RHYS

I'm so busy I can't think straight. So I don't. I just keep moving through the week. On Monday I don't make it home until after nine. I'd never thought of it as anything but a place to crash in before Lydia took up residence, but she's changed things.

On Wednesday I spilled coffee on the sleeve of my shirt and when I ran up to the apartment to change, it smelled like someone was cooking. Except it was the middle of the day and my kitchen is never used. Besides, I'd just seen Lydia sitting in one of the conference rooms on four, so I knew it wasn't her. Except it was. She'd procured a Crock-Pot from God knows where—no, no, I know exactly where. Based on the pattern of brown flowers the Crock-Pot is older than she is and I know damn well she picked it up at the Goodwill. Half a million dollars doesn't seem to have had any influence on her shopping habits.

Pot roast. She'd made me a pot roast in a Crock-Pot. When I asked her about it after work she said it was no trouble, that she'd ordered groceries from room service and wasn't this easier to have dinner ready whenever we got home? Then she gave me the most unskilled blow job I've had since high school, and I liked it.

I more than liked it.

It was the best, least skilled blow job of my life.

She started by asking if it was okay if she used lube. “It's blueberry,” she said, waving the tube in her hand, eyes wide with inquiry. As if the flavor coating my dick made a difference to me. Then she explained that she needed the lube because she didn't want to spit. That the women in the videos she'd watched—for research—had all spit but she thought there must be a better way because while she was really excited about sucking on my cock, she didn't want to spit on it, if that was okay with me.

She actually paused to clarify. “Unless the spitting is the best part? I can spit if you want me to?”

After confirming the lube was new and not picked up during a half-off sale, I gave her my blessing and told her I had no opinion on spit one way or the other. She smiled and flipped the cap open. It wasn't a seductive smile, not in the least. She didn't attempt to gaze at me from under her lashes while licking her lips. She didn't purr like a naughty little kitten. No. She smiled like I'd just held open a door for her and wiggled her fingers in excited anticipation as if she wasn't sure where to start. Then she flipped open the cap and squeezed twice the needed amount into her palm and wrapped her hand around my dick, her nose wrinkling when she realized the overuse of lube had made it way messier than she'd anticipated.

I almost blew my load right there.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Okay, one second. I can fix this.” Then she stood, returning with a hand towel from the bathroom. Once she wiped off her hand she dropped to her knees again, this time an earnest look on her face as she looked up at me, kneeling between my spread thighs. “Ready?” she asked me, wrapping her palm around me again, and, finding the lubrication more to her liking, she slid her hand down to the base and back to the tip before leaning forward and wrapping her lips around the head, a hint of tongue swiping across the slit.

That's when a strand of her hair got stuck in the lube.

She stopped again, attempting to pull it free before I took over for her and held it off her face in a fisted ponytail, refraining from setting the pace for her. She licked me, root to tip, with her tongue flat on the underside of my cock. She managed three inches, if that, sucking and swirling her tongue. Then she sat back and said, “Okay, now choke me with it.” She smiled, as if asking me to choke her with my cock was a favor to her instead of me.

I told her no and another conversation about why not and when took place. I don't think a month is going to be long enough to teach her how to choke on my cock. I don't think a month is going to be long enough, period.

Then she asked if she could swallow—of course she asked—and afterwards we ate pot roast in front of the television while watching a show about house flippers.

Home-cooked pot roast. From a Crock-Pot.

It seems she obtained some historical Tupperware to match the Crock-Pot, because she filled a container with leftovers and put it in my fridge. A fridge now containing coffee creamer and hummus, grapes, cheese and I don't know what the hell else.

On Sunday I was about to grab something from my home office when I passed the guest bedroom and did a double-take. I hadn't realized she'd put anything in this room, but she had. She'd set up a sewing machine on the desk. The machine looked relatively new, meaning sometime from the past decade, so I guessed it wasn't a recent Goodwill find but something she'd run back to grab from her apartment. There were stacks of cut-up bed sheets on top of the dresser and spools of elastic and ribbon. Folded over the back of the armchair were two completed pairs of pajama pants. From deducing the obvious, they were made out of sheets.

She makes her own pajamas out of old sheets.

I'm not sure if I hired a hooker or a housewife.

I am sure I'm a dick. I made her move in and left her alone every night this week. I only managed to eat dinner with her twice. The remaining nights I got home late, swept in and made love—fucked her. I fucked her and then slept, slipping out in the morning to the gym while she was still asleep. Joining her in the shower some mornings, at my desk downstairs before she's awake on others.

Yet staring at this hobby of hers that I knew nothing about, I feel like an ass. But she makes me want to try. Try to be different. Try to be better. Try to slow down and give a shit about what's real and what matters. And I think she's real.

And she makes me laugh. During the commercial break of one of her house-hunting shows an advertisement came on for washing machines, touting their deep fill cycles. She ran her hand up my thigh and said, “I like it when you fill me deep, Rhys.”

I laughed, not realizing it was an attempt at seduction, not a joke. She blinked, that slightly hurt look she gets when she thinks she's being rejected crossing her face. So I kissed her and used washing-machine analogies to dirty-talk her until she was smiling again.

Jesus Christ. I think I might love her.