AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His smile withered a little. “We could never really agree on what films to see.”
“Sounds to me,” said Nikki, “like you’re better off finding someone else. Perhaps with some shared interests?” Her gaze flicked back to me briefly.
He shrugged again. “Maybe I just stay single for a while. Who wants to start a new relationship right before graduation, right?”
“You have a point. Unless you’re sure you’ll be able to stay in contact or make time to see each other, it’s just not practical,” I said.
“True,” said Nikki. “But sometimes the fates are against you. If something happens, who are you to close the door on something truly exceptional?”
“Jesus, Nik,” I muttered.
We sat and talked about classes, some articles we were thinking of running in the paper in the upcoming week, and had a few more drinks. Nikki kept ordering them, and I didn’t even realize she was doing it until I was filled with enough liquid courage to do something I never would have done otherwise. A song that had a decent beat thumped through the air, and I saw Jason bobbing his head a little.
“You wanna dance?” I asked.
In my periphery, Nikki froze.
Jason’s lips turned up into a little half-smile. “Sure.”
Out on the dance floor, the crowd was filled with students who hadn’t yet learned restraint when it came to alcohol, so they flailed sloppily in all directions. As I led Jason to a spot that seemed less prone to potential wild limbs invading our space, I wondered how this would go. We faced each other and started bouncing on the balls of our feet. I did my best to mimic the basics I’d seen other less inebriated people do: sway the hips, occasionally lift the arms, shift weight between the feet to the rhythm. I wasn’t a good dancer by any stretch, but it wasn’t like there were any specific dance moves anymore. No one went to a club to do the foxtrot or swing dance. It was all just gyrating to a beat.
As the music went on, I found I didn’t have to concentrate so hard on the movements. I looked up into Jason’s face and found him staring at me as we moved to the music. I wasn’t going to get another chance like this—it was too perfect. The music transitioned from one upbeat song to a slightly slower melody. My hands were still up above my head, so as I lowered them, I let my left hand rest upon his shoulder. In a heartbeat, his hands were at my waist, pulling me closer. I let the moment take me. My hands slid up his broad shoulders to the back of his neck, fingers teased at the edges of his shaggy hair. When our lips met, I felt a shock-wave rush through me, as if I was penetrated behind my navel by some ephemeral force that burst outward as soon as contact was made. I expected his arms to wrap around me, but instead they never moved, hands on my waist, fingertips pressed firmly into my soft flesh.
I only cared that he was touching me, his hands, his lips, it didn’t matter where. I’d been fantasizing about kissing Jason since a few weeks after our first meeting in an English class freshman year. We were seated next to each other and assigned to swap our short story assignments with each other to give feedback. I was floored by his vocabulary and the imagery he used to convey his plot, even if it was fairly formulaic. When he handed back my story, he seemed genuinely enthusiastic to read more of my work, and asked if I was interested in applying to the school paper with him. I agreed without even thinking twice.
That was the first time he smiled at me with his whole face, and his earnest warmth toward me was infectious. Spending time around him in class, working at the paper, even in passing, was uplifting. He was always curious to know what I was writing at the moment, eager to offer assistance with any blocks I had. His reassurance was refreshing, something foreign and fascinating.
I had been writing privately for so long, hesitant to share my stories with anyone for fear of them judging me or hating what I’d written. A teacher in middle school had called my parents to advise I be evaluated for something he’d found me writing during a study period, something that was taken out of context. Mortified and unable to speak for myself, I retreated inward and made sure to keep my stories out of sight. Nikki had always encouraged me to share more, but I had been scarred. With Jason, it was different. It was different because he was a writer like me, and he understood.
Since then, he’d remained a close friend, but only because we were always in relationships with other people. But there we were in the bar, both single at the same time, and I could not tear my lips from his. I stood on the balls of my feet, leaned into his warm chest, and thought, I could kiss these lips forever.
And then the world lurched violently to the side.
A group of very drunk students got carried away in the music and toppled into and over us, shoving us sideways into a high-top table at the edge of the dance floor. This could not have been the first time such an event had happened, because the table had been securely fastened to the floor to prevent it from crashing down. It would have bruised my ribs less if it had simply tipped over like any old table.
“Are you okay?” Jason shouted over the speakers. I nodded, clutching my side. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked and gently took my arm to steady me.
My heart fluttered in my chest. “Yes, please,” I bellowed back. We swung by the bar to grab my purse and tell Nikki we were leaving. She flashed me a not-so-discreet wink, then turned back to the frat boy that was leaning over her.
I was suddenly overjoyed that we lived in the same building—he lived on the third floor, while Nikki and I lived on the sixth—and that it wasn’t very far from the bar. He held my hand from the moment we stepped into the brisk evening air all the way to when he opened his suite door for me. His room, like nearly all rooms in the building, consisted of a shared living space that joined a bathroom and two bedrooms, and each bedroom was shared by two students. The suites were coveted by many of the university’s students simply for the private bathroom and the living room for entertaining. It was rare for anyone younger than a junior to get a spot there, since upperclassmen received priority housing across the board. Rarer still were those to get a spot and not need the room at all.
“I don’t want to wake any of your suitemates,” I said.
“Don’t worry about that. The two in that room happen to be from the next town over, so they usually spend weekends at home. I don’t really know why they even bothered getting on-campus housing at all if they weren’t going to use it.”
“Oh. And your roommate?”
“I thought I told you this,” he said, amused. “Last semester, he claimed to meet the love of his life who has one of those high end apartments at the edge of campus. When I got back from winter break, all his stuff was gone, so this entire suite is basically mine.”
I hesitated as it sunk in that Jason had a four person suite to himself. It was unheard of. “You basically won the housing lottery,” I breathed.
He laughed a deep, warm chuckle. “Yeah.”
It was surprisingly likely that I could spend the entirety of the rest of that weekend with him in that room, and no one would bother us. My heart raced at the thought. Jason unlocked his bedroom door and turned on the light. The rooms all came equipped with two beds and two desks, all the same dimensions to allow for either bunking or lofting the beds. In my own room, Nikki and I chose to loft our beds over our own desks, allowing for the most possible floor space. Jason didn’t have to worry about that, so instead, he’d somehow lofted one of the desks over the other, then pushed both beds together to create a makeshift California king.
“Tada,” he said in a slightly joking tone.
“My god, I didn’t know something like this would even work.”
