30. Dorien
CHAPTER THIRTY
DORIEN
The alcove behind Founder’s Hall and the clock tower is hidden and not used much.
It’s the perfect meeting place for us. I’m tucked between two brick walls that my shoulders barely fit through.
It’s not meant to be a walkway because it leads to a dead end; it’s only a small gap between buildings.
I’ve been wedged here nine minutes so far.
I rub my hands together. Even though the air is so chilly I can see my breath, I haven’t felt the need to wear my gloves all day.
I’ve never gone an entire day without them. June’s warmth just lights me up from the inside.
Putain. Look at me.
A week ago at my studio, I lost a war I’d been losing since I was nine. I kissed her. After the cabin, after that night I spent certain another man’s hands were on her, I couldn’t resist any longer. I haven’t stopped wanting more since.
There’s movement at the end of the alcove. June. Chin up, a stride that dares the ground to be in her way, thumbs hooked over the lip of her jacket pockets. She slips into the gap and stops in front of me.
“You’re early,” she says.
“I was passing through.”
“You were not.”
“I was checking the time on the clock tower.”
“Liar.” Her mouth is already tilting up.
One of my hands threads through her hair, the other rests on her hip, and she rises onto her toes to meet me. She tastes of coffee as my mouth claims hers. She kisses me back like she’s been counting the same minutes apart that I have.
These secret rendezvous we’ve been having should worry me less each time, but I still have a knot of discomfort in my gut.
I’m happier than I’ve been in years. The joy has been loosening parts of me I thought had hardened forever.
And just one week in and we’ve found a rhythm: stolen minutes between classes, sneaking into her room at night like we’re teenagers, texting each other practically all hours of the day.
So why do I have this pit of dread?
I shove it away and put my mouth on her throat instead.
She sighs into me. “Just don’t leave a hickey.”
“Have I ever?”
“Yes. Two days ago. I’m running out of makeup to cover it.”
I suck lightly, teasingly, on her skin so she pushes me back. But I won’t let her escape that easily. My hand slides to the curve of her ass and grips, no manners about it. She giggles, and I love that girlish sound, so I kiss her again.
I’m already hard because my body has been craving more.
I’m often thinking about laying her down somewhere with a lock and having all of her.
But, as hard as it is to admit, I’m nervous.
Last week I had my fingers inside her and nearly spilled just watching her face.
I want our first time together to be perfect for her, so what if I screw it up with lack of experience?
She pulls back first, breath uneven. “You’re staring.”
“You look like a felony in that jacket.”
She giggles again. “And you look…” Her eyes wander over my leather jacket and she falls silent.
We make out some more, and I can’t resist pressing my hardness against her stomach. She moans against my mouth so I have to break the kiss. I’m getting too into this when I know I’m not yet ready for more.
It needs to be perfect for her.
“Thanksgiving’s in two weeks,” she says, picking at a thread on my collar. “Mom always makes too much food and there are candles everywhere. Carter pretty much eats the entire turkey himself. Wanna come?”
I pause to chew my lip and consider the implications.
Of course, I’ll be free since my parents won’t be on the continent for Thanksgiving.
They’ll probably call, but that’s it. Last year I ate takeout and watched a documentary about deep-sea fish.
So yes, I want to have Thanksgiving with June.
Obviously yes. But I hear the subtext of what she’s offering, and I make myself slow down.
“Is this you taking me public?” I ask. “Does your mom know about us?”
Her thumb goes still on my collar. “Uh, no. Not yet. If I tell my mom, I tell everyone. Then we’re a thing people have opinions about. Right now it’s just our secret thing no one can tarnish.”
“Who do you think will tarnish it? Everyone is supportive.”
Her eyes dip like there’s someone she thinks will be affected by our relationship. “Uh, yeah…”
I kiss her. “Let’s eat turkey together. Thanksgiving’s a start.”
The Belrose basement smells like sweat because Carter has his gym bag laying in the corner. Carter’s sunk into the sectional, one foot on the coffee table, losing at the video game he’s playing.
“Give up,” I tell him.
