AN: He guys, I know it's been a couple of weeks since I updated this fic, but so far, I haven't abadoned it. Unless you lose interest, then I would focus on other projects and life in general.
My fingertips drum nervously on the surface beneath the keypad of my laptop and my right foot taps the ground harder with every passing second as I stare into the distance. Or more like, my glare burns a hole into the far end wall of the lecture hall I am sitting in. It's Monday late afternoon, my last class should start within the next fifteen to twenty minutes and I haven't heard from Callie since yesterday, since that last kiss and the heart-stopping smile she gave me afterwards. I have always hated goodbyes. And with every time that I have to leave LA, Miami or whatever freaking place where we are together, I dread them more and more. I just don't get used to them and I don't magically love them either. It just doesn't seem fair.
But the distance is only partly responsible for my grumpy mood. After I got home last night, I sent the gorgeous Latina a message, telling her that I landed and got home safe and sound. When I didn't get an answer I figured she'd be with her family or friends to relax and enjoy the rest of her birthday in good company, so I didn't freak out last night. No, I really didn't. I went to bed soon after I got home so I would at least get a little bit of sleep and then I forgot to set my alarm. So this morning, my mother came in to wake me, accompanied with a lecture about how she tried to do so for ten minutes already. Leave it to my mother to give me a pretty rocky start of my day.
And since then, it has only gotten worse. The coffee dispenser down the hallway is broken and I am running low on caffeine to get me through this last class. Two of my professors were overly grouchy today. And on top of that, there is still no answer from Callie, no call, no text message, nothing. A part of me is worried that something has happened to her, something bad, because I have tried to call her and only reached her voice mail. The bigger part of me is filled with insecurities. What if this is all just a game for her? Some fun and a good lay? Or maybe I wasn't a good lay and that's the reason she isn't calling me anymore and ignoring my messages? But when we had to part yesterday, she kissed me so intensively, so completely fiercely that it made me dizzy. It simply doesn't make sense.
-Still nothing?- T
My best friend's text makes me even more agitated. Of course I talked to her about what had happened – or had not happened – when I met her before class, especially since I am almost going crazy. Quickly deciding that calling Teddy is faster than texting her back, I press speed dial number 2 – yup, she got bumped already – I puff out some air and sulk, sliding further down in my chair. This is so stupid. She is not my girlfriend, we haven't talked about that yet, haven't even scratched at the topic because it's way too early, right? I would love to call her that, though. But good God, this incertitude is getting the better of me, and it's working quick at consuming me. "Still nothing", I say when Teddy picks up. "Am I freaking out over nothing?"
"Probably", the other blonde says and I can hear that she's walking past people to find a relatively quiet place to talk. "I get it. Or, I would get it if it were two days or closer to a week. But it's been what, eighteen hours? She's a busy woman, A. She works hard for her money and she has a family and friends."
"You think she'll call?"
"Positive. Look, my TA already entered the room, so I gotta get back inside. Don't try to come up with too many possible scenarios, okay? There's probably a very good reason that she hasn't called yet that's got nothing to do with you." And then she hung up, leaving me alone to think about her words.
It is easier said than done. I have already spent most of my day in classes, not paying attention but browsing through the internet, seeing if I can find any news about her on blogs and forums and the general news. But nothing. And to top it all off, I feel like a stalker. There's a thin line between being concerned and being overly stalkerish and I might have crossed it already. Fan-freaking-tasitc, Robbins.
"Hey", a female voice next to me startles me and I spin my head around just a little bit too fast, ruing the sudden movement when I feel the pain in my neck and upper back. "I didn't mean to scare you", the girl next to me chuckles behind her hand, eyes shining brightly at me. "I just noticed you were sitting here all alone and I... this may sound creepy, but I know who you are." Talk about being a stalker...
Puzzled from the statement, I just look at her, blinking from time to time, confusion most likely written all over my face. I don't know this woman. At all. Is she a fellow student? A TA? Jesus Robbins, maybe you should start to actually pay attention. "I'm sorry, but I don't know you", I confess, my brows furrow in concentration as I try to remember if I ever met this woman before. At a bar, maybe?
"You don't", she assures and holds out her hand when she introduces herself. "But as I said, I know you. You're Arizona Robbins and I'm Stephanie. We have the same classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and two classes together on Fridays. You leave a quite striking dent in classes too, because you seem to know every answer to whatever question is asked. And I gotta be honest, I wanted to talk to you before, but I wasn't sure you'd be interested in... maybe an invitation for coffee?"
