Gav stared at Will like he’d just told him he’d met the Queen in the queue at the café and he’d asked her to drop in at any minute. His mouth fell open and he raised his hand slowly, pointing at Will. “Oh my God!”
“What?” Will said, holding out his hands. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, mate,” Gav laughed. “Are you part of this? Which part? Fuck me, do I even want to know?”
Will glanced at me, a fake smile plastered to his face. “What’s he talking about?”
I stood, trying to think on my feet as this situation started to pour out all over the floor. There was no way I could retrieve this shitshow that was spilling around us, almost ankle deep.
“He’s not involved. It’s my project. All mine. Down to me.”
“Porn?” Gav leaned back, holding his stomach as he laughed, and Will’s smile looked slightly more panicked.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” Will said, cocking his head at me. “I’ve been gone, literally, ten minutes and I come back to this…weirdness.”
“I think we should go back to your room,” I said urgently. Gav started laughing again.
“You,” Will said, gesturing to Gav. “We’ll talk later.”
“OK, mate.”
I could still hear his laughter as I pulled Will down to his bedroom, closing the door as he looked at me in a way that wasn’t anything remotely like last night or this morning.
“What the fuck?”
“Calm down,” I said, holding out my hands to tame him like Chris Pratt tamed the dinosaurs.
“Calm down! What did you say to him?” he whisper-shouted.
“I played a file from Margot and it was Reid and James deep at it.”
“Oh my God.” He put his hands on his head. “Wait, how did he pull the whole making a porn film thing from that? It could have been anything.”
I closed my eyes and grimaced. “I panicked! I started talking about the project and the clinic and–”
“Skye, what did you tell him?”
“I don’t know!”
“Think! Did you tell him I was involved?” he asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied, watching him slowly unravel. I wasn’t quite sure what he was panicking about, but I could tell whatever it was, it wasn’t good. “What is it? ”
“Nothing,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling me between his legs. “It’s nothing.”
“No secrets.”
He sighed. “I don’t want work to find out,” he said, at the same time undoing my jeans, inching them down. I was naked underneath, didn’t bring a change of underwear as I hadn’t accounted for…this. My panties were still in his pocket and I was pretty sure they were wrecked anyway.
“It’s fine,” I replied. “I didn’t tell him. Don’t worry.” I wrapped my arms around his head as he kissed my thighs, licked my pussy and added a finger just to undo me.
“Oh, God.”
“You’re fucking perfect, Skye.”
And just like that, outside problems disappeared.
22
Will
“Where are they tonight?” I asked Skye.
“Stacey and Matt?” She rolled onto her back, but I caught her wrist, pulling her to her original position of wrapped around a naked me. “He’s taken her to Rome.”
“Is that some kind of male escort sexual innuendo?”
She pushed her hand against my chest. “No! They’re on a romantic mini break, asshole.”
“Is that something I need to plan? A couple’s thing I’ve never been party to before?” She sat up, crossed her legs and I tried my hardest not to focus on her pretty pussy. It was hard. I was hard.
“Is that what we are? A couple?” she asked, pressing her finger against her bottom lip. “It’s just we haven’t talked about what we are.” She glanced at me but looked away. When had this wonderful woman turned timid? “I may have had conversations in my head, many, quite a few even but…not with you.”
Oh, Christ. She was talking ten miles an hour. She only did that when she was anxious.
“We don’t need to name it,” I said, claiming her mouth in the hope it would bring her back to me.
We hadn’t seen each other for a few days, work pulling us apart after we’d only just come together, and I was getting the impression that Skye had been trapped in her head. Never a good sign. Text messages were like relationship Morse code. I had to figure out each one and carefully plan my answers. She was questioning us and was both doubtful and apprehensive.
“Do you think we should?” she said, “name it, I mean?” I wasn’t sure what answer she wanted from me because Jesus Christ, I was new to relationships too. I didn’t know what was considered dating etiquette and we were never going to be the norm anyway. “Don’t answer that,” she said. “Ignore me. We don’t need labels. We’re not label people.” She took her robe from the corner of the door and put it on. “Fancy something to eat?”
“Sure,” I replied as she disappeared skittishly into the kitchen.
I took my time getting dressed, spending the minutes going through planned monologues about defining us and a speech about keeping us casual, loose, easy, whatever she wanted and wouldn’t result in her pushing me away.
Shit.
The last few days had been a blur. I was good with upheaval, but this level of confusing was starting to stress me out. I’d spoken to Gav about the porn thing. Told him I’d been helping out because I liked the message Skye was trying to get across. I awkwardly threw in a few jokes before going in with the even more awkward plea to ask him not to tell anyone at work.
Then there was Skye. The monologue speech – whatever we were going to call it – was ready to go as I climbed the stairs to her flat, but she greeted me with a blow job, and I reciprocated with kitchen worktop sex and the monologue was long forgotten.
“You haven’t told me how your interview went,” she shouted from the kitchen. I followed her voice
