Ellie spent most the next day at work trying to concentrate on what she was doing, and trying not to obsess about Mia.

She didn’t really manage to do either.

She worked a little, and talked to people, and answered the phone, but she was unfocused and vague and her attention kept wandering.

She was trying to work, but mostly she was just thinking about Mia. About Mia’s legs and Mia’s grin, about how Mia’s skin had smelled the day they’d gone to the market, and how her mouth had tasted in the alleyway behind the supermarket.

Most of all about the silky feel of Mia’s skin.

Ellie thought a lot about Mia’s skin.

She could remember exactly how Mia’s skin felt, all silky and soft and smooth, and she could remember exactly how much that turned her on. She could remember, too, how Mia’s skin didn’t feel quite the same as her own, and she couldn’t completely work out the difference.

Several times, almost by accident, she put her hand on her arm and stroked it gently, the way she’d stroked Mia, thinking. It wasn’t anything as simple as the shape of their arms, or how squishy they each were, or that Mia might have a little more muscle. It was nothing to do with what was underneath, and everything to do with just skin, the layer of silkiness over the top of the actual her. Mia’s skin felt different. The texture of her skin was slightly different to Ellie’s, slightly smoother, and perhaps slightly warmer too.

Ellie found that fascinating.

Ellie thought a lot about Mia, and her skin, and her legs and her kisses, and when she wasn’t thinking about that, or distracted by actual work, she worried.

She worried a lot, about what she was wearing, and about how she looked.

Ellie had made an awful mistake the day before, and had only realized once she got to work.

She’d been impatient to see Mia. She’d wanted to see Mia as soon as possible after work, so she’d insisted on meeting at five. She hadn’t thought to make it a little later, and to meet somewhere in town.

She hadn’t given herself time to go home and change.

She was never forgetful like that, but now suddenly, for Mia, she was.

And not only that. Worse, far worse, she’d left herself no way to change her mind.

No way without phoning Mark to get Mia’s number, at least, which would mean making all this obvious. And no way without spoiling the whole dramatic effect of the meeting which Ellie had carefully created.

She was stuck.

She was also worried.

She was anxious that Mia would think she hadn’t tried hard enough. She didn’t know what Mia liked, or what Mia expected from her, but Ellie probably wasn’t it right now.

She hadn’t prepared at all. Not for an evening this important.

She’d been running late that morning, and still been half asleep, and hadn’t stopped to think through the consequences of what she was wearing. She’d dressed for work, somehow not quite realizing she’d be wearing the same thing after work too, because of meeting Mia, and that now she was stuck with what she’d picked.

In a way she was glad. Almost glad.

Not thinking beforehand meant she hadn’t got up an hour early just to worry about what to wear. It meant she hadn’t made herself all anxious over nothing, trying to organize the perfect magical outfit she already knew she didn’t have, one that let her take off a jacket or change her skirt and suddenly transform work-wear into eveningwear. She already knew she didn’t have that outfit, so going out with someone she liked right after work was completely stupid, and yet she’d insisted they did anyway.

Because she’d wanted to see Mia so much she hadn’t been thinking.

She almost could have saved the situation by wearing work clothes, and being all cool and professional, and having sexy undies on underneath. Not having that perfect transforming outfit almost meant that dressing up came down to underwear, and how it did or didn’t match, and if it was cut just right, and Ellie could almost have saved the whole situation if she’d only had something really good on underneath.

She didn’t.

She hadn’t thought for a moment when she got out the shower that morning. She’d put on what she put on, half asleep, and she knew it didn’t match.

She also knew her hair needed washing and was a little flat so it only really looked decent in a messy bun, and she knew the nail polish on the edge of the ring finger nail of her left hand was slightly chipped because she’d noticed it yesterday, had probably done it yesterday, and had been wondering whether Mia would notice.

She’d still been wondering that this morning, and then she’d realized at lunchtime, with horrible certainty, that of course Mia would notice.

