The following Tuesday I sat at my desk to quickly check my email in the time between periods.  There were a couple of messages from Dr. Lekkas, who wanted to talk about the progress I’d made on my thesis.  There were also a few junk messages, but for the most part, there was nothing going on.

“You’re kinda cute,” said one email I received while sitting there.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” I quickly responded.

“So, what you got planned for tonight?” the sender, a certain teacher across the hall from me, sent back.

“Not much.  I really need to work on the thesis.”

“Well...” he responded.  “Why don’t you come over to the apartment?  I’ll fix you dinner, you can sit on the sofa, write, and not have to worry about anything.  What do you say?”

I smiled as I read the message.  He was so sweet.  In the two weeks since our ‘first date,’ he’d been nothing but sweet to me.  He didn’t have to be; I wasn’t expecting it, but I was utterly enjoying it.  It was an unexpected release as well as a distraction from what I needed to do.  It was a diversion, though, that would help me write better when I actually did put my nose to the grindstone.

At the end of the day I went straight to the bookstore.  Jen acted like she was a little upset with me, but she really wasn’t.  She was glad that things were going well.  That afternoon, I sat with the plan and made some last minute revisions to the final few chapters that were listed.

Jen looked over it and thought critically for a second about whether or not the revisions would work.  She seemed skeptical, but happier with it than she was with the previous versions.  I helped her close the shop and then went just a few blocks away to Brand’s apartment.

“Honey!  I’m home!” I said as I walked into the apartment.

“Hey!” Brand said as he walked from the kitchen into the living room.  He was stirring a bowl of something as he stood there in gym shorts and a t-shirt.  While the view earlier in the day had been nice, this one was even better, as it displayed his taut arms and his powerful, muscular legs.  “How was the bookstore?”

“It was good.  I got quite a lot done,” I said as I followed Brand into the kitchen.

“Good.”

“How was practice?” I asked.

“It was hell.  I don’t know how your coach did it for so long without an assistant,” he honestly answered. 

“I think he drank heavily.”

“I can understand why!” Brand said.  “It’s like some of the kids have no drive whatsoever.  They’re not worried about speed or form.  They just want to get in the water and play.”

“Yeah.  The team hasn’t been very regimented since I was there.  My senior year we didn’t even go to a competition.”

“Really?” Brand asked, surprised by my words.

“Yep,” I said as I took a few pieces of grated cheese from a pile on the counter and put them in my mouth.

“I’ve got to change that.  Would you mind helping me out with something next week?”

“What’s that?”

“Come to practice.  I’m gonna make them an offer, I think.”

“What kind of offer?”

“Anyone that can outswim you gets the week off from practice.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all, but only because you’re the coach,” I said.

He smiled.  “Thank you!  Now... I’ll finish up in here; go get to writing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s right!” Brand joked as I walked into the living room.  He’d set up his laptop for me, and it was waiting on the coffee table.  I picked it up and set it in my lap.  After opening Microsoft Word, I started typing.  It took a second, but the words started flowing from my mind through my fingers onto the blank document.  The initial plan was to write the story in third person, so it seemed a little weird when I started writing about “David this” and “David that.”  I was trying, if for no other reason, to purge the memory and the raw emotion that was still there, even though it had lain dormant for weeks.

I wrote almost three pages when I suddenly hit an impasse.  I just stopped writing.  I went back up to the top and reread everything.  It all seemed so dry.  With more certainty than I’d experienced in recent memory, I scrapped that version of the opening chapter and started over.  I wanted to try to stay within my plan, writing it in third person, but I found myself unable to do so.  Everything that I typed out was crap, at least in my mind.

“Dinner’s ready,” Brand said as he brought two bowls of pasta with vodka sauce into the living room.  “Water?”

“Do you mind?” I asked as I sat the computer back onto the coffee table.

“Not at all,” he said as he walked back into the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of water.

Upon his return, he turned on the TV and the two of us sat there like dorks and watched the news.  It was something about the election and shifts in polls and such.  It was interesting, but I had my mind on other things.

“So, let me ask you a question,” I said as we sat there for a moment.

“Sure.”

“If you were going to write a book about yourself, would you write it in first or third person?”

“I would probably go with first person, but I’ve never been much of a writer.”

“Cool,” I said as I looked at the exquisitely prepared pasta Brand had prepared.

“Penny?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, using the full idiomatic expression.

“I’m just thinking about the thesis,” I said as I looked over at him.  “My mind is working on four different story lines, and the one that looks like it would work best is something that’s completely different from the one that I’ve planned out.”

“So.. write a test of the first chapter.  If you like the way it sounds, go back to the plan and revise it to reflect the changes.”

“Hot AND smart!” I winked at him.

“Thank you,” Brand said as he continued to eat his pasta.

I finished my dinner, took the bowl into the kitchen, and then picked the computer back up and started typing again.  “Tell me how this sounds,” I said after writing the first two paragraphs.

“Okay…” he said as he muted the TV so as to pay attention to my words.

“The last thing I remember was returning home from a night at ‘The Bar.’ 

I was far too drunk to drive my own car home, so my friend Brian offered me a lift.  Because Brian had been an object of my obsession for the entire time since my cousin had introduced us, I took him up on his offer.  We left the bar peacefully, made it to my complex without any problem, and then turned into the group of buildings that housed the condo I’d purchased before my first semester as a graduate student at the University of Alabama.  We talked for a moment, and then I climbed out of his car after unsuccessfully offering to let him spend the night in my apartment.  As he was leaving, though, Brian and I waved at one another.” 

“Sounds good to me,” he said as he looked into the bowl of pasta.  I could tell that his mind was going.  It appeared as though there were questions that he wanted to ask but perhaps he felt it was too early in our relationship to know.

