Sophomore Spring I

It's been a while. And yes, they're back. Once again, this is for my lovely sister, Heather, and hope that Ollie and Murph will make you smile as much in their Sophomore Spring as they did during the Fall.

An hour car ride can go a few different ways, one of them being a fantastic chance to wrap a frayed mind around an almost unrealistic last week and a half. Wrap a frayed mind around the fact that the only grandfather I'd known was gone.

Piano music floated from the speaker on the passenger side. One of my favorite songs.

I heard there was a secret chord/that David played and it pleased the Lord/but you don't really care for music, do ya

Frickin' tears. Felt like this was all I'd been doing for days, and it was partially true. It was all most of us had been doing. Hard not to. Just kept wiping them away.

And I've seen your flag on the marble arch/love is not a victory march/it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Don't keep seeing his smile. The big red van going around the corner. Him feeding the chickens. Learning to drive the riding lawn mower around the upper field. Leaving corn on the salt blocks for the deer. The smile on his face after successfully tying his ragged shoelaces and his equally ragged work boots. Don't remember he's the one who taught you..

Don't remember, and don't forget.

And the holy dark was moving to and every breath we drew was hallelujah

Damn it.

Don't see his smile coming down the hill the first time on a bicycle - no training wheels.

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

I smeared hot tears across my cheeks, not sure how the car stayed in its lane, and really not sure how the sign reading twenty-two miles to Geneva was comprehensible.

Damn it.

Hallelujah...


The room was cold. First order of business was heat, then Henry on his stand and...more or less getting all the stuff from the hallway into the corner single. Then back in the car and back home and...

Breathe. Breathe. Deep in. Deep out.

I sniffled, swallowing hard. Turned, looked, and froze, my ability to get a handle compromised by the body leaning against the door frame.

"Shit," I muttered, pushing back the too-long sleeves on my borrowed flannel shirt. Murph looked at me, hazel eyes unreadable.

"You gonna be around for a little while or is this a dump and run?" he asked.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. "A - A dump and run."

"When's calling hours?" His voice was soft. Like he knew it wouldn't take much to break the cracks already there.

"Six to eight. Funeral's at eight." Son of a bitch. Don't poke me too hard, Murph. Not entirely sure I can handle it.

"Let me help you." He pushed off the door frame to stand in my personal space, one of his boots in either side of mine. "We'll make your bed before you go, yeah?"

"I'm not sleeping in it until tomorrow night," I snorted, hands out of my pockets to do that damn self-hug around my middle. Touching Murph right now meant losing it epically. "I'm staying at the house tonight and driving up tomorrow morning."

He nodded. "Okay."

"I hate this," I whispered.

Murph moved first, pulling me to him to engulf me, holding me tight because he knew - he had to - that he was the only thing keeping me together right then. I wrapped my arms around his middle, fisting his t-shirt at the small of his back to ground myself.

If there was a way for me to crawl up into him and the love and safety and Murphy-ness of him, I would have done it. But this? Me grinding my forehead into his sternum in an effort not to soak his shirt with tears was working, too.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, but we had to separate because I had to get going. Murph helped me make my bed, and when we had that done we sat on it and just looked at the stuff I was going to - eventually - have to unpack. But it didn't matter. What did matter was his large hand, warm and safe, around my own cold one.

It was the way he'd said I love you loud and clear. And exactly what I needed.


"You look so pretty, Ollie," Grandma Boyd said, her old wrinkled fingers touching my cheek.

"Thanks, Gramma." My face had to be red and splotchy, considering I burst into tears even looking in the direction of the casket. So it was safer in the secluded area by the doorway to color with El. She was a little subdued, of course, who was happy in a freakin' funeral home?

Gramma Boyd tottered over to my cousins - Kip and Joe - who sat watching the memory slide show.

"Aunt Ollie?"

I opened the clear plastic bag with the crayons, thinking she was going to ask for another color. "Yeah, little one?"

"Why are there two Morephy's?"

O-kay. This was unexpected. And kind of like a punch to the gut. Murphy the cat was at El's house, and Murphy the boyfriend was in Geneva.

"There - Murph's at college, hunny." I looked at her serious blue eyes and turned to follow when she pointed. The two fairly large men in the doorway - in dark suits, too - looked an awful lot like Murph and Liam.

Holy shit. That was actually my boyfriend and his twin. In the doorway.

"Morephy?" El asked, looking between me and the boys.

"Yeah. Murphy." Great time for more waterworks as Murph came over, knelt to be level with El, and set about explaining that Liam was his brother. Liam sat next to me, watching his twin, and it was best for me to just process at my own pace the fact that they were even here.

"So, he's your brother?" El asked, looking between Liam and Murph.

"Yup. Just like your Aunt Ollie and your mom are sisters," Murph said, holding his hands out.

El nodded like a bobblehead.

"Everything okay?"

If Izzy felt unnerved about having two identical stares leveled at her, she didn't show it. She looked between the twins - much the same way El had - and settled on the warm body next to me being the right one. "Murphy?"

Liam chuckled, standing and holding his hand out. "Liam. William, actually, but Liam. Please."

Pretty sure my brain had stopped all higher functions. Quite possibly fallen into an alternate dimension. Maybe the Doctor's Tardis was parked out back.

"Well, I feel like an idiot," Izzy muttered.

"Everybody does it," Liam said with a smile. "We do it intentionally with our new teammates."

"Makes me feel a little better." Izzy sat down on the bench across the small space. "If you want to check in with mom and dad..."

Murph looked at me. "Probably should hi to your parents and thank them for the card." He smiled gently at El. "And thank you, El, for your card when I was sick."

El beamed.

He stood; I got to my feet and straightened my pant legs. It had been a while since I'd had to wear my dress pants - and heels - but it was a small inconvenience, all things considered.

Murph had found my parents, Izzy and Dean were with El and still coloring, Kip and Joe were sitting already, an empty chair between them for me, and Liam had just been waylaid by Gramma Boyd -

Shit.

I beat feet over, meeting Liam's eyes over the top of my grandmother's head.

"Olivia," Gramma Boyd said, "your boyfriend is a very handsome young man."

"Yes, yes he is." Murph was indeed adorable. "But this isn't Murphy. This is his brother, Liam."

"Oh." She seemed taken aback. "You're still a very handsome young man."

Liam went pink in the cheeks. "Thank you, ma'am."

I scrubbed my forehead. That's my grandmother. "Gramma, I think we should go sit down."

Liam looked for his brother while I led Gramma Boyd to her seat next to Aunt Janelle. The twins were somewhere in the third row, and I was between Joe and Kip with a death grip on a hand on either side of me. The open casket was in front of me, and a lifetime of memories lay behind it.


Drained. Funeral services were draining. I adjusted my gray sweater before slinging my pea coat on. Pretty sure I'd cried more in the past hour than in the past year.

Gloved fingers slipped between mine. Didn't need to look to know it was Murph.

"You okay?" Murph as asked as we stood on the sidewalk looking across the street at the park. The Christmas decorations were still up, lights reflecting off the snow.

"I"m gettin' there." It was the truth.

He squeezed my fingers.

"We're thinkin' about goin' to Dunkin. You wanna come?" Murph glanced at his brother, who nodded. "We can take you home after."

"Let me tell my parents."

In the span of roughly two minutes to find my mother, hammer out the details, and go clomping back across the tiny parking lot, Kip and Joe had not only met the MacRiley twins but arranged a happy family-esque trip to Dunkin Donuts. And also explained how I was going to get home without making Murph and Liam drive up the hill in the middle of January in he opposite direction they needed to go.

Neither Kip nor Joe said anything about me climbing into the back of the Honda with Murph. The ride to the other end of my painfully small town was in silence. Thankfully, Murph and Liam understood my need to decompress.

Pretty sure the Dunkin night crew didn't know what to do with the five of us arriving en masse. Murph's hand was a steady presence at the small of my back. A medium hot chocolate, vanilla frosted donut, and four offers of chivalry later, I was at a high table by the window with my cousins across from me and Murph next to me.

"When do classes start?" Kip asked.

"Tomorrow," Liam and I said together.

"Are you going back tonight?" Joe asked me, sipping his coffee. If possible, he drank more caffeine on a regular basis than me.

It was luck we hadn't had heart attacks.

"No, I'm driving up tomorrow morning in time for class." Which, maybe not one of my brighter ideas, was certainly the current master plan. Happy sophomore spring.

"What are you two majoring in?" Kip asked.

"History," Murph supplied, and a beat later Liam chimed in with, "Sociology."

My cousins' expressions were priceless.

"So, how..."

"Pre-season," Murph and I said together. "I whacked my head off a Ford when the football team was moving in. And Murphy and I just kept running into each other."

Murph nodded with a what-can-ya-do kind of shrug.

"And I met Ollie when Murph wound up in the ER after taking a picture frame to the back of the head at Colby's house."

"I had to call him for a ride back to campus." Which, to be honest, was probably the one night permanently burnt into my head. "But Mama and Dad don't know that," I added casually.

Kip and Joe saluted with their cups.

We passed some more time trading a few stories, simply decompressing. Until someone caught sight of the clock and we knew we had to go. It would take the twins at least forty-five minutes to get back. And God only knew what was going on up on the hill.

Filing out of DD and across the parking lot, Murph pulled me into a hug, kissing the top of my head.

"How about we go out to dinner tomorrow night? You and me?" Murph said.

"Ice cream. I don't care where we go as long as it's got ice cream." My hands fisted the back of his coat. Damn, the tail end of break had been rough. "Call me when you get back."

"Call me if you need me." He stepped back slightly, dropping a kiss to my forehead. "Love you."

"Love you, too." I had to make myself walk away and get int the back of Kip's car.

And to think, this was only the beginning of the semester.

