Chapter 20 #2
When she was little, Luke had brought Denny an English-Spanish colouring book from Málaga, with the names and the simplified pronunciations of all the colours.
She had been so proud of her vocabulary, all those words she had learned to say in another language: ro-ho, ver-day, a-sul, am-uh-ree-yo…
And then one day she’d met a Colombian boy who’d told her that her accent was all wrong and she’d discovered that everything she thought she knew was a lie.
This was how she was feeling now.
Until not long ago, she had been pretty confident she knew how being horny felt. Compared to the all-consuming fire she was experiencing lately, however, the horny she had experienced in the past was like a wan flame, one gust of wind away from fizzling out.
“I thought I had, but… I felt nothing like this. It’s never been so... visceral.”
“That’s how a lot of us feel very often,” she said, not without a hint of mischief. “So go ahead, explore that at your own pace.”
“My own pace might be… wacky.”
“That’s kinda your thing. I’m here for it.” Eris gave her an indulgent smile. “You’re free to go as far as you want and bail out at any time.”
Denny scrunched her nose. “Sounds like you’re giving me a free pass to dispose of you.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“It’s not fair.”
“It’s only fair, if you need to figure yourself out.”
“Oh my god, stop.” Denny had to seal Eris’ mouth with a kiss before she melted completely. “Stop being so sweet while I’m here thinking about ripping your clothes off.”
A chuckle poured into her mouth as her buttocks were given a suggestive grope. “What’s stopping you?”
Nothing, Denny realised with a thrill of anticipation. The adrenaline rush from the run hadn’t worn out yet and she was practically naked…
The alarm clock went off in the bedroom.
After a moment of stasis, the sizzling tension subsided and Denny and Eris all but collapsed against one another with equally chagrined groans.
“The universe is against us,” Eris huffed, but Denny, despite her laugh, begged to differ.
“It got us here… What were the odds of us finding each other that night?”
A bittersweet sadness tinged Eris’ expression. “Slim, and definitely not in our favour.”
“And look at us now.”
“Look at us indeed.”
Eris’ husky whisper did nothing to incentivise Denny to step away and get into ‘responsible adult’ mode, but the second alarm going off in the bedroom called them both to order.
“Okay, okay, fine!” Although very grudgingly, Denny broke away from the sweet temptation of Eris’ warmth and rushed to turn the remaining three alarms off before the next hit.
She had a sneaking suspicion this was going to be one of those fifty-six-hour-long days.
* * *
The entire morning was a nightmare Denny only survived because Rocco stepped in to serve the customers and Eris, back from the supermarket, brought her a bunch of those amazing raspberry yoghurt chocolate bars.
Buried in ribbons and tissue paper for a last-minute order of party favours that would be picked up in the afternoon, she questioned Eris as to why the cost of the haul wasn’t on Tricount yet. Eris was usually extremely precise.
“Chill. This one’s on me.”
“Why?”
Without providing an answer, Eris brought the groceries upstairs. She returned fifteen minutes later to help Denny wrap up the two hundred fifty mini succulents while Rocco, who had the neatest handwriting among the three of them, volunteered to write the thank-you cards during lunch break.
“You weren’t supposed to work,” noted Denny after the order was picked up with a plethora of ‘Bless you’ and promises to recommend her to everyone at the christening. “Your contract doesn’t start until next month.”
“Report me to the authorities.” And then Eris smirked—a barely hinted, obnoxiously cheeky smirk that did things to Denny and haunted her daydreams for the remainder of the long, long day.
By closing time, she was buzzing. She practically shoved Rocco out, locked the door, hurriedly closed the register, and rushed upstairs, plagued by two very different types of hunger.
Like every night, Eris was in the kitchen.
For someone who claimed to be an inexperienced cook, she could put together some sick meals.
It was shocking how easily she could learn, so long as she had clear instructions—the opposite of Denny, who’d rather wing it and fail a hundred times than subject herself to the torture of reading written directions.
The mouth-watering smell of the food wasn’t enough to distract Denny from the heavenly sight of her girlfriend’s backside.
Half of Eris was buried under one of her baggy hoodies that hugged her bare thighs.
The view was way more inviting than the scrummy fragrance of the food: inches upon inches of creamy strong legs that Denny felt the sudden urge to bite.
She might lose a few teeth in the process, but some joys required a fair sacrifice.
She walked up behind Eris and wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling her hair aside to kiss her neck. “I couldn’t wait to be alone with you.”
Eris wasn’t startled—she never was, even when Denny thought she was being stealthy.
