It had been one week. Seven grueling nights since Jessica Day had slept in his bed. Nick woke up and in his half sleeping state managed to forget for a split second. He stretched his arm out only to be reminded of the empty space on her side of the bed. He brought his hand to his face pressing his index finger and thumb into his eyeballs, images of her swirling around in his head.
He didn't want to move from his bed. He had spent most of this past week either in his room or picking up extra shifts at the bar. He had managed to avoid Jess for the most part; so far their plan of going back to being 'just friends' was not working.
Nick decided to get up and grab a late breakfast, it was a Saturday and he could hear the guys in the kitchen and hoped Schmidt had cooked something. He slowly made his way to the bar stools and sat down beside Winston. Schmidt was making something that resembled an omelet and turned around to hand Nick a generous helping. It wasn't long before there was an awkward silence, with the other two roommates staring at Nick as he ate with his hands, as he always said "I have two perfectly good forks on the end of my hands".
"Soooo" Winston tried to break the silence.
"Nick, my man, Nicholas" Schmidt said with a forced smile.
"What?" Nick said, less than impressed.
"Hey man, um...Jess hasn't got up yet, everything ok?" Winston chose his words carefully.
"How the hell would I know, Winston?" Nick said in an annoyed tone. "I'm sorry Winny, I know it's not your fault".
Schmidt decided to interrupt, "Damn right son, it's the fault of our very own Nicholas Miller".
Nick had lost his appetite, pushing his plate away. "You think I don't know that Schmidt? I'm trying".
"Well not hard enough!" Schmidt shouted a little too harshly and then looked down, he added in a softer voice "I mean look at where Cece and I ended up, learn from my mistakes".
Nick sighed, he knew his friend was right, not so long ago he promised to start making more grown up moves, well now was his chance to follow through with it. He took a deep breath and headed in the direction of her room, a determined look on his face but all of his courage faded when as he stood outside her door.
"Time to make more grown up moves", he said to himself under his breath as he raised his hand to knock her door, unsure if she would be willing to talk with him.