I have officially exceeded my original stay. If the storm hadn't brought down that tree, if I had spent the last two weeks in that dingy room in the Lake View Hotel with its soulless art and staff, I would have checked out yesterday. I'd be back on the road by now, halfway to South Dakota. But I'm still here, and my bank balance just got a boost when the refund finally found its way back to me. I feel spoiled with riches with that extra five hundred dollars in my account — never mind the fact that I could barely buy half a pair of Lou's glasses with that. I pray my vision stays twenty twenty for as long as possible because I'm royally fucked if I ever need prescription lenses.

For now, though, I am rich. I have five hundred bucks I'd already said goodbye to weeks ago, which means, if my girl math is right, I just made a huge profit out of that storm. I dance from the kitchen to the living room, where Lou has just finished up a lesson. School may be back in session today but that doesn't mean the private lessons end — she has a whole bunch of recent graduates on her roster, a handful of adults who have decided to pick up an extra skill a little later on. The girl driving away now graduated high school earlier this year but she didn't get into college; I think she might be trying to pad her application before she retakes the SATs. She was good, actually; I could hear that Lou enjoyed teaching her, that she was soaking everything up like a sponge.

"Get your butt in the car, we're going for lunch." I swing around the doorframe, my sock-covered feet skidding on the smooth wooden floor.

"We are?" Lou's sorting sheet music into folders. She pushes her glasses up her nose to look at me — yellow today, matching the sunshine shade of her short-sleeved dress. It isn't a maxi this time, stopping just below her knees to show off her incredible calves. Her toenails are painted the same shade of pink as her belt. She's a vision of candy colors and I could lick them all right off her.

"I just got my refund. I am positively rolling in it right now so I am buying you lunch." I take her hand and spin her around and pull her in for a kiss. She grins, her teeth against mine.

"Someone's in a good mood."

I am in a good mood. I've been reinvigorated since seeing Ashley and Connor, and Tay had this morning off work so we spent the last couple hours on a video call catching each other up on every aspect of the last two weeks. And I mean every aspect: the whole truth. It spilled out of me like word vomit the moment Tay asked how I'm doing and if I'm back in Austin yet. She said all the right things. I don't know why I kept it from her in the first place. I can't help but wonder if I was keeping it from Gaby. Keeping it from her judgment. But now everything's out in the open and I felt like my old self again, hanging out with my best friend even though we're hundreds of miles apart now. My batteries are recharged after our call and I feel alive with energy and hope. Tay is a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, and I am buoyed up by her enthusiasm.

Lou slips her hand into the back pocket of my shorts, cupping my ass cheek. I tingle at her touch, heat flooding my body and pooling between my legs.

"Or we could just stay here," I say, my head all of a sudden filled with another way we could fill our afternoon.

"Oh, no, lunch on you sounds like perfection," Lou says, pulling me closer by my pocket. "Come on, get this butt in the car." She squeezes. I melt. Her hand stays there as we walk to her car and I miss it when we part, but the moment we're in our seats, Lou rests her hand on my thigh. It doesn't move the whole way into Fisher, her thumb tracing idle patterns over the bare skin where my playsuit has ridden up. When we get to town, she shifts into reverse and parallel parks like a boss. I want her to put her arm behind my headrest to look over her shoulder, but it's equally hot that she does it so smoothly by glancing in her mirrors.

Everything she does is turning me on today. My body is ridiculous. I can easily go a year or more without sex but it's been less than a week since we last fucked and I am so on edge with lust, it's like every single one of my nerves met the wrong end of an industrial shredder and now I get an electric shock every time her skin grazes mine. When she catches my hand as we walk to the bistro she's chosen for lunch, I feel like a firework. Sparking off in all directions. It's the first time we've been out in public like this. Fingers interlaced. A couple strolling down Main Street, hands swinging.

I honestly don't know how much of this my heart can take.

"Have you been here before?" Lou asks as we take a seat on the outdoor patio of Fisher Friends. She chooses the shade, even with her sunhat and her second application of factor fifty.

"Never. One thing about being a former feral child is that I don't actually know any of the nice places in town."

Lou leans across the table, steepling those perfect fingers of hers. Six are adorned with rings. I can't wait for her to take them off later. "Well, it's about time you got an education. This is one of my favorite spots."

