She takes a moment to think. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”
“Okay.”
I close my notebook. I am, somewhere under theokay,pretending that I’m not beaming on the inside.
We pack up.
She zips her tote and slings it over her left shoulder. I shoulder my backpack. We are out of 3B at three minutes past five, and I take her hand on the way down the hallway. Before we make it to the elevator, I pull her in between the shelves and press her against the library books.
She giggles against my mouth. “Bens, what are you doing?”
I answer her with a kiss. I press myself against her and groan. This girl drives me wild. I grab her face and let my tongue slip in her mouth. Someone walks by and clears their throat. Lucy and I look at each other and laugh as I pull her through the library.
On the way out, a girl looks at our hands, then at me. A guy at one of the tables looks up from his laptop and registers Lucy and then me and then the hands. Karen looks over and stares for a moment too long. Lucy squirms a little with her pink cheeks, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.
We walk in the direction of her apartment, and then we stop at her car. She unlocks it, and I get her bags out of the trunk. She unlocks the front door of the building with the key on the ring. She walks up the stairs in front of me.
I watch her ass on the way up. She’s in a pair of jeans I haven’t seen on her before.
She unlocks the apartment door and pushes it open. The apartment is empty. The lights are off. The koala mug is in the dish rack. I kick the door shut behind me with my foot and carry the bags to her bedroom.
She follows me in and looks around her room. The closet door is open, and some of her shirts fell off the hangers. There’s a pile of laundry on the desk chair. Papers cover her desk. It’s somehow still not that messy in here.
“Happy to be back?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah.” She smiles.
“Want help unpacking?”
“Oh.”
I cross the room and stop in front of her. “Or I can just watch.”
“You don’t have to be anywhere?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, I leave tomorrow morning. I’m gone until Sunday morning.”
“How often do you travel?” she asks.
I look at her. Her eyes are wide. I think it’s finally registered that she’s dating a varsity athlete on a Division I roster, and I have a busy schedule.
“A lot.” I add, “Which is why it’s good you have my sister.”
She looks around. “Yeah.”
“Want to come over on Sunday?”
“Sunday?”
“Yeah. I’ll be wrecked, so I’ll be at the house all day. Come over and do homework or something.”
She smiles. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay.”
She unpacks, and I sit on the edge of her bed and watch her.
She pulls clothes out of the duffel, folds them, and puts them in the dresser. She pulls the laptop case out and sets it on the desk. She pulls out the small bag of toiletries and walks them to the bathroom across the hall. She comes back. She pulls out thelong-sleeve she has not folded yet and folds it. She starts a load of laundry mid-unpack. She walks the small basket down the hall to the laundry closet. She comes back and keeps unpacking.
