Blue 2

Chapter Forty

Five days later, I'm jolting out of my sleep and fumbling out of bed. My foot gets caught up in the comforter, and I almost face-plant on the cold ground. But I manage to upright myself and wake Blue in the process. Why do I have a feeling I slept through my alarm, something that has never happened before? I grab my phone off the charger and check the time. It's half past nine, I'm almost twenty minutes late for work. How could this have happened? I never sleep past alarms, and I don't hit the snooze button, ever.

"Shit, shit, shit," I curse and plug my phone back in before running to the bathroom.

Guilt washes over me as I take a five-minute shower and nearly cut my gums with how quick I brush my teeth. When I race back into the room, Blue is snuggled up to my pillow, as usual. I ignore the desire to brush his brown hair out of his face and sprint to the dresser. He grumbles incoherently and squirms as I pull on underwear and grab my outfit out of the closet.

"Why are you running around?" He asks, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"I slept through my alarm. I'm twenty minutes late for work!" I say.

He stills on the bed as I am pulling on my tights under my jeans. I'm wearing my dance clothes underneath a simple white T-shirt and jeans, I don't have the luxury of time to change into them when I'm there.

"Oh... that may be my fault," he says sheepishly.

"What? How?" In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea to stay up until midnight watching How to Get Away with Murder. I was delightfully surprised to find out he loved the show just as much as I did.

"I maybe... probably... hit snooze on the first ring."

I gasp. "Blue!" I want to throw the pillow on the ground at his head, but I don't have time.

He flips around and pushes his fingers through his floppy hair, giving me a half-apologetic smile. "Forgive me?"

"We'll see about that later, but for now I have to rush to work." I walk over to him and lean down to kiss him on the cheek, but he turns his head at the last second and his mouth connects with mine. Sneaky bastard.

"I love you more than anything," he says with an adorable dimpled-smile. I can never resist that look. I ruffle his hair and kiss him again.

"I love you, and I'll see you later," I promise him, then ruffle his hair some more and tease, "You need a haircut, babe. I'm pretty sure it tickles me in my sleep."

"How do you know that's not me?" He asks.

"That was creepy." I laugh.

"Yeah... it was, wasn't it?" He laughs himself and grips his hair. "I'll think about cutting it soon... but shouldn't you be going to work?"

Crap, I got distracted, it's so easy to do with him. "You're right. Goodbye and I'll see you later!"

I'm nervous and wringing my hands the whole way to work. I keep wondering if I'll get fired or have a black mark on my record. It's been snowing heavily this week, but I managed to make it there on time the other two times. I've had other jobs before, but none of them were this important and held my future career in the palm of their hands. When I get off the bus and walk the short block to the glass building, there's barely anyone around. Everyone is most likely looking out the windows, watching me and laughing at how badly this is going to affect me. But when I reach the dance studio, only six people are there and getting ready to leave, not including the lead instructor Maria. But I spot Ashley, one of the girls I've befriended.

"Good morning, Ashley," I start politely.

"Morning. I'm not surprised you were one of the fools who came," she says teasingly. Noticing my confused frown, she explains, "Since the weather is horrible, barely anyone came. Not even Maria, and she's a strict woman. We waited to see if anyone else would come, but seeing how empty it is, we're just going to leave."