Part 9 a.k.a. I have no idea what to write about. ok, just for a warning, a fact of life is that college students have sex. I know, its a shock to me too, but THE DEED is mentioned in this chapter...so if you're young, go away. It's not even bad, you see more hentai on an average episode of Dawson's creek. but if you're not allowed to watch the WB, go away. i don't own sailor moon, or any brand names... ************************************************************************** Serena watched curiously as Zach shoved a thin screwdriver into the black plastic casing of the cell phone and pry it open like he was shucking clams. It didn’t splice cleanly in half like he had expected, rather, it cracked into several jagged, jigsaw pieces. “Crap,” he muttered to himself. Luna jumped off the table to retrieve the strays while Amy reached across the table and swept the smaller fragments into her hand. “Save those, I can put it back together.” He picked up a pair of needle-nose pliers and started fiddling with the guts of the cell phone, while Amy tapped into her Palm Pilot with lightening speed. “Here, look,” she said, holding it up to Zach. He squinted at the diagram while at the same time, tried to maneuver the tiny wires and chips inside the phone. “That’s the screen, right?” “Yes. I’ll start trying to program them.” Serena had sat on the phone-doctoring session with every intention to help; however, her position had been reduced to handing them things and getting drinks. She picked up one of the finished products, a Nokia cellular, with its usual special attachments: mini-video screens, hidden camera, and emergency call button. She sighed and picked up her philosophy book and flipped idly. She had a paper to write. She hated writing papers. What were they going to do with all of them, anyway? Stick them all together and write a book? <> She took a small sip of Kool-Aid and let her mind flit around to any subject that wasn’t philosophy, mainly, “Days of Our Lives.” The door opened, and Darien, Kevin, Matt and Lita entered, Darien holding a basketball, all four hot and sweaty, cloying up the air with the smell of perspiration and… “Youma!” Serena yelped, standing so quickly that her chair was knocked backwards. Luna gasped. Zach and Amy looked up from their project, they too smelling the acrid aroma that youma usually left behind. Matt waved it off as if Girl Scouts had attacked them instead of unholy Negaverse creatures. “It was just a little one. We took care of it no sweat.” Luna screwed her face into a kitty-scowl. “A little one? You should have called us anyway; sometimes the smallest youma are the deadliest.” Serena rushed to Darien, having all good intentions of hugging him if the smell hadn’t repulsed her immediately. “Why didn’t you call us? You could have been killed, Mamo-chan!” Her baby blues filled with water. He bristled under her pet name for him. << Did she have to call me that in front of everyone? >> “Don’t worry Serena, believe me it was no challenge.” “It really wasn’t,” Lita reassured her, wiping her grimy forehead off with her sleeve. “The only casualty was the basketball hoop, KUNZITE.” Kevin burned red. Zach gave a low whistle. “Was it the boomerangs again? Jeez, Kev, you gotta get a handle on those things before you decapitate someone.” “I’ll show you decapitation…” Serena patted his muscled forearm. “Don’t worry about it, Kevin, you’ll get used to them.” In truth, he had a good month now to get used to them, and still during every battle they sailed out of control, lopping the top off of anything unfortunate enough to be in its path. Numerous trees and streetlights had been prematurely trimmed or demolished. Matt was laughing. “They’re not going to let you Down Under if you can’t throw the boomerang, mate.” His Croc Hunter impression was one of the worst Serena had ever heard, save for the transfer student from India in her human development class. Kevin backhanded him across his chest. “Whatever, punk, like you didn’t go crashing backwards through that fence every time you fired. Oh and by the way, how does it feel to be dunked on?” Matt grimaced, wondering why every time he was thrown backwards like a rag doll, Lita was there to witness. “You dunked on Darien too. Twice.” “That’s because Darien sucks.” “I do not suck!” Serena wrinkled her small nose. “You guys smell.” Matt pulled his shirt up and sniffed it. “Yeah, we do.” All of a sudden, all four of them bolted towards the bathroom door, all arriving at it at once, no one really getting ahead of the pack since the bulk of all their bodies squashed together prohibited entry of a single person to break away. Darien and Matt cleverly slammed their shoulders together, leaving Kevin with no choice but to lower his shoulder and butt them into the door instead of away from it. Lita took this opportunity to drop down and