Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [81]
I toweled off and dressed. Even half hungover and bleary eyed, my reflection was kind of handsome. As I walked back to Laura’s room, I remembered the MU blanket Sage had made for me. I wished I had kept it.
I found Laura sitting at her desk, already showered and dressed like she was about to host a high tea for the Princess of Wales. I had used the clothes I was wearing as a pillow, and it still felt like there was a garbage truck revving in my skull. Sage was not in the room.
“Where’s Sage?” I asked, pulling a bottle of water from the minifridge and collapsing on Laura’s bed. On Ebony’s side of the room, the bed was made and Sage’s belongings were neatly packed. There was no sign of what we’d done.
“I should ask you that,” she replied coyly. “I just saw Brian, and he said you didn’t show up until after six this morning.”
“Hey, look who’s talking!” I barked. “What’s up with you and this Mike guy?”
She smiled. “I guess you could call him my boyfriend.”
“I’d like to call him something else.” You’re my sister, not some kind of … woman!
Laura shoved my feet off her sheets. “You’d really like him, Logan. He’s a physics major. We met at a basketball game last semester.”
I narrowed my eyes and she socked me in the arm. “Hey, Logan, I made an effort to like your girlfriend. I even stayed at Mike’s so you two could have some privacy.”
“She’s not my …,” I started to object from pure force of habit. But after last night … “I mean, well …” What was I supposed to say?
Laura just laughed. “I knew it! She was drooling over you all last night. I kind of figured even you weren’t that blind.”
I looked over at the empty bed, remembering what Sage and I had done only a few hours before. “Do you really not know where she is?”
“She left a note. She had to go meet with her academic advisor, but she’ll be back soon.”
I rubbed my eyes, picking at the mucus the shower hadn’t removed. So what would I do when Sage came back? Nod politely? Give her a big hug? Smile secretly?
No point in playing it cool, not after the night before. I’d give her a little kiss, let her know I wasn’t ashamed or regretful. We could talk a little on the way home, when we had some privacy.
When Sage returned five minutes later, all I ended up doing was staring. She was wearing a sundress, a yellow strapless outfit that left her arms and shoulders uncovered. Details of the previous night returned. The skin that I’d touched, the places I’d kissed, the soft hands, the warm mouth …
We kissed. Right there in front of my sister, and not the friendly little peck I was planning. Laura giggled at us and mussed my hair when we disengaged.
Sage blushed a little from the attention. Unlike me, she didn’t look like she’d slept in a cat box.
“Can I buy you ladies some breakfast?”
Sage allowed me to take her arm as we left the dorm.
It was actually a lot later than I thought, so we grabbed lunch at a Ninth Street bar called the Heidelberg. It was a beautiful day, so Laura took us on an insider’s tour of downtown. We ducked in and out of various head shops, bookstores, used clothing places, and coffee bars. Laura gave us advice on hangouts, organizations, and meal plans. She told me there were good jobs with campus security, if I didn’t mind directing traffic at MU Tigers games.
I barely paid attention. For the first time since Brenda, I was unashamedly holding hands with a girl.
Sage was not her usual brash self. She barely talked all afternoon. I wondered if she was as confused and scared and happy as I was. We never unlocked hands. Sometimes Sage gripped my fingers so tight it almost hurt.
We returned to campus and cut across the quad. I recalled the night we were here a few months before, when Sage and I had cleared the air and I’d promised I’d be her friend. It had seemed like such a big deal at the time, being willing to hang out with someone like Sage. And now she’d given me a back rub while we were both almost naked.
Laura was lecturing about the life-sized statue of Thomas Jefferson and didn’t notice when I stopped walking. Sage stopped short.