Just Down the Hall

by Alessandra Thomas

  He froze, cupping the back of my head with his palm and looking into my eyes. “You okay?” The intensity of the connection between us in that moment made my heart swell, so full it felt like it would burst.

  “Perfect. Amazing. Don’t stop,” I whispered as I leaned down and brushed my lips, feather-light, against his. Just that slight forward lean changed the angle between us, and something about that set him off. His hands slid down to cup my ass, tugging my body up and pulling it down onto him again in a rapidly increasing rhythm.

  “Lizzie,” he moaned, before peppering my neck and shoulder with hot, messy kisses. “You’re sure about the condom. Right?”

  “There hasn’t been anyone else in months,” I groaned as he dragged himself in and out of me.

  “For me either,” he grunted. His breathlessness made me feel like a goddess.

  I hooked my arms under his, to get better leverage, the noises coming from my throat on each thrust growing louder, more desperate. The heat building inside me licked at every inch of my skin, a warning of the coming devastation, but somehow all I wanted was more.

  I felt my nails dig into his skin, heard his low growl when they did. “Jordan. I’m…”

  “Come on. Let go. I’ve got you.” He slid his hands up and looped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight into him, supporting me as the pleasure crashed through my veins and left me shaking and gasping. A moment later, he thrust so hard into me that I saw stars. His shout when he came sent pride coursing through me. I wanted to grab his ass and beg him to keep going, but I also kind of wanted to cradle his tall, lean body against mine and lick lazy kisses over every inch of his skin.

  This combination of arousal and affection was strange. The other times I’d slept with a guy, it had been either because it was expected of me, or because I wanted to make him happy. Because I liked him. Occasionally, I would get drunk or have such an amazing time partying and laughing that I’d get carried away and have trouble keeping my hands off a guy - Josh used to buy me drink after drink for that reason - but I’d never felt anything close to the pleasure I felt with Jordan. JJ.

  We sat in the same position until we caught our breath, aiming kisses at each other’s mouths and sometimes missing, which made us laugh and try again. The sensation of Jordan’s lips vibrating against mine, his breath puffing into my mouth, made me feel warm all over, in a completely different way than his cock had just a couple minutes ago. This felt like something I wanted to wrap around me, to claim as my own and no one else’s.

  Finally, when I realized how badly my quads burned, I shifted to the side to stand up.

  “Noooo,” JJ complained, still grasping one of my hands as I got to my feet. It was a good thing, too, because my legs were like jelly. It had been a simultaneously terrible and incredible night for my lower half, that was for sure.

  “I’m just cleaning up a little,” I said with a chuckle, and made my way into the bathroom.

  I flicked on the light and stared into the mirror. I blinked at my reflection and startled. In the harsh light, I could see what a terrific disaster I really was.

  My hair was rumpled in a frizzy half-wave mess, with one knot so impressive on the side JJ had pressed himself into that I’d need half a bottle of conditioner and several very patient minutes to remove it. My mascara was smudged and my lips were dry. Red spots where I’d gotten rid of my monthly couple of zits glared out at me in the harsh light.

  Forget the photoshopped Barbie doll in the “Liz Dates Philly” article. I didn’t even look like the “first date Liz,” who Brad thought was so reprehensible. I looked like I’d been dragged through the gutter and then ridden on the back of a motorcycle for a few miles.

  I couldn’t go back out there like this. Whatever JJ had been able to turn a blind eye to in the midst of what I thought was pretty hot couch sex would not cut it for very long. I scrubbed my face and ran a toothbrush through my mouth.

  I checked myself in the mirror again. Not much improvement, and it felt pretty freaking stupid to think of putting on makeup now. Same with detangler and busting out a straightening iron. Didn’t change the fact that the thought of JJ seeing me such a mess made butterflies of doubt flutter in my belly.

  I shouldn’t have come to the bathroom. It ruined the mystique, and our dreamlike, just—roommates, absolutely freaking incredible midnight couch sex was just that—like a dream. At the last moment, I grabbed a towel from the bar behind me and wrapped it tightly around myself. It still smelled like JJ’s shampoo. I breathed in deep.

