Fix It for Us (3 page)

Charlie is smirking, about to laugh, “Biz…your cable.  What did you think we were talking about…a vibrator or something?”

I know I am blushing.  “So what if I have never used my cable…” Then I add more quietly.  “Or a vibrator, not that it is any of your business.”

Davis is getting a big laugh out of our exchange.  “Lizard…Baby, I did not bring
you a vibrator.  They don’t come in boxes this big, or flat.”  Now, he is really tickled and can’t stop laughing.  “It’s a television.  This way we can hang out in your room the nights you can’t come to my place.”  He winks at me and after he and Charlie put the box down, he moves to me and puts his arms around my neck and whispers in my ear.   “It’s in case we run out of other things to do.”  I’m glad Charlie wasn’t able to hear, but he can probably guess, ‘cause he is still laughing.

“I can’t afford a TV.”  I say, mildly admonishing Davis.

“I already had it,” Davis informs me.  “It was supposed to be for the guest room in the condo.  I think it will be put to better use here.  My guests will just have to do without.  Not that I ever have any guests.”

Charlie and Davis disassemble the box that holds the new flat
screen TV.  It looks like it’s too big for my little room.  The boys assure me it’s not.  I swear it is over 40 inches.  My room is only 12 feet wide.  They discuss and argue and eventually get the TV situated on the wall, just as Charlie suggested, and hooked up to the cable.  I have to admit, once I see the clarity of the picture and all the channels, I can see I have been missing out and could enjoy this unexpected luxury.  The only television I have watched in the past three and a half years has been at my parent’s house on breaks or in the student union between classes.  I surf through the channels and come upon a Jane Austen movie.  I have a few movies, that, if they are ever on while I am channel surfing, I’m likely to stop and watch.  Pride and Prejudice is one of them.  The Devil Wears Prada is another.  Davis thanks Charlie for assisting with a bro hug and a slap on the back.  Charlie comes over to me and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m
glad you said he could stay,” Charlie tells me, looking over his shoulder at Davis and pointing his thumb at him.  “I think he’s a keeper.” 

I smack him lightly on the chest a
nd whisper, “Thanks, I think so too.”

Charlie adds, “And I’ll sign him in anytime.  Just let me know.”

“Thanks for that, too.  Hey, is Jules sleeping over tonight?”

Charlie thinks a second, then replies, “I hope so.  I’ll know after rehearsal.  I’ll tell her to
call you or find you, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

While I’ve been talking to Charlie, Davis has come over and is standing behind me.  He has wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and has buried his nose and lips in the hair on the top of my head.  He is sniffing me.  Claiming me.  Telling me with his actions he wants Charlie to leave.

Charlie gets the clue.  “I really gotta go now, I need to find a new guitarist for the band.  Later.”

Charlie’s last statement makes me feel a bit guilty and I sense a frown forming on my face.  I am the reason he has to find a new guitarist.  Boxwood’s last one, Jake Gianni, was my….what was he?  Pseudo-boyfriend, I guess.  He cheated on me with my fellow RA, Suzette, before we even really got started.  I broke it off with him.  I think I knew it wouldn’t work.  I was already in love with Davis, but I didn’t think I’d ever have him.  The end result was, I got Davis and Charlie kicked Jake out of Boxwood for being an asshole.  I love how loyal Charlie is to me.  The brother I never had.  I sigh audibly as Charlie closes the door behind him.

Davis breathes warmly into my ear, “I thought he’d never leave.”

“Mavis, he was helping.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I feel like I’ve been away from you all day
.  I just want you to myself.”

“Okay, now you do.”

Davis smirks and then kisses me below my ear, “I know… and we’ll do something about that later, but now,” he points, with his hand still holding me, to a bag on the desk,  “…I’ve brought dinner.”

“You did?”

“Yep, Chinese.  So we can have a ‘dorm date.’  Dinner and a movie.”  He teasingly adds, “I am courting you.”

“Mavis, you are so smart.”

“Come on, hop up on the bed.  I’ll feed you and we’ll watch whatever you want.”

