It was tempting, and I don’t just mean slightly, but all the way tempting. But I’d already emasculated myself by sticking my fingers in my ears, biting my fist, covering my eyes, and jumping. If I admitted defeat now, I’d be screwed.
“No, you’re good. But if I cover my ears…” I looked at Sasha warningly while I reworded it. There was no way I’d stick to just covering my ears. When I watched Hellraiser, I’d only just made it to the bathroom in time. “Whatever you’re about to see and hear from me, you keep to yourself.”
Crossing her heart with her fingers, she smiled sweetly at me. “Promise.”
By the end, I was a mess.
“I don’t know whether to cry or puke.”
I threw my arm over my eyes and tried to clear my mind of what I’d just seen.
“Mmm, it does mess you up, doesn’t it?”
That was putting it mildly. “I can’t unsee it. It’s like my brain wants to torture me by playing with my fragile little mind.”
“That’s proof of a good movie, though.”
Dropping my arm down, I gaped at her. “A good movie? I don’t know how I’m going to walk anywhere without you holding my hand. What am I going to do in the middle of the night when I need to get up to pee? You’re going to have to come with me.”
The laughter burst out of her, and I briefly dropped my eyes to her chest, watching the mounds bounce, before I mentally kicked my ass for doing it. I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose, but still.
When I wasn’t staring at them, though, I was watching how beautiful she looked. All lit up with the humor over my predicament, which I didn’t mind one bit.
“Are you going to be able to sleep with the light off?” she wheezed, wiping under her eyes.
The words were out before I’d even thought about them properly. If I had, I wouldn’t have put myself into the living hell I did an hour later.
“Of course.”
Seventy-three minutes later…
The devil things from the movie were in my apartment. I just knew it. Any minute now, a watch was going to drift past my face in the air.
I was too scared to blink and unable to close my eyes at all.
And I needed to pee.
“Sasha?” It sounded like I’d gargled gravel, so I cleared my throat. “Sasha?”
“Turn the light on.”
She didn’t say it through laughter like I’d assumed she would have. Instead, it was almost like she was begging me to do it because she was in the same predicament.
Flicking the switch, I blinked rapidly and looked around the room. No watch. No space gloves. No space helmet. No pieces of Milkshake drifting around in the air.
Swallowing loudly, I grabbed her good hand. “I need to pee.”
“Me, too.”
I wouldn’t say we held each other's hands, standing next to the toilet while the other used it. But it wasn’t far from the truth, except the door was wide open, and the one not using it was standing right outside.
As I flushed and then washed my hands, I tried to act breezily and like I wasn’t embarrassed about the situation.
“Does this mean we’re in a relationship? I thought there were meant to be secrets between us?”
Coming into the room and waiting for me to finish up so she could go, she sighed. “It’s okay for you, I’ve got a shy bladder so this is going to be torture.”
Making my way out and standing where she’d waited previously, I leaned against the wall and stared across the room at the laundry basket, noticing a lace bra hanging over the edge of it.
Distracted by trying to picture Sasha wearing it and not thinking, the words came out of my mouth.“What’s a shy bladder?”
Come to find out—Sasha couldn’t pee with an audience. Even if it was a public bathroom, her bladder would hold out until she literally forced it not to. And it somehow knew I was waiting there and could hear everything it needed to do.
Whereas my toilet trip had taken minutes from start to finish, hers took twenty-eight minutes—and I knew that from watching the clock on the Alexa next to the bed.
I didn’t find that irritating or inconvenient, I found it adorable.
And it made me want her even more.
4.19am…
Thanks to the same device, I knew what time it was when I opened my eyes, squinting at how bright the room was.
I’d lowered the brightness with the app on my phone, but I wasn’t used to them being on while I slept, period, so…
Wait, why were they on?
Absentmindedly, I kissed Sasha’s shoulder as I lifted my head to look around.
Ah, the movie. That fucking, fucking movie was why I’d only fallen asleep just over an hour ago. It was most likely the reason I’d woken up, too.