"First impressions are good. Nice patio, comfortable seating. And I like the look of this." I waggle the menu, filled with all sorts of salads and sandwiches and bowls. "Is it vegetarian?"

"Yup. Everything is so good but especially the beetroot and goat cheese quinoa salad. It's possibly what I'd choose for my last meal. You can't go wrong with any of the salads. Well, anything at all, really." She uses the menu to fan herself, no need to peruse it when she knows what she's having. I scan the extensive list, my eyes lighting up at all the flavor combinations.

"Ooh, peach and ricotta?"

"Divine."

"I like the sound of this one: grilled zucchini and feta salad with cherry tomatoes and sweetcorn."

"I'm telling you, Charlie, whatever you choose will make your mouth so happy. You can thank me later."  It's strange hearing her call me Charlie. She's been trying it out more since my cousins left and I kind of like the way she says it. She makes my name sound playful, like a pretty little song.

"Don't worry, I plan to. Although don't forget that lunch is on me, so you're the one who should be doing the thanking," I say, pointing the menu at her.

She winks and parrots me to myself when she says, "Don't worry, I plan to."

I get the summer salad: roasted peaches and sheep's milk ricotta with basil and sliced cherry tomatoes on a bed of homemade croutons.The moment I take my first mouthful, I know I can't speak for a while because I need to devour this plate while simultaneously savoring every bite.

"Holy shit," I mutter eventually. "How have you not told me about this place before?"

"There's a lot of Fisher you haven't seen yet. There's no rush." She hums with delight as she bites into a piece of rich red beetroot coated in creamy goat cheese. "It's good, right?"

"I've never tasted anything like this before in my life."

"Now can you see why I don't bother cooking that much?"

"If I had this place on my doorstep, I'd forever have an empty bank account and a happy belly," I say, loading a bit of everything onto one of the long, thin croutons. It bows under the weight of orange peach and white cheese, green basil and red tomato. The meal is a feast for my eyes as much as my stomach. It's a good distraction from how much I want to tear that dress off Lou's body. So is the iced tea, a refreshing mix of orange and lemon and mint.

"I'm here ... three times a week, I'd say. It never gets old." The beetroot has stained her lips a deep, kissable pink. It's the perfect shade for her outfit. Who needs make-up when nature's got you covered?

"I will gladly join you in that endeavor."

"It's nice to bring someone new here. All my friends are bored of me wanting to come here when we meet for lunch, and I don't want to make Jules jealous by going on and on about her competition."

"This is, like, a whole other level to the cafe though. They excel at sandwiches and paninis and ciabattas. This is a different game." I am not above wiping my finger around my plate when I've finished to mop up every last morsel. I never knew a salad could be so good.

When the bill comes, I get a thrill out of being the one to pay and I make sure to leave a generous tip. We leave hand in hand and as much as I want to get back to the cabin and find out if Lou's wearing underwear today, we end up wandering down Park Street. Summer may be coming to an end but the hanging baskets are still going strong, bright blooms of flowers in every color spilling over the edges and lining the sidewalks with fallen petals. Nature's confetti. It's pretty, but it reminds me that fall is around the corner. Short, dark days that will only get shorter and darker for months to come.

But not yet. Today it's bright and warm, although the forecast calls for storms later on, and I am in love. When Lou pauses in front of a boutique displaying the kinds of dresses and skirts she loves, I raise our clasped hands and kiss the back of hers. We go inside; I wait while she takes a handful of pieces into the changing room.

"What do you think of this?" she asks, coming out in a long button-up dress in all the colors of the end of a sunset — navy and purple and black — and all I can think about is undoing every single one of those buttons and counting the freckles underneath. Lou must be able to read my mind because she laughs and presses a fingertip to the end of my nose and says, "Stop it."

"I can't help it."

"You can try to stop objectifying me for one minute and let me know if I should get this." She twirls on the spot and I get a waft of that perfume. It's expensive, sure, but it's worth every penny.

"It's hard when I can only picture it on the floor," I joke.

"You're so bad." She disappears behind the curtain.

I follow, poking my head into the changing room right as she pulls the dress off over her head and she's standing there in her daisy print wedges and her underwear. "I like it, you should get it," I say. Lou lets it drop onto the stool in the corner, a pool of dark fabric. "I like it even better now."