Mia wore nail polish too, so of course she’d notice, and Ellie had somehow only just thought of that then. Worse, Ellie knew her toenail polish was completely a mess which she’d been ignoring to deal with at the weekend, but sitting at her desk she suddenly thought that sex probably meant taking off her shoes.

That hadn’t occurred to her either, until she started worrying.

Ellie didn’t know where her head was at sometimes.

She almost went off in a panic to borrow a close enough colour to make repairs, or to find a shop and try to colour match against her hand. She almost did, and then she stopped.

She made herself stop in the end because she knew it was overreacting.

Instead she borrowed nail-polish and remover from a friend on the second floor and wiped her nails clean in the bathroom, lifting her foot up onto the sink to get her toes, and scrubbing with paper towels, which mostly worked but not well and needed a lot of remover to get them clean.

She redid them all, fingers and toes, then realized what she’d just done. She raced back to her desk in bare feet and found another colour of her own, one that didn’t clash too horribly with what she already had on, and went over her hands with that. She wasted thirty minutes on all that when it would normally take her ten, and went back to her desk to dry.

All of which was completely rational, she told herself, at half-past two in the afternoon, while people wondered where she was, and she was supposed to be in a meeting.

And she knew it was silly, but after doing it she felt better. She felt a lot better.

For an hour.

Then she got nervous again.

She’d been nervous all day, off and on, but suddenly she was very nervous.

She started to think this was a terrible idea. She needed to cancel. She needed to start again, with new clothes, and spend an hour picking what to wear. She needed to wash her hair and get it perfect too, and then take her time on her makeup.

She just needed a quick shower. That would make her feel a lot better. She’d been at work all day and her legs could do with going over.

She stopped and thought.

She needed a shower.

She hadn’t thought about it at all. She was meeting Mia, to have sex with Mia, and by the time they did she wouldn’t have had a shower all day.

She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t thought of that either.

This was going to be a disaster.

She almost changed her mind, right then. She couldn’t go on a sex date without having a shower, that was just awful.

She brooded for a while, ignoring her email, trying to decide what to do. She spent a slow, awful hour between three and four, almost sure she wasn’t going to go outside, that she’d just hide from Mia, and sneak away home, and then start making arrangements to move house.

But then she thought about Mia, and wanting Mia, and how much Mia wanted her, and she decided not to care about any of it.

She was too horny to care.

That was what it came down to in the end.

Without yesterday, without the teasing and groping and making out in utes, she might have given up and gone home.

But after yesterday she couldn’t.

She wanted Mia so intensely much that she wasn’t going to back out of having sex with her now. And set against that, the rest just didn’t matter.

Ellie wasn’t ready, but it was far too late to care. Mia would have to take her as she was.

And Mia probably would.

Ellie thought about that. Mia seemed to want Ellie as much as Ellie wanted Mia, so Mia probably wouldn’t care how Ellie looked. Or even how she smelled.

She probably wouldn’t care about a thing except that Ellie was there. Just like how Ellie hadn’t given a thought to how Mia would be, because Mia being there was enough.

Mia wouldn’t care.

Ellie told herself that, told herself several times, over several minutes, and finally started to feel better.

She felt a lot better, once she’d thought it all through.

It was actually almost pleasant, once she’d got used to the idea, to be going to meet someone she desperately wanted without the chance to prepare. No preparation meant no second-guessing and no worry. She couldn’t worry, because she couldn’t do a thing to change any of it, and in the end she was almost glad about that.

It made waiting and getting ready so much less unpleasant.

She was almost excited again by five.

She packed her work up. She went to the bathroom and put on lip gloss, and a lot more eyeliner and shadow so her eyes were far darker than for work. She took her hair out its bun, then put it back in, because it had kept its shape and wasn’t going to do anything else very easily. She tidied it up, then changed her mind and messed it a little instead, and decided that was all she could really do.

She went back to her desk, and got her bag, and said goodbye to people, and went outside to wait.

She wanted Mia so much she didn’t care about anything else.

She was happy.

She just didn’t care about anything, because Mia was on her way, and that was really quite an extraordinary thing.