Dreams are fun.
Last night I dreamed I’d drank too much liquor at work, mostly because Laurie kept giving me laser-eyes and Daya—yes, Daya infiltrated my relaxing slumber—treated me like a deer during winter hunting season. Obviously, tequila was the right coping mechanism. Then my drunken self was led home by Laurie, who by all accounts was pretty decent (this was the first indicator my head was making shit up), but I sidelined that decency by giving her the wrong address, banging on Spence’s door at stupid o’clock in the morning, making out with him instead of apologizing for my rudeness, and—
Not my bed.
I jerked to my elbows, hair all in my face, the pillow below me mashed with mascara and pink lipgloss-tinged drool.
Not my room.
I scuttled into a seated position, noting the slate gray sheets, the stone-blue walls, the two white nightstands with a full glass of water on one side and an empty one on the other. Like a dehydrated desert lady, I lunged for the full glass and chugged it while realizing that while there was an indent in the mattress, there was no person beside me. The sheets had been tossed aside like the person who’d bounded out was particularly peppy and not one iota hungover.
As I pondered, it all started coming back to me, the dream that wasn’t a dream, and the fact that I was currently lounging in Spence’s room, holding his glass, wrapping his sheets around me, on his bed.
When I noticed my phone on the pillow next to me, with a text notification from him, I’d been trying to figure out where my clothes were, because by all accounts I was clad in only my bra and underwear. This had me wondering how far we’d gone, and how could I not remember it?
Sex with Spence would’ve been….explosive. It should’ve singed the back of my eyelids with a perfect picture of him hovering over me, hair combing his eyes, lips coming down…
Was I remembering it? Or was this the usual descriptive fantasy my mind tended to weave together when things were spotted with alcohol?
I opened the text but it gave me no clues. Spence had to get to class and didn’t want to wake me, but I should feel free to grab a bite to eat from the kitchen before leaving.
My fingers tightened around my phone. Instead of memories making my situation better, they were arguably crafting a story that was much worse. Spence opened up to me, told me of his past, then we kissed and I’d felt a warmth from him that I’d never noticed with any other guy, like a melting piece of chocolate adding sweetness right behind my heart, and now here I was, sitting alone in a strange apartment, receiving a text that very well could be dismissing me.
I threw back the covers and slid out of bed, swaying on my feet from the rush of blood from my head to my toes, but righted myself enough to search around the mattress and under the sheets until I found my jeans and shirt.
It was my fault. I’d come here uninvited and clearly made myself at home by crawling into bed with him. I didn’t give him a choice. Spence couldn’t very well send me home in a cab, not in the state I was in. So any hurt feelings from the text would’ve been deserved.
But hell if I wasn’t going to grab some breakfast on the way.
I finger-combed my hair to the best of my ability and headed out of Spence’s room in search for orange juice, and if there was a God, coffee.
What I didn’t expect was to be greeted by one hundred and sixty pounds of solid gold muscle.
Knox glanced up from his cereal bowl as I padded into the kitchen. “Hey there, Red Rooster.”
“Shoot. Hi. Sorry,” I said, though I strayed over to where his steaming mug was at his left elbow.
He lifted it. “Want some? I just made a pot over there.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, then made my way to the corner of the counter where a full pot of black treasure awaited me. “Even though I don’t deserve it, for cawing at you so early in the morning.”
“Nah, I went right back to sleep,” he said with a chuckle. “The nickname isn’t gonna go anywhere, though.”
I rested back against the counter as I held my own steaming mug up to my nose with both hands. “I’ll take being a rooster if it means I get coffee like this every morning. What’d you do to it?”
“Ah, the Knox special. I threw some cinnamon and nutmeg in there.” He winked. “Usually only reserved for my ladies, but Spence asked me to leave a few drops for you.”
“You had a lady over last night?” I hid my face behind the mug, wincing.
He laughed in clear, baritone waves, his eyes becoming even more blue as they caught the morning light. “And here you thought I was calling you Rooster because you buzzed our apartment at three in the morning.”
Was he actually calling me a cockblock? “I am so sorry. I’m not usually—this isn’t my M.O. I’m not the person who…” I stopped, realizing that the more words I spewed, the more filled with mirth he became. “I’m totally that person right now.”
“Hey, there’s no room for shaming at eight in the morning. Grab a bowl of cereal and sit with me a while.”
“Your…lady isn’t around?”
He grinned. “She’s in nursing school. Very early wake up call.”
“I see.”
I filled up a bowl with the open box on the counter and took the stool next to him. We chatted longer than I thought we would, with Knox telling me about his goals to get into the NYPD and ultimately become a detective. I let him in on my dreams of becoming a P.R. Maven or some kind of event planner, but how keeping grades at the required level was a lot harder when you were supporting yourself through college. He listened with a friendly ear, never judging, often encouraging, and it occurred to me how open he was, how easy-going he could be in sharing his story and willing he was to hear mine. By all accounts, this was the guy to go for. Friendly, respectful, good-looking and charming. No trauma, a good, secure life with well-obtained goals and a written future ahead.
Yet, through our entire cereal fest, all I could think of was Spence.
I offered to clean the dishes in exchange for another cup of the Knox special to go. As soon as I was finished we said our good-byes, and when I shut the front door behind me I swore I could still smell Spence on my clothing.
#
I walked into Harper’s class smelling of gardenias and grapefruit after stopping by my apartment for a hot shower and change of clothes. Becca side-eyed me as I sprinted through the living room, a Digital Media textbook balanced on her curled up legs. If I didn’t hustle, I was going to be late for class and Harper’s wrath was not the way I wanted to cap off the morning.
