Page 7 of Choosing Skyler

I’m packed and ready to get the hell out of here at eight o’clock Monday morning. I load my luggage into the trunk of my car and head to the office to see how much my one-day stay is going to cost me.

“Six hundred dollars?!” I shout. “I only stayed one damn night. I thought it was five hundred a week?”

“It is five hundred a week, CASH,” she sneers. “We have a one week minimum and twenty percent convenience fee to pay with a credit card. But I tell ya what. Since you only stayed the one day and you’re returning the key, I’ll give you half off the total. That will be a three-hundred-dollar charge.” She grins as she runs the card through the machine.

“Fine. Just run it for three hundred and remove the pre-authorization from yesterday. I don’t have time to argue,” I huff, aggravated and in desperate need of coffee.

At eight-thirty I’m walking back into Chelsea’s Coffee House. I’m looking at the menu on the wall behind the counter and not at all at the clerk ready to take my order. I’m irritated about the three-hundred-dollar charge I’ll have to pay back with interest on my credit card and now I’m running late. It’s only supposed to be a fifteen-minute drive to campus but I’m cutting it pretty close.

“Welcome to Chelsea’s. What can I getcha, Hot Stuff?” a familiar voice asks.

When I look down from the menu I’m met with that gorgeous blue-eyed stare.My morning just got a whole lot brighter.

“Hey, Beautiful. You think I’m hot stuff, huh?” I smirk.

“Oh, you know, c…c…coffee?” she stutters, waving at the menu. “That kind of hot stuff. Not that you’re not hot…” She closes her eyes and takes a breath. “I’m gonna shut up now. Order when you’re ready,” she says with what I’m beginning to think of asmyblush since I’ve never seen her do it with anyone else—not even Devon.

I lean over the counter until I’m inches from her face and whisper, “I’ll take your phone number and a large caramel macchiato, HOT.”

She’s stuck. She doesn’t speak. She just stands there with her blushing cheeks and wide blue eyes. Then, I see her pink tongue dart out to wet her bottom lip and I want nothing more than to close those last few inches and kiss her. Just as I’m about to lean in to do just that, the bell over the door chimes and she straightens out of her stupor.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I kind of spaced out there for a second. One caramel macchiato. Anything else?” She laughs nervously.

I stand back upright now that the moment is broken. “Yeah, your phone number. I’ll be back later for a key to your apartment.” I wink.

“Oh, that’s right! Devon told me he’d let you know you could get either of our keys after your meeting. He goes into work at Gamer Haven in the mall at eleven and I’ll be here until three,” she says as I swipe my card to pay for the coffee. “But you can get a key from either of us and make yourself at home until we get there.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be back for that key if I get out of my meeting before eleven. Otherwise, I’ll go bug Devon at work and take his key since you get off work before he does,” I tell her with a smile.

“Either is fine. I can always go grab his key when I get off if you’re not at the apartment.” She smiles, and I swear it’s like she’s begging me to come back to see her. So, that’s just what I plan to do.

The barista calls out, “Hot Stuff!” at the other end of the counter and Skyler winks at me as she writes on the back of my receipt before sliding it across the counter. When I look, I notice it’s her number and I wink back at her before grabbing my coffee and heading out the door.

I make it to my meeting with the advisor with just five minutes to spare. Luckily, there’s not much traffic since it’s summer and most of the town’s population are college students. My transfer was accepted as well as the scholarship from Wesleyan. Unfortunately, my luck ended there.

I’m just leaving the office and getting into my car at eleven forty-five. I run my hands down my face and hang my head. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. There are no available dorm rooms for upperclassmen. Since I won't be staying in the dorms, my scholarship will pay a housing allowance, but it’s not nearly enough to rent my own place. I’ll have to work full time while playing catch up at a new school my senior year.Great!

I’m enrolled in my classes in the same degree program as Devon. We’ve always dreamed of creating graphics and game designs together. Even attending different schools, we still followed through with the degree program to get us the internships we’ll need after college. While his minor is business management, mine is computer science and programming. The plan is to intern at a major company to get our feet wet and then start up our own company. These were plans we started in middle school when all we wanted to do was playCall of DutyandGTAfor the rest of our lives. Real life is not so simple.

“Hey, is Devon Mitchell around?” I ask the guy stocking games on the clearance shelf. He points over his shoulder towards the sales counter.

I step up to the counter and wait for Devon to finish up with the customer he’s helping. They are excitedly discussing the new auto racing game coming out next month. When the guy leaves, I lean over the counter and pull the chain attached to Devon’s belt loop. He spins around in surprise and laughs when he sees me.

“Hey, man.” I chuckle. “I came to get your key if it’s still okay.”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t go get Sky’s instead. I heard you had quite the coffee order this morning.” He grins.

“I did and I got everything I asked for.”Except that kiss.

“Spill it. What’s wrong?” he says with that knowing look on his face.

I sigh. I may as well tell him. He’ll just hound me until I do. “There are no dorm rooms available. So, I guess I need to find a job and an apartment as soon as possible. I don’t want to intrude on you and Skyler.”

“Nope. That’s not what you’re doing. We invited you to stay. So, you stay with us. We have a third bedroom. We’ll make it work,” Devon insists.

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea. You and Skyler have been ‘roommates’ for a long time,” I say, making air quotes at the word roommates. “I don’t want to cramp your style or invade your privacy for longer than I have to. I will admit I’d rather stay in my car than go back to that place by the interstate, though,” I say with a shiver.

“That’s bullshit. You still don’t believe that I’m just Sky’s friend?” he asks.

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