“I’m pacing myself.” He glances at me for a second and his character dies. “Ah, mother fucker!” He chucks the controller at the floor then grabs his soda. He turns to me. “You’ve been in a mood lately. I think it’s a good mood and that’s disturbing.”
I relax into the recliner with a laugh. I’m thinking about smoking a joint but I don’t really feel like it. Haven’t felt like it much lately. “Don’t be disturbed. Get used to it.”
“I don’t know, man. It’ll be hard. I’m too used to you being quiet and moody.”
I pull out my phone. The Alaria Prize entry deadline is the end of the semester, a couple weeks after Thanksgiving, and I’ve finally started working on something. I made a maquette, a smaller test version of it, and took way too many pics. I turn the screen to show Carter.
He takes my phone and frowns. “Huh.”
My piece is about her. Of course it’s her.
It’s a figure pulling herself up out of a base I left as raw clay on purpose.
She’s in the act of making or re-making herself.
Chin up. It took me a while to figure out what to do with the hands.
One open, one closed, reaching and refusing in the same breath, because that’s the only honest thing I know how to make her do.
My maquette is rough but the concept is there.
Carter returns my phone. “Bold move.”
“It won’t win.” I glance at the screen. “They don’t say it, but I know from what’s won previous years, that the judges want a thesis, like climate grief, the surveillance state, something political.
I’m handing them a woman rising from clay like a phoenix.
I want to win but I don’t want to make crap to do it.
This is the only thing my hands will make right now.
Everything else I start turns into her by the second hour. ”
“Follow your heart, man,” Carter says with a goofy grin.
“She invited me to Thanksgiving.”
He angles toward me to give me his complete focus, which from Carter is the same as a hand on the shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” And then I say it. Out loud, first time in my life, to the one person who’s earned hearing it. “I’ve been in love with her since we were kids.”
“I know that. You think I’m dumb?”
“No. Just wanted to say it out loud.”
“Heard, chef,” he says. He grabs a second controller and tosses it at me. “Help me beat this level because this game pisses me off.”
We play for five minutes before we both die. He just glances at me, unbothered this time. “So what are you gonna do about it?”
“Play again,” I say.
He laughs. “Not the game. June. You coming to Thanksgiving? You gonna be official?”
“I don’t know if we’re official yet. Thanksgiving’s a start.”
“I’m happy for you.” He starts the game again, talking while we try to beat the level. “I mean it. I’ve watched you both be miserable for years. If this is what makes you less of a catastrophe, do it.”
We fail again to complete the level.
“Can I talk to you about something?” Carter asks. Something he never asks.
My concern is immediate. “Yeah.”
“I’m worried about Aeron.”
“Yeah,” I say again, because I’ve been a little worried too.
June has taken my attention lately, but I glance at Aeron in class and don’t like the way he’s carrying himself now.
He’s always been a little shy and someone who lingers on the outskirts, but now it’s like he’s carrying a darkness around everywhere he goes.
I wonder if things didn’t work out with that girl he had talked about dating.
“He was down at Food Truck Friday,” Carter goes on. “Quiet, even for him. Then he just got up and walked off. Didn’t say bye to anyone. I texted him after and got one word back. ‘Tired.’”
My phone buzzes with a message from June. She sent a photo of the canvas she’s been fighting for days, my green smear still in the middle of it. Along with the message: thinking of you.
I’m already smiling and responding: thinking of you too. Just paint it all green and call it Thoughts on a Forest.
June: lol dummy
“What do you think?” Carter asks.
I glance up, realizing he said something else I didn’t catch. “Aeron does that,” I say, searching for a GIF to send Jun. “He’s a deep thinker and goes off into his thoughts sometimes, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“He’s fine.”
Carter watches me tap away on my phone for a few minutes. Whatever he meant to say next about Aeron, he lets it go. “You’re a lovesick fool, you know?” he says, and there’s a grin under it.
“Is that how it is with you and Vienna?”
He gives a hearty laugh and holds his stomach. “Nah. Me and Vienna are friends with benefits, and we want to keep it that way.” He resumes the game.
I could never be that way with June. With her, it’s always everything.