Fay and Dondre by Blackblooms,Blackblooms

A haiku:

Got into grad school!

Won’t be sleeping for a bit.

Hope y’all like this one

* * *

Fay

“I’m never telling anybody I have a crush on you, Dondre Hill. I’m legit sorry I even caught feelings; nobody needs this kind of pressure in their last year of school. This is just juvenile.

I see you every Monday and Wednesday in class. Twice each day, 11:10 and 4:30, for our capstone and our seminar. Every Monday and Wednesday I watch your tight ass bend to bless the seat in front of me with its presence.

I think you caught me staring one time, when you looked back from the chalkboard to ask the professor a question about the phrase you were writing. I felt your eyes on me, but I tried to look as zoned out as possible and rubbed my eyes and yawned. I didn’t even look up at you as you walked back. Shoulda got an Oscar for that.

There are a lot of reasons why I like you. I like how the little paunch of your stomach presses up against your t-shirt. I like how your voice goes up when you get nervous during oral presentations. And I like how your hair fades from dark brown to burnt amber at the ends. The first time you came in with it all combed out in a little afro, and stuck your pencil in it, I imagined being the one to braid it back up for you when you went to bed that night.

…Again, I know I sound creepy as hell.

But I don’t think I’d be too bad of a girlfriend, either, if we ever got together. I’ve got nice boobs. My skin’s soft, I’m funny; my hair shines in the sun when it’s freshly twisted. I’d let you wrap it around your fist if you ever hit it from behind, lol. It’s a shame you’ll never know how much I like you.”

I hope the little confessional I just vomited into my journal doesn’t make me cringe if I ever reread it. That’s how true feelings usually go: express, regret, repent, repress; on and on until you’re dead. I just close the laptop and roll over to situate my arms around my breasts, which really are pretty nice. They spill over my hands and slide against my arms as I try to get comfortable. And when I finally am, I sleep.

…

Dondre

I’m going to hell.

I honest-to-God was going to tell the girl from my class that she left her account open on the public computer, but I saw my name on one of the Recent files in her Drive and I just looked a little closer on the off chance it really was me. I mean I’m probably not the only Dondre on campus, but how many Dondre Hills are there in the Monday and Wednesday Literature seminar and capstone courses?

I gotta tell somebody. I could tell Legend- but he can’t keep his mouth shut for shit. Jabari’s ass is home with all four kids, though.

I text Jabari.

“Yo”

“What”

“You know that girl I told you about in my World Literature class?”

“The poindexter one behind you?”

“She crushing on me.”

“Awww, you gonna ask her out lil man?”

I think for a minute. She’s crushing on me hard. It’s mind-blowing to think about. Like I could go up to her right now and probably get her number.

I look at the screen again. She said ‘girlfriend’. I’m not going for that this year, not until I graduate. It’d be a bad move to start anything with her.

“Nah”

“Pussy, why?”

“Not tryina break anymore hearts for the rest of the semester.”

He rags on me about that comment for a while, and we goof around until he has to go yell at one of his spawn for jumping off the roof or something. I take a couple pictures of my discovery before I log out for her and do my own work. Then I go to my next class, and only when I walk through the door at the back of the room does it really register what she said. I hesitate for a minute, then walk past her to my seat; I think about how she’s probably looking at my ass. I don’t even know how to feel about it. My dick is a little hard. That’s an answer, I guess.

“Can you pass me the exam packet?” Her voice is in my ear.

I start a little bit from my daydream and half-twist to hand her the stack of papers I absent-mindedly took from the person in front of me.

“Yeah, my bad.” I can’t help but deepen my voice a little bit. She said she liked when my voice went high, but I’m not nervous right now so it’d be weird to do it. I wonder if she likes my shoulders too, and how broad they are. I’ve always liked them.

Why do I care? I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t even be thinking about what she wrote. I invaded her privacy – by accident – and I don’t even want to start anything, so I should forget it all.

But she sounded so sweet.

…

Fay

I know for a fact that I pulled at least a B on that exam. I should’ve; it was on the only assigned reading I actually read in full for this class. But I still come home happy. I pull the remaining half of a sub out of the fridge and open my computer to look at my agenda for tomorrow, but I end up accidentally watching a few episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race again.

Out of nowhere, I start to think about how restless Dondre seemed in class. The back of his chair kept rocking back against my desk. Normally I’d be annoyed, but I just wondered what was bothering him. I’d think he was having trouble with the questions, but I’m fairly sure his grades are even with mine in the course.

It’s none of my business, and I need to go to sleep. But every time I close the laptop, I have a never-ending circus of thoughts rolling through my brain. One of those nights.

I wake up with “Are you still watching?” on the screen, and my phone with its 8AM alarm nowhere to be seen. I feel it, though, vibrating under my right shoulder with a muted ringing.

The rest of my day is full of tense, last-semester-in-this-money-trap classes and a few hours tutoring. The last eager freshman is too interested in spitting game at me to understand the key aspects of the low Germanic languages.

“You know a lot about words. You’re good with your mouth, then?” is what finally snaps my head up, to look at his smirking face.

I sit back in my chair, knowing I’m done for the day.

“What, did I go too far, baby? I’m good at that.” His eyes sear into mine. “Real good.”

“Did you come here to flirt, or to get to the end of this chapter? I’m tired, if it’s the former, and I’d like to go home.”

He leans forward. “With me? Say no more.”

“First of all, bitch, you look twelve.”

His easy smile drops. “The fuck?”

“You look like you don’t know how yet.”

He gets puffy, and mad, and I dare him with the twitch of an eyebrow to raise his voice. We’re at one of the front tables in the library, and all the delirious med students are watching from the corners.

“And you thought I was gonna ask a slut to teach me how? Ugly anyway,” he snorts, grabbing his binder and bag.

I smile, as audaciously as I can. “I hope you pass your exam tomorrow, Richard.”

“Fucking bitch,” he snarls, stalking off.

I watch him, and I sigh. I should wait a little to make sure he doesn’t try to catch me in the parking lot. I don’t think I parked too far anyway, but I could ask Ms. L at the front desk to watch out for me.

I wait maybe fifteen minutes and walk by the front desk.

…

Dondre

She looks kinda stuck in place, looking out the glass doors.

“You sure he’s gone?” She jumps, and I hold my hands up, scanner in one. “Sorry. The lanky green-haired guy, right? You told him his dick was small or sumn?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

She snaps out of her trance and snorts, and I lean in closer to her. Just because I know she’s pretty quiet.

“That was it, wasn’t it? Creepy guy?” I say, tapping one of the textbooks next to me with a hand. “He left skid marks in the parking lot. From car or ass, I couldn’t tell.”

“Oh, so he is gone?” She shuffles on her feet with a shy smile, and I feel the insane urge to lie.

“I think so. I’ll walk you out just in case?” I hear Ms. Lommell shuffle and stand somewhere in between the return shelves behind me, and I know she might interrogate me when I get back in, but it’s worth it for the relief on Fay’s face.

“Thank you so much, Dondre,” she smiles, and I speed through throwing my jacket on and coming around the desk.

“Oh, so you know my name?” I say, stepping in beside her, knowing damn well she does.

“Don’t play with me, Hill, I’ve been sitting behind you in every class since I transferred here,” she says, fluffing her coat like a bird against the cold. I should’ve gotten my big coat, but I would’ve had to go back into the office for it. Would’ve had to leave her side for that.

“Aiight, I won’t.”

“And thank you for making sure Richard didn’t try to grab me on my way out,” she adds. “…You not cold?”

“Me?” I say, the cold seeping into my very soul. “Nah. Tough like that. Tougher than a dude named Richard at least.”

“Now what if that was my daddy’s name too, or something?”

“I stand by my word. So I guess I’d be stronger than ya pappy too.”

She smiles wide, and I am dying to know exactly what she’s gonna make of this exchange when she gets home. Is she going to write about me again? Dream about me?

“Go back inside then, G, and thank you again. My car’s right here.” She points to a little dark green Honda under the closest streetlamp.

“Okay, Fay. Drive safe.”

“Got it. I’ll see you tomorrow!” She’s hustling across the street and in the car before I know it, beeping as she pulls off.

I’ve been looking for any indication of how I know she feels. I think it was the way she looked at me when I said her name. Something in her eyes looked more excited than her little polite goodbye sounded, and it made me want to repeat her name a million more times.

Am I just as creepy as Richard? I don’t think so. I hope not. I walk back through the library doors to see Ms. Lommell leaning against the front desk where I was, with the scanner that I’d been using and a new pile of books.

“You’re some type of heartbreaker, Dondre, running moves on that girl,” she says, amused.

“Well, I mean, when I’m in the game I don’t do too bad.”

She cackles and looks at the clock. “Go on and clock out, and catch the next bus home so you don’t have to wait twenty minutes at the stop like you always do.”

“I don’t mind, Ms. L.”

“But I bet your momma would. Go on.”

Instead of responding ‘yeah but my momma ain’t here,’ I clock out and take my ass home, because she’s right.

…

Fay

Of course he would know my name too. I almost jumped out of my skin when he said it all the same. I swear he didn’t work the front desk before, at least not for the last year; maybe he started over winter break? But I tutor nights all the time, I would’ve seen him.

I hope I acted alright. I replay every response, every possibly too-loud laugh during that thirty-second conversation to see if anything I did or said could be found lacking.

And of course I find things to dwell on. Was I way too eager to accept that invitation for him to walk me out? He probably didn’t like me nagging him about being cold, either. I hope I didn’t look like a smiling fool just happy to be next to him, even if that’s exactly what I was.

The thought spiral of death doesn’t stop when I get home, either. I’m gonna see him tomorrow. Should I act like I usually do? We now have a conversation and a half between us, I think. The other half being at the beginning of the semester when he forgot his book and Hammond asked us to sit together and share. I sweated like it was my job that day, out of nervousness.

I can’t relax for the rest of the night. I imagine him watching me contemplate ordering out again when I just ate takeout last night. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and wonder really hard if I put on weight, or if I’m just bloated from my recent tendency to drink a bottle of cheap wine on my own when I get home from class. Then I leave the bathroom, because he’d think I was weird for standing in front of the bathroom sink naked and scrolling through TikTok for a solid hour like I usually do before bed.

Liking someone is exhausting. I numb myself thoroughly with more Drag Race, and I can’t tell if I reach the end of the season or not before I fall asleep.

…

Dondre

“Hey. Fay.”

Her eyes pop open and she shoots up in her seat. She’d fallen asleep halfway through the lecture; I could hear her deep breathing from over my shoulder. I tried to hunch over so that the professor couldn’t see her behind me.

“Oh. Hi.” She blinks her eyes quickly and rubs her hand over her face. “Thank you so much, I must’ve been knocked out.”

