#(eeeee)

Her best friend, her lover. You’re the one to call on her lunch breaks after she checks on Emily, the one who can laugh with her all night with when nothing is on tv, and the one she knows will hold her when the weight of the world just feels too strong.

She knew you were the one when she exploded with laughter over something you said that only makes her giggle now. Her face was so happy, Alyssa would’ve rolled over in her grave if she saw it. She lights up when you’re around her. There’s no force from you to talk to her; you two can sit in silence, hold one another. Maybe kiss you from time to time.

She notices the small things first.

The way you check on Emily when she’s late from work.

The way you remind her to eat.

The way “take care of yourself,” sounds more like you’re scared she’d vanish off the face of the earth rather than a simple ask.

The big things matter too. But the small ones are what have her mind stuck in a loop.

There are even times where all you have to do is walk into the room and the entire atmosphere collapses in on itself until it’s just you. No tv, no couch, no silly music playing in the background of her laptop– just you.

Grace prides herself on being careful with people. Observant. Analytical.

It was her job of course. She studies how people move through the world. What they say, figuring out intentions and all of their contradictions. But with you, she realized something unsettling; she’d never opt to study from a distance. She wants to be part of the life she’s watching of you. She used to be more so in love with the idea of yearning than actually settling down with it in her lap. The longer she kept her eye on you, she understood that you’re the final person worth staying by. The missing piece.

Do you know how easy it is for her to sit down and watch you for hours?

If you realized how much space you take up in her head you’d probably be stunned by just how much one person could think about another. This isn't the first time she’s wondered about these things, and she’s sure it will not be the last.

She likes your loudness.

She likes your silence.

She likes your proximity.

She likes you.

She loves you. Dare she say it.

She figures that the only problem with liking you is that she doesn't know what to do with herself when she is around you.

It happens again today. She can be found huddled at her desk with a hand behind her head, tapping a light pen to the nape of her neck as she tries to focus on a file she couldn’t give less of a fuck about. Grace’s eyes flicker along the papers with a faltering smile at a small thought of you. She swears she’s not that distracted and that she can get back to work any time she wants.

The only downside of being your girl is that you’re so satisfactory that she in turn doesn’t know what to do with you. Anything. Second guesses of where to put her hands, what to say and how to say it are always up in the air. It honestly fills the woman with this cloudy fog of an amalgamation of emotions when it’s established that she has more power than she’d like to admit in this relationship.

How she is able to get you right where she wants you is beyond her, but when she asks Leon about it, she’s always met with a, “seems like you’re not the only one with a crush, kiddo.” and that breaks her. You like her, and that is more than enough for her.

Trust her, she knows she watches you too much. Though, the strange part (for her) is that you never seemed bothered by it. Sometimes you will glance up from whatever you’re doing and meet her eyes from across the room. It’s not a look of shock or surprise– a simple smile. Like you know you’re meant to be there with her.

At home, Grace knows she doesn’t have it under control. But at work? Grace likes to think that there’s this obvious composure.

Professional. Controlled.

But her mind is already guiding her from her desk at work to leaning over you on the couch. Heat with nothing on her mind and you are entirely too close to her. Her concentration slips right through her fingers. With a kick of her toes against some paper work out of reflex, she falls out of her trance but quickly goes back to lalaland with you.

Her thought of you enveloping her fingers while holding her face, begging for mercy lingers in her mind. The heat of your body takes her over as she fills and pulls out of you. The typical silence of her place is suddenly filled with your moans lingering in her ear. How pretty you are. The rise and fall of your chest, your small, “baby, please,” that twist of your lips when your hips rock into the palm of her hand when all she can do is watch you from above, not stopping until her job is finished. She thinks about when she coaches you through it, dropping little kisses on your face, “you can take it.”

Grace is snapped out of it when it’s time to get back to her job– the one she’s at right now. Sighing out, her glasses meet her desk, leaning back into her seat as she gives her files an intentional break. “Fuck,” mumbling under her breath, fixing her blazer and picking up her phone to see a text from you.

It’s a simple message hoping that your girlfriend has a good rest of her shift and that you can’t wait to see her. It makes her blush. How could she have thought about something so sinful in a moment when you’re so soft? Until Grace realizes– you’re not soft either. No, no. You've got demons of your own that captivate her.

Like the time she easily slips back into when her hands tangle in your hair as she watches you latch onto the heat between her thighs once again, at the hand of the blonde. Grace’’s got the world in her palms with her thighs wide open for you, quietly cooing in your ear some of the hell-raising words she had no idea she was even capable of. How soft your tongue and lips maneuver on her with kisses, sucks, teases and taunts. She orders it out of you; leaned back on the bed, toes curled and gasping for air, “Just like that,” a small demand pulls from her shaky breath. “Keep looking at me.”

The ding from her phone happens again. It’s already been two minutes since she last thought about you. She can find herself getting antsy at your mere existence. Taking a look around the cubicles around her, it’s still a slow and busy day for most folks; small discussions in the air. As she clears her throat, there’s one more troublesome glance at the work in front of her that makes her debate knocking it all out right now.

At this point, work doesn’t stand a chance. Not before she gets another text from you. This time something that makes her throw her phone faster than she picked it up. “What did I do to deserve this,” under her breath, the words escape. In her phone is a picture of a new toy, one that’s right up her alley that you seemingly bought without her knowing. In the picture lays a shipping label and discreet packaging that already has her conjuring up ways to use it on you.

And as if it’s her final act, she dips off once more. The thought of your hands deep in the duvet, back arched with your bottom swelled in the air just for her as you take something silicone and in your favorite color throws her right back into the scene. Your pleas are muffled through the pillow you bite on, taking every thrust like your life depended on it, rolling your hips back on her in the desire to chase your own pleasure on her.

“Ashcroft.” There's a call for her, but it’s not enough to slip her out of her own head.

“Ashcroft!” This time, there’s heavy knocking in a familiar pattern. It stirs Grace, but not by much.

“Grace!” This time she rips from her thoughts and looks Dempsey in the eyes once more. Shit.

“Yes?” this time, she sounds more annoyed than she does frightened, but it’s all the same to him. Work must be done.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he calls out to her, beckoning her to follow him with a tilt of his head. “Come with me. You’ve got a new assignment.” He carries a tone of irritation, but he knows who she is and how young and hard headed new hires can be.

Suddenly the air cools down and reality sets back in the twenty two year old, “right behind you!”

That’s how it feels to be an introvert.