I wake up surprisingly early the next day and not on my own accord. The brightness from Dominic's phone is what wakes me, along with his muffled laughter. I open my eyes to see him lying down beside me, looking at memes. When he sees that I'm awake, he leans his phone over to me. "Look at this one!"

I squint and give a weak chuckle at the photo he's displaying. Feeling oddly close to him, I glance down and find that my leg is draped over his waist. I immediately pull it off of him and he locks his phone and smiles at me. "Sorry..." What a great thing to wake up to.

"And just last night, you threatened me, and I quote: 'but if I wake up and you're touching me at all, I'll rip your hair off your head,'" he mocks me and I rub my face with my hands.

"Yeah, it's coming back to me, vaguely, but it's there." I groan as I stare at the ceiling.

"You said a lot of interesting things last night. But can we talk about this over breakfast? I've been awake for the past hour and I was pinned under your leg so I couldn't even get my snacks."

"Shut up." I rub my head and frown at him.

"Are you hungover?" He tilts his head as he assesses my face.

"No I'm just tired," I explain as I fight back a yawn.

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" he responds and I shake my head. I follow his lead and crawl out of bed.

"I need to brush my teeth," I insist and he points to his toothbrush.

"You can have first dibs on it," he teases and I grunt in reluctance.

I take the toothbrush and toothpaste and go to the bathroom. I stare at it in slight disgust. I wouldn't exactly mind kissing him but using his toothbrush? That's a little too personal. I hold back my gag as I wet it in the hottest water the boy's bathroom can produce. I brush my teeth as fast as I can. I gag more than usual and rinse my mouth. I head back to his dorm room and push open the door, where I find him changing his shirt. I hesitate for a second before continuing into the room. As he pulls on his new top, he takes the toiletries from my hand and smirks at me.

Right after he leaves, I pull on my clothes from last night and fix my hair. By the time he gets back, I look gross but I'm ready. "It's chilly outside." He tosses a hoodie in my general direction. I pull it on and, even though it's a little big on me, I feel comfortable.

"Are you ready?" I offer him a tired nod in response.

As we're exiting the building and heading to the dining hall, I look at him. "Why wasn't I wearing pants last night?" I start the series of questions in my head.

"You insisted that the shirt was long enough and called it a dress." He laughs at the memory before adding, "and then you fell."

"That's embarrassing," I mumble and he chuckles again but a bit more secretive this time.

"It only gets worse," he warns me as we get our food. He gets a large pile of pancakes and I get waffles with fruit on the side. We take our seats and I know better than to start having a conversation with him before he's taken his first bites of food.

"So on a scale of one to ten, how bad was it last night?" I ask once he's eaten a good portion of his food. He grins at me.

"A thousand," he answers. "But it was so entertaining."

"Ugh." I groan as I eat a strawberry. Great, now he's seen me at a very low low.

He explains the majority of the night to me, telling me how at first he was worried about me and Teodoro. He mocks me. He laughs at me. He teases me. But soon enough, I'm laughing, too. Though the memories are a bit spotty, I still have some recollection of these things; they just aren't as dramatic as Dominic is making them out to be. Apparently I swore at the guys and then walked off with Teodoro, who I also called a "rejected Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

"And the best part of the night?" he prompts and the way he looks at me makes my stomach flip over twice.

"What?" I trail nervously. What did I do? I can think of a hundred things I'd do that'd embarrass me, especially in front of Dominic.

"You told me that you love me," he cheers and my eyes widen.

"I what?" Before I freak out, I make attempts at recovering the memory myself. What was the context of this? Did I say it in a love confession way or in a casual 'hey friend, I love you' way.

"You told me that you care about me and that you love me regardless of what people say. You apologized for not being nicer to me. You also mentioned how you actually like my hugs." I cringe hard but it only amazes him. "Oh yes, how could I forget?"

"What? What could I have possibly said that could make this any worse?" I bury my face in my hands.

"You told me that you're considering taking me up on my offer." What offer? I raise my head and look at him in slight confusion.

