Chapter 68

7:30 a.m. Sunday

Andy kissed a slumbering Regan softly on the forehead before rolling out of bed. He watched her as he pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and the khaki slacks he'd planned to wear to the after-party the night before. His current wardrobe was severely lacking, he decided.

Regan missed the comfort of the warm body beside her and patted the mattress where Andy had slept. Not finding him, she probed farther away and still came up empty. She opened her eyes and spotted him pulling on his shirt.

"Where you going?" she asked in a sleep-addled voice.

"I'm going to sit on the balcony for a while this morning," he said almost in a whisper.

"OK," Regan answered as she started to shift around to arise, too.

"Go ahead and sleep," Andy said softly as he sat back down on the bed. It was so large that he had to slide across to reach his girlfriend. "You're tired so just stay and nap until you're ready to wake up."

"We need to get ready to check out," she muttered – not opposed in the slightest to continuing to rest (but only if Andy was next to her).

"Evan booked the suite for two nights," Andy told her. "Sorry, I thought you knew. You can sleep until two o'clock if you want to.

"I wanna spend the day with you," she answered as she rolled to her back. The sheet came down far enough that Andy could see the tops of her breasts.

"I'm going to be here waiting," he promised. "I won't go anywhere without you."

"Mmm-K," Regan replied. "I need a little more rest. Kiss me?"

"After I brush my teeth," Andy told her. Regan shook her head and tugged at his arm.

"Now," she said.

Andy leaned forward and kissed her lips softly – careful not to breathe when he was in proximity.

"You better do more than that later," she said.

"I will," Andy said, smiling at her. "I'll wait to shower until you're ready."

"Good," Regan replied. "If you get bored, come wake me."

"Sure," Andy said, although he knew he'd let her sleep until she was ready to awaken on her own. Regan closed her eyes and cuddled his pillow to her tightly.

He made his way out to the living room and was surprised to see Elizabeth sitting at the table drinking coffee.

"You're up early," he noted.

"I'm weird like that," she said. "I only sleep four or five hours at a time. It drives Paul crazy when we spend the night together."

Andy could only see Elizabeth's T-shirt so he didn't know what else she might be wearing. He wondered idly if she still had on the tiny thong from the night before.

"Why are you up?" she wondered.

"I just woke up and couldn't get back to sleep," Andy said. He wasn't a fan of coffee and he wasn't about to break the seal on the mini-refrigerator. He figured a soda might cost twenty bucks. "I'm going down to get a paper and something to drink. Do you need anything?"

"There's coffee," Elizabeth said, gesturing to the carafe on the counter.

"Not my thing," Andy answered.

"You could just call room service," she told him. "Evan told us before we left that breakfast was included."

Andy contemplated for a moment before shaking his head.

"I'll wait until everyone's awake and moving about," he said. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes. I want a paper anyway."

He opened the door and found a newspaper sitting in front of it. He really just wanted a few minutes by himself but it didn't appear that was going to happen. He knew he could order a pot of hot tea or a carafe of iced tea from room service with no problem – and he suspected that Elizabeth knew it, too.

He collected the paper and went to the service phone to place an order.

"Change your mind?" Elizabeth asked.

"There was a paper in front of the door," Andy said. "I figure I might as well order some tea as go down to get it myself."

"You're turning into a Brit, aren't you?" Elizabeth jibed. "Sir Andy and his tea."

"Ha-ha," Andy rejoined. "I'm going to have some fruit sent up, too. Do you want anything?"

"A fruit plate sounds good," she told him. He sat down opposite her when he'd concluded the call. It was still early for Sunday morning so he'd been told that it would be five minutes or so.

"What are you doing?" Andy asked. Elizabeth had her tablet out and her fingers were flying across the screen.

"Paul and I are going to a jazz festival this afternoon," she told him.

"Sounds like fun," Andy replied.

"Do you and Regan want to come, too?" she asked.

"I think we're just going to spend the day hanging out," Andy answered. "I guess we have some things to talk about."

Andy felt badly about circumventing the activities the night before. Everyone had wandered off to bed shortly after Regan had returned to his lap.

"Sorry about the way things turned out last night," he said.

"Don't be," Elizabeth said immediately. "You were right. Things could have gotten out of hand. No one was upset that you stepped in and brought us back to sanity. I'm particularly not. It could have caused a lot of problems with me and Paul if I had pushed things."

"But you and Regan were both interested," Andy reminded her.

"At the time, yeah," Elizabeth said. "This morning, I would have regretted it if things had gone much farther. Sure, kissing Regan wouldn't have been a problem. But if it had started to involve guys, I would have felt bad – particularly if Paul was upset. I think he would have been hurt and I never want to do that."

"I worry that I'm ... I don't know ... clipping Regan's wings or something," Andy admitted with a heavy sigh. "I want her to be who she wants to be, not who I think she should be. It's one of those things that crop up because we don't really know each other very well."

"It'll get easier," Elizabeth told him. "That's the thing with all new couples. It takes time to figure out where each of you stands on some things."

"But we don't have any time to do that," Andy lamented. "We don't go to school together. We see each other, maybe, one night each weekend. And we do spend time together it's going to some event."

"And you're never alone," Elizabeth added. "That's the thing I've noticed. You guys are almost 'friend-dating.' You only do things when there is a bunch of other people around. Yeah, you do things together with the other people but it's not the same as just going out alone."

