Too Late(2)

"Sloan, are you okay?" he says frantically, spinning me around to check me for injuries. I nod feverishly and point to the tub.

"I'm not okay," Dalton groans, palming his freshly injured forehead. He pulls himself upright and attempts to crawl out of the tub.

Asa looks at me, down at my naked body being covered by the shirt in my hands, then looks back at Dalton. I'm afraid he's about to get the wrong idea, so I start to explain, but he cuts me off with a loud, unexpected burst of laughter.

"Did you do that to him?" he says, pointing at Dalton's head, still laughing.

I shake my head. "He hit his head on the faucet when I screamed."

Asa laughs even harder and reaches a hand down to Dalton, then pulls him the rest of the way out of the tub. "Come on man, you need a beer. Cure for hangovers." He pushes Dalton out of the bathroom and follows behind him, closing the door when he leaves.

I stand frozen, still clutching my shirt to my chest. The sad part is, this is the third time this has happened. A different idiot every time, passed out in the tub. I make a mental note to check the tub from now on before undressing.





CARTER 2

Chapter Two



CARTER

I pull the schedule out of my pocket and unfold it to look for the room number. "This is such crap," I say into the phone. "I graduated college three years ago. I didn't sign up for this shit so I could do homework."

Dalton laughs loudly, forcing me to pull the phone several inches away from my ear. "Boo fucking hoo," he says. "I had to sleep in a damn bathtub last night. Suck it up, man. Acting the part is part of the job."

"Easy for you to say, you were signed up for one class a week. I have three. Why'd Young only give you one?"

"Maybe I give better head," Dalton says.

I look down at my schedule and up at the number on the door in front of me, finding a match.

"I gotta go. La clase de Español."

"Carter, wait," he says, in a more serious tone. Dalton clears his throat and prepares for his "partner pep-talk." I've been suffering through them on a daily basis since we started working together. "Try to make it fun. We're so close to getting everything we need...you'll be here two months, tops. Find a hot piece of ass to sit by, it'll make the days go by faster."

I look through the window of the classroom door. It's practically at full capacity with only three empty seats. My eyes immediately fall on a girl in the back of the room next to one of the empty chairs. Her dark hair is spilled over her face while she rests her head on her arms, folded across her desk. She's asleep. I can sit by the sleepers; it's the incessant talkers that I can't tolerate. "Look at that. Already found me a hot piece of ass to sit by. I'll check in with you after lunch."

"Adios."

I end the call and swing open the classroom door as I turn the volume to silent. I hoist the strap of my backpack further onto my shoulder as I make my way up the steps to the back of the room. I squeeze past her to the empty seat, tossing my backpack on the floor and my phone onto the table. The sound my phone makes when it meets the solid wood jolts the girl from her sleep. She immediately sits up, wide-eyed. She looks around the room, frantic and confused, then down at the notebook on her desk. I pull the chair out and sit down next to her. She glares at my phone lying on the table in front of us, and then looks at me.

Her hair is a wild mess and there's a shiny trail of drool running from the corner of her lip, down her chin. She's glaring at me like I've interrupted the only minute of sleep she's ever had.

"Late night?" I ask. I bend over and open my backpack, pulling out the Spanish textbook I could more than likely recite from memory.

"Class isn't over?" she asks, her eyes narrowed at the book I'm placing on the desk in front of me.

"Depends," I say.

"On what?"

"On how long you've been passed out. I'm not sure which time slot you have for Spanish, but this is the ten o'clock class."

She throws her elbows onto the desk in front of her and groans, running her hands over her face. "I've been asleep for five minutes? That's it?" She leans back into her seat and slouches down, resting her head on the back of her chair. "Wake me up when it's over, okay?"

She's looking at me, waiting on me to agree. I tap my finger to my chin. "You've got a little something right here."

She wipes at her mouth and pulls her hand back to inspect it. I expect her to be embarrassed by the fact that she's got drool running down her face, but instead, she rolls her eyes and tucks the sleeve of her shirt under her thumb and leans forward. She wipes the puddle of drool off the table with her sleeve, and then slouches back down in her seat, closing her eyes.