Page 37 of Locking Down Qetesh

Satisfied no one was around, I caught her hand in mine and laced our fingers together.

Tesha relaxed almost instantly at the touch, giving me a warm feeling inside that made me certain that this was right.

"We don't have to do this the exact same way as anyone else," I said. "There's no blueprint for how to have a relationship when two people are ace, or even how to have sex as aces. We work out what works for us, and that's that."

"You make it sound so easy."

I chuckled. "It's not. We're probably going to get things wrong at some point."

"This is just new to me."

"Every relationship feels like that," I pointed out.

"It makes sense when you say it," she said.

"It does." I smiled at her, hoping she could sense how sincere I was being. "So, you want me to come over?"

She nodded. "When are you free?"

"I'm helping Ella with wedding stuff this week, but I could do Friday?"

"Friday is good."

"Then it's a date," I said. "But I probably should get back to work before my boss gets mad at me."

She laughed. "If you tell Aine it's in the name of finding love, she'll forgive you."

"Is that so?"

"It'll work on most love gods. There are two things that are true about just about all of us."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow.

"We love to meddle, and we're all secretly, or not so secretly, romantics."

I let out an amused laugh. "Then I'll try to keep that in mind while I'm trying to convince one to keep dating me."

"No convincing needed," she promised, checking around again before leaning in and kissing my cheek. "I look forward to Friday."

"Me too." It was hard to leave her, even though I knew that we both had work to do, but it was just so easy to be around her that I wanted to do it more.

But I supposed that was what Friday was about. And if we kept spending time together, then who knew where this would lead.

I just knew that I wanted it to be somewhere.

Chapter 15

QETESH

I smoothed down my dress and checked myself in the mirror, trying to work out exactly how I was feeling. I wouldn't say that nervous was the right word, but neither was excited. Maybe it was curious. That was how I felt about my upcoming evening with Jacob.

My phone bleeped, alerting me to someone at the front door. I grabbed it and clicked through to see Jacob standing on the other side of it.

I pressed the microphone button. "I'll be one second!"

"Got it," he responded.

I shut off the app and hurried down to my front door, realising that now I felt excited, but mostly about the prospect of getting to spend time with him. Even when it was a brief conversation, I seemed to come away feeling good about myself. I didn't think it was necessarily him that did it, but the way I felt around him. Like I didn't have to hide. All parts of myself were able to be seen, and that was something I hadn't had before. Not that it was the fault of the people I'd spent my time with, it wasn't any of their faults that I hadn't been strong enough to tell them how I felt inside.

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