She nervously scratches the back of her hand and her eyes flicker to different places just to avoid looking at me. I don't think I have moved ever since she started talking in rapid speed and I may be misunderstanding things or misinterpreting the signs, but is this girl flirting with me? You used to have a better radar for this, Arizona. To be honest, if the prior weeks and especially yesterday morning hadn't happened, I would take her up on the offer. Maybe. She is, without a doubt, beautiful. Green eyes, freckles all over her face which is framed by straight light brown hair with some highlights, and a blinding smile. She seems nice too – aside from the mildly shocking fact that she knows how many classes we share -, a bit shy, but it's kind of cute. Still, I am literally not interested.
"Maybe we could start a study group? I'm sure we could-"
Stopping her second ramble with my hand held up, I stare at my buzzing phone when an unknown number appears on the display. "I'm sorry, I gotta take this", I say as an excuse to get away from this awkward situation. It's not really Stephanie's fault that I feel uncomfortable right now. My brain isn't working fast enough right now to let her down the easy way. "Hello?"
"Arizona?"
Callie?, I recognize that voice immediately, but I don't dare to say her name, careful of the people around me – and Stephanie still next to me – who could hear me. It is probably ridiculous. I am sure there are more than one Callie walking the face of the earth, but better overly cautious than sorry. "Yeah?", I say instead and wait.
"Finally", she breathes out and for the second time in under five minutes, I am confused. "God, I just... do you have time to talk right now?"
Glancing at the clock on the wall, I see that I have roughly ten minutes before class starts. "Yeah, just hold on a moment, please." Covering my cell phone with my palm I address Stephanie, "This, uhm, this is kinda important, so, uhm, could you..." Great Robbins, the stammering is really charming. But she gets the message and leaves me alone. As alone as one can be in a lecture room with other people present, but I'm sitting in one of the last rows and so far, I am the only one here. "Okay, I can talk now."
"Is everything alright?", she asks and I don't really know how to answer that. You could ask her the same question, Robbins. Or I could tell her about my morning and afternoon and how I have been anxiously waiting for a sign from her, since I couldn't reach her. But before I have the chance to say something, she beats me to it. "I am so sorry."
Oh no. She's gonna end things, whatever it is - was - between you and her and you're going to be the fool, Arizona, because you thought it was real and believed her words and you just can't think straight around her and-
"My phone drowned, literally." Excuse me, what? "Yesterday, after we parted and I left the airport, I stopped at my sister's place to spend some time with my family. Isabella always has a blast when her aunt visits and she had my phone, browsing through some of my recordings and videos and then her dad picked her up and threw her into the pool. It's kind of a game between them. He does it all the time, without a warning and Isabella just laughs... Anyway, my phone landed on the bottom of the pool and it's been dead ever since. The SIM-card is a mess too and I honestly thought I had memorized your number already but I mixed up the last two digits and I couldn't reach you until now."
The goofy grin that appears on my lips is unstoppable. Her ramble, to me, is different from Stephanie's. Callie's waterfall of words is utterly adorable. I can actually picture her pacing up and down her living room, combing her fingers through her long dark mane as she explains everything to me. "You memorized my number?", I ask, still smiling a deep dimpled smile and feeling like a total idiot for freaking out because I couldn't reach her for not even twenty-four hours. You're so pathetic, Robbins. Overreacting over basically nothing.
"Well", she starts, "Apparently not", she laughs nervously and then we talk until class starts. After hearing her voice, I immediately feel better. The worries are gone, the nagging feeling that something isn't right has disappeared and has been replaced by the anticipation of tonight, when we will talk again.
I can't wait.
Later that day, way past dinner time and after doing all the post-class works and preparations for the ones I'll be attending tomorrow, I sit in front of my desk with a blank page in front of me. I find it hard to concentrate on writing my fan fictions lately – or at least when they are supposed to be about her. The writing itself is not the problem. I still have way to many ideas for my own good, but every time I actually manage to get some words on paper, I erase them after rereading my work. It's too personal now. And I feel like I'm giving away secret after secret when I write about her.
So the characters in my stories have altered a little, focusing on other characters instead so I am not giving the guilty feeling a chance to swallow me up in the first place. It was kind of rough to get back into the swing of writing about other people, but I guess I managed. Partly. Maybe. I am not sure. I literally haven't uploaded a single story since I met her after winning the contest and some readers already wonder where I got stuck. The truth it, in the evenings – that is when I usually edit my chapters or stories – I am on the phone with Callie. And I enjoy that time too much to end the call early so I could work on my stuff. Somehow it doesn't feel like it's worth it anymore. Maybe I should bury my dream of becoming a writer for good and follow my dad's advice and become a lawyer. So far, the very complex and extensive structure of the law seems to just click in my head. I even kind of like that there can be an exception to a lot of cases – quoting precedents could be my new favorite pastime... if only I could see myself becoming a lawyer.