  Stepping back into the hallway after turning out the bathroom light made the dark seem pitch-black. I tiptoed over to the wall, hoping JJ had fallen asleep and I could pass safely to my room without him seeing exactly what my date that night had seen—a mess. Maybe he’d gone to his own room, hoping to sleep quietly without me drooling on him.

  Why did that idea make my breath hitch in my throat, and my heart twist with dread?

  But he wasn’t gone, or asleep. Instead, he was in his boxer briefs, picking up every article of clothing we’d tossed on the coffee table, floor, and… doorknob? Wow.

  “Hey,” he said with a warm smile. “Now that you’re back, you can decide which clothing you want. If any. I mean, clothing is optional. Obviously. I just didn’t want to leave this…” he motioned down to his crotch “…well, you know. Out.”

  That made me giggle. “Um… toss me a shirt?”

  “Yours or mine?” His eyebrows arched up and a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. My eyes were adjusting to the dark again, and with the dim blue light coming in from the high windows, his expression looked almost like hope.

  “Yours,” I practically whispered. He tossed it to me, and I dropped my towel with a squeak when I went to catch it. I fumbled with it for several seconds, gracelessly searching for the opening and then tugging it down over my head. After I tried to smooth my hair down, again, I looked up to JJ still standing there, still looking at me, with a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “You tossed it on purpose,” I said as my grin slowly grew to match his. “So I’d have to drop the towel.”

  He shrugged and stepped closer to me until we nearly stood toe to toe. “Can you blame me?”

  “I… um …”

  He held his hand out, palm up, and my own hand shook as it slid into his. He squeezed, then turned it enough to link our fingers together. “Your room is really hot, I noticed.”

  “Yeah?” Even that one word came out sounding breathless.

  “Yeah. I think the AC is messed up. Stay in my room? I won’t steal the covers.”

  I was pretty sure that was bullshit. The AC had been working perfectly that morning. I was also really, really relieved that he was offering me an excuse to do what I desperately wanted to do anyway—tangle my body with his while we slept.

  “Okay. I’ll call the landlord in the morning,” I said softly as he tugged me along behind him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, giving me a wicked smile.

  There were a dozen reasons we shouldn’t be doing this. But right now, I had no idea how I’d be able to stop.

  Chapter 15

  Jordan

  I woke the next morning to hear Liz, in the kitchen, again.

  I didn’t know what I wanted out of this, or what exactly I expected her to do in this weird morning-after space. Still, the memory of the last time, when she’d been fixing coffee and ready to run out the door and - worst of all - pretending that nothing had ever happened between us, put me on guard.

  Sure enough, she looked almost exactly as she had in that memory of mine: wearing a flowy dress and fitted jacket this time, but still obviously headed to work. She was pouring coffee into two mugs, and I slid into one of the chairs at our tiny table and gratefully accepted one.

  We sipped in silence for a few moments. She stood the whole time.

  “I have to write about my date today. Deadline’s at 5.”

  “On the weekend?”
<
br />   She shrugged. “I guess they want it ready to run on Monday. Thought I’d head to the office so I could…” her eyes flicked to mine, “focus.”

  Disappointment washed over me. She felt weird around me. How could she not? She was just trying to do her job and here I was, making out with her, and more, whenever she’d let me. Hell, I’d even tried to rig the damn date. She wasn’t my property.

  “If this isn’t what you—”

  “This is weird, isn’t it?”

  Both of us blurted out those half-thoughts in the same instant. The pink flush on Liz’s cheeks bloomed immediately, and I realized that it must happen in any variety of overwhelming circumstances. She blushed when she was flattered or turned on, I knew, and now I could see that her face reddened when she was embarrassed, too.

  She took a deep breath and started again. “I know we agreed that this apartment, and everything that happened here, could be like our own little bubble, but…I also know it’s weird. I’m dating other guys and writing about it for all of Philly to read. It seems like common sense that I absolutely should not be doing…what we were doing…while I’m going out with other guys. Right?”

