Nine-Tenths

Fifty

I quit. I had thrown five years of friendship in Hadi's face, like a complete fuckhead. I have no job to go to. And no reason to be awake.

So why am I awake?

There's no alarm. No one is knocking. Dav closed the curtains. And yet there's light, right beside my face. Warm, golden light and the soft, gentle sound of birds chirping, and—

"You asshole—" I laugh, bolting up and whacking him with a pillow. "You got a fucking sunrise alarm clock?"

Dav giggles. It's free and unfettered, and thank god. Watching the way his eyes squinch and that furrow between his eyes disappear sends desire unspooling down my spine. When I wind up for another whack, he yanks away the pillow and somehow gets me under him all in the same move and, fuck, yeah. I trap his waist between my thighs, and leer.

"Are you chafed?" he asks. Wow. A word like chafed should not be sexy. And yet.

"Bit sore," I admit. "But I could go again."

"Best not," Mr. Bossypants decides.

His fingers brush idly through the short hair of my nape. I need a haircut. I didn't mind it shaggy before, when it helped hide my face from the paps. But now, laying in this meticulous room, with my carefully groomed boyfriend, (owner? boyfriend) I feel unkempt.

"How's this instead?" I ask, getting a hand wrapped around both of us. His eyelids flutter. He scrabbles for the lube he'd shoved beside the headboard last night.

"You're being pretty fucking smug," I point out, neck straining as I lean up to keep my eyes on the prize. Not that he doesn't deserve to be smug.

Dav slips a pillow under my head so my neck won't cramp. "I have everything I've wanted for months. Years, if I'm honest."

One of his hands joins mine, slick fingers twining around us. "Years?"

"How long have I been coming into Beanevolence?"

The name of the café pierces the bubble of joy around my heart like a poisoned dart.

Dav twists his wrist just so when I don't answer. "Five hundred and thirty seven days."

I snort. "Not like you're counting."

"They weren't all in a row," he protests gently. "That was spread out over, hm, three years? Your schedule changed every semester, and—"

"Stop talking and kiss me, you dork," I groan.

He kisses me. "You started it."

"I know, and, hnnn, I'm regretting it. Just. Yes, like that. Please Dav, like that!"

Like that he does, and pretty soon he's rooting around for something to clean us up with.

It turns out to be a nice soft towel—one of a stack—in his night stand.

"Optimistic, much?" I ask him.

"Prepared," he counters, and reaches across me to turn off the fucking chirping clock.

When he moves to get out of bed, I octopus around him.

"Darling, I do have things to do today," he protests with a laugh.

"I already told you, I'm not a thing," I joke.

Dav sucks in a breath, clearly not taking it as one.

"It doesn't have to be like they say it is," Dav ventures slowly, sinking back into the mattress. "We can let them think it, but we'd know differently."