Second Chances (9 page)

“Q
uite a late night for you, Ms. Murphy,” she drawled.

Reagan’s
hand still clutched at her chest – her heart had practically leapt from her body upon seeing her overly dramatic roommate perched in the middle of the room.  “God, Ash.  You about gave me a heart attack.  How long have you been sitting there?”

Ashley uncrossed her
legs.  “Only like half an hour,” she revealed.  “But it was totally worth it,” she grinned.  “You should have seen your face.”

Reagan
turned on the main bedroom light and shrugged out of her winter coat and scarf.  “You have too much free time,” she complained.  She hated pranks and Ashley was the queen of making her feel like a fool.

Ashley pulled her legs up to her chest and curled up on the displaced stuffed chair.  “So did you put out?” she asked eagerly.

“No, I did not ‘put out,’” Reagan said, making a face.

The excited look fell from her roommate’s features.  “Well then why were you gone for so long?”

Reagan began to change into her pajamas and get ready for bed.  “It’s called having a conversation,” she quipped.  “You should try it sometime.”

“Boring,” Ashley sang.  She stretched out her long, dancer legs. 
“There are so many more interesting things you could be doing with your mouth.”

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” Reagan groaned.
  “You’re going to move the furniture back, right?”  She treaded over to her bed, intent on going to sleep.  Normally her nighttime regime was more extensive, but she needed to get to sleep right away.  She had a physical anthropology lecture to suffer through in the morning.

Ashley threw her legs over
the arm of the easy chair. “I don’t know,” she said, looking around.  “I kind of like the
feng shui.
”

“Turn off the light,” Reagan grunted.  She felt soured by Ashley’s cavalier attitude about casual sex, and she hated the feeling of being judged for not sharing it.  “
I’m going to sleep.”

Ashley made a frustrated noise.  “Why do I agree to room with you
, year after year?  I could be partying it up in Manhattan with a
fun
roommate.”

Reagan
puffed up her pillow and got comfortable, pulling her duvet tight around her.  “Uh huh.  And flunking out of school.  I make sure you get to class and actually do some homework.”

Ashley sighed. “I know. I know
.  You’re liked my personal Jiminy Cricket.”

“And you’re my personal
Penthouse
magazine,” Reagan remarked.

“Hey, speaking of which,
” Ashley said, her voice perking up, “you never told me how tonight went with that guy.”

Reagan snorted. “That’s because you were too busy trying to scare me.”

“Oh, there was no
try
.  I’m just sorry I didn’t have a camera set up.  That little footage could have been worth money.  But enough about that.  How was your date?”

Reagan was too tired to reiterate it wasn’t a date.  Plus, she was pretty sure it had been one, and she didn’t want to admit that Ashley had been right.  She
stared up at the ceiling.  “It was fine.”

“Just fine?” Ashley pressed for more details. “You were gone for hours.”

“It was fun,” Reagan admitted. “Christopher is fun.”

“But is he boyfriend material?” Ashley
questioned. “Or at least boinking material?”

Reagan
rubbed at her face. Even after sharing a room for three years, she still found her roommate too graphic for her sensibilities. “We only just had coffee,” she said pragmatically.  “It’s a little too soon for me to decide on that.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong,” Ash
ley noted. “You’re either attracted to him or you’re not.  It’s not rocket science, Prez.”

“If he calls,” Reagan
said slowly, letting the idea swim around in her brain, “I’d go out with him again.”

“It’s the 21
st
century.  You could call
him
.”

“You make it sound so ea
sy,” Reagan sighed.  She pulled the covers up around her head and tried not to think about how few hours she had until she had to be awake again.

“If it’s meant to be, Prez.  It is.”

+++++

"How did your exam go today?”
Allison propped her pillows up and settled herself more comfortably against her bed’s wooden headboard.

"It was fine," came
Reagan's voice over her laptop’s speakers.  “The professor gave us a study guide with the essay questions beforehand, so I was naturally overly-prepared.”

“Wow.  That would never happen at
Brown. What kind of Monopoly education are you getting over there, Murphy?” Allison teased.

After dragging her feet for a few days,
Allison had finally caved and had agreed to a Skype session with Reagan.  She’d never used the technology before, but Reagan had assured her that even an Ivy-League student could figure it out.  Allison noticed that Reagan was awfully stuck on the phrase “Ivy League,” and seemed to use it in conversation with her whenever possible.

Reagan
frowned. “Are we ever going to talk about what happened at the train station?“

Allison
stiffened.  She cleared her throat delicately. “You mean when you got on your train?”

“Don’t play dumb,”
Reagan huffed.  “You’re a very smart girl, Allison Hoge.  You go to an Ivy-League School.”

Allison
shook her head.  There was that phrase again. “It wasn’t a big deal.  I kissed you, yes.”  The words felt strange in her mouth.

“But why?”
Reagan pressed. The question had been pulling at the edges of her sanity ever since she’d left Providence.  She was, by habit, an impatient person, and she felt she’d already shown an amazing amount of willpower for delaying this conversation this long.  She wasn’t going to let Allison hide any longer.

