The reluctant heartthrob, p.7
The Reluctant Heartthrob, page 7
“How long do you propose we discuss each of those?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes?”
He looked horrified. “Ten minutes to discuss pineapple on pizza?”
“I’m guessing you don’t like it.”
“You guess correctly,” he said.
“And breakfast food for dinner?”
“Define ‘breakfast food.’”
“You see? We could talk about it for ten minutes. Maybe even longer.”
He got up.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Making me some French toast?”
She swore she saw his lips quirk, but he quickly schooled his face.
“I’m getting your wine,” he said, “so we can get drunk and watch Chu’s Restaurant, rather than discussing the merits of French toast and home fries for dinner.” He seemed delightfully grumpy but not truly annoyed with her.
Okay. This was good.
“What about sugary cereal?” she asked.
He apparently decided this didn’t merit a response, but he glared at her in a way that she found adorable. This guy was definitely good at scrambling her brain.
He poured them each a small glass of wine and started the show on Netflix.
“What’s Maddie Ng like?” Robyn asked. “Do you enjoy working with her?”
“Yeah. She’s nice.”
“Nice” would sound meaningless from some people, but she didn’t get the sense that Ethan would use it to describe everyone.
“Can you really do that thing with your eyebrows? Or is it, like, CGI?”
His expression serious—unlike that of Max onscreen—he lifted one eyebrow, then the other.
“Amazing,” she said. “I can’t even wink. Or snap. Or whistle. There are lots of things I can’t do with my body that most people can do.”
He raised an eyebrow again. “You can do plenty of very nice things with your body.”
Just as she was recalling what it was like to take him inside her, he snapped, winked, and whistled more or less simultaneously, and she collapsed in a fit of giggles, wine nearly spewing out of her mouth. He could be goofy, but in a different way from his character on the TV.
“The inside of the restaurant,” she said. “Is that filmed in an actual restaurant?”
“No, it’s a set in a studio.”
By the time they were on the third episode, Robyn was pleasantly tipsy, and she’d only covered her ears once during an awkward misunderstanding—Ethan hadn’t commented on it.
“This scene,” he said, pointing at the screen, “took us a long, long time to get right. We kept getting the timing all wrong, for some reason.”
Robyn didn’t know much about the making of a TV show, but she suspected she’d find the process fascinating. She could easily imagine going down an information rabbit hole and losing track of time. If she started looking stuff up on her phone one evening, it would probably be three in the morning before she knew it.
After finishing her second glass of wine, she lay down in Ethan’s lap. He stroked her hair, and for some reason, that was incredibly soothing. He used just the right amount of firmness, and she felt like a dog having her belly scratched.
“What time is it?” she murmured.
“Almost midnight.”
Oh, dear. It was bedtime. She’d been at his place for nearly six hours.
“I should leave,” she said reluctantly.
She didn’t want to leave. It was so comfy here, and for a first date, of sorts, it was remarkably low stress. She’d been anxious earlier, but that had faded.
“You’re welcome to stay the night, if you like,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that every thought in my brain will be G-rated, but I won’t touch you any more than this.”
She nodded, drowsy and content.
When the fourth episode finished, he picked her up and carried her to his bed, where she took off her jeans as well as her favorite bra, which she managed to do without fully removing her shirt.
“I can’t snap or whistle, but I can do this.” She held up her bra in triumph.
Yeah, she was definitely feeling the wine.
Ethan went to the washroom. When he returned a few minutes later, he climbed into bed with her and adjusted the pillows. “Tomorrow morning, don’t leave without saying goodbye.”
She smiled at him. “I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter 9
When Ethan woke up, there was a woman in his bed, and he sighed in relief. Though Robyn had promised she’d be here this morning—and he wasn’t keeping big secrets from her anymore—a tiny part of him had expected her to be gone, despite their fun evening together.
She was easily delighted, and their conversations had unexpected tangents, which he enjoyed. She’d seemed surprised that he didn’t mind her occasional questions during the movie, but it was no big deal to him.
He’d had a bit of trouble falling asleep, though. The fact that she was right next to him in bed…well. It had made parts of him excited in ways that were not compatible with sleep.
She hadn’t noticed he was awake yet. She was on her phone, her dark hair a bit of a frizzy mess. He felt honored that he got to see her like this.
“Morning,” he croaked at last, sitting up. “Sleep okay?”
“Hey! You’re up.” She turned toward him and grinned.
He could definitely get used to waking up to that.
“Are you reading something?” He gestured to her phone.
“Sierra Wu fanfic.”
“I saw the movie a while ago,” he said.
“The books are better. I’ve read them all. Usually I prefer books, in part due to my problems with faces, but there are a few cases where the movie is better than the book. Not here, though. My favorite fic was updated for the first time in months, and I gasped when I saw it this morning—fortunately, I didn’t wake you. I don’t normally begin unfinished stories, but this writer, they’re so good at…” Her face shuttered. “Sorry.”
