AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 2
So it’s like we’re back to being on house-arrest again. We only get to leave for work and we stick to each other as much as we can. With me working from home? That just means I’m stuck to who-ever is around at the time.
Both Gil and Jonah make sure that the administration that comes to running a hospitality business gets moved to working from home, and even O regularly moves his work from the office to home. Personally? I think the timing especially sucks. I’ve got two blissful weeks between sending in my final version of my manuscript before I’ll get it back with endless notes and editing can begin. These are supposed to be my weeks off, but I’m stuck at home, worrying.
“So explain it again, what are these books about precisely?” I ask Gil as I’m staring at one of the books he made me buy a few days later. Gil is working on getting the numbers his accountant needs, wearing a pair of laptop glasses, making him look nerdy and scrumptious.
“This particular one is about a girl who gets caught for something she didn’t do. When she moves back home, her father has a new girlfriend and her son and his two friends have moved into her home. It’s referred to as ‘why choose romance’ and she ends up with all of them.”
“So kind of what’s happening here?”
“Exactly what’s happening here,” he says with a smirk, looking at me over the edge of his glasses. Jesus take the wheel, the man should consider getting an office job where he has to look at computer screens all day, just so he can look like this all of the time.
“Now, sit your ass down on the couch… Or go hang upside down on the couch, whatever it is you do when you’re reading, and get to it. I need to finish this and if you keep looking at me like you want to swallow me whole I’ll never get this done.”
I huff. It’s not my fault he’s so distracting. That’s completely on him. Grabbing my e-reader, I make my way to the couch and indeed turn upside down as I sit, letting my head fall over the edge.
It’s not until I feel my head starting to pound, that I notice that I’ve read half the book already while still being in the same position, without coming up once. That’s gotta be unhealthy. When I lift my head up, the blood rushes down again. Little stars appear before my eyes, and when the blackness that pools before my eyes subsides, I notice that Gil is sitting in a chair opposite to me, also reading a book.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I ask in confusion.
“Forty-five minutes,” he says without looking up from his pages. “I was wondering how long it was going to take before you noticed.”
““Yeah, I zoned out a little.” If reading half a book without coming up for air still counts as ‘a little’. My neck hurts, even if this is my most comfortable reading position. While I try to stretch my muscles and force them back into their designated spot, Gil gets up.
“Coffee?”
“Why is there a question mark at the end of that sentence? Go make my coffee.”
He chuckles. “You’d make a perfect Dom if you only ever gave into it.”
That makes me chortle. “Yeah, somehow I feel I like getting dommed too much to make a good Dom.”
“You’re too stubborn to be a good sub as well.”
“Are you telling me I’m sucking at this whole BDSM thing?” I ask him, squeezing one of my eyes shut.
“Nope, I’m just telling you that you’re one of the rare snow flakes. You get off on getting dommed, but you don’t like being submissive.”
Sure, this is a totally normal conversation topic for your typical Tuesday morning. Then again, I guess everything goes with Gil.
I follow him into the kitchen, where he starts making my coffee, and I creep up on him, just to watch him make it. The coffee at O’s and Jonah’s still sucks, and I’m contemplating getting my parents’ fancy coffee machine in here, because that would improve my life tremendously, thank you.
“So, who’s your fave so far?”
“I think they’re all kind of assholish to be honest, but I like Kody at the moment,” I answer without stopping to think for even a second.
“You’re getting sucked in, right?”
Yeah, I’m so sucked into the story my mind is even foregoing all the worrying about Meggy. That’s big. And makes me feel oddly guilty. Here I am, getting off on a good book, while she’s God knows where in whatever kinds of circumstances.
I start tapping on the counter with my fingers. Should I be doing something else than just uselessly sitting around waiting for the police to find my friend?
“Go back to your book,” Gil orders me. “You’re starting to freak out again. You’re allowed to flee from the craphole that our reality is right now. I’ll bring you your coffee once it’s ready.”
Nervously biting on a piece of loose skin on my bottom lip, I surrender and listen.
It’s a couple of hours later when I get out of my upside down position on the couch, so the whole world fades to black and I almost fall over until a hand steadies me. Kellan is sitting next to me on the couch, watching TV. When the hell did he get there? Has he been watching TV for long? I haven’t even heard a peep of it. It’s reruns of Gold Rush and normally that show annoys the crap out of me, so I assume I would’ve heard something. I let the thought go immediately, because I have way more important stuff to focus on right now.
