chapter fifteen True Love’s Fuck
chapter fifteen
True Love’s Fuck
“You’re torturing me on purpose, aren’t you?” I plunge my hands back into the soapy water with another dish.
Lex laughs. “Torture is cleaning dishes after the food’s gone dry and crusty. This will only take five minutes, and you’ll
thank me later.”
It’s a week and a half after our Cultus trip, and aside from texts and phone calls it’s the first time Lex and I have been
together, just us. With Gabe at his dad’s, I didn’t have to worry about his sensitive palate and treated Lex to a delicious
dinner of baked salmon with watermelon basil salad. I’d splurged on a tiny patio set for the backyard, and we soaked up some
gorgeous summer weather beneath the shade of my maple tree while splitting a bottle of rosé and taking our time through dinner,
despite how eager I am to learn about the results of her data analysis.
I hand Lex another plate.
“You need to get all the suds off your dishes,” Lex scolds. “Rinse that thing.”
I push the perfectly fine plate back toward Lex. “It’s fine, just dry it off with the tea towel.”
She refuses it with a flat palm. “There’s bacteria in the suds. You have to rinse it all off.”
“It’s fine!”
Lex points at the bubbles. “If I dry the suds on the towel then I’m literally transferring all the nasties onto the towel,
and then using said towel to spread those nasties all over the other dishes.”
“What a waste of water.” I rinse it extra thoroughly under the faucet. “There are Canadians on boil water advisories, you
know.”
Her brows furrow. “What does that have to do with us getting listeria?”
After rinsing the plate for a good thirty seconds I proffer it to her. “Clean enough, your majesty?”
Lex takes the plate, inspects it, and gives me a small, approving nod before drying it and stacking it next to her.
I move on to the next one, eyeing the stack of bakeware we still have to wash. “I swear, woman, I’m going to die of old age
by the time we get through these dishes with how nitpicky you are.”
“Do you want clean dishes or not?”
“Your immune system can probably use the boost.”
“If that’s the way you feel, then remind me to bring my own utensils next time I come over to eat.”
I nudge her with my hip. Lex hip-checks me back. Then I take a handful of bubbles and blow them into her face. She shrieks,
wiping the suds away like I’ve just coughed tuberculosis onto her. I laugh as Lex’s eyes shift dangerously, then before I
know what’s coming she’s twirled the tea towel and cracked me on the ass with it.
“Ow! Jesus Christ, woman!”
She grins, dimples popping.
“I’m gonna get you for that!” I scoop a handful of bubbles and launch it at her, but Lex dodges the soapy missile and cracks
me on the thigh with another towel snap. I squeal, then grab the faucet extension and spray water across the kitchen.
Lex holds her hands up to shield her face. “No fair!”
“All’s fair in love and—eep!” Lex tackles me against the counter to evade the water spray, then reaches for the handle to turn it off. I move to twist
her away, but slip on some suds on the floor and fall to the ground, bringing Lex with me. We collapse on the tile in a wet,
giggly heap.
“You okay?” Lex asks, lifting herself off me. Her short brown hair is damp and hanging over her forehead, blocking my view
of her bright blue eyes. I reach up and push a lock back off her forehead. She blinks as if startled and her smile falters,
those big eyes of hers darting back and forth between mine.
She’s managed to land right on top of me, settled between my thighs while I’m flat on my back. The weight of her body on top
of me has jump-started a physical reaction. Flutters race down my belly to my core, my skin tingles to life, and my centre
throbs with a longing ache.
Lex gazes down upon me for another long moment, a small crease teasing her brow. “Aubrey? Did you hit your head?”
My throat works as I swallow. I nod, and then shake my head. “I’m fine.”
Lex gazes down upon me for another long moment, as if not fully trusting that I am. She inches forward, lowering closer as
my heart stammers, pounding against my rib cage.
Water begins pouring over the countertop. “Shit, Lex, the faucet!”
She snaps back into focus and stands, turning the water off before reaching down, grabbing my hands, and pulling me up. “You’re
soaked,” she comments.
I look down at myself. My white tank top is see-through, revealing my pink bra.
What Lex doesn’t know is that my shirt and pants aren’t the only thing that’s wet.
Fuck, this months-long dry spell has really done a number to my nervous system if I get turned on by someone accidentally going near my vagina. How embarrassing.
The sooner we break this curse, the better.
“Why don’t you go get changed and I clean this up?” Lex offers, eyeing my soaked clothes.