squiggle between their legs and gain entry to the coveted bathroom. She slammed the door in their faces with a triumphant, “HA!” They backed away from the door, defeated, until Matt opened the door, leaped in the bathroom, and re-slammed it. “HA!” Darien and Kevin stood motionless for a moment, before they began a new race to the refrigerator. Serena screeched and jumped out of their way, lest she lose a major limb or two. A minor scuffle in front of the fridge ensued, and someone’s foot hit the table, rattling the ongoing project. “Careful!” Zach admonished, gathering up the tiny screws and circuits that they had scattered. “If I screw up this one then we actually have to buy one of these stupid things.” Amy stopped her tapping and looked up at him suspiciously. Kevin threw Darien a shoulder and got into the fridge first. Amy fixed her features into a glare, an expression unfamiliar to her. Soon everyone was looking at Zach. “Where did you get those, anyway?” Luna asked. He launched into an explanation. “Well, remember that time that there was an attack near that pawn shop? Yeah, well, anyway, after the youma shattered the window I went in after it and yadda yadda yadda, I figured that there was so much damage already that they wouldn’t miss a few…” Serena’s jaw dropped. “You yadda-yadda’ed THEFT?” He looked at each of them. Darien had to feign a coughing fit to hide his laughter; the look on Zach’s face was priceless. “F*** you, dudes. If it wasn’t for me then we’d be going hungry for a month trying to save up for them.” He snapped together two broken halves of the cell phone, and rubbed his finger over the holes. Black plastic materialized underneath his fingertips and filled in the cracks so well that the phone seemed to be in mint condition. Kevin handed the pitcher of Kool-Aid to Darien, who tilted his head back and took a swig. Serena looked disgustedly down at her glass and reminded herself not to drink anything out of their apartment that wasn’t sealed. “When’s Mina coming back?” Zach asked, bending back over his work. Mina had flown down to L.A. for a photo shoot that weekend, just as she had last weekend, and the weekend before that… “Tonight,” Kevin said, taking the pitcher back from Darien. “I’m going to pick her up.” “Cool,” Zach answered absent-mindedly. “You better take a shower before then, you reek of youma.” “Just youma again?” Serena frowned. “No Generals.” “Not one in sight, love,” Darien said. The Generals hadn’t graced them with their presence since that fateful first night. “I wonder why Beryl’s holding them back,” Serena thought out loud. She groaned. “Knowing our luck, they’ll all come back looking like Robocop.” Luna’s big red eyes swam with worry. “I almost feel like she’s toying with us, like she has some kind of ulterior motive.” Amy pulled up a different screen on her disguised computer. “Well, i t is a possibility that she’s training them or improving them in some way, and she’s planning on unleashing them all at once.” “Great,” Kevin mumbled. << Please let me learn how to throw a friggin’ boomerang before that. >> Zach dropped his tool on the ground; his face had turned the color of chalk. He heard his own voice saying, << “It’s going to take a while, but I think I can improve them to the point where they’re indistinguishable from us, but hey, why the hell would I want to do that? These will just have to do for now, but I don’t think anyone will notice.” >> “What is it?” Darien said. They could all recognize when one of them was having a flashback, and it wasn’t always reserved just to the Generals. Mina experienced an impromptu flashback in the middle of chemistry, and could only gather from it a blue dress. Luna jumped onto Zach’s lap and rubbed her head on his arm in what she thought was a reassuring manner. Zach’s color slowly returned. “I-I don’t know. But whenever we try and figure out where those bastards came from, I keep thinking…” He swallowed, and talked directly to Amy. “I keep thinking I made them.” Amy shook her head. “But how? I can’t remember the technology of the Silver Millennium, unless there was heavy magical involvement, and even if you did have the knowledge to ‘create life’ as I’ll loosely term it, why would you want to? What would be the purpose of making evil versions of yourself?” “Unless it was an accident,” Kevin said, his voice so low and heavy that it sent shivers up Serena’s spine. “Could be,” Darien said simply. Serena looked at him, and he smiled. “Just like it was an accident that Kevin dunked on me. Twice.” “You wish, Chiba.” Another scuffle ensued. * * * * * * * * * * * Raye was dumbstruck. She had gotten accustomed to Jay’s offbeat personality the way a person eases his/herself into frigid water inch by inch until they no longer felt the chill shoot up their legs. So had she. Little by little his cloying humor and