10. Nash
10
Nash
A New Glitch
W e’ve slept in her bed the last two nights, and even I know these sheets could probably use another wash. The new goal is six.
I blink my eyes against the early morning glare, and I recognize the smell of her shampoo before I can remember what day it is. The scent of her hair is more familiar to me than where I am in time and space.
It’s Wednesday. And her skin is smooth and warm under my hand.
I’m going to be chasing the high of fucking her awake for the rest of my life after we leave here. She murmurs incoherently as I pull her thigh toward me, making room for my body between her legs.
My rental term is up on Friday at eleven a.m. We’ve known each other such a short amount of time that it seems wild to talk about where we go from here. I have her number. She has mine. But I don’t want to play this by ear.
I remind myself it’s only Wednesday and maybe our future should be a Thursday conversation.
Her eyelids flutter when I enter her. She doesn’t try as hard to wake up as she did a few days ago. In fact, she tries much harder to stay asleep. But there’s nothing I love more than a challenge.
It’s so much fun watching her try not to react to the dirty things I’m whispering in her ear, to see her battle between wanting sleep and wanting pleasure.
The moment she realizes her wrists are pinned, she pulls as if she wants to break free, but only for a few seconds until she realizes what’s happening, and then she settles into the restraint as if it’s not worth abandoning her sleep over. I love every attempt she makes to avoid waking up. But that moment when pleasure wins out and she opens her eyes and smiles at me?
That’s the moment I’m living for, the one I want to see on repeat every time I close my eyes. I’ve always liked to win, but neither of us loses in this scenario.
She wraps her silky legs around me like she has me captured instead of the other way around. She does, but in ways she doesn’t know.
I’m captivated by the tiny sections of hair around her face that always escape her messy bun by the end of the day, looking like they fought their way out, by the startled expression she makes right before she argues, as if she has to be shocked into disagreement, and by the subtle nod she gives as she completes each step of a task. Rinse a glass? Tiny nod. Set it in the dishwasher? Tiny nod. It’s like she’s checking the steps off a list with every adorable, barely perceptible nod of her gorgeous head.
These are all things she’d probably hate knowing I’ve noticed, but they’re burned into my brain.
She bucks her hips. “Hey, are you fucking me or making a grocery list?”
“Sorry, I got distracted for a minute. But just so you know, I was thinking about you.”
“Well, pay attention to me instead.”
“You got it, beautiful.”
We’ve paused the game to discuss a glitch the developers are divided on. Two of them want to go with a quick fix, but the other one wants the whole sequence rewritten. It’s a long cutscene, and they’re close to their release date, so quick fixes are getting more green flags.
There are no major glitches left, but these minor ones can take longer to correct because the developers are more likely to let their egos out to play. There’s room for debate, and they make use of it.
I’m team rewrite on this one, but I’m just here to find the glitches, not to solve them, so I sit quietly while the quick-fix-duo makes their case.
Everyone goes quiet for a few minutes, presumably weighing the options.
Cat comes down, carrying her sheets to the wash, and with the playtesting silenced, she’s instantly the sole object of my focus.
“If you would’ve let me make you come a third time this morning, I’d have washed the sheets.”
She shakes her head and laughs, knowing I’m full of shit.
And then the voices erupt in my ears.
“Dude!”
“You’re not on mute, dumbass.”
“Damn, I didn’t know the rewrite meant that much to you.”
Shit. Staying in the moment is apparently not my strong suit today.
“Okay, okay. Assholes. Let’s just pretend that never happened.”
The developers finally agree the rewrite is worth it, and we move on.
Hours pass before we hit another arguable issue. We all agree it’s a good stopping point, and I log off before they can give me any more shit about my earlier fuck-up. I’m sure someone will find a way to bring it up again tomorrow.
As soon as I remove my headset, I hear music coming from upstairs. Cat must be done working, too. Feels like a good time for her third orgasm of the day.
I hear the music fade, and her voice rises as I get closer to her door. Is she filming a video? The music gets louder again. When I peek in, I pull my head back quick before she can see me. She’s dancing and walking backwards toward the bathroom.
She’s going to film herself in the bathroom?
