I didn't hear him come upstairs.
"You scare easily," he says. "I was just coming to check on you. You've been gone a while."
"Yeah, I, uh… I mean, I took a long shower, and I didn't want to get out because, you know, it felt good, and it's cold… and why is it cold?"
I'm a terrible liar. I know.
He's looking at me like he knows it, too.
"I forgot to turn the heat up yesterday before we left," he says. "Temperature dropped overnight. I lit a fire in the fireplace in the den, so it's warm down there."
"Oh, great," I say, holding out the bundle in my arms. "I was just going to put these somewhere… wherever they go."
He takes them from me, and motions with his head for me to head out. I step past him, walking back downstairs with him on my heels. He veers right to a room I've never been in—the laundry room. He drops the stuff off and follows me to the den.
It is warm in here, and I relish the sensation as I head straight for the source, feeling the flames from a few feet away, wiping the chill away, but it doesn't nothing to rid my skin of the goose bumps.
"How about a movie?" he suggests.
"Sure," I say. "You pick this time."
"You ever see Twelve Angry Men?" His favorite movie, I remember. I shake my head, having never even heard of it, and a look of disturbance crosses his face. "Huh. We're going to have to rectify that."
He puts the movie in as I sit on the couch. An old black-and-white flick, it turns out. Naz settles in beside me, putting his arm over my shoulder and pulling me to him.
Sighing, I tuck in at his side.
He's quiet, engrossed in the movie, his hand absently stroking my arm, tickling my skin and distracting me from the movie. After awhile he leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "You smell like me."
"I used your shampoo," I say. "And your soap. Hope you don't mind. I probably should've asked first."
"I told you to make yourself at home," he says. "I don't want you to feel like you have to tiptoe around, afraid of doing something wrong or hearing something you shouldn't, like phone conversations."
My blood runs cold at those words. I can feel his eyes on me and not the screen. "I, uh…" I don't know what to say.
"It's okay," he says, those words silencing me. He kisses the top of my head again, subject closed as he goes back to watching the movie. A few minutes pass before Naz lets out a light laugh. "So, tell me something... did you at least google me?"
I tense. "What?"
"Come on," he says, shifting around in his seat as I sit up. "Don't tell me you didn't do your research."
I scoff. Of course I googled him. I did it after waking up in his bed that first morning, right after learning his name. I'm not an idiot. What woman wouldn't? "So, yeah, okay… I did. But can you blame me?"
"Of course not," he says. "Did you find anything?"
"No," I grumble. "Nothing."
"Disappointing," he says playfully. "But if it's any consolation, I had about as much luck with you."
"You googled me?"
"Of course," he says. "You can never be too careful. Had to make sure you were who you said you were."
Change doesn't happen overnight. There's no button that's pushed to magically alter everything.
Change happens little by little.
Day by day.
Hour by hour.
It's the ticking of a secondhand, moving painstakingly, as it makes its way around the clock. You don't realize it until it's already over, the minute gone forever, as you're thrust right into the next one, the time still ticking away, whether you want it to or not.
Before long you have a hard time remembering the world as it once was, the person you were then, too focused on the world around you instead.
A world full of promise.
A world full of excitement.
A world full of Naz.
I can't fathom a world any other way.
I'm not sure when it happened, which minute it was that drove me to the brink, pushing me over the edge and making me feel like I can fly without wings. Time consuming turned all-consuming as the man became the beat of my heart and the blood in my veins, stealing the little piece of my soul I always kept tucked away. He crashed through my defenses and knocked down my walls, and all it took was ticking seconds, one after another, slowly altering it all.
"You've changed."
I glance across the room at Melody when she says that, the television remote in my hand. I've been channel surfing for the past ten minutes, flipping so fast it's starting to look like a strobe light flashing. She's huddled on her bed, philosophy book open on her lap. "What?"
"You've changed," she repeats.
I just stare at her.
"We have a fucking test in like an hour on Confucius, and I don't think you've cracked open your book all morning. Usually you're the one cramming until the last second, yet you look like you don't give two shits about anything. You're all chillaxing and relax-y. Confucius says your ass has changed."
I let out a laugh. "It's pointless. I could get every answer right on the test and the bastard would just deduct points because I didn't dot an 'i' or something."
"So, what, you're giving up?"
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
Her brow furrows. "Are you on drugs?"
"No," I laugh. "It's Confucius. It means it doesn't matter if I open my book or not, Melody. I'll never know everything, I'll never get it all right anyway, and whatever… I'm cool with that."
She looks stunned. "You've changed more than Biggie Smalls."
My brow furrows. "He changed?"
"He went from ashy to nasty to classy, didn't he?"
I laugh as she recites one of his songs and lean back against the wall, spreading my legs out on my bed. "Yeah, well, you've changed, too. I don't think I've ever seen you study so much for something before. What gives?"
"I just want to try to do good," she says, slamming her book closed. "Paul got a B in Santino's class last year, so I really want to get one, too, so he doesn't think I'm an idiot or something."
"You shouldn't change who you are for a guy."
"Ha, look who's talking! You went from rocking Payless boots to nine hundred dollar Jimmy Choos."
"Is that from a rapper?"
"No, that was all me. Pretty good, huh?"
Okay, maybe she hasn't changed that much.