intrusive personality had effectively chipped away at her cool exterior, until she found life unexciting unless he was there, pointing out the foibles to share and laugh at. They had gotten together a few times, he mostly talking, she mostly laughing. Little by little they revealed themselves to each other. He was the middle of six children; he rattled off his siblings’ names so quickly she made him repeat them until she could too. “Julia, Ben, oh crap,” she faltered. “Christy?” “Cara.” “Yeah that’s it!” Somehow the name “Christy” had leaked into her psyche, and the wrong moniker was forever stuck to the third Melman. “Uh, can I start over? Julia, Ben, CARA, Jason, Sean, Joey!” “Now do birthdays.” “What?” “Just kidding.” The stories he told about his family, all the disasters and foibles that made the Melman household the absolute anti sitcom-family and Raye’s new envy. Her life with her grandfather had been greatly fulfilling, yet quiet, absent of the comfortable reach of an extended family. She didn’t have a brother like Ben, who “will one day lend me great amounts of money that I will never, ever in my natural life be able to repay. He’s like that.” Or color-coordinated laundry baskets and assigned seating at dinner. Or trips to Disneyland in the Franchise (the Melman’s ancient van, complete with multiple dents from driving lessons and decade-old Cheerios under the seats) or the coast, or Christmas morning, soccer games, Monopoly nights (“My dad’s a beast. Don’t ever try to steal Marvin Gardens away from him.”), a thousand tears and laughs and the security of knowing that there was a huge white house on the six hundred block of Spring Street that you could crawl back to when life hit you too hard and too fast and you needed Shake and Bake chicken legs and the experience of sharing a bedroom with the sibling closest in age. He had brought over a battered guitar, and Raye’s immediate reaction was: “Who did you steal that from?” He sat on her bed. “Uh, from Alfred Polonauk?” She sat next to him and smacked his arm. “Why!? Go give it back!” “I would, Raye, but he gave it to me, he’s my grandfather, and he’s dead.” He pulled a yellow plastic pick out of his pocket. Her jaw dropped. <> “Oh.” He smiled, loving the violet sparks that had erupted in died somewhere in her irises. <> “You know what, Raye? I’m getting used to you.” The sparks flared again, as Raye’s already sensitive nerves were grated the wrong way by the innocent comment. “What the hell does that mean?” His fingers strummed out the opening chords to “#41.” “Whatever you want it to mean, Raye.” He sat back against her headboard, and she snuggled against him, the guitar straddled across her body. He reached around her and picked up where he left off. “Play something for me,” Raye said, sticking her face into his neck and inhaling at the place where his ear met his face. He involuntarily shuddered. “I am, see?” “No, I mean, something you made up.” Jay kissed the side of her face. “I would do anything for you, Raye.” Now it was her turn to shudder. No one had said anything of that caliber to her. He leaned down and pressed his face in her hair, kissing it, feeling it sweep across his face like a curtain of midnight. He managed to strum out two more chords before their lips met and he relegated it to the ground, so his hands could be free to touch her. “Raye,” he breathed her name. “I’ve never met anyone like you. You make me feel so-“ His lips became preoccupied. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone. You’re perfect.” “No, I’m not,” she said, all the while thinking, <> She drank up his words and kisses, and fell into a heap of bliss on top of him. She needed him, perhaps more than he needed her. She needed his humor, his lightness, his carefree attitude, his… His rock hard abs. She broke away and looked down to where her hand had settled, and gathered a handful of shirt and yanked up. He had a six-pack, and a pretty defined one at that. “Yeah, like it?” She jerked her head up. << What a cocky bastard!! Boy, I’d love to show him a thing or two! I bet you he’s never been beat down by a girl! >> “You!” She yelped, poking him harshly in his foresaid six-pack. He reflexively curled up, throwing Raye off in the process. She tumbled off the bed and onto the floor. He threw himself on top of her with a WWF-yell. “OOF! Why you-“ He pressed his lips down on hers again, silencing her. She accepted the kiss, countering it with her own all over his face, running her hands through his hair. Their bodies pressed against the others, creating heat that rubbed between them like a third entity. The door opened. Jay shot up, his shirt still pulled up around his armpits. Raye sat up too, her hair hopelessly disheveled, and her mouth popped open when she saw who was standing in the doorway. “Mina!” she blurted. “You’re not supposed to be