Page 57 of A Totally Platonic Thing
He’d stopped closer to me than roommate personal space would dictate, but he also hadn’t grabbed me in his arms and kissed me stupid. Should I kiss him? I didn’t know. I didn’t have any precedent for this. My nerves were fizzing with that sort of carbonated feeling of being in close proximity to someone you’d fucked the night before, when your relationship was still all new and maybe-secret and exciting, but maybe his weren’t?
“Hi!” That came out sounding way too enthusiastic. Weirdly so. “Um. I brought you coffee?”
Lucas’s mouth quirked. “Is that a question? Or are you feeling as weird as I am?”
“Weird good or weird bad?”
He finally took that little step closer, so that our bodies were almost touching, and leaned down a little. “Weird good,” he said quietly, and reached out to tangle his fingers with mine. The chastest possible touch, and mostly hidden from the other people in the room, but it still made my heart skip a beat. “I hated leaving this morning.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, nearly lost in the sound of Amanda berating the other two over by the smoking solar panel thingy. “Me too. I mean, I hated that you left. I already missed you.”
Lucas glanced quickly over his shoulder and then leaned down and kissed me, super quickly but not chastely at all. I hadn’t even known you could slip someone tongue in that short of a kiss.
And then he stepped back, blushing and clearing his throat.
I took it a little personally, but I tried not to. I mean, he’d never been all that smooth with girlfriends, either, so this awkwardness might be more a function of Lucas being Lucas than of me being me.
“I’m really sorry, but I should grab my coffee and get back to work,” he said. “Is that one for Amanda?”
“Yeah, of course.” I forced myself to swallow my disappointment. God, I wanted to drag him off somewhere and get on my knees and…he had to graduate too, I reminded myself. And he had to finish this senior project of his to do that. “I’ll see you for dinner? I can cook. I’m done for the day.”
Lucas opened his mouth, closed it again, and rubbed the back of his neck. Finally he said, “I’m going to end up grabbing fast food and then going back to work. I’ll tell you about it later. My advisor basically told me this morning that my whole project has to be scrapped and I need to start over.”
My jaw dropped, like literally. “What? You’ve been working on it for months! We’re graduating in, like, a month plus a couple of days! What the hell are you going to do? What was he thinking? He can’t do this to you! It’s not—”
“I know,” Lucas interrupted me. “Believe me, I know. But there’s not much I can do about it. He’s the department chair, so there’s no one to go to unless I wanted to try to get the whole administration involved, and by the time they even gave me an appointment I’d be finished one way or the other.”
“But what did he say—”
“Chris, I can’t right now,” Lucas cut in, sounding and looking harassed as hell. And that stung, because—wasn’t I supposed to be the person he confided in? Even before we’d slept together. “I just can’t. I have to figure out what to do, and see if I can modify the work I’ve already done. I had barely enough time to finish as it was. And I’m too pissed off to even get into it. I’ll text you later when I know when I’m coming home.”
Okay, so I understood that. But when I nodded and wished him luck, and Lucas swooped in for another peck on the lips and then strode back across the lab with his and Amanda’s coffee and left me behind, I still felt all empty and hollow and at a loss.
I could still change my mind and go see Sebastian. Part of me wanted to. But I was always better about talking through other people’s problems than my own. When Sebastian had boy problems, or life problems, I’d show up with beer or a bottle of wine, and I’d get him all calmed down and sorted out within a couple of hours. Chris to the rescue.
But I had a lot of trouble doing the same when the shoe was on the other foot. Not that I didn’t trust Sebastian or think he’d put in the same amount of effort. I knew he would. But…all I wanted, when I got like this, was to either go out and lose myself in a crowd or curl up in a fetal ball with a blanket over my head.
Neither one would be productive. And the first would blow up any trust Lucas and I had tentatively established.
So I might end up with the blankets over my head. Sue me. But for now I could at least try to be…better.
For Lucas, or for me? For me, definitely, dammit. This wasn’t about him. I wanted to be better.
So I waved at Amanda, who acknowledged me with a nod, and headed out. I’d stop by the store and pick up some groceries, and I’d go home and work on that make-up paper Dr. Wilcox was letting me write.
And that would be absolutely fine.
That stayed…more or less fine, or at least okay, for about forty-eight hours.
Lucas came home super late on Friday night, around the time I’d pulled up his contact on my phone for the hundredth time and then closed it again, terrified of being a clingy bitch. He’d texted around eight and told me he’d be home in an hour. At eleven, I finally heard his car pull into the driveway and then his heavy, weary footsteps on the stairs.
I’d curled up in his bed instead of mine because I missed him, and my heart pounded a little as he opened the door. Would he mind? Would he be happy? Every cell in my body buzzed. I wanted to fling myself into his arms and climb him like a tree, but I clenched my fists in the bedding to keep myself still.
No, screw that.
I jumped out of bed, flung my arms around him and knocked him back against the door as I tried to climb him like a tree.
Lucas let out anoof, but he dropped his bag on the floor and grabbed me back, burying his face in my hair and squeezing me, one hand landing on my ass and giving me an unsubtle grope.