Project ADD

Today, for a little while longer, is October 31. First and foremost, Happy Halloween, and hope everybody had a lovely Wednesday. Mine was rather interesting, considering it was business like normal. But as my chemistry professor was giving out extra points for costumes, my morning consisted of wracking my brains - because, honestly, I was supposed to plan? - and figuring out that with my closet of clothes I could pass myself off as a "starving artist." From a novelist point of view, anyway. One mason jar with a few dollars in it, jeans, layers, flannel, boots, and a cardboard sign with "Will write for food" on it, I was all set to go.

They do say the accessories make the outfit. In this instance, it was more than true.

Tomorrow is the first day of November, and everyone in the writing community has been gearing up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month, where the goal is to crank out a novel of at least 50,000. Ironically enough, Sage started out as my NaNo project back in 2009. Clearly, I failed, as I only finished the manuscript this past June. It's the thought that counts, sometimes, I guess.

Anyway. This isn't a post to tell everybody about the exciting new NaNo idea I'm going to run with. I'm not specifically starting a new project. If I happen, by working throughout November, wind up with 50,000 words of a project, or in editing and rewriting, then fabulous. But there's too much going on - including a possible date with a boy, which as soon as I can sort through all that, I'll let you in on - for me to be able to say with any certainty that I'll sit down and pound out a brand new novel, start to finish, in 30 days.

As always, I'm plodding along with Sage, and perhaps some Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall, too. But I'm also writing new stuff, like Terrathela, and might even wander back to working on The Icicle Man or Waitress in Love.

If I'm really good, I'll get my ass in gear and start churning out Murphy and Me: Sophomore Spring, but I think my sister's thinking pigs will fly before that point. If it makes anybody feel better, they're currently stuck at the Dunkin Donuts in my hometown, and I haven't quite figured out how to get them out of there.

So, that's kind of a quick update on the project front. I'll have news about The Boy shortly, once I kind of figure out what I'm doing. Then again, not knowing is half the fun, isn't it?

Almost Like a B&N

I'm not one for self-promotion - especially when it comes to my writing - but I thought I'd try something a little bit different.

Many of you have probably figured out that I'm a little stuck with Murphy and Me. Mostly because I finished Sophomore Fall and started Sophomore Spring to have an excerpt to apply for the Trias Writer in Residence Workshop, and I kind of haven't touched the new writing process really at all yet, and I've been trying to edit my way through the first 59 pages of printed manuscript. So that's kind of stalled out right where it's at and I'm not entirely when I'm going to be doing something new with it, since I chose the retyping the whole damn thing route in terms of editing. I was already leaning that way, my professor also suggested it....

Anyway.

Maybe some of you knew this - and maybe some of you didn't - but I have this tendency to work on more than one project at a time. That way, if and when writer's block (yes, it's a real thing, and really frustrating to work with at times) hits, then I'm not totally stuck not writing for however long it takes to break out of the funk. In some cases - like with parts of The Crossing, that massive thing in composition books - it could be anywhere from a couple weeks to over six months. Patience, when writing, is key.

I have other projects, other novels in progress, that while not in the same sort of genre as Murphy and Me are somewhat in the same style and voice. So I thought I would go ahead and share their blurbs, their links, and a little bit about the inspiration behind the story. That way, while you're waiting on Murphy and Me to do something or actually go somewhere - hopefully in the direction of a publishing contract - you might find something else you like just as much, maybe more.

Sage
Eleanora Hope knew from the tender age of four what she was destined for – she was the latest in a long line of Sages, those charged with keeping the dead beneath the graveyard ground – and she had more than willingly accepted the task at hand. At eighteen she was the youngest Sage, a byproduct of the passing of her grandmother, Lynette, fifteen years after the murder of Ella’s parents. And while the dead might deem otherwise, Ella was more than content with the life she had reconciled herself to.

Until Azrael and Aeryn literally drop in and introduce her to part of reality she hadn’t rightly considered. With two voluntary fallen angels – one who might not be as angelic as he should be – they turn Ella’s quiet existence as Sage sideways. Now with the possibility of an apocalypse and a power-hungry council of women after her graveyard, Earth seems to have become the proverbial war zone, and the lines between angel, demon, human, and Sage are more than a little blurred.

But if life weren’t complicated, it wouldn’t be worth living. And life for this Sage is far from simple.

Sage was born out of the cemetery by the Colleges and walking through there with my best friend and her camera in the fall of our sophomore year. It originally started out as my National Novel Writing Month story, but I didn't finish even remotely close in the month of November, and it's sort of turned into an ongoing project. 

The Icicle Man
Mari's life was to look after the animals on the small farm she and her mother kept in the New York Adirondacks. Other girls had come back from college looking to settle down, shack up, and raise babies. She'd come back to the farm and its simplicity. It was all she wanted. Until she met Jack. Or rather, Jack met her on her way through the forest to her grandmother's.

Convinced she was one of those piper-stolen children, he cages her into returning to his palace, for he is the Icicle Man, Jack Frost. Mari's not sure what to believe, but she knows she's no piper's child. Jack's plan, whatever that may be, is turned on its head when Mari gives him a challenge he can't refuse - what it means to be human. As Jack steps out of his centuries-old role, Mari discovers what makes the frozen Winter Prince tick.

And what it means to be truly human.

The Icicle Man started out as a play text - and is actually still in that form, as well, though not here, here is the novel form - and was started during my semester abroad in Wales in the fall of 2010. It's a retelling of the European fairytale Jokul Frosti (Jack Frost) mixed with a little bit of The Pied Piper. And a whole lot of fun.

I'm hoping that while I figure out what I'm doing with Murph and Ollie that you'll take a look and maybe find something you enjoy just as much. Or maybe you spam my inbox with messages looking for more Murph and Ollie and that will kick start me into writing them again. Either way works for me, truthfully.  

Murphy and Me XXXXV

[I...I have no words for this. I'm actually almost in tears at this point. This is the last chapter of the first draft of Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall. Thank you so much for sticking with me in what went from a smartass beginning to make my sister snort a banana through her nose to a full semester's worth of a love story between a science geek soccer player and a history buff football boy. Thank you.]

I stood on my tiptoes, balanced by Murph's hands on my hips to kiss him goodbye. The Honda was packed, Liam in the driver seat with Dev talking to him through the open window, the pair of them graciously giving us as much privacy as we could get in a public parking lot.

"You'll do fine tonight," Murph said, one hand coming up to cradle my face.

"Thanks." I looked over at the Honda. It wasn't fair to hold Liam up much longer. Not with such a ride ahead of them. Leaned up and kissed the underside of Murph's jaw, discovering he hadn't shaved when he'd gone back down the fishbowl. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Ollie." He gave me one last rib-breaking hug and a kiss, and headed for the passenger side of the Honda, bumping Dev's fist as he came around the trunk.

Dev and I stood on the sidewalk to watch the Honda pull out toward St. Claire, the twins waving from their respective sides of the vehicle. Dev gave me a short, one-armed hug before we headed back inside, him to pack and me to study for physics.

And to look up exactly how long winter was, almost down to the minute.


Physics was a train wreck. Not a HAZMAT-size train wreck, but more than train meets car kind of deal. I'd somehow pulled it out though, managing two C's - orgo and physics - an A- in acting, and pulled a B+ out of a random body orifice for T-S Britain. My GPA wasn't the greatest, but it would work, and there were more requirements for my degree done, which was kind of the point. And once grades came out - about a day before Christmas, which was about the best present ever - it felt like I could breathe properly again. Which was a welcome feeling.

Christmas passed in a bit of a blur. We had a full house, as usual - even the ones from Michigan this year - and the sheer amount of food was almost unreal. I could practically see Murph's eyes bug out of his head when I told him we'd had thirty-five people in the kitchen and, even more wondrous, was the fact we'd managed to eat at the same time and not in shifts. El had wanted to know about "Morephy" and my heart nearly burst, simply for the fact she remembered him.

A few days after New Year's the restlessness set in. Not so much to see Murph - he'd convinced me to sign up for Skype, and we had less-than-romantic, slightly awkward internet dates at least once a week - but to be busy again. In short, I was ready for the fresh start a new semester brought and more than ready to go back to class. That's just how I was.

As for being home and in my own bed, there were some nights when it felt too small. It was hard not to try to imagine a larger, furnace-warm body curled behind me, one huge hand splayed open against my belly. The way he'd snuffle in his sleep sometimes, other times murmur words - English or Gaelic, they were usually too low and garbled to tell exactly which language - into the back of my neck. The way good morning was said with a hug, a shift of a leg between mine, and the trail of kisses along the top-most knobs of my spine. Sometimes beard stubble, too, when he hadn't shaved in a while.

All of it was Murph, his presence, his comfortable-ness, and his love. And it was mine.

And it was good.

"Olivia!"

I jerked further awake, rolling over to stare at the stars on the ceiling. Sounded an awful lot like dad.

"Olivia!"

What did he want at - good Lord - eight-ten in the morning? "Yeah?" I shouted back, not inclined to get out of the warmth yet.

"Olivia Mae!"

Damn it. I rolled - literally - out of bed and jogged down the hall toward the stairs. Dad was at the bottom, looking at me with an expression of absolute grief that made my lungs forget to function for a second. "Dad?"

In this instance I saw my father - the strongest, most collected man I know - do something I hope to never see again.

Cry.

"Dad?" It was barely more than whisper, and about the only volume I could manage at the moment.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Harris died."

My knees gave out and I slid to the floor at the top of the stairs, head resting against the wall with a thump with my knuckles against my mouth, not sure whether to sob or puke.

Harris, my grandfather in all but blood, was dead. It was then the tears came.

