Page 14

JACOB

Tesha turned around the moment I entered the room and flashed me a smile that made my heart skip a beat.

She put down the plant pot she was carrying and came over with a confidence that could only be gained from knowing herself so well.

Even so, I was reasonably sure that since she'd told me she was ace, she'd grown even more so.

It made sense. By saying the words out loud to me, she'd fully accepted it about herself, even if she'd known inside for a long time.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi," she responded.

"I brought you a coffee."

"Thank you. I didn't even realise you knew I was here."

"I might have only worked here a few weeks, but I noticed you always come at this time to get ready for the party tomorrow."

"I shouldn't be nearly so predictable."

"To be fair, it's your work schedule, it's okay to be predictable." I held out the coffee for her and she took it.

"Thank you, this was very sweet."

"I got one for myself too," I said, lifting my other hand so she could see my coffee cup. "It was time for a break."

"Well, you are the hotel manager, you do get to decide when people go on them. Except for me, because I'm technically not under you. Not yet, anyway."

I laughed. "Innuendo, really?"

"Sometimes, it's funny." She grinned.

"True."

"So, I was thinking," she said, tapping her finger against the cup.

"Oh?"

"About another date."

"Then we've been thinking about the same thing," I said. "What did you have in mind? I picked last time, it only seems right that you pick this time."

A slightly hesitant expression came over her face. "I thought you could come over and see my plants."

I chuckled. "Is that meant to be a euphemism?"

"No. But also, not no. I do want to show you my greenhouse, it's important to me, and we're getting to know each other, right?"

"Yes," I said.

"But I guess I also wouldn't be upset if we did have sex afterwards. Well, after dinner."

"You want to have sex?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, I do. It's been a while, and it is more fun with another person rather than on my own. But I've never actually had sex with someone who completely understood my situation, and I'm kind of curious about that."

"Sure. We can have sex if you want," I said.

"Are you sure? I don't want to push too far."

"It's fine, Tesha," I assured her. "And like you said, it'll be fun."

She let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, so, just how planned do you like it?"

"We don't have to write minutes to have sex," I assured her. "Though I do have ground rules."

"Sure. What are they?" She leaned against the counter and took a sip of her coffee.

"We use protection."

"Absolutely. Trust me, I've seen enough complications that come from gods having kids, I don't have any desire to add them to my life."

I stared at her for a moment, a little taken aback by the statement.

Not because she was against having kids, but because I'd kind of assumed that she couldn't have them.

Then again, she had said something about being able to control her fertility,and there'd be no need for that if she couldn't get pregnant.

"What?" she asked curiously.

"I didn't realise you could have kids."

"I have no reason to think I can't."

"And is that where demi-gods would come from?" The question wasn't really relevant to the current conversation, but I was too curious to not ask it.

"Oh, no. Any child I had would be either a dryad, or whatever the father was. They'd be mortal."

"Ah, I can see where the complications could come from," I said.

"Exactly. It's just not something anyone wants without being prepared. Is that your only rule?"

I cleared my throat. I didn't think I really needed to say this part, but there was no reason not to say it when we were clearly going to be putting these rules in place. "I don't want spontaneous sex at any point. We have the sex we agree to, and if we want more, we have to plan it."

"That's fine by me," she promised. "I like it that way."

"Good. So I guess that's it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Nothing about what we can and can't do?"

"I mean, it's the first time we're going to have sex, I was assuming that things would be fairly standard. Unless there's something in particular you like that isn't."

She nodded. "I've not done this part before. The actual talking about it. I guess I feel like I should have a checklist or something."

"We can do that, if it would make you more comfortable," I said.

"Do you have one?"

"No, but I'm sure someone does somewhere, all we have to do is look for it. I've never had one with anyone else."

"Not even with your ace ex?" Her dark eyes watched me intently, making me feel a lot safer than I had with anyone else. It was clear that she wasn't just assuming that everything would be fine just because we'd agreed to one thing.

"He was sex neutral, so we didn't have sex very much," I said. "It was just never really an issue."

"Ah." She frowned. "Maybe it's something we can do if we think it's really fun and we want to do more?"

"Sounds good to me." I checked around to make sure no one was paying attention. There was nothing in my contract that said I couldn't date another Jinx employee, but I didn't want rumours to start going around until we were ready for them.

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 .