His arm tightens around me, and when he talks, his voice has gotten deeper, and it’s got nothing to do with sleep.
“I know,” he says. “I felt it. And it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
That makes me smile.
“Also…yeah, I want to do it again.”
Caleb
She's still here in the morning.
That's the first thing I clock, before my eyes are even all the way open. The weight of her on the other side of the mattress. The fact that she didn't bolt in the night. For a guy whose whole life is people leaving before sunup, a girl still in the bed at dawn is about the closest thing to a miracle I've got.
“You're staring,” she says, without turning around.
“I'm admiring, especially that ass of yours. There's a difference.”
“From a man who claims he notices everything, why are you gawking at an ass you probably have watched a million times?”
I smile to myself. She’s right.
“You’re right, but this is different. I’m committing every part of it to memory.” I prop up on an elbow. “How long have you been awake?”
“A while.” She rolls to face me, blanket up to her chin, and there's this nervous thing she does with her lip, like she's never woken up to a half-decent guy (good). “Your blinds do a thing around six-forty. The light comes through in stripes. It hits the far wall for about ten minutes, and then it's gone.”
“Yeah?”
“It's the best part of the day. Nobody's ever awake to see it.”
“I'm awake,” I say. “Actually, I’m normally at the rink by this time.”
“That’s right.” She looks at me a beat too long. “You are.”
I make her eggs. Toast not touching, because that's just how I do it now. She eats every bite in my T-shirt with her hair wrecked, off one of the two matching plates I bought yesterday.
It is, hands down, the best morning of my life. A mattress on the floor, a bare apartment, a girl who likes the light in stripes. That's more than I've ever had.
“You bought plates,” she says, like she just clocked it.
“Don't make it a thing.”
“You owned one plate three weeks ago. I ate off a cutting board.”
“And now there's two. When a guy buys a second plate, Dixon, he's planning to keep somebody around. That's the math.” I steal a triangle of her toast. She lets me, which from her, is basically a marriage proposal.
For about nine minutes, it's perfect. The day is brighter now, and the sun rises right in front of the open window. It’s probably going to be a scorcher. I catch her watching me watch it, and neither of us says a word, because some things you fuck up by talking.
Then her phone goes off on the counter, face up, and the whole room changes temperature.
DAD.
I watch it happen in real time. She sets the fork down. Her spine goes straight. The girl in my shirt folds up small and gone, and the compliance officer steps into her place in the two seconds it takes her to swipe and answer.
“Hey. No, I'm up.” Flat. Even. Perfect. “Today? I thought the Carolina people weren't back for weeks.” She goes still. Listens. Her eyes cut to me, fast. “His apartment. You want to do it at his apartment?” A pause that lasts a year. “No. No, that's fine. It's smart, it shows the staff he's settled, he's stable. What time?” Another pause. “Forty minutes? Okay, I’ll call him and make sure he’s ready.”
She hangs up.
I can tell that the little lie at the end of her conversation was extremely hard for her to say. Jasmine doesn’t lie.
