Too Late

I pull the schedule out of my pocket and unfold it to look for the room number. “This is such crap,” I say into the phone. “I graduated college three years ago. I didn’t sign up for this shit so I could do homework.”

Dalton laughs loudly, forcing me to pull the phone several inches away from my ear. “Boo fucking hoo,” he says. “I had to sleep in a damn bathtub last night. Suck it up, man. Acting the part is part of the job.”

“Easy for you to say. You were signed up for one class a week. I have three. Why’d Young only give you one?”

“Maybe I give better head,” Dalton says.

I look down at my schedule and up at the number on the door in front of me, finding a match.

“I gotta go. La clase de Espa?ol.”

“Carter, wait.” His tone is more serious. Dalton clears his throat and prepares for his “partner pep talk.” I’ve been suffering through them on a daily basis since we started working together. “Try to make it fun, man. We’re so close to getting everything we need... You’ll be here two months, tops. Find a hot piece of ass to sit by; it’ll make the days go by faster.”

I look through the window of the classroom door. It’s practically at full capacity with only three empty seats. My gaze immediately falls on a girl in the back of the room next to one of the empty chairs. Her dark hair is spilled over her face while she rests her head on her arms. She’s asleep. I can sit by the sleepers; it’s the incessant talkers I can’t tolerate. “Look at that. Already found me a hot piece of ass to sit by. I’ll check in with you after lunch.” I end the call and swing open the classroom door as I turn off the volume on my phone. I hoist the strap of my backpack onto my shoulder as I make my way up the steps to the back of the room. I squeeze past her to the empty seat, tossing my backpack on the floor and my phone onto the table. The sound my phone makes when it meets the solid wood jolts the girl from her sleep. She immediately sits up, wide-eyed. She looks around the room, frantic and confused, then down at the notebook on her desk. I pull the chair out and sit down next to her. She glares at my phone lying on the table in front of us, and then looks at me.

Her hair is a wild mess and there’s a shiny trail of drool running from the corner of her lip, down her chin. She’s glaring at me like I’ve interrupted the only minute of sleep she’s ever had.

“Late night?” I ask. I bend over and open my backpack, pulling out the Spanish textbook I could more than likely recite from memory.

“Is class over?” she asks, her eyes narrowed at the book I’m placing on the desk in front of me.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On how long you’ve been passed out,” I say. “I’m not sure which class you’re here for, but this is the ten o’clock Spanish class.”

She throws her elbows onto the desk in front of her and groans, running her hands over her face. “I’ve been asleep for five minutes? That’s it?” She leans back into her seat and slouches down, resting her head on the back of her chair. “Wake me up when it’s over, okay?”

She’s looking at me, waiting on me to agree. I tap my finger to my chin. “You’ve got a little something right here.”

She wipes at her mouth and pulls her hand back to inspect it. I expect her to be embarrassed by the fact that she’s got drool running down her face, but instead, she rolls her eyes and tucks the sleeve of her shirt under her thumb. She wipes the puddle of drool off the table with her sleeve, and then slouches back down in her seat, closing her eyes.

I’ve been through college before. I know how it is with the late nights, the partying, the studying, and never having time for it all. But this girl seems stressed to the max. I’m curious if it’s due to maybe having a night shift or way too much partying.

I reach down into my backpack and pull the energy drink out that I picked up on the way here this morning. I’m thinking she needs it more than I do.

“Here.” I set it on the desk in front of her. “Drink this.”

She slowly pries her eyes open as if her eyelids weigh a thousand pounds each. She looks down at the drink, then quickly grabs it and pops the top. She gulps the contents frantically, like it’s the first thing she’s had to drink in days.

“You’re welcome.” I laugh.

She finishes the drink and sets it back on the table, wiping her mouth with the same sleeve she wiped away the drool with earlier. I’m not gonna lie; her unkempt, sloppily sexy demeanor is a major turn-on, in a weird way.

“Thanks,” she says, wiping the hair out of her eyes. She looks at me and smiles, then stretches her arms out behind her and yawns. The door to the classroom opens and everyone shifts in their seats, indicating the entrance of the instructor—but I can’t take my eyes off of her long enough to even validate his presence.

She combs through the strands of her hair with her fingers. It’s still slightly damp and I can smell the floral scent of her shampoo when she flips her hair back over her shoulders. It’s long and dark and thick, just like the lashes that line her eyes. She glances toward the front of the room and opens her notebook, so I mirror her movements and do the same.

The professor greets us in Spanish, and we return his salutations in collective, broken responses. He begins giving instructions on an assignment when my phone lights up on the table between us. I look down at the incoming text message from Dalton.

Does this hot piece of ass you’re sitting next to have a name?

I immediately flip the phone over, hoping she didn’t read it. She brings her hand to her mouth to cover her laugh.

Crap. She read it.

“Hot piece of ass, huh?” she says.

“I’m sorry. My friend... He thinks he’s funny. Also likes to make my life hell.”

She arches an eyebrow and turns toward me. “So you don’t think I’m a hot piece of ass?”

With her facing me head-on, it’s the first chance I’ve actually had to get a good look at her. Let’s just say I’m officially in love with this class now. I shrug my shoulders. “With all due respect, you’ve been sitting down since I met you. I haven’t even seen your ass.”

She laughs again. “Sloan,” she says, extending her hand. I take her hand in mine. There’s a small crescent-shaped scar on her thumb. I run my thumb across it and twist her hand back and forth, inspecting the scar.

“Sloan,” I repeat, letting her name roll off the tip of my tongue.

“This is usually the point during introductions that one would reply with their own name,” she says.

I glance back up at her and she pulls her hand away, looking at me inquisitively.

“Carter,” I reply, keeping in character with who I’m supposed to be. It’s been hard enough referring to Ryan as Dalton for the past six weeks, but I’ve gotten used to it. Calling myself Carter is another story. I’ve more than once slipped up and almost used my real name.

“Mucho gusto,” she says in an almost perfect accent, turning her attention toward the front of the room.

No, the pleasure is mine. Believe me.

The professor instructs the class to turn to the closest partner and state three facts about the other person in Spanish. This is my fourth year of Spanish, so I decide to let Sloan go first so I don’t intimidate her. We turn toward each other and I nod my head at her. “Las se?oras primera,” I say.

“No, we’ll take turns,” she says. “You first. Go ahead, tell me a fact about myself.”

“Okay,” I say, laughing at how she just took control. “Usted es mandona.”

“That’s an opinion, not a fact,” she states. “But I’ll give it to you.”

I tilt my head in her direction. “You understood what I just said?”

She nods her head. “If you intended to call me bossy, then yes.” She narrows her eyes, but a tiny smile forces its way through. “My turn,” she says. “Su compa?era de clase es bella.”

I laugh. She just complimented herself by telling me that my class partner is beautiful? I nod in unabashed agreement. “Mi compa?era de clase esta correcta.”

I can see the blush rise to her cheeks, despite her tanned skin. “How old are you?” she asks.

“That’s a question, not a fact. And in English, no less.”

“I need to ask a question to get to the fact. You look a little older than most sophomore Spanish students.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-three? Twenty-four?” she says.

She’s not too far off. I’m twenty-five, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Twenty-two,” I say.

“Tiene veintidos a?os,” she says, stating her second fact about me.

“You cheat,” I reply.

“You have to say that in Spanish if that’s one of your facts about me.”

“Usted enga?a.”

I can tell by the arch in her eyebrow that she wasn’t expecting me to know that one in Spanish.

“That’s three for you,” she says.

“You still have one more.”

“Usted es un perro.”

I laugh. “You just accidentally called me a dog.”