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Her response catches me completely off guard, yet her prompt exit afterward doesn’t.

Would you stop calling me a dick already? No, I wouldn’t prefer asshole. I just…thought that shit needed to be said instead of simply inferred. The last thing I need is her trying to slyly puppet me into being his replacement. I’m not looking to play pretend I’m the dead dude you’re probably not over. To be brutally fucking honest, I’m not looking for anything. Friendship included. I don’t think I could live with myself if I lost another one.

I swiftly slip into the charcoal gray pieces – fuck she wasn’t exaggerating about comfort – and give my teeth a good, long overdue, hard brushing. Post feeling minty fresh, I immediately haul ass downstairs to apologize – or deliver something awkward that sounds adjacent to one – yet am stopped abruptly in my tracks by the sight of my hostess struggling to reach something off the top shelf of the closet.

Against my better judgment – like staying here for the night – I allow myself a minor moment to appreciate her wiggling, perky ass that would be a perfect fit for my palms.

I mean a perfect fucking fit.

“Why did I put you up here?!” She loudly gripes to something inside. “Why would I put you somewhere I can’t even fucking reach!? How stupid am I?!”

“Do not call yourself stupid.”

The instruction falters her movements causing her to bump her elbow into the door frame.

“And please be careful, sweetheart.” I cautiously approach. “I may know how to bandage a wound or two but that doesn’t mean I wanna do it on you.”

Joy jumps around in her wide gaze as though pain never existed in her arm. “You called me sweetheart again.”

Hiding my crooked, bashful grin is difficult. “You said you liked it.”

“I do!”

“Good. I would rather do things you like than ones you don’t.”

The stunned stare I’m shot fills me with unease.

Why does that statement feel like it’s a fucking foreign concept to her?

“Do you need some help get something down?”

She brushes away whatever thoughts are tumbling around her mind with a warm nod. “Yes, please. I’m little vertically challenged.”

“You look like the perfect height to me.”

Jaye blushes, brushes a random curl away from her face, and does her best to nonchalantly point upward. “The um…The pump’s up there.”

I wait for her to step out of the space before invading it to retrieve the object.

My reaching is done in tandem with her talking starting again, “I’ve already got the mattress itself out and in the garage. Genius me thought that it would be a good idea to keepthaton the ground but not the pump. Where the logic is in that I’ll never know.” She’s cut a scolding glance for her second round of self-chastising. “I also grabbed the guest sheets. They’re fucking hideous but soft. Soft is what matters most, right?”

Inching the box forward into my grip occurs between small chuckles.

“I wasn’t sure how many pillows you wanted, so I just took all the ones from every guest bed.”

The item is gingerly lowered as I ask for clarification. “How many guests beds are there?”

“Three.”

“And how many pillows are on each?”

“Three.”

Amusement speedily bulldozes itself on my face. “What the fuck am I gonna do withninepillows, Jaye?”

“I don’t know!” She girlishly squeaks prior to giggling. “I just…I didn’t think one was enough and then one became two and two became two bedrooms and before I knew I had collected them all like fucking Pokémon.” Her hands briefly cover her reddening face which only makes me laugh more. “Ugh.” When they fall to her hips, she verbally runs to explain her actions. “I honestly don’t know how other people sleep, okay? Personally, I sleep with two. One for my head and one for legs. I would prefer sporking-”

“What the fuck is sporking?”