Chapter One

With no new ideas, mostly because my brain is busy alarming me about the dangers of holding it in for long and that its consequences could be mortal, I resort to the one thing left to do: plead. To whom exactly? I don’t know.  I’m not exactly a believer, there could be a lord of traffic for all I know.

“Please, I really need to use the restroom,” I say, desperately. “I promise to stop using Miles shampoo,” I add, trying to bargain.

Miles is my boyfriend for the past three years, but we have only started living together for the past six months. If there’s something that I have learned about him since we move in together is that he doesn’t like—hates—sharing his shampoo.

I keep forgetting to buy mine and often resort to “borrowing” some of him, hoping that he doesn’t notice, which he usually does from how good my hair feels and most importantly, smells after each application—which is how I always get caught.

My phone vibrates. Seeing as I’m no longer driving, and the traffic doesn’t seem to be moving anytime soon, judging that I’m not exactly a danger to anyone, I pick it up, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

“Hey, are you camping at your workplace?” Miles’ husky voice oozes in my ears, the moment I place the phone against my ear.

I laugh at his joke before replying, “Not in this lifetime.”

“So what’s taking you so long?” he asks.

I know that it has been six months, but the novelty of someone waiting for me to come home hasn’t yet worn off. I doubt it ever will. My lips spread. “Aren’t you a little…I don’t know…how do you say—”

But that’s as far as I get in the sentence because he sternly interrupts. “Finish that sentence, Perkins, and I won’t be blamed for my actions when you get home.”

Home. That word again. My heart flutters and my lips spread even wider. “I was going to say concerned,” I lie, aware that he knows it.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs, but then chuckles.

At first, I start chanting it in my head, for at least three or four minutes before deciding to say it out loud in hopes that it would be effective. Trust me, at this point, I would do anything to silence my bladder that’s asking for relief.

Saying it, just like thinking it, doesn’t work.

“I’m stuck in traffic, but I’m only a ten minutes away,” I explain.

“Okay, I’ll get started on dinner.”

I resist the urge to palm-face myself. I forgot it was my turn to cook dinner tonight. Ever since he and I moved in, we’ve been doing dinner nights, alternating between him and me.

“Dang it! I’m sorry. Do you want me to order takeout?” I suggest.

“Let me guess, you forgot? And no, it’s okay, I don’t mind,” he says.

“It’s on me,” I insist, feeling a little guilty about him taking my turn.

He chuckles. “You really don’t like people helping you, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” I admit, despite knowing that it was a rhetorical question, the answer to that is as clear as it is crystal.

“You are not taking advantage, I’m the one offering,” he says.

“I know but—”

“Nothing. But nothing. Be careful on the road.” He instructs and I hardly open my mouth to reply before he hangs up. It’s funny how time seems to fly when you are immersed in something that you enjoy but decreases—more like completely loses— its speed when you are doing something boring or stuck in traffic like I am.

I’m usually a patient person, but my grumbling stomach and my filled bladder make it hard for me to be. I need to get home as fast as I can, but the heavy traffic is making that almost impossible.

My red Twingo hasn’t moved from the same spot for the past twenty minutes. Twenty minutes!

Knowing that honking at the car in front won’t do much except make me look like a rude person, I decide to take my mind off my current problem.

You don’t need to use the bathroom. You are perfectly fine

Is he being chivalrous? Yes. Do I like it? Absolutely.

The car behind me honks, and it’s then that I realize that the traffic has started moving again. I turn on the engine as I realize that the whole time I was on the phone with Miles, I hadn’t thought about my urge to pee.

Then it hits me. There’s a possibility that the phone call was a reply to my pleading from earlier on. This could only mean one thing: my days of stealing Miles’ shampoo have come to an end.

The urge hasn’t returned yet, determined to have arrived when it hits again, I decide to speed it up a little.

Five minutes later, I’m bursting through the front door, pass by a confused Miles—who was waiting for a kiss for a greeting— with only one goal in mind: get to the bathroom.

“Hey!” I call, as continue racing up the stairs.

“Um, Hi,” He calls, surprise laced in his tone, back before I shut the door.

“Finally, I made it,” I say, not able to resist my urge to sigh in relief.

A few gases later and a comfortably empty bladder later, I’m heading down the stairs, led by the sweet aroma that’s coming from the kitchen.

My stomach grumbles as I enter the kitchen, I guess Miles must have heard me because he chuckles, his back still facing me. “Hungry, are we?”

“Yeah," I reply, feeling embarrassed.

He turns to face me and starts walking toward me, his golden-brown eyes filled with mischief. He reaches me and puts his hands around my waist, pulling me against his chest, and my nostrils filled with his scent.

“Good. But you know nothing is free, right?” He says, seductively.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***