(Saturday October 11, 2008)

I still can't get the night out of my head the next morning. That is, when I finally get around to waking up. Being a teacher means I've pretty much kept with the same schedule for most of my life. Monday through Friday I'm up early in the morning and I have a routine. Shower, breakfast, school, 'homework' and then to sleep only to wake up and do it all over again. Saturdays and Sundays are everyone's weekends. I'm quite partial to my routine, and as a result even on the weekends I'm usually up by eight.

Although even on weekends, I'm usually asleep by 10. However last night through me completely off my rhythm. After dropping Callie back off and coming home I crawled into bed and spent much of the night staring at the ceiling. Thinking about her smile, her voice, her eyes, her hair, the things we talked about, the taste of her kisses and the feeling of her body in my arms.

That last little bit might have taken me to a place I haven't visited since I was seventeen. But, sometimes a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do. Especially after being completely alone for so long.

It's now nearing 1pm on Saturday and I've only been up for two hours. And what have I accomplished in those two hours?

Laundry? Nope.

Cleaning? Not at all.

Any work for school? Definitely not.

I've scrounged together a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and that's about it. I have no desire to do anything at all but lay here on this couch, watch Cartoon Network and contemplate a way to make the next date even better.

Unfortunately my friends have other ideas. A new episode of Ed, Edd, and Eddy is rambling on my TV screen when I hear a pounding on my front door, followed by the sound of it swinging open.

I really need to start keeping that thing locked.

"Dude!" I hear Franks voice shout out. "Where the hell are ya?!"

I lift my arm up and wave over the back of the couch. "In here."

"Is he home?" Apparently Jeremy is with him.

"Yea... man you saw his car in the driveway." Frank responds.

"Well I don't know maybe he's with someone." Jeremy refutes.

I can't help but laugh at their stupid argument as they walk the short distance from the door to the living room.

"Please, who would he be with?"

I groan. I love being the butt of all the jokes.

"I don't know, his Momma?"

"Leave my Momma outa this." I finally interrupt as they come into view and a magazine comes flying at me along with a couple other envelopes and they thump me in the chest.

"Grabbed your mail." Frank says.

"Thanks." I reply and thumb through the bills and end up face to face with a Playboy.

"What the hell is this?"

"Your welcome Buddy." The two guys start to laugh.

"We figured you could use it since your all hung up on that hot teacher and we know you ain't gonna grow the balls to seal the deal and go after her."

I suppose I should fill them in on whats happened between me and Callie the past couple days.

I toss the pile of mail and the offensive yet, not completely unappreciated magazine on the coffee table and sit up.

"What's up guys?" I ask.

"Whats up?!" Frank says, looking at me like I am insane and should know why they are invading my house on this Saturday afternoon.

"Man the Tennessee/Florida game is today. Volunteers all the way! Mike is on his way over." As if on cue the front door opens and I hear Mike shouting hello.

I groan, I really don't know if I am up for an afternoon of college football. Crazy right? Jeremy is already tuning the tv to ESPN though and Frank is heading towards the kitchen. Mike comes into the room and slaps Jeremy on the back.

"Jay you owe us. Thanks to you friggin' bailing on us last night I had to sit through two lifetime movies with Kate. I missed the fucking Memphis game."

"God forbid you spend some time with your wife." I roll my eyes at him. Frank comes back into the room with four Miller lites in hand and passes them around. "Help yourself." I remark, knowing that they know not to take my sarcasm seriously.

"So what the hell was up with you yesterday?" It takes a few minutes, but once they get settled, Mike finally asks the question.

"I uh... had plans."

"With who?" Jeremy asks.

"Uhh..." What is with me today?

"No way! He hooked up with the teacher!" Frank somehow deduces, and I can't help the half grin that forms on my face.

"I didn't 'hook up' with her. We just hung out."

"Seriously?" Mike raises an eyebrow at me.

"Yea, we hang around here, watched a movie and ate some Chinese food." I conveniently leave out everything related to Guitar Hero.

"What kind of date is that!" Jeremy says and I cringe. "You couldn't take her out to dinner or something?"

"I wish I could have trust me." I make a feeble attempt to defend myself. "But I work with her you know? We really aren't supposed to be dating."

