Page 73 of Here's to Yesterday

Part II

Him

13

“Dude! What the fuck!”

That would be Gaige, my (second) best friend and roommate. He’s currently in the shower, and I just busted in the door to take a leak. Of course my dick isn’t working because I have a major boner, so I have to sit down. Ladies, in case you didn’t know, that’s a legit thing. It hurts to piss with a boner, and sometimes sitting down is the only thing that helps. Yes, it’s awkward as fuck to have to do with another man in the room, but when you gotta go, you gottago.

“Care to explain why there were two empty bottles of wine, bags of chips, and half-eaten pints of ice cream scattered around the living room?” he calls over the curtain. Apparently I ruined his peacefulshower.

I grunt in reply because the asshole is making this even more uncomfortable with all histalking.

“Why, Gaige, best roommate ever, it’s because I had a sleepover. Possibly a drunken sleepover,” Gaige mocks, attempting to sound like me. He switches back over to his normal voice. “What? No way! Who could it be? The girl you’ve been pining over for almost a year now?” And back to “my” voice. “Yep, bro. It’s her.” Back to his voice. “Well, you tell Maura ‘hey’ for me. Or better yet—” he pauses for dramatic effect and then yells, “HEYMAURA!”

I punch at the curtain and hear him groan.Good. I hope it was a junkpunch.

“Stop it, asshole. She’s still sleeping. She had a roughnight.”

“Rough? TMI,dude.”

I snort inresponse.

“Speaking of TMI, I’m shower—” Gaige starts, peeling back the curtain to look at me. “Whoa. What the hell happened to yourface?”

I automatically reach up to touch it and wince on contact.Fuck.I almost forgot about my brother punching me last night at the party, acting like an ass, and accusing us of cheating. Stellarnight.

Then I smile, because itwasa stellar night. After the punch, Maura and I ditched the party and went to Mic’s to begin our night of drinking. We quickly moved on to my apartment, where we devoured two bottles of wine and half a fifth of Jameson.No wonder my dick hatesme.

“Tanner punched me,” Imumble.

“He what!” Gaige shouts, and I angrily motion toward the door. “Shit, sorry. But hepunchedyou? Did you at least hit him back?” I shake my head. “You’re a damnpussy.”

I smirk at him. “I happen to think I look badass with this blackeye.”

“Dude,” he says, wrinkling his nose at me. “No one looks badass sitting on theshitter.”

This time he moves out of the way before I can make contact with myfist.

I finally manage to piss, wash my hands, and make sure to flip the light switch off on my way out, laughing as Gaige manages to give sailors everywhere a good run for theirmoney.

Pausing in the doorway, I admire the beautiful woman lying in my bed. Her blonde hair is a mess, spread out all over my pillow, and the blankets are bunched up around her in the weirdest way, making her bare legs stick out. Although she’s drooling and snoring lightly, this scene in front of me makes me one ridiculously happyman.

Gaige was right. Ihavebeen secretly pining for Maura for almost a year now. When I first started taking note of her, she was just an everyday college student loading up on caffeine in the morning. Then she became the best friend of the girl my best friend was falling for. And then she became my brother’sgirlfriend.

That last one is what kept me at bay for solong.

Until itdidn’t.

I officially met Maura at Clyde’s on the same day she met Tanner. I swear time stopped when I saw her. Undeterred by the fact that I hadn’t seen her at Perk for a few weeks, she still had this invisible thread connected to my chest, making it beat against its cage so fucking hard every time she was near. In that moment, I wanted to know everything about her past, her present, and her future. I felt like Ihadto have her. I felt like she wasmine.

“That’s her. That’s the girl.” Tanner asks who I’m talking about, so I nod my head in her direction and declare, “Her. She’s theone.”

My brother, being the absolute jackass, says, “Damn, bro. Yeah, she’s the one all right. The one that’s gonna be in my bed. I give it aweek.”

I admit, I should have told him to fuck off, I should I have stuck up for the way she called to me, and I probably should have kicked his ass for talking about her like he was. But I didn’t. I didn’t because the instant her eyes passed over mine and settled on Tanner, I knew dating someone like me was out of the question for someone likeher.

That was the end and beginning of me andMaura.

---