it is way past his bedtime.
I scoop my hair up with my hand and let it fall down around one side of my face, sighing heavily. This catches his attention and he stops before he opens his door.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, almost begrudgingly.
‘I’m fine,’ I assure him, heading for the sofa and plonking myself down.
I tip my head back and rest my eyes for a second. I don’t know if I’m exhausted from all the late nights and early starts, or if I’m maybe slipping into a diabetic coma from that slab of cake I just effortlessly devoured, but I can’t keep my eyes open.
I give myself five minutes before forcing my eyes open again, only to see Nick standing in front of me, except now he’s got his nerdy plaid dressing gown on – untied, showing off the body he’s spent hours in the gym perfecting.
I stare for a moment longer than I should, stopping only when Nick takes a seat next to me.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks.
His moment of concern takes me aback.
‘What do you care?’ I snap.
Nick places his hand on my bare knee and gives it a gentle squeeze.
‘Look, I know we don’t get on, but I’m allowed to care about you, right? I mean, you must care about me a little – what would you do if you found out I left for work one morning and got hit by a car?’
‘I guess I’d care,’ I reply. ‘But, like, about the stress of finding another roommate so I could afford to stay here – I could wind up with someone even worse than you.’
Nick laughs at the joke I didn’t realise I’d made. That’s when I realise his hand isn’t on my knee any more, it’s on my thigh, and the gentle squeezing he was doing before has turned into more of a caressing motion.
I shift my gaze from Nick’s hand to his eyes. He’s looking at me in a way I’ve never noticed him do before.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.
‘I’m trying to work out why you’re being so nice to me,’ I reply. ‘It’s out of character.’
‘If you think that’s out of character,’ he starts slowly, as he runs his hand up my thigh, ‘then try this.’
Before I know what’s happening, Nick is pushing me back on the sofa, pressing his body down on top of me. He grabs a fistful of my long wavy locks firmly with one hand as he pulls off his dressing gown with the other. As much as I dislike Nick as a person, I have never been able to deny that he has one hell of a body – in fact, it’s one of the first things I noticed about him when we first met. All that eating clean and exercising near-constantly is really paying off for him, I admit it, but I never imagined I’d wind up in a situation like this with him, and now I’m not just looking at him, I’m really looking at him, and I want him more than anything right now.
He kisses me keenly, like he’s been waiting all these months to do it and now he finally can, he can’t control himself – least of all his hands.
When I came home tonight I figured Nick would be in bed because it was late and he always gets nice early nights. That’s why I felt safe kicking off my heels, slipping off my dress and putting on one of Nick’s gym vests that I grabbed from the dryer, so I didn’t have to make the long trip to my room to find something comfortable to wear while I devoured my birthday cake.
Usually that’s two offences that would land me in Nick’s bad books. My first offence is strolling around inappropriately dressed, the second is wearing Nick’s clothes. He hates that. He says I leave them covered in glitter and stinking like a mid-range prostitute. Perhaps that’s why he’s so keenly pulling the vest over my head, throwing it to one side before running his hands up my body, slipping my bra straps off my shoulders, kissing my collarbone, gently flicking his tongue against my skin.
Just when I think it can’t feel any better, Nick slips his hand into my knickers and I can’t help but moan wildly. My moans of pleasure get louder before quickly changing. As I raise my hand to my aching head and grumble in pain, I slowly open my eyes, only for the sunlight to burn them. That’s when I realise it’s morning, and that I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. I’m still wearing Nick’s vest, which means I dreamt the whole thing. Shit, another sex dream about Nick!
‘Why does this keep happening to me?’ I ask myself.
‘Because you make bad choices,’ Nick replies, startling me. I glance towards the kitchen and see him standing there, smartly dressed, eating cereal as always.
I quickly break eye contact with him, absolutely mortified. I mean there’s no way on earth he could know what I’d been dreaming but I feel like he’s looking straight through me, like he can see it written all over my face.
‘What happened last night?’ I ask him, concerned.
‘Not much, you went on a date with one of your Matcher psychopaths, came back steaming drunk, ate enough cake to kill you and then fell asleep.’
‘Oh. So I didn’t say or do anything bad?’
Nick stares at me for a moment.
‘Erm, no, only all of those things I just listed to you.’
‘That’s OK then,’ I say, exhaling a deep sigh of relief.
‘Well, I’ve got to go shopping and then get to work. Another day of fucking around, is it?’
‘I hope something really gross happens to you at work,’ I reply, massaging my temples.
‘You could use your free time to do something good,’ he suggests.
‘Good?’ I reply, saying the word slowly as I cock my head. ‘What is…good?’
Nick laughs.
‘I’m serious,’ he insists. ‘Do something to change the world.’
‘Like?’
‘Like give blood, that’s such a little thing to do to make such a huge amount of difference.’
I frown.
‘Needles,’ I tell him. ‘Nope.’
‘You’ll only feel a little prick – stop it,’ he snaps at me, before I have the chance to reply with a ‘that’s what she said’.
‘So is that how you spend you free time?’ I ask him.
‘I wouldn’t call it a hobby,’ he replies. ‘But blood donation, platelet donation – what’s twenty minutes or a couple of hours to make a difference?’
I feel my eyes widen with horror.
‘Mate, do you want me bleeding dry or something?’
‘Mate,’ he replies mockingly. ‘It looks like someone beat me to it. You’re looking very pale this morning.’
“Mate”