He frowned. “What are you sorry about?”
“I tend to talk about things that don’t interest other people.”
“I’m interested,” he said. “I want to know you better.”
“I could info dump for thirty minutes about AO3 tags, without you saying a word.”
“Well, that makes things easy for me. I don’t need to contribute to the conversation, aside from nodding and grunting.”
“Ethan!” She gave him a playful slap. “We’ll talk about something else. Like…” She paused. “My mind seems to have emptied of all normal subjects.”
He didn’t want to talk about normal subjects, whatever those were. He wanted whatever would bring back the excited glow on her face. Even if the specific details weren’t fascinating to him…she was fascinating.
He wasn’t sure how to put that in words without sounding weird. But he didn’t want her to filter herself around him, so perhaps he shouldn’t hold himself back, either.
“I like how you talk when you’re enthusiastic about something,” he said.
And he hated that she’d been made to feel like it was a bad thing.
She looked at him suspiciously. “Just wait until I’ve spent three dinners talking about the black-capped chickadee.”
“The what?”
“When I was a kid, I went through a period where I was obsessed with birds. My parents hated it. My dad was so frustrated that I couldn’t socialize like a regular kid, and my mother wished I were interested in friendship bracelets or boy bands or…something like that.”
It seemed like she was trying to paper over some of the hurt she’d felt, but her voice wobbled. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Well.” He tried to think of the best way to put this. He didn’t think she’d want him to lie. “I’m not going to say I’d never get bored if you spent three dinners straight talking about birds, but I’d never wish you were different.”
“I don’t see you how you can say that when you don’t know me that well.”
He wasn’t sure how, but he just knew. “If you go on for too long about something, I’ll tell you, but I don’t think it will happen often, and I’d never want to make you feel like there was anything wrong with you.”
She tilted her head to the side, as if considering his words.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Okay. You know, I’m positive I’m not neurotypical. I’m pretty sure I’m autistic, though I haven’t had an assessment. Not just because it’s expensive, but I don’t think it would have any benefit for me now, and I’m afraid it could have negative consequences.”
“What sort of consequences?”
“It can affect how you’re treated by healthcare providers—I’ve even heard of people being denied organ transplants because of it—and your ability to immigrate to some countries. Not that I’m planning to do that, but I just don’t see much in the way of positives. There are limited supports for autistic adults, and I’d be afraid to tell people at work, afraid of any discrimination I might face, whether or not it’s technically illegal.”
“That makes sense.”
“Autism is often missed in girls,” she said, “so it isn’t surprising nobody figured it out when I was a child. My friend Denise had a similar experience. But even if I were neurotypical, a lot of women are made to feel like they aren’t quite right, for one reason or another, and relationships have always made me feel that way, which is why I haven’t dated in a while.”
He nodded. Under the covers, he clenched one hand into a fist, a sign of what he wanted to do to everyone who’d made her feel bad about herself.
“Do you want to tell me more about Sierra Wu fanfic?” he asked.
“Maybe later.” She sighed and set aside her phone. “When did you decide you wanted to be an actor? Was it something you dreamed of as a little kid?”
“No. My friend Kurt, he put on ‘plays’ for his family from the time he was five, but not me. When I had to do speeches in elementary school, I never particularly enjoyed it. But in grade nine, we read A Midsummer’s Night Dream in English class. I kind of liked it.”
“‘Kind of’?”
“I’m getting there.” He looked down at the blankets. “We were split into groups, and each group had a scene to act out. When we performed in front of the class…” He shook his head. “That was right after my parents separated, and things weren’t great, but for several minutes, I got to be someone else. A character who was completely different from my usual self, and people were laughing at my antics, and…I don’t know. It felt good.”
“Which character?”
“Puck.”
“Like you did in High Park!”
“Yes.”
“That must have been cool. To play the character who made you want to be an actor.”
Sometimes, he felt a little weird when he told that story, but not with Robyn.
“That was my first semester of grade nine,” he said. “The next day, I went to the guidance counselor and asked to change my schedule for the second semester, so I could take drama instead of music. The following summer, I begged my mom to take me to the Stratford Festival.” Yes, he’d actually begged. His mom had been so thrown off by his behavior that she’d agreed. He hadn’t, of course, mentioned the I-want-to-be-an-actor part. Unlike his father, she had no specific ideas about what he should do with his life, but he’d known she wouldn’t approve of that, known it would make her worry.
A few years ago, Ethan had auditioned for the Stratford Festival, and not getting a callback had hurt more than the usual rejections.
“I didn’t see that story,” Robyn said, “in any of the interviews that I read or watched.”
“So you’ve been researching me.”
She shrugged. “Nothing creepy. Nothing that didn’t show up on the first page or two of Google—okay, maybe I looked at the third page of search results.”
He chuckled.
“I never liked Shakespeare,” she said. “I hated that we did a Shakespeare play every year in high school.”
He put a hand to his heart and pretended to be mortally wounded, which got the expected laugh out of her.
