It starts to rain and Reese has to stay over*

"What's the dumbest thing people ask you to make?" Noa was making tea. "Or edit, I guess."

Reese, leaning against the arm of the couch, tapped their chin with their finger and said, "Hmm... probably family vlogs. Not to sound mean, but, like... family vloggers are the pushiest, most aggressively mediocre people I've ever worked with."

"Wow." Noa giggled. "That was, like, almost aggressive."

"What do you mean?" Reese knew full well what she meant.

"I dunno, you just seem -- gentle." Tea now sufficiently steeped, Noa removed the bags and tossed them in the garbage. "In a good way! But, like, you seem like someone who doesn't share their opinion a lot."

"I mean... yeah, you're right." Reese huffed. "Am I lame? I feel lame."

"Nah, I like it." Noa came over and set a cup in front of Reese. "And anyway..." She sat down beside them, crossing her legs. "I was clearly sufficiently charmed." She winked and flashed a toothy smile.

"Good point." Reese took a sip. It was darjeeling, one of their favorites. "Thanks."

It was the first time they were both clothed since they'd first entered the apartment. Reese was redressed and Noa had pulled on a loose t-shirt and boyshorts.

Noa had been the first to wake. She'd climbed out of bed, put another record on, and crawled back into bed, taking Reese in her arms. When Reese awoke Noa was reading on her phone, resting her head on Reese's shoulder.

"Hi," she'd said, giving them a smooch on the neck.

"Hi." Reese gave her a squeeze. "What time is it?"

"5:25." About 90 minutes after they fell asleep.

"I slept so long," Reese groaned.

Noa giggled. "Guess you needed it." She kissed them a few more times, then sat up. "I need tea."

"Tea sounds perfect."

Their bodies ached as they pulled their clothes on. Noa tortured Reese by shaking her butt as she pulled on a pair of dark grey boyshorts; the sexy sight caused their cock to throb, and in their current spent state they weren't sure if they could take it.

Back on the couch, Reese and Noa sort of half-cuddled, half-sat, drinking their tea, venting about shitty customers, trading stories, flirting shamelessly. Time passed so quickly now, and as it grew later and later Reese felt a sense of melancholy creep into their heart.

"I should probably go," they said as the sky began to darken. Their voice was soft, filled with longing for a time they hadn't yet shared. "We've both got work tomorrow." In different senses this was true: Noa mentioned that she had to be at Apropos by 11:30, and Reese had a project they needed to get started on.

Noa was visibly disappointed. "I guess you're right." She shrugged. "But I was having so much fun."

Reese smiled. "Me too." They leaned forward and gave her a kiss, then stood up. "Would you maybe wanna... hang out again?"

Noa grinned. "I was gonna be so pissed if you didn't ask."

Reese snorted. "Maybe like tomorrow?"

"Definitely like tomorrow." She stood up and followed Reese to the door. As Reese slipped their shoes on Noa took their hand and squeezed it. They squeezed back. "I'm really glad you came over, Reese."

"Me too." Their foreheads touched. "And, umm... I'm glad I listen to an outdated audio format."

Noa snorted. "That too. Can I at least walk you to the street?"

That old lopsided smile crossed Reese's face. "I'd like that."

Noa asked Reese to wait a second, then popped into her bedroom. She emerged with shorts on. Then she slipped on a pair of flip-flops and followed Reese out the door.

They held hands as they exited the stairwell and stepped out onto the parking lot. The sky was an ominous grey.

They were about midway through the parking lot when the first sheets of rain began to fall.

"Shit!" cried Noa.

Reese and Noa huddled under a nearby stop, squeezing rain out of their clothes. The shitty acoustics meant that every splattering raindrop sounded like the beating of a taiko drum.

"Please tell me you're not going to walk home in this," Noa said. Rain dripped from the corners of her glasses.

"It's not that bad," Reese said, "and I like rain." Which was true: they'd always loved to play in the rain, take walks in it...

Noa was unimpressed. "Let's go back inside."

"Noa, I --"

"You said you live on Oak, right?"

"Yeah..."

"That's, like, a thirty minute walk from here." She paused. This felt like a side of her Reese'd never seen before. "Please come inside."

"I don't want to impose."

Noa snorted. "Umm, you ate me out, dude. You're allowed to impose a little."

"Well --"

"Please? I would feel like shit if I let you walk home in this." She huffed. "Like, if you really don't want to, that's okay. But if you're at all okay with staying longer come inside."

