I tilt my head. “Midterms?”
She nods.
“You had midterms this week?”
She nods again.
Now I feel like an asshole. I grab my phone and text her.
Ridge: Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have stayed at your apartment.
Sydney: Mine were Monday and Tuesday, so no worries. Your timing Tuesday night was impeccable. It’s just that I work at the library and it’s insane during midterms. The students are insane. The professors are insane. I’m so happy it’s Friday.
Ridge: Me too. Let’s do nothing tonight but watch TV. I need to find out if Ned really gets decapitated.
Sydney: Who?
Shit. Warren is rubbing off on me. I don’t want her to know I just spoiled season one of Game Of Thrones.
Ridge: Oh, nothing. Talking about The Walking Dead.
Sydney stares at her phone for a second, confused.
Sydney: I don’t remember that from The Walking Dead.
She watches The Walking Dead. Great. Now I want to have sex and I already told her we’d be lazy tonight.
Sydney’s attention moves away from me and toward my bedroom door. “Someone is knocking,” she signs.
I climb off her and head to the living room. Through the peephole, I notice it’s a girl with a FedEx uniform on. I open the door, and she hands me a package. Once I’ve signed for it, I walk the package to the bar and wait for Sydney as she walks into the kitchen. I read the label and it’s addressed to me, but there’s no return address.
Sydney leans over me and then signs, “You got a present?”
I shrug. I’m not expecting anything that I can remember, but I open the package and there’s another package inside of it. A poster tube. Knowing Warren, he probably sent me a roll of toilet paper with his face all over it. I start to pull the tape off, but I notice Sydney walk around me, toward the living room. When I glance up at her, she’s holding her phone up, aiming her camera in my direction.
“Are you recording me?”
She nods and gives me a sweet smile. “The present is from me.”
“You bought me something?”
Her shy smile is so fucking adorable. Every time I think I’m too exhausted to even think about picking her up and throwing her on my bed, she does something that completely reinvigorates me and makes me feel like I could run a marathon.
I look back down at the tube and feel bad that she got me a gift. I suck at gifts. Shit, what if she’s the type who gives the best gifts? I’m the guy who once bought his nine-year-old brother a hamster for Christmas, but didn’t realize it died in the box. Brennan opened it and cried the entire day.
And this beautiful girl has me as her boyfriend.
Although, this gift is hard as shit to open. I set it on the bar and yank at the lid.
A sudden cloud of dust bursts out of the container and hits me in the face. It happens so fast, I can’t even close my mouth in time. I step back from whatever the hell was in that container and I start spitting. What the hell just happened?
I walk to the sink and run my hands under the water, then wet my face. When I pull my hands back, they’re sparkling like a fucking unicorn.
Glitter. Everywhere.
On my arms, my shirt, my hands, the counter. In my mouth. I look over at Sydney and she’s on the floor with laughter. Tears are in her eyes, she’s laughing so hard.
She glitter bombed me.
Wow.
I guess that means the prank war has recommenced.
I wash my mouth out and then calmly walk to the bar where the explosion just happened. I scoop a handful of glitter into my palm. Two can play this game. Her laughter hasn’t let up at all. I think she’s laughing even harder now that she sees me up close. I’m sure I look fantastic in sparkles.
I’ve read the word “squeal” before and know that it’s a form of laughter, but I have no idea what it sounds like at all. But as soon as I tip my hand over and watch the glitter fall all over her, I’m almost positive that’s what she’s doing. Squealing.
She clutches her stomach and falls onto her back. A tear falls down her cheek.
My God. I’d give anything to be able to hear her right now. I spend so much time trying to imagine what her voice and her laughter and her sighs sound like, but there isn’t enough imagination in one person to come close to what I know it probably sounds like.
She sees the look on my face and suddenly stops laughing. Her eyebrows pull together when she signs, “Are you angry?”
I smile and give my head a slight shake. “No. I just really wish I could hear you right now.”