Murphy and Me XXXXIV

[This is the second to last chapter in Murphy and Me: Sophomore Fall. But don't worry, because after the fall semester comes the spring semester. Happy Monday.]

I keep swearing every time a big paper comes up I won't do this. It's not fun. It does nothing for my blood pressure and my brain melts right around two-thirty, three o'clock. These don't get any easier. Might actually get harder, come to think of it.

Which is why all-nighters aren't good for the human body. Which was why I was not totally coherent.

Which was mostly why I was falling asleep in my omelet in Saga the second day of finals. My T-S Britain paper was due at eleven, and Em and I had handed ours in at ten-thirty after starting them at six the previous night. Not a moment of brilliance on my part, and if there was a way to mainline coffee, I needed to do it. Preferably an hour ago.

"Olivia?"

Not a voice I recognized, first of all, and, to be frank, my outfit left a lot to be desired. Murph's flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows, William Smith soccer sweatpants, the legs pushed up to my knees, and my beaten New Balance sneakers. A hot mess, that was me.

I looked up, blinking hard to get the fuzziness out of my eyes.

Manda.

I was not awake enough for this shit. That much I knew.

"Hi." She looked like she hadn't just ripped an all-nighter - more like she'd come from the gym, with all her carefully applied makeup still intact - and she sat delicately across from me.

My appetite promptly fled. "Morning."

"Yeah." Manda shifted. "So, you're Murphy's new girlfriend?"

If she meant "new" as in "together officially for four months" then yeah, I was the new girlfriend. "Kinda, okay, yeah." Really hope that made some sort of sense.

"Well, there's some things you should know." She shifted again.

What happened next was more...verbal vomiting from a sleep-deprived brain that did not want to deal with this shit. Not now. Not ever.

"Wait a second."

Manda looked at me - actually looked at me for the first time - and froze.

"If you're going to sit there and tell me secrets - dirty secrets about Murph, then I don't want to hear them. Not from you." That damn Boyd temper was rearing its ugly head. "Any secrets," I said, calmly gathering my things, "about Murphy I plan to learn from Murphy when Murphy is ready to tell me." Didn't care she had to look up at me. "I have no desire to hear anything you might have to tell me about Murphy. Good luck with your finals."

And I walked away. That was a moment of brilliance.


Packing was a good way to procrastinate on studying for physics. While listening to music, of course. My orgo exam had been more of a train wreck than originally thought and the act of decompressing from that was more to let my brain solidify again by random action than anything else.

The little black flip phone buzzed against the bed frame.

you upstairs? from Liam, of all people. He must have been visiting his brother. I sent back an affirmative and seconds later - which told me he'd been standing outside the door - he was knocking. A quick trip to open said door, then around the piles on the floor to turn the music down.

Liam must have figured the only safe place to stand was leaning against the door. "So...You walked out on Manda."

I moved a pile of sweatshirts and sank into the moon chair. "Yeah. Guess I did." To be honest, that whole exchange had a funny, almost out-of-body feel to it. More like I watched it happen than actually did it.

"Thank you."

Again, not what I was expecting.

Liam opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found the right words. "When Murphy was with Manda he...He wasn't happy at times. Downright miserable, really. And when you're the older sibling - by a whopping minute and forty-five seconds - you want your younger sibling to be happy." He put his hands in his pockets. "I haven't seen my brother this relaxed in a long time and he's content with you in a way he never was with Manda."

I clutched the pile of sweatshirts tighter, not sure what to say.

"I don't know," he said, "if I were in your position, if I would have walked away. I really don't. And to do that took a lot and, just...Thank you for having such faith in my brother."

Liam was open and raw in a way that was almost shocking in its intensity. It made me wonder what exactly Manda had done to him, and why anyone would ever want to hurt Murph in any capacity, but especially on this level.

"You would've," I said. "You would've walked away."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have a solid answer for that."

Just because he wasn't sure didn't make me the better person. Did it?

"You're good for him," Liam said. "And thank you for that." He smiled softly. "And he is going to be unbearable for the majority of winter break."

I blinked. "He won't be that bad."

Liam outright chuckled at that. "Oh, yeah, he'll be fine for the first two weeks and then he'll be bear to live with." He brought one hand out of his pocket to swipe at his nose. "But you're good for him." He fumbled for the door handle.

"He's good for me, too." Not sure if he heard me, but he smiled one last time and left almost as quietly as he'd arrived. I sat in the chair, still clutching the pile of sweatshirts, and trying to put my newly melted brain back together again.

It really helped to put perspective on things. What perspective on what things was a little vague, but at the end of it all it boiled down to being with someone - loving someone - and being loved in the capacity Murph and I had found in each other. This was probably one of those cases where the head had problems reasoning through what the heart could understand instinctively.

It was more than slightly confusing when a critical examination was attempted. Better to just go with it, no questions asked.

There was another knock on the door. No point in me getting up to sit back down. "Yeah, it's open."

Murph slipped in and had no qualms about navigating the piles to sit on the only space on the bed not covered in physics material. "Hi."

"Hi." Now I was not only procrastinating at studying but also procrastinating at packing. But Murph was always a welcome distraction.

"So, Liam's done tomorrow at eleven and then we're packing the car and heading home."

"I have the seven to ten tomorrow."

"Shit." Murph scratched at the slight stubble he had going. "You'll be around in the morning?"

"Yeah." My room was a mess but he'd probably seen worse. "You wanna stay tonight? Up here?"

He hesitated, glancing at the open physics book. "You have an exam tomorrow."

"Tomorrow night." There was this almost tangible I sleep better when you're next to me that we both acknowledged but didn't verbalize. "I have all day to study for physics."

"Like you've done so far?" He smirked.

"Funny." Smiled anyway. "But really. Stay, please?"

He looked at me, then looked down, then finally back at me. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure." No hesitation on my part. There probably never would be, either.

Murph looked at my clock. It was late. "You want me to go grab some pajamas?"

"Yeah. I'll stuff all this stuff...Somewhere." Have I mentioned my hatred for packing? I asked Murph as much. He grinned. I scrubbed my hands over my face and mumbled, "I need to go to bed."

"I'll be right back."

The door swung shut behind him and left me there staring at the piles of stuff on the floor and wondering how I was going to get all of it home. Then again, did it all need to go home in the first place? Regardless, it went into the hamper and the hamper - now bulging - sat by the closet.

A pair of soccer shorts and a tank with a built-in bra were pajamas, and I was tugging the hair tie from my curls when Murph came back in, dropped both warm hands to my hips and tipped his forehead all the way down onto my bare shoulder.

Neither of us needed to say anything. The how long is winter break and I'm going to miss you was clearly there. But that was going to be then. We wanted to stay in the here and now for as long as possible. Here and now in this corner single with Murph and Ollie and nobody else, not even in memory.

Murphy and Me XXXXIV

[College. 'Nough said.]

Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: HOLBURN, COLBY
To: STARRET, DEVAN; MACRILEY, MURPHY; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 7, 2009 10:30 AM

Hi,
In celebration of a successful sophomore fall, I thought we could have dinner at my house - something easy, like pasta - and just hang out.
Of course if you have other plans, that's cool, but it was really fun to watch movies with you guys - and girls - but taking you all out to Parker's might break the bank, but we could, if you want to. But maybe movie at my house as Ollie's room is a small and Murph and Dev's isn't much bigger.
So - dinner at my house or out somewhere? And the movie or whatever we're doing after. Or you could all eat and then abandon me, too.
I'm okay with whatever, as Todd and Charlie - my housemates - are going downtown that night.
Just let me know.
-Colby

Amazing. Colby had the ability to ramble in an email.

RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA
To: HOLBURN, COLBY; STARRETT, DEVAN; MACRILEY, MURPHY; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 7, 2009 11:15 AM

Hey,
I think all of us cooking would be fun. Something like lasagna maybe?
Ollie Karizslowski
WS '12



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: MACRILEY, MURPHY
To: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; HOLBURN, COLBY; STARRETT, DEVAN; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXDRA
December 7, 2009 11:20 AM

Colb,
Is this what you were typin' in the library? I thought it was your English paper.
Lasagna sounds good. Bread too?
Murphy R. MacRiley
Hobart 2012



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: MACRILEY, WILLIAM
To: MACRILEY, MURPHY; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; HOLBURN, COLBY; STARRETT, DEVAN; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 7, 2009 11:22 AM

My brother the carb junkie.
Dev - can you bring apples to apples?
-Liam



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
To: MACRILEY, WILLIAM; MACRILEY, MURPHY; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; HOLBURN, COLBY; STARRETT, DEVAN; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA
December 7, 2009 11:25 AM

I see everybody knows how to use Reply All. Lasagna, bread, salad. Golden.
-Sasha



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: HOLBURN, COLBY
To: MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; MACRILEY, MURPHY; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; STARRETT, DEVAN; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA
December 7, 2009 11:37 AM

How the hell do you get Sasha from Alexandra?
-Colby



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
To: HOLBURN, COLBY; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; MACRILEY, MURPHY; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; STARRETT, DEVAN; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA
December 7, 2009 11:39 AM

Magic.
Sasha



RE: Dinner Friday (12/11)
From: HOLBURN, COLBY
To: MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; MACRILEY, MURPHY; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; STARRETT, DEVAN; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA
December 7, 2009 11:50 AM

Hi again
Murph just reminded me - shindig starts at 5:30 (to start cooking). Tunes will be provided.
See you all then.
-Colby
P.S. - Here's how to get to my house - 4th house on the left on Pulteney Street, other side of 5&20



Dinner at Colby's
From: STARRETT, DEVAN
To: MACRILEY, MURPHY; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 9, 2009 12:24 PM

Hey guys,
If you're coming to dinner, maybe bring a few bucks to chip in? Colb's gone grocery shopping out of pocket.
See you Friday!
-Dev



RE: Dinner at Colby's
From: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA
To: STARRETT, DEVAN; MACRILEY, MURPHY; MACRILEY, WILLIAM; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 9, 2009 12:45 PM

Dev,
Of course.
Ollie Karizslowski
WS '12



RE: Dinner at Colby's
From: MACRILEY, WILLIAM
To: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA; STARRETT, DEVAN; MACRILEY, MURPHY; CORNISH, JOSEPHINE; FREISLOW, CARA; MEYER-ROBERTS, ALEXANDRA
December 9, 2009 12:55 PM

Devan,
No shit.
-Liam and Murph

By the time Friday hit three classes was almost three too many. Finally it was hallelujah time. First thing I did to celebrate was take a beautiful, nearly two hour nap. Made since, since yesterday's bedtime was actually two-thirty this morning.