Reese thought for a minute. Their face felt hot. Their whole life they'd been fixated on the idea that they'd eventually become a nuisance for someone, an inconvenience, and even when told directly that they were welcome -- that they were wanted -- they still felt the pang. "I... okay." They smiled. "I'll stay. If that's okay."

"Yes, it's fucking okay!" Noa laughed. "C'mon."

The pair treated the rain like it was a trap in an Indiana Jones movie: wait for the right moment and you can dodge it. They waited, watched, then leapt out from the bus stop into the storm. Noa shrieked with childlike glee as she and Reese raced through the rain back toward her building.

Noa locked the door behind her. She was panting, as was Reese. Little puddles were forming at their feet.

She was laughing; so was Reese.

"Take off your clothes," Noa said. She was already stripping her shorts and underwear. Reese noticed that her nipples were visible through her soaked shirt.

Reese did as they were told, quickly shedding their clothes. Even standing by the door, wet and shivering, they felt comfortable: it felt right to be naked here. "Do you have a dryer or something?" they asked, awkwardly balancing their clothes so they wouldn't drip all over the floor.

"No, but I can hang them up and turn on a fan." Noa was totally nude as well. "Hopefully they won't take too long to dry." She took Reese's clothes into the bedroom. They watched her walk away, suddenly glad that they had the opportunity to do so again.

Reese heard the box fan turn on.

On her way out of the bedroom Noa grabbed a towel out of the linen closet. She quickly wiped herself down, then handed it to Reese, who did the same. For some reason she stopped and watched them do it, smiling. Then she stretched, turned on her heels, and popped into her bedroom. "Sit," she said from around the corner.

Reese crawled onto the couch, drawing up their legs to take up as little space as possible.

Noa emerged from the bedroom wrapped in a blanket. She was smiling, wearing it like a shawl as she shambled over to the couch. As she sat she opened the blanket and enveloped Reese in her embraced.

They wrapped their arms around the small of her back and nuzzled the top of her head. She looked up at them, beaming. "So," she said, "what do you wanna do?"

"...so I was like, 'okay, so you can leave.' And they still wouldn't. And I was like, 'okay, Grimm's gonna make you leave, and then good luck ever snagging that fucking Toilet Party LP anywhere else.'"

"What'd they do?"

"They called me a word I won't repeat, so I was like, 'Grimm, could you please talk to this asshole?' And that was that. He literally threw the guy out of the store."

"Nice."

"Yeah, Grimm's cool." Noa snorted. "You wanna know the dumbest fucking thing? Dude took one look at me and was like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna fuck up that Mexican's day.' And I'm not even fucking Mexican! I'm Spanish. Well, my mom and dad are Spanish, so... y'know. Spanish-American. I'm only Spanish-Spanish if you count Lexington as part of the Iberian Peninsula."

"I didn't know you were a Southerner."

"I am in the sense that I am literally from Kentucky."

"Aww, so you don't have an accent?"

Noa rolled her eyes. "Aren't you from, like, Indiana?" She took on an accent straight out of Fargo. "Shouldn't you talk like this, don't cha know?"

Reese guffawed. It was a hard, belly-shaking laugh, the first in a long time. Somewhere in the back of their mind they were suddenly self-conscious -- they weren't what you'd call svelte, and had the beginnings of chub around the middle -- but honestly, they didn't care. It was like that song by Toto: I bless the rains...

"Okay, first of all: how dare you?" Reese giggled; so did Noa. "Second of all, I have never seen a man forcefully ejected from a store and I would have loved to have seen that."

"You've got a darkness in you, Reese."

"I'm a loner, Noa. A real rebel."

She rolled her eyes again. "What's it like in Indiana?"

"Umm. Everyone wears flannel and there's corn everywhere." They shrugged. "And it's... complicated, for, umm... people like me." They chewed their lip.

Understanding registered on Noa's face. "Oh. I'm sorry. 'Cause of..."

Reese nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Naw, it's okay. I don't live there anymore. I'm here. And I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else." Reese wasn't sure which "here" they were talking about.

Noa smiled at that. "I hope it's okay that you're staying. You said you had work..."

"Just a project I need to work on. Nothing urgent."

"Okay." She nudged them with her foot.

Reese and Noa were huddled together on the couch, sharing the blanket, hidden save their heads. Reese was sitting with their legs drawn up, Noa sitting cross-legged beside them.

"I was wondering where 'Noa' came from, by the way."

"Yep, it's Spanish."

There was a pregnant silence between them. Noa picked up the remote, turned on the TV, and started flipping through channels. Nothing seemed interesting, an opinion which Reese backed up, so she turned it back off. "What do you wanna doooo?" she asked.