Tessa

It doesn’t take long for us to find our own groove and before I know it, weeks have gone by and I’m navigating this roommate/sex-buddy thing surprisingly smoothly. It’s quite straightforward really. When we’re naked, we do naked things, and when we’re not, we don’t. It’s as simple as that. No pointless make out sessions when we’re dressed, no deep conversations (anymore) when we’re naked. Though, we have plenty of both within the proper perimeters of our arrangement.

“Hey, wait up,” Drea calls out just as I’m about to start down the stairs.

“Where are you going this time of morning?” It’s weird to even have to ask, but there’s still an odd, unacknowledged distance between us that keeps me out of the basic loop and vice versa.

“Just the parking lot,” she says, catching up to me. “Figured we could walk and talk.”

“We’re going to do that? Talk about it?” It’s not really our thing. But then, neither is fighting. The usual squabbles we have are easily ignored the next day and then life just carries on as normal. Didn’t quite work out that way for us this time around and it’s been really strange not having her bursting in at all hours of the day and night.

“Ignoring it and pretending it just went away hasn’t worked.”

“Weird, right?”

She laughs, slapping her thigh in exasperation. “Yes! What went wrong, man? That’s how we process! Ten years of friendship have taught us this.”

“I think we both kind of jumped the rails where the usual process is concerned,” I say, sighing when we hit the second landing. “First, I went all crazy, then you went all crazy, and the crazy was all crazy and so not our usual crazy, I think it’s only natural we screwed it up a bit.”

She hooks her arm into mine as we hop the last few steps to the bottom the same way we did when we were twelve and she came over every day after school while her parents were at work. “I’m glad I understood all that. Must mean we’re fixed again.”

We bump shoulders when we reach the pavement, both giggling like neither of us has a care in the world. Sometimes being reminded you still have your best friend by your side is all it takes to feel that way.

“There’s just one little thing,” I add as we’re about to part ways in the parking lot.

“Lane,” she groans, “You’re going to make me not hate him, aren’t you?!”

“He’s not who you think he is,” I reason.

She rolls her eyes, but it’s more in surrender than anything. “I know,” she mumbles begrudgingly. “I talked to Jules. Well, it was more like she came venting to me. Bitching about how he must be gay because she used all her best moves and not one worked on him.”

“Did you tell her...?”

“That he’s not gay?” Her brows rise to meet her hairline. Speaking in code brings out all of her most animated expressions. “No. Decided it was better for everyone if she continues believing she’s got nothing he wants. Which, clearly, is true anyway.”

I nod, perfectly happy to leave it at that. No need to expound any more on what Lane does or doesn’t want and whether or not he’s still getting it.

“Thanks.” I give her a hug before I start to walk the last few feet to my car. “I’m glad we did the talking thing.”

“Me too. But let’s try not to need it again. It’s yucky.” She shudders, as if trying to shake off the ick of feelings and such.

“Yes, let’s,” I agree, amused with her antics to the point I’m still grinning when I get in my car and take off. Or maybe that’s just the giddy feeling I get when I know my best friend and I are back to normal.

Normal is a relative term of course, and tends to apply itself so sparingly to my life. Kind of like now, as I’m headed to my first class. Seems normal enough. I come here every week. I like the class. As far as I know, I’m doing well in it. And that’s not counting all the extra credit I’ve been doing.

Still, nothing ever feels normal anymore about reaching for that handle and walking in. Not even the sight of an empty classroom, which greets me plenty on my day to day life given my inclination to arrive early for things whenever possible.

Today he takes one look at me and, “Out!”

“Excuse me?” I’m too stunned to add any sort of feeling to my reaction.

“You can’t be in here,” he says flatly, very intently stacking up sheets of papers that have been stapled together in small bundles. In other news, I think we’ve got a pop quiz coming at us today.

“I can totally be in here. And I can sit in the back row. And I can shut my mouth and you can stop talking to me and then neither of us will even know the difference,” I rationalize my way through his ridiculousness.

His stack of papers hits the desk with an intentional wham. “I’ll know.” He lifts his head just far enough for his eyes to meet mine. “I can smell you. And that’s a problem. Because if I can smell you, I want to look at you. And if I look at you, I want to do other things...things I can’t even think about wanting to do while we’re here, where we’re supposed to ignore each other, except I can’t because I can smell you.”

I open my mouth to argue, for no other reason than I feel compelled to, probably because he said I smell...even if he meant it in a good way...but he cuts me off before I can even get a word out.

“No. No more talking. No more standing there, being all...you...get out.” He points at the door. “And don’t even think about returning until all of class is here. In fact, be late. Sneak in the back and sit by those stoner kids that always hang in the right corner. Maybe their stench will hide you.”

It’s supremely hard to take him seriously, and yet, he does seem to mean it. Eyes wide and a loud exasperated gasp laced with giggles later, I’m backing out of the room, hands up in surrender.

Shaking my head, I take a few more steps out into the hall, there definitely wasn’t anything normal about that.

Nevertheless, I follow his bizarre instructions, including sitting with Wes and JD in the back, which I may do again, because those boys are funny as hell trying to interpret Lane’s teachings while fully baked. Then, just to be on the safe side, I duck out of class a few minutes early.

From there the day takes on a bit of a déjà vu vibe, feeling eerily similar to our first day of class and my intense desires to avoid Lane and further humiliation at all cost. Only today it’s not humiliation I’m steering clear of. To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m attempting to remove myself from. His intense yearning from me? My sudden desirability? The way I make men wild with my untamed sexiness?