“Hope you had a good night!” she sing-songed as I flew out our front door.
The subway blessed me by running on time and I made it to the lecture hall with two minutes to spare. It showed as I huffed up the stairs and plonked into my seat. I didn’t bother smoothing my hair, figuring the wind-blown look worked for Victoria’s Secret models, so why shouldn’t it on a student who commutes across town to make it to a class about ancient philosophers?
The errant strands also provided a great hiding place for when Spence walked in. When I’d lumbered up the stairs, I very carefully scanned all faces and determined he hadn’t yet made it, which provided both relief and disappointment. It was unclear how he’d receive me or if I’d blown it. Or perhaps he thought he’d told me too much, and rather than face that truth the morning after, it had been better to just leave a quick text and flee. It was easy to think the latter was the most probable. It was the exact thing I would’ve done.
I decided to keep myself busy by pulling out my laptop and Dante’s prized work, the book starting to become worn along the spine. When I fanned through it, neon highlights and handwritten scribbles blurred, and a few pages were stuck from being dog-eared together.
Spence would be so pleased.
“Hi.”
I went from the book to piercing eyes. Sadly, they weren’t the ones I was hoping to see.
“Ed?” I asked it as a question, honestly confused. He’d never been seated directly in front of me before. Actually, I’d never seen him in this class before.
Ed beamed, his teeth becoming two bright white ribbons surrounded by cracked, flaking lips. The corners of my mouth twitched in automatic greeting.
Ed looked like he was about to say more, despite his neck being cricked at an odd angle to regard me and the other students maneuvering around him, also giving him strange looks, but no one argued for their seat back. Before he could say anything, a subtle sense of mine had my ears pricking. Goosebumps followed, traveling across my jaw and collecting at my lips.
Spence had walked in directly behind the professor.
Though, my tingles could’ve been for an entirely different reason. Midterms weren’t back yet, and every time Harper had trounced in these days with a collection of papers under his arm, a big part of me convulsed.
Spence took his seat without looking up, in no rush to search and find me. My goosebumps were reduced to waves, to ripples, to dribbles.
Ed twisted around to the front, but not before I caught his faltering smile. A part of me felt bad, that maybe I wasn’t polite enough, but I wasn’t sure what to say to him past “hello.” He wasn’t a person I regularly conversed with, nor, for that matter, had he ever chatted at length to me.
“All color can return to your faces,” Harper said as greeting. “I haven’t finished grading your papers yet, so everyone turn to the fifth canon, please.”
Me and my fellow sufferers slogged through the rest of class. It was a standard lecture, with a quarter of students fighting to stay awake, more then a third eagerly typing their notes, and the rest sitting back in accepted ninety-minute defeat.
My focus kept wandering, but this time it wasn’t to study Spence from afar. Ed’s head kept turning, his chin traveling to the right and the eye I could see reminding me of the ancient spellbook in Hocus Pocus, how its gaze kept ping-ponging in all directions but always landing on one lady in the end. In this case, instead of a red-headed witch, it was the dark-haired girl hunched over her laptop pretending she wasn’t being so obviously stared at. Me.
I was about to poke the eraser side of a pencil at his cheek to get him to turn around when a movement on my right caught my attention. It was Spence, rising from class ten minutes early and taking all his stuff with him.
Was this it? The pencil dropped from my fingers and to the floor. Was this how he was going to end all Dante’s classes? By leaving early so he could avoid me?
No. Spence’s actions did not revolve around one Emme Beauregard. He could have a dental appointment, or wasn’t feeling well, or was so well-versed in this philosopher that he didn’t need to stay for Harper’s grand finale. With the way the professor allowed Spence to leave without a glance or an embarrassing call-out like he totally would’ve done to me, this was obviously pre-planned.
I mulled this over while staring at the back of Ed’s head. With such high freak-frequency my brain was running at, maybe I was jumping the gun with him, too, and Ed was simply auditing this class and checking the clock at the back of the hall to see when this lecture was over. Not everything was about me. I was glad I hadn’t poked him.
Harper dismissed us, stating that grades should be in by next week. My sphincter clenched but I collected my belongings with all the other fearful pupils and made a quick exit. Potentially, I could fit in the gym before my next class. A kick-boxing session should help all my jumbled nerves become straight again.
When I exited, I had to blink three times in quick succession. It never occurred to me that Spence would be waiting outside the lecture hall. He was leaning on the opposite wall in a ribbed green long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans, with a messenger bag cocked at his hip the same way his smile was cocked at me.
My mouth answered him before my voice could, and I drifted through clusters of students and shouts, somehow not banging into anybody.
“I’m glad I didn’t miss you,” he said once I was standing in front of him.
“You were waiting for me?” I hoped there wasn’t too much hope in my question.
Spence pushed off the wall and offered me his arm. “I was thinking we could grab a cup of coffee. You have time?”
“Yeah,” I said, and looped my arm through his. I felt like half my body weight had just up and floated away.
My shoulder banged into Spence and he had to steady me when someone roughly pushed through the crowd.
“Wanna apologize, asshole?” Spence called after the tall, lanky form pacing fast away from us.
The man’s head partially turned, and his lips might’ve mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Jesus,” Spence said. “You okay?”
“Fine.” But I said it softly, rubbing my shoulder and still staring after the skulking form of Ed.
“Know him?” Spence asked once we resumed walking.
“Not really. Hangs out at the bar sometimes.”
Spence threw an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.”
I turned to him, tucking myself deeper into his waist, a place where Ed’s strange shove didn’t matter anymore. “Gladly.”