“Wait, what?” I stand, walking over to the window to peer down at the street. “You’re in Brooklyn?”
I can hear car horns coming through the line as he speaks. “Yeah, I don’t know where I’m going. There’s — an ACME? A nail salon? A bodega?”
“Harjeet makes the best coffee,” I interject absently.
“— But I don’t know which way to walk,” he finishes. “You never told me where you live.”
“Hold on, I’ll text you.” I hang up the phone and type my address into a text. Then I take a quick glance around my apartment. The clothes can be scooped up and stuffed into a hamper, and the lunch plate on my desk can go into the sink, but there isn’t much to be done about the piles of books everywhere, the dusty carpet that I usually just try to ignore. With how much time I spend working (and now commuting back and forth to Manhattan to see Cole), picking up after myself is usually the last thing on my mind.
I do what I can, then shove my feet into my sneakers and grab my keys, pounding down the three flights to the front door. I’m just stepping out onto the front stoop when I spot Cole walking up the street. Effortlessly stylish, as usual, in a tissue-thin white V-neck that shows off a great deal of his narrow chest, his hair pulled back from his face, a pair of sunglasses that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget, a bag slung over his shoulder. When he sees me, his whole face lights up.
“Sothisis Brooklyn —” he calls.
“Tell me —” I retort as he trots up the steps. “Whyisit that every Manhattan queen who comes to Brooklyn has to act like they’re traveling to the third world?”
“Who are you calling a queen?” he cackles, and sweeps me up in a rib-cracking hug.
There’s something about the way he’s holding me — both arms wrapped tightly around my back, rocking me gently as he buries his nose in my shoulder, breathing in deeply — that makes me pull back and study his face.
“Are you okay?” I frown.
He reaches out and touches the tip of my nose with his finger. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Because we did say we were going to do our own thing this weekend —”
“What can I say? I got bored.” He shrugs, then hesitates, chewing his lip. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, it’s not a problem. Come on, I’ll take you upstairs.” As we walk, I feel like I'm seeing the building through Cole’s eyes. Cracked tile in the foyer. No elevator, and three stories up. A dingy hallway with a thin brown carpet. The way my doorknob always rattles when I slide in the key. My apartment, with its single room, my whole life visible the moment I open the door.
“It’s um, cozy —” Cole says as he stashes his sandals by the door. He crosses to the bed, putting down his bag and sitting carefully on the mattress.
“Yeah, I know it’s a shithole.” I stand in the middleof the room, shifting my feet. “Hey, I’m really sorry because you came all this way, but I actually do have a metric fuckton of papers to grade. And some of them really should have been done earlier this week, so I need to catch up on them today. Will you be okay if I work for a bit? You could read, or take a nap, or —”
“I brought stuff to do,” Cole interjects quickly. “I figured you couldn’t drop everything.”
“Okay, so I’m gonna —” I jerk my thumb toward my computer, and Cole nods, pulling a book out of his bag and sprawling on my bed. I sit down again, jerking the mouse to wake up my computer screen and silently praying that at least one of the papers I grade in the next half hour will have a thesis sentence.
Ten minutes later, while I’m mentally cursing the fact that I was ever born, Cole stands up, stretching luxuriously, his long fingers brushing the ceiling as he extends them to their full length. He pulls the elastic out of his hair, shaking his waves over his shoulders, then begins to walk around the perimeter of the room, touching random objects as he goes.
“Damn, you have a lot of books,” he remarks, standing in front of the mismatched shelves that I’ve managed to collect over the years.
“I’m an academic,” I explain. “I think they sort of just — appear? Like I swear I go to bed at night, they all fuck, and then there are twelve new books when I wake up in the morning.”
“Kinky.” Cole walks up behind me, dragging his fingertips across my shoulders. Then he leans against the wall next to my desk, folding his arms behind his back and pushing his hips out, the whole elegant length of him on display for the taking.
I huff and hunch over my work, my fingers flying across the keyboard.You have interesting ideas, but I’d like to see you developing your topic sentences and signposting the reader’s way through your essay. 82/100. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.”
“What am I trying to do?” Cole’s voice is low and sultry, a ribbon of laughter rumbling beneath the tease.
I swivel my chair to face him, sliding my hands around the backs of his thighs, and he climbs readily into my lap, straddling my hips and wrapping his arms around my neck with a contented sigh.
“You’re trying to distract me,” I whisper against his skin as I ghost my lips down the line of his throat. “You think I’m going to break —” Hands gliding up Cole’s denim-clad thighs, snaking around his hips to palm his ass. “You think I’ll do whatever you want —” Our faces tipping together, mouths nearly touching, our breath mingling in the space between us, a whine escaping Cole’s throat —
“But I can’t.” A gentle slap across the seat of his pants, a disappointed huff. I laugh, gently pushing him away. “I have fifteen more papers to finish. After that, I’m all yours.”
“Fine,” Cole grumbles, scrambling to his feet and grabbing his bag. He walks down the hall to the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.
He’s gone for quite a while, and I take advantage of the quiet, working my way through three more papers. When he emerges, he appears to be in a good mood again, swinging his hips as he walks. He crosses the room to my wardrobe, opening the door and peering inside. Then he reaches for the hem of his T-shirt, peeling it up and over his head.
