as I’d like these days, but new hubby will do that to you. We still text quite a bit. Kayla’s still on the group chat, but she moved to Melbourne for work. But Thea’s still my partner in crime between mummy duties. If she can’t get out of the house, I go to hers,” I said as I got up to get another bottle of wine.
When I came back, he took my hand and drew me onto his lap with a grin.
“They sound like good friends.”
“They are,” I said as our lips gravitated towards each other.
It was clearly the end of the Twenty Questions and we didn’t get back to it for the rest of the night. He’d had me quick and hard on the couch before I’d dragged him up to my room for round two.
It was a precedent we set for the next week; get together with the intention of finding out everything we could about each other, which then devolved into a hot and heavy make out session followed by a few rounds of brilliant sex. Which is not to say that we didn’t get to know each other reasonably well between our distractions. At least considering it had only been a week.
With Patrick, I seemed to have reverted backwards by at least ten years. I found myself texting him more often than I would anyone else. Most of it was random nonsense among our burgeoning plans, but it didn’t feel trivial or stupid. It was fun and I’d found myself hoping it was him every time my phone went off. Even on Friday as I pulled up, for the first time, outside his place.
8
Patrick
I’d never stayed over at a chick’s house before, let alone the same chick’s house three times in the space of less than a week. But with Leah, I felt no hesitation. It probably didn’t hurt that I’d driven to hers and, by the time we stopped to count our drinks, we’d had far too much for anyone to drive and she told me I may as well stay.
The mornings we had to go to work were a bit of a scramble considering I had to run home then into work, but I’d downplayed any significance my being late had with the guys, and most of them hadn’t really seemed to notice anyway since late was kind of part of my charm.
Leah and I had spent the week – between some very dedicated explorations of each other’s bodies – getting to know each other better. The plan had been a Twenty Questions kind of deal, but we almost always got waylaid.
Still, I’d used my phone more that week than I thought I had in the last year at least. Text messages flowed freely between us, filled with juicy tidbits of information as well as flirting and jokes. I’d even started using GIFs, which put me under scrutiny from Bert when I unthinkingly added one in a message to her.
But that night, I was taking the next big step. I’d asked Leah if she wanted to do dinner at my place instead of hers. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a girl who wasn’t a blood relative in my place. I’d learnt quickly that if I invited them back to mine it was more difficult to get them back out again on my timeline. They had a habit of lingering. I didn’t find myself bothered if Leah lingered though.
Unlike Chaos, with his swanky penthouse and practically private elevator service, I’d gone a little less ostentatious – as Bert called it. My apartment was more a terraced house in a row of practically identical houses on the northern outskirts of town. It had cost me a buttload, even with the success of Grace Grayson, but I didn’t regret it for a second. My street was leafy and green and impeccably manicured.
When Leah arrived, she looked a touch frazzled.
“Do you know how long it took me to find the right number?”
I shook my head and tried not to laugh. “No. How long?”
“Embarrassingly long,” she admitted as she walked in. She held up two bottles in her hands – one red wine and one whiskey. “I assumed it was our thing now.”
I liked the idea of having a thing with her. “I’m definitely not complaining. Want the tour?”
She nodded. “Um, yes please. This place is magnificent.”
“Thanks,” I replied. It wasn’t the first time someone had told me that, and I doubted it would be the