Page 27 of Change My Mind
Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming urge to cry over being told I had done a good job.
I broke eye contact. “Thanks, I’ll go let Kayla know you’re ready for dessert,” I said quickly as I turned on my heels and headed back to the kitchen.
This rise in emotions was making me feel like a powder keg about to explode. Pride that I had managed to create somethinggood. Anger that the career I had chosen had me suspicious of people telling me I had done a good job, and I’d just let it become the norm. Elation that the hard part was done, now that the menu was created, because cooking was the easy part.
And ever-increasing lust directed at the woman I lived with.
I neededsomethingto release the valve.
Nineteen
ADDIE
Iwasn’t Eli’s keeper. He was an adult man who had a life that existed outside the walls of our flat. He didn’t owe me any explanation about his whereabouts when he went out. Not really, anyway.
But it was coming up to one a.m., and Eli wasn’t home yet. He was usually home by eight at the latest while he was in this transition period at Vivi’s. Which he was still in for another three days. It felt like I was within my rights to be a little concerned about his whereabouts. When I left Vivi’s earlier, he said he was going to clean down and he would see me later. I haven’t worked in a kitchen for a while, but I know it doesn’t take over ten hours to clean down a kitchen. Especially not with Darren fucking Henry knocking about with his super cleaning skills. It would have taken two hours. Max.
I checked my phone again to see if I’d missed anything from him, even though I knew he hadn’t been in touch. I’d been checking every five minutes for hours. I was tempted to venture out of my room and do a sweep of the rest ofthe flat to check if maybe I had missed hearing him come in, but I knew I hadn’t.
This flat wasn’t so big that a person could silently sneak in when I had been in the primary shared living space until half an hour ago.
I had been grappling for the last few hours over whether it was my place to check that he was okay. Reading back on our messages, they were all pretty much surface shit. Dumb questions that I asked, and he answered without hesitation. Quick check-ins on whether he had any thoughts about dinner, because I no longer had to share the burden of thinking up dinners alone anymore.
Nothing had been sent to check that the other wasn’t lying abandoned in a ditch somewhere.
I started typing out a text that felt almost as risky as sending a ‘you up?’ message just because of the time I was writing it, and then I heard the front door open.
As quickly as the hinges creaked open, the door shut again, loudly. If I had been asleep, the noise would have shocked me out of it. I climbed out of bed and went to see if Eli was okay, but as I opened my bedroom door, I heard it.
A moan. Choked off and wanting. A whimper. Breathless and needy. A grunt. Guttural and gruff. A huskily whispered ‘you’re going to take me so well’ in a voice I heard every day. Just never that deep and broken.
Eli was fine.
And he wasn’t alone.
Eliand whoever he brought home with him had stamina that I had no choice but to be impressed by. Around the three a.m. mark, I managed to fall asleep, thesounds of their moans the white noise that lulled me off, which was a new one for me.
I had woken up with a start that turned out to be the beginning of an orgasm, but it was ruined the moment my eyes opened. As a result, I had been deeply unsatisfied ever since. And awake since seven a.m., which felt like a crime when I had nowhere to be today.
I would have done something to relieve the ache, but given what happened the night before, I had no faith that the sound of my vibrator wouldn’t carry, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that on top of the strange realisation that I was jealous of whoever was still lying in Eli’s bed.
Instead, I finally gathered the courage to read through my unfinished thesis. If I could listen to my crush rail someone into the weekend, then I could read a half-written document that I hadn’t looked at for two and a half years.
It turned out to be a much easier task than I was expecting. As I read through it, I made notes about which parts I thought still worked and ones that needed to be metaphorically set on fire so I had something to discuss with my advisor when we finally met in person. But now, I was tired from all the focusing and the lack of decent sleep, surrounded by various pieces of paper on the living room floor. Eli and his new friend still hadn’t surfaced, and there was an itch underneath my skin that I hadn’t felt in weeks.
I pulled out my phone and texted Rachel. She was always up for an evening out, and she had vetted every single one of my situationship partners. I was certain she could apply the same level of care to a one-night stand.
I needed to get over my crush on Eli. It was silly and one-sided and was going to lead to nothing. Getting under someone else was the best solution.
Before I fell asleep, Eli was making it loudly known how much he was enjoying his bedmate’s mouth, and it turns out, Ieven missed giving head. If you were to ask me what I thought I would miss the most about sex, I wouldn’t have immediately said blow jobs, but now that I hadn’t given one in a while, I realised that it might have been the thing I missed most. I liked the power that came with it. Making someone feel good with just my mouth and throat. I also quite liked how quickly that power could be taken from me.
Then came the memory of the other parts of sex that I always knew I would miss should I stop having it. The irritation of stubble on my inner thighs. The initial stretch as my body accommodated to that first thrust. A scrape of teeth against my nipple. Hands grabbing at my waist. Being pinned down…
Maybe that was the problem. I had gone from semi-regular sex to nothing for nearly two months. My crush on Eli was just misplaced dormant horniness.
Or something.
I need to go out