Davis grabs some paper plates from the basket on top of my mini-fridge and fishes the chopsticks out
of the brown paper bag.  He pulls out four Chinese food boxes.  It all smells delicious.  Davis scoops a little out of each box onto our plates.  He brings mine over to me, returns to get his own and then hikes himself up to sit on the bed beside me.  We talk about what he did for the few hours he was gone and he asks questions about what I was up to.  He tells me he decided on a whim to go get the television from his place, along with some dinner.  He figured if he needed to date me, he’d better start right away.  That way we could tell people sooner.  There was a method to his madness after all.  He wasn’t angry with me.  He wanted to move things along.  I tell him about how I worried he was upset, that maybe he wasn’t coming back tonight and he shut that down immediately, telling me I no longer needed to expect the worst.  I am growing to trust him.  I wonder why my thoughts lead me to the worried and scared places.  I told him I got a little panicked when I couldn’t reach him. 

“I wa
s surprised when I saw your phone at my place.  I stuffed it in my pocket when I got there. I figured you knew you left it,” he tells me.

“I couldn’t find it and then I could
n’t remember where it was… I might be a little tired,” I yawn.  “I thought about calling you, but I don’t have your number memorized yet.  And you don’t have my landline number in your phone yet, I’m sure.”  I pause for a beat and stare directly into his compelling green eyes.  “It made me think about how new this is and how little we really know each other.”

“I know.  It was driving me crazy not being able to reach you and tell you what I was do
ing.  Let’s just remediate that situation right now.”  Davis places his empty plate on the bed, skootches off and goes over to the desk.  He writes a phone number down on a post-it and sticks it over my desk phone.  Then he turns and hands me his phone, “Put your landline number in there.  At least this way, you’ll have my number if you misplace your phone,” he points to the post-it, “and,” holding up his cell, “I can try to reach you here, if you don’t answer your cell.  And maybe we should try and memorize at least each other’s cell numbers.”  He says the last part with a grin.

I collect the dishes and throw them away in the trash can in the hall, so my room won’t smell like potstickers all night.  I pack up the leftovers and store them in my fridge.  Davis is sitting up on my bed with his back against the wall, flipping through TV channels.  I climb up, grab a pillow, place it on his lap
, lay my head on it and settle in for the remainder of our dorm date.  Before we decide on a movie, we talk about our individual schedules for the day tomorrow.  Davis has to be up early.  Now that he is a master’s student, he has to co-teach a beginning lighting class.  He mentions that we still need to go to the student clinic. We arrange to meet at lunch in the cafeteria and then go afterward, since we are both free at 1:00.   I look up into his green eyes, from my position on his lap, as we plan this together.  “Thank you for dinner and the TV and for, well … taking care of me.” 

Davis replies, “I’m
taking care of us, Lizard baby. US.”

We watch
Pride and Prejudice, as Davis strokes my hair and every now and then leans down to give me kisses.  I am more tired than I realize because the next thing I am aware of is Davis picking me up and placing me on my feet by my bed, holding me firmly.

“Lizard
… Lizard Breath, you’re asleep, baby.  We are going to go to bed now, okay?”  I nod my consent and let him undress me to my tank top and underwear.   While still steadying me, he throws back the duvet.  He lifts me gently onto my bed and then slides in behind me to spoon me.  I don’t know when he took off his jeans and I don’t care.  I am so sleepy and it feels so good to fall asleep next to him.

“Goodnight, my little Lizard.”  He kisses my shoulder.

“’Night, Mav.  Love you…” I wanted him to know.  I have just enough energy to kiss the air in front of me.

I think I hear him chuckle.

***

             
There is something buzzing in my ear, it’s sort of annoying and… tickly.  Eyes still closed I reach up to brush it away, but I touch something soft instead.  I move my finger around and deduce that it’s lips.  Davis’ lips.  The buzzing is him whispering in my ear.

“Biz?  Lizard Baby?  I wanted you to know I’m leaving for class.  I left you coffee.”

