She looked over to where he sat with his neck bent over a shelf as he checked through the books. She, for one, was definitely willing. They were in this house together without a lot of amusement after all, andthey were getting along and clearly attracted to each other. It was logical. It made sense. He ran his hand over his stomach, rucking up his shirt, and she made her decision.
“Wes?” Her voice came out louder than she planned, and Wes jumped.
“What’s up?”
She summoned up all her bravery. After all, he’d said they should concentrate on work, not that they should focus entirely on work. There was some room for discussion.
“I have a proposal.”
“I preemptively refuse any rules change,” he said. “I got first in points fair and square.”
She felt there was an argument to be made here but decided to keep on target. “I want to talk about the other night.”
Wes turned away slightly. “What’s to talk about? You said it was a mistake.”
“Yousaid it was a mistake,” she corrected.
“I actually didn’t,” said Mr. Eidetic Memory. “You finished my sentence, and I wasn’t going to argue with you.”
“Okay.” She tried to keep her heart rate down when she realized that Wes might not have meant what he’d said in the kitchen, and she’d jumped in with assumptions. “I was wrong.”
***
Nadine looked cute like this, thought Wes as she went red after basically declaring she wanted to sleep with him to the library, Octavia, and him. Her hair was down and tucked behind her ears, and the dress she wore made him unable to stop staring, with its flowy skirt and tiny ruffled straps. He remembered how the light had played on her face when she’d stood in front of the kitchen window yesterday.
Right before she’d gutted him when she called their night together a mistake. He didn’t want to screw up this opportunity, if opportunity itwas. But it was better to be sure.
“I don’t want to pressure you,” he said carefully.
“Wes. I am literally standing here asking you to have sex with me.” She ducked her head down a bit and mumbled the last words. She looked up. “We can be adults about this and continue to work together.”
“While indulging ourselves? Friends with benefits.” He pretended to think about it, like he wasn’t mentally on top of her, smoothing his finger across her hip to see the skin pebble before flattening his hand across the warmth of her stomach. “Say it again.”
She stood to her full height. “I, Nadine Barbault, was wrong to say having sex was a mistake. I said it to try to make things not weird between us, not that I had any regrets. I would very much like to do it again, and preferably more than once. We don’t have to make a big deal out of it. It can be totally chill.”
“Shit, then yes, I agree.” Distantly, he recalled his usual stance against casual sex, then decided screw it. He would worry about that later, when Nadine wasn’t standing there looking like she’d already undressed him. He put down the book he was holding and came over to her, swearing when he nearly stepped on a cat. “Come here.”
***
An hour later, they were dressed again and back at work like the professionals they were. It had been an extremely fun break, and as a reward-oriented individual, Nadine was looking forward to the repeat Wes had promised later that night once they’d finished their daily search goals. This friends-with-benefits thing had been one of her better ideas.
Wes looked at her phone, and she knew what he was thinking, because he’d asked the same thing over and over since they’d found the letter yesterday. Then he said it.
“Has Monica replied yet?” he asked.
She’d sent Monica Olway a message after they’d found her email. They hadn’t been able to track down a phone number.
“For the eleventh time, no, and for the twelfth time, yes I am checking.”
“I wasn’t asking…” He saw her face. “Sorry. I’ll lay off. I’m getting antsy. We’re running out of time. We only have nine days left in the house.”
They separated to search the house as usual. Erma followed Nadine to the game room and hissed at Sidonie-Gabrielle, who woke from her nap on the billiards table before disappearing in a flash. A small patch of matted fur showed it was a favored location for sleepy felines. Nadine absentmindedly picked up the darts to toss at the board as she thought about where Wes might have missed looking in his first pass. They’d decided to search the rooms the other had done to see if a second set of eyes made a difference.
If she was doing Dot’s obit today, would she include the darts? The cats? That must be the biggest struggle, to decide what in forty or sixty or a hundred years of living was the core of a person’s story.
Feeling empty, she sat on the curved blue couch and pulled out her phone. Her heart dropped to see a message from Lisanne, which was in turn depressing. She didn’t want to avoid her friend, but she couldn’t bring herself to be normal about this whole work thing. Was she that petty? That self-centered?
Looked like yes, but she would try to be a better person.
