fuck.
“Yes,” I blurted out before I could even process her words. They were good and I couldn’t believe I was hearing them.
Mal laughed a little, and for the first time, I swore I saw a little bit of blush on her cheeks.
“So we’re both on the same page about that, good.”
“Ideal, really,” I said.
Dandy chose that moment to jump on the couch between us and beg for attention, so we both took a moment to process.
“You can hang out for a little bit. If you want. I was just doing laundry and cleaning my closet and getting rid of some clothes.” My closet had absolutely gotten out of hand and I needed to do a purge.
“I like your decorations,” she said, looking around. While I wasn’t too intense about Christmas, I did like to decorate for it. Every year I picked colors for my ornaments and this year I’d done a lesbian theme, with pink, white, and orange. Subtle, obviously.
I had stockings hung up on the console table that my TV lived on. One for me and one for Dandy. There were also sparkly garlands in the doorways.
“Thanks. I like to feel festive.”
I literally couldn’t remember if she’d had a tree or anything up last week. There had been other things on my mind.
“Are you going anywhere for Christmas?” I asked. We really knew so little about each other. I had no idea if she had a family or siblings or anything. I did know she had freckles on the insides of her thighs though, so that was something.
Mal sighed. “Not this year. My family is going out to visit my sister in Seattle and I was going to go, but I’ve got so much freelance work and things can be kind of chaotic so I decided to stay here this year. They’re not happy about it, but I put my foot down.”
“Yeah, sounds like you made the right decision. So you’ll be here?”
Dandy draped herself in Mal’s lap. I couldn’t blame her. It was a fantastic lap.
“Yup. What about you?”
I let out a breath. “My family doesn’t really do the whole Christmas thing?
They don’t really do holidays, period. Birthdays, yes, but I guess my parents are just kind of grumpy about being forced to celebrate holidays?
I don’t know. For them it’s just kind of another day, and they’re actually going to be heading to a cabin to get away from it all.
I’m invited, of course, but since it’s just the three of us, it can get a little boring.
They’ve always enjoyed quiet, and that’s not really…
I like color and silly movies and making themed drinks.
I was always jealous of the other kids when Santa came to them, so I guess I’m just kind of making up for lost time?
Some years I go along with Tally and spend it with her family, but this year I guess I wanted to do my own thing.
” That was way too much information, but I couldn’t help myself from babbling.
Mal nodded as if she understood. “Families can be tricky, can’t they?”
“That is the truth.”
Silence fell between us.
“So we’re both going to be here on Christmas,” I said, a plan starting to form in my mind.
“This might be out of line, but if you wanted to hang out a little bit with someone, I wouldn’t mind.
I’ll be opening presents I bought myself, and the ones Tally and her family sent, and having cocoa and watching movies. ”
Mal thought about that for a moment, her fingers stroking Dandy’s head.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t be. Promise.”
“I’ll think about it.” She still had a few days to decide.
“Good.”
My phone vibrated with a new message and I remembered that I still didn’t have hers.
“Hey, what’s your number?” I asked and she gave it to me. I sent her the kissy face winking emoji and she laughed when she saw it.
“There. Now we can liaise directly.”
Mal’s eyebrows went up. “Liaise?”
“You know. Schedule our…liaisons. It sounds fancier than hookups.” I didn’t want to call them hookups. That was such a casual and bland term. Whatever we were doing was different. At least it was to me.
“Liaisons,” she repeated, drawing the word out. “I guess we can call them that.”
Ugh, now I was being a dork in front of her and she was going to stop wanting to have sex with me.
“Or hookups. It’s fine.”
I shifted and thought about telling her I had to use the bathroom to escape.
“Hey,” she said, reaching out and touching me for the first time since she walked in the door. “We can call them liaisons. And I’m thinking that if you’re not doing anything tonight, you might want to have one?”
I didn’t have anything going on, but even if I did, I would have canceled on my own funeral to liaise with her tonight.
“Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” I said, trying not to vibrate out of my own skin with excitement. That gave me enough time to do an everything shower and pick out some sexy underwear for her. I wanted to up my game from last time when she’d pulled the vibrator T-shirt off me.
“Perfect,” she said. “Then it’s a liaison.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re going to keep saying that, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. It’s cute. You’re cute.” Oh shit, if she wasn’t careful, I was going to swoon.
“Stop it,” I said, hitting her arm and wishing I could hide my cheeks without being obvious about it.
“Mmmm, I don’t think I will,” she said, leaning forward and stopping when she was just close enough to almost kiss. Dandy woke up and jumped off the couch and I felt my body leaning toward her.
“Rude,” I whispered.
“You like it,” she said just before our lips met. She tasted like something sweet, but the best part was the way she pushed me back and grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me senseless. Just absolutely wrecked me.
“God, I can’t believe I waited so long to talk to you,” she said in between deep, slow licks of my mouth.
“Why did you?” I asked and then realized that I should have just shut up so she would have kept kissing me.
She leaned back just a little. “Because I’ve never had a hookup, excuse me, a liaison, like you before.” She seemed both surprised and reluctant to admit it.
“Me neither. I mean, this was my first one, but talk about starting off on the right foot.”
She laughed a little and her breath caressed my skin.
“If I don’t leave now, I’m going to end up stripping you right here, right now.”
“Okay,” I immediately said. “I have no problem with that.”
She made a frustrated sound and pushed herself away.
“No.” She stood up and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I need a shower. I’ve been cleaning today. And I want to have some time to think about what I’m going to do to you.”
An embarrassing whimper slipped from my mouth.
She groaned and tipped her head to the ceiling. “Fuck, you can’t make that noise when I’m around. I’m going. I’m going now or else I won’t leave.” She walked toward the door and I managed to scrape myself off the couch and follow her with a few feet of distance.
“Did you want to come over to my place or stay here?” There was an option.
“Your toys are better than mine,” I said. It was the truth. Most of mine were the cheap ones I got online when there were two-for-one sales. All of hers were so much nicer.
Mal laughed. “You can play with my toys as much as you want, lovely.”
Fuck, it was so good when she used words like that. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Mal and I moved toward each other and then she yanked the door open.
“I’ll see you later tonight.”
She left and I just kind of melted to the floor.
“Holy shit.”