The boughs of the tree cradled Travis' partially starved artist physique. He'd found himself sitting at the base of the largest tree on campus and, even though it was a slightly wintry day, he found himself warmed by what he was putting to paper.

His sketchpad was propped up by his knees, and he'd tried to draw a smell. Yes, he knew it was abstract, but that was his incentive. He was trying to sketch the smell of Jones.

The day before, he'd heard her in the bathroom. He was trying to make coffee, but couldn't help overhearing the gentle sounds of water in the bathtub as Jones rolled around. When she came out a few minutes later, the smell of soap and vanilla emulated from her soft skin.

He smiled slightly to himself as he remembered the look of shock on her face when he saw her standing there, dripping wet, in just a towel. That mental image of Jones was what kept him warm, and the smell was what he was trying to put to paper.

Voices were murmuring in the distance and growing closer. "Nah man, you serious?"

"Oh yeah, tonight's the night."

Travis rolled his eyes. 'Someone is getting some tonight,' he thought.

"You're lying. You never sleep with anyone long enough to live with them, at least that's what they say."

Travis' ears perked up.

"She's hot for me, man. Besides, it's not going to be too hard to get her into bed. And if she won't go willingly, I know she's quite fond of hard liquor."

Travis' eyes got very large. He froze. There was the off chance that the two men walking didn't see him at the base of the tree.

"She doesn't sleep around. She's a smart girl."

"She fuckin' lives with me, dude. Come on. Its inevitable; if not now then when?"

Their voices faded off in the distance, and Travis could no longer distinguish their conversation. He put one hand to his forehead. Over and over, he replayed what he'd just heard in his head. There was not a doubt in his mind; Derrick was going to try to sex up Jones.

He flipped his sketchpad shut. When he was certain Derrick and his accomplice were no longer in view, he stood up and bolted for the loft.

"Jones!" he called down the hallway of their home. He hurriedly threw his keys down on the table and rushed down the hall. He bolted into Jones' room.

When the force of the door hit the wall, it made an obscene bang, which made Jones, who was sitting hunched over on her bed, jump and spill red nail polish all over the sheets.

"Aw, damn it, Travis…" she said, getting up quickly, tearing the sheet off the bed.

Travis grimaced inwardly. "Oh Jones, I'm sorry…" He picked up the trailing half of the sheet and helped her carry it out to the kitchen where she promptly started to scrub the polish off.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked.

"I… um… I was wondering, Jones, if you would like to, uh, go out tonight."

She looked at him like he wasn't human anymore. "What?"

"You know, get out. We spend so much time up here in the loft, and… I thought it might be nice to get out or something."

"Travis, you hate clubbing."

"Maybe not clubbing. Like, go out for coffee-"

"We can make coffee here."

"-or go see a movie-"

"We can rent movies."

He dropped the half of the sheet he was holding up and stared at Jones.

She stared back at him.

Their vindictive stares sent waves of telepathic angst back and forth between them. There was a long pause, and not the kind of pause that Travis thought highly of.

"What's the matter with you? You haven't been much of yourself lately."

"What?"

"You shirk around whenever you're here, which is becoming less and less because you stay after every class and run off doing god knows what. You don't sit and talk like you used to, and I haven't seen you work in almost two weeks."

Travis didn't know what to say. A hundred responses came flooding to mind, but not a single one of them could formulate and bubble its way up his throat and into his mouth. He looked at Jones through narrowed eyes and turned his back to her.

"Travis." Her voice was instantly softer. "Travis, please look at me."

"Jones…" he said with an unexpected twinge of anger.

He couldn't find a single intelligible sentence among his thousands of thoughts as he walked back out through the front door.