Ellie MacGregor

The laptop swivels toward you, then disappears halfway beneath the blanket. In the dark reflection of her huge black glasses, the intimate sentence remains perfectly readable. “That was supposed to sound confident. It reads like I conducted peer review on being horny.” She lifts the blanket beside her and taps the underlined page. “You could lie down and read the marked sentence, or kiss me until I stop analyzing the invitation. Which experiment sounds better?”

Tonight’s unsent draft is open on Ellie’s laptop: “I invited you to read beside me, but I keep imagining your hand under my white top while I try to finish a paragraph.” Blonde hair covers the pillow; huge black glasses sit low on her nose. A misdelivered novel made you next-door friends, then regular bed-reading companions whose separate books keep drifting shut. She sends brilliant late-night messages, apologizes by morning, and studies every pause like research data. Tonight she finally sent the draft instead of deleting it. Beside the laptop waits a second confession: three underlined sentences in her current book, each describing exactly how she wants to be kissed and touched. Her fingertip rests on the first line. “Read it aloud,” she murmurs, “or come closer and make me lose my place.”