Nothing Less

Chapter Three

MY BEDROOM IS SILENT.

It feels so small.

Or maybe it’s me who feels small after yet another embarrassing moment with Nora? This time was better because we shared the awkward scene.

We caused it.

I can still feel her body against mine, moving with need, with purpose. I can hear her moans in my ear and feel her hot breath against my skin.

Now my room feels warm.

Too warm.

I move away from the back of my door and walk across the room to the window. My desk is messy; stacks of books and Post-its clutter the wooden surface. Well, it’s from IKEA and cost less than a hundred bucks, so it’s probably not “wood” at all. I tap my finger on the dark brown potential wood, and it sounds hollow. I knew it wasn’t real.

My fingers are shaky as I push my hand through my blinds to pull open the window. The windowsill is covered in chipped paint and dust, even a dead fly. Tessa would cringe at that. I make a mental note to clean it up this week. I pull at the stubborn wood, and it finally cracks open.

I lift it higher, welcoming the calm sounds of the city into my room. I love the noise level here in Brooklyn. There are cars and usually some voices of people walking down the sidewalks, but nothing too crazy. The amount of random taxi honking is significantly less than in Manhattan. I’ll never understand the whole angry-honking thing. It doesn’t make any sense to me why people think it helps traffic in any sort of way. The only thing the rude gesture does is piss people off and create even more tension.

Random thoughts are doing a good job of keeping my mind off what Nora and I just did. Well, not now that I’m thinking about it again. How did we go from creating a little movie scene to her straddling me on a chair? I pull my pants and boxers off and toss them into my dirty-clothes hamper by the closet door.

I change my clothes and sit down on the edge of my bed, close to the window. My phone is plugged into the charger sitting on my nightstand. I reach for it.

Hardin answers on the second ring. “It’s too late to talk me out of coming—I’ll be there this Friday.”

I roll my eyes. “Hi, I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

“Noted. What can I help you with on this fine evening?” Hardin asks over a car alarm beeping in the background.

“Nothing. I’m having a weird thing . . .” I don’t know how to explain what’s going on or why I called Hardin to talk about it.

He laughs. “You’re going to need to explain much more than that.”

I sigh into the phone and listen to my surroundings. I can faintly hear Tessa’s and Nora’s voices in the kitchen.

“Okay, so you know Tessa’s friend Nora? Well, Sophia was her name when you met her, but Tessa says she likes her friends to call her Nora. I mean, you probably won’t get either name right anyway.”

He’s silent for a moment. I wonder if my voice was too loud. I can’t make out anything the women are saying, so I hope they can hear even less of my voice.

“Yeah. I think so.”