She, of course, grabbed the other side of his shirt, pulling him with her as she leaned back into the soft couch cushion. They kissed like that for a long time, Gus lost in the feel and the taste of her, in the scent of coffee and cinnamon, in the heat of her mouth and her skin. Eventually, he began to stroke his fingertips in feathery motions down her throat, tracing the neckline of that blue camisole that it’d taken all his willpower not to stare down during their video chat.
“Gus,” she gasped, then turned her head to the side so that his mouth landed on her cheek. “Um, maybe we shouldn’t do this? What do you think?”
He pulled away because she’d pressed the Stop button, or at least Pause, on whatever was happening.
“I like you. A lot. I think you like me, too, though maybe not as much yet. Am I wrong?”
Reggie was still holding onto him. She let out a shaky laugh and rested her forehead on his chin, then let her head loll back against the couch again. Gus didn’t know why that made him like her more, but it did.
“You’re direct.” This wasn’t said with annoyance as it sometimes was by people he cared about. “I like you, too, though I’m guessing ‘a lot’ has a different value to each of us.”
“I spent all night wondering what your kiss would taste like mixed with maple syrup. You can use that as a base measurement.”
“Gus.” She blinked at him through fogged up lenses, then pulled her glasses off with one hand and put them on the laptop table. Her lenses already sported nose and cheek prints from when he’d leaned into their kiss, so he was glad for this—he didn’t want anything in his way. He felt that warmth on his face again as she looked up at him, desire in her eyes and vulnerability in the way her teeth worried her bottom lip. “Okay. Maybe we should change this up again. Escape room consulting with benefits?”
In response, Gus followed the impulse to lean down and kiss her, a little more softly this time but with no less intensity. “That works,” he said against her mouth, and she laughed and he laughed, too, which made her laugh more for some reason. Gus liked laughing and kissing; it was something he hadn’t done enough of in life and wanted more of, if it was with Reggie.
He recalled a scene in a cartoon he’d seen, where a flight of stairs had suddenly transformed into a slide beneath the feet of the people walking on it and, instead of fear, everyone had reacted with shocked delight. That was the closest approximation to what he was feeling in that moment—a fast, unstoppable descent that carried him toward the unknown but filled him with joy anyway.
He liked running his hands over her body, outlining her waist and up toward the curve of her breasts. He liked how she held his shoulders, gripping him tightly.
Gus . . . more than liked this. The impulse to take this to the furthest extreme kicked up in him, but he was distracted by Reggie’s amazing mouth, and her hands gliding over his chest and back and biceps. He didn’t know how much longer they kissed for, how many times their mouths brushed or he swallowed her moans, but when they finally came up for air, his sketchbook was on the floor and they were both nearly horizontal on the love seat.
“Shit. I have work to do,” she said, a frown pulling at her kiss-swollen mouth. She reached out, grabbed her glasses, and put them back on. “And it’s almost lunchtime. Can we take a break to work and eat?”
Gus chuckled. “If we’re breaking for work, instead of vice versa, then I like your priorities.”
“As you’ve already established, I’m a genius,” she said. “You have a couple of weeks to get this project into shape plus a full-time job, I work twenty-four hours a day, so if we’re going to have benefits for this brief period, we have to make sure we prioritize them.”
Brief. Period.
Was that what he had agreed to? That didn’t work for him, but he fought against the need to make her explain whether or not she saw an end date on this. He might get a response he didn’t want to hear.
“Want some salad?” he asked instead. If she liked him, and his salad dressing enough, maybe after their brief period, she would want to extend their benefits.
She gave him that wide smile and a section of the Rubik’s Cube in his chest twisted into alignment. “Yes. I have mac and cheese we can heat up to go with it.”
“Like . . . the blue box?” He pushed himself up into a sitting position. Reggie rolled her eyes playfully as she sat upright too.
“Oh, you poor thing. No, I made this myself. Get ready to have your mind blown.” She scooted to the edge of the couch and transferred herself into Blanche, and Gus followed her back toward the kitchen, ready for whatever she would give him.
Chapter Seven
Reggie could see in retrospect that this entire scheme had been ill-advised, but the following Friday evening as she waited for Gus to arrive, the enormity of it really hit her. Why hadn’t she just taken sleeping pills to cure her insomnia, like a normal person? She’d told herself she needed Gus to sleep because her work was slipping, but now instead of insomnia brain she had sex-on-the-brain, which was almost as distracting.
Still, she was mostly back on her game with work, in part because Gus had come over every night after his day job for their strictly timed sessions of work breaks and “play.” Meeting her goals without procrastination wasn’t so hard when she knew she could be kissing Gus as a reward—it beat using a pomodoro timer.
And tonight? Tonight maybe they would do more than kiss. It was Friday; she was ahead of her goals for the week and he didn’t have to go into work the next morning. Maybe he’d spend the night again, instead of going home—in her room instead of the spare apartment.
She balanced the tray with the last of the things they’d need to grill on her lap, hoping no marinade or sauces spilled and stained her cute green dress, and slowly rolled out onto her back deck, where she liked to work when the weather was nice enough. It was a warm evening, but not humid; perfect for grilling, and more so for just getting out of the house.
That was the other thing about Gus—spending time with him, supposedly in the interest of being able to do more work—had made her realize just how much work she was doing. Most of her daily grind took place at home, where her office was tailored to her needs and she didn’t have to worry about accessibility, or spilling iced coffee on her laptop because straws were easier to ban than the plastics that actually destroyed the environment. She’d spent all her free time for the past few years building the site of her dreams, and now that she’d quit her day job . . . she spent even more time at it—wooing advertisers, writing content, and managing all the nuts and bolts that kept GirlsWithGlasses going.
She’d forgotten what taking breaks felt like, and not just the kissing kind. Three times that week, she and Gus had gone for a long walk around her neighborhood while brainstorming—something she usually did in short bursts when using her walker with her physical therapist, not just for fun. With Gus, they’d just explored. She’d discovered several cute new shops that had sprung up while she had her nose to her laptop screen, including the one she’d returned to on her own that morning to buy her dress. They’d stopped at a playground a few blocks away, where Gus had shown her his ability to hang upside down on the monkey bars to the delight of the children and the consternation of their parents. They’d tucked their phones into the waterproof satchel on her chair and played in the parks sprinkler area to cool off, coming home soaked but energized. They’d met several of her neighbors, stopping for brief chats, and Reggie was certain everyone assumed they were a couple.