Page 25 of Mostly My Boss
“Don’t leave me again. We’re in this now. I’m counting on you.”
“Counting on me to do what?”
“Be there for me,” he said as he pushed himself up, clearly trying to sort out how his head was feeling.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded. “In a minute.”
I sat on the bench next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders, rubbing them in an attempt to both warm him up and wake him up.
Like a docile pet he, he was still while I basically rubbed him into alertness.
Abruptly, he pushed to his feet. Like he had when he sat up, he gave himself a moment to determine how steady he was. After rolling up both sleeping bags, I stuffed one under his arm and took the other. The thermos with the spiked cocoa was gone. Either someone jacked it or Nicki had taken it with her to her next adventure. Figuring we had everything, I pointed him in the direction we needed to go.
After his roommate fail with the football player, Ethan had transferred to Apley to a single unit with its own bathroom. The Shangri-La of freshman dorm rooms. I was guessing he got his father to pull some strings.
To his credit, I only had to nudge him a few times in the right direction. And he was steady on his feet the whole way. We made it inside his dorm, up to the third floor, and to his room without anyone stopping us. He opened the door and pushed it open so I could walk in ahead of him.
“I’m going to go,” I said.
“You’re not. It’s late. I’m obviously in no shape to walk you back, so you can crash here.”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. The point was for me to get you and take you home. I didn’t expect you to walk me back.”
“Well, I do expect it but it’s not happening. Don’t be weird about this, Julia. We’re going to sleep for a few hours and then I’ll walk you home in the morning.”
“Walk-of-shame style?” I asked, thinking there was no way that was going to happen.
“No, it’s only a walk of shame when you do it alone. When the guy walks with you, it means he still respects you.”
A hand on my back, he all but pushed me into his room. The bed was made, and the comforter and pillow set matched and looked more expensive than what I’d bought at Target for myself.
His desk held a laptop, a lamp, and a pile of books arranged largest to smallest in a symmetrical pyramid. No clothes on the floor. No shoes out of order. It made me think of what a military barracks might look like.
I wondered if his belt buckles were polished. I peeked around the door of the bathroom. Yep, marble bathtub. That was the rumor about Apley and apparently it was true.
It was also spotless. On the vanity sat his toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. In the glass mirrored cabinet his prescription bottles maybe? Out of view from anyone snooping.
He brushed past me without a word and made his way to the sink. I noticed he’d already taken off his coat and hat. I watched as he turned the water on, splashed his toothbrush, coated it with toothpaste, then started to brush his teeth.
It was shocking. The intimacy of it. The fact that he considered it okay for me to watch him as he brushed his teeth. He saw me looking at him in the mirror and I snapped my teeth together, realizing my mouth was probably open.
“You shouldn’t run the water while you’re brushing. It’s wasteful,” I told him.
Our eyes met again in the mirror. He turned the water off.
Refocusing on the room, I noticed there was another Nordstrom bag sitting on his desk chair. He must have gone back for more clothes. Which was fine. Now that I’d given him a solid baseline, he could riff on style and colors.
Overall, these days he looked less like a nerd with pants that were too short and more like the visionary genius he was striving for. I’d already told him, though, under no circumstances could he wear turtlenecks.
I dropped the sleeping bag I’d borrowed on top of his. It made the room a little messy and I wondered if I should properly store both of them in the closet, otherwise he might have a hard time relaxing.
He came back into the room, fell onto the queen bed, and kicked his boots off. Disorder, then, wasn’t going to be a problem.
I glanced around and, other than the bed and desk chair, there was nowhere to sit.
“I’m going to walk back,” I announced.