There aren’t words to convey my intrigue. I peek into the bedroom again to make sure she’s out of sight, and then I press my back to the wall and creep along it, getting closer and closer to the bathroom door.
The music lowers again, and I stop right beside the door. If I look in, she might see my face in the mirror. How am I going to do this?
I realize if I were on the other side of the door, I’d be able to look in from that angle without my reflection being caught in the mirror. What if she sees me crossing the doorframe?
An invisibility cloak is not an option, so I take a deep breath and leap to the other side of the door, pressing my back firmly against the wall again.
She never stops talking. I think I pulled it off.
Leaning forward from the wall a few inches, I turn my head and get a perfect view of what she’s filming. She’s organized all her makeup on the counter, and the gist of the video is that you can be organized, even in a vacation rental. She travels with a countertop makeup organizer? Why?
Who cares about being organized in a vacation rental?
Her follower count flashes in my head. Oh, yeah. Nearly three million people care.
She’s so enthusiastic. The music goes back up and I realize she’s ending the video and will be dancing out of the bathroom any second. I have no exit strategy.
The leap worked on the way in . . . and it gets me back out. Success!
I go back downstairs so she can upload her video without being interrupted.
Five minutes later, she storms downstairs and plunks her phone on the table in front of me while I’m trying to enjoy the last slice of leftover pizza. “What is this?”
She’s pointing at her phone, but I’m pretty sure she knows what that is. My heart rate quickens. What is she asking me? I look more closely at the screen. Her video is up, waiting for someone to press play. She does the honors
I watch as she dances through the bedroom. She’s cute, wiggling backwards into the bathroom. My shoulders start to move like hers, and her smile’s contagious, too. The music stops, and the camera cuts to the counter, where she points at her products and narrates how she’s grouped them, the timesaving benefits, and—oh, shit.
The camera lens covers the counter and most of the mirror, where the reflection of some asshole ninja-leaps across the doorway behind her. She’s totally focused on her organized makeup, never looks up at the mirror. She didn’t see me, but her millions of followers won’t miss me.
“Whoa! Who was that?”
Her eyes narrow, and not in the sexy way. She is in no mood for my jokes.
“You ruined the whole video. Do you know how much time I spent choreographing that, setting it up, making sure I had the script just right?”
“I think you should post it and do a whole spiel about how you’re staying in this beach house all alone, and you caught a ghost on camera. People love that shit. I mean, think about it. Your original plan probably would’ve gotten a few likes, but this could go viral. I’ll help you edit it to make me look more ghostly if you want.”
“You’re about to be a ghost for real because I’m about to take your ass out!”
Yeah, there is no hope of joking my way out of this.
“Cat, I am so sorry. I did not mean to ruin your video. I was just curious, and I needed to get to the other side of the door so when I looked in to watch you, my reflection wouldn’t be in the mirror.”
“Oh, great job of not being in the mirror!”
“Yeah, clearly that didn’t go as planned.” I attempt my best sheepish smile. “I really do have decent video editing skills. If you refilm just that portion, I can make it look amazing. I promise.”
“I hear those words from you a lot. I promise. I promise. I promise.”
“Have I broken one yet?”
“Don’t try to weasel out of this on a technicality! Anyway, do you really think I’d have so many followers if I didn’t have decent video editing skills?”
“I’m just trying to help in any way I can, Cat. I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
“Making those videos isn’t a hobby, Nash. It’s part of my job. And right now, I’m trying really hard to stay relevant, and most importantly, to not be seen as a joke.”
“I know. And I know my actions don’t look like I respect that, but I do.” I hesitate before saying it, but it needs to be said. “I promise.”
She bites the corner of her bottom lip to keep from smiling. I know she’s still mad, and she has every right to be, but at least she can see a little of the humor in it. It is funny.
“Can I watch it again?”
“Knock yourself out.” She pushes her phone closer to me. “The way I want to break something over your head right now . . .”
“As much as I probably deserve that, I do have to work tomorrow, and a concussion wouldn’t be ideal.”
She glares at me. My leaping through her video wasn’t ideal. There’s no need to say it. I know, but I need to watch it again, anyway.
Part of me really wishes I could convince her to play up the humor angle, but that would require explaining to her followers that she’s staying here with me. And who am I? Just some random guy who offered her a salad, and then reworked the wager she proposed to increase his odds of getting to know her better.
