“You’re going to hell, Crosbie. Fix my bed frame.” I feel hot and happy, despite the mess. Despite the fact that the wood is snapped and splintered and I don’t think it can be fixed.
He slides down the angled mattress and joins me on the floor to inspect the damage. “I have to go.”
“Crosbie Lucas.”
“Bye, Nora. Take care.” He stands but doesn’t actually go anywhere, staring at the ruined frame.
I stand, too. “Product defect?” I try.
“Definitely.”
“I guess it’ll have to be taken apart now.”
He glances at his watch. “Wow. Is that the time?”
I smile a little. “Thank you, Crosbie.”
“For breaking your bed? No problem. Wherever, whenever.”
I laugh. “For the first part. This…not so much.”
“I’ll help you pack it back up and drive it to the store. You don’t have to wait for the delivery. We can do it today.”
“I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“I do, but I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“You nailed it.”
“Who nailed who now?”
We whirl around to see Kellan standing in the doorway, arms crossed, one dark brow raised suspiciously. And I suppose an off-kilter bed, scattered pillows and beddings, and Crosbie’s discarded shirt might suggest someone had gotten nailed, but…they hadn’t. Unfortunately.
“I bought a defective bed frame,” I say, pointing to the mangled corner.
“Oh.” He frowns and comes inside for a better view. “What were you doing to break your bed?”
It’s so hard to keep a straight face. “I was jumping on it.”
“You were jumping on your bed?”
Crosbie coughs into the crook of his elbow, trying to mask his laughter.
“Yes.”
“I’m surprised, Nora. That doesn’t seem like you.”
“I thought it sounded fun.”
“Well, they might not give you a refund if they know you were just jumping around on it like that. It’s irresponsible.”
Crosbie coughs again and hustles out of the room. After a second we hear the tap in the kitchen sink turn on and I picture him drowning out the noise of his laughter.
“I’ll just tell them it came that way.”
Kellan stares at me like he can’t decide if I’m serious or not, then his face relaxes and he smiles. “They’ll believe you. Who wouldn’t?”
He returns to the living room and I hear him ask Crosbie what he’s still doing here.
“I was cleaning up,” Crosbie replies.
“Why is your shirt in her room?”
“It’s not.”
“It’s the one you were wearing last night.”
“Dude, then I don’t know how it got in there. You know what I did last night. Nora was not it.”
Their voices grow muffled as they enter Kellan’s room, so I hang Crosbie’s shirt on the out-facing doorknob and gently close the door on their conversation.
chapter six
I don’t see Crosbie much in the week after the bed incident. We don’t end up going to Ikea together, though a couple of days later they do take away the “defective” frame and swap it out for a new one. The delivery comes when Kellan is home, and he surprises me by putting it together before I return from class, saying he’s concerned about my building skills and making me promise not to jump anymore. Otherwise, he’s not really around all that often. He’s been hanging out at Alpha Sigma Phi, so Crosbie doesn’t have a reason to turn up, either. I try to pretend I don’t notice, but I do.
“Earth to Nora. This is Earth, asking Nora to report to home base.”
“You’re a huge loser.”
Nate laughs, unoffended. It’s Tuesday evening, ten days since the bed hopping debacle, and we’re at the Burnham library near the center of campus. We have Intro to French together, and have to put together a cheesy dialogue about a French person teaching an English speaker how to order a cup of coffee.
“How’s this for a first line?” Nate asks. “Bonjour.”
“Bonjour? We’ve been here for thirty minutes and you came up with one word?”
“That word says a lot!”
“It says you’re going to fail.”
He snorts. “You’re one to talk. You’ve been doodling ‘Mrs. Kellan McVey’ all over the assignment worksheet.”
I gasp. “I have not! I’m brainstorming.”
“Yeah? What’d you come up with?”
“Je veux boire le café.” I want to drink coffee. I think.
“What does that mean?”
“Are you even listening to the CDs?” I’ve been putting in close to two hours a week, and I’m pretty sure I’d be screwed if I unexpectedly wound up in France. Or Québec.
“No.” Nate shakes his head. “What do they say?”
I laugh and toss my pen across the table. It bounces off his shoulder and he snickers and snatches it up. We’re on the fourth floor, which is relatively quiet at eight o’clock at night, so there’s no one to glare or shush us. It’s this very silence that makes the low male chuckle filtering through the bookshelves loud enough to jolt us in our seats.
“Whaaaat?” Nate mouths, looking delighted.
I’m about to tell him it’s probably nothing when a female voice joins in the laughter, ending abruptly on a heated moan.
How annoying.
I’m trying to study.
I’m trying to concentrate.