Hearts On Campus

“I’m ravenous,” she calls out after me as I duck my head around the front door, making sure they’ve gone.

I wheel in the trolley of silver domes, the rich smells and heat still sizzling from under one or two of them.

I have no idea what was ordered. I just told them to have the room made up like this and that we’d be down for a “romantic dinner for two”.

I never told them what time though. The clock on the mantle tells me it’s after ten.

Not that late. But just late enough to anger a chef who’s probably closing their kitchen for the night.

Katelyn makes me even hungrier with her lip-smacking and ooh’s and ah’s over all the food.

It’s really a great job they’ve done and I’m glad to pay anything extra.

“Lobster doesn’t count as sushi,” I caution her, and she agrees.

But both of us are eyeing the rib eye steak, a huge cut of meat even big for a man my size.

I cut off half the filet for Katelyn, and at her suggestion use the rib as a handle to eat my share.

I make a face once I notice the unopened bottle of champagne.

Glad when Katelyn does too.

“I’ll see what’s in the kitchen,” I offer, grateful when I find the fridge there stacked with mineral water.

“I forgot to ask,” I mention to her handing her a bottle.

“I try not to drink anything else,” she admits, clinking my bottle to hers.

“The odd soda here and there, but water is what we’re mostly made of,” she reasons.

I’m glad to hear her say it. I’m a stickler for water only and food. Good food, in large quantities.

Settling back down into the tub after making sure everything’s within reach, I ask her.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, can you see now how good an idea it is to eat in the tub?”

She laughs, snorting a little, and covers her mouth which only makes her laugh and snort louder, and that sets me off.

By the time we both avoid choking on our food, we can agree it’s a good idea.

“So’s room service,” she adds. “I’m a lousy cook by the way, in case you’re wondering.”

“I’m not too shabby in the kitchen,” I tell her. Even though since being alone so long, I rarely put those skills to much use.

Maybe I will from now on?

We make a dent in the food, but something tells me the chef or the concierge played a little bit of revenge by giving and most likely charging us for so much.

“It’ll keep,” I promise her, noticing her worried look when she feels compelled to eat more but just can’t.

“I’ll take care of it, you just relax,” I encourage her.

“Wes, if I stay in this tub another minute I’ll be prune, see?” she exclaims, thrusting her hand under my nose so I can see she’s not exaggerating.

“I guess we have been in here a while. Let me get you a towel,” I suggest and I help her dry off until she shoos me away.

“Go! Go on, I look like a prune, I’m hideous!” she cries out, but I have to disagree.

Despite her protests, I pull her close and tell her she’s perfect, wrinkles or not.

“I love you, Katelyn,” I remind her, glad when she replies the same again and we both know we’ll never get tired of hearing those three words from one another no matter what else is happening.

“You dry off then and I’ll stow this away food. Then what?” I ask, cocking a brow.

“I feel like laying down and digesting all this food,” she says, rubbing her belly and making me want to touch it.

“There’s bound to be something good to watch on that wall of a TV in there,” I remark as I start to clear away the plates.

“You like old movies?” she asks.

“They’re the only kind worth watching,” I tell her without having to think.

“They made everything better back then,” I add, making myself sound a hundred and two, not forty-two.

Forty-two.

“Katelyn, how old are you?” I ask her point blank.

“Twenty-one. Why?” she asks. “Does it matter?”

I crease a frown and shrug. “Nope, just wondered.”

Wheeling the food down to the kitchen, I remember being twenty-one. Seems like a lifetime ago, because it is.

I mean, it was. Her whole lifetime ago, I was a younger man who had the world at his feet. Or so I thought.

I don’t mean to but I slip into a strange reverie. The same feeling I get when I think about what could have been, what should have been.

If I’m honest, I have to admit I’d be curious to know how my life would’ve panned out if I hadn’t had the accident.

But then again, if I hadn’t lived my life as I have, right up until yesterday, would I have met Katelyn and still claimed her as my own?