I chuckle and stare down at her while I pack my laptop away. “Yeah, snoring like a freight train too.”

Absolute mortification appears on her face. “God no, really?”

I grin. “Nah.”

She rolls her eyes and laughs worriedly, and I’m suddenly even more interested in her. This girl is attracted to me. I mean I get it, I don’t look like a monster, but it makes you feel different to know somebody feels that way about you.

“You got anything to do before Hammond’s class?” I wonder if she’s ever thought about spending the break in between classes together.

She pauses while zipping up her jacket. Over nice titties, I think to myself.

“Not really, what’s up?”

I brush my hand over the afro I definitely didn’t pick through just for her today. “I was about to go to the café in front of the courtyard, if you wanna come with. They got sugar with a side of coffee.”

She smiles politely and says no, she’s good. I didn’t expect to be rejected; I didn’t expect the disappointment to be this resounding, either.

She pulls a half-finished drink in a reusable mug out of her bag. “I don’t think any amount of anything would keep me awake anymore, this is my second cup today,” she laughs. I like how throaty it is. She takes a sip. “I’ll walk with you, though.”

…

Fay

I should have taken my books and my cup and walked out of that classroom by myself. I don’t know how to walk, talk, or breathe normally in front of people I like, but I feel lucky to just be next to him. I don’t know if it’s weird to tag along; if I had ordered something, would he have tried to pay? Could this have been some sort of impromptu date?

My mind is racing on our way down the street to the crowded coffee shop, even though we’re making great conversation.

We talk until he orders and pays for a caramel latte, and stand to the side to wait.

This interaction has got my head spinning. He was probably just being nice by inviting me along. Doesn’t want me snoring in his ear for our seminar. Speaking of seminar…

“Do you have a theme for the final project yet?” I swallow the rest of my coffee as he looks towards me.

“I was thinking I’d explore some of the literature coming out of the West African scene, like the new age science fiction stuff.”

My face must light up like the night sky. “Legit, Tomi Adeyemi, Okorafor and everybody?” I’m not going to be a nerd about this, I promise myself.

He raises an eyebrow and smiles. “Yeah, it’s my favorite genre. You’re familiar?”

…

Dondre

We end up talking about the Children of Blood and Bone trilogy until our next class starts. I wanted to ask her if she was hungry after that, but that would’ve been too much. Right? I’m preying off of the security of having someone who has feelings for me. Am I taking advantage?

It doesn’t feel like that though. All I could think about when I was with her was that her hair really does shine in the sunlight. It’s really brown up at the very front, like she’s in the sun a lot. I felt stupid and sappy for noticing it. And I also remembered what she wrote about letting me wrap it around my fist…

I’m a dog.

I could just tell her, right? That’s what I should do. It’s probably going to be embarrassing, but then I could ask her out without feeling like a leech. If she doesn’t hate me.

I drop my phone on the arm of the couch and get up to go eat through some frustration. Maintaining the little paunch she likes so much.

…

Fay

“What’d you get for 7?” My pencil hovers next to my answer, ready to defend it or mark it incorrect. I hear him flip his paper over to check.

“I skipped it.”

“Huh. What’d you get for 8?”

“Oh, so you not gon tell me what you got for 7?”

I look up at his tone to see him with his eyebrows furrowed, but unable to keep a grin off his face.

“Nah, you working today, my guy,” I smile. “Now, I got an ABBA rhyme in the French translation for 8, and… what are you doing?”

His bottom lip is caught between his teeth. And he’s squinting his eyes while rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Smoldering with my eyes to get what I want, what does it look like?”

“Oh. Huh. It’s not working,” I snicker, growing quiet when the professor coughs and raises his eyebrows at us from the chair behind his desk.

“You over here bout to get me in trouble, Fay, shake my damn head. Might as well give me the answer to 7,” Dondre huffs, licking his lips. I chuckle quietly at his goofiness, but I feel my eyes fasten on his bottom lip.

“You see, now, that one LL Cool J moment briefly made you hot as hell, definitely,” I whisper conspiratorially. “But I don’t break for pretty faces.”

His smile falls off his face for a moment, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Probably. He settles into a much quieter smile.

“Bet,” he says, and silently goes back to his work.

…

Dondre

I was so close to just telling her I know. I could’ve just hinted at it. You probably watch me all the time; I bet you be clocking me every time I come through the classroom door. Something like that; I should’ve said something. Another chance gone.

But, bet? That she’d break for me? Did I basically just tell her I’m gonna try to seduce her? That’s so fucking creepy. We’re barely friends, and now I’m screwing it up more.

The professor coughs at his desk and sits up from the stack of papers he’s grading, prompting us to do the same. “You all are already in good groups, and I don’t feel like redividing you, so these are your final teams for the projects. The two-person teams don’t have to do parts three and five of the assignment, but should submit a more detailed response to the other six.”

Some teams look like they’re on the verge of groaning and rolling their eyes, but it’s only a class of fourteen people, so they keep quiet and still.

Me, I’m ecstatic. I think. I get to spend more time with the girl I like.

Correction. The girl who likes me. Although it’s looking the other way round right now. How does she hide it so well?

…

Fay

I don’t know what beastly shift of the wind caused this turn of events but I’mma need it to shift the fuck back and give me a break.

I can’t physically be near this man without water pooling in my mouth; how am I going to spend the next month and a half working with him? He turns back to me when class is dismissed.

“Sooo… the guidelines say we need to meet at least once a week for discussion. Wanna do that in person, or Facetime, or something?”

I consider my options. “How about Facetime for now, and if we can’t get stuff done that way, we can upgrade to meeting at Douglas Hall?”

Dondre shoves a couple of papers into his bag and slings it across his shoulder. “Yeah, cool with me. So….” He squints his eyes, licks his lips, and rubs his hands together. “Can I have yo number lil mama?”

I try and fail to hold back a burst of uncontrollable laughter. The professor looks up from his phone at the front of the lecture hall, and a few of the other students chuckle while packing up, but I can’t stop, tears starting down my face. I’d be embarrassed, but I’m trying to stop laughing before my stomach starts cramping.

Dondre is beaming, though, almost like he wants to join in. I finally calm down, dropping my head into both of my hands. I look back up, mostly straight-faced with tears of laughter still running down my cheeks.

“Yeah.”

…

Dondre

Professor Hammond probably thinks we’re crazy, having fits in the sixth row of his classroom. We stand there literally giggling at each other for the next five minutes until we finally exchange numbers and leave for the night, waving to him as casually as we can.

I watch Fay walk into the darkness towards the parking lot and think about walking her to her car this time. But as soon as she reaches the asphalt she stops at the car, which I didn’t see for it being so small, and ducks inside, bowing her head to fit in.

I tuck my hands in my pockets and turn to catch the bus back to my apartment downtown, and Professor Hammond comes ambling out of the building.

He nods to me, fishing for his keys in each of the six pockets of his trenchcoat. It isn’t even that cold yet.

“You ask her out yet?”

“Professor?”

He nods to the tail lights of Fay’s car exiting the parking lot.

“Oh, uh… I wasn’t really-”

“Hmm.” He finds his keys and continues on his way.

…

Fay

I don’t want to call him. I act a fool every time I speak to him, and I’ve worked hard to keep my head down and my grades up since I transferred here. But at the same time this is the most fun I’ve had in awhile.

I have to call him anyway; it’s schoolwork.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Fay, can you give me five minutes real quick?” He answers looking a little wild, and the next thing I notice is a lampshade sailing through the air behind his head.

“Uh….. yeah, yeah sure,” I say, ignoring the balled-up t-shirt that follows.

“Ooo, Fay?” I hear before hanging up.

…

Dondre

“Can y’all just sit down somewhere for five minutes?” I complain. Jazz and Pharrell raise their eyebrows and continue tossing whatever they can find at each other, catching items for points.

“Nah. Who’s Fay though? She sound cute,” Jazz says, snatching the couch cushion Pharrell tosses towards him out of the air. He grabs my wallet off the table and lobs it across the living room.

“Fuck,” Pharrell shouts, landing on the couch and fumbling it before it falls to the floor. “I thought you was celibate or something, man?”

“HA, you buying dinner tonight, niggaaaaaa!” Jazz shouts, and Pharrell rolls his eyes.

“I’m not fucking celibate, I’m just concentrating on school,” I remind him.

“Ah, right. Well I bet if you ask Fay, she’ll concentrate on your dick for you,” Jazz offers.

He and Pharrell laugh over that and I raise my eyebrows, nodding. I swoop my wallet off the floor and tag Jazz right in the stomach with it before dashing to my room, hearing a curse before something small and dense pelts the wall where my head was seconds ago.

“Oh aiight, that’s why I’m using your card to order Papa John’s, Dre!”

…

Fay

Dondre calls me back after a few minutes, and it seems quiet now.

“Tornado stopped?”

“Huh?”

“I just assumed you was in the eye of some storm that was tossing your belongings around the room,” I venture.

“Oh, that,” he says, shuffling unseen papers before him. “The tornado is my roommates.”

“Oh word, they cute?”

Silence from the screen as I shuffle my own papers, holding back a goofy smile with my eyes fastened to my meaningless task.

“I mean, they aiight. They not me though.”

I let my eyes meet the screen, and see just a close-up of a brown eyeball. I burst into laughter and Dondre backs up, grinning.

“Stop aggravating me and let’s refine our thesis, girl,” he warns me playfully, opening his notebook to a new page.

Being friends with Dondre Hill is going to be a lot easier than I thought.

…

Dondre

I want to ask her out so I can see her smile in person again. After she’s hung up, leaving me with three pages worth of planning, I sit there for a while. She’s definitely flirting with me.

I’m definitely flirting with her.

I leave the room to see Pharrell standing over the counter with a slice of pizza that looks bone cold. He looks over at me, chewing and smirking.

I raise my eyebrows at him and scrub my hands in the sink, ready to eat. He doesn’t say anything until he’s swallowed his last bite, after I’ve rummaged through the cabinet for a plate and heated up a few slices.

“Y’all sounded cozy in there.”

“What you mean?” I grab another paper plate from the cabinet, sliding it under the one quickly being compromised by the oils coming off the pizza.

Pharrell laughs a little bit, sliding the ends of his braids over his shoulder and brushing crumbs off his shirt into the sink.

“Nigga don’t play with me, you not dumb. You going out with her?”

I shake my head resolutely, watching the oil pool at the edges of my three slices. “Nah. Uh-”

“Pussy.”

I laugh, wondering if that’s actually what Professor Hammond wanted to say that night.

“Phar, if you had…. Somehow… gotten hold of somebody’s diary or something, and found out they had a crush on you, what would you do?”

“Tell ’em,” he says without hesitation, staring me down.

“You don’t wanna ruin things though.”

He smacks his lips. “How’d you find her diary?”