  Before I could answer, she pressed her lips together and nodded firmly. “It’s weird,” she repeated, “and I’m sorry.”

  Deep down, I’d known that the whole ‘friends-slash-roommates with benefits’ thing wouldn’t work for me for very long. Whatever feelings I thought I could push off were relentlessly bleeding through at the weak edges of this relationship, that much was clear.

  It might have been weird for her, but it was dangerous for me.

  If this wasn’t what she wanted anymore, and it wasn’t what I could handle, there was no way I was going to push her. And really, I shouldn’t push myself.

  By instinct, I stretched my hand out to touch hers, letting my fingers brush the back of her hand before I pulled it back. Focus, man.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. Pretty sure I was just as equal a participant as you were, in…you know. Everything.” I said, adding a chuckle in hopes of sounding more convincing, even though I couldn’t bring myself to look at her when I did. Her eyes flashed to mine in a way that told me that she didn’t totally buy my feigned nonchalance but was choosing to accept it anyway.

  It wasn’t like I could really tell her that I’d been daydreaming about her nonstop since the first time we’d slept together.

  I made some excuse to take my coffee back into my room, and plunked myself back down on the bed for a few minutes of staring at the wall. The coffee didn’t do anything to erase the scent of her shampoo on my pillowcase.

  * * *

  Thankfully, the next couple weeks had me spending most of my time on UPenn’s campus and addressing all the work on my busy Engineering PhD. schedule.

  Okay, Maybe I didn’t have to volunteer for an inner city junior high’s LEGO Technic state competition team. Maybe I didn’t have to spend quite so much time in the library, or make sure I held long office hours and met each and every one of the students I TA’d for. But there was just something unbearable about being in the apartment with Liz and hearing her talk about work. It was almost impossible to be in the same space as her, watch her walk around and bend over when she picked up her laundry and slowly eat a popsicle, without wanting to grab her and kiss her. And, obviously, more.

  There was just one problem—neither one of us had been fully aware of ourselves the last time we’d had sex. I knew she’d wanted it in the moment, just like I had. But if we were in danger of something as innocent as falling asleep on the couch together turning into a full-blown, clothes-on-the-floor, frenzied session of lovemaking, I hated to think what would happen if we ran into each other unloading groceries, or happened to be alone watching TV, or—oh, God—bumped into each other to or from the shower?

  I lamented the problem to Ethan at Joey and Hawk’s, the same bar where we’d first met, later that week.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, man. If you can’t predict the outcome, you should absolutely not be putting yourself in the circumstance.” Ethan was taking a break from a long day of studying insurance policies to hang out with me. Of course he’d be talking about a relationship like this.

  “Oh, I can predict it. The likelihood is high that we’ll have sex. There are just too many other variables.”

  “Like…”

  “Well, condoms, for one.”

  “Jordan Jacobs. Bro. Do not tell me that you went bareback with her. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in urban populations of under-25 females alone is—”

  I shrugged. “I trust her.”

  “She’s dating all of Philly. Publicly. Everyone reads her column.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Who’s everyone? You?” I was happy that Liz was getting readers, but at the same time, hearing about them broke the illusion that I was getting exclusive, intimate details about her life by living with her. Things nobody else could know.

  “Well, vicariously. Natalia read her intro, and the first date column.”

  “Natalia. Isn’t that the bullfighter? Who you’ve known for, like, two weeks?”

  Ethan nodded forlornly.

  “I thought you weren’t going to see her anymore, man. Too risky.”

  “I wasn’t. But she decided she was gonna see me. And then she sort of held me prisoner in her bed for a week and a half.” The words were harsh, but he said them with a slight smile.

  I raised my eyebrow. “You don’t sound too upset about that.”

  Ethan sighed. “I don’t know what I think. I never don’t know what to think. That’s what this girl does to me.”

  “Well…tell her thanks for reading. I guess.”

