Piece of My Heart (Fostering Love 4)

Home. Naked. In bed. ;)

I grinned.

Glad you’re safely naked in bed. How’s the knee?

Swollen.

You should have stayed off of it tonight—you probably made it worse.

Worth it.

I couldn’t keep the giddy smile off my face as I turned off the lights in the apartment, working my way to the bedroom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun just sitting at home without a good book in my hands.

I tossed my phone on the bed, stripped out of my clothes, and headed into my bathroom in my underwear. I always washed my face and brushed my teeth before bed. It was a ritual I’d started when I was a little girl. If I didn’t do those two things, I found that I couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, I’d just obsess about them until I crawled back out of bed and got them done.

I froze as I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

When Alex texted me about dinner, I’d rushed around to make sure everything was tidy before he got there, completely forgetting that I had spot treatment on a couple of breakouts. I stared in horror at the two little white spots on my jaw, one of them smeared from Alex’s hands when we’d kissed.

With a groan, I got my toothbrush out and started brushing, glaring at myself in the mirror.

When I climbed into bed I sent an embarrassed text to Alex.

Why didn’t you tell me I had stuff on my face?! Haha

He texted back quickly. You did? :p

I sent a face-palm emoji in reply.

Why would I embarrass you? No big deal,babe.

My stomach fluttered at the endearment.

Next time, let me know. LOL

I will, he replied. Then another text came through.

I’m going to try to get some rest. Sleep well, beautiful.

As I pulled the blankets up to my chin, I wondered where all of this would go. I was a romantic; I believed in happily-ever-afters and finding the person who you’d be with for the rest of your life. I’d seen it happen. Was this it?

I wasn’t ready yet. I’d mapped out the next few years, and the plan was to graduate and be settled in my career before I found the person I wanted to spend my life with. Anxiety made my stomach churn. Maybe I could tweak the plan a little. It wasn’t as if it was set in stone, and I knew I wasn’t willing to say good-bye to Alex because the timing was off.

I hadn’t even had sex with Alex yet, and this thing we had already felt different than anything I’d ever encountered before. There was an easiness between us, a weird feeling like I’d known him forever. I fell asleep thinking about the way his eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled at me.

* * *

“You’re seeing Alex!” Hailey sang happily as she slid into the seat next to me in our business-communications class. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because there isn’t anything to tell yet,” I replied, laughing at the wounded look on her face. “We’ve hung out a couple times.”

“Sean said that Alex told him that you two were together,” she said quietly, as if she were letting me in on a huge secret.

“Interesting,” I replied, raising one eyebrow. I was surprised that they’d spoken at all. From what I’d noticed, Alex didn’t like Sean.

For the next three hours, we listened to our professor make connections between the subject material and a movie he’d seen that weekend. None of his stories ever made sense, but we humored him. He was the one grading our papers, and we couldn’t afford to point out that he was rambling completely off topic. Plus, I liked Professor Morrow. He reminded me of one of my neighbors from New York. The old man had spent most of his time alone, and whenever he had company, he’d talk for the entire visit, barely letting his guest get a word in edgewise.

“Well?” Hailey asked when we took a fifteen-minute break.

“Well what?” I asked, pulling an apple and some crackers out of my bag.

“Well, are you two together?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?” she asked, looking at me like I’d grown an extra head. “Where’s the excitement? Where’s the joy? Where’s the drama?”

“You’ve got enough drama for both of us,” I replied, taking a bite of my apple. Hailey was all drama, all the time. That was probably why we got along so well—she was my complete opposite.

“Oh, whatever.” She swept away my words with a wave of her hand. “I can’t believe you guys hit it off. And all because of that double date.”

“It wasn’t the double date,” I said around my food, shaking my head. “I turned him down that night.”

“What?” Her eyes grew so wide it looked like they were going to pop out of her head. “Why the hell would you do that?”