“It was a fuckin’ Google Doc she left open before class at the computer center.”

“And you fuckin’ lying.” His face is set to laugh.

“Aiight,” I huff, “I’m lying.”

Pharrell does laugh, standing up straight from the counter and stretching. I hear his back crack and watch him stiffen up before carefully relaxing back into a standing position, and it makes me wince. He came to the school on a football scholarship and lost it sophomore year due to injury. He hasn’t lost his muscles, but they are slowly being covered by a comfortable layer of fat. He acts like it’s hilarious, but me and Jazz haven’t gotten to the point where we can laugh with him.

“You mad?”

I suck my teeth, watching the oil puddle start to soak through both my plates. “Ion know what to do.”

Pharrell shrugs, handing me his plate, and I slide it under mine. “Lemme know if you fuck it up. But uh, what did it say? The diary?”

I breathe in, considering. “…I just got the vibe that she really, really likes me. It’d be a bitch ass move to take advantage of that.”

“She got you shy?! Oh nah, I gotta meet her.”

I mentally shake myself. “She’s my group partner for Hammond’s class, you probably will. Just don’t act like a dumbass.”

“Nah, nah, I got you. Can’t promise what Jazz is gon’ do, maybe talk to him too.” He looks slyly over to his door. “Actually, lemme go see if he sleep yet.”

“Do I need to leave? I got class tomorrow.”

Pharrell responds absentmindedly, filling his cup with water from the faucet. “No, he probably not really up anyway. I’ll see you in the morning man.”

I nod, and when I finally start eating my food, it’s almost as cold as Pharrell’s was when I walked in. I wonder if Fay likes cold pizza.

…

Fay

“And you only gotta share this place with one other person?” Dondre calls out from the living room.

“One person and a Seeing Eye dog,” I say, snatching my laptop from my desk where I left it, thinking I wouldn’t need it this morning. “4H club perks.”

I walk into the room just in time to catch him mocking what I just said.

“Stay mad, young blood,” I laugh. “Sound like you like living with your friends anyway.”

He sucks his teeth, following me out the door. “I did, until they hooked up this year. Now it’s like living with newlyweds.”

That’s hot, is my first thought. Especially if one of them is an ex-football player like he said. But after a millisecond of depravity I remember where I am.

“Aw, D, do they kick you out at all times of the night now?”

He sucks his teeth. “Nah, they got me noise-cancelling headphones for my birthday.”

I laugh about that until we get back to the student center. During class I realized I needed my laptop for the project, and Dondre came with me to swing by and pick it up, even though we had planned to meet at the computer center later on.

We could’ve worked on the project at my house at that point, but… I’m a little too jittery to have a boy I’m crushing on this hard alone in the house. Might accidentally tell him how I feel or something.

We find a secluded spot in the media center and put our stuff down before venturing into the dusty aisles for some sources to use. Dondre takes the high shelves, and I take the low. We search in comfortable silence, occasionally plucking out books that were already on our list.

“Fay.”

I look over at Dondre to see him holding an ancient-looking book of poetry, pounds lighter than the rest of what we have in our rolling cart.

“Oh, is that the Kingsley book, fifth edition?” I peer over his arm at it but he shakes his head.

“Nah, part of this was required reading from his class last year, but I ended up reading the whole thing and I think it’s gonna work great for parts of our project.”

I lean against the bookshelf, wondering at how little time it took for me to get used to being so familiar with him. “What a scholar.”

He smirks. “Not really, I started reading the rest because mami on the front cover got body.”

I look at the book and laugh, even though every single bell in my head starts going off at once. A full-figured nude woman half-covered by a sheer veil, head leaned back and eyes staring up into nothing we can see.

“Huh.”

“What?”

I grin. “Hammond had you reading erotica?”

“A lil bit,” he chuckles. “The Women of Pre-Western Influence. That’s the class that made me go for double majors, actually. Exercise science and modern literature.”

I smile as he puts the book in the cart. “That’s awesome. Does Hammond know?”

Dondre shrugs. “If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.”

I amiably bump his shoulder as I pass him to roll the cart into the last aisle. “Well, I’m glad you did. It’s been nice having you in class.”

…

Dondre

“We only formally met each other this semester, though. You been watching me?” I say jokingly, even though I desperately want to put her on the spot. I need some proof that she wants me as bad as I know she does. As bad as I want her.

She doesn’t miss a beat, though, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Oh yeah, like a hawk on a mouse, boy,” she smirks, adopting a wizened country accent, before continuing in a normal voice: “We’ve been in the same classes for two years, of course I see you.”

She’s joking around, but my heart is drumming to her tune. I wrap gentle fingers around her wrist and watch her turn back to me, the unforgiving lighting above us suddenly casting shadows that hide the light in her eyes from me.

“You like what you see?” I drop her hand, closing my fist in an effort to preserve the feel of her skin against my fingers.

She looks at me, her expression… interested? Bored?

…

Fay

Ohhhhh fuck, I’m wildly unprepared for this.

…

Dondre

“I’ll tell you after we get a passing grade,” she answers, before moving on to the next aisle.

I let out a shaky breath as quietly as I can, wondering where my common sense went and how I can get it back.

I’ve been flying by the seat of my fucking pants since that day in front of the computer. Telling her what I read wouldn’t help the situation at all. What’s she going to say after we turn our project in? Maybe she never wanted me to reciprocate her feelings. But I do, and now I’m stuck. I hope I didn’t fuck it all up just now.

…

Fay

I’m sitting across from a man I’ve wanted since I got here, and he’s basically offered himself up on a silver platter. ‘I’ll tell you after we get a passing grade?’ Why didn’t I just kiss him? That’s what people do when they like each other. I should’ve just leaned up against his chest and kissed him softly while his hand tightened around my arm. Slowly wound my body around his. Sneezed from the layers of dust swirling around us and laughed after.

“Fay?”

“Yeah?” I snap out of my reverie, laptop now on its lock screen on the desk in front of me.

“You good?”

I wanna scoff, sneer, laugh; something to brush off how disoriented I feel. I just nod.

He doesn’t dwell on it, just asks me to accept the invite to the document he’s shared with me. We work in relative silence after that, with me replaying my stupid resolve in my head while we peruse the books we picked up and narrow down our selections.

After Dondre yawns for the third time, I look up. “Wanna call it a night?”

He nods and stretches, and I let my line of vision hover above my laptop screen so I can watch him arch and settle.

“You eat?”

We’ve been together the last four hours, he knows the last thing I had was coffee with him in between our two lectures, as has become our habit.

“Nah, not yet. Why, you feeding me?”

He smiles. “If you like the food court on Main, then absolutely.”

…

Dondre

“The little chocolate milk cartons hit different. Even though I can go out and buy my own gallon jug, it’s nothing like the cardboard carton. Especially when there’s a little bit of ice on the outside.”

I tilt the milk towards her and she just smiles wide. “Anybody ever tell you how goofy you are?”

“Damn, just you and my momma. Y’all been talking?”

She considers the three kinds of sandwich wraps in biodegradable boxes before her: buffalo chicken, caesar, and tuna.

“You should pick caesar,” a voice advises.

I crane my neck around her to the person speaking on the other side.

“Don’t listen to that man, Fay, buffalo chicken’s the best.”

Fay stands, amused, while Pharrell picks up two of the caesar wraps. “Listen to this man, Fay, I’d never steer you wrong. Dondre ain’t got not a singular taste bud in that filthy mouth of his.”

Fay giggles and considers. “See, I figured that’s what was wrong with him. He told me he hates mangoes the other day.”

“See, I told him to stop telling people that. It’s weird.”

They move down the line without me, talking, and I make a betrayed sound. “Fay you just going off with some random dirtbag in the cafeteria? I’m paying for your food!”

The lady organizing the remaining packaged sandwiches behind the counter snorts.

“Y’all were in your own world all the way here,” another voice says from behind me. Jazz already has a foil-wrapped turkey burger on a tray.

“Oh yeah?” I reach for the tuna, itching to eat something different just to say I did. Then I remember how my stomach tried to turn itself inside out the last time I had one.

“We were calling you. Out loud, and electronically. Look at your phone.”

“It’s on silent, my bad.” I don’t make a move to take it off silent, though.

“See? You in deep.” We watch Pharrell and Fay choose a table and sit down like old friends. I wonder if she even knows his name yet. “What’s the status right now?”

“Huh?”

“She your girlfriend? Or y’all just spending every waking moment together for shits and giggles?”

I grab a second milk. “Uhhh…”

“What the fuck, man.”

“I know. Everything’s happening so naturally, though. She’s just mad chill, I really like her. Like… does it matter how it started?”

Jazz is silent next to me, considering the array of curly fries in the warmer in front of him, set out for the last dinner rush. He opens his mouth to speak.

I interject. “No, no, I know, don’t answer that. I know. How am I supposed to say it? What would you do?”

He shrugs. “We can go deal with it right now. ‘Hey lil mama, I know we just met, but we all know you feeling my boy because you don’t know how to log out of your private accounts on public computers. What say you?'”

“Please don’t open your mouth.”

The lady behind the counter, now swiping Jazz’ meal card, raises her eyebrows. “Wanna know what I think?”

I feel my face burn with heat, wondering how much of the campus is gonna know about this by the time I finally tell her. “Your thoughts probably better than mine.”

“I think you owe for her meal and yours.”

I nod. “You right.” And hand her my card again.

…

Fay

“He broke my Nintendo DS when we were eleven,” Pharrell confides.

“And he’s still alive?”

He winks, reaching over and tearing open the plastic on my sandwich when he sees me struggling. “Jazz stopped me from choking him out, said we could just use his.”

“And I bet y’all have stayed on each other’s nerves since then.”

“Hell yeah, constantly. But we been friends so long it doesn’t really faze us. Gets to be just family.” I watch him carefully bite into his first wrap and sigh. “Good shit,” he mumbles, chewing.

“He been talking mess about me, Fay?”

I look up at Dondre and a shorter, smiling dude who must be Jazz and decide to instigate. “Depends, is ‘You’re a high-functioning just alright-looking recluse with a hard-on for books that nobody reads anymore’ a compliment?”

“Last I heard,” Dre smiles. “But that depends on who you heard it from, was it a shallow-backed lightskin nigga going to school for something arguably worse than poli sci?”

Oh damn. Jazz involuntarily snorts before delivering a peal of laughter and Pharrell’s face is priceless. I try not to giggle like a kid watching someone take a bad fall.

“Yo what the fuck is ‘shallow-backed’ supposed to mean?” Pharrell struggles to say.

“It mean your torso look like it’s supposed to be longer than that,” Dre explains further. “Why it look like your legs interrupted your spine mid-sentence, Phar?”

“Yooo, it wasn’t even that serious, it sound like you been thinking that for a long time just in case you needed to come for me one day.”

