Setting Up For a Fall

Chapter Nine - Liefde

Help her.  Those were her exact words.  She wanted him to help her.  She wanted him to help her be more like one of his girls. What did that even mean? 

Ten years after they first met in that chemistry laboratory in high school, he and Skye had surprisingly only acted on their attraction for each other that they've had in various times of their lives just one time.  They never acted on their attraction again after prom; they only acted like it was not a big deal.  Jeremiah figured that Skye must have completely moved on from her crush on him because she had never brought it up again, and he never felt her have more than friendly feelings for him even after they decided to rent an apartment together.  After his momentary bout with his attraction to his best friend during prom, he decided that it was for the best to just remain that:  best friends.  He wanted her to remain in his life in whatever capacity she can offer him, and if that was only strictly friendship, then he would settle for that.  He rarely saw her their first two years at their respective universities.  He was busy with basketball, she was busy being her usual academic genius self.

Even though they had separate lives to live, they still made it a point to call each other at least once a day and to have a weekly Sunday dinner together.  His popularity took off in college where he left off in high school.  His obviously good looking face and fit body made him quite the ladies' man at the university.  He still dated the ones who were his "type" in high school, the pretty girls with sexy bodies who were game for anything when it came to dating and definitely knew what they wanted in bed.  But every now and then, when he got the chance to actually be the one to do the asking and not the other way around, he would find himself asking a shy, quiet girl out, girls who were more like Skye.  Maybe he missed her more than he realized, maybe he was looking for someone to fill the void, but he refused to believe it was because Skye meant more to him  than just a friend.  He had to forget he loved her as more than a friend if he didn’t want things to be seriously awkward between them.

So when he decided to move out of the dorms and into an apartment, he purposely sought her out.  He carefully planned to look for apartments in between Malibu, where she attended university and Westwood, where his school was located.  He brought up his plans to move one time over Sunday dinner while they were sipping on the hot broth of their pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup with thinly sliced brisket, marrow, and tendon pieces cooked in the savory broth.

"S, I've been thinking..."

"Uh oh, that could be a  dangerously lethal combination.  Jeremiah and thinking, hmmm," she nudged him.

"Ha ha, very funny," he nudged her back.  "Anyway, I've been thinking of renting an apartment over the summer.  I'm tired of living in the dorms."

"Okay, well, it will offer you more privacy, especially since you're out with a different girl every week, I presume," she casually told him without looking up as she scooped some noodles using her chopsticks.

"Well, I'm thinking of moving in with this one woman in particular..." he trailed off and looked at her meaningfully.

She dropped her chopsticks with a bang on the table and faced him.  She touched one hand on his forehead and neck, checking for a spike in his body temperature.  "Really?  Seriously? Jeremiah, are you sick?  Where does it hurt?"