"Is that the question you wanted to ask me?”
Allison sighed, looking visibly frustrated.  She pushed her hair away from her eyes.  She really needed to get it cut. “The one you had to ask me face-to-face?"

"Yes. I thought I’d get a more honest answer this way.” 

Allison sat silent.  She’d already admitted to kissing Reagan.  What more could she possibly want from her?

“Do you kiss all of your friends goodbye?”
Reagan demanded when Allison’s continued silence became too much. “I mean, I didn’t mind it; I’m a very affectionate person,” she quickly added.  “I’m just curious.” 

She couldn’t recall ever having seen
Allison kiss her high school girl friends.  But that didn’t mean this wasn’t all part of the new Allison 2.0.  She didn’t want to read too much into the action, but it was so far removed from the Allison she had known during their high school days, she had to ask.

Allison
touched the side of her laptop, tempted to slam the lid shut so she wouldn’t have to face Reagan.  It would be all-too-easy to sever ties from her forever.  Reagan’s incessant need to know the meaning behind every action and every conversation was as exhausting as ever.  “It’s really not a big deal, Murphy,” she grumbled.  “Let’s just chalk it up to my recent head injury and move on.”

Reagan
was far from satisfied with that answer, but experience told her she wasn’t going to get a straightforward response like this.  She’d just have to bug her about it at a later time until Allison finally broke down and opened up to her. “Are you going home for Spring Break?” she asked, changing the subject to something safer.

“Yes. Unfortunately,”
Allison confirmed.  Her features pinched together with the topic change. “You?”

“Mmhm.”
Reagan’s features brightened hopefully. “Maybe we could hang out?”

“Sure.  If I’m not busy.”

Allison’s roommates were traveling someplace closer to the Equator for Spring Break. She’d been invited along, and her parents would have paid for the trip now that she could legally drink, but the whole co-ed Spring Break phenomena wasn’t her scene.  So instead of flocking to sandy beaches, wet t-shirt contests, and all-day booze cruises, she was returning to her hometown for a few days. She would have stayed in Providence and enjoyed the rare quiet of a completely empty house with no roommates disturbing her, but she hadn’t seen her family in a few months and felt obligated to visit, especially since she had no plans on returning to Michigan for summer break.

Reagan
raised an eyebrow. “Big plans when you’re home?”

“No.  Not really.  I just don’t want you to get disappointed if we can’t hook up over break.”
Allison grimaced at her word choice. 
Hook up?
God, she was supposed to be articulate.  Why did her mouth continue to betray her?

Reagan
seemed undisturbed by Allison’s choice of words. “Well, you have my number. Call me if you have some free time and want to grab lunch or something.”

Allison
nodded tersely. “We’ll see.”

+++++

CHAPTER SIX

Allison tilted her face into the early afternoon sun.  She closed her eyes to enjoy the warmth caress her skin.  Northern Michiga
n didn’t often experience such mild weather so early in the year, so she was determined to enjoy the novelty.

Her
flight had arrived the evening prior, but she was already eager to return to school.  It wasn’t that she didn’t get along with her parents, but their expectations of her could be stifling.  When she’d first arrived on the Brown campus three years ago, she’d felt like she was able to breathe for the first time. 

Her mom had made Allison’s favorite
dinner and the meal had started out pleasantly enough with each person taking turns talking about their day – a routine they’d started when Allison and her sister, Lucy, were young.  But when her father had redirected the conversation to her college major and limited career options, it was as if a dark cloud had come to hover over their house. 

As soon as she’d cleaned her plate and was excused from the table,
Allison had raced upstairs to call Reagan.  They didn’t share the same academic schedule, but their Spring Breaks overlapped for a few days.  They’d talked on the phone the rest of the evening, commiserating about the difficulties of being under their respective parents’ watch again and had made plans to see each other the next day.

She
opened her eyes at the sound of a familiar voice calling her name.  She squinted into the sun and raised a hand up to shield her eyes from the bright glare.  Reagan beamed down at her, her smile nearly as radiant as the sun.  They hadn’t seen each other in person since that night on the Providence train platform, but they’d texted and talked on Skype a few times.  It had been just enough distance to let Allison forget that they’d kissed.  Well, almost.

Allison stood to be
polite, but Reagan went in for the hug.  Arms immediately wrapped around her, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Allison didn’t freeze up. “You smell good,” she said without thinking as she pulled back from the friendly hug.

“Do I?”
Reagan’s face scrunched.  “Well, I
did
shower today,” she remarked.

Allison
released an uneasy breath and returned to her seat. “That must be it.  I know showering is a rarity for you.” She let the playful taunting displace the uncomfortable twisting in her gut.

Reagan
pulled off her oversized sunglasses and carefully set them on the table.  The patio furniture was normally still stored away until warmer weather descended on their hometown, but the unseasonably warm temperatures had prompted the sandwich shop’s owners to dust off the outdoor seating earlier. "I’m glad I found you."

Allison
smirked. "I wasn't hiding, Murphy.  I told you where I’d be at exactly this time."

Reagan
raked her fingers through her loose hair and released a shaky, high-pitched laugh. "I know that; I'm just nervous, and it’s making me behave awkwardly.”