Jazz recovers his breath, tears in his eyes. “That can’t be healthy. Having jokes like that off the dome.”

The three of them got me laughing through dinner, and when we’re ready to leave, Jazz and Pharrell wait at the car for Dondre while he walks me to mine. I wasn’t lucky enough to get a close park when we got here.

“So I guess you sweet on me or whatever?” I smile, leaning against my door.

He cheeses and frames my hips with his hands, and even though the parking lot is largely vacant and wide open, it feels like he’s boxed us off into a room of our own. The air around me has a little more trouble getting into my lungs. “Well if you wanna phrase it like we sixty years old, yes dear.”

I shift and feel his fingers flex to hold me in place. My stomach rolls into an immediate knot, and the pressure of his fingers doesn’t let up. His eyes lose their playfulness, and he slides his hands in one long movement up my sides to my shoulders, placing a light kiss on my cheek before stepping back.

“Well… well. Well I guess I’ll see you later.” I stand, heated and embarrassed against the side of the car after the lightest series of touches, and he contemplates me, hands now slid into his pockets.

“We’re leaving you!” Jazz calls across the parking lot. He and Pharrell cackle after a moment, and I wonder what was said.

“You gotta go,” I say to the man still staring into my eyes.

“Yeah.” He looks like he’s about to touch me again. “Yeah,” he repeats, blinking and casting his gaze towards the sky like he’s looking for answers.

He steps to the left and pulls on my door handle, cursing when he realizes it’s locked. I can finally smile, pressing the key fob until it clicks and he can open it for me.

“I’ll see you later, Dondre.”

“Later,” he agrees, hand on my door. He shuts it when I’m inside, and I watch him walk back across the parking lot to his waiting friends.

What the fuck was that?

…

Dondre

What the fuck was that?

“Finally nigga, you know I got a 10am tomorrow.” Pharrell peers back at me from the passenger seat. “Was you whispering sweet nothings into her ear or something?”

Jazz turns to reverse out of the spot and looks me over. “Phar he got hearts all up in his eyes, mans is gone.”

“Yo shut the fuck up,” I gruff. I don’t really mean it, and they sense that and jump on me.

“Oh, is it that serious? Lil honey got you upside down right now man, we legit about to lose you to married life before we even graduate?”

Jazz smiles serenely. “Can I be the officiant? I’ll get certified and everything.”

“J you know his momma not gonna let no batty boys come to his wedding.”

Pharrell gets punched in the shoulder for that and they continue laughing, but I look up, finally snapping out of it with a goofy smile I can’t even control. Just from remembering how she stuttered after I touched her. “Fuck anybody who cares, man, y’all can propose at the reception if you want.”

A little bit of silence, even though they’re still chuckling and sighing.

Jazz speaks. “Yo he ruined the jokes with all them feelings, I can’t make fun of him no more.”

Pharrell laughs again. “Yeah, I’m actually touched. Fuck you, Dondre.”

I slide across the seats when Jazz yanks the car around a turn, recovering and remembering to put my seatbelt on, especially with him behind the wheel.

“If you’re so serious about her, you should probably tell her the truth. I mean, even if you weren’t serious, too. But still, damn.”

My chest squeezes tight, and I wonder how I went from racing towards this degree to veering… pretty strongly… towards keeping Fay a part of my life.

I listen to Jazz and Pharrell talk comfortably for the rest of the ride.

…

Fay

“Hey girl.”

I whip around from the open fridge door to see Lily actually home for once, in her pajamas like she’s actually going to sleep here. Wild.

“Hey stranger.” She only laughs, and I wonder at the money she has if she’s paying rent to only live here occasionally.

“I know I’m not here much anymore, started dating this one dude and I’m half moved-in, it feels like.”

“Oh! Cool, I always thought you were at your sister’s.”

She sticks her tongue out. “I met him at my sister’s place, he’s one of her coworkers.”

I take the half-eaten cheesecake out of the fridge, exclaiming. “Ohhh, so he got money.” Her sister’s the head of some software engineering department at some company the next town over.

“He’s comfortable,” she corrects.

“That’s what people with money say, Lily,” I laugh, rummaging through the utensil drawer for my favorite fork. I offer her one, but she shakes her head in refusal. I look around, curious, not hearing the jingle of dog tags. “Where’s Nova?”

“She went back a couple weeks ago, Fay. She passed her test!”

“Oh. Oh! Congratulations, I didn’t know it was time.” I’d say I would miss her, but I really only saw her a few times out of the entire school year.

“Yeah, probably gonna hold off on another Seeing Eye puppy for a minute… I really like this dude and kinda just wanna chill.” She sits down at the table where I’m trying to pry the lid off of the container. “What you been doing with yourself?”

“Same old thing, I’m walking this spring, you know,” I say. The lid flies off and clatters to the other end of the table, and the remaining cheesecake jumps, freed, landing half off of the tray. I slide it back on and settle down contentedly.

“I saw you the other day with a dude. You were leaving the house while I was looking for a parking spot.” She looks over at me slyly, over the top of her phone. “He was cute.”

“Yeah, he was. We had sex in your bed.” I wish.

She rolls her eyes, sighing. “Whatever bitch, just share your location with me in case you go missing.”

“What? Why, I never know where you are?”

She looks at me incredulously. “I’ve had my location shared with you since last year!”

I poke my lips out, and open my phone up to see that it’s true.

“Wowwwww, Fay, you really don’t love me like I thought you did. I haven’t been here for two months straight! What if I was dead?!”

“The last thing you said was that you were staying at your sister’s for a minute, I figured you were! And how could you be dead if we comment on each other’s Instagram stories every day?”

She makes an about face, and relents. “Still. Share your location with me, I don’t even know this man!”

“I don’t know your billionaire either,” I say around a mouthful of cake. I didn’t plan on eating the rest of it, but how fate twists and turns, right?

“But you know where I’m at.”

I make a big show of sighing and unlocking my phone, and she nods when she gets the notification.

“Safety first. I’ll see you in the morning, I’m leaving tomorrow night though.”

I raise my glass of wine to her and she flips the bird, and then a heart sign up at me.

I do love Lily, although I know our friendship probably won’t last after we move out of this house. For the simple reason that we don’t have enough in common to stay friends. I wonder if that’s kind of sad. But no; I would want something like what Dondre has with Jazz and Pharrell.

I think about how I’ve only been speaking with him for about a month now. The infatuation has cooled down a lot… but something more substantial, more real, has replaced it. If I’d known he’d be this cool, I would’ve been happy even just being friends with him all this time.

Although now…. now it looks like he wants a whole lot more. At least physically. Which I guess makes sense. Could I do that? Just sleep with him?

I think we’re friends, but what if he wants to go our separate ways after the project and the sex? Haven’t I been after him for physical reasons too? I know I want to know what his body feels like, looks like, tastes like, all that. But how am I supposed to go about this?

…

Dondre

“Just press submit.”

I stare at the screen. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, we’ve been looking at it for hours, I’m gonna scream if we go through it again.”

I play with the mouse while Fay settles her head on her arms, the birdsong outside filling the tired silence in her living room.

“You think we should read it out loud one more time just fo-”

“Dondre I’m going to break your neck.”

“Aaaand submitted. I think we aced this!” The nerves ease a little bit and I breathe a deep sigh, watching her roll her head to the side to smile from the pillow of her arms. We’ve been working for the last 48 hours on this, and submitted it three hours before the 8 am deadline.

“Amen.”

“Fay, you not done yet baby girl, come drop me off at the bus stop.”

“Shut up, I’m driving you home.” She stretches, and I’m glad her eyes are closed because I just sleepily watch her body unfold and stretch tight for a good ten seconds. She slumps back into a hunched over gremlin creature, and I want to squeeze her.

“Your eyes aren’t even open.”

“Not yet, no. Go put your shoes on and I’ll meet you at the door with open eyes.”

I press the heels of my palms against my eyelids, the eyes underneath burning with the afterimage of the rising of the sun outside. “Oh my god why did we do this.”

She chuckles. “Tradition, homie.” She stands, swaying. “If you’re not ready to die by the deadline, did you even take the class?”

“I could just catch an Uber.”

“Why you keep saying stuff to make me mad, Dre?” she asks honestly and genuinely.

I stand, and decide to pull her into my arms. “I’m too tired to know any better.”

“You think this is gonna help your case? Stupid stuff keeps coming out of your mouth, a hug ain’t gon help.”

She starts squirming away, but I hold her to me, sleepy gears turning in my mind. “I’ll stay here, then.”

She pauses, and I suppress a nervous laugh.

…

Fay

I wrap my arms around his waist and look up at him, bleary-eyed. “Okay.”

He stares down at me, the bags under his eyes dark and deep. “Aiight, where are your sheets so I can set up the couch.”

I pull away, nerves jumping. “Is that really what you wanted to ask?”

He stands there with empty arms, actually looking a little embarrassed. “Nah, but… I don’t have the presence of mind to go through with what I got in my head.”

“Oh.”

He smiles, knowing he’s flustered me. “Yeah.”

I turn around on that note, feeling tired brown eyes still on me. “Well you still don’t have to sleep on the couch. There’s another bedroom, first door on the left, that hasn’t housed a single soul since the beginning of the semester.”

“I thought you had a roommate?”

I yawn, reminding myself to actually text her sometime soon. “I thought so too, but she kinda just shows up once every eon to remind me that she still exists.”

As the sun rises outside Dondre watches me shut down the house, turning the lights off and making sure the doors are locked.

“Shit, I ain’t never felt so safe,” he exclaims, grinning against the wall at the beginning of the hallway.

I grab his hand. “We gotta be up in four hours, let’s go to sleep.”

“You think Hammond knows we pull all-nighters for this assignment?”

“Hell yeah, he can see the submission time. And if he doesn’t, he should know from the crowd of zombies that’s gonna be in class tomorrow.”

Dondre nods, and when I let go of his hand in front of Lily’s bedroom door, he grabs my wrist again. A sudden need to touch him back flashes through my mind, but not as strong as the thought of my bed ten paces away.

I turn my head to him, and he just watches me. “G’night,” he says decisively, planting a kiss on my forehead. It makes the skin there prickle a little bit.

…

Dondre

Nothing sounds as god awful as an alarm going off when you’d rather be dead to the world. I decide that I like whatever firmness this mattress is too good to move out of, and I guess I fall back asleep, because there’s a pounding at the door.

“Let’s go, Hill, we’ve come too far to miss presentation day!”

I open the door to Fay with her eyes opened up to slits, looking like she barely closed them last night. She’s in a rumpled pair of black sweatpants and a wrinkly cotton tee, also black but a bluer shade.

I groan. “Don’t look at me like that for too long, makes me wanna drag you to this bed for a nap.”

“I’d have to kill you. My grade is on the line.”

