Good luck getting work done ;) Talk to you soon.
Letting out a very sexually frustrated sigh, I lay the phone face down on my desk and open my laptop. As hard as it is to resist the urge to call an Uber and tell the driver to floor it all the way to DeeDee’s house, I’ve come to enjoy the schedule we’ve had going the past few days. DeeDee always has something encouraging to say about my work. Even if I know she’s probably just nodding and going along with it when I start diving into specifics no other human being but me could possibly care about, sharing my career with her has made it that much more important to me.
Sharing mylifewith her has become so important to me. We may not be putting labels on this yet, but I’ve never felt anything other than serious about DeeDee.
It doesn’t have to happen today or tomorrow or even any time soon, but I just hope one day she’ll be ready to be as serious about me. Sometimes she’ll take my hand when we’re standing on a street corner waiting to cross, or she’ll look up at me through her lashes when we’re lying side by side in bed, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to say something crazy and huge and life changing—but I hold back. I hold back even though every day with her makes it harder.
Eighteen
DeeDee
RINSE: any liquid used to coat the inside of a glass before preparing a drink, done with purpose of adding or enhancing flavour
“You have weirdly round toes.”
“What?” I lift my head up off the couch where I’m lying with my feet in Zach’s lap while we watch TV. “I do not!”
“You do.” He stares down at my bare feet. “It’s cute. They’re like...little gum balls.”
“Gum balls!” I shout, forgetting all about the show. “Take it back! My toes are not like gum balls.”
He starts poking them with his finger. “I said it was cute. It’s adorable. I’ve never seen such round toes.”
“S-stop it,” I stammer, trying to hide how much it tickles. “Arrête ?a!”
“What?” He trails his fingers along the bottom of my foot. “Are you ticklish?”
I try to pull my feet out of his lap, but he grabs me by the ankles.
“Non,” I lie.
“It sounds like you’re trying really hard not to laugh.”
I pout. “Maybe I’m trying really hard not to cry because you’re being so mean about my toes.”
“Hmmm.” Zach shakes his head. “No, I think you’re ticklish.”
He starts tickling me for real now, all along the bottom of my feet and up my ankles to my shins.
“Z-Zach!Non!?a suffit!”
I try to squirm away, but he pins my legs down with one of his forearms and keeps tickling me until I lose my breath, wriggling around and begging him to let me go before I start laughing all over again. I manage to flip onto my stomach and try to bring my knees up so I can crawl away, but he’s still got my legs.
I’m only wearing little booty shorts and a hoodie since we aren’t leaving the house tonight. Zach shifts around so he’s straddling the backs of my thighs and starts tickling under the edge of the hoodie.
“What about here? Are you ticklish here?”
“N-n-not so much.”
I squeal when he hits just the right spot above my hips and flop around like a fish, but my waist isn’t quite as bad as my feet. After a few more seconds of tickling, I get myself under control and lie there like a zombie while Zach tries to find another spot that will make me laugh.
“Back of the neck?”
His fingers brush my hair away, but instead of shrieking when he starts pitter-pattering them on my skin, I sigh.
“That one feels kind of nice.”
“Huh.” He starts kneading the muscles there like he’s giving me a massage. “Does this one feel nice?”
