"Sex isn't the most important part of a relationship. It's just a bonus."
Renna has been told many times that sex is an important part of life and vital in a relationship, but as a sex-repulsed asexual, she has no desire for sexual intimacy- -ever...
Butterflies wild in her belly. A little bounce on the bed. "Hi," she said. She grinned.
"Hey," he replied, a smile heard through his voice.
"I hope you don't—"
He cut her off. "Of course I don't mind you texting me. Or calling. It's nice to hear from you."
Her smile grew. "How are you?"
"I'm good. My face really hurts today and so does my stomach. Got a nice bruise there from where he kicked me." The image in her mind made guilt pierce her heart. "But other than that, not too bad. How were you today?"
Ignoring his question, she said, "I'm so sorry."
"For what?"
"Dragging you into this. I ruined your friendship and made you homeless. You shouldn't have—"
"Renna, stop. You have nothing to apologise for. I don't regret any of it." His voice calmed the overwhelming emotions swirling around inside her chest. "I didn't truly know who I was friends with and I don't want to be friends with someone like that. So, you kinda did me a favour. I should thank you."
Her smile faded and she spoke in a soft voice. "It doesn't feel like a good deed."
"Well, it was. Now, you didn't answer my question. Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah, today's been a good day." Thinking about the day brought her smile back. "Briella and Jada spent the whole day here at my place."
"Are they still there now?"
"No, they left a while ago."
"What are you doing now?"
She glanced up at the screen playing an episode she never payed attention to from the beginning. "I'm watching Lucifer." With the remote, she paused the episode. I'm not watching it now and I'll have to rewind it later anyway.
"Ah. I love that show," he said, excitedly. "Where are you up to?"
"Season two. Have you watched all the seasons?"
"Yeah. I loved it. Do you like it?"
"Yeah. It's really interesting. But I can't see the detective as anyone but Shay from Chicago Fire."
"Ooh." He drew out the sound. "That's where I knew her from!"
Renna chuckled. "You couldn't figure it out?"
"No. I watched the whole series wondering where I knew her from." Laughter lightened his voice.
"Why didn't you look it up?"
"I don't know. I guess I wanted the satisfaction of remembering on my own, and then I forgot about it."
They both laughed and gave the other time to recover.
After several beats of quiet, Renna asked, "So, what are you doing?"
"I just got home from work and had a well deserved shower."
"What did you do at work?"
"Oh, you know, poured some concrete, built a carwash."
"You built a carwash in one day? Wow. You must be the Superman of labourers."
His laughter echoed through her speaker, directly into her ear. "Yep. That's me." With more seriousness, he said, "Er, no. We've been working on it for a week now."
"Is it that new one been built next to the gym?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"I drove past it the other day and saw someone walking around with a clown mask." She smiled at the funny memory. Recalled staring at the man quizzically before laughing to herself.
"Yeah!" Jensen exclaimed. "That was me! That was me! I was trying to scare my mate."
"Really?!" Renna threw head head back with laughter. "Did you get him?"
"Yeah, it took me a while to find him, but I scared him as he came out of the bathroom." Renna giggled and he continued. "He jumped so much, he fell over backwards and threw his sunglasses. We had to..." Renna's laughter grew and Jensen cut himself off to laugh with her. "We had to get a ladder to get them off the bathroom roof."
They burst into laughter, and Renna collapsed down onto her mattress. Through her happy tears, she pressed the speaker button on the call so she could put the phone down.
"He threw them onto the roof," she said, between laughs. She didn't know why she found it so funny, but imagining the scene ignited her joy and Jensen's warm laugh fuelled it.
The laughter died down and a comfortable quiet settled over them. Renna sat up and straightened out her hair.
"Can I ask you something?" Jensen asked, losing the light tone.
"Of course." Nerves tingled her stomach.
He paused. "You never hated me, did you?"
"No, why would I hate you?" The answer clicked in her mind before he said it.
"Levi told me you did."
How could I have been so blind to Levi's bad side? A small part of her hated herself for falling for everything he said. If I had just opened my eyes to everything, then maybe none of this would have happened. "He told me the same about you," she quietly said.
His voice faded far away, as if he spoke only to himself. "Damn. I'm such an idiot. How could I have been so oblivious?"
"It's not your fault," Renna told him, unsure if he had pulled the phone away from from his ear or if he was still listening. "He was a decent liar and knew how to manipulate people." She didn't quite believe the words, but she couldn't help but accept them as true as they left her mouth.
Thinking back, she saw his manipulative ways. Things he said. Things he did. To get what he wanted. To hide the truth. Everything was a plan. A scheme.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
