“I should go,” I murmur to him.
At my words, the tiniest pinch of frustration runs across his face. Then, he lifts his head and says, “You sure?”
“It’s late,” I say, not bothering with checking the time; I’m sure it’s hardly even eleven o’clock yet. “I have lines to learn before Monday. Like, a lot of them.”
He doesn’t seem to follow what I’m saying. Now, the frustration in his face seems far less easy to hide. The alcohol is betraying him, showing all those truer feelings that he keeps trying to keep out of my view.
“I gotta go,” I repeat.
“Don’t go,” he mumbles, hardly intelligible.
“Sorry.” I push myself off the couch.
He’s on his feet as fast as I am, though his knee hits the coffee table in his effort of getting up and the shot glasses clatter loudly. “You sure?”
That would be his second time asking. And no, I’m not sure. In fact, I do want to stay. I want to tackle him to the floor as well. I want to eat this man alive.
“Yes,” I say instead.
“Can I walk you back to your dorm?” he murmurs suddenly, his voice strained.
Between him getting jumped today and Victoria’s warning my first day here, I give him a quick nod, and that seems to wash away all the frustration in his eyes.
We cross the campus in silence. No ninjas jump out from behind bushes, and no ski-mask-wearing thugs emerge from around corners with guns. I was reluctant for a moment before we left his apartment, judging whether or not he was drunk or just “a little buzzed”, but as we stroll across the disconcertingly unpopulated campus at night, I find myself incredibly thankful to have him walking by my side. I couldn’t have a better escort than Clayton Watts, who does not look like someone you would want to mess with.
We reach the Quad too soon. I wish the walk had lasted for hours.
I pull out my phone and type out a message, then aim the too-bright screen at him, causing his eyes to squint as he reads it:
Thanks for escorting me, Clayton.
He scowls at me after reading, then plucks the phone right out of my hands and types on it for quite a while. I’m about to ask what’s taking so long when he finally hands the phone back to me. I read:
I gave you my number and took yours.
Hope that’s OK.
Text me sometime?
I feel my heart lift up into my throat. I can’t fight the dumb grin that happens on my face. I nod at him with a bit more enthusiasm than I intend.
“Good night, Dessie,” he murmurs, giving me the gift of his soft, velvety voice.
“Good night, Clayton,” I return, giving him the gift of my moving lips in silence, then slip into West Hall, the doors slamming behind me with a big boom.
I texted him to make sure he made it back safe.
When my phone buzzed with his reply, I giggled and cuddled the phone on my bed like a dumb, crush-obsessed teenager. The script for Our Town was long forgotten for the rest of the night as Clayton and I texted back and forth until one in the morning.
I learned what his favorite food is (teriyaki ribs), the name of his high school (Yellow Mills High), how horrible he is at math, that he’s an only child, how his mom’s a chain smoker and his dad’s a sex addict and somehow against all odds they’re still together, and how he had to take two semesters off because he couldn’t pay tuition during “a rough time” and that’s why he’s only starting his third year when he should be graduating this year.
I also got a detailed description of how he’d light the stage if he was given the chance for Our Town, with a clever idea or two for how he pictures the funeral and graveyard scene to look in the third and final act of the play. I grinned stupidly for hours and, lost in a digital world full of Clayton, already couldn’t wait until the next time I would get to see him.
When Sunday came, I had a quiet breakfast with Sam, who was all aflutter (read: almost undetectably less deadpan than usual) about a music composition project she’s been assigned by her Theory prof. I congratulated her absentmindedly, wondering how long I should wait before texting Clayton again.
It was in the afternoon that I finally caved and sent him a text. The phone rested on my lap while I studied Our Town on a bench by the Art building, memorizing Emily’s lines distractedly while shooting glances down at my lap to see if he’d responded yet.
He never did.
I went to sleep that night with a scowl on my face. Sam had gotten some cheap composition software for her ancient laptop and wanted my opinion on a song as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and I pretended not to hear her, turned away toward the wall and staring at the blank screen of my phone, waiting for a reply that never came.