“I don’t doubt your editing skills, Cat, but I’ve got an amazing program. You don’t have to let me do it. You can use my computer and do it yourself if you’d rather.”
“I’d have to learn the program first. Let me see what I can do on my own. If I need help, I’ll take you up on your offer to fix it.”
“I owe it to you to fix it. I’m the reason there’s a problem.”
“If you could be a jerk about this, maybe try to deny you did anything wrong, laugh it off like my silly little video didn’t matter to begin with . . . it would be a lot easier to stay mad at you.”
“I’d never do either of those things. If I make a mistake, I own up to it. And I hope I’ve never demeaned anything that was important to someone else, especially not someone I care about.”
Oh, damn. I did not mean to say that last part. But it’s true.
“I make light of things, Cat. Sometimes, too light. But I never mean to be hurtful. I make jokes. It’s what I do. Jokes and messes. Those are my things.”
“Lucky for you, you have other things that outweigh those.”
“It almost makes me feel worse that you’re being nice to me right now. You can feel free to yell at me some more.”
“I used to be that girl. Never solved anything. I still yell, but I’ve come a long way.” Her eyes widen as she looks into the living room. “But I could be provoked to yell about the disaster you’ve made of the living room.”
“Disaster? The walls are still standing. The ceiling’s intact. No broken windows. That’s not a disaster; It’s just a little clutter.”
“Clutter still makes me screamy. I’m probably never going to outgrow that.”
“I’m on it. Don’t rupture your vocal cords. You’ve got half a video to refilm.”
I stop before I walk past her, pull her hair to tilt her head back, and kiss her aggressively. She meets my combativeness, kissing me back like our mouths are at war with each other.
When the kiss fades into simultaneous surrender, I say, “I’m truly sorry about the video.”
“I know.” Her voice is soft, and it makes me want to hold her. But it makes me want to ravage her, too.
This woman could own me if she wanted to.
Right now, all she wants is for me to pick up my trash because knowing it’s there will keep her from being able to focus on anything else.
I leave her alone to refilm the portion of her video I ruined, but not until I’ve convinced her to save a copy of the original. Just in case she sees the humor in it eventually and finds herself in need of some comic relief.
We order dinner, and after we throw away the trash and clean the kitchen together, she asks if I’ll edit the video for her.
My dick reacts like she just asked me to do something unspeakably dirty to her. Her asking for help is a bigger turn on than she could imagine. It’s not that I see her as weak when she does it, but that she sees me as capable of helping her. That she trusts me.
“Of course. I’ll work on it right now.”
“Thanks. I’ll send it to you. I’m going to go up and read.”
“I’ll come up when I’m done.”
She takes a step away from me. “I think maybe we should sleep in our own rooms tonight.”
“Sure.”
My throat tightens to hold back argumentative words. She can sleep alone. It’s her right. There was never any agreement or even an implication that we would sleep together every night just because we did once, and then twice, and then three and four nights. But we have so little time left here together.
Is she saying this because of the video? I’m going to fix it. I’ll make it even better than it would’ve been before I jumped across the mirror.
“Right. Well, I’ll show it to you if you come back down later, or in the morning.”
“Thanks. Don’t stay up late working on it or anything. I mean, it’s not important enough to lose sleep over.” Her smile looks forced.
She’s uncomfortable standing here with me. How did we go from where we were this morning to this?
Editing her video won’t be the reason I lose sleep tonight.
After she goes upstairs, I go to my room, too. As soon as she sends me the video, I get to work on it.
I rewatch it several times to be sure there’s nothing else to tweak. There’s no reason not to send it to her now. I don’t need to be there when she sees it. I didn’t do it for her reaction. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
But I’d really like to see her reaction when she watches it. Fuck, I’d just really like to see her right now.
I send the edited video, and then I head out for a night run.
The moon’s almost full, but its brightness is dimmed by clouds. It’s ringed by a hazy halo. Looks ghostly. There are a few other runners out, and I wonder if they’re trying to burn off their frustration, too. Maybe hoping to boost their endorphins enough to suddenly see a solution to something. I’d like to think they are. That I’m not the only one.