Twenty-one

KATE DIDN’T WANT TO STAY ALONE in the house on Saturday night, so I took her back to the dorm and told her I’d meet her for brunch Sunday morning. I started my shift at the security desk promptly at ten.

“Watch the thermometer,” Andy said while I was getting signed in. “Last night it dropped to thirty about four o’clock in the morning and we opened the doors so people could get warm.”

“I’m glad they can come in and warm up,” I said. “I’d hate to be in a tent in this weather.”

“There are a hundred people in there and only four came in,” Andy responded. “They don’t want to take hand-outs, even if it’s warmth.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “So, if I open the doors, do I tell anyone?”

“Yeah. Tell Zack. He’s in charge of internal security tonight.”

Andy left and I settled back to wait for Bree. What I saw, instead, was a woman taller than Bree by several inches.

“Amanda?” I said, puzzled. “What brings you here tonight?”

“Study,” she said simply. “Anatomy exam is Monday.”

“I wish you’d called me. I didn’t bring my notes or my book.”

“It was kind of last minute. Bree told me and then made a call and I had to pass like an oral exam in order to have access to you. Then she had the gall to tell me we couldn’t make out—like that’s what I was interested in,” Amanda said. I could see she was a little tense. She spread some notes out on the table.

“Who did you talk to?”

“Your keeper. Melody. Apparently, Bree is her sergeant-at-arms or something,” Amanda groused. “What is it about you that makes all these women so protective of you?”

“Damned if I know. But Melody is my first and there are times I find it best to just do what she says. It has its rewards.”

“Well, I’m not one of them. Let’s just go over the lymphatic system. That one just drives me crazy.”

We studied, quietly quizzing each other on the terms and the names of the parts of the system. This part of human anatomy is really memorization and there’s nothing to help memory like repetition. I wasn’t that sure why Amanda was so worried. She was nearly letter perfect. We’d been studying about half an hour when she stood up and started flapping her arms.

“Damn! It’s colder than a witch’s left tit out here,” Amanda said.

“Shh,” I said. “It’s quiet time. It’s supposed to get below freezing and I’ll open the doors to let anyone who wants to warm up inside.”

“At least I understand now,” she said. She motioned toward the chair. “Go on. We can quiz each other and still stay warm. Or warmer.”

I plopped down in the chair. I was relieved. If it hadn’t been for studying, I’d have been in the chair wrapped in a blanket long ago. Amanda brought a handful of notes and crawled into my lap. I flipped the blanket over us and then wrapped my right arm around her putting my hand on—bare skin! I jerked away.

“I’m sorry, Amanda!” I said. “I didn’t mean to ... I mean ... your sweatshirt rode up a little, I think.”

“Yeah. That’s fine. Don’t panic. It’s just epidermis. Your hand is warmer than my hoodie anyway,” she said. She was rustling the notes, but she couldn’t get them outside without pulling the blanket down and she wasn’t apparently willing to do that. I took the notes from her and brought my left arm outside the blanket to hold them. My hand was going to get cold out here, but I’d worry about that later.

She pulled my right hand back around her and put it on her stomach before pulling her sweatshirt back down.

“It’s fine to touch my skin,” she said, “but don’t go exploring. I’m not ready for you to hold my bare boob.” I started to pull my hand away again, but she caught it and held it to her.

“Aren’t you like wearing... ?”

“Long gone. Do you know how uncomfortable those damn things are? Imagine always having a form-fitting padded cup holding your cock and balls in exactly the same position all day long with a cutting elastic band around your waist and two straps that are always too short,” she said. “I take it off as soon as I get back to my room.”

“Why wear it at all then?” I asked. Kate never wore a bra.

“I don’t like guys looking at me all the time. As soon as one does, sure enough, my nipple is going to get hard and poke right through my shirt. It’s just security,” she said. “Besides, they sag enough as it is.”

“Well, you’d never prove it by me. Here are the notes.” We went through the first page and I tried to turn the page one-handed.

“Oh, screw this,” Amanda said. “We’re not accomplishing anything.” She took the notes and tossed them down beside the chair before pulling my hand under the blanket with her. She smashed it against her stomach next to the other.

“Shit!” she tried to keep her voice down. “That hand’s freezing.” She pulled it up and wrapped it further around her underneath her right armpit. She shivered a bit, but clamped her arm down on it firmly. “That should warm it up. Soon, I hope.”

Now, in this position, my left arm was pulled across her body and the hand trapped under her pit. That meant my wrist could easily verify the fact that there was no bra covering her tits. And that her right nipple was hard and pressing into my radial artery. She settled into my arms and leaned back with the blanket drawn up to our chins.

“Your pulse is slightly elevated,” she said.

“Yeah. It could be a side-effect of the method you’re using to take it.”

“Things are warming up though.”

“Yes, they certainly are.”

“We’ll get through the exam on Monday, won’t we?” she asked.

“We’ll review everything tomorrow afternoon. I don’t think you’ll have a problem with it.”

“Good. Then I think I’ll take a nap now.” Inside of a minute she was sleeping on my shoulder with both my hands up inside her shirt. I didn’t dare sleep for fear that natural impulses would take over.

Rio showed up at midnight, Whitney at two, and Bree at four. All anyone wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep. That was fine.

I stumbled over to the dorm and up to Kate’s room after the shift ended. She’d given me her dorm key before I went to work so I wouldn’t disturb her slumber. Amber was asleep as well. I stripped off my clothes and crawled into Kate’s bed with her. We slept until almost nine.

“Mmm,” Kate said as she turned in my arms and buried her nose against my chest. “Better and better.”

“What’s that?” I whispered.

“My dreams. They keep getting better and better.”

Amber was still asleep in the bed across the room, so Kate and I quietly dressed and left to go find Sunday brunch.

“I found this two-for-one coupon for a place called Salty’s in West Seattle,” Kate said. “Want to try it?”

“Sounds good to me. As long as I’m back for my one o’clock study group. I invited my team over. I should pick up some snacks for people.”

We had a great brunch with a buffet that stretched the length of the pier the restaurant was built on. We got so messy eating Alaska King Crab legs that we could hardly eat for giggling. It was really good.

Study with Amanda, Bree, and Justin went for four hours before we all just threw up our hands and gave up.

“We are going to ace this exam!” I said with conviction. “There is absolutely no sense in studying any more. Put something new in my head now and something important is going to slip out.”

“I agree,” Bree said. “We need to relax for a while.”

“No way. I relaxed with Tony last night. No repeats.”

I reached for my drum and started tapping out a rhythm. Bree looked at me curiously. The last time she’d been here with me playing the drum, we’d received the call that Harold was dead. I wasn’t about to let drumming mean bad news to me, though. Justin saw the conga drum and grabbed it right away.