“Half an hour,” she croaked. That was pushing it. She needed to shower and walk to campus, but if she drove, she could buy them a few minutes. She hadn’t double-checked her lecture notes last night because she’d been too busy grading short-answer quizzes and working on her midterm review sheets. She’d given the lecture for her eight o’clock class before, but she had to rush straight from that to her nine-thirty class, and this lecture was entirely new. A small part of her brain was screaming, “Fuck morning sex, bitch, you’re already late. That lecture won’t edit itself.” It was a small but very loud part that she forced herself to ignore because she’d been working on that, not giving into the negative self-talk that told her she wasn’t doing enough and never could. She needed to learn not to crumble to the voice that said failure was imminent. She didn’t believe it, not really, but that voice was so loud that just ignoring it wasn’t really an option. Eventually, she knew she’d have to learn how to replace it with something else, but she wasn’t there yet, so ignorance was her temporary friend.

“I’ll be quick,” Alejandro whispered into her ear, and then his body froze. “That’s not what I meant?”

Deja buried her face in her pillow to muffle her laughter.

“I meant I’ll get you off quick,” Alejandro whined, reaching over her to pull the bedside table drawer open and fish around for a condom. “Deja, stop laughing. You know what I meant.”

She turned her head to look at him out of the corner of her right eye. “There are pills for that, you know,” she whispered innocently.

Alejandro smiled and shook his head. “Asshole,” he muttered to himself while Deja broke into laughter again.

She didn’t try to hide it this time.

Alejandro rolled his eyes at her and crawled under the sheets. She heard him muttering against her stomach and thighs as he kissed and licked at her, pushing her legs open and pushing her underwear aside, and then her laughter turned to moans.

His mouth and hands helped her ignore the urgency to do more and be more productive. He grounded her. She’d never had that before. She knew Alejandro was rooting for her, and even better, he was getting her off before her busiest day of the week.

Deja had dated a lot of losers in her life.

Alejandro was no loser.

It took longer than half an hour, and they had to shower together, so she wasn’t too late, but letting Alejandro eat her awake and then turn her over and fuck her into her mattress was absolutely worth it. More than worth it.

Great way to start the day.

Two hours later, and Deja was having a very bad day.