  Ethan just slumped his shoulders a bit and ordered us both another beer.

  It turned out that Natalia wasn’t the only one reading. Liz’s boss declared the column an instant success and got right to work setting her up with more guys.

  The second date she went on, just a week and a half after the first, had been the result of a rather entertaining variety of choices. Maybe readers thought Brad was too blah, because the guys up for vote this time were a yacht-owning young tycoon cruising through life on his daddy’s money, an artist whose bio was penned in iambic pentameter, and an environmental activist. It was hard for even me to choose the most awful one between these guys. In the end, though, I chose to try to stack the vote in Mr. Environment’s because his leather man-necklace and facial hair annoyed the hell out of me. I idly hoped it would have a similar effect on Liz.

  I fell asleep reading some atrociously boring book on structural engineering theory and woke up to the sound of poor Liz retching in the bathroom.

  It turned out he’d taken her to a back alley Indian restaurant he swore was authentic, where she’d eaten some chicken tikka that tasted off, while he insisted it was fine.

  I held her hair back while she emptied her guts into the toilet, and we ended up spending the night trading college party-puking stories between her bouts of vomiting. After the fifth time she puked, she pressed her head to the cool tile of the floor and let her eyes flutter shut. “Thanks for cleaning the bathroom yesterday. And holding my hair. You’re the best,” she said in her raspy voice. “You know what Kiera and I always said back in high school?”

  “Hmm?” I said, feeling my eyes drift shut, too, as my own sleepiness finally started to claim me.

  “A clean toilet to puke in says ‘I love you.’”

  My eyes flared wide at those words. Did she mean that? Because even though we’d only been back in contact for a month or so, I couldn’t help but wonder if my feelings for her were…

  But when I turned to respond, my heart softened. She was fast asleep, her face smooshed against the base of the toilet.

  “C’mere, sweetheart,” I said, standing and then bending over to brace her shoulders with one arm and thread the other under her knees. I hoisted her up with a grunt and managed to get her to bed without jostling her
too much.

  She’d washed and folded the bathroom towels the other day - not just hers, but mine too. It had struck me as sweet, so I’d left a packed lunch in the fridge for her in return. I grabbed the stack of them and laid them all around her on the bed, tucking the edges in under her sleep-heavy frame. She could probably use some water - I ran to the kitchen to get her a fresh glass, then set it on her nightstand.

  I brushed a stray strand of hair off her face and bent down to kiss her forehead. I pulled away quick. God, she smelled absolutely disgusting.

  Right before I turned to leave, I decided it was probably best to stretch out next to her for the night. Just in case she needed me.

  I fell asleep with the lingering scent of Indian-food vomit filling my nostrils. Right before I drifted off, I decided that however difficult it was to be around Liz while still wanting her so very badly, it would be even more painful to stay away.

  * * *

  Days later, I fidgeted in the kitchen, watching Liz fix herself a cup of coffee with milk. I’d downed my coffee quickly, and now my stomach was queasy. Or maybe it was nerves, instead of coffee. Being a teaching assistant at UPenn was a big deal.

  Her eyes drifted down my neck. “So, is this how all engineers dress?” She stretched a hand out and flipped the corner of my collar up with one finger.

  “What are you talking about?” Kiera and Mom had looked at the clothes I was taking to Philly and said they looked good.

  Liz raised an eyebrow. “The weird prints? The slightly loose tie? The old man cardigan? JJ. Please. You should just wear what you always wear. You know…

  “T-shirts and jeans? To TA a class? Figured I had to grow up sometime…”

  She looked at me for a moment, nodding slightly. “I guess it’s easy to forget that we’re real grownups now. I keep forgetting that about myself, with this ridiculous assignment…barely passing for a journalism job…”

  I wiped my mouth, mumbling into my napkin, “I just don’t want the kids I’m teaching to think I’m a loser, you know? It’s hard enough to get respect in engineering when you’re a black guy. If I wore clothes that casual to the office, they’d think I was the janitor or something.”