I decide I like how growly and low her voice is in the morning and press a careful kiss on her lips. She blinks and I feel the slightest pressure of her starting to engage when I pull away, regretfully.

“Is there caffeine somewhere in this house?”

She blinks slowly again and I seriously consider just pulling her back into the room with me. She stalled like a six-year old Saturn when I touched her in the parking lot, and half of her brain flew away with just a kiss. Four hours of sleep behind me now, I could do a bit more research on a subject that really matters to me.

She steps back. “Yes. You drink Bustelo?”

“Jet fuel?” I follow her steps, and she turns and starts down the hallway. I can’t help but reach out for her hand, accepting the loosely latched fingers she offers me.

She snorts. “If you can’t handle it just say so.”

“Well I guess I need that extra punch today?”

She looks back at me, and a bit of apprehension flickers in her eyes as we enter the kitchen. “I don’t know, you look downright predatory. Maybe best not to give you anything that’ll-”

I rush forward to embrace her from behind, winding my hands around her waist.

“That’ll what, Fay?” I know that just like her, I still have that husky, deep morning voice. I attack her with it now, even though it feels like cheating. “That’ll speed up my pulse? Keep me going for a good while?”

I rumble against her neck and feel her shiver, and have to order my hands to hold their ground even though they want to start drifting over that body that she wrote she had under them damn clothes.

I just want to tease her. I still need to tell her about the document; we still need to present today. I don’t have time for this.

I notice I’m kneading at her stomach with gentle fingers and creeping lower without much thought, and completely forget all that shit. Until she speaks.

…

Fay

“Fuck?” just slips out of my mouth, and to cap it all off I shudder, once and wildly, in his arms.

He squeezes me one last time and lets his arms drop, pressing one more kiss into my neck. I whip around and plant my hands on my hips, even though I really want to grab the peeling countertop behind me for support.

He raises an eyebrow. “Are you asking, or…?”

I struggle to come out from under whatever spell he’d started putting over me. “No. No! Fuck. I mean fuck we’re gonna be late. Go, back to wherever you came from and get ready, I’ll make coffee.”

He smiles. “We’re stopping at my place so I can get ready, remember?”

I blink and shield my eyes from him. “Dre I don’t know why that made me want to punch you in the face, but it did.”

He laughs now, and steps around me. “I’ll make coffee, you get dressed. I just gotta throw my clothes on when you’re ready.” He pauses just behind me again. “Unless you want them off.”

“Go somewhere, Hill.”

“I’m in the kitchen!”

…

Dondre

I’m pouring creamer into my cup when she comes back in, in a flowy shirt and smelling like cookies. Like, for real, fucking cookies. Or something sugary.

“Ready?”

She nods, coming up beside me to reach into a cabinet above her head for a thermos. I wanna mess with her again, but I think I fritzed up her nerves enough already. I know she’s really tryina ace the presentation today.

She passes me a mug with a lid too, and I murmur my thanks. We navigate the morning traffic to the apartment, and only then do I realize I never told the guys I’d be out. My phone is on do not disturb. As Fay’s parking in a spot that should be physically impossible to fit into, I check my notifications.

Damn.

“Fay, I want you to know them two are gonna be wiling if they’re awake when you come in the house.”

She smiles, and the dread disappears from my stomach for the duration of it. “I guess you did spend the night, huh? I’ll be alright.”

When we walk in, I’m not sure I will be.

Jazz is standing in the middle of the den with the remote in his hand, and looks flippantly over at me as I walk in. The look changes as he spots Fay.

“Well, well, fuckin well. Phar, come look at this!”

I turn to Fay. “If you wanna sit down and wait, he’ll probably scroll for a little before he turns on Hunter X Hunter like always.”

Pharrell pops his head in from the hallway. “Huh. Alive. Couldn’t get a call or a text or nothing to confirm you wasn’t gonna be here.”

“I already told y’all we were gonna be working on the project last night,” I say, shedding my coat and pointing out the best spot on the couch to Fay. “And say hey, you heathens.”

“You didn’t say an all-nighter. And shit, Fay not a guest, are you Fay?”

She looks up at Jazz after slyly side-eyeing me for a second. “He didn’t say nothing? Trifling.”

He plops down next to her. “If I didn’t have his location, and if you didn’t tell Pharrell what street you lived on, we woulda thought he was dead on the side of the road.”

I suck my teeth and leave them to their mess while I shower and get dressed in sub ten minutes. I’m scared what I’m gonna walk back into.

Pharrell looks at me from the sunken recliner next to the couch, where Fay and Jazz are looking at something on his phone. “So I guess y’all fucking now.”

Fay’s face flashes to mine, amidst Jazz’s stifled snort and the creaking of the broke-down recliner. I think I have an error sign flashing across my forehead.

In an instant Fay reads my face, turns and scoffs at Pharrell. “Oh excuse me, did a shallow-backed bitch say something?”

Jazz starts howling then, and Pharrell looks incredulous before joining in as Fay stands.

I can move again, and the first thing I do is grab her hand and tug her towards the door. “WISH US LUCK!”

…

Fay

Dondre doesn’t slow down until we get to the car, and by then the snickers have died down to a goofy smile.

“All’s well and good I guess, but we got twenty minutes to get to class.” He turns to me. “Can I drive?”

“My car?”

He rolls his eyes as I start laughing again. “I mean, as long as we make it there with little to no exposure to sudden death, sure.”

I hand him the keys and he does get us there with five minutes to spare. Only a couple lane swerves and one last-minute rush through a yellow light. He takes the keys out of the ignition and hands them back to me when he parks all but on the grass at the edge of the parking lot, but holds me back when I make to get out.

“You ready?”

He’s squinting a little in the splash of sunlight coming through the window, and for a split second all that’s reverberating in my head is how damn beautiful this man is.

“Born ready,” I affirm, and the shape of laughter in his eyes condenses with the expanse of his smile.

We’re second to last up, and as Dondre signs into his account with the super long password I’ve come to start making fun of him for, the professor gives me a nod and an encouraging smile from the back of the room. I think we’ve got it.

The script is intentionally dry, and we plod through it in the fifteen allotted minutes. Dondre’s voice does its little nervous cracks at first, but as we continue, he levels out, even throwing in a few jokes.

Hammond’s eyebrows go up, hopefully approvingly, at the installment with the assigned reading Dondre included from his previous Literature course. I hope it gets us brownie points. We finish with a page of citations in size 11 font, and get a polite smattering of applause from the other bleary corpses in the room.

“Thorough and explorative, you two, thank you for your presentation. Last group?”

We start back to our seats, but I notice Dondre’s account still on the screen. “Don’t forget to log out,” I turn and say.

He makes a weird face, so I point behind him at the computer before going back to my seat. Probably delirious now.

…

Dondre

For the rest of class and our day together, I blank each time I think about what to say to Fay. The project’s over, along with most of the semester, except for finals, and I’m jumping at every opportunity to let her know what happened, how everything really went down.

We talk quietly over pizza at a local place, in between the church and the liquor store off the side of the main road downtown. Faye’s head is in her hand before she even gets a second slice in, and I offer to drive her home and spend the night like I did today.

She shakes her head, wielding the crust of her first slice like a baton. I want so badly to latch onto the other end of it and yank it out of her hand. My mouth is open and set to snatch when I remember we’re in the middle of a pizzeria.

“You got any other big things due this week?” she asks, gnawing lazily on one end of her crust.

I shake my head. “Couple papers that I already finished, a few mandatory classes before exams. Then they’re gonna hand me a rolled up piece of paper and I’m gonna run for the hills.”

She grins and brushes a slew of crumbs off of her chest. “The Hills as in your parents, or the hills as in those moderately-sized land masses Jack and Jill are fond of climbing?”

I open and close my mouth at the adorable, pleased expression on her face from her own stupid joke.

I rip the end of the crust from her mouth, popping it into my own, and start stacking our plates.

“Hey!”

“Delirium,” I tsk sadly to myself, chuckling when she punches me in the arm.

“Well, my delirious ass is driving you home, so you better play nice,” she taunts, rising and yawning before slipping her coat over her shoulders.

She pushes our empty glasses and straw wrappers to the edge of the table, where it’s easiest for the busboy to collect them. I wonder if she’s worked in a restaurant before, or if she’s just mindful. I should ask.

I follow her out the door. It occurs to me that if I don’t do something soon, she may not be around for me to find out anything else about her.

“What are you doing after graduation, Fay?” I step down off the curb and automatically offer my arm. I’ve never done it for anyone in my life, but it feels natural to keep her close across the busy street.

“Got an internship lined up with a publishing company, but overall, taking a gap year from grad school.”

“Ah.” I think for another beat. “Coming back here for it?”

“Here or online,” she says, digging her heavy set of keys out of her pocket. I watch as she unclips her car key from the entire mass in order to start the car. I couldn’t believe it the first time she did it, and I still don’t.

“I think there are certain parts of your psyche that I’ll never understand,” I comment.

“Well at least I’m not hanging two pounds of metal off of the ignition, right?”

“Two pounds?!”

“I’m exaggerating,” she soothes, tucking the rest of the keychain into the cupholders between us. “I probably should let some of those go though, huh? Still have my first set of house keys on there from a place I don’t even live anymore.”

“Which one?”

“The sunflower one, with the night sky background.”

I study it, and get lost in thought while pressing it solidly into my hand.

“What are your plans? After graduation.”

I look back up at her and let the keys slip back into the cupholder. “Same deal. Although I feel like, once I get out, I’m not gonna want to go back for my Masters.”

She smiles slyly, tired eyes flickering over to mine. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold you accountable.”

I smile a lot harder than I need to at that.

…

Fay

One week after we turn the final project in, I sort of have an answer. Just go with it. Fuck it all. And fuck him, too, that’s the most important thing. Fuck him repeatedly.

After the first of my finals, I find Dondre taking the last of his stuff out of the lockers in the Honors student lounge, and hesitate to walk in. I don’t know if I was looking for him or not. I step inside and do my best to ignore the blood rushing in my ears.

“I do like what I see.”

“Huh?” He straightens up, looking confusedly over at me before understanding. His smile comes in slow, but strong. I can’t return it; my heart is beating too fast for me to concentrate.

“I knew it,” he cheeses, reaching a hand out to me and drawing me closer. “Where you want our first date to be?”

The nervousness breaks, and I giggle and peck him on the lips, but he catches my face and holds me there. I blink, the fluorescent lights above making it seem like he’s got me under a spotlight.

“I want a real kiss,” Dondre tells me. I smile and nod, all too eager to please if it means standing in his arms a second longer. He lets go of my face and I pop up against him, feeling his arms wind around my waist as a warm puff of air from his open mouth enters mine.

“Mm,” he murmurs in approval, turning us towards the lockers and gradually pressing me back into them. He keeps taking long, strong pulls from my lips, pulling back to look at me every once in a while.

