Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Sophie

True to her word, Reid did pick off all the olives from her slices of pizza and piled them on my plate.

“My pizza is now tainted with olive essence,” she grumbled.

“You could have gotten half without olives,” I said.

Reid sighed. “That will be one of my regrets in life.”

I laughed and popped an olive into my mouth.

“What did you want to watch?” Reid asked me.

“How about that one with the people coming down from the space station to colonize Earth again, but they find out there are still humans who have been there the whole time. You sent me a few fanfics from that show. I’ve never seen it.”

Reid let out a long breath. “Okay, the first thing you need to know is that the sapphic relationship does not end happily. Have you looked up any spoilers or anything?”

I shook my head. The show had come out a while ago and I’d just never gotten into it.

“That was one of my very first ships. What happened on the show is one of the reasons I discovered fanfic in the first place. It was really brutal.”

She pulled up the show and I saw that she’d watched it already.

“I mean, as long as I know ahead of time, I think I’ll be good. But that still sucks.”

Reid sighed again. “The first time I watched it, I cried so hard. My mom wouldn’t believe me when I said I was sad about a character on a show dying. She wasn’t very sympathetic about me having any sort of emotions.”

Her jaw clenched and she shook her head. “Anyway. I’m over it now. I’ve rewatched it a bunch of times just to see my favorite parts. And to get the worldbuilding right.”

She froze, realizing what she’d said.

“Oh, so you’ve written for this fandom too. Now I’ll really have to pay attention.”

Reid let out a sound that was basically a growl as she covered her face with a pillow.

Yanking the pillow away from her face, I leaned close.

“You have got to stop being embarrassed about your fanfic. I think it’s amazing.”

She let me take the pillow away from her. “You haven’t even read it.”

“Don’t need to. I know you. I know it’s good.”

She just reached for the remote, turned the show on, and loaded up her plate with more pizza.

“So who am I supposed to be shipping with who?” I asked after we finished the second episode. “It’s not her with that guy’s little sister, is it?”

Reid ran her fingers through her hair. “Nope. She doesn’t actually show up for a while. I’ll let you know, but I’d like to see if you figure it out on your own.”

Well now I really had to pay attention.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

She held up two fingers about an inch apart. “Maybe a little bit. It’s fun to watch someone else experience it in real time.”

“You haven’t made your friends watch this?”

“Nope. They don’t really know about any of my fandoms. Or my fanfic.” That didn’t make sense and she must have seen the confused look on my face.

“I like to keep things separate. I don’t know. It’s something I’ve always done. Kept my private shit private. And my fanfic is private.” Now that did make sense. The more time I spent with her, the more I put the pieces together that explained who she was.

It didn’t take a psychologist to understand that Reid’s relationship with her mother, her main caretaker, had affected her in both big and small ways. As had her relationship with Kaylee.

I still hadn’t told my sister that I was living next to Reid. I didn’t know how to broach the subject, especially given my changing emotions about Reid.

The crush I had on her could no longer be denied. It was here and it was kicking my ass. Sitting next to her on the couch was almost more than I could take. I wanted to get up and sit right in her lap and let her pet my hair. I wanted to shock the hell out of her by kissing her. Making Reid the first woman I’d ever kissed was my new life goal. It wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t imagine it in a hundred different ways.

We’d spent the day together and it kept getting later and later and I knew I was overstaying my welcome, but I didn’t want to get up from her couch. Not only was it comfortable, but my apartment was lacking one major thing that made everything better: her.

Reid wasn’t acting like she wanted to kick me out, though. I’d been watching her for signs that she was getting tired or disengaged with me, but she was still laughing and listening and pressing Play on another episode.

I had a few hours of work tomorrow and my class started on Tuesday, so I wanted to prepare for that, but being wrapped in this cocoon of Reid was far more pleasurable.

“Shit, I didn’t realize how late it was. With my work schedule I’m basically part vampire and I don’t know what normal waking hours are like anymore. If you want to go, you don’t have to stay here and keep me company,” she said after she’d glanced at her phone.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t have to go to work until ten tomorrow. Thanks for inviting me to hike. And for the pizza and showing me your secret fandom. I’ll keep watching and let you know when I see the ship appear.” It wouldn’t be as fun watching it alone, but I couldn’t sit around and wait for her to be free and force her to watch six plus seasons of a show with me.

