Love Expectations (Season 1 of Nata and Phillip's Romance) ✔️

31. 'Show me how it's done'

Phillip

The only thing I could think of this week was: did I screw everything up by pushing Nata to have real sex with me? I know she liked it. I felt how much she liked it. But you don't actively avoid a person you've had fantastic sex with. I get it. Her ovulation period is over. We don't have to be in the same space physically, but after she let me touch her the right way, after she moaned my name, I thought things would change. My fingers tingle from the memory of being inside her. So does my dick. I take out another cigarette and light up. The sky is still dark, no birds, no neighbors talking, and only an occasional distant noise of a vehicle breaks the almost perfect silence of our backyard.

I take a long drag. The smoke fills my throat and envelops the feeling of failure that I've been carrying in my chest for the last couple of days when Nata's only answers to my texts were 'I'm very busy at the moment, let's talk later.' I crank my head back and let a long stream of smoke out of my mouth. Even the tendrils of it floating in the air appear as heavy as the worries on my mind.

I picked up smoking as a teen because my cool friends were doing it. These days, I'm no longer the cool one, standing in a plastic enclosure by our building at work, that is the only designated smoking place at the office. Even though Dad found out I smoke before I graduated college, I was never allowed to smoke at Dad's house. One of the nice things about moving into this duplex is that at least I can enjoy my smokes when everything in my life seems to be going sideways.

Nata and I were supposed to be this power couple. Without being the actual couple and dealing with the bullshit that comes with coupledom. I thought her enjoying sex would demolish any walls remaining between us. Somehow, it built them higher. We're back to the acquaintances stage. I watch the glow of my cigarette light up the darkness around me as I inhale. My shoulders are so tense they almost touch my ears. I stub the butt into the ashtray and turn my head to Nata's side of the deck. I don't understand what she wants. How are we supposed to get to know each other if we only see one another for the three days out of the month during her ovulation period? I've waited long enough. I'm going to do what I do best: persuade her to spend time with me.

The light from her kitchen window illuminates the deck. I sit up in the chair. Nata must be up. Time to begin implementing my plan. Getting up at five a.m. and smoking through most of my pack waiting for her better be worth it. Ready or not, here I come, neighbor.

I sneak back into my side and approach the coffee machine like it's a new piece of lab equipment we sell. I grind, tamp down, wait—just like Mrs. Buckingham showed me when I visited Dad this week. The side effects from his meds are in full force. If I'm not working or sleeping, I'm there with him.

Mrs. Buckingham is the only person Dad seems to listen to these days. Making coffee and foaming the milk appeared easy with her by my side. Without her, the machine doesn't want to comply. I manage to get a coffee-adjacent liquid into the cup and top it off with the regular milk I now have in my fridge. It looks like bath foam. I spill the top layer as I carry the cup from my side to Nata's.

I knock on the sliding glass door.

"Phillip? Why are you awake?" Nata's wearing a towel wrapped around her head, a T-shirt that clearly shows she's not wearing a bra, and long PJ pants with snowflakes that cover up her legs. I imagined her sleeping in short shorts or some lingerie with lace, like the one she was wearing in San Francisco. My dick doesn't care what she's wearing, because it's commanding me to take every piece of clothes off her. I clutch the cup in my hands tighter and hope she can't see my growing boner.

I return my gaze above her collarbone and raise the cup in my hands. "Coffee?"

Nata stays on her side of the door but takes my offering and sips. Her eyebrows furrow. "What did you make?"