Accidentally Amy(40)

He made a laugh sound but kept working. “And the subject would be…?”
“How aesthetically-pleasing this whole video chat is.” Izzy looked at the Facetime display and saw they’d been talking for over almost two hours - basically the entire time he’d been working on her car.
It felt like five minutes.
She’d never - in her entire life - had as much fun as she had with Blake. It was like their brains were in-sync or something; he always got her weird sense of humor and played with her in the most delightful way.
Which was probably what made their whole maybe-taking-this-to-the-next-level thing so petrifying. What if it ruined everything?
“I can’t tell you how glad I am that my work is getting you off,” he said, and her stomach dipped.
Somehow hearing him say getting you off was a turn-on.
But everything about him was a turn-on.
“Listen, bruh, I’ve got to go,” she said, clueless as to what she was going to wear that night. She wanted to look good, but not trying-too-hard good. “I’ve got a date tonight with a guy I met at Starbucks, and I want plenty of time to get ready.”
“Is that right?” He looked away from her engine and directly into his phone, which he’d propped on top of his rolling toolbox, and pointed at her. “Good lookin’ fella?”
“You could say that,” she said, smiling like a lovesick teenager.
“Smart?” He set down his tools and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“Oh - not at all,” she teased, laughing when he gave her a shocked look. “He requested a physical challenge during Billboard Assholes, if you can believe that, and he also puts chia seeds in everything. I mean, who does that, right?”
“How the hell do you know about the chia?” he asked, looking amused.
She shrugged. “When I took care of your cats, I couldn’t help but notice you had the industrial-sized bag in your pantry.”
“You snooping little shit,” he said, picking up the phone so he could move it closer to his face. His eyes were twinkly when he asked her, “What else did you notice?”
“Okay - confession,” she said, amused that with Blake, she wasn’t even embarrassed. “I did snoop, but like, quick glancing looks into drawers - I didn’t touch or rifle through anything.”
He gave her a look like he didn’t believe her and said, “What’s the coolest thing you found?”
Izzy thought about that for a second before saying, “Your drawer full of glasses. I took a picture of myself in every single pair.”
That made his lips slide into the teasing grin that she’d decided was her favorite of all his smiles. (The current top five were 1. Teasing grin, 2. Sexy smirk, 3. Sarcastic near-smile, 4. Full-on sunshine, and 5. You’re-an-idiot-but-it-amuses me lip twitch.)
He said, “So when you say I didn’t touch or rifle through anything, you mean besides wearing all of my glasses and violating my chia privacy.”
“I didn’t wear them, I tried them on,” she said, feeling as if the clarification mattered. “And who has eight pairs of nice glasses? I think you might be a sociopath.”
“I wear glasses every day, even if I wear contacts for a few hours, so eight pairs for 365 days seems minimal to me.” He tilted his head and said, “If you ask me, the person with only one pair is the sociopath.”
“No need for name-calling, and no one asked you.”
“So what’s the least cool thing you found, then?” he asked.
“Aside from the buttload of chia?”
“How much chia constitutes a buttload, Shay?”
“Count the ones in your pantry and that’s the answer, Phillips.”
“Naturally. Weird thing. Go.”
“Okay - the thing I found troubling in your apartment was the geriatric sex book.”
He coughed out, “Excuse me?”
Izzy grinned at his horror. “There’s a book in your hall closet that looks like it came out in the 1950’s, and it’s called Delicious Sex. I mean, I’m all for honing your craft and reading all the resources, but I don’t think--”
“Holy shit - was it on the bottom of the closet, in that stack of books on the floor?” he asked, pressing his fingers into his temples.
“Yeah.”
“Awwww, gawwwwd - those books belong to my grandparents.” He looked queasy as he squinted and said, “There’s seriously a sex book in that stack?”
Izzy started laughing. She’d been about to accuse him of lying, but he looked too disgusted for her not to believe him. She said, “Not just a book about sex, but a book about delicious se--”
“Stop it.” He shook his head and pointed at her, feigning anger. “Your snooping has ruined Nana and Papa for me, you little shit.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go now,” she said, her laughs simmering to a smile. “See you at six?”
His fake rage slid into a nice smile. “See you at six.”


    Blake
Blake: I can see you peeking through the blinds.
Izzy smiled as she watched him walk up to the stoop, looking down at his phone. Stepping away from the window, she texted back: I’m watching for my hot date, Egomaniac. Not everything is about you.
Blake: Open the goddamn door.
Izzy took a deep breath. Just hours earlier, she’d been nervous to see him because she’d been embarrassed about kissing him. Now she was nervous because they were going on an actual date and would likely be doing even more kissing by the end of the night. She was tied up in anticipation and excitement and terror, because something about the night felt big.