“It was the language,” she continued. “Some people say it’s easy to understand, but for me, it wasn’t. It was frustratingly unclear, and I kept assuming it meant something other than what was apparently correct. But I took good notes on what the teacher said, so my grades were fine. I just didn’t enjoy it.”
“I know it’s not easy for everyone. I tutor high school English.”
“You do? Even now?”
“Yeah. Acting isn’t the most stable business, and I don’t mind tutoring.” But he wanted to know more about Robyn. “What made you choose your current career?”
“I was always better at math and science. I didn’t like the humanities in school—I think it was partly because of how they were taught—and I’m ashamed that at one point, I looked down on them, but they’re important. Like data ethics, for example.” She paused. “When it came to my career, I wanted to do something that would involve solving problems, but it had to be the right sort of problems. And preferably something that wouldn’t involve excessive amounts of small-talk and other socializing.”
She paused again, and he waited for her to continue.
“The first job I had out of undergrad?” She kept her gaze on the comforter as she spoke. “I couldn’t wrap my head around the office politics. At one point, we had to do a team-building exercise, and…” She shuddered. “It was neurotypical nonsense.”
“I’ve never had an office job, but I can imagine. I’ve worked at places kind of like that, and it was awful.”
“It reminds me of dating, actually. There are so many games you’re told to play, and I just don’t understand. Like, playing hard to get. I was masking—hiding my autistic behaviors—all the time at that job, even if I didn’t know what it was called back then. It was exhausting, yet no matter how hard I tried, I felt like I was ‘playing the game’ in the wrong way.”
She glanced up at him, and he squeezed her hand.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m terrible at interviews, but eventually, I managed to get hired at a software company. That job was better, but I didn’t want to do it forever. It wasn’t the kind of problem solving that I like the most. I started looking into my options and…yeah. That’s how I ended up here. It requires more communication than I expected, but the people are much better than at my first job, and I can handle it.”
She put her arms over her head and tilted to the left, then the right, stretching the column of her neck, and he briefly forgot what they’d been talking about.
“You said you’d give me one date. Would you be interested in another?” His heart pounded as he waited for her answer. He wasn’t used to someone affecting him quite this much.
“Okay,” she said. “One more date. That’s all I’ll promise for now, though, and it’s not because I’m playing hard to get. I just haven’t had great experiences in the past, like I told you, so I’m reluctant to get involved with someone again.”
Another date. He could work with that.
“Actually.” She pulled her mouth to the side. “I’ll tell you what I decided. If we’re still dating in a month—”
“A month from today?”
“From yesterday. If we’re still seeing each other, then we’ll have sex—provided you want to, of course—but I’d prefer to wait for now. If we do it again, it would mean something to me, and that seems…risky.”
He nodded. “Can I kiss you?”
The room was very, very quiet in the split second before she answered.
“Yes,” she said.
He pulled her against him and pressed a slow kiss to her lips.
For breakfast, Ethan made French toast. Robyn didn’t like maple syrup, which he had to admit he didn’t understand, but it was something else to put in his mental catalogue about her, and he appreciated anything he could add to that. He offered her a sprinkle of powdered sugar instead, which she accepted, and they were silent for a few minutes as they ate their food and drank their coffee.
“What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” he asked.
“I have to do laundry, unfortunately,” she said. “I hate doing laundry. But after I start a load, I’ll allow myself to read that fic as a reward.”
“Do you write fanfic at all?”
“Just once, on a dare. It was, like, eight thousand words that spewed out of my brain during a single weekend last year, but I haven’t felt compelled to write anything since then. One day, perhaps.” She paused before launching into a more detailed account of what she liked in fanfic—maybe this was what she would have said earlier, if she hadn’t stopped herself.
He was glad that she wasn’t stopping herself around him now. He loved her energy when she was excited.
Though right now, his attention was drawn to something else.
“You have powdered sugar on your lip,” he said.
She swiped at her mouth.
“Other side.”
He leaned toward her. When she nodded, he swept his tongue over her bottom lip, left to right. He took his time tasting her. Then he licked in the opposite direction. Her lips were warm and sweet, and she was now breathing a little heavily, as was he.
“How was that?” he murmured.
She didn’t speak, but her dazed smile spoke volumes. He hoped.
“She’s really making you work for it,” Kurt said, once Ethan had updated him on the situation with Robyn. They were having beer on a patio the following afternoon. It was raining, but they were covered by a sizable umbrella. “You could easily find someone who’d fawn all over you, and yet—”
“I don’t want someone to fawn all over me. Dear God.” Ethan hoped his face conveyed just how horrified he was by the thought. Then he scowled at his friend for good measure. “It’s not like I have to perform the Labors of Hercules. I’m just spending time with her until she’s convinced that I’m not like the bastards she’s dated in the past.”
His phone vibrated, and he picked it up. The text was from Robyn. I saw you today. This was followed by a picture of the poster at the bus stop.
