Page 39 of Don't Be in Love

“Holy shit, I fell asleep.” I pushed my sleeve up to find my watch. “What time—”

“Quarter past eleven.”

My chair legs jutted against the hardwood floor as I found Dorian sitting on the table beside me. The last time I saw him, he was drenched.

“Holy shit, I wasn’t dreaming,” I responded, feeling mystified.

His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

God, he looked handsome when he was taken aback. Get ittogether.

“When did you get here?” he asked, saving me from any other sleep-related questions.

“Three, I think. I was studying for my Consumer Behavior midterm that’s tomorrow but then my laptop stopped and—shit, my laptop. I was supposed to fix my laptop.” My voice strained.

I whipped open the screen and was greeted with my reflection. An earring hung upside down, snagged in a piece of hair, while another strand was stuck to my lip gloss. I brushed it away and clicked a few buttons. Nothing changed.

“Come on, comeon.” I had an exam in the morning. This couldnotbe happening.

Oh wonderful, here came the Overworked Stress Tears filling my throat.

“Hey, it’s alright. I can fix it,” Dorian offered, his voice soft and reassuring, pushing off the table to lean over my shoulder. His face right beside mine, his shoulder neighboring mine. I could smell the coffee on his black sweater.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I argued, emotion still clogging my throat as I turned to face him.

“Do you want your laptop to work?” He twisted. His lips almost brushed mine. It was so fast; I couldn’t tell if I had imagined it. My heart replaced the emotion in my esophagus. Something told me I was just tired because he looked unaffected, waiting for my response.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and faced the laptop, pressing a few key combinations I had missed. “Does the screen shut off often?”

“Not usually. It’s been glitchy for the past month though. I think it was from the rain when we …” I let the words drop off. He knew what I was referencing.

“There’s probably some water damage then. This should only take a minute.”

He reached for his back pocket, returning with a set of keys. I watched as he sat the laptop upside down and unscrewed the back of it with a house key.

“How do you know what to do?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“My dad works with a lot of video production equipment. There were always cameras and computers lying around the house. Compared to everything else, a laptop is the easiest thing to fix,” he explained.

I nodded in acknowledgment, unsure of what else to say. He said it like his dad wasn’t an award-winning director. Nothing pompous about it.

I sat back and watched him work, careful to not brush his shoulder with mine.

His presence was more poignant than I remembered. Like a blank wall decorated with a single painting. It was difficult not to frantically twist your back to look at it or reach your hand forward to graze its brush strokes. Avoiding it for two weeks didn’t help either.

Side effects included: staring longer than usual, counting the number of moles on his neck and the outgrown curls above his ear, and having the urge to ask why there was always paint under his nails.

Jesus.

Hisgirlfriendprobably thought the same thing.

Something was possessing me. I was a victim of a horror movie; possessed and cursed.

I had been dodging him since the pond incident and now I was facing the consequences.

I’d tell him that the bookstore was slammed with customers or that I had nonstop bloody noses or was contagious with something he’d never heard of or that I couldn’t leave my apartment because the mice in the walls were freaking Sabrina out.