This isn't weird.

Good Morning

One moment, the sound of her voice was in his ear; the next, it was gone. It felt like waking from a trance, or a beautiful lucid dream—all at once, the world changed from a shimmering, technicolor fantasy into gray, dreary Kansas. But it hadn't been a dream at all, it had been real, she had been real! As his mind wrapped itself around the fact, the world began to revivify, color seeping back into the glow of the traffic lights and passing cars. Was it a trick of his imagination, or had the stars gotten brighter since the last time he had glanced toward the sky? Had they always been so twinkly?

Ben leaned back in his seat and began to laugh. Millie McKillip was still two thousand miles away, but she was two thousand miles away, missing him. And one way or another, he was going to close the gap between them. He caught himself entertaining a wild impulse to buy a plane ticket, right then and there, to to be in Dallas by sunrise—

But the idea crumbled when Ben remembered reading once somewhere that the state of Texas was bigger than any country in Europe, and he had absolutely no frame of reference for where in that behemoth she actually was, just that it was somewhere rural. No matter. She was worth waiting for—this time, he would make sure that she knew that. All that mattered was that she wanted him. She wanted him! They were finally going to be together. The thought sent joy bubbling up in his chest. His whole body felt full of sparkles, warm and electric, until even his fingers and toes began to tingle with it.

Millie and Ben. Ben and Millie. Such a beautiful inevitability. Driving back, he smiled until his face hurt, and then he smiled some more.

Ben had no intention of sleeping that night—maybe she would call again when she made it home!—but by the time he arrived back at his apartment, his body was attempting a mutiny. He'd been awake since four in the morning running himself ragged, literally. His eyes were growing bleary, and the dull throbbing behind them threatened to develop into a full-fledged migraine. But he was giddy with the possibility of hearing her voice again, and even the possibility seemed irrationally worth the pain. Determined to overcome, he knocked back a few ibuprofen and trudged into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. It didn't matter to him that it was bitter, that it made his tongue recoil and his nerves jitter. It smelled like falling in love.

Staying on his feet required more energy than his body had to give, so he stumbled out into the living room and flopped on the couch to wait for it to finish brewing. He was out cold long before the coffee was ready.

The first chime of the doorbell didn't wake him, nor did the second. The terse rapping against the door was even less effective. Knocking turned into pounding, and pounding turned into deafening bangs that shook the walls of the apartment, all in sync with the continuous punching of the bell.

Ben bolted upright in a fit of panic. Stiff from his night on the couch, the suddenness of the movement sent a hot stab of pain through his neck, and he grabbed it with a bewildered expletive. Where was he? What time was it? What was happening? He grabbed for his phone to check the time, but the screen was solid black—shit. He'd fallen asleep without plugging it in! He couldn't yet remember why that was so catastrophic—he couldn't string together a full thought through all that noise—but he was certain it was cause for panic.

Confused and alarmed, he sprang to his feet and staggered his way to the front door. He didn't have the wherewithal to look through the peephole before swinging it open so quickly that the fist on the other side, still in mid-motion toward its next strike, nearly connected with his nose instead.

"What the fuck!" he blurted, instinctively covering his face as he ducked and tumbled back onto the carpet.

Standing in his doorway, to his absolute dismay, was Tess.