CHAPTER ONE

"Jess… Get up!"

I moaned and rolled over, clutching at the sheets. My bleary eyes spotted the annoying little alarm clock that Rob insisted on keeping flashing bright red digital numbers. God, those things should really be banned.

It took me a few seconds to register exactly what the little thing was trying to tell me. That I was way late for class. Strangely, this didn't bother me as much as the fact that I was being shaken awake much to early for me to be in any sort of good mood.

"Jess! Jess, sweetheart you need to get up!"

This, rather than the little beeping chunk of annoyingness known as an alarm clock, startled me awake.

"Hmm?" I said, screwing up my face and running my fingers through my shortly cropped hair. "Did you just call me sweetheart?" PET NAMES? Since when did we get on the level of PET NAMES?

Rob leaned over me, kissing my ear. I noticed his cheeks were slightly red, in an embarrassed sort of way. Ha! I caught him in the act. Sweetheart… Honestly.

I rolled over so his lips caught mine, and I enjoyed the relaxing tingling sensation for a moment before he pulled back. Mmmm, shirtless.

"Not until you get up." He said, but he ran his lips across my nose anyway. What a hypocrite.

I sighed and sat up, yawning and stretching, my hair an absolute mess. My arm almost knocked into Rob, who was now pulling a black T-shirt over his head. I shook my head to relieve the sleepiness.

"Have sweet dreams?" I muttered, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. Coincidentally, the one with my engagement ring on it. God, three whole months with the thing, and I still managed to nearly poke my eye out. I am so talented.

"No dreams for me. You?"

I frowned, trying to remember.

"I'm pretty sure that I had dreams where my Professor from history ate me." I spotted his raised eyebrows, and shrugged. "Nothing special though. No locating dreams this time."

"Cool." Rob said vaguely, checking around for his keys. He turned around and looked at me again. "Jess, you really do need to get dressed you know."

I grinned and looked down at my huge T-shirt and boxer shorts. "I dunno. What'd ya think my Pol. Sci. teacher would think if I just show up like this?" I stood up and struck a model pose. "Oh my god, I think that I discovered the fashion sensation of the 21st century."

Rob rolled his eyes at me, but nodded approvingly. "I dunno, Mastriani. I don't think half the guys in class would be able to concentrate. Including me."

"Then I'll get the leading grade!" I said cheerfully, grabbing a pair of jeans and pulling them on. Then I stared at Rob.

"Your keys are on the dresser." I said, conversationally. He glanced around and spotted them, then gave me a suspicious glare and muttered something that sounded strangely like "You wouldn't mumble to find them EITHER if you didn't mumble stupid psychic mumble, mumble."

"What was that?" I asked, inclining my head slightly closer than necessary towards him. "I didn't quite catch the last part. Something about my powers…"

Rob groaned and pulled me into his arms. This time, his shirt was on, but he had on my favorite pair of his jeans… the ones that were faded in the exact right places? So distracting.

"What would I do without you?" He muttered into my hair. God, he was good at getting off the subject.

Now, don't get me wrong or anything. I'm not exactly a rainbow-butterfly-unicorn type of girl, you know? The ones that- God forbid- read romance novels and freak out about their long blonde hair and perfect eyelashes? The ones that wooed over hot football players back in high school and tended to wear… um… to put it politely, some more REVEALING stuff (a certain Karen-Sue Hanky comes to mind)? Yeah, that's so not me. I'm more of a faded-jean-fist-fight-short-haired-what-the-frick-is-prada sorta person. So, you know, I'm not really so into the mushy romantic stuff.

Except where Rob is concerned. He's the one exception to my anti-girly-girl routine. I mean, I'm in love with the guy. He's my best friend. We're ENGAGED for God's sake. I have some right to some minimal romantic conversation with him.

"Hmmmm," I hugged back, my breath muffled by his chest. "You would probably have a lot more room in your house." Seriously. Despite my non-valley-girl status, I still had a surprising amount of clutter that had been moved into Rob's (and now, my) home last month.

He laughed, and tilted my head up for a quick kiss.

"I'd also be a lot less happy."

Aw. God, this guy knew how to make a girl melt. I was in TOTAL la-la land. That is, until I saw the clock. Crap.

"Uh, Rob, hate to spoil the mood and all." He looked at me, frowning slightly. "But its kind of time for class…"

It was Wednesday, which means that Rob and I actually had a class together, Political Science. I didn't' really like the class, or the professor.

Scratch that, I HATED the class. I mean, politics AND school? God, how much torture can you put a girl through? Plus Professor Ryder? Yeah, she was not the most lenient teacher in the world. Five minutes late? Yeah, don't expect any sympathy. In fact, expect a lecture. Otherwise, I wouldn't really give a crap that we were late.

Rob seemed to be debating. Whether or not he gave a crap, I mean.

He looked down at his watch (which was, I might add, an important symbol of our relationship) and seemed to jerk to his senses. He looked at me, then at the watch, then back at me again.

"Aw, screw it." He muttered, and drew my head up to his again.

But now I'm thinking back to it, I sorta think I should've stopped him. I mean, if we had gotten to college a few minutes earlier, we probably could've stopped it. If we had held off making out until we got home, then our professor would probably have still been alive by the time we got there

But we didn't. So she wasn't. Alive, I mean.