Especially when I get to the phone and see a number that I think I know lighting the display.
There’s a package the size of a shoebox sitting on the front counter.
I transfer the call to the phone in the break room and carry the box down the hall, then shut myself inside before I grab the receiver. “Hey,” I say more breathlessly than I mean to. “How’s Seattle?”
“Lonely and dreary. Did you get your last present?”
“I’m opening it now. If it’s a glitter bomb, I’m going to strangle you.”
He laughs, and god, I miss him. He just left yesterday, but I miss him. Not in a maybe someday he’ll see me kind of way like I used to dream about him, but in an I miss my best friend kind of way.
He fixed us tacos two nights ago, and we ate them over a romantic comedy that he didn’t once complain about watching, and then he sat there astonished that he liked it, arguing over which character should’ve realized they were in love faster, and how much less shit the heroine should’ve put up with.
And then he’d blinked at me like he’d realized what he just said, and then he gave my dogs treats and carried me upstairs like a caveman and made me come three times.
But my favorite part is waking up with him still in my bed.
And only partially because he talks in his sleep in the early morning.
The other part is that sleepy grin and the, “Hey, gorgeous,” that happens as soon as he cracks open his eyes.
“I should keep sending you presents every day,” he tells me now. “It’s a good use of my time and energy.”
“I don’t need anything else,” I tell him while I carefully unwrap the brown paper around the box.
“But you might like it.”
“The law of diminishing returns says I’ll appreciate each gift less and less.”
“Not when they’re coming from the genius of my brain,” he counters.
I’m laughing as I peel away the paper and find a simple white box inside. I lift the lid, and— “Oh my god, you didn’t. No, you did. Please tell me this isn’t—never mind. I’ll look later.”
His rich laughter rumbles over the connection. “You should look now.”
“I am not taking this doll’s clothes off to see if it has a penis,” I hiss. “I haven’t done that since I was nine.”
“Handsome, isn’t it?”
“He’s freaking adorable.” My own little brown-haired Nick doll, complete with bright green eyes and that grin that sits right on the border between charming and cocky. It’s in a Thrusters uniform, from the jersey to the pads to the shorts to the skates. There’s a helmet and a stick in the box with him, and this doll has more muscles than any doll has a right to have.
“Adorable? You mean studly and hot.”
“So cute. Like a teddy bear in a pink tutu.”
“Check out what he’s packing in his pants and see if you still want to call him a teddy bear. More like a lion. Or an elephant.”
I glance at the door to make sure it’s closed, and I carefully peel back the doll’s pants, feeling like a total peeping tom the whole time.
And then I burst out laughing again. “Oh my god, there is something wrong with you,” I gasp.
The doll has no genitalia, but there’s a bow printed where a penis would go.
As though he’s hiding a present.
“You’d think dollmakers wouldn’t be so picky about giving customers what they want,” he says like he’s cross, though we both know he’s not. He probably already has a video waiting to go up on in Instagram page of the doll reading his fan mail.
“I’m disappointed,” I tease him. “I thought for sure you’d glue on some acorns.”
“Fuck. I’m losing my touch.”
I suddenly freeze. “Oh, no. Tell me there aren’t twenty-nine more of these waiting in crates at my house. Nick…tell me this is the only one.”
“Are you kidding? I ordered three hundred of these puppies.”
I wince so hard my eyes cross. “Nick—”
“And two hundred ninety-eight of them are being delivered to the children’s hospital,” he finishes with undisguised glee.
And there goes my heart getting all melty. “Oh my god,” I say suddenly again, stopping all melty soft happy feelings in my chest. “Tell me they don’t have bows. Tell me they don’t all have bows.”
“You know you’re adorable when your voice gets all high-pitched like that? Makes me want to kiss you until you’re getting squeaky because you’re turned on and desperate for my tongue between your legs.”
If I wasn’t already sitting down, I’d have to sit down now, because his words send a jolt of undiluted lust straight to my pussy. “When did you say you’re getting home?”
“Friday,” he grumbles.
I glance at the clock. “Are you alone?” I whisper.
“Lavoie. Get out.”
“Oh my god, Duncan heard you talking about going down on me?”
