I stacked my empty baskets and set them on the ground, and just as the sounds of whooshing waterfalls filled the room, Reed seeped back into my brain.
Goddammit.
That was it. I refused to beat my head against the wall trying to understand what the fuck he meant. I slid my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and angrily typed out a text. My finger hit send a minute later.
Me: Our most emotional experience yet? I call bullshit. The only emotion I felt was happiness, and that was because I was literally pleasuring myself to climax.
I didn’t even have time to put my phone back into my pocket. The screen lit up with a notification of his response a mere minute later. I leaned against the washers and crossed my feet at the ankles. I had a feeling I might as well settle in for the circle of crazy conservation I had just unleashed on myself.
Reed: 24 hours. I’m impressed.
My face scrunched up on its own accord. Impressed? What in the hell was that supposed to mean? And did he always have to talk in existential riddles? I wasn’t even good at the Sunday morning crossword in the New York Times. Riddles weren’t my thing. And Reed’s Riddles might as well have been a mental Rubik’s Cube.
Side note: I really suck at Rubik’s Cubes, too.
Me: Huh?
Reed: I thought it would take you at least 36 hours before you graced me with your opinion.
I rolled my eyes. I did that a lot when it came to him. If I weren’t careful, he would push my already bad eyes to blindness.
Me: That wasn’t our most emotional experience. There was no “our” in that experience. It was just me. Getting myself off.
Reed: In front of me.
I started to type out a sarcastic retort, but the bubbles started to move across the screen and then another text came through.
Reed: You were bared, exposed, so beautifully vulnerable…
Reed: In. Front. Of. Me.
Well, fuck. When he put it like that…
Reed: Last night WAS the most intimate moment we’ve shared together.
Me: No, it wasn’t.
The instant I sent the reply I felt doubt creep into my throat, sitting there like a rock, and there was no amount of swallowing that could make it vanish.
Reed: You trusted me, LoLo. You trusted me to watch you in a very intimate and vulnerable moment, and you did this, trusting that I would watch you without judgment.
And do you want to know what I saw?
Say no. Say no. Say no.
Me: What?
Obviously, I had zero willpower when it came to him.
Reed: I saw a devastatingly beautiful woman pleasuring herself. And even though, on the surface, it might have just seemed like sex, it wasn’t. That insanely gorgeous woman shared a very emotional and intimate moment with me. The kind of moment I bet she’s never shared with anyone.
Reed: Thank you, Lola.
Did he just thank me? For masturbating in front of him?
And more importantly, was he right? Was last night more than just sex?
I replayed the night in my head. The way I’d taken a deep breath and calmed my nerves before I’d found the courage to lose myself to the music, to the moment. The way my heart beat like a hummingbird’s wing inside my chest as I removed my clothes. The way I had felt like my stomach was about to fall to the floor as I started to touch myself while he watched…
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Last night wasn’t just sex.
Goddammit, why is the conclusion always that he’s fucking right?
I opened the message box and started to type out a response.
Me: You’re right.
Delete.
Me: I still hate you.
Liar. Delete.
Me: I think I’m falling for you.
Holy hell. Delete. Delete. Delete.
My Converse tapped across the tile floor in synchronized steps. Back and forth, I paced inside the laundry room. I had no idea how to respond to him. The last six words I had typed—and then deleted—had freaked me out. They made me feel a bit too vulnerable, too exposed, just too much.
Kind of like how you felt last night…
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I glanced at the washers and noted there were only five minutes left until they were finished. Instead of pacing a hole into the tile, I decided to sit outside the laundry room, in the little seating area for tenants to hang out and watch TV.
I plopped my ass down in a leather chair, and with the remote in hand, I started scrolling through the channels. Once Phoebe and Rachel filled the screen, I tried to turn my racing thoughts off and enjoy an episode of Friends.
But my brain had signed up for a marathon and had no intentions of slowing down. Not even to laugh at Chandler’s frequent sarcastic quips or Monica’s OCD. A few minutes later, my phone was back in my hand and my gaze fixated on the text conversation with Reed.