giving anyone evidence that they were right.
“You’re saying my voice makes you sleepy?” he asked, followed by a softer version of his evil kitten laughter. “That’s disheartening coming from my only viewer. Geez. I guess I know why you tuned in so faithfully every night, and it wasn’t to watch me solve puzzles.”
She chuckled despite her discomfort. His voice wasn’t making her sleepy right then—she was feeling other, unexpected side effects of an actual conversation with him. She was a grown-ass woman having tingles in her nethers because of a guy’s voice. Ridiculous.
“I did watch you solve puzzles.” She remembered that he had nice hands, with long, dexterous fingers and neatly trimmed nails. “Helped you sometimes, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t,” he said, and there was something in his tone that made her whole body perk in attention. “Of course, I haven’t.”
Reggie was glad that she was wearing her gym clothes because she was starting to sweat. “Good. Look, your voice . . . .” She took a deep breath. “Your voice is like the human equivalent of a weighted blanket.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, but she heard the clack of fingers on a keyboard before his voice came through the phone speaker. “I was Googling weighted blanket. I guess that’s a compliment. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Reggie swallowed. “So. Will you make the recordings?”
“No.”
She stiffened against the blow of the unexpected disappointment. The conversation had gone well. He’d laughed at her jokes. He’d seemed friendly—maybe a little more than friendly. What was the issue?
She wasn’t a crier, but she felt an uncomfortable burning at her eyes, like when sweat dripped into them during a hard physical therapy session. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t control what you would do with those recordings and if I’m rambling for hours I might say something that I don’t want accidentally blasted across the internet,” he said. “But. I have a counteroffer.”
Reggie waited, annoyed when he didn’t just get to it. “And that is?”
“I can call you,” he said. “Or you can call me, at night before you go to sleep. I’ll be up working anyway because I have a project I’m figuring out for my secondary job. You already know I talk out loud while working through things. You can hang with me while I work, just like old times.”
Great, I can just secretly record him, she thought.
“And you can’t just secretly record me either,” he added.
She huffed. “I would never.”
“I’ll talk until you fall asleep.” Another pause. “It wouldn’t be much different from what we did years ago, just adapted to a business agreement that works for both of us.”
“Right.” She was annoyed and considered pushing him on the recording, but didn’t want him to end up saying no. “Doing this live is more work for you, though. There’s a time difference, and you said you were busy.”
Okay, so she pushed a little. It was what she did.
He made a humming noise, one of consideration. “It’s not more work. It’s more control, and I like being in control.”
Honestly. HONESTLY. A guy with his voice shouldn’t be allowed to just say shit like that out of the blue. It was entirely unfair.
“Fine. I understand that.”
“What’s your name? I don’t want to call you 26 Inch or Miss Rims because it’ll sound . . . like a different kind of phone call.”
Heat crept up Reggie’s neck.
“It’s a wheel diameter, not some hentai stuff, okay? And you can call me Reggie,” she said. That was safe. She went by Regina at GirlsWithGlasses and its various social media accounts, if not by the site’s name itself.
“Reggie.”
He repeated the two syllables in a lower register that made her thighs push together. HONESTLY.
“My name is Gustave. You can call me Gus.”
“Gustave,” she said blankly, then shook her head, though he couldn’t see the motion. “Oh. Oh. That explains the links that popped up when I Googled Kakuro Kendoku. Those are different kinds of puzzles. Gustave.”
“Gus. And yeah, that was my nom de puzzle.” He sounded entirely too satisfied with himself for that pun. “Rubik’s Sudoku would have been too mainstream. I’m a puzzle hipster.”
She huffed, but was also smiling. He seemed much more open than during the three months they’d shared their nights online. More relaxed.
“Well, I like your voice, too, Reggie. Send me an email with any additional and we’ll start tonight. Bye.”
The call disconnected before she could respond, and she dropped the phone into her lap.
Gus was going to call her.
He was going to lull