Page 93 of Our Secret Moments

It’s true. For reasons none of us can understand, Elle has never dated anyone. She’s been on dates here and there, but nothing ever serious. She loves to joke about how she’s still a virgin at almost age twenty, but I can tell it gets to her sometimes. It shouldn’t matter though. The right person for her will come alone when they’re ready.

Nora rolls her eyes before looking at me. “Don’t look at me, either. Children are heathens. As much as seeing men with children is hot as fuck, I don’t want oneinsideme and Idefinitelydon’t want one screaming and crying all day.”

Elle hums in agreement. “Mason is an absolute menace. Everyone says they want a brother until they actually have one, and trust me you don’t want one of him.”

Nora blows a raspberry. “You guys are no fun. Connor’s too shy to get a girlfriend, Wes would make some poor girl happy by impregnating her and marrying her immediately because he’d feel bad and Archer… I don’t have a good read on him yet. He either fucks girls religiously and has a set of strict rules, or he’s a virgin.”

I can’t help the laugh that escapes my throat at her reading of the boys. “He looks like a Viking, there’s no way he’s not slept with someone.”

“Yeah, there’s no way,” Elle mumbles in the agreement.

“I guess I’ll have to take one for the team,” Nora concedes, shoving some fruit into her mouth. “Anyway,” she says, turning back to me. “Don’t be scared of getting older, Cat, be scared of death.”

“That is precisely what I am afraid of, Nor, thank you.”

“Oh,” she whispers.

We just stare at each other, neither of us saying anything. Not because of the morbid conversation, but because when we both start to laugh at how stupid that interaction was, I realise that she is probably the only person besides Elle that I can laugh like that with.

I want to tell her about Connor. I don’t want to lie to her.

I’m going to tell her.

Yep. That’s officially my birthday wish. I’m going to tell my best friend that I’m dating her brother.

I’m going to tell her.

Here goes nothing.

“Nor–”

A loud knock at the door pierces through her laughter and we both freeze, our eyes widening. No one ever comes to visit us unless we accidentally leave something behind in class. We never get our deliveries sent to our door because it’s a service some people only use when they want to pay for it instead of going to the dorm post room.

Plus, it’s more embarrassing for our student delivery guy. Can you imagine being someone’s lab partner and having to turn up to their door the next day because they ordered a vibrator that they can see the packaging of when they pick up the box?

We all get up, using the distraction to place the dirty dishes in the sink whilst I go to answer the door. As expected, Chris stands at the door holding…. A massive bouquet of purple roses in a marble vase. What the hell…

“Catherine Fables?” he asks, his face completely blank as if he doesn’t have the world’s most gorgeous set of roses under his nose.

“That’s me,” I whisper. He shoves the roses into my hand and I almost stumbled backwards. “Who are these from?”

“I am not at liberty to say, but there’s a note somewhere,” he mumbles, peeking into the bush and pointing at a white folded card in the middle of them. “Merry Christmas, or happy Valentine's Day, or something.”

I laugh. “It’s January 7th.”

He doesn’t say anything else, probably realising it’s above his pay grade to engage in small talk with the students. He turns and walks away as I’m left to look at this gorgeous sight before me. No one has ever sent my flowers before – except from the one time Elle and Nora picked me up some from the grocery store when I had Mono.

I gently move the roses aside so I can pick out the note that rests in the middle of them. It is written in his handwriting, a tiny heart dotted on the ‘I’ in my name.

To my Catherine.

Twenty roses for your twentieth.

I am so proud of you everyday. You’re my favourite person ever.

Love from, Connie.

I hear Nora and Elle’s voices coming from around the corner. Before I can comprehend the sentiment in the note, I shove it into my pyjama pocket.