I shifted, tugging at the uncomfortably stiff fabric of my jeans. “What did you eat at the compound?”
She made a face, eyes still glued to the screen. “It wasn’t bad, it was just… really boring. The same stuff every week. Super healthy stuff, like lentils and tofu and steamed vegetables. Lean proteins. Low-sugar fruit for dessert. Only water or skimmed milk to drink.”
Tofu? Fruit for dessert? I felt a little faint. “Why don’t we order dessert as well?”
My stupid stomach clenched with some equally stupid emotion when she lifted her head to beam at me. “Can we?”
I smiled. “Of course.” Nodding at the phone, I said, “If you swipe along the top, you’ll see a tab for dessert places.”
She peered down at the screen with a frown, then shifted closer to me. “Show me.”
Throat bobbing with a nervous swallow, I leaned as close as I dared and swiped back up to the top of the app to do it for her. When the list of dessert places appeared, she bent her head closer to look before I could move back. The scent of her hair hit me in a wave. It wasn’t soft and flowery like a lot of the shampoos humans used, but… kind of warm and spicy. Like hot cinnamon.
I jerked back and cleared my throat, swiping my palms down my jeans again. I could not start associating words like ‘hot’ and ‘spicy’ with Beryl. It was just wrong. She may not have seemed vulnerable, but she kind of was. She’d been sheltered for almost her entire life, not really experiencing anything. She’d put a huge amount of trust in me by agreeing to come and live here, and I’d sooner chop off my own dick than betray that trust, even in my thoughts.
But as she shifted closer to me to point out a place that specialised in giant waffles with a million different toppings, her arm brushed against mine, making my pulse go crazy again. And I realised that keeping my thoughts about Beryl completely innocent was going to be really, really difficult.
Chapter Thirteen
Greid
After the food was ordered—with Beryl seeming amazed by how I only had to look at my screen for it to recognise my face and process the payment—I set down my phone and pulled my smoking tin out of my pocket.
“So, um, I don’t know if you still want to try shade…” Shit, was I being a terrible influence, offering her drugs within hours of her arrival? Granted, shade was completely harmless except for how much food it made you want to consume, but still. “You don’t have to, obviously,” I added quickly.
“Oh.” Beryl glanced at the tin, then gave me a wry smile. “I don’t think I will tonight, but soon. Don’t want to experience everything at once, right?”
I nodded, moving to put the tin back in my pocket. “Sure. I won’t—”
“No.” She grabbed my arm to stop me, making my breath catch. “You can still smoke. It doesn’t bother me.”
I swallowed and mumbled, “’Kay,” still frozen in place as I fought the urge to lean into her. God, why was I such a slut for touch?
Beryl seemed to notice, because she removed her hand and said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve just grabbed you like that. It won’t offend me at all if you don’t want me to touch you in any way. You know, like nudging you or grabbing your arm or…”
No! No, do all of that! Grab me all you want!
“I don’t mind,” I croaked. “I’m not touch-averse. It’s—I actually… I don’t mind,” I repeated.
“Okay.” Beryl nodded, leaning her shoulder against the back of the couch and tucking her legs tighter under her. “Me neither. So casual touching is okay.”
“Yes,” I said quickly, fumbling to open my tin and pull out a joint I’d rolled the day before. “Are you sure you don’t mind me smoking? It’s just, it makes me enjoy my food more.”
She let out that husky laugh, and my gut clenched. “I don’t mind at all. It’s your house, Greid.”
“I know, but you live here too now. I mean, assuming you want to stay.” I stuck the joint between my lips to shut myself up.
Beryl grinned, watching as I lit a match and held it to the end of the joint. “I like it here so far.”
“Good,” I said, my voice tight as I held in the first blessed lungful. After exhaling a stream of white smoke, I added, “Tell me if the smoke starts to bother you.”
“I will.” She watched as I took another drag and relaxed back into the couch. “It smells good. Kinda sweet. I’ve smelled weed before in the city, and it doesn’t smell anything like that.”
I nodded. “Smells like toasted marshmallows.”
“Does it? I’ve never had them.”
The shade was quick-working, and it was already taking effect, loosening all my tense muscles and allowing me to roll my head along the back of the couch to smile at her. “We’ll get some and toast them over a candle in here one night.”
“That sounds fun.” She briefly touched my arm with her small, dainty fingers. “Hey, can we watch TV while we wait for the food?”
“Oh, sure.” I leaned forward to grab the remote, picking up the ashtray at the same time to put it in easy reach on the armrest. “Anything you want to watch in particular?”
“Anything but the arts channels,” Beryl said with a grimace. “It was all we got at the compound. Those super-long demiurgus operas.”
“Ew. I hate classical music.” I fired up DemiTV, the streaming service that had mostly demiurgus-made productions. Beryl stared avidly as the logo appeared—a yellow demiurgus eye that blinked once before turning onto its side and morphing into a D, while the yellow bled out to form TV in wobbly letters.
I selected the single profile when it appeared. I’d deleted Agma’s profile months ago—she’d always complained about the “mindless drivel” I watched messing up her algorithm, so we’d had separate ones.
“Wow,” Beryl breathed when rows and rows of movies and series filled the screen. “There’s so much.”
“Yeah. Even more on the human streaming service. Which we can get.”
“Do we need to?” she asked doubtfully. “Surely it’ll take us years to watch all of this.”
I huffed a laugh, sucking on the joint between my lips. This was what I did basically every single night—I spent about half my life watching TV—but it felt strangely exciting to do it with another person. A person who seemed as enthusiastic as I was about just vegging out, staring at a screen and eating too much food.
I couldn’t wait to see Beryl’s face when she watched her first action film or cheesy sitcom or period drama. I could already tell she’d be interested in all of it and eager to soak up everything she could.
“What’re you in the mood for?” I asked, although I doubted she’d know.
I started scrolling down through the various genre lists, but then Beryl reached over and grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Wait, that row says, ‘Continue watching’. Is that the stuff you watch? Let’s put on one of those.”
Oh god. I exclusively watched a mix of corny and trashy shit, and Agma had always found it so embarrassing on the rare occasions we did go out with friends and I couldn’t contribute at all to their conversations about the latest climate change documentary or some new indie film about a young demiurgus leaving the fast-paced corporate world behind to find his calling in yak farming.
“Um, okay.” I hurriedly sucked down another lungful of sweet smoke to try and relax as I selected one of my favourite corny sitcoms. “Uh, we’ll start it again from the beginning so you can follow.”