Page 23 of Maybe You

Sutton is arrogant and smug and frivolous and not even a little subtle, and I don’t really take anything he says seriously, but yes, it’s exciting.

“You’re still blushing,” he says. Smugly. As he’s prone to do.

“I guess I’m out of practice since literally nobody I meet just casually drops it into the conversation that they’re jerking off while thinking of me.”

“Their loss,” he says with a careless shrug.

“What part of this, exactly, do you count as a loss?”

“The blush. I’ll be fantasizing about that the minute I get home, just FYI.”

I am absolutely not equipped for this conversation, so I don’t even try. I just get to work. Sutton follows my example, and if I thought yesterday was some sort of exception and that he’d be less hardworking today when the novelty of this situation has worn off, I’m dead wrong, because he works just as hard as yesterday, methodically cleaning everything. The way he throws himself into the task at hand is such a weird contrast to everything he’s said about himself so far that I don’t even know how to address it. So I leave it be.

“How long have you worked here?” he asks while I’m mopping the floor of the changing room.

“About a year and a half. I’ve got classes during the day, so this works out great for me.”

“You’re a student?”

I nod.

There’s a long pause, during which we switch to the next changing room.

“What are you studying?”

I throw him a look.

“Unless it’s a secret?” he asks when I fail to answer.

I shake my head. “No. Just waiting to see if there’ll be another innuendo.”

“I’m trying to behave.”

“You know how?”

“Emphasis on trying.”

I snort out a laugh and go back to mopping.

“Electrical engineering,” I say after a little bit.

He lets out a low whistle and grins when I glance in his direction.

“That was me being impressed,” he says.

“Yeah, okay,” I mutter while my cheeks go uncomfortably warm again for fuck knows what reason.

“Genuinely impressed, not just saying-it-because-I-want-to-sleep-with-you impressed.”

“How nice of you.”

“Tell me about it. I didn’t think I was even capable of the former.”

“Holy shit.” I let out a loud, theatrical gasp. “You know what this might be?”

He sends me an amused look. “What?”

I look around, like I’m trying to make sure nobody overhears me before I whisper loudly, “A hidden depth.”

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