"I know," Andy agreed. "The worst part is ... well, I'm not sure how well we'll get along without the rest of you there. With Chris, you and Paul, we have people I'm comfortable around. We have things in common. You, Ruth and Joy are the same way for Regan. You guys all enjoy the same sorts of things. Regan and I probably don't. I know she doesn't like sports – or the things I consider sports. She likes tennis and golf. Those are more 'activities' to me. I know it irks her that I'm still working even though I don't really have to. She hasn't said anything but it bothers her."

"No it doesn't," Elizabeth interrupted. "She's proud of you for living up to your word. That's a rare commodity in her world. You gave a commitment to AWG and they had you scheduled. You told them to remove you from the schedule but you stuck it out to work when they planned for you to work so no one else would be inconvenienced. She understands that."

"Yeah but will she understand it if they call me in next Saturday?" Andy wondered. "I'm not on the schedule but I'm listed as the 'relief' worker. That means if anyone calls off, I get called in."

"She'll be fine if it happens," Elizabeth promised.

"Yeah, well, I haven't actually mentioned it to her," Andy replied with chagrin. "I told her I was done on Thursday. If they call, it's going to be a pretty big surprise."

"Then tell her beforehand," Elizabeth suggested.

"I just don't want an argument that might be avoided," Andy countered. "We have enough things to quarrel about that I don't need to create more stuff."

Elizabeth put her tablet down and looked across the table at him.

"As much time as you spend apart, the worst thing you can do is start hiding things," she said. "That's what caused Paul and me so much trouble last fall. He would have a test coming up and I wouldn't know about it. I'd get pissed when he didn't come home. Or I'd have a clinic on Saturday morning coming up. I wouldn't say anything because I knew he wouldn't come home on Friday if I did. Then I have to spend half of his visit teaching six year olds how to tumble when he could have been out with friends or studying or whatever. Tell her that Saturday might happen. Maybe suggest you just hang out at her house for the day. That way you're closer and you're still together. Is it likely you'll be called in?"

Andy shrugged.

"This time of year it's a crap shoot," he said. "It's worse in the summer but it's close enough to summer that someone might just say 'to hell with work' if the weather is nice and he still has vacation time left. At least it's during the day so I'll still have Saturday night. Weekend nights during the summer are the worst. A guy working midnights who goes boating or something during the day and gets loaded and sunburned isn't going to come to work that night."

"No," Elizabeth said. "You don't have to take my advice but I still think you should just let her know the truth."

Andy nodded but didn't reply because someone was knocking discreetly on the door. He opened it to find a waiter – who probably was only a year or two older than Andy and Elizabeth. He saw Andy and frowned slightly, perhaps wondering how such an unrecognizable young man could afford such opulence. Still, he pushed the tray in and immediately noticed Elizabeth sitting at the table. His incredulous look increased when Joy wandered down the hallway.

"Coffee?" she asked as she gave Andy a slight hug.

"Over here," Elizabeth said. She stood to get a cup for Joy and Andy had an answer to what she wore below the waist. Elizabeth had on a green T-shirt and a pair of grey yoga pants that hugged her bottom. The faint outline of her underwear told him that the thong had been put away.

Joy was dressed almost identically – except her T-shirt was light blue and her yoga pants were white. There was also no hint of underwear beneath either, Andy noted. He also noticed that the waiter's eyes had followed the butts just as his did but the look on the guy's face was more of a leer than a respectful gaze.

"There's two more but they're sleeping," Andy said. "They were the last two of my harem still standing last night."

Joy heard the unusual harshness in Andy's voice and caught the predatory look on the waiter's face just as it disappeared.

"He wore us out by midnight!" she said. "I can't believe the four of us couldn't keep him down. You guys don't have like a waitress or two you could send up, do you? I'm still a little too tired to serve him properly."

"Serve who?" Ruth asked as she wandered down the hall. Andy saw her yoga pants were sky blue – and that she had on a white T-shirt with no bra beneath it.

"Our master," Joy replied.

"Oh," Ruth replied, wondering what was going on but clearly willing to play along. "I got up for the express purpose of serving him."

The waiter's eyes were glancing from one person to the other in the room.

"We can take it from here," Ruth said. "Why don't you head on your way? Our master likes us to serve him in the nude and he doesn't permit the eyes of the non-converted to fall upon our bare flesh."

The young waiter looked and saw the other women nod their agreement.

"Dick," Andy said when he closed the door behind the guy. Joy and Elizabeth waited to make sure the guy wasn't listening outside of the door before bursting into laughter.

"What was that about?" Ruth wondered. Elizabeth only shrugged because she didn't know.

"The dude was sizing us up like he planned to sneak in here later," Joy replied. "Our boy over there noticed and put the word on him."

"I was about to put a hurt on him," Andy replied. "I swear to God, he almost reached out to pinch Joy's butt when she walked past him. I would have put him down hard for that."

"Why, Andy!" Joy smiled. "You were so impressed with Ruth's boobies that I didn't think you even noticed my butt."

"You know, yesterday, when Paul was telling us about Abby sticking her butt in his face, I knew immediately why he didn't bother to look," Andy said as he filled a glass with iced tea and put some cantaloupe and honey dew melon on a plate. "He gets to see Elizabeth's butt all the time. He spent the night before looking Regan and Ruth's butts. Abby's rear end is two or three classes down from those. And, well, no offense to anyone in the room, but yours is a class above theirs. They all have incredible backsides but you have a perfect derrière."