“You sure?”
Lex gives me a wink. “I got you.”
Ignoring the weird feeling in my tummy from that wink, I turn and walk back into my bedroom, peeling my shirt off as I go.
I take a little extra time getting dressed, tying my hair back into well-practised braids and fixing my runny eyeliner before
rejoining Lex in the living area. By the time I’m done she has the rest of the dishes washed and stacked, the water and suds
cleaned off the floor, and there’s a fresh glass of rosé waiting on the coffee table. Lex stands by the TV, laptop in one
hand and remote in the other. She looks up from the screen and does a double take.
“Sorry.” I tug at my PJ top, second-guessing removing my bra. “I felt like getting comfy.”
She shakes her head quickly and drops her gaze back down. “By all means.”
I flop onto the couch beside Winston and pull him into my lap. Something tells me I’m going to need my emotional support gremlin
to get through this. I’ve been so excited for this for weeks, but now that it’s actually happening my stomach is twisting
in knots. This is the first time anyone’s ever taken my curse seriously, and the first time anyone’s ever tried to help me
through it.
Lex stands off to the side of the TV, balancing her laptop on one hand and clicking around with the other.
She looks like one of those professors in university that is equal parts cool and feared, like she’d extend your paper for you if needed but would also rip you a new asshole for asking a question that’s already been answered because you weren’t paying attention.
After clearing her throat, she clicks a button and the TV lights up.
My mouth drops open. “Holy shit, you made a PowerPoint presentation?”
Lex’s eyes twinkle. “Oh, I did more than that.” She clicks to the first slide, and I’m met with a big-ass Excel spreadsheet
loaded to the tits with data.
I cannot contain my squeal of delight. “This is amazing!”
Lex lifts her chin proudly. “It’s nice to know you love spreadsheets almost as much as I do. Shall I begin?”
“Yes, please do!” I grip my hands together and try not to bounce in my seat.
“Before I was able to find out what is correlating, I had to cross a few things off the list that were not. There is no correlation between how long you’re on a
date and how intense the awkwardness is. There’s no correlation between your date’s socioeconomic status and how awkward the
date is. And there’s no correlation with their age, physical attractiveness, et cetera. But I did find one thing.”
I’m fucking riveted.
Lex clicks to the next slide. “Things began to make sense when I combined several data points into one key data set: length
of time of the date before things became awkward, amount of awkward moments, and intensity of awkward moments, which gives
me the ‘AF.’”
“‘As fuck’?”
“‘Awkward Factor,’” she corrects, though judging by the appearance of her dimples the entendre is intended.
She continues, clicking to the next slide, which features another spreadsheet.
“Then I cross-referenced with a few other factors. There were some slight correlations, but it wasn’t until I factored in this that I found anything of significance. ”
She clicks to the next slide, and I’m met with a graph showing several dots connected with a line rising in an angle from
left to right.
“Holy shit,” I murmur.
“As you can see, there is a slight linear trajectory,” Lex says, like I know what that means.
I squint at the axis. “X is ‘AF,’ Awkward Factor. What’s Y?”
Lex takes her sweet-ass time building the suspense before clicking to the next slide. “Attraction.”
“I’m confused.” I raise an eyebrow. “The sexier the person is the more likely my date will be awkward?”
“Not physical attraction.” Lex gesticulates with one hand while balancing her laptop on the other. “It seems to be related
to how invested you were in continuing the date, regardless of how handsome they were, how much money they flashed in front
of you, or how well the date seemed to be going.”
“Diabolical,” I say, jutting my thumbnail into my mouth to chew. “So, this whole time, the more I wanted the date to go well,
the worse it got?”
Lex nods. “Yes.”
“So, the curse was guaranteed to push away anyone I found interesting.”
“Precisely.”
I think for a moment. “So then the more awkward things get, the more likely that person is to be the one to break my curse.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far. As far as science goes, this is barely scientific.” Lex points to the graph as she
delves into a long rant about P values and sample sizes and outliers and null hypotheses.
“Lex, this is the closest I’ve ever got to an answer,” I say, cutting her off. “If there’s even a chance we can break the curse, then it’s worth a try.”
Lex sighs, dropping her gaze. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“It’s far too late for that, my friend.” I stand, joining her at the TV to get a closer look at the graph. “Let’s say this
is all accurate and it follows all the rules for all that smart shit you said. Then wouldn’t it mean that the more awkward
things are, the more likely the person is the right one for me?”