I’m trying to play my part, but when he starts shallowly dipping his tongue in and out of my mouth, I start feeling a haze cloud my mind, and heat seeps hot into my blood like warm honey.

“You okay?”

It takes a moment for me to register that he spoke aloud. He’s panting, hands no longer at my waist but kneading at the backs of my thighs, the shadowy valley of skin where the heat of my arousal is starting to pool.

I nod, smiling frailly, and pull his head back down to mine for more. This time around I’m pliant in his arms, and dazed. I don’t know why just kissing him feels so good.

He grips the bottom of my ass and I make a sound in my throat that makes his gaze darken. I want it to grow desperate over me; right now I feel like a butterfly pinned against a corkboard. I snake a hand to the front of his jeans and cup what’s there, and his body shudders over mine.

…

Dondre

“Whoo, okay, Fay. You skipped like two bases.” She nods giddily, still pressed against the gray metal and beginning to push her hips against something that isn’t there. Yet. But I gotta stop.

I keep falling further and further into her, the soft sighing breaths and warm skin. She’s so… I don’t know. She’s open to me. I keep imagining what she wrote, what she would do with me. How bad she wants all of me.

But her laugh in my head is even more vivid, just bouncing around with remembered glimpses of her squinting, smiling eyes. If she spoke now, she’d have that grainy huskiness in her voice that I’ve gotten to know in the later hours of the day; the one that pulls at my stomach.

Her fingers flex around my dick, pulling me back, and it finally becomes too uncomfortable to bear. I reluctantly pull one hand from where I’m teasing her, unbuttoning and unzipping my pants on a sigh.

I go back to crowding her against the wall, only to hiss against her lips when she makes first contact.

“Better?” she asks, her first words in a long while. Her voice is husky just like I thought, low and private.

I nod, looking for a joke to cut the mood, but I can’t help but lean back into her, the soft heaven of her fingers wrapping around my dick and the wet sounds of her lips. I trace my hands back over her ass, deeper to where the cleft of her lips are, and feel her breasts jump with her intake of breath.

I can’t stop myself. I’m gonna fuck her against these lockers, and I hope nobody walks past because I’m not stopping for them.

Her thumb and forefinger circle the head of my dick, and I grunt against her lips, regaining some clarity with the urgency that it jumps with in her grasp. “Fay, we gotta stop.”

“Mmhm,” she sighs, finally finding purchase on my leg to run her hips over. The heat from between them is almost overwhelming, and probably just as wet, if I decide to fuck around and find out.

I bring my hands around and press them into her hips, pinning them back against the lockers. Maybe without the grinding, we can stay like this a little longer. “Stay there, please,” I tell her, closer to begging than she probably knows. Her eyes are unspeakably deep, and I imagine diving into her and not coming back up for air, not until I’m drenched.

Our lips aren’t meeting anymore; it’s just her pumping her fingers around the head of my dick, I realize. I’m beginning to roll into her grip, and she’s just smiling complacently, head cocked back against the lockers with me vainly trying to finger her through her jeans.

I feel everything building.

…

Fay

A hand appears next to my head, the dull thump echoing down the empty row of lockers.

“Fay, stop it.”

I jump like I’ve been burned, pulling my hands from his unbuttoned jeans and shrinking against the lockers behind me. “Okay.”

His hand slides down from the metal to my shoulder, nestling under my jaw. “No, sorry. I just- I- we can’t do this here,” he says frantically, searching my eyes for answers he doesn’t have.

My gaze sort of helplessly slides down towards the rigid pole I had almost worked out from his jeans. He follows my gaze and runs his hand up and down my side apologetically. “I couldn’t stop if we started now,” he says more than a little bashfully.

I blink, and all at once remember where we are. A ten by ten room with orange carpet, two dingy couches, and a short-circuiting microwave. “Shit.”

Humor floods back into his eyes, even through the strain I see on his face. “You had me fighting for my life, girl, I gotta be careful where I ask for a kiss next time.”

I’m expecting shame to flood in, but there’s just an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, mixing with the want I have for what’s still hard and hot in front of me. “I guess so,” I smile, lips now puffy from his. “You gonna let me go?”

He swears and steps back, looking towards the cracked door as he tries to adjust himself to fit down his left pants leg, then just flips it up against his stomach and arranges his clothes loosely around it.

“That looks painful,” I add, unhelpfully.

He glances up at me and sneers. “No shit.” I hold back laughter, but actually feel a little bad. I want to offer to help him get rid of it. In fact, I think about it intensely as he ties his jacket around his waist and swings his bag over his shoulder.

“I could-” I begin. He shakes his head before I can continue, lips pressed together like an old man’s. Again, I’d laugh if I didn’t have the sensation of his fingers attempting to drill into me at the forefront of my mind.

“We need to leave this place before I find out exactly what you ‘could’ do,” Dondre tells me firmly. I move to walk next to him and realize just how ready I was and still am for him, my lower lips gliding against each other slickly as we make our way down the hallway.

…

Dondre

I’m almost mad at her, as she matches my hobbled stride so easily. I don’t touch her at all as I walk her to her car, and when she asks if she’ll see me again this weekend, I tell her I’ll text her later tonight.

I don’t know if I sound cold, but it’s all I can do. I could’ve dragged her into the two bathrooms we passed on the ground floor, or shoved her into the supply closet across the hall from where we had our last class and peeled those fucking jeans off of her to get at what I know I need now.

She drives off, and I autopilot to the bus stop, through the twenty minute ride home. I walk past the living room where Jazz is asleep with his head on Pharrell’s chest. Pharrell waves at me and I nod, hearing him turn down whatever he’s watching, probably content to settle down under Jazz and stay there all night. I wonder if they’re official as I close my bedroom door behind me, pulling my sad withering dick out of my pants and cradling my sore balls.

A tepid shower does nothing for it, not even when the water runs frigidly cold. So I pull my phone out, feeling like trash as I pull up the pictures I took that day. I look at my name on the blurry screen and imagine her saying it; needlessly forcing her down onto my bed and driving into her from behind while she screams it loud and long.

My dick swells back to life again in my hands, and I rummage through the drawer next to me for Lubriderm to make my fist feel like what I voluntarily rejected less than an hour ago.

Those lips were so warm. I could’ve made her kneel, stretch them around me while I hammered everything I had into the back of her throat. Instead, I eventually spurt hot heavy ropes across my shirt, grunting with a jaw clenched against a much louder, weaker-sounding moan.

…

Fay

The shame comes in as I finally find a parking space, walking into the squat little house I share with Lily and feeling the cool, wet, and unattended space between my legs greet the cold air.

She’s gone again, as usual, either with her boyfriend or her sister. I still feel weird walking into an empty house, even though I should be used to it by now. I was going to move back home after graduation, but maybe I should just get an apartment and find a roommate. One that’ll actually live with me.

I step into a scalding shower and think, for the millionth time, about just calling him over. I know, obviously, it was a good call to step away and not fuck in the student lounge. I just want to know why he didn’t ask to come over tonight. It was even dark enough to make it work in the car.

But if he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to. Why didn’t he want to?

I step out of the shower and still feel the fevered heat running across my nerves. He was surrounding me in that little room, and still he was the one shaking. I was sure of that. I wanted him to fall apart in my hands.

I don’t think I was being pushy… I distinctly remember him making the first moves, after that first kiss. Maybe he was joking about a date, maybe he just wanted to know that I was attracted to him. He just didn’t know just how attracted to him I actually am.

As I envelope myself in my blankets against the cold, I resolve that he doesn’t want me in the same way. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by taking something he didn’t really want.

Or is that low self-esteem speaking? I don’t fucking know. I feel the heat centering itself back between my legs, and note that the ache in my stomach never went away. But… kind of as punishment for being so greedy… I ignore it.

…

Dondre

“You look like shit.”

“I know.” I shiver at the frigid air sapping heat from my face, having just splashed cold water on it and brushed my teeth. Jazz watches me raid the fridge for the last yogurt and the apple juice that Pharrell ordered but never drank from pizza night.

“Rushing?”

“Yes.”

He flips his eggs almost in slow motion while I chug my juice, drops threatening to spill over my lips.

He speaks again, a few moments later. “What happened last night?”

I stop my search for the last pack of ramen to look at him. “What?”

“Pharrell said you came in all angry, looked like something got you tight. I know you got class with Fay, so I figured I’d ask,” he shrugs, nonchalantly. “You good?”

I lick my lips, mouth suddenly dry even though my empty bottle is still in my hand. “I’m a dick,” I tell him.

He blinks. “Never known you to be a dick.”

I shift back into action, finding two packs of noodles behind Jazz’s minute rice and stuffing them both into my bookbag’s side pocket. “Well, something in particular about this one girl makes me one, I guess.”

Jazz’s face finally splits into a smile, eyebrows rocketing up to his hairline. “Don’t that mean something?”

“And this is the convenient point where I hustle out of the room because I’m about to be late,” I mutter, leaving him to peacefully slide his eggs onto slightly burnt toast.

I sit beside her in Hammond’s lecture. She barely turns her head to acknowledge me, and the pit of my stomach drops to see her profile. She might be angry. I was supposed to text her last night; I should’ve said something after the way I acted.

I don’t pay attention to anything until Hammond walks up to us and gives us our individual score charts. An A for me, and at least an A for Fay, from what I can see over her shoulder. It prompts the first smile of the day from me and Hammond continues on, patting me on my shoulder.

“You both worked great together this semester,” he says aloud, and I see Fay’s whole face for the first time today as she beams up at him. She doesn’t look at me though, instead concentrating back on the front of the class like she’s got blinders on.

I hurt her.

…

Fay

I’m too fucking embarrassed to even say a word to anybody today. Overnight, that little bit of doubt turned into mortification, and I woke up with a gutful of shame. Just threw myself at him so easily and smiled goofily as he turned me down. I’m so happy we only have finals left.

I almost sprint out of that room when Hammond gives his little nod of dismissal. I’m trying to pretend Dondre doesn’t exist… it was made easier by the fact that I didn’t have to stare at his head for ninety minutes. Now I just have to hide somewhere on campus.

“Fay.”

“Fuck,” I grumble, not as under my breath as I had hoped to go.

“What?”

Dondre falls into step with me, his long legs eating up the ground as I attempt, then quickly give up outpacing him.

“What’s up?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night.”

I feel betrayed by myself as tears threaten to prick at the corners of my eyes. I force them down, feeling ridiculous. “It’s all good, Dre,” I smile. “Probably woulda gone south anyway.”

He’s silent for a beat as we wait at the crosswalk. I wish it had been our second lecture so I could’ve just ducked straight into my car. “What you mean?”