Yeah. Nap time.

Once awake it was just glorious to lie there staring at the ceiling with Edgar looped under one arm. The ambient noise from the hallway filtered through the closed door. It was no only peaceful but relaxing, too. Can't remember the last time I was able to do this.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Yeah?" The door, hopefully, was open. No way in hell was I getting out of bed.

Murph's head and shoulders appeared around the now open door. "Did I wake you up?"

"Nope." Rolled over to curl on my side. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Comin' to see you." He came all the way in, the door shutting behind him. "You sure I didn't wake you up?"

"I'm sure." I scooted to put my back against the wall. "You don' anything at the moment?"

"That sounds like an invitation."

"You betcha." My boyfriend was no dummy.

Murph left his shoes by the closet and dropped his keys and wallet on the desk by my laptop before climbing into bed in jeans and a layered button down. He got settled, head on my pillow, and blinked.

"I was napping" Our legs tangled. "And then woke up and was just lying here." Shrugged. "It's warm."

He moved closer, resting a large hand on my side. "It's nice."

"Do you mind if Jo walks with us to Colby's?"

"Not at all." He inched a bit closer, tucking one leg between mine. Forgot how big his thighs were. "Liam's coming here after his last class."

"Sasha and Cara are meeting us at the bottom of St. Claire Street." Screw this shit - I tucked myself against Murph, plastering us together from chest to toes with his belt buckle digging into my hip. "Will you move your belt buckle?"

"Yeah, no problem." He reached between us, yanking on his belt, knuckles dragging against my belly. That odd feeling was back, a fluttering in my gut that scared me. That same arm came up, working under my head and the pillow. The other came around my side, sliding under my borrowed flannel shirt to splay open in the dip at the end of my spine.

Tit for tat, my own hand snuck under his button down to rest between his layers, halfway to his heart. He shifted minutely. Away from me.

"Murphy?"

He buried his face in my hair.

"If it hurts..."

"It doesn't hurt. It's just..." He readjusted us to better look me in the eye. My hand stayed where it was. Unless he got very uncomfortable, that is. I wasn't going to push this, though it was getting more obvious what the cause of his insecurity was.

"Your scars?" I said softly.

It was emergency surgery. It was bound to be messy. My own scars were fairly tiny and straight forward. Murph's probably not so much.

"Yes." He paused. "I'm a little sliced and diced down...there...." Color filled his cheeks.

I picked up what he was trying to get out, as that's where mine were. "Between your belly button and your..."

"Yeah." He was a shade of red only seen in a twenty-four count box of crayons. "They're huge."

"You had emergency surgery." My fingers found the dip in his shirt belonging to his belly button. "It was bound to be messy."

He flinched.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Have you seen the scar on my knee?"

"Which knee?"

"Left." The hand on my back ghosted down to the joint in question and I had to work very hard to stay very still as the area was rather ticklish. "Do you know how I got that?"

"No."

"I was in first grade and riding the bus. Not sitting up in the seat in the back and the driver stopped suddenly. The heater sliced through my leggings and into my knee. Started screaming. I couldn't stand the idea of stitches so they put a giant band aid on and sent me home." I leaned back to see him a little better. "Never had stitches until the dissolving ones they put in me both inside and out."

His hand slid up my leg to cup my thigh. Considering I was using compression shorts as pajamas, there was a lot of bare skin under his palm.

"Whe - When they're less red and raised," he said.

"Whenever you're ready, Murphy." And that was all there was to it. He'd be ready when he was ready. And he'd get the space he needed, too.

With some pulling, poking, and prodding, we found one of our most comfortable positions: Murph with his head tucked under my chin, one arm curled around my torso - which kept most of his weight cleverly on the mattress and not all on me - and me with a leg on either side of him, the fingers of one hand through his belt loop and the other still between his shirts.

Comfortable. Very comfortable.

"You're too good to me, you know that, right?" he murmured against my throat.

"Just returning the sentiment." That didn't sound quite right. "More than that, you know. Right?"

"I know."

We stayed like that for almost an hour, talking casually and occasionally stroking patches of skin - within reason - and generally just...There's not really any good way to describe it other than we were still getting to know each other and doing a fine job of it so far. Murph and I didn't know everything about each other - which we shouldn't, not this soon - and there was the notion we wouldn't know everything. My parents have been married for thirty-four years and they're still learning about each other in some ways.

Murph and I had only been doing this boyfriend-girlfriend thing for going on four months. Definitely not long enough to know everything about my partner.

It was nice, trading memories with Murph. Sharing bits of childhood.

Around quarter to five the room started to get nighttime dark and we separated, mostly because I needed to change into actual clothes. Jeans, my favorite red-striped collared shirt with a long-sleeved tee under it, and Timberland boots, as it hadn't stopped snowing all week. Mis-matched outwear on and then it was out the door. Jo sat in the beaten armchair; Murph leaned against the table.

We had to collect Dev and Liam from the third floor fishbowl, wait while Murph got his coat, and then went thudding down the stairs. It was a dark, snowy walk to St. Claire and Pulteney. Sasha and Cara were waiting by the trolley stop.

"Hey." Sasha had her arm looped through Cara's and we were a rather motley group walking down the street.

"Hey."

Murph tangled his gloved fingers with mine, tucking them into his left coat pocket. As it didn't make walking awkward - and kept my hand warm - it was fine by me.

"I am so glad to be done," Dev said. "No more freakin' spreadsheets." He nudged Liam. "Until when? Thursday?"

"Wednesday morning." Liam shrugged. "I'm not worrying about it until Tuesday."

"That's the spirit," Sasha remarked.

We chuckled all the way down to five and twenty. A snowplow went through. The streetlights were a little more spotty on this block, but we were only going four houses down. The tree out front was oddly familiar from mine and Murph's first ER trip when he'd been hit over the head with a picture frame. The seven of us crowded up on Colby's small porch and rang the doorbell multiple times like little kids.

Before Liam turned the knob and we barged in like hooligans, at any rate.

Colby's head appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Hey."

Coats went on the peg, shoes on the mat, and we traipsed into the kitchen. Boxes of pasta, jars of sauce, and what looked like two pounds of mozzarella sat ready and waiting.

"You can eat this, right?" Colby asked, handing me a box.

"Yup. You did good."

His eyebrows hit his hairline. "I'd hold off on that until after we actually eat."

"You got a backup plan?" Dev asked.

"Yeah, it's called ordering pizza." Colby began rummaging for appropriate pots and pans. With some direction as to where things might be, we split into teams - which wound up being Hobart on one side of the kitchen and William Smith on the other - and began to make a sort of assembly line. Colby, Dev, and the twins took over the stove while we found something to actually bake the stuff in.

Jo held up a nine-by-thirteen. "You think?"

Sasha and I looked at each other.

"It should." Sasha glanced at Cara. "Cara?"

Cara gave us all a how the hell would I know? look and, in the end, we ran with it.

Someone had put Murph in charge of getting the cooked noodles out of the water, and he did a decent job - until about halfway through none of them came out in one piece.

Two stuffed pans later and there were still some doubts. Namely whether it was going to overflow. We put them in the oven anyway - at the same time - and cleaned up our prep mess before retreating to the living room, Liam setting a timer on his phone. Dev dug out a pack of regular cards and we settled in for a rather raucous game of bullshit.

Colby had no poker face. Jo had a keen sense for bullshit, and Dev and I had at least half the deck between us. Murph was down to three cards, Liam only one, and Cara laid down what she had left with a smug, "Two fives."

"Bullshit," Sasha, Jo, and Colby said together. Colby turned over the cards in question and winced.

Liam rubbed at his eyes, sniffing. "It smells like smoke."

Cards went everywhere; Colby nearly ran his head into the wall trying to get to his feet and the kitchen at the same time; the smoke alarm went off with a banshee-like peal, and nobody really moved until Colby yelled for someone to get the fire extinguisher. We couldn't move fast enough then. Liam was the first into the kitchen, grabbing said fire extinguisher from where it hung on the wall and dear Lord, those were actual flames. Lasagna-induced flames.

I threw the door to the back porch open as well as the window over the sink, hoping to move some of the smoke out and still marveling over the fact Liam knew what he was doing.

Sasha, Cara, and Jo crowded in the doorway, a stiff December breeze blowing from one end of the house to the other.

Colby took the fire extinguisher from Liam and leaved heavily against the counter.

"So," Dev said as Liam's alarm tone - the Star Wars theme - played for the timer. "Mark's or Dominoes?"


"Liam," Sasha asked, "where did you learn to use a fire extinguisher?"

The twin in question paused, slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. We'd managed to clean up the disaster in the kitchen - including scrubbing the inside of the oven as much as possible - and now sat in the living room, pizza boxes on the coffee table.

It was an innocent question, to be honest, one most of us were probably curious about.

