“The two-by-four, you mean?”
“Whatever it’s called. I need it.”
She built up her pile until it was almost a foot tall. Then she tested its stability. She shifted a couple of boards.
I thought I knew what she was doing, but I still smiled when she stepped onto the pile and rose to my level.
She put her arms around my neck and kissed me. I caught her when the pile suddenly shifted. She never broke the kiss, though, and even locked her legs around me to hold herself in place. She squeaked when I grabbed her ass with both hands, but she still didn’t pull away.
“That was nice,” I said when we eventually came up for air. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“For being the most awesome guy in the world.”
“I bet you say that to all the guys.”
“Only the ones I like.”
“Oh? Is it a long list?”
“It’s a list of one.” She grinned mischievously. “Although…”
“Although…?”
“It’s a long list of one, if you know what I mean.”
I threw back my head and laughed.
She smiled, and her blue eyes shone with pleasure.
“We’d better get back to work,” I said eventually.
“Spoilsport.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Kiss me again. One more time.”
“Wait, you kissed me. You do it again.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
She grinned.
“What?” I said, suddenly uncertain.
“I like hearing you say that.”
“What… ‘what’?”
“Uh-uh.”
I thought back through what I’d said and then rolled my eyes.
“Say it again, say it again.” She grinned like a little kid.
“Make me.”
“Do you want to kiss me again?”
I nodded smugly.
“No fair! You have to say it.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“Say it again, please?”
I pretended to think.
“Please, please. I promise, I’ll do whatever you want.”
I glanced thoughtfully at the plywood table.
She followed my eyes and blushed pink to the tips of her ears.
“Whatever I want?”
“Not that. Not till we’re married. I told you.”
“And I told you, it’s gonna happen long before then.” I put my lips to her ear. “Long and hard and often.”
She sighed.
“Until then, we’ll just have to finish our box.” I grinned evilly. “Good thing we have plenty of wood. Even a small box needs a lot. We’ll have to give it a good pounding, too. And then we’ll fill it with lots of gooey white stuff.”
She moaned.
I kissed her ear and smiled to myself. “Just be patient.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she said softly.
“You can.”
She pulled back, and her eyes searched mine. “You really think so?”
“I do,” I said with a smile.
Christy and I finally left the studio a little before eleven o’clock. The A&A building was abuzz with its usual end-of-quarter activity, and I was tempted to stop by the design labs to see which of my classmates were burning the midnight oil. Then the rational part of my brain kicked in, and I decided I didn’t care. I wanted to go home.
Wren and Trip were listening to the stereo and enjoying a bottle of wine when we arrived. They invited us to join them, but Christy and I could tell by the music where things were headed. We chatted for a few minutes and then left them to their romantic evening.
“You feel like a nightcap?” she suggested.
“Sounds good.”
We poured two glasses of Jameson and headed upstairs.
“My place or yours?” I asked.
“Mine. There’s a couch with my name on it.”
“Right.”
I slouched on one end of the couch and propped my feet on a beanbag.
Christy took a long drink of whiskey and stretched out beside me with her head in my lap. She smiled when I rested my hand on her stomach.
“Would you be offended if we’re just friends tonight?” I asked.
“What’ll the neighbors think?”
“Yeah, you’re right. We’d better get naked and have sex in front of the open blinds.”
“We have a reputation to maintain.”
We broke into giggles that faded into weary but companionable silence.
When the phone rang and no one answered, we decided that Wren and Trip were otherwise occupied.
“We gotta get an extension up here,” I grumbled as I climbed to my feet.
“Add it to the list.” I trudged down the stairs and reached the phone in my bedroom.
“Hello?”
“Hey! I finally got you.”
Christy appeared in the doorway. “Who is it?”
“Hold on a sec,” I said into the phone before I covered the mouthpiece.
“California girl.” Great, I thought sourly. Now I’m lying to Christy too.
“Oh, cool. Say hi for me,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Thanks for all your help.” She tilted her face up.
I kissed her goodnight. Oh, what a tangled web we weave… And I knew how the rest of that line went.
Christy shuffled out. Her bedroom door closed a moment later.
“Sorry,” I said into the phone as I swung my own door shut, “I’m back.”
“Hot date?” Gina teased, although her voice had an edge. “I called and left several messages. Wren— That’s her name, right? Wren said you were out with Christy and wouldn’t be home till late. She made it sound like…”
“We’re just friends,” I said, which was technically true, but a lie in most senses of the word.
“Friends like you and Leah, or…?”
Did I really want to have that conversation?
Gina saved me from having to make a decision. “Never mind. I don’t have any right to ask.”
“We were working on a project. She needed help building a box for a casting mold, and I volunteered.”
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry I asked. Not sorry as in, ‘I don’t like the answer,’
but sorry I leapt to a conclusion. It’s just that Wren made it sound like you were on a date.”
I sidestepped the question altogether. “You said you left several messages?”
“Yeah. Didn’t she give them to you?”
“She must’ve forgotten,” I said dryly. “In her defense, she and Trip were having a romantic evening while they had the house to themselves, but still…”
“That’s okay,” Gina said. “I have you now, and that’s all that matters.”
She sounded so affectionate that I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I drained the glass of whiskey. It burned going down, which made me think of guilt eating away at my insides.
“…talk to you earlier,” Gina was saying.
“Yeah, sorry. I don’t think I’ve been home before eleven all week. Closer
to midnight, actually. It’s all project, all the time around here.”
“I know what you mean, although most of my projects are research papers.”
“We have to create things. Like, build them, I mean. Something physical.”
“I always loved that about you, that you were so good with your hands.
Not to mention your other body parts.”
I felt a little dizzy—emotionally, not physically—and sat on the bed. I knew where she was headed, but I didn’t want to go there. I closed my eyes and scrubbed a hand over my face.
“I wish you were here now,” she said, low and suggestive.
“I do too, but I’ll be honest… I’d probably be just as useless.”
Her tone changed immediately. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m dead tired, Gina. Sorry. I’ve been up since six, and it’s after midnight here. And it’s not just today. My whole week’s been like that.”
“I understand.” Still, she couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Sometimes I forget about the time difference.” She didn’t, but it was a convenient excuse.