She turns over in her sleep and the pale green sheet falls down below her hip. The curve of her long spine is highlighted by the shaft of moonlight that creeps through the open window of my rat hole apartment. I watch her and my fingers trail along her cool skin, eventually curving around her hipbone gently. This is an almost nightly routine for me now.

“Jo.” I rub at her side, urging her to wake. She refuses to even stir. In all the time we dated senior year, I never saw her sleep so soundly. Not since that first night I watched her. Now she sleeps like she has nothing but good dreams. “Joey.”

I sigh and move closer, resting my chin in the crook of her neck. My breath flutters the small hairs around her ear and I repeat my request, my prayer. “Josephine.”

Joey’s shoulders shrug in response and she rolls over to face me, a lovely sleepy smile gracing her lips. She yawns and covers her mouth with her palm, hiding her early morning breath from me. “It’s early, Pacey.”

I glance at my small alarm clock. 4:32 am flashes at me in red. “That it is.”

She rolls her eyes. “What do you want?”

“You,” I reply simply.

“Me?” She smiles. Joey raises herself up on her elbows and I take the time to admire her breasts and the way the combination of the light from my alarm clock and the moonlight casts shadows and highlights against her skin painting it a silver lined in fire. “It’s not fair, you know.”

“What?” I trace my fingers over her left breast feeling her heart beat faintly beneath the pad of my thumb.

“How you always say the right thing,” she murmurs. Her eyes close at my touch. This is a routine now. A nice routine. We never had this the first time round. “So my professor says that Rose Lazar was famous for being miserable.”

“This is the one that wants to screw you?”

“He does not.” Her lids shut tightly when I pinch her nipple between my thumb and index finger lightly. “He-mmm. Honey, stop.” She slaps at my hand halfheartedly and peers out at me from beneath her lashes. I grin and continue my ministrations for a moment before relenting and removing my hand, placing it on the small of her back, pulling her into a closer embrace. “Prof. Wilder doesn’t want me to...he just doesn’t. Ew.”

“He does,” I insist, “and yes, ew. I’m glad we agree about-”

“Can I finish my story?” She cuts in, her nose wrinkled in mild exasperation. I nod and rub small circles on her spine. “He thinks Rose’s poetry is famous for being so sad. That she milked her angst for literary acceptance.”

“And you think?”

“I think he’s wrong.” She rests her head on my bare chest, running her fingers along my abdomen, through the dark trail of hair below my belly button. My stomach tightens reflexively and she lets out a contented sigh, repeating her movements, a bit harder than before. “I think...I think she wrote sad poetry because she was sad. And there were enough other sad people around to relate to what she wrote.”

“Lots of people are sad,” I agree. I moan as her hands slip beneath the waistband of my gray flannel pajama pants. Her fingers close around my shaft and stroke me in a slow practiced rhythm. I growl and she speeds up. My fingers dig into her back and I frown already thinking about the marks my short nails will leave on her.

“Are you sad?” Joey places butterfly kisses on my neck and her fingers rub the head of my cock. Jesus. Her other hand rests innocently on my thigh, only occasionally running across my leg. I brush her hand away, entwining my fingers through hers. “Pacey?”

I kiss her lips, my hands framing her face. “No.”

“You sure?” She searches my eyes and my smile widens. I kiss her again, licking at her lower lip until she opens her mouth to me with a small whimper. Our tongues tangle and we crush against each other. She tries to pull away from me once, but I tighten my hold around her waist and move over her, my body moving easily between her legs. I prop myself above her, careful not rest all my weight on her slender frame. She pushes at my chest and frees herself momentarily, laughing. “Pacey, answer me.”

“I am not sad, Joey Potter. Are you satisfied?” I nip at her clavicle greedily.

“Certainly not,” she giggles. Her hips buck up towards mine. I enter her without prelude and we rock against each other, slow at first, gaining intensity as the sun begins its morning rise. “Pace. God. Yes, please..”

Her chest heaves and bumps against me. I imagine our hearts beat in time in these moments when we come together. Sometimes everything works with us together.

It’s something we haven’t said yet. Together. It’s the only thing we haven’t said yet. It’s why she asks me stupid questions under the veil of academic scholarship.

“Joey,” I whisper and the sun burns behind her head. I thrust down into her, burying myself deeper. My head falls onto her chest, relearning her scent, how fast she breathes when we’re done. Relearning everything fresh. “I’m perfectly happy. Your Professor Wilder stories are beginning to grate though. He wants to nail you.”

