Yeah, crashed hard last night.
Heat swamps my neck and drifts down my shirt as I place the invitation back on the fridge, sliding the bottle cap magnet over the corner. I did crash hard last night, that isn’t a lie, but not before putting in another 5 miles on the treadmill at the campus gym, then lint rolling half of my closet and meal prepping quinoa salads for the rest of the week.
People without exhaustive inner turmoil just don’t understand how a person can be absolutely exhausted from continual thought but be physically energized and able to tackle a list of crap. That’s me. So sick of thinking or choosing to not think about certain things that at the end of some days, I just don’t have hanging out or socializing in me.
It’s not because Noah makes me face things about myself I’ve since made peace with, and it’s not because Noah makes me feel things I’ve never felt.
It’s the social battery thing, one hundred percent.
Kat and Zennie send me home with a loaf of chocolate chip banana bread, because Zennie is an incredible baker. She kept her mother nourished through her chemotherapy, and she’s gotten Kat a lot healthier in terms of eating regularly between the cigarettes and showings. Actually, Kat even gave up smoking for Zennie.
As I walk back to my house, enjoying the moonlight glowing through a haze of ethereal fog, I think about my sister and Zennie. Kat has always been loud, bright, and vivacious, in her temperament, her personality, and her soul. She’s the life of the party with the loudest laughand the biggest smile, and she’s my polar opposite, even down to her box-dyed black hair. Even in our stark differences, we’ve always been close. She’s always been a best friend to me, and I know I can go to her with anything.
My close relationship with my sister has taught me that opposites can attract, and do all the time. Case in point, Zennie is so different from Kat, too. And when I think about how different they are in nature, in the way they dress, their music tastes and expressions, I think about Noah.
Noah Ryan is charismatic, the type of man who can take part in any conversation and leave as a highlight. He’s never been in a room alone, because he makes fast friends with everyone, and both men and women swivel their heads to follow his gait.
At home, I place the bread in the freezer, thinking about Noah’s walk, the way he pairs something timeless like a cable knitted short sleeved polo with something youthful and unprofessional, like oversized barrel chinos or baggy, raw-hemmed jeans. He’s got a smattering of tattoos up his forearm, none of them cohesive with the last, none of them obvious to their meaning. His ears are both pierced, and that’s not something I’d ever thought I’d like. But the way all the things I normally dislike become so hugely attractive on Noah, when it comes to Noah… that’s what’s on my mind.
That may or may not be part of the reason why I cancelled. He stirs up things in me I don’t know how toexplore. If I can explore. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is really about Noah, orme.
I’ve come to terms with who I am. Scholastic, hard-working, professional. Not everyone needs a torrid love affair or loveless marriage to be complete. Not all lives require romance, hot sex and dates. Is it nice? I don’t know, I’ve never had it, but I’m sure it is. But is it essential? No, no it’s not.
I grab my favorite white wine and the new stemless glass I got from my dad, and sink into my couch, turning on the TV to discover the worst version ofPride and Prejudicestreaming. “No one wants a latter day retelling ofPride and Prejudice,” I grumble at the general direction of the flatscreen as I glug my wine and stupidly don’t change the channel, cursingRomeo and Julietfor starting this stupid trend.
From my pocket, my phone dings, and a small vibration follows the noise, sending a raw tingle through my thigh. I finish my first glass of Sonoma Sangiacomo and unlock my phone to see a text message from Noah waiting.
The wine makes my stomach clench, and I sit up on the couch, the movie instantly becoming a faceless blur of background noise.
Glad you’re ok. How about tomorrow morning for the peer review? I was thinking you could sit in on my 9 o’clock before your 10:20 lecture?
Normally, I arrive on campus at least two hours earlybefore my first lecture, in case a student needs me, as well as to answer emails, and to ensure my lecture for the day is prepared. I’ll already be on campus, and since we lecture in the same auditorium, all I’ll have to do is stay put once I’m done sitting in on Noah’s popular fiction class.
It’s a plan that makes sense.
Sounds good
I pour more wine and drink it, chasing the delighted hum in my veins as Noah’s dots jump on screen.
Cool. See you first thing tomorrow.
I get caught on those five words.See you first thing tomorrow. I wonder, briefly, in the privacy of my home, with the TV playing and the lights low, the city buzzing all around me outside…
What does Noah Ryan look like first thing in the morning?When he rolls over, does he stretch his feet into the undiscovered pockets of cold left in the abandoned part of the sheets? Does he like to sleep in on his weekends, and does he have pajamas or does he sleep in the nude? Does he have more tattoos that I haven’t seen because I’ve never seen him the way a lover would? I sip the white, the back of my nose stinging when I finish the second glass relatively quickly.
Between my legs, there’s a heaviness, a perpetual, unattended hungriness rearing its head, begging for my attention.I set the wine glass down on the side table, and flick off the TV, lock up, and head to my room. I ignore the blazing desire running rampant through my system as I take a hot shower, complete my skincare routine, and plug in my laptop to charge.
I run through my lecture in my head as I’m drifting off, and eventually, the discomfort of my raging erection dissipates.
“Is thereanything I need to know?” I ask Noah as we walk the corridor leading to the university library. Noah’s favorite coffee is here I think, because he’s always offering for us to get it when we come this way. We try to make it here instead of the cafeteria when we have the extra time to cross campus.
Three students are in line, and we join the queue behind them. Noah, dressed in a pressed black t-shirt with cuffed, front-seam earthy culottes and white Nike sneakers, merely shrugs. I look down at my cardigan resting over my dress shirt and tie, and at the fitted khakis on my thighs. I look the part of a college professor, while he looks the part of total fuckboy.
Noah’s reply snaps me out of my stupid introspection. “Nah. I mean, normal day, normal lecture. Not preparing for any papers or anything so no.”We reach the front of the line, and Noah takes the initiative, ordering both of our coffees and sliding the barista a ten before I can offer.
He faces me, his eyes hard to ignore this morning, catching the sun’s early light. They’re so clear, they remind me of sweet rootbeer and rich whiskey, both things I enjoy. I smooth a hand down the curved lapel of my wool sweater, one that Zennie got me for my birthday last year, and force my mind to go other places than the beauty of Noah Ryan.
“Did you read the sheet?” he asks, popping the white plastic lid from his coffee to blow on the fiery surface. The coffee ripples, and my mouth goes dry. I sip my scorching hot drink, and pretend to be utterly unfazed by the soft shove of his hand in his hair, and the way his shiny, dark locks drift over his forehead for a second before he neatly pushes them back.
