Not five seconds go by before a text pings.

Joel: You’re still up. What are you doing?

Crap, I forgot Instagram shows when the other person has read the message. Rookie mistake. I laugh a little at the way I worked a sports reference in and then groan because I just laughed out loud in my quiet apartment. Christian’s been asleep for hours after the longest no nap day in history.

Me: Writing. Congrats on the game.

Joel: Thanks. Tell me a bedtime story, master storyteller, I’m tired as fuck but buses were not meant for tall people.

Me: Once upon a time there was a very tall boy…

Joel: Man, sweetheart. Tall man.

I roll my eyes but smile as I correct the intro to the story.

Me: Once upon a time there was a very tall man-boy with hair the color of coal.

Joel: And the body of Zeus.

Me: Who is telling this story?

Joel: <smiley face with zipper lips>

Me: His mouth was clever. His words charming. So charming that when he spoke women fell to their knees. But the strong man-boy, simply swept the women up and took them to his lair where he ravaged them. Later, he left them alone and cold to find more women to bring back. For he was greedy and wanted all the women for himself.

Joel: <chuckle> Lair, badass.

Me: But as the years passed, he grew a terrible hunch on his back from continually bending down and sweeping the swooning women into his arms. Disgusted by the now ugly and hunched man-boy, all the women in his lair stood, pulled themselves together, and went about their lives like the man-boy had never existed. The end.

Joel: Weird. Is that supposed to be some sort of cautionary tale?

Me: Just an impromptu bedtime story, man-boy. All persons in this story were fictional.

Joel: Now I’m going to have nightmares of hunchbacks, thanks a lot.

Me: I do what I can.

Joel: Come over tonight.

Me: You never give up, do you?

Joel: Never.

I’m typing my sign off for the night when another text comes in and I laugh into the silence of my apartment for a second time tonight.

Joel: If I ever do get you to my lair, I’m totally going to ravage you.

Me: And leave me cold and alone?

Joel: With you in my lair, I don’t think that would be possible.

Between classes and the play, the week flies by in a blur. I haven’t heard from Joel again and I’m wondering if I should have just slept with him the night of the party or taken him up on his offer to go over to his house this weekend. I mean if that was my last shot, should I have just gone for it? I watch the clock like a hawk in a futile attempt to speed it up or slow it down – alternating feelings depending on the minute. I’m not even sure he’s going to show up to the café again. He may not have gotten exactly what he wanted, but maybe that kiss and my continued refusal to sleep with him was the last straw.