"Our Da taught us," Liam said, setting his pizza slice back on his plate. "When Murph and I were in middle school, we'd go to Da's studio after school. The forge is always lit there, for the glass, and Da wanted to make sure in case somethin' happened we knew how to use the fire extinguisher." He took a bite of pizza, finally.

"So one night before Ma got home, Da took us out to the backyard with one of the studio's fire extinguishers," Murph said, picking up where his brother left off. "And started a small fire there for us to get practice."

"How old were you?" Jo asked.

Murph had to think about that for a second. "Ten. I think."

It was my turn for a question, this time for Colby. "Why is there a fire extinguisher in your kitchen?"

Colby swapped one of the empty pizza boxes for the dessert pizza, ripping open one of the vanilla icing tubes and handing it to Jo.

"Well," he said, "our landlord used to live here. And ex-wife number three used to like to bake. After he lost the second oven, he invested in a fire extinguisher."

"When did your landlord tell you this?" Cara was appropriately skeptical.

"We have him over for dinner a couple times a month." Colby shrugged. "He wonders why he hasn't gotten notification from the police and stops by to make sure we're still breathing. Compared to other houses, we don't cause much trouble."

"Except for that one time," Dev put in; Murph blushed.

Colby shot his friend and teammate a glare. "Except for that."

"What happened?" Cara and Jo asked almost in unison.

"Dev tried to be a gentleman and Murph took a picture frame to the back of the head," Liam deadpanned, giving both Devan and his twin a stink-eye El would be proud of.

"Anyway," I said, snagging a piece of dessert pizza as it went by and accepting the icing from Murph. "Which final are you dreading?"

"Sociology, oddly enough," Dev said.

"Economics," Liam reached for Dev's backpack, presumably to grab Apples to Apples.

"Shakespeare Comedies," from Sasha.

"Chem," was Jo.

"Calculus." Murph turned pink as we all stared.

"Calc?" No idea my boyfriend had been taking math. "Goal?"

"Yup." He looked at Colby. "Colb?"

"Poly Sci."

"Physics." That was me.

Liam broke open Apples to Apples and started handing out cards. First green card was comfortable. My opening hand sucked and I tossed a card purely for the fact it was required of me.

Liam was equally impressed by the selected answers. "Canada? The Gulf War? Hot Lava? Big Foot?" He glanced around the circle. "Did any of you even read the description on the card?"

Cara shrugged. "Who says we read?"

Jo nudged my side. "When was the last time you read your physics textbook?"

"Yesterday night," I said immediately, not looking up.

"More than the homework problems pages," she clarified.

Damn it. "September." No ashamed. Not at all.

We all got a good chuckle out of that. I'm not entirely sure how long we played cards, generally shot the shit, and decompressed from a semester that had never seemed to end, but the next time check anybody did revealed it was half past ten.

That and the return of a slightly tipsy Todd and Charlie - Colby's housemates - had us pulling on coats. Murph stayed to help clean up, and I naturally lingered, too, putting pizza boxes in the trash. Which is when, in the process of trying to leave the kitchen in the same condition we'd found it, we discovered the bags of lettuce mix originally bought for salad. Colby sighed, grumbling about making space in the fridge.

"Dude," Todd said, hanging onto the kitchen door frame like it was the only thing holding him up, "should we get Joe's Hots delivery or walk?" He looked at me, then looked me up and down. Awkward as hell, considering Murph was in the room. "Hi."

"Hi," I said quietly, not entirely sure what to do.

Murph must have the ears of a damn bat, and he made sure to take the long way to the fridge, calmly not breaking eye contact - no glaring - to slide his hand along from hip to hip across my belly and press a kiss to my cheek, bag of lettuce in his other hand.

Todd promptly disappeared into the living room, calling out, "Chuckie! We're walkin'! Let's go!"

Murph cast one more glance at the door and handed the lettuce to a slightly bewildered Colby.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, closing the fridge.

I looked at Murph, who looked at me, and I shrugged as Murph said, calm as ever, "Nope."

Colby wisely left it at that.

It was still snowing when Murph and I left the house and started the walk back toward Campus. The world had a snow silence to it - everything blanketed. Muffled. There weren't any cars out. Not a whole lot - if any, and I couldn't hear them - college kids either.

Five and twenty was untouched. Covered in a layer of snow - about four inches, from the feel - it was deserted. Not even a snowplow had been through recently.

We didn't wait for the walk sign. In the middle of the four-lane, Murph spun me around gently.

"Hold up," he said, and we stood there alone in the middle of the silent winter night approximately over the yellow center line.

Maybe I should have felt it. But it's not like the world shifted. Or maybe it did. There was this look in his eye, the same look he'd worn in the Pub back in September.

His bare hands framed my face as he leaned down. "I love you," he ghosted over my lips, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. The words seemed to echo oddly. I huffed out a small laugh with a jumble of emotions behind it.

He chuckled, grinning. "I love you." The kiss was short and sweet, almost chaste. He took a deep breath, hands still framing my face.

If time hadn't seemed to stop before now it slowed considerably in this moment. His thumbs brushed over my cheekbones. "Ta me chomh mor sin i ngra leat," he said, slowly and carefully. "I love you so much."

My only response was to gently take his hands in mine, extend onto my toes to be cheek to cheek with him, and gleefully whisper, "Every day I love you more and more."

Murphy and Me XXXXIII

Halfway through orgo Monday it dawned on me there were two weeks left of classes in the semester. Ten days. That was it. Then three days of Reading Days - where, in some cases, freaking out about all the reading not done over the course of the semester is a requirement - and four days of finals. Then home. For a month. Half of us would be ready to be back by New Year's.

There was, however, a lot to do in ten days. Including a massive formal lab report that was going to eat my soul before Friday.

Good things to look forward to. Positively enlightening.

Oh. Shit. I was going to attempt to not procrastinate on my T-S Britain paper and actually start the damn thing before the night before it was due. An all-nighter did not need to happen. Mostly because my orgo exam was seven to ten that same night, and a decent amount of sleep beforehand was labeled as helpful.

Holy zone out, Ollie.

Then again, we were doing synthesis, which was not one of my favorites. Still, it was better on all accounts than physics.



There was no lab that afternoon - thank God - and I swung through the Pub to use the last of my snack money on a Starbucks peppermint mocha. The line was a bit long, but with no where else to be it was perfectly fine.

While fumbling for my mp3 player in my peacoat pocket, a group of Smithies came in behind me.

"So, do you guys know what Lori saw this weekend?"

Oh, Lord. Save me or strike me dead from whatever binge drinking glory story was sure to follow.

"What did she see?"

Would be great if the line could move a little faster. And how friggin' deep was this coat pocket?

"She saw Murphy with a girl."

Yup. This line needed to move. Now. Our campus wasn't big enough to have multiple men by the name of Murphy.

"Oh. Why do you think I care?"

There was a sigh and for the love of all that is holy where was my mp3 player?

Someone snorted. "Because ever since you found out about his new girlfriend you've been asking nonstop about her. And every time you see somebody and they say how happy he is with her you sulk." There was a pause. "And that she's pretty."

Found the mp3 player and promptly dropped it, the headphones my fingers tangled around the headphone cord. Fantastic. I picked it up, plugged it back together, and started digging for my Vera.

"Pretty could mean not pretty. They could have just been being nice."

Really? Just - Really? My cheeks flushed. The person ahead of me moved and I stepped up to the cashier. "Venti peppermint mocha with skim milk, please." Handed her my card. "Should use the last of my snack money."

The girls behind me were silent for a few moments. Until I had my Vera in my pocket and in the process of untangling my headphones.

"So, what's her name? If you know it."

Not necessary for me to hear. Head down, I went to the other end of the counter for what served as the pick-up area for drinks. The student making them was a bit backed up. The girls behind me showed up almost with me, and as I'm only human, only the right earbud was in.

"Ollie. Her name is Ollie."

"Tall vanilla latte with soy?" That voice was oddly familiar.

Tanya's head appeared around the side of the milk steamer. Her eyes widened briefly, looking between me and whichever Smithie was, presumably, Manda. I shrugged, not daring to say anything.

"Venti peppermint mocha, skim milk!" Tanya called, and I reached for it, snagging a lid with my other hand. "Hey, Ollie."

"Tanya. Good to see you." Death by stare, if I wanted to tempt fate and turn around.

"You, too." Her brown eyes darted between me and Manda. "Tell Murphy I said hi."

"Will do. Thanks." Taking a deep breath I turned and looked for the first time at Manda. It had to be her - none of the others had such a death stare goin' on. She was skinnier than me, preferred to pass spandex off as pants, and carried an oversize Vineyard Vines tote rather than a backpack. Really the only outward thing we had in common was our hair, and that led me to the conclusion that Murph had a thing for brunettes.

Peppermint mocha in hand, one earbud in, and with an audience, I really wanted nothing more than to say something incredibly snarky - probably about her spandex - and then walk away. She'd look scandalized, I'd be smug, and it would, for all of ten seconds, feel like a victory. That was the idea.

The reality was I looked at her, she looked at me, I tucked the other earbud in with a smile and walked away. Because my parents raised me to be the better person. With that firmly in mind it was fairly easy to let the rest go.

Not to mention, from the sound of it, Manda wasn't completely over the break up. The particular aspect of dating is hard in a small school and not easy to deal with in general. God knows I'd be a walking train wreck whe - if, go with the if - we ever broke up. A much bigger train wreck than Bobby could ever hope to cause as I really, most likely lo - really really like Murph.

Yeah. Definitely in deep shit.

It was snowing. Big, fat flakes miraculously clinging to the still-green grass and sidewalks. Even the upper stairs from the Pub to the space between Coxe and Gulick were covered. Not a light snow, either, a full on no-other-goal-but-to-make-life-miserable kind of snowfall.

