Page 45 of Best Man on Campus

“No. I… can’t.” She turns away, rolling on her side, but I hold her and she lets me spoon.

“It’s okay. I get it. Just rest, Jazzy. I got you.”

She heaves a big breath and I feel her relax. That makes one of us. The surge of protectiveness and responsibility I feel overwhelms me, goes beyond anything I’ve felt before. Maybe I can help her, maybe she’s beginning to trust me enough to let me in. The crack is there, I can feel it in the way her breathing slows and her body relaxes against me.

* * *

The sun glaring in the window wakes me the next morning, thank fuck, because I need to get up and get to class. Trying not to wake Jazzy, I push aside the covers and roll from the sofa bed, feeling the discomfort of the less than substantial mattress in my back. “Shit.”

“You’re leaving?” She turns to me, half sitting up.

“Yeah. Sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I have classes too.”

“I’m running late for organic chem. It’s a bear and the midterm is on Friday.”

She gets up and pads to the kitchen area. “Let me make you some coffee.”

“Who are you and what did you do with my Jazzy?”

She flashes me her middle finger. “I’m making it for myself anyway.” I laugh, ecstatic that she didn’t call me on referring to her as my Jazzy. It was a slip. A telling one.

“That’s more like it.” I find my pants and get dressed.

“So what’s the big deal about organic chem?”

“It’s all the memorization. The exam covers fifty terms. For instance, did you know that a Lewis acid is an agent capable of accepting a pair of electrons to form a coordinate bond?”

“Catchy tune,” she says, then she sings about Lewis acids as if they’re the sexiest things ever invented.

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Yes. And no.”

It’s an unexpectedly serious answer and I’m not sure how to read her, so I joke. “I ought to memorize the terms in a song like the ABC’s.”

“Send me a study sheet and I’ll put something catchy together. I’ll make a video and send it to you.”

“Seriously?”

“If you come back tonight.”

“You don’t need to bribe me for that.” I go to her where she stands at the coffeepot, her back to me, and give her a kiss on the top of her head. I want to show her how I feel, stiff and ready, but I hold back. Patience.

I take my coffee and leave with a chaste-for-Jazzy kiss and hope she opens up to me tonight, that we can get past whatever haunts her from her past, sooner than later.

* * *

At the end of the day, all showered and ready for anything to happen, but hoping for a miracle, I head to Jazzy’s after dinner. She’s texted me a video of her organic chem rap song and I swear I almost break my face with a grin watching it. She must have spent all day on it and I wonder if she skipped class to make it.

The minute she opens the door she asks, “Well?”

Taking her in my arms, I lift her off her feet and kiss her furiously, with the pent-up passion and mix of gratitude and adoration that I can’t keep bottled.

“Are you a lunatic?” She laughs and I savor the sound, still rare, so beautiful.

“Maybe,” I say putting her on her feet. I want to admit I’m mad about her, but something tells me to hold back. Her sassy smirk and her hands on her hips in place, she’s wearing her uniform: skinny jeans and a T-shirt, this one bright red. The bold color is perfect for her, making her already inviting pink-red lips all but reach out and grab me.