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But I know, above all, that it’s too much, too soon, and way over the line. All my rules are broken, and I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m scared and confused, too, because I know this can go wrong in so many ways.
Suddenly, I realize that all this time, I’ve been silent, too silent, but she’s still standing in the kitchen, looking at the cake where her shoe is. By now, it’s sunk down into layers of cake and icing, and it needs a bath in the worst way. I need to say precisely the right thing, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I just blurt out something else instead and hope for the best.
“I want to be friends, and I don’t want to stop seeing you. I also want us to get to know each other. Everything you told me will not chase me away. Plus, it might be fun sometimes for you to have another nerd to hang out with. We can get together and, uh, code or something.”
“Code?” she chokes out. So she wasn’t expecting that.
“And hang out with your cats? Cuddle them, maybe?”
Now she’s trying not to smile, and unfortunately, she wins the battle. She plucks her boot out of the cake, bends over, and puts it on just like that, even though it’s full of icing. I wince. Her foot is probably squishing around in there. She grabs the other and puts it on, too, before she straightens and gives me a tight smile that isn’t real.
“I should go,” she says. She grabs her purse, which is also on the floor, and then checks her phone. “It’s six. Long past pumpkin turning time.” Her face pinches. “Did I taste funny when you were, uh, you know?”
“No! Funny how? No. You were delicious. God, very, very good. Five Michelin stars.” Shut up, idiot. “Better than any cotton candy on the planet.” That’s better.
“So I didn’t taste like pumpkin pie? Or pumpkin muffins? Or pumpkin soup? Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin souffle, pumpkin spice latte…?” She cracks and gives in to a smile, and I realize she’s making a joke. Regardless, I’m so relieved and happy to see that the smile is real now.
“Oh. No, no pumpkin anything. Just you, which was absolutely perfect.”
Lindy sighs. She looks sad, fragile, and unhappy, and seeing all that flit across her face makes me feel sick. It’s like a battering ram to the nuts and gut all at once, like two fists and two feet double-bagging me, one after the other. I guess that would be quad-bagging me? Anyway, I hate seeing her like that, on the verge of being shattered. I hate seeing the loneliness creeping back in and watching her resign herself to it.
She throws her purse over her shoulder and stares at me like she isn’t wearing shoes filled with cake. I can tell she still wants to leave, and my heart stops beating. “I just told you pretty much everything, and I thought it would scare you off. There are so many other things you don’t know and so many reasons this wouldn’t work between us, but I’m glad we did what we did. It was…it was good. I needed it, and maybe you needed it too. Thank you.
“Thank you so much for proving to me that I’m not horrible, gross, or broken and that I can get past all the earlier stuff. Thank you for being generous and kind and not weirded out. And thank you for eating my pussy because it was amazing—almost the best part of today. Thank you, too, for letting me lick the cake off your face and making me feel like a part of your family. It was a first for me. Honestly, it was, and I appreciate it. But you hardly know me, and you don’t know that I left Seattle because I did one too many hacking jobs and pissed off the wrong people. There’s a reason I’m staying in a dumpy house, paying cash, and laying low. Even after all that, I still couldn’t stop.
“I did the job for your granny and got myself cursed for real this time. I guess I deserve it, but you don’t. You seem like a good person, and you don’t deserve to be saddled with me. Just because we’re both in the same field doesn’t make us a match. I’m not a suitable partner. I’ve never been into relationships. I don’t even know what they mean or how to do them unless it’s a relationship with cats. Also, I don’t wear panties because my sister and I used to have underwear wars, but that’s a long story. I do weird things like have cereal for dinner, name my computer, and drink tea with the leaves floating inside the hot water.
