I sniffle. I definitely have a cold.
"How was your presentation?" A hint of breathlessness in her voice as we walk along the muddied path.
"It was fine. How was yours?"
"It was good. We passed."
"Well done, I'm so proud of you."
My words are sincere. I know she's a smart girl, and I never had any doubt she would pass. Especially a group presentation, where each member's merit is determined graded as a whole. The bulk of marks will be allocated in proportion to the amount of effort put in by the four in her group.
"Thank you." A slight skip in her walk. I can tell she's pleased and she has every right to be. She's been stressing about it for days, organising meetings to talk about completing slides and emergency last-minute rehearsals.
We ascend the stairs to my flat and reach my door. Fuck. The cleaner locked my door on her way out, and I left my keys in my room.
There are two types of people who can open the door. Campus security and Wardens. The Warden flat is closer, so we decide to go there first.
We peer through the glass, moving close and shielding it from the light in an effort to avoid glare. The front window shows a desolate, unlit kitchen. Dammit. One more try.
We circle around the building, to the back, and knock on a window of a room. A couple of moments pass before a hand reaches out and pulls aside the heavy curtains to reveal a pair of inquisitive eyes.
"Hello?" Her eyes are accusative at first, but then she recognises the blonde by my side. If eyes could snicker, her eyes were laughing.
"Hey, so I got myself locked out of my flat..." I grin sheepishly.
"Oh my god, I was about to go to sleep. Whyyyy?" She half-complains. She's clearly entertained my girl's presence.
We're ascending the stairs again now. We reach my door, and the Warden unlocks it.
"Thanks again. Sorry for dragging you out of bed." My blonde is so apologetic.
"Don't worry about it. I'll see you two later." The girl saunters off.
We push open my door and walk in. I forgot I left it in such a state. There's random items littered across my table, pens, pieces of paper, headphones, books. A selection of hoodies drape over the back of my chair in a lazy fashion.
I kick off my shoes and they join the already messy pile building behind the door. She does the same and puts her handbag down by the feet of the chair.
"Water?" I hold up my bottle.
"I'm good, I've got my own." She gestures to a blue metal bottle she's placed on the table. Her favourite colour.
It makes sense this way anyway. No need for her to catch my cold if she doesn't need to.
Usual protocol. Draw the curtains. Drag the chair over. Dump the hoodies someplace else. Fish around the snack drawer for a morsel or two. Aha. Dried mango. Also her favourite. I switch on a film we have yet to finish. We got distracted last time.
I sit alongside her, with an arm around her shoulder, and tear open the packaging seal to the fruit bag. As the film plays, I feed her little pieces of mango.
"Stop feeding me, actually eat some yourself.", she scolds me. She's secretly pleased though, I can tell by the slight upturn at the corner of her lip.
"Sure." I select a larger piece from the bag and put it between my teeth, before leaning towards her. Her signature giggle. She rears her head up to accept the gift and I feel her teeth scrape against mine as she steals the mango away, taking a little of my breath with it. She ends her heinous act of crime with a sealed kiss. Her tongue presses into my mouth, challenging my own, as it displaces my own fruit. Mmm. She tastes magnificent. A delicate blend of sweet mango and her saliva. It's got me feeling all kinds of ways.
