On Your Side

After the dinner, when Wes turns around to put the plates into the dishwasher, Rae takes the watch off after another buzzing that says, "Hey, just wanted to remind you that your rent is due tomorrow." She quickly puts it inside her purse. But she can't help but feel comforted because that means Z is back and she kind of likes the nagging from him, that he's back assisting her again.

Rae starts to mix the flour with instant yeast and tells Wes that they need to rest the dough.

"Does that mean you will come back to my house again?"

"Sorry," Rae sticks her tongue out, "I don't mean to invite myself back again, but yeah, I kind of have to. Even if we have a fight from now on, I'm still coming back for the dough."

Wes puts his hands on his heart, "Aw, you like this flour and water and yeast mixture better than me!"

"There are other ingredients in there but yeah. It is my baby. And I use really good flour, can't you smell it? It smells different from regular bleached ones." Rae opens the bag for Wes to smell. Wes moves his head over and takes the bag from Rae's hands, he reaches one hand down.

"Wait, don't use your hand like that," Rae tries to stop Wes, but he already did. He then takes his hand out and sprinkles flour on Rae's face.

Rae screams and laughs, "Hey! What are you doing? This is high-end flour!"

"Oh I'm sorry, I'll eat it off," Wes puts his hand on Rae's chin, and lifts her face up.

"Wh...what?"

Wes kisses her nose, and slowly moves his lips down. Rae has been teased all night long, and Wes pulls this trick again right at the end of the night. She thinks something is about to go down.

Wes props her on the island again, and this time he doesn't take it slow. He kisses her hard and his tongue isn't shy this time. He then unbuttons his own shirt, puts Rae's hand on his chest. After he takes it off, and then holds Rae tightly while kissing her.

Rae also takes her shirt off and presses herself against Wes's chest, feeling the heat and feeling his skin.

Wes pushes her butt against him. Rae moans. They both start to move their bodies in a rhythm— a rhythm that Rae was once familiar almost a decade ago. She hasn't been with anybody in a long, long time.

Rae presses one palm on the kitchen island to steady herself while Wes gravitates to her body, like he wants to consume her.

Wes is breathless, "Give me one second, I need to get one thing," He suddenly leaves to go to his bedroom. Rae thinks she knows what he needs to get from his room. She tries to catch her breath as well, and she decides to check her watch the she threw in the purse earlier.

"I don't mean to bother you, but you should still ask him why he wants a robot that looks like him. I won't bug you now to give you privacy."

It's another message from Z.

Wes returns with a few packets of condoms in his hand. More than one? Rae quickly throws the watch back into the purse, but it actually drops to the floor but she doesn't know.

Wes continues to kiss Rae, and Rae unbuckles his pants. He stops and puts one hand under her chin and have her look at him. He doesn't say anything, but he seems to want to see her eyes. Then he gradually moves one hand down her body. Rae is so aroused by him now, she puts both her hands on his forearm, helping him to touch her down there. She breathes heavily and moans.

She thinks she's ready, and she doesn't want to wait.

*** **** ****

When Zach wakes up the next day, the first thing he thinks to do is to turn on the monitoring system on the watch but he worries what he might see and he'd rather not know.

He checks his phone and surprisingly, there's a text message from Rae. It says:

"Should I stop by Zabby in the morning to get what you said you were going to let me use? Or is Z in a format of a watch now?"

Zach is thrilled to see Rae's message and he curls his lips up. But then he sees the time stamp on the message the corner of his lips immediately fall downward.

It was sent at 2:12AM.

Wow. What the hell was she doing and only got a minute to text this late?

Gosh, why does he even care? Why does he have to feel emotionally swayed by this woman's dating life.

"We goddamn kissed just a day ago! Doesn't that mean anything to her?" Zach grunts to himself.

Frustrated, Zach texts quickly, "Yeah, stop by anytime. Text me again so I'll come down to let you in the building."

Zach hates himself now. He needs to forget about her. She's just a system user. A potential customer. Think like that.

He tells himself: "Don't think of her as a girl who inspired you to prefect the A.I. system."

Don't think about how she kissed you.

**** **** ****

Rae shows up after 10 in the morning. She's wearing casual wear with tennis shoes on. Ever since Z called her out on how boots really were not her things, she has stopped wearing them. She feels a little jittery to see Zach. She's not sure if it's because of the coffee she drank to wake herself up from the crazy night she spent with Wes or she's just nervous to see Zach.

A beep and the glass door is unlocked, and the door is pushed open for Rae.

"Hey," It's Zach standing by the door.

"Hey, how are you? You don't look too good." Rae walks in and checks his face. She blurts the first thing she thinks.

"Oh really, gee, thanks. You are such a smooth talker." Zach walks a little ahead of her.

"Sorry, I meant it like I care about your wellbeing."

"Oh, do you really now?"

"Are you mad at me or something? Is this a bad time to come? You told me to come by anytime." Rae tries to catch up and tries to see his face.

She has no idea that Zach has access to the data that the watch receives, so she doesn't know Zach knows that she just went to Wes's place and spent the night.

"So basically, Z can be just a watch form now." Zach presses the "up" button for the elevator. "But I'll still give you a little device for you to put at home."

This kind of reminds Rae of how she first encountered Zach— waiting by the elevator.

"I forgot to ask, but I assumed you had a meeting with Wes already, right? Z said there was 99 percent of the chance. And I assumed Wes asked for the robot? Did he suspect anything?" Rae tries to see Zahc's face, but he doesn't turn to her.

"The meeting went alright. I'll be able to pitch my A.I. system to him soon, which is really what I want." Zach wants to stay focused. The elevator opens, and they step in.

Rae can sense Zach is acting a little differently today. A little nonchalant, maybe. But he just said the meeting was fine and he got to pitch his idea. He should be excited.

"That's great news, right?" Then Rae remembers she wants to pitch her own bread gift idea to Wes but she forgot. She was overwhelmed by her desire last night.

Zach shrugs, not answering.

"Is there something else I can do for you in terms of Wes? Like letting you know what he might like in an A.I. system so it helps your business pitch?"

"You?" Zach scoffs, "How are you going to help?"

"It looks like I'll be spending more time with Wes, I believe," Rae laughs, "I can kind of see what he lacks in assistance and let you know. I'm sure that's perfectly fine. It's not like I'm selling his secret. And you're not asking that from me. I'd like to help, you know, I'm rooting for ya. I just want you and your great idea to succeed."

Zach laughs sorely and lightly. This girl almost thinks like him. Because he basically said the same thing to Wes, saying how he will help Wes learn more about Rae, see if she's lying, and he will help give Wes information about her so he can probably pursue her better.

He finally looks at Rae. He doesn't think he's going to be able to disconnect himself from her that soon.