There’s another low rumble of laughter. “No, just teasing. I’m alone.”
“You are in so much trouble.”
“I don’t have any problem with anyone knowing I like to eat you though,” he says. “Their loss that they don’t get to. Hey, pull the string on the back of the doll.”
“The—oh! There’s a string. That’s—”
I pull it, and Nick’s voice comes out. “Hey, gorgeous. I miss you.”
I pull it again. “You are so fucking sexy.”
Once more. “I want to eat your pussy until you go blind.”
“I’m getting turned on by a doll,” I whisper.
“Just don’t try to have sex with it, because that would be weird, and if you knew half the things I’ve fantasized about doing to you, you wouldn’t think I had the right to call anything weird.”
“What have you fantasized about?” I ask, glancing at the door again, because I am still at work.
“Butter,” he says.
“Butter? Like me rubbing butter all over your cock before I eat it?”
“Fuck, Kami. I was kidding, but now…”
“Are you as hard as a stick of frozen butter?” My clit’s tingling and my nipples are aching, and my mother or any one of our vet techs could walk in here any minute.
“Harder,” Nick grits out.
“If I was there, I’d suck on you until you felt better,” I whisper.
“Jesus…”
“And then I’d strip for you and I’d lick you from your belly button to your chin, and I’d rub my breasts all over your body, and I’d touch my pussy while you watched.”
I’m squirming in my chair, and Nick’s breathing is going ragged. Phone sex is new. We haven’t done this before, but I think I like it.
“Kami,” he groans.
“Are you touching yourself?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Squeeze a little harder for me.”
“Christ.”
“Stroke yourself up and down and imagine it’s my mouth.”
“Oh, fuck, Kami, your mouth…”
He’s losing control. I can hear it in the rawness of his voice. I glance at the door again, try to picture Mrs. Murphy bursting in on us, because I cannot get caught playing with myself at work, but I want to touch my own nipples and squeeze my clit and thrust my fingers into my own pussy until I’m panting as hard as Nick is.
“Imagine I’m sucking you so hard you’re seeing stars.” My voice is breathy and low and desperate, because every ragged breath in my ear is making me ache deep inside my core. I rub at my breast, and my nipple pebbles harder, while I glance back at the door again. “You taste so good on my tongue,” I breathe.
“Oh, fuck, Kami, I’m gonna—fuck! BERGER! What the fuck!?”
There’s a commotion on the other end of the phone the same minute Muffy shoves open the break room door and careens in.
I jump, drop my phone, where there’s squawking of male voices and I can only imagine what’s going on in Seattle.
“Did it come?” Muffy shrieks. “Did it come? Did it—oh my god, are you sick? Your face is all red, and—oh.”
She ends on a squeak as I grab my phone and hang up on Nick. I text him quick—call you later from home—and lunge for the doll. “He finally did it. He got me a Nick doll,” I babble.
“Were you having phone sex?” she whispers.
“No,” I whisper-shriek back.
“I hear that’s really fun. I mean, not as fun as doing it together in person or anything, but better than nothing.”
“Muffy, I’m at work.”
She blinks twice and looks around the break room, at the posters for flea and tick treatments and heartworm pills and at the puppy pictures. “Oh. Right.” Then she grins. “So, who are you taking to the game Saturday night again?”
“You,” I grumble.
“Aww, you really are my favorite cousin.” She frowns. “Is that doll anatomically correct?”
“You are not looking at my doll’s penis!”
Mom pokes her head into the break room. “Did you just—never mind. Just tell me when we need to start planning the wedding. That’s all I want to know. Except—is he done sending presents now? That has to be the longest apology I’ve ever seen in my life. God help you both if he fucks up during pregnancy or labor and delivery.”
“Your mom just said fuck,” Muffy whispers reverently.
“She’s spent the last twenty years listening to most of the rest of the family argue over whether string theory or molecular bondage is more interesting. She says fuck a lot more than you might think.”
“Definitely molecular bondage,” Muffy declares.
Mom’s left eye twitches.
“You want to go to the game Saturday night?” I ask her. “I have really good seats. And we can set Muffy up on a date.”