“Now it’s your turn.  Penny?”

“Is it too soon for me to ask you a very personal question?”

“Top,” I joked, referring to the position of my sexual preference.

“Huh?”

“I’m a top,” I said again, knowing that wasn’t the question Brand was going to ask, but I felt the need to inject a bit of lightness into the conversation.

“Really?” he said as he lifted his eyebrow, intrigued by my comment.

“So, what’s your real question?” I asked with a smile.

“How did you get the scar?”  Brand knew that the story was about an attack.  I suppose something about what I’d read to him forced his mind to make a connection that he was almost afraid to ask.

“I was attacked,” I answered.  It was one of the first times that I’d actually said that, and it felt odd.  I’d admitted it to myself before; I’d even said that phrase, but it had never set in like it did that night, right then, as I sat with him, this man for whom I was quickly falling.

I looked over at Brand after a second, and he’d stopped eating.  His fork was sitting in the bowl.

“Was it because you’re gay?”

“I don’t know, honestly.  The police found the guy, but he told them that he’d hit me because I was… lunging toward him.”

I continued to look at him until he turned to look at me.  Without warning, he took my hand and held it to his mouth, kissing it gently.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Ry,” he said, with a great deal of sincerity in his voice.  “If you ever meet the guy, I’ll beat the shit out of him for you.  You’re a cool guy; you shouldn’t have had to deal with that shit.”

“Thank you,” I said as we looked at each other.

“You’re real cool,” he said in his thick, east Tennessee accent, “and you look damned good in a Speedo!”

“You do, too!” I proclaimed as he turned his face back to the TV, a wicked smile coming across it as he turned off the mute and changed the channel to something slightly funnier.

That night, I stayed with him.  Nothing more happened than we slept in the same bed, with us cuddling up to one another.  The next morning, we both woke at six, but rather than heading to the gym, I went home to shower and get a fresh change of clothes.

As I walked in the door, Mom and Dad were up, giggling in the kitchen.  “Good morning,” I said as I walked into the kitchen.

“You’re wearing the same thing that you wore yesterday, so I’m assuming that dinner went well.”

“It did,” I answered as I kissed my mother on the cheek.

“So, how did you enjoy the pasta?”

“It was wonderful.  How did you know we had pasta?”

“Brand came by my room yesterday and got a recipe for a pasta dish that was easy to make and yet really spectacular.”

“Well... thanks for giving it to him; it was wonderful.  Now... I’ve got to get showered and get to work,” I proclaimed as I left the kitchen.  I could hear Mom and Dad giggling like children in the kitchen, and it made me smile.

I got to work a full thirty minutes ahead of schedule, around seven.  When I arrived, the classroom across the hall was already open and the light was on.  I set my things down and walked across the hall, making sure that no one was around.

Brand smiled as I walked over to his desk, where he was still standing.  Something had obviously possessed me, because I did something that I’d never really done in public: I walked over, put my hands on both side of his head, and kissed him so passionately that I could almost feel both his emotional and physical reaction to the stimulus.

“What was THAT for?” he asked as I pulled away.

“For making everything perfect last night.”

“So... your mom told you that she’d given me the recipe?”

“The fact that you would even think to go to her and ask for something that would be special earns you so many points.”

“How many points to I have to earn before I can redeem them for something?”

“A few hundred more.”

“How many did I get for last night?”

“Fifty,” I said, winking at him.

“How many did I have before last night?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, having no real number in mind at that point.

“So, how many points do I have to earn before I can call you my boyfriend?” he asked, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“You had enough for that two weeks ago,” I answered.  “I was just waiting on you to ask.”

I went through the first part of my day with pep in my step.  Between third and fourth periods, I stepped out into the hallway.  Across from me was quite possibly the most wonderful man I had ever met, and I counted myself lucky to have him in my life.  We talked for a second, but when the tardy bell rang we were quite reluctantly forced to return to our respective classrooms and begin teaching.

A few seconds after the tardy bell clamored, Justin turned the corner heading toward my class.  Everyone else was already seated, but he was running just a few seconds late.

“Sorry, Mr. Collins,” Justin said, with a joking smile on his face.  “I had to go to the boys’ room.”  He looked over at Brand and then looked back at me.  “Damn!  Math class just won’t be the same!” he commented as he walked into the classroom.  Brand winked at me and smiled, and then the two of us went into our rooms to start class.

“So, what did y’all think about The House on Mango Street?” I asked.

“It sucked!” Nate said.

“I though it was a great novel about the juxtaposition of a Latina in a European ethno-centric environment,” Justin added as he sat up.

“Smartass,” I said as I looked at my brother.  He was cheesily grinning.

“Thank you… Mr. Collins!”

“Justin!  Do you want to go see Mom?”

“Okay… Okay… I’ll calm it down.”

“Thank you!” I said, and the class began discussing the book.

During fifth period, I assigned the class a free response writing.  I wanted to see how they would create a character based on themselves.  What kind of image did they produce?  How did they see themselves?  That sort of thing, I explained to them, would also help me as I worked on my thesis.

That evening after school ended, I went to the bookstore before going home.  Brand and I talked on the phone until the wee hours of the morning.  I felt like I was in high school, talking to a guy I liked when I should be in bed. However, I just couldn’t sleep because I was so enamored with someone that life didn’t seem bearable without endlessly talking to him.

By the end of the week, I finished the first chapter of my thesis and was happy with it.  I’d also talked to Brand so much on my cell phone that my minutes ran out because I couldn’t wait to talk to him until 9 p.m. when night rates started.

It seemed that both my life and my thesis were ready for the next chapter.

To be continued...