She didn’t answer his question, and he didn’t push. They ate in companionable silence for a second before he spoke again. “You don’t teach tomorrow, right?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Neither do I.”

She tried to bite back her smile. “Yeah. I know. What’s your point?”

He shrugged, tossing the chicken bone on the plate between them. “Nothing, just…you know…if you were interested in having a sleepover with the special dude you’re dating—”

Deja rolled her eyes and threw a packet of wet wipes at him. “Shut up.”

He caught the packet with a deep huff of laughter.

“You really want to spend the night?” she asked.

He looked at her, and it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Of course, I do, but I’m not gonna beg.”

“You sure about that?” she asked, her voice dipping with a seedling of arousal; a seed she knew he would water.

His hand froze over the basket of onion rings. She saw his Adam’s apple bob, and that made her smile. “Please,” he whispered.

She smirked triumphantly. “Thought so.”

Twenty-Two

February

Tuesday

Deja’s day started off amazingly.

Alejandro had a late graduate course Monday night, but instead of going home after his class, he’d come to her apartment. He’d shown up with dark circles under his eyes, his jacket thrown over the crook of his arm and an overnight bag in his hand.

They hadn’t even had sex.

She’d waited nervously in bed while he changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. But when he crawled into her bed and wrapped her in his arms, all those nerves had seeped slowly from her body. He was asleep in barely fifteen minutes, and she’d lain awake for a few minutes longer, her cheek pressed against his chest, listening to the soft burr of his slumber. It was perfect.

And then she’d woken up to Alejandro’s long body spooning hers, his lips softly kissing over her shoulder and his dick pressing into the curve of her ass. Deja hadn’t woken up this well since…well, ever. The feeling of Alejandro in her bed was even better than the first morning after the academic year ended when she woke up knowing that her days were mostly her own for the next three months. Alejandro was better, and that was saying a lot.

“You up?” he whispered into her ear.

She nodded.

“You have time?”

Deja shuddered as he sucked her earlobe into his mouth and pushed his hips forward, pumping lightly into her.

She reached for her cellphone on the bedside table and tipped it up just enough to check the clock. Six in the morning.