My peppermint mocha was too hot to do anything but sip at on the way back to Jackson. If this kept up - and stuck - I was going to need to dig out my Timberlands, as my Chuck Taylor's wouldn't cut it with the powdery stuff.

Having nothing else to do the for rest of the day presented a bit of a problem - what, exactly, to do to fill the time? As always there was the looming pile of physics reading or the slightly larger pile of back work - an entire book, by this point - for T-S Britain. Could always work on the monstrosity of a formal lab report. There were also lines to be memorized for acting, namely our monologues for the final, from The Laramie Project.

And, as always, there was the idea to say screw it and nap. Naps were glorious.

The steps by the College Store were nothing but treacherous and it was by pure luck I didn't find myself on my ass.

Dev and Murph were going out as I was heading in.

"Hey." He gave me a one-armed hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Oh, Colby might ask you for some of the girls' last names."

That was appropriately cryptic. "Okay."

"Colby's got something up his sleeve," Dev said, stifling a yawn.

"What time did you get back?" When Murph and I had returned from dinner Sunday, Devan still hadn't gotten back from Maine. Murph, at the time, had had no clue as to the geographic location of his roommate. Neither, ironically, had Dev himself.

"Six this morning." Dev shrugged. "Figured if I went to sleep I wouldn't wake up for class."

Having nearly once been a victim of that, sometimes it was better to stay up and mainline coffee than attempt to sleep for a couple hours.

"Yeah. When I woke up my roommate was magically back and swearing at his computer." Murph grinned. "But, we gotta go." He gave me another forehead kiss.

A rather disheveled Smithie came through the doors next before I had my Vera out and nearly whacked me in the face. It was a difficult catch with only one hand and this was one instance when spending summers waitressing was a good thing for more than a steady paycheck.

The walk to the fourth floor seemed longer than normal. My Starbucks had to be set on the little round table Jo and I did homework at for me to have a free hand to get my shoes to the side of the door and not face-plant. Then to find the Vera, then the room key, and -

Oh.

Balanced on the door handle was a rectangular-shaped package wrapped in newspaper, complete with a red bow.

A birthday present.

With a note on my white board that read:

It's late but you already knew that. Happy Birthday.
-Love Murph

I unlocked the door, ferried in both the present and my Starbucks, and went about getting comfortable. It was slightly warmer than normal - not by much - and once the light was on, the door shut, and I had on the first sweatshirt available, the Starbucks sat on the dresser with me at the end of the bed, newspaper package next to my thigh.

The bow wound up stuck to the dresser. Bearing in mind it was newspaper and not specifically wrapping paper - a copy of The New York Times by the look of it - I was a little less careful than otherwise.

He'd gotten me a movie. He'd gotten me my own copy of Moulin Rouge. There was a sticky note on the front with another message.

Present also includes dinner and viewing of movie. How does next Sat. work?
-Murph

Works for me, Murph. Works for me.

I passed the rest of the afternoon reading my month's worth of back chapters for T-S Britain. The snow continued to fall, and the wind started up at some point from the north. It was turning downright nasty out there and shortly after four I propped open the door to get some heat from the hallway.

Ordering in Chinese was beginning to look very appealing. Rather than walking all the way to Saga in this shit passing for weather, at any rate.

Jo popped her head in around quarter past five. "Dinner? And did you see you have a message from Murphy?"

"Yeah. It went with my birthday present." My copy of The Reformation looked like El had taken a blue marker to its pages, but highlighting was the only real way for me to retain information when reading, especially something so thick as history. I flopped it carelessly to the side and pulled the neck of my sweatshirt - Murph's by the smell and the size - up to my nose.

"Moulin Rouge and dinner," she said, putting the DVD back in the moon chair. "Very cool. Dinner?"

"I thought about ordering from Main Moon?" Lowered the sweatshirt. "I don't wanna go back out in this."

Jo looked at the window - the shade was almost always up for Henry to get natural sunlight - and the tree branches on the other side of the glass whipped back and forth. "I told Maria I'd meet her for dinner." She shuddered. "Better bundle up."

"Yeah." There was no way in hell I was leaving the building tonight. "I'm probably gonna order in. Have fun with Maria."

Jo wandered back across the hall and I let my head thunk against the wall. A hundred and fifty pages later and no so much as a dent in the workload. Talk about Karma for a lifelong procrastinator. Damn it. There was only so much British history I could handle.

A break would probably be for the best. Not to mention my email hadn't been opened all day and was probably full. No surprise that between Facebook notifications, general HWS spam, and suggestions on where to study for finals, there were about forty new messages. One of them was from Colby.

Need Some Help
From: HOLBURN, COLBY
To: KARIZSLOWSKI, OLIVIA
November 30, 2009 11:30 AM

Ollie,
I'm planning on having everybody for dinner Friday (the last day of classes) but don't know everybody's last name. Like the girls who were at movie night that one night. And there are no Sasha's at all in the directory. Help?

Colby

'Course there were no Sashas because Sasha's actual first name was Alexandra. Sasha was a nickname.

I hit reply.

Colby,
Josephine Cornish
Alexandra Meyer-Roberts (Sasha)
Cara Freislow
Better put me in the CC so they don't just delete it.

-Ollie

That should be fun, all of us for dinner.

Facebook was after email and there was nothing new there. The picture of Murph and I at Halloween was still my profile picture.

Pretty could mean not pretty. They could have just been being nice.

Clicked the picture to enlarge it. Murph - broad-shouldered, hazel eyes, beautiful, slightly crooked smile - and me. In a four-year-old pirate costume that wasn't as loose in the bodice as it used to be. Which made sense, considering my high school sophomore self was skinnier than my college sophomore self. But by how much? Was it noticeable? Had I gotten fatter since soccer season ended? We had until February as a break, but was there a need for me to get back on the treadmill sooner?

There are parts of me I'd rather get rid of. My love handles. That bit of my back just above my rear end but before the rip at the end of the my spine. The way my middle back skin rolls when I move just right. Those were parts of me I wasn't particularly fond of. And my thighs? Larger than normal, definitely. A life spent playing soccer year-round.

Twenty years old and now wondering how pretty I was. Which, of course, leads naturally to Murphy and what he thinks and the idea of possibly having, at some point, sex with Murphy, which leads to giving up my virginity, which then leads to if I'm not good with seeing myself naked, how am I supposed to let somebody else? Somebody being Murphy. My boyfriend.

What it all boiled down to was the fact that until I got over the fear of my own body, Murph and I wouldn't so much as start for whatever level was next

Of course it wasn't Manda's appearance that brought on that happy revelation, it had just brought it front and center at the moment. When there was enough academic stress already to choke an elephant.

Jeezus. What. A. Mess.

On the other hand - as there was always another hand somewhere - Murph chose me. He could have walked away at any point but he didn't. He wanted me as his girlfriend, free and clear. Not a replacement for Manda.

Just like he's no replacement for Bobby. Murph never could be, either. They were too different. It was comparing apples to oranges with the only common factor between them being the fruit market they were bought at.

"Ollie?"

I turned in the chair. Murph was looking at me with an expression that clearly said he'd been trying to get my attention for a while. It was rather adorable, really.

"Ollie?" he repeated.

Oh. Right. "Yeah. Sorry. I think I just compared myself to a fruit market."

If he found that little tidbit of insight weird it didn't show. He shrugged instead, and said, "You'd make a pretty fruit market."

Good to know we're on the same page, whatever book it might be in.

"Sorry." I closed the laptop and went to give him a hug. "Thank you for the birthday present."

"You like it?" He grinned.

"Very much. And dinner and a movie next Saturday sounds great." The first of three Reading Days. Perfect for taking it easy before freaking out about papers and exams. "I'm gonna order Chinese for dinner, you want an egg roll?"

"Sure." He settled on the end of the bed. "How was your afternoon with the Brits?"

I dug by the side of the mattress for my phone. "Bloody brilliant." Took a few minutes to pace on the green indoor-outdoor carpet while ordering dinner, glancing occasionally at Murph. Anywhere from forty minutes to an hour. I snapped the phone shut.

"Ollie?" Murph toed his shoes off in front of the mini-fridge, the thump lost in the burst of noise echoing down the hall from the other door. For something to do - and since this was a conversation nobody else needed to hear - I kicked the door stop under the pirated TV table and waited for it to close.

"What's wrong, Ol?" Murph piled my T-S literature and notebook and dropped them onto a pile of dirty laundry. He turned to face me when I sat in the middle of the bed, swiveling his whole body with a suppressed wince.

How the hell to start this conversation?

"I met Manda today." Apparently by blurting out information like it burns.

Murph blinked. "Where?"

"At the Pub. Oh, and Tanya says hi." Maybe this would be easier than originally anticipated.

"Was she nice to you?" There was a tone in Murph's voice I hadn't heard before. Like he was trying to keep his temper in check.

"For the most part." It was true - she hadn't come right out and said anything to me, just about me. There was a distinct difference. And nothing bad, either.

Murph gave me a stink-eye worthy of El.

"Really." Which got him one in return. "She's not over you, that much is obvious."

"Not surprising," he muttered. He looked at me fully. "I broke up with her."

There wasn't anything to say that wouldn't sound both cheesy and cliche. Murph didn't need me to say anything other than, "You make me happy." Today, tomorrow, for as long as he was content with me, he made me happy.

Murph, in a feat of contortion, curled on his side between me and the dresser, his head on my thigh. My bigger than average thigh. Damn it.

"I did nothing but sleep all weekend. Why am I still tired?"

"Because it's only been a week." I rubbed the back of his neck. "It takes longer to not feel wiped out."

"It sucks."

"Yeah. I know." There was a lull. "You have a lot to do these last two weeks?"

"Start final papers." Murph relaxed further. "I only have one sit-down final the second day." He rolled to his back to look up at me. "What about you?"

