From Marty Vee:

This is a RomCom novella I’m sharing in segments, about two people who don’t like each other getting quarantined together. I suggest starting at the beginning:

https://martyvee.com/2020/04/06/you-and-me-in-quarantine-day-1/

But I’ll recap anyway:

Billie is a junior reporter for a local network and Edgar, her least favorite person, works in the same position at a competing network. They are quarantined together at his house. She recently found out that most of her previously conceived notions about him are based on someone else’s lies. 

I hope you enjoy it!

Day 9

This morning could be beyond uncomfortable.  And I’m stuck here if it is; “I have somewhere to be” is not an option. I don’t know what to anticipate or what the best course of action is. How do I want this to play out? I would like to have sex with him again, but will that complicate things further? If it’s been complicated at all. Maybe he’s super chill about these things. I can be chill.

We fell asleep naked, lying diagonally across the bed. At some point during the night I pulled a pillow under our heads and he draped the covers over us. I’m no longer surprised to wake up cuddling with him, that seems to be what we do. He’s pressed against my back from shoulder to knee.

I’m torn between arousal and apprehension. There’s no clear course of action for what we’ve done.

Admittedly, it’s possible I didn’t think this through completely. I might have done that thing where I fly off the handle and now I don’t know what kinds of repercussions I’m dealing with. What did sex with Edgar mean to me? What did it mean to him? Before last night, I was on the verge of considering him a friend. Not that I was ready to admit that to anyone else. Is he the kind of friend that I have sex with? I’ve had casual sexual relationships in the past to varying degrees of success. But the stakes were never quite this high.

He groans and cups my breast. I feel him grow hard against my thigh before he rolls on top of me.

I’m deciding that more sex with Edgar can only simplify things.

Also, his naked body was correctly advertised. It’s very good.

*****

It’s mid-afternoon. My coworker, Mitch, who was supposed to film a video today but he had an incident involving his four-year-old son and dish soap in the dishwasher. I saw the photos on Mitch’s profile. The entire kitchen is bubble-land with a cute little blond boy having the time of his life in the middle of the mess.

So I’m filming instead of Mitch today. I usually record earlier in the day by the workout room’s window, but the lighting is wrong this late in the day. I check in the living room, but that’s not great either, I really need to be on the other side of the house. I go into Edgar’s bedroom. I know that he’s recorded in here, so I double-check the background of the shot is just a blank wall. It’s a light gray color, an observant viewer might recognize that the color is the same. But that’s unlikely. Lots of people have gray walls.

After recording the video, I send it to my email to forward it to my producer. It won’t post until tomorrow because it’s so late.

I find Edgar in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.

It would be an understatement to say that I smile back at him. I try to turn the wattage down but I can’t. I can feel that my face is all teeth and bright eyes. To get my stupid expression back in line, I tilt my head down but keep watching him. His smile doesn’t falter but his expression goes a little “Aww.” Like I’m something adorable.

I roll my eyes. “Alright. Enough of that.”

“Enough of what?” His face is going to get stuck that way if he doesn’t stop smiling.

“Looking at me like I’m a particularly cute puppy.”

He presses the button to begin the dishwashing. “Then stop being cute.”

“I’m not.” Seriously, never in my life have I been called cute.

“You are.”

“How?”

“You pretending that you’re not affected by me. It kills me.”

“I don’t do that.” I narrow my eyes at him and fight my dumb lips from curling.

He laughs. “You’re doing it now.”

I make a tisk sound.

“Ugh,” his hand covers his heart, “you’re too much.”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t handle it.”

“I’ll shut you up.”

“Promise?”

I push him against the refrigerator, a magnet falls with a thud to the linoleum floor. My kiss is harsh but playful; my teeth taking warning bites on his lips and jaw and neck. He cups my ass with both hands and pulls me tighter against him.

“Oh no,” I scowl up at him. Gripping each of his wrists, I push his hands back to his sides. “You’re being punished.”

“Fuuck meee.” His voice is pained and aroused.

“When I’m good and ready.”

His erection bounces against my lower stomach. He groans, his head falling back against the stainless steel.

“You’re never gonna call me cute again,” I whisper into his ear. My hands climb under the hem of his shirt before I run my nails down his abdomen.

He inhales sharply. “You’re fucking adorable.”

I pull back to glare at him through my eyelashes. “I’ll make you pay.”

