Swoon.
Last night as I was fighting jet-lag insomnia and getting some writing done in bed around midnight, a text from Klaus popped up.
Charcoal Suit:Are you awake?
Me:Hmm, nope. Completely asleep.
Charcoal Suit:Dreaming of me, I hope
Me:Sir! So bold. I’m shocked.
Charcoal Suit:May I call?
Before I could reply, my phone rang with a video call. Thank God I wasn’t wearing one of the hydrating facial sheet masks that make me look like a serial killer. I dragged both hands through my hair and smeared on a little lip balm from the bedside table before opening the call.
“I couldn’t wait until Thursday to speak with you,” he told mewith a wan, apologetic smile. “Something about you, kleine Hexe, makes me feel intemperate.”
“Ooh,intemperate,” I teased. “That’s an adorably prim way of putting it. But the way you talk brings strong Jane Austen, so I won’t complain.” I snuggled deeper into my stack of pillows.
He lifted an amused eyebrow. “You find me stuffy?”
“Okay, ‘stuffy’ is too much. Maybe… straitlaced? You’re not a lighthearted guy. I don’t recommend a career pivot to stand-up comedy.”
He twisted to reach for something and held up a book—David Sedaris’sDress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. “I do appreciate humor,” he asserted with a playful scowl.
“And yet you phrase it so formally: ‘I do appreciate humor.’ I think you’ve made my point.” I reached over my shoulder and adjusted a pillow, acknowledging to myself that I was doing it so I could give Klaus an “accidental” flash of my braless chest in a thin pink tank top. “If you’re such a funny guy, tell me a joke.”
“A joke?”
“Mmm-hmm. Impress me.”
His attractive lips scrunched in thought, and those inky eyes shifted to one side. He was holding the phone closer than I generally stand to him, so I could really see his little details, like the geometric fringe of long, spiky lashes. The memory of kissing him rose.
“All right,” he said. “A joke: Two nuns are sitting on a bench in the park. A gentleman in a trench coat runs up and flashes them. The first nun has a stroke. The second nun tries, but she can’t reach him.”
There was a pause as the punchline caught up to me. When I burst out laughing, Klaus winked.
“You see? I’m enormously funny, you dreadful girl. ‘Straitlaced’ indeed…”
We talked for over an hour, and for the first time in my life, I did something that never happened to me even as a lovestruck teen: I fell asleep with someone during a middle-of-the-night phone call.
Our voices got lighter and dreamier, our pauses longer… and the next thing I knew, it was after two o’clock, and my phone was beside me on the bed, still open to the call. Rising on an elbow, I took in the sight of Klaus, who’d drifted off too, lying sideways with his phone on a pillow facing him. The view had shifted, but I could see one closed eye, an angular cheekbone, and the sleep-disheveled hair at his temple—a fan of combined silver and espresso-brown strands.
I switched off my bedside light, and the deep, steady rhythm of Klaus’s breathing escorted me back to sleep.
All day today as I’ve tried to get work done, awareness of him has danced near me, dark yet flashing, like seafoam on a midnight beach, visible only when it breaks and catches the moonlight, swirling around your bare ankles with a delicious shock.
I can’t stop thinking about him.
Sitting on the balcony tonight, picking at my dinner, I stretch my legs and flex my feet, watching my silk chiffon robe (chosen in case he calls—not gonna lie) flutter away from my calves. I wiggle my toes, considering the chipped golden-peach polish on them and wondering if I should get a pedicure.
The image drifts into my head: Klaus moving my legs over hisshoulders… both of us still speckled in shower water… the cool marble countertop beneath me… the anticipation of his mouth as those beautiful lips advanced up my inner thigh…
I pull in a startled gasp through my nose as my phone rings with the FaceTime tone. I glance at the incoming call, but it’s not Klaus—it’s Auntie Min.
It’s early afternoon in my hometown, eight hours later here. Usually our weekly “catch-up” calls are Mondays at seven a.m. her time, so a prickle of panic goes through me.
I tap the call open. “What’s wrong?” I ask in greeting, clambering to sit up straight. “Are you okay?”
