Page 41 of No Place Like You

“You need to tell me who she is. You can’t keep her a secret. I’ll eventually find out!”

“Bye.”

“Wait! Does she know you had an unhealthy obsession with Baby Spice when you were in third grade? Or that you wore diapers until you were five?!”

I hang up right as my order is ready. With my dinner held neatly in a brown paper bag, I walk the two blocks back to my apartment. It’s become my evening routine. After a regular, uneventful workday, I take my usual commute home. I make a pit stop at Pepper Thai to pick up Lucy’s latest favorite pad thai and mango sticky rice before being greeted by her back at my apartment.

This situation between us feels a little unresolved. Like the spinning wheel in the middle of the computer screen making you irrationally impatient. It’s subtle, lingering in the moments she nudges a little closer to me on the couch or when our hands brush as we reach for the remote at the same time. I would say it’s probably me being overly paranoid andunnecessarily wary, considering hownotawkward we are with each other most of the time, but it’s there. It’s been there since Lucy uttered those four little words, and they’ve been playing in my head on repeat.

All the damn time.

It’s like a record track playing some voodoo chant over and over and over again. One that I honestly don’t even mind playing on a constant loop.

I shove those words into a small file cabinet in my head as I approach the steps leading up to my building, hoping they’ll eventually fade away, knowing they most likely won’t. While it might be fun and, quite honestly, a little daring to venture down the path to discover what she meant when she said it, I don’t think she wants to have that conversation. So, as I choose to remain a gentleman and keep my mouth shut about those words I was definitely not meant to hear, I open my apartment door and beeline to the kitchen to set down the food. It’s quiet aside from the muffled music playing in Lucy’s room, something that sounds like Justin Bieber or the Jonas Brothers.

“Lucy! Dinner!” I call from the other side of Lucy’s door, followed by a quick knock. I turn my feet toward the bathroom to quickly wash my hands before Lucy steps out of her room. But when I open the door, I find her there. Not in her room, where I imagined her singing along to pop music sung by outgrown teeny boppers. She’s stepping out of the tub with the curtain drawn all the way back. She’s naked. And wet. With flushed skin and steam floating around her. Oh, and did I mentionnaked?

“Ahh!”

My feet feel like they’re set in cement. I just stand there, dumbfounded. I should look away instead of staring at those slippery curves lining down her hips or the perfect valley between her breasts. I shoulddefinitelylook away. Pretend I didn’t see anything. Or close the door and take the next train to Nova Scotia. Or…something.

She reaches for a towel and fumbles with it in her hands. “Dexter! Do you mind?!”

When Lucy’s glare meets my deer in headlights, it’s like all common sense returns to my body. I shut the door and turn my back against it. “Lucy. I’m sorry.”

There’s no answer. All I hear is some shuffling of feet and what sounds like clothes and towels being thrown around.

“I thought you were in your room so?—”

“Dexter, it’s fine.”

“I didn’t mean to stare.”

“Ohmigod! Dexter!” she shrieks with the door muffling her voice. “I said it’s fine. Please, just…Let me get dressed.”

Great, now I’m the asshole who first, got his fill of her naked body and second, am not doing the one gentlemanly thing by letting her get dressed. “Yeah, sorry. I’m sorry.”

Shit!As if things between us weren’t ambiguous enough. That spinning wheel is back, and I have no idea how to get rid of it. It’s not like I can press ctrl+alt+del and make things restart between us.

I’m pacing the kitchen, unsure of what to do with myself. What do I say when she comes out of the bathroom?Ifshe comes out. I mean, she can’t stay in there forever, right? Maybe I’ll just pretend like nothing happened. Or offer to show her mine? Like a tit for tat kind of bargain?

I hear the bathroom door open as I’m sifting through the takeout containers, hoping I look busy and unbothered. I try to keep my eyes on the food in front of me, but when I see Lucy’s polished toes peek from the hard floor, I falter.

“Lucy, I’m sorry. Really. I thought you were in your room. And I-I didn’t mean to, you know, stare.” I grimace, knowing I sound ridiculous with my excuses and half-assed explanations.

“It’s fine,” she assures, looking equally embarrassed and annoyed. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Now that’s unexpected. I stop what I’m doing to look up at her, a flicker of amusement lining my features. I bite back the smile on my face with my teeth pressed in my lower lip.

“What?” she asks a little tersely when I continue to stare at her. “It’s true.”

“Okay.”

“Dexter,” she calls when my smile widens, and I look away to avoid the stern look she’s giving me. “I’m not saying let’s make this a regular occurrence, but we can be adults about it, right?”

I smirk. “Better than my plan.”

She gives me a wary look. “What was your plan?”

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