Second Chance for Romance полностью

I slowly undressed and folded my clothes on the brown beanbag. Then I picked up the toy blaster. I thought about using it to cover myself. I wasn’t used to being self-conscious. Christy had seen me before, I reminded myself.

But that was before I knew what she liked.

She studied me from several angles and had me change poses a half-dozen times. She was very serious, and never once made me feel like she was sizing me up.

“Why don’t you try kneeling on one knee?” she said at last. “You’re hurt.

You’re dying. You know it. Hold the gun loose in your hand. It can’t help you anymore. You have to face this alone.”

I sank to one knee.

“Hold it! Right there. Good. That’s good. But drop the gun. Right at your feet, like you just lost your grip.”

I did. Then I tried to look tired and humiliated.

“No! You aren’t defeated. They can take your life, but they can’t take what’s inside.”

“I have no idea how that looks.”

“Don’t worry, I do. I just need your body for now.”

I didn’t even ponder the subconscious intent behind that little gem.

She fell silent and started sketching.

I tried to think about my own project or Sayuri’s house or anything but what Wren had told me. Unfortunately, I kept watching Christy. She pursed her lips. Then she paused to study an angle. She nibbled her pencil.

I thought of her nibbling my pencil, and it reacted predictably.

I closed my eyes and started reciting architectural styles in chronological order. I listened with half my attention as Christy moved around. Would she notice that I was getting hard? What would she do if she did?

I finally managed to control my unruly penis, but then I opened my eyes.

Christy was sitting cross-legged on her beanbag. She was studying a sketch and absentmindedly sucking her left thumb.

Wrennnnn!

I managed to survive the next two hours, but not without a couple of close calls. If Christy noticed, she didn’t say anything. She was completely absorbed in her work. And she filled more than a dozen pages with sketches, from general ones to close-ups of things like my right hand as it curled loosely. I pulled on my boxers and shirt while she showed me.

“Hands are tough,” she said over the last one. “It took me a long time to get them right. Faces were easy by comparison.”

I almost asked about penises but stopped myself.

“Thanks for posing,” she said, demure all of a sudden. “Especially… you know.”

“Nude?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“I’d say ‘my pleasure,’ but to be honest, it was a little weird.”

Her eyes widened with concern. “Not ’cause of anything I did?”

“Yes and no. It was mostly ’cause I’d never posed for you before. I mean just you.”

“But you did before,” she said, perplexed.

“Not nude.”

“Oh. No.”

“This was more… intimate.”

She looked down and studied her pencil. She seemed to notice the teeth marks for the first time. She discreetly dropped it over the side of the beanbag.

I did my best not to smile. “Not intimate like, you know, but—”

“I know how you meant,” she said, too quickly. She looked down.

Why was I flirting with her?

“Do you mind if we do it again tomorrow? Oh my gosh! I didn’t mean it like that, like ‘ do it’ do it. I hope you didn’t think— I mean, not that you would, but— Of course, I wouldn’t— I’m not that kind of girl. Oh, gosh.

Why don’t I just shut up now?”

“It’s okay.” I chuckled. “I knew what you meant.”

“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want you to think…”

“Think what?” I teased.

“That I’d…”

“You’d what?”

“Is it too late to shut up?”

“I think so,” I said with a laugh.

“I’m glad one of us thinks this is funny.”

I paused to let the sexual tension cool to a simmer. “Tomorrow evening?”

“Yes, please.”

“A date or a not-date?”

“A not-date.”

“Okay. Then it’s a not-date.”

I completely forgot about the letter I promised to write to Gina. I remembered the next morning during my run. I made a mental note to write it after judo practice, before the girls returned from the pool.

Life had different ideas.

Trip came home before I’d managed to write much more than Monday’s date, “Dear Gina,” and a couple of paragraphs that read like the dullest diary entry in history.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s check the progress across the street.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“Dude, we haven’t checked in more than a week.”

“I check it every day. It looks fine.”

“Yeah, from the outside. But let’s see how the inside is coming. I wanna do it while that asshole foreman isn’t around.”

I sighed. “Yeah, okay. But let’s hurry. I need to finish this.”

He glanced at the page. “You know,” he mused, “Wren would probably thank me for distracting you.”

“Do you have a horse in this race? That I don’t know about?”

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“Tell me,” I said as we walked to Sayuri’s house to fetch the spare set of keys.

“Well, Christy’s really cute. And naïve-sexy, like she doesn’t even realize it.”

“And…?” I rolled my eyes at my conversational skills lately.

“Well, Wren’s been telling me stories about when they were together.