“The best!” She grins. “The kids are amazing. I can’t wait till the fall when I’ll officially be a teacher and have my very own class.” She sighs happily as she pops a mug of water into the microwave to heat. “What are you working on?” she asks, nodding to the laptop open on my lap, notes strewn about me on the bed.
“Paper,” I reply, closing the laptop with a snap. “It’s not even due for two weeks. Impressed?” I tend to cram projects into the last minute while Chloe turns in assignments a week early.
“Whoa, hold on.” Chloe peers out the window, looking at the sky. “Is it a full moon tonight? What is happening?”
“Ha, ha. Cute.”
“No, seriously. What’s going on? And why are you doing homework on a Friday night instead of getting ready for Sawyer to pick you up?”
“He cancelled. Emergency or something.” I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “So I ordered a pizza and I’m working on a paper.” I make a face. “Ugh. It’s even worse out loud than it was in my head.”
“Don’t worry, staying in one Friday night won’t make your hymen grow back together, I promise.” The microwave dings and she dunks a tea bag into the mug of hot water.
“No, I don’t think that’s possible in my case. Sawyer’s pretty big.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” She groans.
I cross my legs and plop my chin in my hand. I miss him.
“So you’re not going over at all tonight? I haven’t seen you on a Friday night in weeks.”
“No.” I shake my head, chin still in my palm. “Don’t worry, I won’t interrupt your Criminal Minds marathon.”
“Okay.” She grins, grabbing her laptop and tapping it to life.
“Is it weird that he cancelled?” I ask, giving voice to the nagging worry that’s been bouncing around my brain for the last hour.
“I don’t know, is it?” Chloe glances over at me then back to her keyboard, flipping through the options on her Netflix account. She selects an episode and sets the laptop on top of the microwave where we can both see it. She doesn’t need to pay close attention since she’s seen every episode already. Honestly, I think she just enjoys having it running in the background, the way most people enjoy music.
“I don’t know.” I twist a piece of hair around my finger and stare at her open laptop while I think. “We had a great time on Wednesday, his birthday. I slept over, he dropped me off on his way to work yesterday morning and I haven’t talked to him since.”
“So you spoke to him yesterday?”
“Yeah, I know.” I nod. “I know it was just yesterday. But it feels off somehow.” I give my hair another twirl. “Let’s just watch your serial killer show and eat pizza.”
Chloe grabs a slice from the box on my desk and sits on her bed, legs kicked out in front of her, totally content with a Friday night spent with her beloved fictional federal agents.
We’re quiet for a few minutes, the show playing while Chloe catches up to me on pizza consumption.
“Why do you like this show so much? It’s kinda dark,” I observe, cracking open a fresh can of Diet Sun Drop.
“They’re like a little family,” she says with a shrug. “Hotchner’s like the dad figure, he keeps them all together, you know? Morgan’s crazy hot, kicking in doors on every episode. Dr. Reid is the most adorably awkward genius ever. Penelope’s kinda like the mom. She stays behind at the BAU worrying about her team out in the world, but she’s really running that whole operation, right? She’s the glue. JJ proves you can be a pretty girl and still take out a bad guy with a single shot. And Agent Rossi’s the one you’d confide in if you needed advice about a secret.”