I probably should have just kept that little piece of information to myself but its too late now.

They explode into various degrees of shock and laughter, a chorus of rhymes about forbidden fruit and how I have to nail her now filters into the air; of course in a less vulgar concoction of words. Then they calm down and Frank makes one last statement.

"Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we like her." I know I don't need their approval but it's nice to hear anyway. "So uh... when are you gonna see her again?" He asks.

"I don't know. Probably Monday morning I guess." I shrug because I honestly don't know.

After that inquisition ends the talk turns to the game unfolding on the television and the not so juicy details of my love life and left alone.

My thoughts that afternoon continuously flit back to her so when the guys finally take off and head home to their wives, its not long before I give up on cleaning up the mess they've left behind and grab the phone off the dock.

I dial the number that isn't quite yet familiar, but just the sound of the ring in my ear gets my heart pumping just a little faster. Its a great feeling though, when she picks up the phone and realizes its me; I can hear the tone in her voice change. It sounds lighter, a little more breathy, and I wanna believe that its a tone completely reserved for me.

That one phone call ends up lasting well over 2 hours and may have just been the highlight of my whole day.

At nine-o'-clock on Sunday morning I find myself in my truck, clad in sweatpants and a t-shirt, with a paper bag of groceries in the passenger seat. Sometime between last night and now I got the bright idea to cook breakfast for Callie.

Now I have been parked outside her apartment complex for about twenty minutes now, an elderly lady coming outside to pick up her newspaper gives me a strange look and I'm almost afraid that she's going to call the cops on me or something.

I finally drag my ass out of the car and grab the grocery bag. I reach her door and ring the bell, suddenly realizing that I might very well be waking her up.

"Justin? What are you doing here?" Callie asks as she opens the door slowly a few moments later. I have a quick second to glance over her as her hands skip over her hair and face, and then work on straightening out her clothes.

She's still wearing what I assume are her pajamas. Just a tank top and a pair of Tarheel blue terry cloth shorts.

Maybe it's just me and my own biased opinion, but even though I'm pretty sure she just woke up a short while ago, she still looks great.

"I uh..." I suddenly realize I'm staring and feel a bit awkward about everything going on right now. "I brought breakfast." I smile and shake the bag in my arms just a little bit.

She looks surprised, as I expected, and thankfully she smiles brightly and there's this sparkle in her eyes that kinda makes me feel like I've done something right.

"Come in." She then starts to step backwards making room for me to come through the door.

I follow her into her kitchen and set the bag down on her counter and then turn back to face her. "Good morning." I reach up and brush a few strands of her messy blond hair away from her face, kiss her lips quickly and then pull her into a hug.

"So, are you hungry?"

"Sure." She answers.

"You know I've heard that the way you like your eggs says a lot about you." She says after we discover that we both really just enjoy scrambled eggs with mozzarella cheese. I've just cracked four eggs into a bowl that she'd watched me search her cabinets for.

"Oh really? Care to enlighten me?" I humor her, and she laughs lightly.

"Nope." she shakes her head and screws open the cap on the bottle of orange juice I brought and starts to pour some into a glass.

Our eyes meet and she lifts the cup to her lips, I raise my eyebrows at her.

"I don't know anything about it." She finally laughs. "It's just something I heard."

I shake my head at her and pour just a little bit of milk into the beaten eggs, a trick I learned from my Grandpa. "Well, we at least know that we like our eggs the same way, that's gotta be good right?"

"For me anyway, as long as you can do the cooking." Her laugh is contagious and captivating. I set down the bowl and just look at her; preparing to tell her so when the shrill sound of her phone ringing cuts me off.

She reaches for the dock where a cordless handset should be resting there on the wall to her left, but its empty.

"Be right back." She says, and I can't resist watching her walk away down the hall towards her bedroom where she left the phone last. I smile to myself, imagining her curled up in her bed last night talking to me on the phone.

Within the next few minutes I finish getting everything ready and realize I have no idea where she keeps her frying pan, not to mention I don't know how long she's going to be on the phone and I don't want her food to get cold while its waiting for her.