home until tonight! OH MY GOD WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?” Mina had almost fainted when she saw Jay pop up from behind the bed with his shirt almost off. << I would walk in at a time like this! >> Her hands automatically flew up to her dramatically shorter hair, which stopped just a few inches below her shoulders. “They, they wanted to cut it for the shoot,” she explained. “Does it look that bad?” She didn’t think it had been that bad when they cut it, even though it would require some curling iron action in the morning to make the layers fall right. “NO!” Jay immediately responded. He jumped up and straightened out his clothing. “It looks great, Mina, it makes you look even hotter…oops, did I say that?” He threw a little boy grin to Raye while flopping backwards on her bed. Rather than chastising or cracking him, she merely smiled back. “No, it looks fine Mina, it’s just a shock after seeing you with long hair for all these years.” It was the same reaction Raye gave herself after she hacked off a good two feet before coming to the States: still looked good, just different. “I think I’m going to let it grow out again,” Mina said miserably, running her fingers through it. “I don’t like it this short.” “Kevin’ll like it. Hey, wasn’t he supposed to pick you up from the airport?” Jay stretched out on the bed and seemingly absent-mindedly scratched his abs. << Hey if it worked for Raye, I wonder what Mina will think…>> “I know, I was going to go over and surprise him.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Jay, I see your stomach, very nice.” Raye picked up the teddy bear that he had given her for Valentine’s Day and whacked him with it. “Quit showing my friends your abs.” Mina dropped her bags and flopped on her bed. “Any messages?” “Yeah.” Raye gathered up all the yellow Post-its that had been accumulating on the bedside table. “Your Big Sister called, just wanted to know if you were back yet, and Kevin, once, I think he forgot you were gone, um, some girl named Ashley, says she’s in your psychology class and needs to borrow your notes, and your agent, twice.” “Oh crap, guess I better call her,” Mina sighed, picking up the cordless and punching some keys. “If I don’t she’ll call every five minutes for the next two days.” Jay picked up his guitar again, acknowledged the odd look from Mina, and picked through the first chords of “Layla.” Raye settled next to him and cast him a look normally reserved for boy bands and Yankee shortstops. “Just don’t ask me to sing, or they might evacuate the building.” Mina hung up the phone, looking positively shell-shocked. “Oh my God.” Raye instantaneously slid over to her bed and sat next to her. “What’s the matter, Mina? What happened?” She couldn’t speak for a few seconds. “Raye.” Jay stopped playing mid-chord; for once he was beaten down into utter seriousness. “What’s wrong? Is everything OK?” Mina put one shaking hand over her mouth, muffling her next words. “What?” Raye said, leaning closer. She pulled her hand away from her face. “I got the cover.” “The cover? Of what? ‘Rolling Stone’?” Jay mangled through a verse of Doctor Hook’s “Cover of the Rolling Stone.” “Maxim,” Mina choked, hardly believing her own ears. Raye’s face remained puzzled, while Jay’s jaw practically dropped to his knees. “You’re putting me on!” She shook her head. “I did a shoot for them over Christmas break,” she explained. “I thought it would be used inside, or not at all, but my agent just told me that I’m going to be on April’s cover.” Jay made some kind of strangled noise and almost fell off the bed. “Oh my God, Kevin is going to TWEAK when he hears this.” “Don’t tell him!” Mina said frantically. “I don’t want to get him all worried, and you know how he’ll dwell on it for the rest of his life.” Jay sat up. “Me? Tell him? And get my ass beaten in? Don’t worry, you’re secret’s safe with me. But what are you going to do when it comes out?” “Flee the country?” “Excuse me,” Raye broke into the conversation. “But would one of you mind telling me what Maxim is? Is it kind of like Hustler?” “No!” Mina and Jay shouted simultaneously. “Its kind of like Cosmo for guys,” Jay attempted to explain. “But with lots more pictures of scantily-clad models and no articles like, ‘How to Beat Your Boyfriend into Submission When You Have Your Period.’” << I think that’s Raye’s Bible. >> It dawned on her. “What were you wearing for that shoot?” Raye asked slowly, dreading the answer as much as, say, Kevin. Mina looked like she was going to jump out of the window, which would not lead to her death but probably just a broken leg or two. <> “A white shirt.” “And?” Raye prompted. Mina nodded. “Not much else.” Raye almost erupted. “Oh my God you’re kidding! How many people are going to see this?” “Not many,” Mina said timidly, staring down at her hands. “It only