“He does not.” She giggles and rubs my head, ruffling my hair into my face. I lick at the space between her breasts tasting the mixture of her skin and sweat that remains from our middle of the night dance. “He’s my teacher.”

“Of sexual exploits. Perverted sexual exploits,” I insist, kissing her stomach. Loving the laughter and squirming it elicits.

“No,” she pulls me up to her and scrapes her fingers along my tailbone with a lascivious grin, “you’re my teacher of that.”

I chuckle. “Always?”

“Well, besides the football team...” she says, her eyes playful.

“Yeah, I meant besides them.” I shake my head, knowing she’s almost ready to go back to sleep. She does this thing, this half yawn, like she’s afraid to have an all out yawn in my presence. And then she does. Just like a cat before a really great nap begins. All out and unashamed. And...there it is. Her whole mouth opens and I get a rare glimpse of her tonsils. Not so rare anymore actually.

She arches her back and rolls her neck and then she settles against me. Cuddling into my arms and shifting to get comfortable, I’m forced to move myself, to avoid the array of pointy bones that all people you sleep with have. The elbows and the knees, cold toes and unrelenting hipbones.

We find our place against each other finally, her head just beneath my chin, cradled between my chest and the right side of my neck. And she’s coming from the left when she does this. It’s the way I like it though, her soft breasts crushed against me, one of her legs thrown over one of mine. Joey’s hands always manage to find resting places on my shoulder and one hand. It’s something pretty special to wake up with a hand already in yours. Like a dream.

Neither one of us will fall asleep for another hour. It’s a childish game, but we try to stay up longer than the other. It’s another version of the “You hang up. No, you hang up!” game couples play. It’s the desire to see the other one reach that moment where they’re no longer all there. The point where she leaves me. The exact minute when her eyelashes start to flutter and her lips curve in the smallest of smiles. I hope she finds me again in those dreams, the way I find her in mine.

Her body relaxes and seems to weigh more. I guess I’ve won tonight. I look down at her and watch closely. Joey’s breathing is too fast. “Jo?”

She blinks and opens her eyes, looking up at me with a frown. “Damn it. Just fall asleep, Witter. I’m tired.”

I laugh. “You were faking!”

“Duh,” she smiles that lopsided smile.

“I love you,” I say, my eyes widening just as hers do. She gets up faster than I’ve ever seen before. Gets up and sits on the edge of my bed, her spine rigid, her hands clasped together. “Joey. I...”

She turns to me slowly, her large eyes glistening with unshed tears. “God, I love you, Pacey.”

I smile and let out the breath I was holding in a startling rush of air. I reach over and fold her into my embrace, wondering which one of us is trembling. “I missed you so much, Joey. At the restaurant, over the damn summer, even with you coming over at night for the last three months. I’ve missed you being mine.”

“Right back at ya.” She grins as tears slide down her cheeks. “I didn’t wanna jinx any of this so I figured I’d just keep coming,” I chuckle at her choice of words and she mock glares at me, “coming over here. I mean maybe it would be enough. Maybe if you wanted me at night eventually...”

I nod and kiss her cheek. “I was hoping the same.” I smile and arch an eyebrow. “Just with a little more cool and subtlety than you.”

“Hey!” She bats me over the head with her palm. “I was cool.”

“Are you sad, Pacey?” I say in a high pitched falsetto. I lean over her on the bed, nuzzling my nose into the top of her head. “Please, Jo. You have the subtlety of a five year old.”

She blushes. “It’s been three months since we started up again. You haven’t once said anything to let me know if you wanted us to be more than just...the nights I just went to the dorm, you didn’t say anything. Just acted like good old Pacey, ex-boyfriend now turned prep cook and friend. It killed me the days I stayed away. And nothing from you!”

“Every night you stay,” I begin, my throat catching on the words, on the look in her eyes, “is...it’s the way I know that it’s okay to keep breathing for another morning. And every night you didn’t...”

My eyes slide shut and I try to stop the tears I’m hiding. My forehead wrinkles in concentration as I try to finish saying what I wanted to say before. “Every night you didn’t-” Her lips press against mine and stop my words. She already knows.

We hold each other silently and slip back into our usual bedtime positions. Her breathing lengthens and still her heart beats too fast to believe she’s actually drifted off.

I feel the warmth of the sun coming up and her fingers dancing absent minded patterns on my shoulder. She takes a breath. “Pacey?”

“Yeah?”

“Please go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

Her smile tickles at my chest. “Love you.”

Everything gets a little bit brighter and warmer as I see Joey in the shadows of my dreams as I drift, knowing she’ll be staying from now on.