Gordie Eepy...

Benrey keeps a little mental bulletin board at the back of his thoughts of all the times Gordie has fallen asleep in increasingly odd places.

There was one time she fell asleep on the bus, arms still filled with groceries and keeping the bags held close to her chest. They came out of that with only one misplaced tomato that they somehow hadn’t managed to find.

There was another time she fell asleep at the kitchen table wrapping presents for Bubby’s birthday, wrapping paper draped over her head while she snored softly. Benrey still has that pic as his wallpaper.

Another time after that, Gordie fell asleep on the floor in front of the space heater on an especially cold afternoon, curled up on a mountain of throw pillows and blankets she dragged off the couch, Sunkist’s head resting on her chest.

All this to say that this habit of Gordie’s was unbelievably cute, and Benrey was very fond of adding new photos to his ever-growing album, very fond of wrestling his phone out of Gordie’s hands when she again tried, again unsuccessfully, to delete them. Benrey has the feeling he’s going to be adding another handful of pictures tonight, too.

“Gordie night night, Gordie so sleepy, Gordie listens— listening to my siren song.” Benrey brackets his words with a quiet strand of Sweet Voice, slowly rising to the ceiling. Carrot orange to candy apple red means it’s time for bed.

Gordie huffs, picking her head up off Benrey’s shoulder to butt her forehead against it. “It— ‘m not tired. Play your game,” she tries and fails to stifle a yawn. Benrey has to fight the urge to bury his face in his hands and scream. Cuuute.

“Why’s lie— why’re you lying? To me? All the neighbors are gonna send in noise complaints, talkin’ about how loud Gordie snores, everyone’s MILF radars are gonna be lighting up, everyone can— mmph.” Gordie shoves a pillow into Benrey’s face, controller falling from his hands and bouncing off the couch cushions.

“I’m not going to snore because I’m not falling asleep, Benrey,” she huffs, hand waving in an indecipherable gesture with each word she emphasizes.

“Oh, you are, and you’re still lying to me because that’s— that’s all hot women know how to do. Lie, steal credit card information, run pyramid schemes… gonna get a new photo for the album as… evidence. Take it straight to TBI… Trans Bureau of Investigation. They’re gonna revoke your license.”

“No, I— license?” Gordie wheezes. “My license?”

“Yeah? What’d I say that was wrong there?”

“Never mind,” she says with a shake of her head, pulling the blankets up tighter around the both of them. She doesn’t say anything after that, fingers running along the edge of the covers, following the seams. “I wanted to ask about that. The, uh— the album, I mean. Do you… ever show those to anybody? Is it just, like… a joke?”

Benrey blinks, sitting up a bit straighter to look at her. “Wh— huh? No. Just for me. Tommy sometimes, but only the ones he and Sunkist are in, the ones he was there for, keeps ‘em in those big photo albums with all of us. But… nah. I just like having them, like looking at my pretty girlfriend. Like remembering you’re here, and with me, that we’re out ‘n okay. Just… I just like looking at you.”

Gordie buries her face in Benrey’s shoulder, but doesn’t move fast enough to hide that her cheeks are flushed, shoulders shaking with silent, embarrassed laughter.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, looping one of her arms around his, cheek nuzzled into their upper arm. Gordie joins them in watching the screen, eyes contently sliding shut, breathing slowly evening out until she’s snoring. Benrey knows his arm is going to go numb, and he fumbles with sliding Gordie’s glasses off her nose, and it’s all perfect.

He feels nothing but love, a warm, soothing sweep across his chest, happily thumbing through the new pictures in his camera roll.