Page 12 of The Progressions

“How are you going to sleep in here?” I asked, looking around. “Where have you been sleeping? I don’t see a bed.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t know she had scheduled this for today,” he answered, which wasn’t much of an answer to my questions.

“What is this? Does it belong to Shay Galton?” The big boxes had labels like “makeup,” “straightening products,” and “lingerie,” words which didn’t seem to relate much to him but would have been important for her job.

“I think most of it’s hers. I guess.”

“There’s no room for it all,” I remarked, which was beyond obvious. “Is that her point?”

“What do you mean?”

“She was complaining—she was telling you that this condo was too small,” I reminded him. “This might be her way of showing you that she’s right and that she needs more space.” It was a petty, juvenile way to communicate, but I’d seen people act plenty petty. One of our previous tenants had poured bleachinto all the washing machines in the public laundry room because she was mad about someone else’s illegal dog (no pets allowed here) pooping on the pathway. Another guy had bought a drum set and a trumpet, and had taught himself to play both. It wasn’t due to his love of music but because he thought that the woman next door used her microwave too often, and he could hear the annoying beeps through the wall. Those seemed to be very, very thin in this complex.

Right now, I heard splashing, and then Tyler appeared in the open bathroom doors. He held what looked like a wadded t-shirt in front of his crotch, but it didn’t cover much. It sure didn’t cover anything on his other side, which was totally visible in those large mirrors on the bathroom wall behind him. His butt, back, and legs looked like they’d been carved out of marble, as did the rest of his body in the front, like the squares of muscle that trailed down his stomach toward where he held the t-shirt. Except, instead of veiny, cold stone, his skin was the warm honey that I remembered from the underwear commercial that I’d paused so very often on my phone. The commercial was stunning, but the real thing was even more impressive.

Except for the marks and bruises, which covered a lot of his honey-toned skin. “You guys really beat each other up in practice,” I commented, and he glanced down at his body, shifting the t-shirt slightly as he checked himself over. My gaze went right to that meager covering. “Um, I gave the tip money to the movers and I should go.”

“Where?”

I checked my phone. “I missed class, so I guess I’ll head home.” My father was probably tracking my location and wondering why I wasn’t at Emelia Schaub College, where I should have been. He got worried if I went off schedule, and I quickly texted him to explain. It was easier to keep my eyes on my phone, anyway.

“What class?” Tyler asked.

“If we’re going to have a conversation, do you want to put on some clothes?” I suggested, and suddenly, he broke into a huge grin. I’d seen him smile in pictures and on screens, both big and small, but in person and fairly up-close? It was like being bathed in sunlight or something. I smiled back, and I even laughed a little.

“My stuff is in the closet,” he mentioned, and that was totally blocked. He started to make his way over, pushing aside boxes and gear and totally dropping the wadded t-shirt as he did.

I decided that was my cue to leave, but when I was in the tunnel in the living room, I heard him again. “Kasia.”

He knew my name, I thought, and it gave me a lot of pleasure to hear it. “Yes?”

“Wait for me.”

Due to his strength, which was due to all those carved muscles I’d seen as they’d gleamed and dripped with droplets of water…anyway, due to his enormous strength, he’d been able to fight his way to the closet and he joined me soon enough on the front steps. “I need to eat,” he commented. “I don’t have any food in there. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” I admitted. I had missed a meal along with my class. “I usually eat in the car on my way to the college. I bring a little cooler.”

“Like I did. In kindergarten,” he said. He started to walk toward the parking lot. “Come to dinner with me instead.”

“What?”I followed him.“Dinner out?”

“Unless you want to eat from your lunchbox.”

“It’s a much better idea to pack food for myself,” I explained as I walked. “I don’t have time to stop after I leave here and do you know how much money I would waste if I bought something every night? Right now, we have so much from the garden, too. It’s delicious.”

“What college? What garden?”

We ended up at his car, the one parked in the flower bed, and I decided it was better that he moved it now. I also decided that yes, I would go to dinner with a Woodsmen football player, and I would act just as nonchalant and disinterested as when Iva and I had spied and casually commented on the other guys through the office windows (e.g., “Lots of puddles in the parking lot. Oh, I guess it’s because Robby Baines is washing his truck with no shirt on.” I had fallen over the wastebasket in my rush to see.)

“Are you coming?” he asked, and I got in.

“Make a right out of the lot,” I told him. “Also, don’t park in that spot again. In theory, I could have you towed.”

“I didn’t know if I could walk all the way to my condo if I parked in the street,” he said.

“Really?” I looked over at him. “What happened at your practice?”

“It got rough.”

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