"Huh?" I say before the realization hits me. My mouth opens as I stare at him. "I did not..."

"Oh but you did, Nova, you really did." His grin is wide and I feel shame and embarrassment wash over me. How could I have been so stupid?

"What did I specifically say?" He explains it to me, basking in the satisfaction of having heard my most inner thoughts aloud.

"Why do I talk so much when I'm drunk? Why did you let me drink? Why didn't you stop me from talking? Why didn't you just shove a sock in my mouth?" I feel my entire face heat up like an oven. I'm never going to live this down.

"Or I could've shoved my tongue in your mouth seeing as that's what you not-so-secretly want," he teases and I put my head in my hands.

"I hate you."

"No you don't. I can say that confidently now," he assures me.

I look at him and groan loudly. I'm such an idiot.

+++

I get back to my dorm and put my completely dead phone on the charger before taking a shower. When I get back, I see an influx of messages. They're all dated from last night from one person: Elias. I stare in confusion as I click them. I have to navigate through the spelling errors.

Elias: Hey I'm sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have verbally attacked your best friend Domino like that.

Elias: Even if he did hurt my sister, he's your friend. Your BEST friend.

Elias: And I wouldn't want someone to say mean things about my friends.

Elias: But I think you're really pretty and funny and I want to hang out with you.

Elias: So I'm sorry. I hope you don't hate me.

Elias: I would like to meet him.

Elias: But also hang out with you sometime. We could get ice cream. It's cold outside but I want ice cream really bad. Like really bad.

Elias: I know the best ice cream place. It's called Splat. They have good chocolate ice cream and pistachio ice cream and vanilla ice cream and strawberry ice cream. Their rocky road is TERRIBLE. We should go but maybe not get rocky road.

Elias: Siri how far is Splat from my location?

Elias: Siri? Siri? Yoohoo...

Elias: Wait this isn't Siri. Sorry. One second.

Elias: It's only 7 miles from the school.

As opposed to those 2AM text messages, the last one was sent this morning at 9:30.

Elias: I'm so sorry about those texts last night. I was obviously very drunk. What I said was true, though. I just could've condensed it into one message. In short, I'm sorry for speaking badly about Dominic. I do think we should go for ice cream, though. Splat is pretty good and it's fairly local.

I find myself smiling at his spam of messages. Most people get annoyed by drunk texts but it's cute how he was thinking of me when his mind was all over the place. Dominic used to do it a lot in the summer, which was the only time he could drink because of baseball. My fingers hover over the keyboard and I contemplate what I should say.

Me: It's all good, Eli. I am also craving ice cream and wouldn't be opposed to taking a trip down to Splat with you.

I figure that's good enough. I get dressed in fresh clothes that I didn't spill drinks on and sit at my computer desk. I have a five page paper due on Monday and I have yet to start it. I write fast so I should be able to get it done quickly but I've been dreading it since it was assigned. I get started, grateful that I have a pre-made outline. As I'm writing, my phone vibrates numerous times but I convince myself to finish the second page before I respond.

Elias: I don't know if this is too soon but are you free tonight?

Me: Yeah, what time?

Dominic clearly doesn't mind blowing up my phone. 7 of my notifications are from him. I open them.

Dominic: Are you ignoring me?

Dominic: Novaaaaaa

Dominic: November!

Dominic: November Helena Camacho

Dominic: Are you mad at me? I didn't mean to upset you by teasing you. :(

Dominic: Nova I'm sorry. You can kiss me all you want.

Dominic: I'm sorry. That was a horrible joke (unless you want to?) I'm sorry, it's a habit.

Me: I wasn't ignoring you, idiot. I was writing a paper.

I look at Kat's text, which was asking me to hang out tonight. I respond to her, telling her I have a date. She'll definitely want to talk about it later.

Elias: Is 8 o'clock okay?

Me: Yeah that works

I look at the clock and find that it's 2:30. I can definitely finish this paper, grab dinner, and get ready. I put my phone back down and get to work on the assignment.