Having kicked off my shoes when I can into her apartment it's no surprise that she doesn't hear me coming down the hall and I peek into her room and she her perched on the edge of her bed, facing her vanity. She has the phone pinched between her ear and her shoulder and shes making quick work with her fingers trying to pull her hair up into a ponytail at the same time.

The power women have to multitask is beyond me.

"Hey Callie?" I say, trying to get her attention but not scare her like I have a habit of doing.

Her head turns sharply to me, and the phone almost slips but she grabs it and holds it to her ear. Apparently I failed. Her eyes are wide and then she cringes.

"Yes Mom, there is a man here." She mutters. I can only imagine what mess I've gotten her into now.

I smile awkwardly at her as she stands up, waving her hands and shaking her head as if to tell me not to worry about it.

"His name is Justin. I work with him." She's now fielding questions as we both walk back towards the kitchen.

"No Mother, he did not spend the night here. Not that it is any of your business."

Oh no, I know that tone. She's getting all feisty and defensive. I like it. Although I'm glad that she's walking behind me so that she can't see the grin on my face at the mere idea of spending the night with her. It would probably earn me a nice slap to the shoulder.

"Mom, I can't really talk about this right now. Can I call you back later?" I hear her say with an exasperated sigh. Well I would love to hear what she has to say about me, at the moment I would rather have her all to myself.

"Thank you. Love you too Mom... bye." She clicks off the phone and sets it on the counter, hopping up to sit on the edge. "Sorry about that." She looks at me, and I contemplate teasing her a little and maybe dragging some information out of her but the look on her face warns me otherwise and she keeps talking anyway.

"What did you need?" She asks.

"Um a frying pan?"

She uses her foot to push open the door to the cabinet right underneath where she's sitting. I swallow hard, suddenly filled with nothing more then the desire to slide my hands up those legs that she doesn't even know she's teasing me with, pull her to the edge of the counter and forget about breakfast completely.

It's been much too long since I've really spent time with a woman and that fact is hitting me hard in more ways then one.

Next thing I know, in the seconds I've spent fantasizing, she's leaned over and pulled out a frying pan.

"Justin?" She holds it out to me. I blink and tare my eyes away from her thighs and clear my throat.

"Thanks." I take it from her and busy myself with starting a burner on the stove and fixing our breakfast. "So that was your mom?" A stupid question I know but, I need something to think about other then her smooth, bare skin.

"Yea. She usually calls me before she goes to church."

"Oh, well you should have talked to her. I could have watched TV or something. I'm sorry I interrupted." I feel a little bad because I know she's out here alone.

"No it's alright. She was just really surprised to hear another voice."

I chuckle, more to myself then anything because she expertly skirted around the fact that her mother had been more interested in the fact that the voice was male.

He supposed that his mother probably would have been filled with questions, had she heard a female voice at his house on a Sunday morning as well. Parents were rather predictable, and had the same worries no matter how old their babies were.

"Well I hope I didn't get you into too much trouble." I shrug and turn off the burner and more the frying pan. With a fork I pick up a bite of the scrambled eggs and hold it out to her. "Taste."

That proved to be a bad idea as well, because all I focus on then is her mouth closing down on the fork as she leans forward and puts a hand on my arm to keep steady.

"Hot." She says and in my head I'm agreeing with that statement in a completely different way then she means it. "But good." She tells me.

She hops down off the counter and scoots around me in the small kitchen to reach up into a cupboard for two plates. Completely oblivious to the effect she has on me with her playful move of nudging my hip with hers to get me out of her way. When she turns back around, she's caught in between me and the counter and I take the plates from her and set then down.

"Justin?" She looks at me, clearly confused by my silence and movements but there's something I have to do.

My tongue darts across my lips and my hands rest on the counter on either side of her.

"Kiss me before I kiss you." I don't even know what I really just said, but I had to let her know what I was thinking somehow.

"What?" She asks, but when my mouth closes on hers and my hands circle around her waist she does nothing but tilt her head to the side a little and match my lips motion for motion while digging her fingers into the curls that are just starting to form at the back of my head.

What I'd give to make you coffee, find out how you like your eggs
Wrapped around you in the morning, a tangled lace of arms and legs
What I'd give to let you love me... find out what that feeling is