21

“Steven, Steven!”

He grumbled a lethargic reply, rolled over, and took most of the duvet with him.

“You have to wake up!”

He stirred, lifted his head, stared directly at her, and then flopped back onto the pillow. “Five more minutes.”

“Now!”

He groaned again. “What’s wrong?” His eyes were squeezed shut, blocking out the morning light that poured through the window and threatened his hangover.

“My gran’s home!” The angst was evident on Abi’s face.

Steven opened his eyes, blinked away the light. “So what?”

Abi jumped out of bed. A thin gleam of sweat coated her naked back and chest. The thick duvet had trapped the intense heat from their bodies, retaining the moisture and saturating the sheet underneath them. The air was thick, humid. Abi pushed open a window and welcomed the resulting breeze.

They’d had sex, that much she knew, but she could only recall glimpses of it—his hands on her breasts, his head between her legs. The memories stirred something inside of her, made her yearn for a repeat of the experience. She pressed her hands to her thighs, drew them upwards, over the soft, clammy flesh, into the warmth between her legs.

She turned to look at him, eager for more, the excitement growing. The matted hair between his shoulder blades stared back at her and the excitement instantly faded, her hands back by her side.

They had drunk a couple bottles of wine, she had kissed him, and the next thing she remembered, they were in bed. She didn’t think she’d been that drunk. She remembered most of the night adding up to getting into bed, but beyond that it was just an excitable blur. He brought her to climax with his mouth. She had held him there, begged him to finish, and he did. Then he kissed her—

She wiped her mouth, twisted her faced. A musty taste lingered on her tongue—she may have been imagining it, but she was sure she was tasting herself. It hadn’t bothered her at the time, but she retched a little at the thought.

Her heart sunk when she remembered something else. He had stopped, rolled out of the bed. Desperate for him to finish, she had questioned him, breathless, frustrated; he had a condom in his back pocket, he told her, his jeans were on the floor.

“Don’t bother,” she had told him. “Just come back and finish. Quickly.”

Shit.

She swallowed thickly. Now she definitely could taste herself—musty, unpalatable. Her stomach turned, partly from the alcohol, partly from the memory. Good memories turned to bad, exhilaration to anger.

Stupid girl.

But when she looked at him, noted the compassion in his eyes, the love on his face as he studied her features and beamed brightly, those thoughts and that anger dissipated. There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of regret on his face, and knowing that was enough to bring a smile to hers.

A bra had been discarded on the dresser; a pair of panties sprawled next to them. “You have to go,” she ordered calmly, slinging the bra over her shoulders. “My gran’s home and you need to be away before she wakes up.”

Steven sat upright. “I don’t mind meeting her.”

“But I do.”

There was no further dissent. Steven sensed the discomfort behind her eyes. He clearly didn’t want to ruin their morning, to spoil the memories of their night together. He sprang out of bed, and she averted her eyes like a schoolgirl on seeing that he was also naked but for a pair of thin black socks.

“You saw it all last night,” he said.

“I know, but … now’s not the time.”

“You’re worried that my naked body will turn you on, aren’t you? You’re worried that you’ll be forced to throw yourself at me if you spend even just a split second staring at my … my—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Manhood.”

“Oh God, you said it.” She made a point to look at his penis. “Now I can look, because I know, in my heart of hearts, that I simply cannot sleep with a man who refers to his penis as his manhood.”

Steven slipped on his boxer shorts, struggling to remain upright as he hopped on one leg and then the other. “What else am I supposed to call it?” He picked up his sweater from the other side of the room, a look of mild bemusement on his face as he tried to recall how it got there. “My member?”

“Your member? You’re not an erotica writer from the 1990s.”

“My dick?”

Abi was fully dressed now; her clothes scrunched, wrinkled, her hair like an untamed chia pet. “How about you don’t refer to it at all? There’s more to your body than your penis, you know. Us girls don’t treat penises like you treat tits and ass. We don’t walk around looking at men’s junk and proclaiming, ‘Look at the girth on that.’”

Steven halted in the middle of putting on his jeans, wearing a bewildered expression. “I’m not sure if I’m disgusted or turned on.”

“We don’t have time for either, just hurry up and get ready.”

Abi’s eyes shifted from the door to Steven and back again. She checked her phone, noted the time, and then prepared to bark another order when his kind words instantly softened her anxiety.

“Last night was amazing.” He zipped and then buttoned his jeans. “I just wanted to put that out there before you hurried me out the door.”

There was a desperate look in his eyes. “It really was,” she reciprocated, keen not to hurt his feelings. He hurried to her and she grabbed him, wrapping her arms around his head, planting a firm kiss on his lips. They remained in that embrace, that kiss, for several seconds, before she felt his hand slide over the arch of her back, rest on the curve of her buttocks, and squeeze. At that point, she broke away. “Not now. You have to go.”

“What time is it, anyway?”

“Just past six.”

“In the morning!”

She shut the door and glared at him.

“Six?” he whispered, almost hissing.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but she wakes up early.”

“I heard her coming back last night,” he told her. “Sound of the front door woke me up. You must have been in the bathroom. Good thing it wasn’t me, eh? If what you’ve told me about your gran is true, she would have probably tried to hump me in the hallway.”

Abi offered him a strained smile, but he could see that she was in a hurry.

“Okay, sorry, let’s go.”

Abi opened the door again and stepped outside, gesturing for Steven to follow her. They both crept along the carpeted hallway, Abi stopping at the top of the stairs, Steven halting before one of the closed doors.

He pointed to the door and mouthed the words, “Is this her room?”

Abi, horrified, stepped forward and waved frantically at him.

Steven repeated his gesture.

Abi nodded, rolled her eyes, and grabbed him by the arm. She practically yanked him across the hallway and then pointed down the stairs. He held up his hands, signaling that he wasn’t going to resist, and when she released him, he began a slow and careful descent.

“You’re really worried about this gran business,” Steven whispered when they were outside. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Is she secretly a pimp? A prostitute? A serial killer? A drug baron? An evil, maniacal overlord hellbent on destroying the world?”

“No. No. No. And—” Abi tipped her head this way and that. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Which one?”

“Does it have to be just one?”

“Cool. So—” Steven stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked both ways down the street. “Now what?”

Abi hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“You never thought about learning to drive?” Steven wondered as Abi retrieved her phone from her pocket.

“I can drive. I just don’t have a car.”

“That’s like learning Spanish and never going to Spain.”

“Which makes perfect sense if you can’t afford plane tickets.”

Steven’s face twisted. “I’m lost.”

Abi groaned. “It’s an expensive and unnecessary expense for a writer who works from home and never goes anywhere.” Her eyes were on her phone as she spoke. “Although, if I had a dollar every time someone raised that point, I could have bought a Ferrari and had driving lessons from Damon Hill.”

“Damon Hill? You know this is 2023, right?”

“And?” she snapped.

“Nothing.”

“I just ordered you an Uber, it’ll be here in—”

“What is it with you?”

Abi’s words were cut short by a raspy, angry shout, and they both instinctively looked to Robert’s house, even though they knew the voice wasn’t his.