Page 7 of The Naked Cleaner

“Not hungry.” I quip. I’m starving.

“I will feed you if you don’t stop behaving like a spoilt kid. For god’s sake, sit up, turn around and eat your food. I’ll be in the kitchen. Alone. Eating my dinner.”

He stomps out, leaving my plate on the side, and my gaze pinned to the sight of his naked arse disappearing out the door.

He’s hurt. I may not be the most perceptive human being, and I may have the social skills of a gnat, Jonas’ words, not mine, but I can tell.

And yeah. He’s trying, and I am just being me.Stupid. He’s got that right.

So, I grab my plate and let my feet walk a little too loudly back to the kitchen where I slam my plate down on the table and take a seat opposite him.

“I’m Pontus. I’m twenty-six, and run my own IT solutions company. I mostly create Human Resource software, payroll, records, tax management, things like that, but I also develop tailor-made software solutions for online presence and interaction with the consumer.” I sound like a twat too. Which makes me giggle.

And I think I blush, because he is looking at me, right at me, and he is smiling. Like he is enjoying the fact that I am sitting here forcing myself to talk, wearing nothing but pyjama pants, in my far-too-skinny pale body and he is wearing nothing but the damn apron, in his sun-kissed golden skin and perfect soft shapes, and there is a little muscle definition in his arms. Which makes me cringe. Because he is so not my type. Not at all.

He isexactlymy type. I force my brain to abort those thoughts. Tuck them away. Permanently.

“I am single. Gay. Have been out since school. Not interested in a relationship. Ever. I am happy just working and living here. “

That’s a lie. I am not happy, and I am not living. I am existing in a never-ending loop of stress and work and trying to wake up in the morning and struggling to fall asleep at night and remembering to eat and being pestered by Jonas and forgetting to ring my parents every week and just...

I’m tired. I’m so goddamn tired.

“Nice to meet you, Pontus.” He says softly, smiling at me like he means it.

Chapter Four

Louis

“My mum’s really vain.” I giggle.

I am a little high on all this, because it’s been a long time since I have sat down and just talked nonsense to someone. Someone my own age. Someone who still thinks I am super weird, but, hey... I can cope with that.

“She has a home gym and this tanning bed, and however much Dad tells her that she shouldn’t be using it, she still does, because she likes to look her best and she’s pretty fit for a mum.

“She works out naked?” Pontus asks, and gosh, there is a little colour in his cheeks, which is kind of cute. And good. So, he has blood behind that pale skin of his. He’s obviously not a vampire then.

“Of course, although, you will probably find this weird. She puts on a sports bra for the running machine, because she says she hates having her boobs flap around.”

Yeah, that makes him cringe, as he buries his face in his hands. And I think he is mumbling something about too much information and banging his head against the surface of his crappy kitchen table. IKEA no doubt, and the surface is all polished and shiny, which tells me he probably never uses it.

I wish we had a couple of bottles of wine, because I kind of fancy just getting rat arsed and passing out on his sofa and just being stupid and irresponsible for once. Perhaps smoking some grass, potent enough to just make us both switch off. Maybe in a parallel universe we would have been friends, I think to myself as he looks up and snorts.

“Your family are nuts.” He says.

“No, actually, I think we are pretty normal and boring. My sister’s not a naturist and wears clothes all the time. She full on rebelled in her teens and refused to be naked. I kind of understand her, because when you are a spotty ultra-horny teenager in a room full of other naked teenagers, things get awkward. Because you look, and you fantasise and just because there are rules that you don’t touch other people without their permission, and personal space and boundaries are a thing…”

“You get a boner? “

He finishes my sentence with a swallowed giggle, and yeah. Being a naturist teenager is awkward as fuck.

“There was this boy, his parents were good friends of mine, and I was crushing on him badly. He would just sit there and lean back on the sofa talking about all his arty farty interests and I would have to run and lock myself in my room, because just putting a sofa cushion on my lap would have been totally obvious. It’s like everyone would have known. And that would have been bloody awkward.”

“Fuck, I would have died. I mean. Really? You have naked parties?”

“We socialise, we are totally normal people, Pontus. We have dinner parties, date, dance. It’s not weird.”

“Louis, it is totally weird. Mega weird. Awkward as fuck. Weird on a whole new level.“

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