“Picking up the slack from my staff and trying to hold back on murdering my roommate,” I said. “Would you like to hear a rant?”
“Absolutely.” I leaned back on the bench and started lifting weights.
Over the next couple of hours, I listened as she told me the ins-and-outs of the university paper, how she took it far more seriously than anyone else.
I asked her questions like I was the journalist in the relationship, and by the time she’d laid out her last grievance, it was two in the morning.
“You want to know what I think, Court?” I said.
“Only if it’s not about sex.”
Silence.
She laughed louder than she had all night.
“It’s not about sex.” I laughed, too. “I just think that you need to spend your final semesters doing stuff for you instead of for other people. Otherwise, you’ll look back and regret all the time you wasted.”
“At this point, I’m just hoping that my upcoming time in London will erase all of my bad times in college.”
“London? What the hell is there?”
“One of the most prestigious writing programs in the world.” There was a smile in her voice. “They have a two percent acceptance rate and yours truly made the final round this morning.”
“So, even more years of school for something that you’re already good at? When does all of that learning turn into money?”
“Eventually,” she said. “We can’t all be superstar athletes.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t waste any more of my life in a classroom, if I was as good at writing as you.” I admitted. “I’m not just saying that to be saying that either.”
“Thank you, Kyle.”
“You’re welcome.” I paused, honestly not wanting to get off the phone. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I called her back when I made it home.
I couldn’t help it.
“Yes?” she answered on the first ring.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I was about to go to sleep.”
“Liar.” I smiled. “You stay up on Thursdays for some reason. The Facebook ‘online now’ thing never lies.”
Her laughter came over the line. “Thursdays are the romance movie marathon days on The Pitt Movies channel. They always end the night with my favorite one.”
“There’s a Pitt Movies channel?”
“It’s on seventeen.”
I picked up my remote and turned on the television, flipping through the stations. I stopped when I saw Julia Roberts in a bright red dress, looking at Richard Gere.
“What the hell is this?”
“Pretty Woman,” she said. “One of the best romance movies of all time.”
“Wait …” I sat in my chair. “Isn’t this the prostitute falls for her customer storyline?”
“It’s a lot deeper than that, Kyle.”
“Is it?” I waited for her to explain, but she only laughed. “I’ll talk to you later so you can finish.”
“Or you can stay on the phone and watch it with me until I see you tomorrow.” Her voice was faint. “I mean, only if you want to, though.”
I turned up the volume. “Feel free to tell me the deeper part of their love story that I’m missing …”
Courtney: Then
Senior Year
Pittsburgh
* * *
I stepped outside of CVS and held a binder over my head. The early throes of fall in Pittsburgh always meant nonstop rain, and I wasn’t sure why I kept forgetting my umbrella at home.
I also wasn’t sure why I still had to force myself to take breaks from my work. I was three weeks ahead with The Pitt News, caught up on my two classes, and thanks to Kyle and his insistence on making me “see” his answers instead of asking them, I was twenty pages into my thesis.
And suffering from the thickest sexual tension I’d ever felt in my life …
Being around Kyle for longer than half an hour—even talking to him on the phone, was an exercise in resistance. Although I knew better than to ever give in to his witty words or sinful gazes, I couldn’t help but wonder how his lips might feel on top of mine or constantly replay the time he tackled me at the bonfire with a far sexier ending.
I forced myself to shake away the thought of him and made my way down University Avenue. Then I slipped inside of Hemingway’s Cafe and took a seat at the bar.
Pulling out my ‘Things I Want to Do During My Senior Year’ list, I placed a tally mark next to ‘Go to a bar that everyone has raved about.’
I started to signal for the bartender, but I heard a familiar deep voice to my right.
Kyle.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll need to text me that’s what you want first.”
“Come onnnn …” A female voice followed. “It’s just sex, Kyle. With me, and as far as we go back, you know that you don’t have to be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t trust me.” She let out a soft laugh. “Like, that’s how you’re acting.”
“I don’t trust you,” he said, his voice terse. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”