By the time I’m done following that train of thought, I’m bent over laughing, looking like a full-blown lunatic in the middle of campus.

My eyes still watering up despite my efforts to squelch the laughter, I take the long way to the track, just to avoid anyone stopping me and demanding an explanation, or at the very least to be let in on the joke.

After running my ass off, literally, for over two hours, I’m too exhausted to contemplate the craziness any longer. Gross and wiped out, I stumble into our apartment, grateful to find it empty for once.

“Shower,” I mutter to Dick who comes strolling out of my room as soon as he hears me walk in. “Shower, then I feed you.”

He meows loudly, voicing his displeasure, but he knows the routine. On track nights, he never gets fed on time. Doesn’t matter that he sits right outside my shower the entire duration of it, yelling at me. I can’t be swayed. And there are few things I can still claim that about.

Lane

“Why aren’t you eating my paella? Do you have any idea what it took to make that? I’ve been in the kitchen for hours!” Alexis nudges the plate a little closer to me, just in case I’ve been too far away from it to grasp the privilege of being served such an exquisite dish.

“You really think I don’t know Tapas’ paella when I see it? Come on, we ate there every Sunday growing up.” I lean back into my chair, laughing at her. “The woman who can’t successfully scramble eggs trying to pass off restaurant quality Spanish cuisine as her own. That’s fantastic, Lex.”

Her nose scrunches up as she retracts my meal and starts to work it over with her own fork. “Fine. I picked it up on the way home from the hospital. Also, I got it for me, not you.”

“Obviously.” I cross my arms, relaxing a bit now that I’m no longer being pressured to eat. Food is the last thing on my mind.

“Why are you here, Lane?” she asks, mouth half-full and reaching for her water. “For months, all I hear every time I try and talk to you is that you need space. Then, that chick shows up and now it’s like I can’t turn around without running into you.”

“The last time I saw you, you called me!”

She shrugs. “Yeah, but you were only on my mind because you insisted I get in touch with everyone I know and drag them to the Basement the day before.”

“Nice to know I’m so easily forgotten otherwise.” I know she’s not being serious. She’s getting back at me for being MIA all summer long and refusing to talk to her even when she went all out and an act of desperation forced her to play the twin card.

“You know how it goes. Out of sight, out of mind.” She moves a large mussel out of the way as she digs through the rice, likely in search of more shrimp. She always eats those first. Always has.

“Are you done yet?”

She lifts her head, eyes rolling thoughtfully toward the ceiling, then she sighs. “Yeah, I guess I could be done.” She finds the shrimp and stabs it, raising it into the air triumphantly before shoving it into her mouth. “But that means you have to actually start talking.”

“Nah, didn’t come to talk.”

“Are you kidding me with this?”

“Yes.” It’s just too easy to get her going. “Of course, I came here to talk. Well, ask a question. And I need you to be honest with me.”

“I’m always honest. It’s the least likeable thing about me,” she mutters, searching her plate for more shrimp, all of which I’m sure are in her belly already, but I don’t say anything because she’s better at advice when she’s not thinking too much about giving it.

“Do you think I was ever in love with Olivia?”

“No.” Damn. She didn’t even skip a beat on that one. Still looking for shrimp though.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.” She gives a lackluster poke at an open mussel, apparently accepting defeat in her quest for more shrimp, and raises her gaze to meet mine again. “I mean, I always thought you were, but you don’t ask a question like that unless you have doubts, and you only have doubts if it’s not the real deal.”

“Maybe I don’t have doubts. Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize how we ended up where we did. Maybe I would prefer to think there’s a possibility I was never in love at all, and that’s why I missed...all the obvious shit I missed.”

She frowns and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with having finished the last of the mussels now too. “What are we doing here, Lane? Are you asking my opinion or are you trying to use me to psychoanalyze yourself?”

I drop my elbows to my knees, leaning into my hands, covering my face and half hoping it will finally be the thing that blocks her out, makes her disappear. It’s not.

“It’s Tessa,” I groan into my palm.

“Yeah, we can go ahead and skip the obvious parts.”

I’m so caught off guard, I lift my head to look at her again.

“What?” Her fork does a swirl through the air as she does a halfhearted attempt at throwing her hands up at me without giving up on the commitment she’s made to eating her dinner. “I was there. I saw the way you were looking at her all night.” Her fork starts swirling about again, this time it comes shooting out at me. “That’s not love either, by the way.”

I snort. “It’s...something.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes bug out at me. “Sex.”

It’s more than that. It’s unlike any sex I’ve ever had before. There’s this intense physical connection anytime I’m with her, I can’t begin to understand, let alone explain, and I sure as hell can’t seem to control it. “It’s more complicated than just sex.”

She drops her fork into her fairly empty plate, pushing both out of the way. “Really, what would be complicated about sleeping with your student, one you already live with and who clearly has a crapload of issues before adding you to her load,” she scoffs, words dripping in sarcasm.

“You’re right. Being honest is the least likeable thing about you.” I start to get up. I’ve got her undivided attention now which means she’s basically useless to me. “Thanks for listening though.”

I’m nearly to the door when I hear her again.

“Are you taking pictures?”

“No.” Haven’t even unpacked my camera since I moved.

“You should. Your lens always shows you what you need to see. Pretty sure Olivia taught you that much at least.”

Which is precisely why my camera is buried at the bottom of my old duffel bag, under the extra linens I didn’t need and the winter clothes I may or may not have to unpack while I live at the condo. Some things hurt too damn much to see.