"Last slot on the last day." Which meant going home Saturday morning instead of Friday night. "Physics." My hand migrated to his chest. "It's great."

He snorted. "Okay." His hand came up to hold mine. "Can I hang out here for a while? Dev's passed out on his laptop in the middle of econ spreadsheets."

"Of course. Might need to do some reading but yeah. You can pop in a movie or watch TV if you want to."

"When you get up to get delivery. Then I'll movie."

The warmth of his chest seeped through his layers into my palm. Part of being happy was being comfortable. I was comfortable with Murphy. It was being comfortable with myself that needed some improvement.

Murphy and Me XXXXII

[Sometime this weekend there will be a rather legit nonfiction post from me. Promise. At some point this upcoming weekend.]

The shenanigans started way too bright and early. Though the Happy Thanksgiving text from both Murph and Liam - with separate ones from Sasha, Cara, Em, Mel, Jo, Dev, and Colby - were both greatly appreciated and slightly unexpected. At least the volume. Dev's was shorthand and rather sleepy, but he was either still awake or had only just gotten up, and was therefore excusable.

Dexter, after pacing up and down the short hallway outside the bedroom for what seemed like hours, finally nosed open the door and decided to crawl in bed with me. And happily wash my ears.

Coffee was in order. Immediately. And Dex followed me down the stairs - almost bowling me over - and I staggered down the last few steps and almost into the stove.

"Look who's bright-eyed this morning," Dad chuckled. "Coffee, sweetie?"

I weaved around Mama and Aunt Janelle, who was a regular at our house for morning coffee on weekends and holidays, and beelined for the fridge - and the coffee creamer.

While wearing a flannel shirt that wasn't mine. A flannel shirt that was way too big, even considering I liked my winter sleepwear tops bigger. Shit.

Oh well. Live and learn.

"Cold in Geneva?" Janelle asked once I'd sat down, coffee creamer at the bottom of the mug. It would mix when Dad poured the coffee in, thus not requiring the need to dirty a spoon. Not that it mattered, as we had a dishwasher.

"Very." Mama handed me my freshly filled mug from Dad.

"It's a little big, don't you think?" Mama this time. "And a bit like something your Uncle David would wear?"

Uncle David's style was borderline lumberjack some days. There was no way to win this argument. Damage control, yes. Win? Hell no.

"Is it yours?" Dad finally chimed in, as expected.

Cue flaming face. "I'm borrowing it until B and G comes and actually fixes my heat." Go big or go home. "He's got, like, four." Which was true. The boy had multiple and he hadn't put up much resistance when one had come with me.

Then again, we'd had bigger problems regarding Murph's appendix and everything else had been relegated moot.

They seemed to absorb that and I sipped my coffee. The little black flip phone was upstairs - which was fine - and when Dad started taking rolls out of the oven, the only reaction appropriate was to salivate. And then steal one off the tray. As Aunt Janelle did the same, Dad doing anything other than semi-glare was rather pointless. It was tradition.

"Ollie, when do you want to do your birthday?" Mama asked.

To anybody else it would have been an odd question, but it was fairly standard procedure in our family that a birthday party rarely occurred on the the actual day of birth. We usually held out for the weekend - since it was better than, say, a Tuesday - and whoever was celebrating go to pick dinner and one form of dessert. Yellow cake, chocolate frosting, and cookie dough ice cream, please and thank you. Though rumor had it Dad was making cheesecake sometime today.

I told Mama Saturday sounded good. That way those going out for Black Friday didn't have to hurry home.

Aunt Janelle stayed for another cup and a half of coffee before heading out the door with an "I need to get my ass home and be productive" though how much productivity could be achieved on a national holiday was beyond me. There sure as shit wasn't anything I was going to be rushing off to get done - physics included - and that was both understandable and fine by me.

I did not come home to stuff my face and do homework. Well, yes to the first and hell no to the second.

"How is Murphy?" Mama asked. "Did he go home?"

"Yup. He and Liam and Colby are heading back, still on the road, I think, and he's doing okay. He's tired."

"So were you."

True. Very true. "Yeah." Took another sip of coffee. "He'll probably sleep better when he gets home." Until the sores on his heels go worse. "He got the card you sent." Because, once I'd gotten back from the ER that night...morning...whatever, whenever the hell it was I finally made it back to Jackson, and had gotten enough sleep to function, my first step had been to call Mama. Then text Izzy. Then text multiple people to ask how they were doing. Then, predictably, there was a nap.

There is no shame in napping as a college student. So long as it's not during class.

"What was it, again, that happened?"

"His appendix exploded." Rather gruesome, now that I think about it. But more or less gruesome than a six inch long, skinny twisted cyst a doctor pulls surgically out of your lady parts?

Yeah. That's a toss-up.

Mama headed upstairs to take a shower and I sipped cold coffee, occasionally trading remarks with Dad about the turkey, and he proudly said he'd made pie.

"Oh. What kind of pie?" Pie is good.

"Cranberry-raspberry."

Normal pie is good. This might be a train wreck. "Fantastic." I picked up my coffee mug. "Can't wait to try it." When, in reality, I was beginning to think I wanted to wait until Christmas to have a bite.


It was a small crowd for dinner - only eighteen - and it was a regular food feast. Turkey, stuffing, broccoli, green beans, rolls, somebody brought sweet potatoes to go alongside the regular mashed potatoes, and a dish of corn because Dad doesn't eat any vegetable but corn. Between dinner and dessert was copious amounts of coffee to go around.

Izzy and I wound up next to each other on the end of the table closest to the corner cupboard, watching as the desserts were brought out. Cheesecake, Dad's pie, and somebody had made some sort of pumpkin mousse concoction in a graham cracker crust.

Pretty soon, along with a fresh cup of coffee, I was staring at a slice of Dad's pie and wondering what, exactly, it was held together with. Or rather, failing miserably at being held together.

The whole smelled like syrup. Pancake syrup.

"Hey, Dad..."

"Yeah, Ol?"

"This have maple syrup in it?" Somebody had to ask. As with most cases, it's usually me. Scratch that - it's always me.

Dad grinned. "Yup."

Great. Absolutely fabulous.

Izzy leaned over and whispered, "Chomp chomp."

Damn it. Generally, you take it, you at least tried it. As it was a holiday - and a new recipe - and I had an audience, fork found pie and pie found mouth.

Regurgitation was not an option.

"Shut up," I growled at Izzy after getting that first bite down. She laughed. Ah well. Can't win 'em all.


It was late - early, by my more recent bedtime standards - when I finally crawled between the sheets to curl around Edgar. He smelled, very faintly, of Murphy - a combination of his cologne, general boy smell, possibly shampoo, and probably whatever he used for laundry detergent. But it was Murph.

The phone buzzed. I tugged it onto the mattress with me and flipped it open. New text from Murph.

u awake?

Love T9. Yup. Hit send. Waited. Saw the light from the screen before it buzzed.

how was dinner? and the fam?

How to phrase this... Dad made a pie held together with maple syrup. Yeah. Self-explanatory. Other than that it was great. They asked about you. Even el. She'd come right up to me, looked around, and gone, "Where Morefy?"

The ceiling had a new patch of faint blue in the dark.

awwww :) ma and da asked how u were and about ur heat

Yeah. Still no heat. I'll just bring another blanket back. I pressed my nose into Edgar's fluff. Edgar smells like you. Send.

Damn I was tired. The buzzing jerked me awake.

yeah? :) miss you

Oh, Murph. You make my heart hurt. So much. I miss you, too. So much.

I sent that message and then opened another, typing I love you. Writing it made it feel more real. More tangible. But it was so difficult to say.

It's not that the feeling is wrong or superficial. It's not forced. It just, like so much of me when it came to things like this, circles back around to Bobby.

Bobby was the first real relationship I'd had, off and on all through high school and into the summer before my first semester at William Smith. We'd said those three little words, but, if it was true, shouldn't it have been more difficult to say goodbye each time we took a "break"? It should have hurt more, shouldn't it? It didn't. We cycled on and off and there wasn't much more to feel than lonely for somebody to spend time with, to hold hands and be comfortable with in those months we were off.

Murph and I are comfortable, but different. A different kind of comfortable. We were inherently different than Bobby and I. And those three little words...I wanted to be absolutely sure.

This was one thing in my life I didn't want to lose, that four month mark be damned. For the first time, this feeling for another felt bigger than me. A lot bigger.

Murph's newest message had arrived five minutes ago.

when do u think ur gonna be back on sunday?

Should be back before dinner. Why? Askin' me out on a date? :) Not that we made too much of a distinction between unofficial and official dates. What the hell was the difference, anyway?

The mattress shivered. That little flip phone had a mean vibrate.

u kno it ;) but yeah dinner sunday?

Predictable. Utterly predictable.

Yes. Dinner Sunday. As I'm falling asleep, I need to say goodnight. Night, murph.

Edgar got crushed to my chest. Much like normal.

The phone buzzed again.

night ollie :) sleep tight

I proceeded to do just that.

Murphy and Me XXXXI

Murph moved back to the fishbowl three days later. He didn't move well - or fast - and he looked much the same as he had when he was lying in a bed on the second floor of Geneva General. Pale. Borderline paper-white even days after emergency surgery. He spent a lot of his spare time sleeping, a phase I remembered well because it took almost all my energy to go to class and focus that first week back almost a year ago.

Murph had left the fishbowl unlocked so I could swing by and see him in the afternoon. The major perk of having morning classes was being done by one-thirty, except on lab days.

The room was as dark as it could be at two in the afternoon. There were some Get Well Soon cards on the desk, including one from my parents and one from Izzy and her family. El had made some scribbles on the inside in blue crayon, which had made him smile.

