WHEN I WALK OUT OF my room, I'm quiet so as not to wake Tessa. I know she's going to want to discuss last night, but I need coffee before attempting any such thing.
As I tiptoe down the short hallway, I glance at the square picture frames that Tessa spent hours hanging up, making them all perfectly parallel with one another along the wall. Inside of each frame is a portrait of a cat dressed in different types of hats. The one closest to me is a tabby, its gray panama-style hat streaked with black and brown to match the wearer's fur. A big white feather sticks up from the front.
I've never really paid attention to the portraits, but in the strange mood of this morning, I feel a pull to examine them, and find them really pretty entertaining. I had noticed that they were cat-related, but that was the extent of it. The next cat is another tabby, but instead of gray and black, it's all orange and cream. It's fat, this one, and I chuckle at the bowler hat it's wearing. A tuxedo cat exhibits his top hat, naturally. These are pretty clever and I want to shake the hand of whoever created them for taking something so simple and making it quirky and giving me the perfect distraction this morning. I glance at the rest of the pictures and stay as quiet as possible as I reach the end of the hall.
I'm a little surprised to find Nora sleeping on the couch. I had thought maybe she'd go home now that she knew Dakota and I weren't over at their place.
But there she is, her arm hanging over the edge of the cushion and her fingertips dangling just above the wood floor. Her dark hair is pulled up high on her head, and her knees are folded up, her lips parted slightly as if in a sigh. Her eyes are closed tightly. I walk by on my toes; my soft socks barely make a sound as I pass through into the kitchen.
After I realized that Dakota left before the sun came up, I went back to sleep for a while. I wasn't actually surprised that she left. I was mostly disappointed that I let any bit of me actually believe I would wake up to her next to me. She was being silly last night, being the old version of herself that loved to be around me, the silly girl who I've loved half of my life. Now the sun has come up and she's disappeared from my bed, taking the light with her.
The wind must have picked up sometime in the night, and it howls through the open kitchen window, making the yellow curtain flap against the glass. I can hear the rain picking up as I draw closer. And when I look out of the window and down at the sidewalk, I see a garden of umbrellas amid the downpour. Green-and-White Polka Dots walk faster than Tan-and-Army-Green, and Red is the slowest of them all. The umbrella tops sort of look like flowers from here, and I'm surprised by how crowded the sidewalks are, even in the rain.
I glance over at Nora and quietly close the window before the noise of the rain and wind wakes her. I was going to make something for breakfast, but that's too noisy, so I'll probably just walk down and grab a bagel from the shop on the corner.
Though . . . if I leave now, I might not be here when she wakes up, and I would like to talk to her about last night. I want to apologize to her for being so quick to leave with Dakota, without giving her a proper explanation. She's not really the type of woman to be jealous of another; I've heard her ramble about shows like The Bachelor and claim that she would be the ultimate contestant precisely because she isn't jealous. Not that I want her seething with jealousy, but I would hate to think it didn't matter to her at all that Dakota inadvertently crashed our date and I ended up being a jerk and leaving with her.
On the other hand, of course, I don't want her to feel any pain or discomfort around me, and I want to make sure she's not upset over last night. It was a big misunderstanding and I'm sure she gets it.
But do I get it?
Actually, I don't think that I do get anything that has happened between me and either of these two women in the last twenty-four hours . . . at this point, I would probably kill to have both of them explain our situations to me in layman's terms. I do not understand dating in this city despite the fact I always hear that men have some sort of "upper hand" here.
I try to break everything down in my head while staring at the bright yellow curtain covering the window.
One, Nora touched my stomach after she found me in the shower, then she kissed me, then she invited me out with her friends.
Two, I left Dakota in the middle of our data like thing, in front of her friends; even if she doesn't like me like me, that couldn't have been good for her ego.
Three, she watched Dakota walk into my room last night, most likely heard at least some of our conversation, and most likely assumed we had sex.
This is so damn awkward. I don't even know if Nora likes me—she's a huge flirt.
I sigh, wishing that I had a clue about women and their minds.
I open the fridge slowly and wince when two root beer bottles clink together on our wobbly door shelf. I grab the one closer to me and steady it, resting the refrigerator door on my hip. I grab a two-day-old take-out box, noodles with some sort of peanut sauce and chunks of questionable chicken, and close the fridge.
I turn and Nora is standing there, her eyes sleepy and her hair messy. I jump in surprise and nearly drop the leftovers, but she just smiles up at me. Her smile is a lazy-morning smile and her eye makeup is smeared around her eyes.
"You woke me up," she says, and rolls the sleeves of her sweatshirt up her forearms. Her black shorts are so short that when she turns around and walks toward the fridge, I can see the curve of her ass where it meets her thigh.
She tugs at them, trying to cover more of her body, but there just isn't enough fabric.
No complaints here.
I look away when she opens the fridge and bends down. Half of her ass has to be hanging out of those little shorts, and I have to force my feet to stay planted here, not to grab a handful of her. This is something new for me, this urgency, this gnawing throb from my chest to my groin. She pulls out a red Gatorade and I raise my brow to her. I point my index finger at her.
Nora smiles and pulls a straight face and covers the bottle's label with her hand.
"Two th-things," I begin, awkwardly clearing my throat when my voice breaks.
Now that she's up, I don't care so much about being quiet. Tessa's probably been lying awake in her bed since seven, anyway. I toss the box of dicey leftovers into the trash and open the fridge again. I grab a carton of eggs and a container of milk and set them on the counter.
"Make that three," I correct myself. "Do you want an omelet?"
I open the egg carton and look at her. She glances toward the living room and back to me like she's looking for someone.
"She went home," I say.
At least, I assumed it was home. She's not here and doesn't have many options that I'm aware of. But given how little I know about her new life, she probably has an entirety of things I don't know about. For example, she could be hiding a Hippogriff in her apartment and I wouldn't even know—because I've never even seen her apartment building, let alone been inside of it.
"Oh," Nora says, seeming surprised. "Last night—" she begins, but I want to finish my three things, or I won't remember them later.
"Wait." I hold my finger up between us. She smiles and dramatically closes her mouth. "First things first. Omelet?"
I reach into the cabinet in front of me and grab the frying pan with one hand while turning on the stovetop with the other. Honestly, it's the smoothest, most coordinated move I've made in the past twenty-four hours.
"Yes, please," Nora responds in a voice that sounds like it should still be in bed.
I can hardly imagine how it would be to wake up to this woman every morning. Her hair would be messy and probably tied up on her head. Her legs would be smooth and tanned and I bet she doesn't even have a tan line.
"I'm a vegetarian, though. So only cheese for me."
"I have some onions and peppers?" I offer.
She nods, giving me an impressed smile. "Don't talk dirty to me so early in the morning."
Her smile is contagious and I'm impressed that I caught on to her kitchen humor. Though my two-egg omelet won't be very brag-worthy, it will be competent, and as a pastry chef, she likes when men can stand their own in the kitchen. Or so I assume.
Using a small bowl, I crack two eggs on the side.
"Now, for my second thing." I look at her to make sure I have her attention.
Her eyes are on mine as she lets her hair down. It falls in thick waves of deep brown around her shoulders, and when she shakes her head, I'm convinced that I've been thrown into a shampoo commercial.