Page 24 of Two Guys, a Girl, and a Tripod

Natalie reaches over and pats my thigh before turning onto our street. Less than a minute later, we pull into the driveway between two townhouses. The path leads to two more nearly identical structures behind the first row. She pulls her car to the side, next to mine. There’s just enough space between our townhouse and the one in front of it to park two cars with room to get in and out. Rather than using it for its intended purpose, we converted the garage on the first floor into a second studio space.

Natalie helps me with my bags and we haul them to the front door. I find myself once more annoyed that we rent a place with stairs as soon as you walk in. There’s another small bedroom and bathroom on the first floor that you can access from the garage, but it’s toosmall to be an adult's room. I lead the way up the stairs, hauling the first large suitcase while Natalie carries up my smaller bags.

“So, tell me about this podcast.” She says, breathing heavily.

“Hide the Sausage?”

Natalie snorts.

“Yeah, that.”

“It was fun. Did you know Sara Sitwell has her guests try three different sausages as part of the episode?” I reach the top and roll my suitcase out of the way, pausing to catch my breath.

“Really?” Natalie laughs as she reaches the final stair and sets the bags down to one side. “What did you try?” She backs away to allow me to return to the car for the second large suitcase.

“I can’t remember all three,” I say as I breeze past her, still out of breath, “but one was a bratwurst with pockets of Swiss cheese.” My mouth is watering just thinking about it, but when I glance back up, I see Natalie scrunching her nose.

“Ew, no thanks.”

“You’ll have to warn her about your aversion to Swiss if you’re ever on her podcast,” I chuckle, standing a third of the way down the stairs.

“If? You think she wouldn’t invite me?”

I shrug and retrieve the last piece of luggage from the car.

“Home sweet home,” I mumble, rolling my suitcase across the floor when I reach the top.

I shiver as a thin layer of sweat dries on my forehead and back. Natalie and I like to keep the apartment fairly cold, even when we aren’t filming.

My unpacking is methodical and I take an hour to separate clean from dirty clothing, replace my toiletries, and put my toys and accessories back in their storage spots. When I finally open my bedroom door again, Natalie is tossing a few of my things into the washer.

“I was just about to do that.” I swipe the maid costume she’s reaching for from the pile of clothes I left and toss it in a mesh bag.

“I’m allowed to help.” Natalie crosses her arms over her chest and leans away.

“You are,” I acknowledge, nudging her to the side with my hip so she no longer has access to the clothing. I add the remainder of the costumes and lingerie. Everyday clothing will get its own cycle.

“You wash mine sometimes,” Natalie points out. “You should let people do things for you.” She turns and heads toward the kitchen as I reach for the detergent.

“You picked me up from the airport.” I fill the machine and start it up, then find Natalie around the corner making a peanut butter sandwich.

“I have to run to the grocery store later,” I say, opening the fridge even though I’m probably just going to imitate her late lunch. “Care to join?”

“Nope, I went yesterday.”

Natalie leaves the peanut butter, bread, and a plastic food storage container of broccoli florets on the counter and sits at the table a few feet away. It’s an old, hand-me-down dining room table from her parents. The current tablecloth is floral with colorful plants and bright green leaves covering it. It’s one of those waterproof ones and just looking at the material, I can hear the sound it makes when someone scratches it with their nails. At the end of the table are chairs that match and there's a backless bench on each side.

“You couldn’t have waited a day?” I ask, shutting the fridge.

“Nope,” she says through a mouthful ofsandwich, shaking her head. “We were out of peanut butter.”

“Rude.”

My phone chimes from somewhere in my room. I ignore it for a few minutes while I prepare my lunch, but after setting my plate on the table, I return to where the phone sits on the bed.

It’s a message onKinkRink.

Literally.

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