Chapter Seven
Josie
“Your phone is blowing up.”
“What?” I looked up from the counter in front of me, where a long line of glassware waited for me to finish washing and rinsing before I placed them in the autoclave to be sterilized again. Chioma, a fellow lab grunt, stood at the other end and motioned toward my phone, tucked away to charge.
“Your phone.” Chioma picked up a beaker in her gloved hands and filled it with hot water before adding a drop of soap. “Somebody’s trying to get your attention,” she said in her softly accented voice.
I’d been elbow-deep in hot water for about an hour, absently cleaning glassware while quizzing myself metabolic pathways for my exam prep. Or trying to, anyway, but every time I attempted to run through the Krebs cycle, I got distracted and thought of Andy’s chest, Andy’s arms, Andy’s big dick and the fantastic way it felt inside me. When I remembered how he looked as he loomed above me, lean tattooed flesh rippling as he thrust into my body, that warm and blooming sensation took over in my chest, my belly, and lower.
I shook my head, as if to dissipate the fizzy haze of lust that still hung over me after last night. “Kinda early for that,” I said of the text messages.
It was only seven-thirty, just ninety minutes into my early morning shift at the hospital lab. I peeled off my gloves and chucked them into the trash before I grabbed my phone from its spot atop a nearby cabinet where I’d left it to charge.
That feeling that suffused my body just moments earlier turned into a rolling wave of lust when I saw the series of texts from Andy. A friendly good-morning, idle chatter, a couple of suggestive, naughty jokes that made me laugh. A picture of his beaming smile next to a gigantic hole in the wall at my parents’ house. The sight of his handsome face, eyes covered with safety glasses while a fine coating of dust speckled his thick, dark hair and the dark shadow of his whiskers—it jolted something inside of me.
“It’s a guy, isn’t it,” Chioma said idly as she poured hot water out of a soapy beaker. She looked up at me and arched a dark brow. “You’re blushing.”
“You’re just nosy,” I returned absently as I scrolled through the messages, until I reached the last in the series.
Do you want to come over to my place to study again today?
I paused, considering my options. I did need to study some more—I had a lot of material to cover for class, not to mention the upcoming MCAT. And when I came down in to the kitchen at five this morning before I left for work, I’d walked in just in time to see my mom reach out and sharply slap my dad’s ass.
I shuddered at the memory. My parents were allowed to have a sex life, of course, but they constantly forgot that I was home. Or they just didn’t care.
Just studying?I replied. Or did you have something else in mind?
His reply, when it came, was swift and sure. Studying, food, beer, chaste conversation, unchaste conversation—we can do whatever you want.
I smothered a giggle at that, well aware that Chioma had ceased even pretending to wash bottles, and instead watched me with undisguised interest. I’ll be over after my shift, I typed back.
Spare key under the mat,he returned. Give some thought to the unchaste conversation.
“It’s definitely a guy, judging by the pleased look on your face,” Chioma said. “Honestly, when’s the last time you dated anyone? Do you even have time to date?”
“No comment,” I replied as I set my phone back down. “Unless you want to talk about your dating life.”
Chioma grimaced and reached back down into the sink to grab another soapy beaker. “Point taken.”
My lab shift ended at noon, and by twelve-thirty, I pulled into Andy’s driveway. My bag, heavy with my laptop and several books, sat in the front seat of my car, and perched on top of it, a plastic shopping bag with a brand-new toothbrush and a pair of panties inside. Maybe a little optimistic, but I didn’t want to be caught flat-footed with bad breath and dirty underpants if things evolved into a sleepover.
I wanted that, I decided. I wanted to press my face into Andy’s big, warm chest, with its light fuzz of crisp, dark hair, and fall asleep while I breathed in his scent.
Andy’s condo was silent and empty, the remains of last night’s pizza and beer gone from the coffee table. But there was—more here, and it took me a long moment of circling around and staring before I lit on the change. Art—he’d hung up some art after I left last night. Wild paintings that looked like some of his brother Ian’s work, if I had to guess—I’d seen similar paintings on the wall at the house that Sam and Ian shared.
The paintings provided much-needed splashes of color to the utilitarian space, filling up some of the emptiness and replacing it with life. Personality. I wondered if my observation from the night before—that the house looked empty—motivated him to do it. I hoped I hadn’t embarrassed him.
I set my bag down on the kitchen table but didn’t slide into a chair and get started right away. Instead, I wandered into the quiet living room, absorbing details that escaped me the day before. An overstuffed gray couch with a worn quilt draped over the back. Two large bookshelves—also handmade, if I had to guess—stood along the far wall, overflowing with layers of books—some so dog-eared that when I pulled a worn paperback science fiction novel off the shelf, a single detached page slid out and drifted to the ground.
I bent down to retrieve the yellowed paper from the ground and paused when I realized that someone had written on it in thick, dark pencil.
PROPERTY OF ANDREAS PALLAS, it said.
I tucked the sheet back in the book and flipped to look at the cover. A classic, and clearly a book he’d loved for most of his life, if the childish scrawl was anything to go by. I slid the book back into place and stepped back, contemplating the vast selection and wondering how I’d ignored it so easily the day before.
So—Andy, full name Andreas—was a guy who worked with his hands, who remodeled homes and built custom furniture. And he was a reader, too, as well as a person who made space for art and color in his home. And he was funny and friendly, not to mention an absolute tornado in the sack.