My thumb traces a small circle against her lower back.
She doesn’t move away.
Then the song ends. The lights shift brighter, the next track faster, and the moment scatters like smoke.
She steps back slightly, smoothing her jacket.
“I should find my friends.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I said I’d meet them.”
“Will you be here later?”
She looks at me for a long moment. The crowd moves around us.
“I think my friends are leaving soon. But… I’m not ready to go home yet.”
“Come back to mine,” I hear myself say.
Her eyes search my face. “We barely know each other.”
“I know I’ve been looking for you since October. And I know I don’t want tonight to end yet.”
“Okay,” she says.
The walk to my apartment is quiet.
She’s walking close enough that our shoulders brush every few steps.
“So, you live off campus,” she says.
“I’m in final year. I got sick of dorm life.”
“Must be nice. Having your own space.”
“It has its advantages.”
She glances at me sideways, that small smile playing at her lips. “Like bringing strangers home from parties?”
“I meant quiet mornings and no one stealing my coffee… but I could make exceptions.”
She laughs - a real one this time - and the sound does something dangerous to my ability to think clearly.
We reach my building and I unlock the door. The stairs are narrow and creaky, and she follows me up without hesitation, her footsteps echoing behind mine.
My apartment is small. It’s a living room with a small couch,a kitchen the size of a closet and a tiny bedroom through the door at the end. I turn on a lamp instead of the overhead light.
She stands in the middle of the room, looking around.
“Hockey stuff,” she observes, nodding at the sticks in the corner and the framed jersey on the wall.
“Guilty.”
“Figured.”
She turns in a slow circle, taking it in. The pile of textbooks on the coffee table. The Giants schedule pinned to the fridge.