"What about this one?" She sorts through the hangers and pulls out one holding a fitted denim dress with yet more buttons from the neck to the naval. It isn't Lou at all, but I hold my tongue because I want to see her in it. She steps into the dress, hitching it over her shoulders, but only half of the buttons will do up. The dress is made for someone with my boobs — none at all. Lou is spilling out of the dress, no matter how hard she tries to do up the button beneath her breasts. Everywhere else it fits like a dream, hugging her waist and hips and stopping halfway down her thighs.

"I fucking love it," I say, heart pounding as she slips her hands into the cups of her bra to adjust her breasts, like that's going to magically make them smaller.

"I don't think I can go out like this," she says with a laugh, gesturing to her bra on full display. It's lacy and lilac and incredibly sexy, her nipples poking through the thin fabric.

"That depends. Do you want all eyes on you?"

"I only need yours," she says, tugging the dress off, "and you are some kind of way today. I don't need this to have your attention. You can't stop staring."

"Can I ever?"

She huffs a small laugh as she pulls on a forest green dress that complements the rust of her hair insanely well. The sleeves come to her elbows, the hem to her ankles, the waist cinched in and the V neck low enough for an inch of cleavage. It's so hot, I almost lose my balance.

"I take it that's a yes," she says when she turns around for my opinion and sees me slack-jawed at how goddamn beautiful she is.

"It's a hell fucking yes."

*

Lou's in a shopping mood. It's pure torture when all I want is to shut ourselves away in one of the changing rooms and kiss her until my lips hurt and I can't breathe and Lou knows it. She is delighting in the wait, the edging, giving me that wicked grin every time she pulls me into another store. We check out the thrift stores and the second hand book store, the liquor store and the jeweler and when we go to the butcher, I am convinced she's trying to make me beg. She's enjoying this, stringing me along when for the last two days, all I've been able to think about is her fucking me senseless on the kitchen counter.

"Oh, come on!" I cry out when she pulls me into the general store. We're laden down with bags of clothes — I may have given in and indulged in a bit of shopping myself, seeing as most of my wardrobe still belongs to Lou — and a bunch of flowers from the friendly florist and a package of chicken breasts from the butcher and my feet are tired.

"One last stop, I promise."

"Are you torturing me on purpose?"

"I wasn't," she says with that glimmering smile, "but then your desperation started to turn me on."

"Oh my god, you're a sadist."

"Maybe. I'll be quick. You can wait out here."

So I do. There's a bench outside the store and I slump onto it with all our stuff. Lou is only inside for a couple minutes and when she comes out, she's carrying a small paper bag.

"What was so urgent?" She opens the bag and I peer in, and I burst into laughter. "What the fuck, Lou? Why have you got condoms?"

"Safe sex."

I splutter. "Um. Sure. But, like, neither of us have a dick and I'm not particularly interested in bringing a third person into this equation. Unless you're about to break my heart, I don't think we have a use for those."

"Oh. Okay." She drops the bag into one of the others with a dejected sigh, finally heading off in the direction of the car. We're the only people around, half past three on a Wednesday afternoon must be Fisher's dead time. "It's just that I have this dildo at home that I'd like to try on you, and I thought we could have fun with it—"

"Oh my god."

"But if you're not interested, that's fine."

"I'm interested. I am very interested."

"I thought you would be." She pulls out the box of condoms as we get to the car and she wiggles them at me. "They're strawberry flavored."

The whole drive home, her hand rests at the very top of my thigh, her pinkie finger against the crease where thigh meets hip, and I silently will her explore further, to ease her fingers between my thighs, but she doesn't move an inch. When we get back, she hauls her bags into the hallway and takes the flowers to the sink, cutting the ends and filling a vase with water and everything she can think to do except touch me.

She goes to the bathroom and when she comes back, her tote bag over her shoulder, she says, "Okay, I just have to finish off my to do list."

I leap off the window seat, where I've been taking the tags out of my new clothes, something to do with my hands. "No you don't! Oh my god, Lou, you can't possibly have any more fucking errands to run. We just went to every store in town, what on earth could you have missed?" I grab the tote bag off her shoulder. It's weirdly light. Her bag is usually full of all manner of sensible things — sunscreen and spare glasses and a hat and a first aid kit and god knows what else — but not now. I look inside and my breath hitches on a tremble in my throat. All that's in there is the condoms and a dildo.

"What's on your to do list?" I ask. Lou takes the bag off me and closes the distance between us.

"You."

*

warning: spice incoming in the next chapter ;')