#lucy hutton

I find the old document hidden on my laptop while Josh turns on the shower. Despite the fact that he convinced me (with Helene’s warm and knowing voice, way too smug on the phone) to take a long weekend, I still can’t quite turn off when I know the interview is so soon.

The soft tones of White Snake come floating through the cracked open door with the steam.

Josh sings in the shower.

My heart grows ridiculous in size like a cartoon character, big pink hearts for eyeballs.

I’m collecting all these new facts about him on individual post-it notes stuck to the inside of my chest. The way he murmurs in his sleep. How he carefully organizes his toothpaste and floss on the counter each night. I have a big, expansive white board in my mind that just says “I Love Joshua Templeman” at the top. You can’t even see the edges.

I sigh, disturbingly in love. And then double click.

The document is just called “Lucy Notes.” It’s password protected and encrypted.

Thirty-four pages of HR documentation. Against my now-boyfriend.

Oh boy.

But Josh turns off the shower, and it’s time for my new favorite show. I start getting woozy and realize I’m holding my breath. After a few drippy moments, the orchestra warming up, it finally begins. Josh emerges from the bathroom in a perfectly timed cloud of steam, nothing but a fluffy towel clinging desperately to his hips.

He clocks me immediately, something like mock disappointment on his face. I am leering at him over my laptop and must look like a pervert.

“I’ll take one, please. Freshly steamed.”

When he reaches for clothes in his dresser, I squeak a protest so loud he stops in his tracks.

“Shortcake, have you ever heard the term ‘refractory period’?”

The document is forgotten on my laptop. My laptop too, actually.

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Does it mean ‘time to get creative’?”

Bare feet on the carpet, his hands on his hips, he looks like he stepped directly out of a catalog, one where he’d be tanned and laughing for no reason into space.

I twist on the sheets to follow him as he stalks around the bed. It’s Monday so I’m wearing his white shirt, for tradition. Three o’clock in the afternoon and I haven’t given him many opportunities to put something on today. He’ll have to get it dry cleaned, I don’t think I’ve showered since Port Worth. And I’ve gotten very, very dirty since then.

Perhaps he doesn’t mind. He’s focused on the place where the hem meets my thighs like it holds the secrets to El Dorado. Standing at the foot of the bed now, which is probably messier than it’s ever been in his life, he looks at me.

The Staring Game has not gotten old, not one bit.

“How are you still so worked up? I feel like I’m not doing my job properly.”

Grooves of muscle and veins form a beautiful downward V, the rest of him covered by nothing more than a towel. I can see it in his eyes - he’s already building some sort of sexual spreadsheet to tackle the problem of horny Lucy Hutton more effectively. A perfect lock of hair, Superman-curled, falls onto his forehead as he frowns, looking down at me like a math equation. I’m basically drooling on his sheets.

“I told you, I’ve been a pent up mess since I met you.”

He’s amused by me, fortunately for the both of us. “Pent up? With what?”

“Lust. Aggression. Absolute annoyance. Pick one.”

With a smile I am beginning to learn means no good, he starts crawling onto the bed. I don’t stand a chance against his long, muscled limbs.

Still dripping, he lets his weight drop over me. I muffle a complaint against his chest but then find a drip of water to lick up between his pecs. I have been robbed of all kinds of fluids on our sex-filled weekend and I need to replenish. His shoulders shake over me as he laughs.

Not that he hasn’t been bringing me drinks, phone chargers and unfortunate, fortifying healthy snacks as I lounge in bed, naked, like some sort of ancient queen. Or maybe a very spoiled concubine.

Or a lucky girl with the perfect boyfriend.

“You’re dripping on me,” I complain. “You’re enormous, like my own personal raincloud.”

“Maybe you could use a shower too.”

“Are you saying I smell?” I push at his chest and he indulges me, budging off me a bit. My eyes are full of violence.

“Well -”

“My sweat smells like roses. I’m dewy, like a forest goddess.”

He smiles, bashful, like he’s trying not to. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

I smell as much of him as I do of me. I haven’t been to my apartment in three days. I’m going to get a UTI as punishment for all this mindblowing sex. I want to affix myself to his side, growing like some sort of barnacle - or better yet, a cursed amulet to haunt him endlessly. I never want to leave this bed.

I’m thinking all these thoughts, still pinned under his ridiculous weight and getting damper, as I notice him reading my screen.

“Hey!” The desire to hide, to lock it down from his prying eyes is instinctual. I groan as I wiggle under him, stuck.

Horrifyingly, he reads. “January fifteenth - 3:24pm. JT forwarded a negative review of the Sconehenge Bakery & Cafe. Circled the passage on their ‘unimpressive flop’ of a strawberry shortcake. Highlighted in pink: ‘The strawberry shortcake is the perfect dessert - airy, over-sweet and requiring absolutely no talent to assemble.’”

I grind my teeth, still squirming. That bit of cleverness - a bakery review for god’s sake - still stings. I did figure out he had “shortcake” on his google alerts, though. Two points Josh, one point Lucy.

“What is this? Your stalker book?”

Fighting with my knees and elbows, I finally pull free from his body, like a spelunker emerging from a cave. I clamber up his pillows and grab the laptop from him, trying to restore my dignity, flattening my wild curls. “No. It’s my HR diary. I’m sure you have one too.”

I’m strangely embarrassed, and he’s staring at me. “Maybe you should delete it. Let bygones be and all that.”

“And lose all this golden content? I’ll have an infraction to pull out against you for at least,” I stop and check the document, scrolling to the bottom, “138 fights. This will last me for years.”

“They can’t be that bad. I think your perception was skewed. I was nothing but devoted the entire time.” He props his head up on one hand, looking entirely too serious.

“Oh really?” This game is fun. The Remember When game. It’s especially nice when his body is touching mine while I prove him wrong. His towel is already loose, giving me a lovely view of the slope of his hips. His hand moves up and down my leg in a gesture so familiar and possessive it gives me goosebumps from head to toe. He’s staring up at me, mostly naked and smirking. I need to stay focused.

“April 13th - arrived at work to a framed printout of the recipe for Smurfette:

‘Sugar and spice but nothing nice; a dram of crocodile tears; peck of bird brain; the tip of an adder’s tongue; half a pack of lies, white, of course; the slyness of a cat; the vanity of a peacock; the chatter of a magpie; the guile of a vixen and the disposition of a shrew; and of course the hardest stone for her heart.’ The final ingredient was outlined in triplicate.”

We both burst out laughing.

“Truly, Lucy, I don’t know how you ever missed any of my intentions - any other woman would have swooned at this.”

“Yes, you’re just like a cat leaving a dead bird on my front stoop.”

My toes have found his soft chest hairs. I’m curling them against him like I can pull him closer.

Josh is stubborn and infuriatingly controlled against my clumsy acts of seduction, which I already knew. But I am collecting the data to take him down. The presence of me in nothing but his buttoned-up work shirt was a given, but I still file it away in my growing inventory of things that unsettle him.

Apparently, the Remember When game is working too. I can see him thinking, not a good sign for me. His thumb runs along the arch in my foot, then up my calf, then he’s lifting my leg over his head so he can roll in between my thighs. I sit up further on his pile of perfect hotel pillows, lifting the laptop awkwardly to watch. It’s shameful how instantly my body is alert, sensitive in all kinds of frustrating places while he looks me over.