I turn my face and kiss him, eyes still closed, and slur out, “Thank you, it smells so good,”   I open my eyes and pull away from his face a bit and ask, “Hey, how do you know how I like my coffee?”  I’ve been meaning to ask that for a while now.

“I’ve kept my ears and eyes open.  I’m very observant.”

“You know how I like my coffee, but there is still so much we don’t know about each other.”

“Time, baby, we will in time,”
he reassures me as he hands me my coffee, kisses me once again and leaves for the day with his usual sign off, “Have Fun” and a wink. 

I want to know everything abo
ut Davis.  I don’t even know his middle name or his birthday.  I could Google it (ha! Google, our secret word for sex), but looking up information about him sent me into a panic last time.  I’ll just wait until I can ask him or he tells me.  I sip my coffee and roll over to check the time on the alarm clock.  It’s only 7:30. Davis
did
have an early class to teach.  I don’t have to get up quite yet.  I’m actually feeling a bit sluggish.  Perhaps fatigue from my extended weekend with Davis.  No class until 11:00, so I can drink my coffee and generate the list of “things I want to know about Davis” in my mind.

***

I have just finished my first class of my last semester of college, one of many “first” lasts I’ll face in the next few months.  It was a private voice class.  I signed up for it last semester, but now it’s really fortuitous that I did.  I’ve decided to take the advice Davis gave me a few months back.  I am going to ask for what I want.  Sort of. I am going to audition for a part I want, and the voice lessons should help me get it.  I want a major part in the spring musical.  I’ve had small parts in the past, chorus parts, but for my final semester I’d like a bigger challenge.  I have a bit of an advantage being a senior. 

The musical is Once Upon A Mattress.  I talked to my mom about it over winter break.  She told me about the original ver
sion and I did some research online.  I also watched a new version on cable that starred that teacher, Mr. Schuster from Glee in it.  The story is about a prince that needs to find a princess, but his mother rejects all the candidates.  Then an unorthodox sort of princess comes along.  The prince falls in love with her but his mother, the queen, doesn’t approve.  The prince’s father, the king, is under a spell and can’t speak, so he is dominated and controlled by the queen.  The spell, that the king shall remain mute until “the mouse devours the hawk,” is broken when the prince stands up to the queen.  The king can then finally talk and the prince can marry the love of his life, the quirky princess.  That all sounds rather dramatic, but it’s actually a musical comedy. 

There are three lead female rol
es in the show:  The Queen, Princess Winifred (or Fred, as she is called through most of the show) and Lady Larkin, the pregnant lady-in-waiting.  I would be happy to have the opportunity to play any of the three.  There are other minor female parts and I’d be fine with that too, but I really think I could play Fred or Larkin.  Auditions are at the beginning of February, so I have a couple of weeks to work on my song and monologue.  My voice teacher, Dee, is excited to help me find the right song for the audition.

As I walk into the cafeteria, I see Davis at our table.  For a while I only see Davis and the sparkle that comes to
his gorgeous green eyes when he sees me.  I allow myself briefly to acknowledge that Jake, my pseudo-ex, and Suzette, my fellow RA and Jake’s skank, are nowhere to be seen.  They have been made “unwelcome” at our table by my friends, due to their treatment of me.  Davis stands when he sees me and pulls the chair out next to him.  The buzz, the excited tension whenever I see him, is right there. I hope it’s something I always feel. I walk right up to him and kiss him square on the lips.  A huge melt-my-thighs grin comes across Davis’ face as I pull away.

“Well, I guess you missed me, too, Lizard baby
.”

I nod my agreement and smile back.

Smitty pipes in, “Okay, so I guess we all officially know that Biz and Davis are together.  I suppose it’s not worth it to ask for the PDA to be controlled, is it?”

I ask him, “What’s your problem?
”

And Davis says at the same time, “We’ll work on it, Smitty.  It’s difficult.”

Smitty continues, “For those of us ‘going without’ it’s a bleak reminder of our pathetic solo state.”

“Poor Smitty,” I say and walk over and give him a kiss on the forehead.  He seems
mildly placated.