+++

By the time I reach five pages, my phone buzzed a whopping 11 times. It's already 5:30PM and I'm ready to pass out. I solidify plans with Elias and agree to Dominic's suggested dinner plans with West and Jack. They're already there when I arrive. It takes me a little longer to get there because I figured I'd get dressed in my date clothes in case eating takes longer than expected.

"Did you change just to come eat?" Dominic asks curiously and I shake my head. He quirks an eyebrow, waiting for a response and I look the other way.

"Let's eat! I skipped lunch to finish a paper so I'm starved." I lead the way inside and hold the door for West and Jack. Dominic puts his arm higher on the door and I slip inside. I manage to evade him as I get my food and find a table, where I sit beside West. This leaves Dominic in the spot diagonally from me.

"So Jack what'd you do last night?" West prompts a conversation. "Dom told me you didn't come back to the room."

"I was just hanging out with Gloria," Jack answers with a shrug. Gloria is his on-again-off-again girlfriend. None of us really like her but I mind my business. I don't know much about relationships  but I know that one is an unhealthy one. She cheats on him and he cheats on her but they always end up getting back together. It's an endless cycle that started in high school. I'm pretty sure that Gloria is the only popular girl Dominic hasn't been with.

"What about you West?" Dominic quickly changes the subject.

"I went back to my dorm and slept," he confesses. "And you two?"

"We also slept," Dominic answers and Jack nods with a smirk, as does West.

I glare at them and instead of taking my annoyance seriously, they just break into laughter. Dominic nudges me with his foot so I narrow my eyes at him, too. Just like his friends, he laughs along. For some reason, West and Jack are so convinced that Dominic and I are more than friends

"Guys," Dominic says through a laugh, though he's clearly entertained.

"I'm just saying that you've never had a female friend that you were just friends with," Jack blurts and I exhale loudly. I thought this joke died when we graduated.

This is one of the reasons why I typically don't hang out with Dominic's friends. In high school, I had my own nerdy friends (as he called them) and he was friends with the asshole jocks. At one point, he insisted I sit with them and I did. As soon as I sat down, they started asking me if Dominic was any good in bed. Back then, West and Jack would laugh but not say anything. Now it seems as though they're making up for everyone else's absence. Dominic told his friends to stop and to chill out but I just got up and left. And if it weren't for the fact that most of my nerdy friends went out of state for school, I'd probably opt to sit with them whenever West and Jack started acting like this.

"And I'm leaving. You can handle your friends." I don't even bother giving them a chance to apologize.

"Ouch, " West hisses as I grab my bag and get up.

"Nova, wait." Dominic moves to get up but I roll my eyes.

"Don't bother. I've got to get ready for a date anyway." I leave it at that and head start in the direction of the exit.

"We still love you, Nova!" Jack yells out. I just throw away my trash and leave.

I make it back to my room and text Eli. He's going to pick me up from my dorm and I confirm the 8 o'clock pick up time. Though irritated with West and Jack and stupid Dominic, I focus on getting ready. I decide to leave my hair in its natural curly, afro state and focus on my makeup. I let my music play through my speakers and I roll my eyes each time my notifications interrupt. I'm sure it's the guys blowing up my phone about how sorry they are.

I'm just irritated because for some reason, all of Dominic's male friends question how I manage to maintain our friendship. They assume all I have to offer him is sex when in reality, that's not even in the equation. And for some reason, either he's not telling them otherwise or it's not getting through to them when he does. It was a lot worse in high school but that's probably because a group of boys will sit and hype each other up but now it's just West, Jack, and Dominic. 

Fortunately for me, all the other boys took scholarships from other schools, but don't tell Dominic I said that. It also doesn't help that I sit and question the validity of our friendship. I'm still not sure whether or not Dominic and I got this close is because he genuinely enjoys my company or because his friends aren't here is completely unknown to me. Either way, his stupid sports friends never fail to piss me off and I'm ready to escape from them and have a good time with Eli.