I hurry across the broad white lines in the road, wishing he’d go away, feeling my voice get thick. “I dunno, I didn’t… I don’t think you… want…”

As soon as we get across the road my keys are snatched from my hand. “Let’s go,” he says gruffly. The pit of dread in my stomach is unbearable as he grabs my empty hand and pulls me towards my car.

“Get in, Fay,” I hear. He’s brought me to the passenger side, and I don’t object to it. He turns the engine over and cranks the heat on, and I watch my hands fumble in my lap.

“I’m sorry I flipped last night.”

I look up, determined to keep it together. I have too long a history of falling apart to hope for it, though. “You didn’t flip.”

He looks at me, face mournful and unsmiling. “I didn’t even want to touch you. I didn’t want to touch you just now.”

I blink, eyes probably shiny. “Are… are you actively trying to make me cry?”

“NO, no, Fay, listen… I was about to drag you off anywhere I could. I had to go home and… I didn’t want to do it like that, not with you. You had to know how much I wanted you. Want you.”

His eyes won’t meet mine, which is understandable. I probably look like I’m about to burst into tears. But, the thrill his words are giving me are teasing at my senses.

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

His eyes shoot up, brows low over long lashes.

“I wanted you,” I say with more emphasis. “I almost threw a fit driving home.”

He shakes his head, eyes boring a hole into the center of my chest now. “I have to tell you something.”

…

Dondre

There’s no logic in telling her now. We have another lecture to attend, the third to last class we have here before we graduate. She’s already about to cry, how would she even drive home? Why am I making her cry?

She’s waiting for me to continue.

“I knew you liked me already.”

“…Well, good for you.” she says morosely.

I feel that I Am Garbage feeling come over me again, the one that’s been plaguing me since I started talking to her.

“Fay, I read what you wrote about me.” Everything goes silent. I just stare at the rise and fall of the letters on her hoodie, unable to read the whole word.

“You left the drive open on your account in the computer center one day, and I saw my name and I read it. I already noticed you before then, but… the day I talked to you, asked you out for coffee? That’s… that’s the reason. I think.”

I see the bottom of her face bobbing in and out of my vision. She’s nodding. “Easy target.”

“Fuck no. It didn’t make you easy, Fay. It just…” I try to clear my throat. “What you wrote about me made me want to be around you, and it made me want to… please you. Not just in a sexual way. And it sounds really creepy out loud. So fucking creepy. Because knowing you wanted me made me hot as hell too.”

“What does that have to do with you flipping on me last night? Do you think it earns you points?”

She doesn’t have anymore tears in her voice, but she sounds so cold. I’ve probably lost her, but I just want the truth out at this point.

“I’ve felt like shit since I started talking to you. Which I should. I wanted to tell you that I knew from the first day, but I was a coward, because I just knew it’d all be over then, you’d never give me the time of day.” I take a breath. “It’s all over anyway, I guess. Just… I hurt you now a lot more than I ever would’ve if I had just fucking said something that first day.”

I hear a shaky inhale and exhale, and wonder what would’ve happened if I just never opened my mouth, just let myself sink into her warmth. I see the letters on her chest jump and look up to her face. There are no more tears in her voice because they’re trailing down her cheeks. She’s crying silently and holding back from sobbing outright. How was this the right thing to do?

…

Fay

“Thank you for telling me. Can you leave, please?” I know he’s watching the tears stream down my face, and I can’t pretend I’m not damn near fatally wounded by his confession. I watch him unfold himself from the driver’s seat and walk back across the street. I don’t know where to.

So. I muse to myself with a wet face, knowing it’s useless to clean up until the tears stop. It’ll just make my face red and swollen, I know from experience.

He’d seen me before, maybe made note of the little things that were attractive about me. Never thought about me beyond that. Came to the same computer as me one day, read my childish, simple admission, and decided it was the best chance he’d ever get. Or no, that’s not how he saw it.

He said that was the reason he asked me out for coffee that day. Was it also the reason he kept speaking to me, and being nice to me, and asked me if I liked him? Was it the reason he kissed me?

By the time I’m done crying, I have forty minutes until the next lecture starts. It takes me thirty-seven to decide I’m not going.

…

Dondre

She’s not in class. I walk stiffly to my seat and think about why I even showed up.

My leg won’t stop bouncing as Hammond passes out a last review of the topics for the final, wordlessly handing me two. I feel tears prick the corners of my eyes and can’t stop seeing the tears on her face. I sat there and told her the truth, and I didn’t even say sorry.

But I think saying sorry would’ve made it worse. I don’t regret anything except not telling her sooner.

I look up at Hammond strolling slowly back to the front of the lecture room. We’re only ten minutes in, but I can’t wait. I clear my throat.

“Professor?”

“Hmm?”

“May I be excused?”

Hammond studies me briefly before leaning against the desk with his own review packet. “I’ll see you Monday, Mr. Hill.”

“Yessir.” I duck my head in thanks and swing my bag over my shoulder. I think I hear somebody whisper ‘Go get her homie,’ and muted giggles as I walk to the back of the classroom.

I don’t have the room to be embarrassed. I am going to go get her.

…

Fay

I’m sitting on the couch watching Coco and browsing more internship opportunities when I hear a knock at the front door. And I ignore it.

“Fay,” he calls, deep and desperate. My stomach knots up and my brain unravels.

I don’t have to open the door. Even though he’s probably looking right at me through the side paneling in the foyer. I look over. He is.

“I know. It’s my sorry ass again. Just open up.”

I close down my laptop and reluctantly wander over to the door, not knowing what else to do.

“I’m not sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m not sorry about anything, except not telling you the moment I read that letter. Because I wouldn’t mean it.”

I stare at him, wondering at the strange look in his eyes. “Is that right?”

“Can I come in?”

This is the moment where I shut the door in his face, I think as I usher him into my home. Just listen to his footsteps retreat back down the driveway and sit across the room from him in your last three lectures at school.

We sit at the table and I watch him secure a vice-like grip on his knees. I meet his eyes and wait, fortunately all cried out.

Dondre takes a breath to ground himself and rubs his thighs in a nervous gesture. “So. I’m not sorry, because I don’t regret getting to know you. I had this resolve that I wouldn’t start anything because graduation is so close, and it makes no sense, but I still would sit in front of you almost every day and wonder why I couldn’t just turn around and talk to you.

And then I got the chance, and I just- I wasn’t after sex, or something easy, I swear. I liked you, and everything was going like a dream, and the only thing that mattered was keeping it that way. But I knew the whole time how wrong I was. And when you touched me, I knew I had to stop before I took it too far.”

I drum my fingers dully against my leg, nodding at his admission. Yes, he was wrong. And I just want him to hold me now.

Is it stupid of me? He’s waiting for a response, but the only answer I have running through my head is pulling him over to me and letting our bodies run slick with the truth. My eyes, still swollen and probably red from tears, spark some sense in me.

“….Wanna go get Starbucks and talk about where to go from here?”

…

Dondre

I want to grab her face and kiss her. I want to order cheap, greasy food and eat it with her while her face loses that red, puffy look. I want to bring her back to my apartment and watch her get along with my best friends. I want to fall asleep with her watching Hannibal or How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days or Ugly Betty. Anything with her.

I think about these things as she orders something strong and hot, and asks me if I want a croissant with my Americano. I decide yes, because I love bread, and think about our talk on the drive over here.

We’re starting fresh and honest. As fresh as possible, since it’s not like we can fall back into a friendly dynamic like we don’t want to fuck each other.

While she’s pulling up to the second window in the drive thru I can’t stop thinking about the sounds she made in that room, her ass sitting hot in my hands as I held her up against the wall. I want all of her, preferably sooner than later.

“What you looking at, punk?” she dramatizes, taking the tray of drinks from the cashier in one hand and grabbing the bag of baked goods in the other.

I lean over and plant a kiss on her cheek, taking the drinks. “My girl,” I say decisively, holding my hand out for hers after she sets the other bag between us. I feel absurdly pleased when she takes it.

We sit in her car in front of her house and scroll through her TikTok, eating and enjoying each other’s company.

“Dondre.”

“Hmm,” I murmur, absorbed in the Dungeons and Dragons rogue cosplay on her screen.

“I really want you to come home with me.”

I look up, the sound clip from the video starting over. “Aren’t we already… oh. What?”

She doesn’t move her eyes from the screen and I feel my face get hot before the rest of my body flushes with her words.

“Yeah, I was thinking more in the figurative sense,” she says, glancing up at me and making my chest go tight when she starts fiddling shyly with the mound of keys in her lap.

I fucking love her.

…

Fay

Dondre nods, unsmiling, looking like I asked him to help me raise my firstborn. I want to lock my arms around him and squeeze him until our bodies are indistinguishable.

“So. Right now?”

I’m too nervous for words now so I just nod. I think we get out of the car at the same time, but he’s at my side as I step out, grabbing the bag of trash from our coffee trip from me and taking my elbow gently in his free hand.

We walk step for step past the overgrown hedge on the path leading to the house, and he lets me go but stays close as we reach the door.

My nervous, halting sigh eases from my mouth into the heated house. “You want something to drink?”

He holds up the paper bag stuffed with our empty coffee cups and wrappers, locking the door behind him.

“Right, we just…” I gesture for the bag and he hands it to me, watching me stuff it into the trash can. “Wanna sit down and get comfortable? If you can find the remote, we got a Firestick, you can watch whatever you want.”

“Fay.” My heart is beating like it’s trying to turn over an engine, but I can still hear my name quickly and easily slipping off his tongue.

“Yeah.”

“Come lean on this wall for me.” He’s got a hand pressed against the far wall of the living room, and the dusky light coming through the windows settles graciously across his back.

My lower jaw drops slightly and I take a deep breath, obediently walking over and propping myself up against the living room wall, in the shadow of his body. Where we left off.

…

Dondre

Not a thought in my head except giving her what she asked for.

“Spread your legs, Fay,” I suggest, and she does so, staring at the hollow in my throat. If she looks off to the left a little, she’ll be able to see my pulse fighting to escape my neck.

“Kiss me again.”

I let her place her lips over mine and while I don’t feel the absolute eagerness she gave me from the first time, I’m ready to stoke the fire until she’s fighting to get at me.

I remember she started going all gooey when I dipped my tongue in her mouth. So I do it now, taking my hand off the wall and finding purchase on her hips. It’s quiet for a long time, except for the heavier panting and smacking coming from our mouths.

Her hands are kneading at the center of my chest, and I wonder if they’ll stay there or if…

I feel my dick jump in my jeans and finally notice how rigid it is, soon to be uncomfortable. I forge ahead and cup her ass, even more aggressively than I did in the lounge. I fill my hands with it, pressing my finger tips underneath her and fighting against the seam, half-crazed and 100% certain that I feel the surely soaked lips inside.