Sighing, I lean against the back rest of my chair. Law. Can you really see yourself spending the rest of your life surrounded by paragraphs, other lawyers and the court house, Arizona? Because that is the only question that needs an answer. If I can see myself living that life, I could make my family really proud. But I don't want to think about this right now. Not when undoubtedly more beautiful things – and even more so, unquestionably breathtakingly gorgeous people – in my life can invade my thoughts and take me away from reality for just a little bit. Especially one certain stunning Latina. I don't even think twice before picking up my phone and calling her, wanting to hear her voice.
"Hey, beautiful", she picks up and even though it's not the first time she calls me that, I blush. "I was just about to call you, I just wanted to step out of the tub first."
Swallowing thickly, I close my eyes. Images of her naked body flash behind my eyelids, I can, figuratively speaking, see her in the tub, driblets of water running over her wonderfully tanned skin, between her breasts and down to her stomach. She is such a tease.
"Are you still there?", Callie asks and chuckles, knowing she caught me thinking about her. You couldn't be any more obvious, Robbins, I roll my eyes at my own stupid behavior. "You know what would be better right now?"
"N-No?" I actually choke on that one word, embarrassing myself further more. Great move, Arizona. But I cannot help it either. My brain is still thinking about her naked body, alone in that hot tub that is big enough for two I just want to feel her skin against mine again. Cuddling would be enough. Naked cuddling, preferably.
"If you were here with me", she states and a low moan escapes her lips, barely audible over the phone, but I heard it. "With your back pressed against my front." Her words are a mixture between a hum and a groan and all I can do is shift in my seat to maintain the upper hand over my libido. Why has this woman to be so fucking sexy?
"That... would be really nice." Beyond nice, to be honest. I have lived in so many states and so many different countries and the distance has never been a problem. Anna and I, we communicate through mail on a daily basis and I am still in contact with some people I met while I was traveling. With Callie though, even the three-thousand miles are too far away.
I can hear some moving on the other end of the line and figure she's getting out of the tub. Forcing my brain to not think about her wet, glistening skin, I read through the notes of today's first class instead – just to avoid picturing her as she wraps herself up in a towel with her hair all wet and dripping. "What were you doing before you called me?"
"Uhm, I tried to write but that didn't work", I reply, my eyes flickering to the still solely white document on my laptop. "And before that, I did everything that needed to be done for my classes tomorrow, so, pretty boring stuff."
She disagrees, "Your writing is not boring, Arizona." Then there's a pause and I wonder what she's doing. "The way you pick your words is meticulously perfect. Like, there is an easy way to choose your words to get across what's happening in stories, but you don't go down the easy road. The structure of your sentences, the words you put into your characters mouths, it's powerful. You could probably destroy or rebuild everything with just one word, Arizona. And that, that is a gift."
I am sitting here, slack-jawed because of her words. Completely disarmed by the faith she has in me. "But... you've only read one story", I say when I recover the ability to speak. How can she be so sure? I have spent hour upon hour to bring the submitted story to perfection. Or at least to the closest point of perfection I could manage. I mean, in the end, it was enough. For that one contest. I don't think it would be enough in the world of publicists and authors. "I don't think-"
"Send me more then", Callie interrupts me and I can hear the smile in her voice. "I want to read more of your work, please", she urges and then goes on and on about how she can't imagine that this short story was just one single lucky shot and how intrigued she is to read more.
And as if these words prompted it, I panic. I cannot send her more of my work. Most of them have sexual content and some are beyond dirty, smutty even – and she will think that I have pictured her while writing these parts. Quite frankly, I did. At least the parts of her body I knew before we met, before I had the chance to memorize every inch of her skin with my fingertips and tongue. Her beautiful face, those deep, soulful brown eyes, the radiating smile and her exquisite, rich voice. There is no way she will not figure it out. "Okay", I say when she asks me again. Just like that, like she has some sort of power over me.
Honestly, Arizona, who are you trying to fool? She has a lot power over you.
I know this wasn't my finest piece of work - at least not the first part. I had a hard time getting back into the swing. There are some drama chapters ahead of us after the next weekend the girls spend together is over. I might skip to that, or do you want some more fluff and chemistry first?