Page 49 of Cinderella Is Faking It

On Wednesday, Steve, the doorman, handed me a key and a note the moment I set foot in the building. Apparently, Beck had to work at the office, but he gave me free reign over his apartment and his library. I smirked at the wordlibraryon the heavy linen paper. Damn right, it was.

Stepping into Beck’s apartment without him there felt an awful lot like being in a school on a Saturday. Same walls, same floors, same furniture, but with a touch of eeriness. When I walked into the library, however, it was exactly as inviting as I’d left it. Pillows, blankets, books. He’d told me he’d take care of it when I’d started shuffling my stuff around last night. Apparently, he hadn’t. Had he slept without blankets or pillows? Unless of course, he hadn’t slept in his own apartment at all. He could have gone out last night. The thought plummeted through me, stomach sinking at the thought. We weren’t dating. We weren’t even… anything. He could sleep wherever and with whoever he wanted. Maybe a cool, experienced woman who didn’t go through anxiety spirals when sex was on the table.

I sighed and dropped my backpack by the door, sinking into my plush corner. I reached for my current book but stopped with my hand mid-air. My nest wasnotexactly as I’d left it.

A familiar blue box sat on top of the stack of sexual guidebooks and self-help instructions with a color-matched sticky note on it. Forget the vibrator. The fact that he’d used a pastel green sticky note for the pastel-green-marked stack of books that thematically matched the idea of using a vibrator? He got it. It took me a moment to blink through the sheer color-coding joy and read the note he’d left.

To study or to practice that is the question.

Another badly butchered Shakespeare quote. I sighed and set the box aside. Just because I had spent two days hyperfocusing on sex books, didn’t mean the vibrator was magically going to work now. Maybe some other day, when I had a better understanding of the whole mind-body-balance during sex. Today, I had a book on achieving mind-blowing orgasms on the TBR. It was one of the first ones I’d grabbed, obviously, but a cursory glance at the index had confirmed that I had been lacking some base knowledge. I settled in my corner with the book and wrote the title down in my notebook.

I just couldn’t focus.

If a vibrator had eyes - this one was staring at me.

With every single page I turned, that box’s presence burrowed into me, until my brain was unable to compute the words on the page in front of me. Groaning, I snapped the book shut and narrowed my eyes at the sex toy. “What the hell do you want from me?” I huffed. This was how far I’d fallen. Talking to a vibrator.

NINETEEN

I had triedand failed to leave early. I’d meant to head home in time to see Blondie off, but the servers had gone down at the office - and I’d had to stay until all systems were back up. Not that I could do much, but I couldn’t be seen breezing off while everyone else was in panic mode.

It was pitch-black outside by the time I made it home. The apartment was dark and quiet, but I still checked the office for any sign of her presence. None. I flicked the lights on to find her corner tidied up again, books stacked in a row, no blankets, or pillows even though I’d left them out for her.

My attention snagged on the blue box on my desk and the red sticky note on it. I picked it up, but the message was short and clear.

No.

Well, it had merely been a suggestion. I’d figured she might get a little inspired by her reading materials.

I was going to put the box back in my nightstand where it had been living for a while, but as I walked into the bedroom, the light caught at just the right angle on the box to show the thin cut along the plastic seal.

She didn’t.

I flipped the box open. No hygiene seal, no instructions booklet, and while the vibrator was in the box, it was upside-down.

My brain short-circuited as the other meaning ofNofiltered through. No, it hadn’t worked. Which would mean she had tried. Here. Sometime while I was at the goddamn office, Del had fucked herself in my apartment. Where? On the sofa? On the floor of the office? My desk chair? My bed? The thought of her body writhing against my furniture spiked my pulse in an entirely unhealthy way and sent heat shooting to my hips.

I pulled her contact up on my phone, fully aware that she could be fast asleep already and typed out the question:

Beck:

Where?

The reply came almost immediately:

Blondie:

At home :) watching Little Women.

Of course, she had no fucking clue what I meant. I swallowed and tossed the vibrator on the bed, loosening my belt buckle as I typed it out more clearly:

Beck:

Where in my apartment did you practice?

Three dots appeared on screen, then disappeared again. I peeled out of my clothes and was stark naked by the time she’d finally replied.

Blondie:

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