“Mmm,” she sighs, the first vocalization I hear from her. I need her to make more. My hands are at the zipper of her jeans, and her fingers start to tease my chest and stomach as I jerk the waistband down over her hips.

Her head rests back against the wall, and she watches me stare down at the fat, wet flesh between her legs. I notice the barely visible gulp in her throat and lean forward to kiss her there, flicking my tongue out to gauge her reaction.

“Oh,” she whispers on the cutest little sigh. I’m obsessed with the sounds coming from her and resolve to hear as many as possible, more firmly licking and nipping at the soft skin below her jaw and clenching one of her hips between my fingers to start the assault below.

…

Fay

It’s not the same slow descent as before. It feels like he’s actively trying to drive me crazy, looking for the move that will make me shudder and then drilling it into me for the next few moments until he moves on looking for more weaknesses. Shouldn’t I be doing something?

I slide heavy hands lower, to his waistband, as he glides confident fingers over my lips. I unbutton the pants hurriedly, knowing how quickly he could and probably will drive me over the edge. I want what I wanted that day; a man trembling over me.

He groans as I ease his pants a bit lower to let his dick stand alone, semi-hard and rising before my eyes. I stroke an encouraging hand over it and he grunts, but stares undeterred into my closing eyes as he sinks two fingers up into me.

“Fay.”

“Hmm?” I open my eyes to see him watching his fingers disappear into me, over and over. I think I feel precum from the head of his dick running down my wrist.

“D-did you…. Fuck, like that again.” I smile and run firm fingers wet from his precum from root to tip, and a little more fluid leaks out over my hand. His hips stutter and his fingers twist in me, making me squeal. His hand comes up heavy on the wall again like that day in the hallway, but I don’t stop stroking.

“What, baby?” I kiss the arm trembling next to my head and bring my slick hand up to my tongue, licking the sheen off before his eyes and returning my hand to the hot flesh between us.

The look on his face is priceless. “Gotdamn. Okay. I’mma… did you wanna do this here?” His fingers slow in me and I whine, swirling my hips around them. They stop completely and he slides them out, instead holding me down. “Where.”

“Where do you want me?” I take a deep breath. “You can….” I grab his left hand up off the wall and place it over my hair, fisting our hands in my twists. “You can have it anyway… like I said.”

I roll my palm over the swollen head of him braving the open air, watching his mouth drop open slightly.

He looks me up and down, in serious study of the body thrumming under his. “Come with me.”

He yanks me up off the wall and we both stagger, our pants around our knees.

“Going nowhere fast, huh?” I tease, stripping my jeans off my legs. But hands are back on my waist again, stroking the newly available skin and running questing fingers over my ass.

“No,” Dondre agrees, slipping fingers back into me and making me lose my humour about the situation. “See, maybe I had the right idea yesterday.”

I can’t grab his dick again, with him walking me backwards and concentrating his hand to do something subtle that has me rocking forward onto his fingers.

“The right idea?” We return back to the same spot as before, bumping against the wall and realigning ourselves to fit together.

“I could do this right here,” he breathes.

…

Dondre

She suddenly grabs my wrist and holds it at an angle, then starts moaning loud and long. I continue pumping my hand into her, starting to ache, but I’ll be damned if I stop now. Her face crumples as the walls clamp down.

“Dondre fuck yes, right there, please. Fuck, please.”

Her legs start to slide closed but I place my own between them and make her ride it out spread open, the cream between her legs starting to slicken her thighs and puddle in my hand.

Wordlessly, I take my dick in hand, pump it in the handful I’m holding, and stuff myself in slowly past the rippling muscles. She moans again, walls massaging my length, and I stand quietly against her, lost in the sensation.

“Dondre, move.”

I pull up off of her. “Oh shit, am I hurting you?”

She opens her eyes lazily, grinning. “No, boy, inside me. Move inside me. I’m good.”

I laugh then, placing a kiss on her lips and drawing her right leg up over my hip. The sharp intake of breath against my mouth makes me smile in between kisses.

“Still good?” I pick up the pace ever so slowly, the hand not holding her leg digging into her hip on the other side.

“Mmhmm,” she murmurs in between grunts, her hands flying up to grip my shoulders.

It’s what I’ve wanted to do for so long. Sink into her, feel her body dripping down around me and for me. I hear her sigh my name into the red light of the setting sun and rock even deeper into her.

“Dondre, please,” she wheezes, hands now gripping my ass and pulling me into her, my balls now swinging and slapping at the wet skin behind her pussy.

“What, baby?” I rasp, ready to kill whoever I need to to give her what she wants.

…

Fay

I feel my face heat under his satisfied, exerted gaze and squeeze his ass even tighter. “Come inside?”

I hear a groan so deep from him it might as well be a growl, and feel myself flutter desperately around him. He fastens his mouth to mine and snatches me up off the wall, pulling me down to the floor to straddle over him while he kneels under me and slams my body down on top of his dick.

Porn star moans, and a loud sob, issuing uncontrollably from my mouth. I can feel him staring and feel my face heat up infinitely, but he just grips my hips tighter and rises up to meet the wet slapping junction of my thighs.

“Oh my God, Dre, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, Dre, fuck,” stutters out of me, in a plaintive, pleading voice. I’m getting to something big, but not fast enough, because a short while later he directs his body forward and leans farther over me until my back meets the floor beneath us.

“You taking it, baby?” My back squeaks wetly against the wood and all I can do is nod, chest bouncing and heaving. He has my leg back in his hand, making sure I feel every inch of him slamming into me.

He brings his face down next to mine, and the harsh, urgent breath in my ear begins to pull me over the edge. I hear a whine coming from my throat threatening to turn into a yell, but when I raise my hand to my mouth he just takes it in his and raises it above my head, breathing heavy into my ear and listening to me shout.

His hips flex and he finally follows me, driving himself up into my pussy one more time and only rocking back and forth for a long while after, delivering hot white lines up to paint the soaking walls inside.

…

Dondre

I stare down at her, ready to fall asleep on top and inside of her, on the wooden floorboards in her living room. She has a roommate, right? Is she here? I lay there, expecting to feel some sense of urgency, but find I don’t give a fuck while I’m inside her.

“I need to get up,” I state, trying to convince myself.

“Eventually,” she sighs, the walls of her pussy still pulsing and trying to milk my withering dick. She runs a hand over my ass and up my back, curling fingers around my shoulder to pull me down for a kiss.

I slide out and feel her shudder beneath me, suddenly aware that somewhere along the way I stripped her of all but her bra and had her sweaty and writhing on the cold floor. Goosebumps are covering her shoulders, and I can see red irritation between her thighs where my jeans chafed against her skin.

She brings her arms down to cover her chest and closes her legs tidily to the side. “What you all up in my grill for, son?”

I smile down at her, humoured. “You shy? I can’t look at my girlfriend’s sexy, just-fucked body?”

She sits up, displacing me, and considers, straightening my t-shirt where it’s twisted around my body. “I guess it’s okay. As long as it’s just-fucked.”

I laugh and pull her into me, smoothing warm hands over her arms. “I was too rough, and you’re cold,” I whisper into her neck, placing kisses there and running my fingers over the nail marks on her hips.

She snorts. “I’ll tell you when you’re too rough, don’t worry.”

Her next breath drags into her lungs, and I can almost feel when she goes back under the spell we’ve cast together.

…

Fay

“I really should apologize for just taking you on the floor, huh?” he drawls against my neck.

“We’re still on… okay.” I bite the end of the sentence short as he moves down my body, laying careful licks against my chest and stomach and stopping at the meeting of my thighs. Warmth blooms in the heat and wet of his mouth over my pussy.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, looking up at me. “Forgive me?”

I lay back against the floor again, marveling at the cool sweaty slick of the wooden boards under me in contrast to his heat. “I dunno, look at me, I’m shivering.”

He laps once, and my fingers fly to his head, clawlike. I try not to grip his head too hard, but the next several sloppy moments have me clamping down on his face with thighs, hands and pussy.

“Hell. Fuck. Your tongue feels so good, baby, Please… AHT- hmmm.”

He’s taken my clit gently between his teeth and started pulsing his jaw gently open and closed. I feel my pussy spasm and a rush of slick flooding it, making way for him to fuck me again.

There’s barely room for the hand holding me open and exposed, and I feel his fingers slipping and sliding around my clit, scrabbling to maintain their purchase. I try to hold still for him but continue shuddering until he scoops his tongue underneath the hood and I buck my hips, halfway to dislodging him.

“You’re a rough ride, baby,” he laughs from below, sounding winded.

“Fuck.” I watch him swirl pruney fingers over my fat flesh.

…

Dondre

My knees are starting to ache. I blindly grab some of the surrounding clothes and shove them under my body, because fuck if I’m getting up from in between her legs. I just watch her try to compose herself, and immediately decide I want to fuck her to the point of embarrassment. I want her to lose her voice, I want her sore and used tomorrow with marks on her neck. I want to be there to see people look at her and know she was fucked good.

The look in her eyes as I tongue her clit again and slide soaking fingers back into her pussy makes all the hot air in my chest deflate with a whoosh. She croons at the feeling.

I start fucking her steadily with my fingers, and when she moves too much for me to stay latched on I just lap blindly at whatever pink, throbbing skin I can reach. I distantly hear “please” and my name, but her thighs are so tight around my ears that I can’t be sure exactly what she’s saying. I could close my eyes here, but I like watching her face crumple and stretch.

Her thighs fall open a bit after…. I wasn’t paying attention to how many times I brought her over, just absorbed in the slight movements that I could employ to make it happen. Her hands are in her own hair, and she’s got tears leaking from her eyes. A trail of saliva from the corner of her mouth. I want to fuck her face again, make her hang her head over the bed so I can power in and out and watch the soft bulge move in her throat.

“Dre?”

I snap back, realizing my dick is throbbing again, cold and neglected against the floor.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I…” her breath skips as I slide my tongue over my lips. “What do you wanna do with-”

The rest of the air escapes her lungs as I curve two solid fingers back into her and revel in the sponginess. I’m gonna ride her one more time, but something arrogant and sadistic kind of latches on the front of my brain.

“Fay,” I whisper against her leg, waiting for her eyes to land on mine.

When they do, I add another finger, nodding against her thigh and feeling the cum smear across my cheek.

“I want this to feel raw and bred when I’m done. But you let me know if you can’t take it anymore. Tap, or something.”

She shivers and nods her head before her body undulates underneath me again, making room for my arm aligning itself with her pussy already gulping at my fingers. I shove a fourth along with the others and she whines, but I ignore it in favor of the way her pussy is gripping my hand. I can barely thrust more than a half inch forward and back, and when I start forcing room is when I hear the dirtiest squelching and squeaking from her. She’s vocalizing above me, low throaty grunts, but all I’m thinking about is how much more thoroughly I need to fuck her.