has a circulation of about ten million.” “Not including newsstand,” Jay piped up, and then fell silent when thrown a Death Stare from Raye. He began laughing hysterically. “Oh, man, I can’t believe I’m in the same room as the Maxim cover model! I feel like I should ask for your autograph or something.” “Really?” “Are you going to get paid for this?” “Considerably.” “Well,” Raye brightened a little. “This could be a huge stepping stone in your career.” Mina nodded. “Please don’t tell anyone yet. I want Kevin to hear it from me, OK guys?” They nodded. “Ooh! And just think of how jealous those Seventh Floor Bitches will be!” Raye cackled in delight; they had been throwing her dirty looks left and right since she and Jay were made public. “Crazy Kristen is going to crap her pants! Or split her makeup at least. Oh, Mina, you should have been here; she tried to wax her upper lip the other day, but she microwaved the wax too long and ended up burning her face! She has this big red burn that looks just like a huge mustache!” “You’re kidding!” They began gossiping rapidly, and Jay had to smile as they ripped into the not undeserving Kristen. The phone rang. “I’ve got it,” Jay said. “Hello?” “Her-ro?” The wizened voice was barely audible; it seemed to be coming from the end of a long tunnel. “Hello?” Jay repeated. A string of another language came through, the only recognizable word being “Raye.” He held out the phone to Raye. “I think it’s for you.” She took the phone and held it up to her ear. “Raye Hino speaking.” Then: “Ojii-san!” and a rapid stream of Japanese. “Who is that?” Jay asked, visions of ex-boyfriends passing through his mind’s eye. <> “Her grandfather!” Mina giggled, picking up on the waves of jealousy pouring from Jay’s every pore. << I swear, it pays to be the Senshi of Love. >> “Oh.” Raye continued jabbering away a mile a minute, and Jay had the feeling that he would be screwed if he ever found himself lost in downtown Tokyo. She suddenly held the phone out to him. “Say hi to my grandfather,” she suggested in the form of an order. Jay shook his head so vigorously he almost broke his neck. “No way! I don’t speak Japanese! Besides, it’s your grandfather! Is he a member of the NRA, by any chance?” “Just say hi to him, he can’t hurt you from two thousand miles away!” “Uh-uh!” A minor skirmish ensued, ending with the phone in Jay’s hand. “Hi, uh, Raye’s grandfather. This is Jay Melman. I know you don’t speak English, but it’s an honor to meet you and you’ve raised a fine granddaughter.” He thrust the phone to Raye like it was on fire. “Here!” “Jeez,” she muttered, then translated everything for her grandfather. “He says it’s an honor to meet you too, and he wonders why you’re so nervous.” “He’s probably cursing me right now,” Jay muttered. His encounters with fathers had usually ended with a tour of the family gun cabinet. “Let me say hi!” Mina grabbed the phone and instantly switched languages, leaving Jay floundering. He picked up his guitar again. “I could do that, I just don’t want to.” * * * * * * * * * * * Lita grabbed the last dry towel before Matt could even get out of the tub. She bent over and wound it over her soaking hair, turban-style. “Oh thanks,” Matt said, picking up one of the sodden towels on the toilet seat and toweling himself off. “I’m going to smell like wet towel now.” She giggled. “Do you think Zach will mind if I borrow some of his gel?” She bent down and unraveled her hair from the towel and began vigorously rubbing it. She flipped over her head to find Matt’s face inches from hers. They kissed, slowly, their now-clean arms wrapped around each other. Her hand practically squeaked as she rubbed his upper arm. “Haven’t you had enough?” “Nope.” He bent down and buried his face into her neck. She sighed. She didn’t think any of her friends save Serena knew that they were shagging, and she hadn’t really planned it, it just kind of snuck in like a runner stealing third. It was those damn earrings. Valentine’s Day he had stopped by her room. Serena had gone to Darien’s; he was “cooking” dinner for her that night, in actuality reheating everything that Lita had prepared that morning and dropped off. “Oh God,” she moaned after she opened the door and found him standing there, his gorgeous glorious self, while she was resplendent in a marinara-stained gray sweatshirt and warm-ups. “I thought it would take you a little longer to get here! I didn’t even shower yet; I think I smell like garlic…” He bent forward and kissed her. “You look beautiful.” He was flattering her; she knew it. Her hair was screwed back in a haphazard bun, with a few stray curls sproinging out, and there was flour encrusted under her fingernails. Her sock had a hole in the toe. “You look better.” And he did. He smelled like Abercrombie Woods, (with a hint of cigarette smoke underneath, she noted with