Jake

 

Buying groceries for Lauren wasn’t enough. I knew I had to get her the job at the school. I’d finally gotten Rossi on board in exchange for a favor. As the day wound to an end, however, I still had to convince Chavez. I’d been on the phone with him for twenty minutes, but I almost had him convinced. I leaned back on my couch and got comfortable in case this took a while.

“I know Brody makes more sense physically, but Lauren can handle it too,” I said, smiling as I remembered our impromptu arm wrestling earlier in the day. “And we all know that even though he’s a decent artist, he’s inherently lazy. Otherwise he’d be moving on to bigger challenges instead of taking the same classes over and over. He’ll hang around the art building all right, but will he actually get anything done?”

Chavez sighed. “Probably not. I wish we’d had more than two applicants to choose from.” He paused before continuing, “Okay, let’s give it to Lauren. If we have any problems, we can reevaluate at the end of the semester. Tell her to go fill out forms at the personnel office.”

Before I could respond, someone knocked on my door. Standing up, I said, “Sure. I’ll take care of it. Thanks.” I hung up and opened the door. It was Lauren, as if talking about her had summoned her to me. With the dying sunset to the west gilding her skin, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, though I was a little creeped out by the coincidence.

“Hello,” I said, my voice sounding deeper than usual.

“Hi,” she said, sounding distracted. She stood on her tiptoes, clearly trying to see past me into my apartment. “I just came over to…”

“See if I’ve dusted my furniture lately?”

“What? No. Sorry, I was just trying to see if Nick was here.”

I raised my eyebrows. It would be a cold day in Hades before Nick and I hung out. “Is there any reason he would be?”

She sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “He came over and saw the groceries you bought me and got jealous. He said something about coming over here. I just wanted to make sure…”

Her voice died away as her expression grew embarrassed, so I finished for her. “That I was okay?”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t come by.”

“Oh, good. I guess I should have called. Not that I have your number.”

She was rambling now, which made me smile. I held out my hand and said, “That’s easily fixed. I’ll put it in your phone if you want.”

She reached in her pocket for her phone, unlocked it, and handed it to me. After I put my number in her contacts, I texted my phone so I’d have hers too. “There, but don’t think that means I wish you’d called. I’m glad you came over.”

She smiled and put her phone back in her pocket. “I probably shouldn’t have though.”

I knew what she meant. Hanging out at another guy’s apartment when she was dating someone else was definitely crossing a line. But I didn’t want her to go home before I could fix a few things with her. “Do you want to go for a walk? I have something to talk to you about.”

She tilted her head and looked at me curiously. For a moment, she seemed hesitant, but then she said, “Sure.”

My shoulders relaxed. “Great. Hold on a sec.”

I ducked back inside and grabbed my phone and keys. After locking up, we went downstairs together. It was only when we got to the parking lot that I wondered where we should go. This late in the evening, the best place to walk would be on campus, so I turned that direction.

We walked without talking for a while, with only the sound of passing cars to break the silence between us. Lauren looked pensive, and I didn’t want to push her. By the time we got to the school, the pink and blue tones of twilight were shifting into dark grays, and the light poles spaced down the sidewalks cast halos of light on the pavement.

The sprinklers came on, spraying us as they spun around. I grabbed Lauren’s hand and ran before it could spray us again, pulling her behind me until we reached the large, paved courtyard. The urge to keep hold of her hand was too strong. Instead of letting go, I tangled my fingers with hers for a brief moment before pulling away.

She didn’t look at me, but she wiggled her fingers before curling them into a tight fist. Had it affected her as strongly as it had me? I couldn’t shake the desire to reach for her again, so I crammed my hands in my pockets and looked straight ahead.

A few yards later, I glanced down at Lauren as we passed through a column of light from the pole above us, wondering if she knew how beautiful she was.

“I haven’t thanked you for the groceries yet.” She’d been looking at the ground, but looked up as she spoke. “Really, it means a lot to me.”

“It was the least I could do after making your situation more difficult, even if the problem was only temporary.”

“Temporary?”

“I called Rossi and Chavez. Everyone’s on board to give you the job. You just need to do a little paperwork and you’ll officially be a part time employee of the college.”

“Are you serious?” When I nodded, she grinned and gave a little skip hop. “Can you stand to get another thank you from me?”

Unable to resist smiling back at her, I shook my head. “Please, don’t. I’m just…being a good friend.”

“Yeah.” Her smile faltered for a minute. “It’s so strange. I thought when I moved here that Nick and Natalie would be the ones I depended on most. Instead, it’s you and Beth.”

“You and Natalie aren’t getting along?”

“No, we are. It’s just that I don’t see her much. And when I do…well, I guess we’ve never had much in common.”

“Kind of like you and Nick.”

She shrugged. “I’ve never known anyone who had much in common with me, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t have a relationship with them. Like, I have nothing in common with my brothers, but I love them.”

“Ah, but family is different. Tell me more about them,” I said, hoping she’d take me up on the invitation and think of happier things for a while.

She didn’t need any more prompting. She told story after story from the ranch. Most of them had me laughing, but a few made me think that maybe I’d missed something growing up in a city. One thing I was sure of—her brothers sounded like the kinds of guys I could be friends with.

We drew near to a fountain, watching as it sprayed feathery jets into the air, illuminated by lights at the base. The falling water misted us as a breeze swept through the courtyard.

“Oh, my gosh, that feels amazing,” Lauren said, coming to a stop. She closed her eyes, and smiled as she lifted her face to the spray. “I will never get used to the humidity here.”

“Don’t worry. If you’re here long enough, you’ll grow a set of gills.”

She laughed, sounding so carefree and adorable, I wanted to grab her and swing her around. I wanted to do a few other things, but I was better off not thinking about them.

“Don’t you think that if Nick was jealous about groceries, he’d be even more jealous if he saw us together like this?” I asked, though I hated to spoil the moment.

Her expression contorted into something bordering on panic. “No, I didn’t think. I should have though.” She walked over to a bench and sat down. When I dropped down beside her, she said, “But we’re just friends, so it’s okay.”

“As far as I’m concerned. He may have a different opinion though.”

Her lips tightened for a second and she lifted her chin. “He’ll have to deal with it. I’m not losing one of my only friends because he’s jealous.”

“Good for you.”

We sat staring at the play of water and light against the backdrop of the silhouetted buildings and darkening sky, both of us caught up in our own thoughts. But warm magnetism pulled at me, urging me to close the gap between us. Unable to bear it any longer, I groaned and scrubbed my face with my hands. “Can we just be friends, Lauren?”

From the bleak look in her eyes, my meaning wasn’t lost on her. “I hope so.”