“You have approx fifteen minutes of ‘alone with me’.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your parents will be here soon.”
Denny froze. “It’s tonight?” That’s why she didn’t want to split the groceries.
“Of course you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget. It momentarily slipped my mind.”
“Sure it did.” Eris shook some tomato sauce off the wooden spoon and set it down across the pot. “Can you keep an eye on this and put the pasta in while I get dressed?”
“Do you have to?”
“Can’t have dinner with your parents like this.”
“They won’t care.”
“I do.”
She was left in charge of the dinner while Eris got changed.
The water was already boiling. Denny dipped a finger in to check the salt, for good measure, then added the pasta Eris had already prepared on a plate. She gave it a stir and lowered the heat intensity.
Ten minutes to go. Where was her phone?
The bell rang. She darted to the intercom to open. She could hear her parents bickering as they came up the stairs; it stopped as soon as she unlocked the door to let them in.
“Hello, Chickpea.” Luke greeted. “Are we early? I told your mum we were early.”
He stood back to let Heather in first. She was ready to bark back, but she lost her word when she took a look around the tidy entryway.
“No jumble of shoes… That’s a first.”
Denny crossed her arms. “Also no ball of clothes on the chair in my bedroom, no dust on the furniture, no dishes in the sink, no expired food in the fridge…”
“Who are you and what did you do to my daughter?” Heather quipped while she and Luke hung their coats.
“Eris can’t abide disorder.”
“You’re eighty-percent disorder, just like your father.”
“I brought it down to like… fifty-five? Ish? Chaos stresses Eris out, I’m trying to do better for her.’
“Where has this girl been all your life?” Luke chortled.
Stuck in lousy places, fighting to survive.
As they headed to the kitchen, Eris appeared in a long-sleeved t-shirt and the plainest jeans she owned.
The t-shirt didn’t fit right—too tight on the chest and the shoulders, the three little buttons of the neckline popped wide open—, but Denny wasn’t complaining.
For such an ill fit, it looked surprisingly good.
“Good evening, sweetie.” Heather’s smile was dazzlingly bright. “Welcome to the family.”
Eris winced. Not visibly, Denny just sensed it. It was in her eyes, in the light contraction of her eyebrows, a bob in her throat.
Family.
Eris never talked about hers. A few blood-related people living under the same roof didn’t make a family.
“I knew something was brewing between the two of you!” Luke boasted.
Eris ripped her eyes off the floor to stare at them both—a bit too intently, perhaps, but Denny appreciated the effort.
“Thank you for the necklace. It’s beautiful. And the earplugs are sick. I wish I’d had them when I went to school.”
“Don’t mention it, love.”
“We should thank you,” said Heather. “Denny hasn’t been so happy in years. And this place hadn’t looked this immaculate since she moved in.”
Eris’ gaze sharpened. “Denny does her best. The shop takes up most of her mental energy, you can’t expect her to burn herself out to keep the flat spotless.”
There was a pause of silence. Eris was picking at her fingernails, but her frown didn’t waver. Slowly, the astonishment on Heather and Luke’s faces faded; their eyes found Denny’s and what she saw in them wasn’t the disapproval she was bracing for, but something oddly close to satisfaction.
“We’ve actually honed a system,” she conveyed, reaching for Eris’ hand. “We call it ‘vulture motivation’. I’m way more productive if she’s watching or doing stuff with me.”
Luke gave her a crisp pat on the back. “Well, your system seems to be working marvellously.”
As they moved to the kitchen, Eris held Denny back to whisper: “Was I too aggressive?”
Her tone was movingly panicked, maybe even a little painful to hear. It wasn’t uncommon for her to come across as more harsh than intended: she had issues with regulating her tone just like Denny had issues controlling her volume.
“The right amount.” It was nice, for once, to be validated rather than criticised. “You stood up for me… No one’s ever defended my whimsicality before.”
Eris pointed an assertive look at her. “What you call whimsicality is likely a disorder.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been learning about ADHD. It sounds a lot like you.”
“Oh?”
“I have notes, if you’re interested.”
“Of course you do.”
A funny pang squeezed Denny’s heart, painful and yet bizarrely warm. She would’ve crushed Eris’ bones with a fierce hug if her dad’s voice hadn’t boomed from the kitchen: “Lovebirds? The pasta is boiling!”
They rushed over: some water had spluttered out of the lid, but Luke had already lowered the heat intensity and was now stirring carefully.
“Did you set a timer?”
“Oh, shoot!” Denny checked the time. “It’s been like... five minutes?”