heavily veiled disgust) and that gray sweater was… “Eighty-four dollars?” Lita reached out and grabbed the ticket that was poking out from his neck, noting the words “Armani Exchange” above the numbers. Matt groaned. “Jay told me I looked fine, that little son of a bitch.” He snapped the ticket off and threw it into Serena’s Hello Kitty garbage can. His neck was crimson. “Did you buy that sweater just for tonight?” She smiled; they hadn’t even really planned anything in particular. <> “No! Well, yeah.” He looked down, embarrassed, the cutest little-boy smile on his face. “You did, didn’t you?” Lita smiled. “You didn’t have to do that.” <> Her stomach clenched a little. She was not rich, by any means. She had slaved her summers and weekends away to buy her car, and even that wasn’t fully paid off yet. She only paid a little for housing and tuition, since Bryce was very generous when it came to grants for orphans, but other than that… “Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged. “I have something for you.” Her face was strangely tight, he noted. “Yeah, me too,” she said, pulling a bag from one of the plastic milk crates they used to shelve books. “I didn’t have time to wrap it, I’m sorry.” He pulled the bag off. “Oh, a CD. Thank you.” “Open it,” she said. He did, and almost wet himself as his jaw dropped open. “Where did you get this?” She smiled. “Mina gave it me. She was in a couple of their videos, and needless to say they autographed a lot of her stuff. The bassist wanted her number too, but she was kind of scared of him.” “Holy crap. Kevin is going to be so jealous!” He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her. “Thank you so much!” “I hoped you would like it.” She was so sweet and sincere; it made his heart melt. “Yeah now well I feel like a dork,” he said, digging in his pocket and retrieving a black jewelry box. She held it in her hands, her mouth open, then popped it open, not wanting to wait to see what was inside. Two glittering green stones winked back at her. She snapped it shut again, her entire body rigid in shock. “You didn’t,” she whispered. <> His brown eyes sparkled. “What are you freaked out about? I got it at Zales; there’s probably five hundred other chicks walking around this city with the exact same thing. An autographed CD is one of a kind.” Then, unable to contain himself: “Do you think Mina could hook us up? I mean, like backstage passes and stuff?” Lita wasn’t listening; she had opened the box again and was s taring back at the emeralds with tears in her eyes. “I,” she murmured, unable to get anything else out. << Yes! I did good! >> “Yes?” However clichéd it seemed, Lita did honestly feel that all words escaped her. She touched her lips gently, trying her best to hold back the tears that pricked underneath her eyelids. Matt gently pulled off her rose earrings, which she could not remember taking off in the last six years. “Where did you get these, anyway?” Matt asked. Lita bit her lip. “From a friend,” she said. From a friend all right, and she realized suddenly that she hadn’t spoken to him since she came to the States. <> She was shocked back into reality when she felt his warm fingers on her ears. “Look.” She stepped in front of her vanity mirror. And gasped. “Oh,” was all she could say. The emeralds glittered despite the dingy fluorescent light, and Lita felt the strong urge to see how they would sparkle in natural sunlight. Green really was her best color; it brought out the amber and olive in her eyes and the gold highlights to her hair. <> She shuddered to think of how she would look in Mina’s traffic cone orange if that happened to be her color. “Thank you so much,” she finally blurted. She cast her eyes downward, too shy to meet his gaze. He picked up her chin with his fist. “You’re welcome,” he said softly, and kissed her on the lips without so much as bending over. He only had a few inches on her, and he was six-four. They kissed until both of their lips were chapped and burned, and somehow from the middle of the room they maneuvered onto her bed, and soon after their clothes were on the floor. “Lita?” Matt asked while they lay there, her head buried in his shoulder. “Hmm?” She adjusted so her new earrings didn’t jab into her skull. “I’m falling for you, hard.” They snuck into his bedroom without being spotted; Kevin and Darien seemed to be involved in some type of scuffle while Zach yelled at them to knock it off. Matt shut the door and began searching for clothes. Lita pulled her windpants on, and a t-shirt that Raye must have left behind when she came to see Jay. It was snug around the chest. Raye was a petite girl; she stood a respectable five four in flats and was fine-boned and slim, the total opposite of Lita’s rounder curves and six one frame. The only clothes she could somewhat fit into were Mina’s, who stood the