“Adorable,” he taunts.

“You’ll eat those words,” I promise.

Promises are very important to me.

*****

We’re still breathing heavily from our latest bout of sex. It’s a whole new way to pass the day. Things have progressed at an aggressive rate. He’s so fun to be with; even outside of the whole sleeping together situation.

He’s running his fingers down my hip and then his knuckles up. Fingers down and knuckles up, over and over again.

I’m watching, my eyelids getting heavy.

It’s dark outside, I wonder what time it is. But I don’t care enough to remove my cheek from his chest and check the clock on the wall. Instead, I listen to it tick away seconds into the silent room.

His body gives a little bounce as he chuckles.

“What?” I ask, realizing that I’d almost fallen asleep. My eyes look up at the ceiling, but his face is behind me, I can’t see him unless I move. And that’s not happening.

“Nothing.”

Okay, I’m going to have to move. I roll—without any grace—so that my opposite cheek is now resting on his lower belly and I can look up the into his face. He’s propped with a pillow under him and his shoulders against the headboard.

“Tell me.”

“Just taking in that we’re here.” He gestures to encompass us laying on his bed.

Being contrary, I shrug. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Stranger things than you serving me false papers by my stalking ex-wife leading to us having enthusiastic—”

“Enthusiastic,” I laugh.

“Sex all day.” He ignores my interruption.

“Yes, I’m sure stranger things have happened.”

He blinks at me with skepticism. He’s smiling when he says, “In you’re life? Because in my life, I sent you a drink a couple of months ago and you sent it back to me.”

I tense at his words.

“Whoa, what just happened?” His smile is slipping off of his face.

You just reminded me that this is a totally shitty idea. I want to yell at him. I take a deep breath and with ice in my voice I say, “You mean the drink you sent to gloat?”

He goes rigid. “I was not gloating.”

I sit up to face him at eye level. We aren’t touching anymore, the distance that is usually between us is back. But this time we’re naked for it.

“So, it was coincidence that you won an award that I was nominated for as well,” I point out.

He snorts and I feel anger simmer in my gut.

“I was feeling confident, so I took a risk.” His words are spoken slowly and deliberately. “You sending it back really cut the confidence out from under me.”

“Am I supposed to apologize for that?”

“No.” He takes a deep breath. “But I wasn’t gloating.”

My eyebrows draw together, I’m missing something here. That seems to be the reoccurring message of all of my interactions with Edgar. “Then what was it?”

He snorts again. I really want him to stop doing that.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He says this glaring at the wall over my left shoulder.

“Why?”

He. Snorts. Again.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Snort one more time, I dare you.”

“What’re you gonna do? Beat me up?”

“Just don’t. And answer the question.”

“What question?”

My jaw is clenching. This man is stressing my short supply of patience. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

“Oh, that.” He rolls his eyes. “That is obvious.”

“It is not.”

His head tilts and his eyes lock onto mine. He’s staring at me and taking slow breaths like the information will seep into my consciousness from our shared oxygen.

I sigh. “I don’t know what kind of mind-melding you’re trying to do here but It’s not working. Just answer the damn question.”

He makes a disgusted sound before muttering, “I have a crush on you.”

My eyes go round, like, huge. My open mouth is trying to pull into a smile but I’m fighting it back.

“Why do you think I do such embarrassing shit around you?” He demands.

I’m gonna laugh soon. It’s just all so awkward. “Like tell me you look very good naked?”

“Prime example.”

“Well, you do.” I give a little shrug.

His eyes roll. “Thank you.”

“You have a crush on me.”

He must catch my antagonizing tone because he meets my eye. His head tilts in a warning.

“Like we’re in middle school.”

“That’s what it feels like, I haven’t been this embarrassing since I was pubescent,” he groans.

My lower lip is meaty between my teeth. “It’s like a big crush, like carving E + B into a park bench.”

“Okay.”

“Are you gonna try to hold my hand in math class?”

“Shut your beautiful mouth.”

“Is your mom gonna pick me up so we can go to the semi-formal together?”

“Alright.” He launches towards me. I only have time to squeal as he tosses me on my back. He uses his beautiful mouth to shut mine up.

So, I win.

 

From Marty Vee:

Thank you for reading! If you are enjoying the story, please share it with a friend. You can continue on to Day 10 at:

https://martyvee.com/2020/05/04/you-and-me-in-quarantine-day-10/