He lay on his back, Smokey and Edgar propped on the inside pillow and keeping a careful plastic eye on the sleeping college student. I pulled the desk chair over and curled in it.

The months peeled away.

"You're gonna be here when I wake up?"

Mama pushed my hair from my face. "I will be here when you wake up."

The nurse - a twenty-something Russian by the sound of it - wheeled me, bed and all, toward the OR. He gave me roughly half of what was gonna knock me flat and I spaced out for a minute.

One moment there was a gurney under me, the next there was a metal table and it was cold. The surgeon - maybe it was him, maybe it wasn't - leaned in. Matchbox Twenty filtered through from somewhere.

"Hi."

"Hi." He smiled, pushing something into my IV port.

"I like Matchbox Twenty."

Everything went dark.

Mama had been there when I woke the first time and then promptly went back to sleep. Woke up sometime a little later and tried to stay conscious.

Though knocked out completely is a little less fun than being consciously sedated - eyes open but definitely not all there.

"Thinkin' kinda loud, Ol."

I clutched at the chair, almost slipping out of it. How long had he been awake and looking?

"Sorry." Got settled again and smiled. "Hi."

"Hey. Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Surgery." No point in beating around the proverbial bush. "Mine, that is." I'd had plenty of time to think about Murph's in the ER. Think. Freak. Repeat. "I - I missed the first El went tubing. I'd been out of surgery about a week and going up and down the stairs was about it. I sat in the kitchen and drank tea." And absolutely hated it. But it was beyond my control.

"This winter, then."

"Yeah." It just needed to snow first. "Yeah. How you holdin' up?"

"I spend a lot of time in this bed. Sleeping."

Yeah. Knew all about that, too. The only time I'd been "up" had been to be fed a pain pill and then it was Goodnight, Gracie.

Murph made an aborted move to roll over and settled back with his eyebrows drawn together. "I hate sleeping on my back."

Which made two of us. It would be another two or three days before his heels got sore enough to add to his problems.

"My heels hurt, too."

Or not. Make that sooner. "Yeah. I know about that, too." I curled in the chair and balanced well enough to rest my cheek on Murph's pillow and blinked. "You hungry or anything?"

"Not really."

"Sick?"

"Not right now."

He reached up and tangled his fingers with mine, the digits rather cool. Gently touched my forehead to his, relieved when it wasn't overly warm.

"At least you're not feverish." Which was honestly a good thing. Fevers were usually bad.

"I'm just bored." He looked at me, blinking and breathing. "I'm not gonna break."

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he meant, and my first instinct was to panic. What if he accidentally tore something? What if I accidentally made him accidentally tear something?

"Ollie." He waited until he had my attention. "Please."

Good Lord, when did he get Anime eyes?

This was going to take some strategizing to make this as painless as possible - relatively speaking.

Ultimately what we wound up doing was Murph sitting up long enough for me to slide behind him to put my back against the wall he used as a headboard. There was a pillow shoved in the small of my back and another under my shoulders, and then I had roughly two hundred pounds of football player against my chest, lower body wedged between my thighs. Thank God for my wide hips.

Most of Murph's weight was still on the mattress, though his upper body was supported by mine. I carded my fingers through his hair, softly rubbing the tips of his ears and asking him at least fifty more times if his belly was still alright.

"Yes, Ol," he said, a big palm on my thigh, the warmth easily felt through denim. "My stitches are fine."

"Don't want you to die or anything." It was oddly reminiscent, in that moment, of the first night spent in this bed following the first ER trip.

"When are you going home for Thanksgiving?" he asked, turning his head to press his nose into my neck.

"Oh, shit, that's tomorrow, isn't it?" I'd completely spaced on that fact. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. No wonder Mama had called to ask when the hell I was coming home. Also no wonder she'd been suitably confused when I'd said no idea.

Murph snorted. "Yeah, Ol, that's tomorrow."

"Then either tonight or tomorrow morning. I haven't started packing." Because a major holiday had totally, utterly slipped my mind. Who does that? Me, apparently. "When are you going?"

"Colby, Liam, and I are heading out tomorrow morning. We're driving separately because Liam wants me to be able to stretch out. Colby's car's gonna be the pack wagon." He snuggled closer. "And Liam likes to drive in the daylight more than the night."

Which was understandable. Most of my family - myself included - was shit at driving after dark.

I snuck my hand down the back of his shirt to rub his shoulder.

"I still have to give you your birthday present."

Took almost everything in me not to freeze. "Oh. You didn't have to."

"I know." His fingers tightened briefly on my thigh. "I wanted to, though. I even wrapped it."

I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "Thank you." All I could say, really.

He lay there, simply breathing, and still enough to make me wonder if he'd fallen asleep.

"What are you excited to eat tomorrow?" he asked.

"Stuffing." It was a no-brainer. Stuffing was awesome. "And broccoli." Broccoli smothered in cheese. Fantastic. "You?"

"Sweet potatoes and sliced cranberry."

Hopefully not together.

"But we shouldn't talk about food right now," he said, making an abortive move to lay on his side.

"Can do." Went back to running my fingers through his hair. "I'll go home sometime tonight. I'm not overly worried."

"'Kay." His head got a little heavier.

I'd stay here until he got up - figuratively speaking - from his nap. Then maybe go pack some of my corner single into Fred and start the forty-something miles home. But for now, this was the definition of contentment to lay there and be Murphy's pillow. Not like it was a hardship.


Lugging shit down four floors of stairs sucked. Didn't care that it was dirty clothes - most of my closet - but it still sucked.

What was going to suck even worse was hauling the mini fridge down at the end of the year. But that was in the future, not now. Now was piles of dirty clothes, textbooks with homework that probably wouldn't get done anyway, and the laptop, phone charger, and cord to the mp3 player. That should have been sufficient to survive at home for three or four days.

I packed Fred and then went back to the third floor fishbowl to say one last goodbye before heading home. There were quite a few voices in the fishbowl - more than just Murph and Dev - and I almost decided to forgo knocking. Almost. But not quite.

It was quite the off-key, not totally in unison "Come in" in response, and pushing open the door revealed all my boys. With the amount of bodies - and luggage present - the room did feel a bit crowded.

Murph sat on his bed in the much same position I had earlier, still much too pale. Colby was leaning against the windowsill and Liam hovered by Murph's dresser. Dev was haphazardly throwing a multitude of things on his bed and into a duffel bag, computer already packed out of sight.

"Hey, guys." I hopped onto the foot of Murph's bed. "Gettin' ready to get outta here?"

"Dev is," Liam said, jerking his head to his left. "Where you goin' again?"

"Rockland, Maine." Dev muscled the duffel closed and leaned against the bed frame. "We decided to go to Aunt Sarah's for Thanksgiving, and Pop and Papa decided to wait until after Pop got home to leave. So we can all take turns driving through New England at two in the morning." He seemed incredibly thrilled with this idea.

"So, you and your dad and grandpa?" I ventured.

The room went oddly still. Cue wanting to shrink through the floor. How off the mark was I?

"Chill, guys," Dev said, reaching for a photo taped to the wall. "She doesn't know." He handed me the picture. Dev resembled neither of the men in it, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the one on the right was African-American. "Papa's on the left and Pop's on the right."

"Cool. And you have siblings, don't you? Sisters?"

"Yup. And we're all adopted."

I handed the picture back and the tension bled from the room. "I have one sister. I can't imagine how you deal with multiple."

Dev shrugged. "It's a gift. We're swinging by Logan in Boston to pick up Claire and Mackenzie. They're flying in from California. University of San Francisco." He re-taped it to the wall. "When are you heading out?"

"When I say goodbye to you guys. Car's packed."

"Yeah. We watched," Colby mentioned casually.

I stared. "You watched?" Didn't know whether to snark at the creepiness or the fairly ungentlemanly behavior. Settled on appropriately scandalized, instead.

"You were doin' great," he said, fighting a smile.

"Asshat." It rolled out before my brain could say otherwise. I turned to Murph. "How you doin'?"

"Ready to go home." He rubbed his eyes.

"You need another pill?" Liam asked.

"No." He reached for Edgar, wincing. "Here. Smokey's going to Lake Placid."

Moved closer to get Edgar. "He probably needs to go back to Townsend." Sat back, the stuffed animal in my lap. "I should probably get going before it gets later."

I left Murph for last, starting with Dev and doling out hugs. Murph got a little more than a hug, along with the suggestion to actually rest this time, and I picked up Edgar on my way to the door.

"Hey, Ol?"

"Yeah, Murph?"

"Text me when you get home?"

"Will do." Waved one last time, swallowed those damn three words, and managed a relatively normal, "See you in three days." I'd probably worry about him until he, Liam, and Colby got back to Lake Placid and didn't bother to fight the feeling. Not this go 'round, anyway.

Fred started first time and with both Henry and Edgar in the front seat, we pulled out of the mostly empty parking lot and started for home. The radio was one - as was the heat - and there was hardly anybody on 14 with the exception of the truck traffic. Got lucky enough to get behind one of those and we ran 70 all the way to the village limits.

It was going on eight when I backed into the family parking lot. Computer, Edgar, Henry, probably just locked the keys in the car and didn't give a damn.

Home. Sweet, sweet home. Nothing else at this point mattered.

Doors were a bit tricky with full hands, but once in they could be kicked shut easily enough. Fired off a text to Murph once inside the kitchen and had set everything down without breaking it or myself. There were giggles from the stairs. El sat on the second step, face pressed between the slats as much as possible without getting her head stuck, grinning madly. She had a few more teeth, too.

"Hey, kidlet."

"Ollie."

I picked her up on th way up the stairs. She wrapped her arms around my neck, still giggling in between asking me how long I was home for and if I knew tomorrow was "Thanksgibbing."

Damn it was good to be home.