We fit the sheet on, place the pillows, and change out the duvet cover. Once the bed is sorted, I take out the dirty laundry and leave it in a pile to take downstairs and wash later, then head up to the final room to put sheets on the last bed.
“Where are you going?” Callie asks, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“To put a sheet on my bed.”
“But my room is up there.”
I look at her over my shoulder. “Aye. We’re going to be neighbors.”
It’sone thing to keep my distance from Callie physically during the day. Yes, I am attracted to her and there is a wee bit of flirtation between us, but it’s all innocent. Now it’s late, the entire house is settled in their rooms, and I’m in bed. Only a thin wall separates our rooms, and I can’t sleep knowing she’s mere feet from me, not sleeping either.
How do I know? She won’t stop moving. First it was the bed shifting. Then it was the floor boards creaking. Then it was the window opening, yet closing again after a few minutes. I can hear everything through this wall, and she’s restless.
Has she been this way every night? At what point is it appropriate to check on her?
My guess is never.
I sit against my headboard in a T-shirt and tartan flannel pajama pants, the blanket pulled up my legs and my head leaning against the wall.
A light knock comes from behind my head and I whip toward it so fast my neck spasms.
“Gavin?” comes her muffled voice.
I push the blanket from my legs and swing them off the bed to face the wall better. “Callie?” I say back.
“You’re awake?” she asks. She’s hard to hear but I can make out what she’s saying.
I’m up and out of my room immediately. When I reach her door, I hesitate again. These boundaries are weird, and I don’t want to cross any, but what if something’s wrong? There’s definitely something keeping her awake right now, and she did ask for me.
Callie doesn’t leave me time to make a decision, though. She opens the door. Despite the late hour and darkness surrounding us, I can see her expression clearly. Moonlight bouncing off the snow and coming through the windows lights the hallway well enough, and I’m instantly relieved to see a lack of utter devastation in her expression.
“You’re not hurt?” I say for confirmation.
She’s in a loose T-shirt and leggings, her hair thrown up in a messy bun. “I’m not. My career might be over though.”
“What happened?”
“It’s not important, and it’s late. But I heard you awake and my internet is being weird. Is that a night thing? I’m not usually awake now.”
That answered that. This is a special circumstance, some sort of emergency keeping her up. I fold my arms over my chest and lean one shoulder against her door frame. “Career-ending problem sounds important to me.”
Callie rubs her eyes. “Bekah—my best friend—just haddinner with some of the department faculty tonight and overheard them talking about an internship I didn’t apply for.”
“What are you talking about, Callie?”
She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “We have internships that let us work with certain agencies and get experience. Sometimes those turn into real jobs, other times it’s just hours toward licensure. Either way, they’re important. Bekah’s dating one of my professors, so it’s not weird she would be at this dinner. She heard someone mention they were surprised I hadn’t applied for this internship to work with at-risk youth, because it’s kind of what I want to do. The thing is, I hadn’t learned of it.”
“I see.”
“Kayla is my…liaison, I guess you could call it. She’s supposed to inform me when opportunities arise.”
“She kept it from you.”
“Probably.” Callie sits on the edge of her bed, beside her computer, and drops her face in her hands. “There’s nothing in my junk folder, at least. I don’t want to believe she’d sabotage me. Women supporting women is so much more appealing, and I’d like to believe she’s just forgetful or something. Alex dumped me for her, so her jealousy makesnosense at all. But this isn’t the first time this has happened.”
“That’s enormously frustrating.”
“It’s slowing down my schooling, which makes me want to pull my teeth out. It’s slow enough already. Sometimes I wonder if she’s gaslighting me. Am I making it all up or is she really trying to make things harder for me?”