second tallest at five nine and a half and whose chest was somewhere near the caliber of her own. <> She smiled, remembering the look on Matt’s face when she fired a trey right over his head. Matt flopped on his bed, almost throwing her off with the impact. “What are you doing?” He ignored her question. “Come lay with me.” She did, curling her impossibly long legs up towards her chest. They lay there, spooned, breathing each other’s warmth. Lita pressed her body closer to his, trying to absorb every ounce of his space and make it part of her own. “Want to order food?” he asked, out of the blue. She laughed. “That all you think about?” “Hey, I just got my ass kicked in two on two. I think that merits some cheesesteaks.” She smiled and kissed him. “Take me to the store. I’ll make you something.” “Really?” He had known before that Lita was in the School of Culinary Arts. He just hadn’t realized how very deserving she was of that space until he actually tried her Eggs Benedict and devoured the entire thing before it had a chance to cool down from scalding. Zach was the only resident of the house that had a morsel of culinary skill, and it was limited to hot dogs and chocolate milk. “Sure. Get your keys. We’ll take the Shaggin’ Wagon for a spin.” “ For the love of--! It is not a station wagon!” * * * * * * * * * * * Mina just missed Lita and Matt by a few minutes, who were both leaving with Serena and Darien. Lita had unwisely offered to cook for Serena too, and they ended up having to take the whole affair to Darien’s because, according to Lita, “He has bigger pans, and if I’m cooking for Serena…I’m sorry! You know I didn’t mean anything by it, girl!” Amy and Zach had ventured back to her dorm to “study” which was what they were calling it these days. Raye and Jay hadn’t been back to the apartment yet, and probably weren’t going to return. Kevin had settled down like a potted plant in front of the television with his history book balanced on one knee and a TV guide on the other, trying to gauge which had more value: catching up on his reading or an impromptu “ALF” marathon on TV Land. <> He idly flipped through the channels, not realizing that five channels ago he had flipped past a rebroadcast of the movie “Codename Sailor V,” on Cinemax, starring none other than his girlfriend at the age of thirteen years old. Someone knocked. “I’ll get it,” he said aloud to the empty apartment. Mina’s eyes lit up like a thousand birthday candles when he opened the door. She watched with amusement as his expression went from delighted to shocked to puzzled, and she knew what was coming. “You cut your hair,” he said simply, like she did it every day. She mouthed the words along with him. <> She smiled and threw herself at him, grabbing him around the chest and squeezing. He squeezed back, nearly cutting off her air. She pressed her face against his shirt, inhaling his heat and scent while he kissed the top of her head. “I saved you a trip to the airport,” she said once enough oxygen had filled her lungs to speak. “How did you get home?” “I called a cab.” He released her, but kept his huge hands wrapped around her biceps. “You should have called me.” His voice was all business. She put on her best don’t-be-mad-at-me face. “I wanted to surprise you.” Kevin reached up and fingered one of the shorter layers framing her face. “I’m surprised.” He bent down and kissed her so lightly she didn’t know if she imagined it. “Yeah, well, it always comes back when I’m Sailor--,” A guy came down the hall and passed her. “Uh, when I’m sailing.” << That had to be the worst cover I’ve ever come up with! >> The guy was stuffing an obviously oversized garbage bag down the chute, and it seemed to have gotten stuck. Kevin looked up briefly before returning his gaze to her face. “Oh, yeah, mine does too. I also experience, um, nautical hair.” <> Despite Kevin’s mental abuse, the hapless guy managed to cram the overstuffed Hefty down the shaft. They could hear it slide slowly down the sides of the narrow metal chute. He exited the stairwell. Mina turned back to the object of her affection. “I missed you,” she murmured, standing slightly on tiptoes to kiss him. Their faces met halfway. <> She dropped her purse on the floor and wrapped her arms around his neck. Two guys passed them in the hallway, one laden down with pizza boxes. “Aw, Belles, take it inside!” One yelled. Mina and Kevin broke apart, both reddening. “Yeah bro!” The other hooted. They disappeared inside of 4C. Wanting to face no other hallway interrogations, they moved inside and remembered to bolt the door behind them. Mina got right down to business. “So did I miss anything?” She didn’t mean any good parties, either, and Kevin wouldn’t have thought otherwise. “No, it was actually a pretty quiet weekend. We had one attack today, a single youma, and we took care of it