master of none.

015; where's my f*cking teenage dream?

I LAID IN BED NEXT TO MILES, MY BARE SKIN DAMP WITH SWEAT, AND MY BODY STRUGGLING TO CATCH ITS BREATH. 

"You okay?" He asked, looking over at me, and equally breathless. "You seem a little...distracted."

I was. Sort of. I was distracting myself from my interaction with Lyla, and instead of wanting to deal with the emotions of that, I figured the best way to get myself in a better headspace was calling Miles and telling him to come over, opposed to crying my eyes out for the entire night and going to school the next day with swollen eyes to show for it.

"Distracted how?" I asked him absentmindedly as I got up from my bed and moved over to my dresser to get a shirt to sleep in.

"You just, don't seem like yourself." He said with a shrug. "Less snark. More brood."

My face scrunched up in amusement. "You think I'm snarky?"

"The entire city of New York thinks you're snarky." He answered. "The _world_ thinks you're snarky."

His words managed to get a laugh out of me, and I smiled a genuine smile at him. "You think you're funny."

He nodded his head. "I'm hilarious."

I walked over to my nightstand, which was adjacent to my bed, and retrieved my phone. I was so close to Miles that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin, and his eyes watching my every move. "Wanna smoke?" I asked him as I retrieved some joints I had rolled while I waited for him to arrive.

"Yes." He answered as he shifted to face me. He grabbed me by my hips and pulled me closer, then lifted my shirt, where he began to leave a trail of kisses along the lower part of my stomach, but began to inch lower. "Wanna have sex again?" The vibration of his voice against my skin sent shivers up my spine.

"Yes," I answered. Within five seconds, my shirt had been removed and I was pulled back onto the bed.

▲▼▲▼

To: Lyla
do you want to talk about what happened the other day?

To: Lyla
if not, i understand. i just want you to know that nothing will change my feelings for you. i still like and care about you

To: Lyla
if i made you uncomfortable by wanting a relationship i'm so sorry. we can just be friends if that's what you're comfortable with

It had been a week after Lyla and I had our conversation. A full week without seeing or talking to her. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-seven hours.  And I hadn't seen her since.

She hadn't come to work at all, and since we were down a person, Phoebe was forced to hire another waiter to make up for her absence, his name was Elliot. He was pretty cool, a junior at NYU, and wanted this job solely because he couldn't afford a meal plan and was tired of eating ramen every night. A pretty valid reason for wanting a job, if you ask me. But he had no idea who Lyla was when I asked him. And when I asked Phoebe if Lyla was still working there, she told me that she was, but she approved Lyla's request for an indefinite "time off", and had no idea when she would be back. But business was business and it needed to go on no matter who was there or not, per the reason for Elliot's hiring. If you wanted my honest opinion about it, it sounded like she didn't work there anymore.

I knew our conversation was the reason why she decides to up and quit. Things were fine otherwise, and it's not a coincidence that it happened right after our conversation. I felt at fault for why she left, though. Maybe if I hadn't pushed the idea of a relationship immediately after she told her sexuality she wouldn't have been so quick to leave. But I couldn't help myself. I had a crush on Lyla ever since I first laid eyes on her, and to finally know that she liked me back was something out of a dream. Maybe I should have just let her take the reins, to decide what our relationship would be if even a relationship at all. After our conversation, I had to remind myself that just because she liked me, it didn't mean she wanted to date me, and I was starting to have regrets.