“No problem. It’s been a good day.” Reid followed me to the door, and I wanted to say something else. Something witty that would make her laugh.

Of course, now that she was standing so close to me, my brain had absolutely shut down and I barely knew my own name, let alone anything clever to say.

“So, uh, let me know if you have any more questions about the show. I have way too much lore in my brain that’s just rattling around in there.” Was she babbling? Surely not. Reid didn’t babble. That was all me.

But her words had tumbled over one another when they came out of her mouth.

“Yeah, I definitely will.” I studied her face and tried not to get lost in her brown eyes. They were dark in this light. Rich, like chocolate, but then there were those golden flecks.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Reid said.

“What?”

“Biting your lip,” she said slowly. I’d been doing exactly that. It was a habit that I’d never been able to break. When I was younger it was so bad that it bled almost constantly. That was when I first started seeing a therapist. I’d gone to see one off and on since then. Sometimes I needed to go more often and then there were other times that I could go months managing fine using my coping skills. I hadn’t been for almost a year, which I was pretty proud of.

“I’m sorry,” I said automatically.

Reid leaned closer, her voice low and soft. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

Oh .

If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was about to kiss me. But she definitely wasn’t. Women like Reid didn’t kiss women like me.

Reid closed her eyes and let out a frustrated sound.

“I’ll see you later, Soph.”

Before I could think of what to say, she’d shut the door in my face. Again.

It was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. I stood there in shock before I turned and walked the short distance to my door. Maybe I should go back and knock until she let me in and explained what the hell that was.

I was probably reading into it. Seeing things that weren’t there. Feeling things that only went one way.

It was best to leave things where they were and to drop it. Reid was never going to want me the way I wanted her.

My mind spun in circles after I left Reid’s and it wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon. I found the show we’d been watching and put it on, curling up on the couch with my comfort blanket.

I turned up the volume so I couldn’t hear any sounds coming from next door. Reid was probably still awake, but I had no idea what she might be doing. Putting away the pizza boxes? Watching more episodes like me? Laying in bed with her laptop and cranking out some fanfiction? I really did want to know her pen name. Now that I knew at least one of her fandoms, I could narrow down the potential fanfics, but there were still thousands of authors she could be.

I was going to figure it out, though. I was determined to know.

The next morning, I woke up on the couch with my TV flashing the ARE YOU STILL THERE? message. I’d fallen asleep on the couch watching the show and never made it to bed. Oops.

I groaned and lay there, my back aching. This sucked.

At least I still had a few hours before I had to be at work to get my spine back into alignment.

I got up, wincing, and went to make breakfast and coffee. I had no doubt that Reid was sleeping in. What would she do if I knocked on her door with a plate of chocolate chip pancakes? I wouldn’t, but imagine if I had the guts to?

Taking the scenario further, what if I made breakfast for her every day? Brought it to her in bed on a tray. Forced her to get up as she grumbled and said she was tired, but would wake up pretty quick when I kissed her or got into bed naked.

Crap. Now I was horny while I was making breakfast and that wasn’t a good combination. Could lead to burns.

Inhaling through my nose, I did my best to shove away those friskier fantasies. I didn’t need them right now. They were best reserved for late at night.

Desire didn’t work that way though, and eventually I had to turn off the burners and just give in because if I didn’t, my breakfast was going to be ruined.

Normally I wasn’t the kind of person who would just go for it wherever, but this was an emergency.

While I leaned up against the counter, I shoved my hand down my shorts and found that I was already soaked and so sensitive that I flinched at the gentlest touch.

“Oh god,” I said as I arched into my own touch and stroked around my clit as it throbbed angrily. With just a few quick touches, my legs quaked and I came, nearly collapsing onto the floor.

Holy hell. That was unexpected. I pulled my hand out and went to wash it before I went back to making breakfast, my entire body tingling.