Jan. Week 3: A Long Weekend-Saturday...Leah and Jonathan...Relax and love on each other quite a bit...love (Suspicion: -10, Luck: -20)

She’d pad around the house in pajama pants and a tank top, the thermostat set three degrees too low for comfort because Jonathan insisted it helped him sleep. She’d make the coffee and then crawl back under the covers, her feet icy, to savor the next hour or two of reading on her phone before the rest of the world caught up with her.

Leah lay wedged into the crook of Jonathan’s arm, her body radiating far more heat than she would have liked. His bicep was heavy across her chest, his breath slow and peaceful; he was dead to the world, and she didn’t want to move a muscle.

She dozed and daydreamed, scrolling mindlessly until Jonathan shifted and half-woke. His hand drifted under her shirt, cool on her skin, and she arched her back a little into his touch. Their sex had always been easy, a matter of grins and giggles and lazy improvisation. Leah was not the type to stage-manage her pleasure or perform for an invisible camera—she’d left that behind in a different life (mostly), one as far from Jonathan’s gentle awkwardness as a person could get. In the hazy, mostly-dark room, their bodies found each other by muscle memory. There was no rush; she let herself be slow, teasing, a little mean, enjoying the noises he made when she bit his neck or tickled his sides. He returned the favor with sleepy-throated murmurs, stroking her hair and her ass, kissing her jaw with feather-light pressure. By the time she came, Leah was laughing into the pillow at how little either of them cared about making a mess on the sheets.

They spent the rest of the day in a post-coital fog, wandering between the kitchen and the couch. She wore his T-shirt, he wore boxers, and neither of them bothered with actual pants until it was time to meet the delivery driver at the door. Takeout was Thai, per tradition, followed by an entire season of a trashy true-crime docuseries on Netflix. They didn’t talk much, just traded bites of drunken noodles and sipped beer, occasionally mocking the show’s narrator with bad accents. At one point Jonathan massaged her feet, an act of worship that felt so loving it nearly made her cry.

They made it through two episodes before Jonathan started to catch up with her. Leah felt it first in the way he touched her legs, absentmindedly at first—fingers working at the arches of her feet, then along her calves, then tracing small circles on her thighs until her body responded without her permission. He barely took his eyes off the screen, but she knew what he was doing. She made a show of scooting away, pretending that she was too absorbed to notice his hands, but Jonathan just grinned and tugged her back to the couch, where she landed in a tangle of limbs and laughter.

The second time that day was no more dignified than the first. Jonathan was shy about few things, but he never quite managed to let go of the nervous energy that made him rush through each step, as though he expected her to change her mind halfway. Leah didn’t mind. She let him pull her underwear down and tossed it aside, let him think he’d surprised her with the way he flipped her onto her back and climbed on top; she let him move fast, knowing that they had all night, that it didn’t have to be perfect or last for hours.

Later, after the takeout cartons were empty and their drinks refilled, after they’d abandoned the couch for the comfort of bed, she’d pay him back for his enthusiasm. For now, Leah just closed her eyes and enjoyed the weight of him, and the knowledge that this, at least, would never be complicated.

By 10:00 PM. Leah was nodding off in the nest of blankets. Jonathan carried her to bed with surprising strength, tucking her in, kissing her hair. She was soon fast asleep.