no problem.” Mina screwed up her face. “Only one? I wonder what Beryl’s up to.” She bit her lower lip. “You know the drill, right? Anything you think you can’t handle…” “I know, call you and you’ll teleport over.” He didn’t really like the idea of her teleporting such long distances; the one and only time she had teleported from over five miles away had drained her so much that she almost immediately fainted after making the scene. They settled on the couch; obviously the ALF marathon had triumphed over History 121. Mina snuggled under Kevin’s arm, letting her head droop onto his chest. She must have been more exhausted than she previously thought, because the next thing she knew the phone was ringing and “ALF” had been replaced with “All in the Family”. “Yeah, OK.” Kevin hung up. “Matt is staying over Lita’s.” The muffled sounds of a party drifted up through the floor. She blinked and tried to wipe some of the crud out of her eyes. “Where is everyone, anyway?” “At someone else’s place. We’ve got the whole house to ourselves.” Mina involuntarily shuddered. She felt a little uneasy whenever they were by themselves, not because she felt nervous around him, but for one simple fact that had been bugging her for over a month. She hadn’t told him she was a virgin yet, and they really hadn’t gone that far to begin with and even though he was one of the most mature and respectful guys she had met, the fact remained that he was still male, and in the 18-34 age demographic, and therefore horny. She didn’t really know how to bring it up for one thing, and she wasn’t really sure if she was ready to go that far, and how exactly she felt about Kevin was enough to send her mind reeling into a single sentence that contained more than one rambling thought and seemed to have no end in sight… Kevin yawned. “Do you want to stay over?” Her eyes widened until one could see Archie Bunker reflected off the blue orbs. “What?” she croaked, wishing her voice didn’t sound as tight and dry as it did. He absently scratched his arm. “Stay over here tonight. Tomorrow I’ll take you to class.” Her stomach tightened. “Um, OK.” She lay back down on his stomach. “Let’s go in my bed,” he said after a few minutes, and stood up. Mina sat on the couch like an anchor. “Um, why?” she asked. He looked down on her and smiled; she looked so innocent and sweet, just like a little girl. “Because I kind of don’t fit on the couch,” he explained. He held his hand out. “Come on.” She looked at him for a few seconds. “I don’t know.” He didn’t have a chance to respond to that, because she cut him off by blurting out, “I’m a virgin.” He almost laughed at the situation, if her eyes hadn’t been so serious. “Mina…” “I mean, I don’t know, I mean, I don’t think that, well, um, I, uh…” “Mina.” “Like, if you were expecting something else…” “Mina?” “I didn’t know how to bring it up, and I know…” “Mina!” She stopped jabbering and looked up at him. “I meant sleep, you know, REM, that sort of thing?” She felt her face burning hotter than Raye’s sacred fire. “Oh. Yeah. I knew that.” “I wasn’t trying to get with you.” Silence. “Not that I wouldn’t want to, God, I’d be crazy not to want to...” “I understand,” Mina said, standing up. They stood, staring at each other for a few seconds. Kevin broke the silence. “God, I’m an idiot.” Mina smiled. “I am too. We belong together.” << We belong together. >> Once inside the bedroom, Mina stripped down to her underwear by the dim light of the desk lamp and crawled into Kevin’s bed. Outside, a low rumble of thunder rolled in from the distance. Kevin clicked off the desk lamp and crawled in next to her, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her body towards him. She sighed happily and snuggled into his embrace. “You’re a man wall, you know?” she muttered sleepily. And he was. His body was as hard as a galvanized anvil. She awoke several hours later, to the sound of rain pattering against the roof and windows. She turned her head as far as Kevin’s elbow around her neck would allow, and watched the rills of water streaming down the glass windowpane. Lightening flashed blue-white, and a few seconds later thunder crashed overhead. << Mercury and Jupiter. >> She thought idly. She turned her head back around, her face resting inches from Kevin’s. Lightening flashed again, illuminating his face. She touched his cheek, rubbed her hand against his jaw line. His pale eyelashes seemed to faintly glow in the dim light. He was so beautiful; it hurt to look at him. She leaned forward and kissed him gently. He didn’t stir. <> He rolled over, mumbled something like, “…can’t be seen here.” Mina tried again, kissing his face and his neck until he opened his eyes. “Hey you.” His fuzzy brain tried futilely to process through the dew of sleep. “What time is it?” he asked in the false presumption that it was time for class.