He opened the door and walked in to find Michelle sitting on the couch with some strange guy. They were watching television. “Uh, hey, Michelle. Who’s this?”
She looked up and grinned. “Oh, hi, Nick. This is Jesse. Jesse, this is my roommate, Nick.”
The guy nodded. “Nice to meet you, Nick.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Nick stated, shooting Michelle a strange look. “And how did you two meet?”
“We ran into each other on the beach,” Michelle replied. “Literally. We weren’t watching where we were going, and we crashed into each other and knocked each other down. Then we went out for coffee and right away, we clicked.”
“Oh, well, that’s nice,” he said with a smile and as much sincerity as he could muster.
“You wanna watch TV with us? We’re watching reruns of Saturday Night Live,” she stated.
“No, thanks. I’m really tired from all that driving today. I think I’m just gonna go to bed.”
“Okay, good night.”
“Good night. Nice meeting you, Jesse.”
“It was nice meeting you, too,” Jesse replied with another polite nod of his head.
As soon as Nick got out of the room, he hung his head and sighed. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t been such an idiot, if he would have simply been honest with her right away and admitted his feelings for her, none of this would have happened. Now she was interested in someone else, and he was out of the picture.
When he reached his room, he closed the door to block out the sound of their laughter. Then he took out and opened his sketchbook. The beginning had pictures of the beach, ex-girlfriends, girls he had made up, random sketches, little thing Nick found interesting. Towards the end, however, it was filled only with portrait after portrait of her. The first one was of her sitting at the table in the kitchen. He turned the page to see one of her dozing off on the couch. The next was her on the phone with one of her girlfriends, laughing. The fourth was just of her face, and she was thinking deeply about something. He had drawn all those from his memory.
He turned the page and stared at the next one for a long while before squeezing his eyes shut. This one was from his imagination, or rather, from his fantasies. It was his favorite. She was lying wrapped up in his arms, fast asleep, her head on his bare chest. He was sleeping, too. Both of them had slight smiles playing on their lips. The blankets were covering them, but it was obvious they were naked, at least from the waist up. His eyes suddenly snapped open, and he angrily slammed the book shot. God, that could have actually happened, had he not screwed it up! He could be holding her in his arms right now, stroking her soft, scented brown hair, his lips on her forehead, but he hadn’t been honest with her, with himself. He was totally in love with her. She was obviously ready for a relationship, or so it seemed, since she was excited about this new guy she had met, and he was clearly ready for a relationship as well. But no, it was too late.
With that regretful thought on his mind, Nick stripped down to his boxers and crawled under his sheets. Maybe sleep would get her off his mind. “Yeah, right. That’s doubtful,” he muttered bitterly. She’d be in all of his dreams. She always was. That’s where the portrait had come from. It was going to be a long night.