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Lexi likes talking to Fezco on the phone at night, likes tucking up in her bed under a far too big pile of covers, his voice soft in her ear. When she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend that she’s curled up next to him on his couch, that he’s here in her room instead.
He had called her first, within a couple of weeks of her showing up at the store in her little plaid pants, lips painted red. They’d been texting at first, but when Lexi had started rambling about nature vs. nurture and Shakespeare’s The Tempest one night, sending off little rapid-fire texts with each new thought, her phone had started ringing, “Fezco” popping up on the screen. She hit the green answer button before she could think about it too much.
“Hello?”
“Wanted to hear you talkin’ ‘bout this shit, sounding all smart,” Fez had said, his voice all gravelly and soothing.
“Really?” She’d asked before she could stop herself.
“You know Ion lie to you. Go on, you were sayin’ somethin’ about some dude with a funny ass name.”
“Prospero,” Lexi laughed, though it had come out more breath-than-laugh, and pushed on.
Since that night, talking to Fezco had become part of Lexi’s daily routine. If she wasn’t seeing him at the store or at his place after school or between play rehearsals, she knew she would hear from him in the evening no matter which one of them called first. She relished in the idea of him wanting to hear her thoughts, listen to her chatter about whatever she was thinking about that day, even when she wasn’t physically around. Nobody had ever really carved out space like that for her before.
When they speak, Lexi’s words come out almost as whispers. It’s not like she’s trying to keep Fezco a secret, not trying to hide their friendship, but she likes having something that feels entirely hers. She doesn’t need comments from her mom, definitely doesn’t need Cassie’s input right now with her and whatever the fuck it is she’s doing with Nate, so she talks softly and disappears to her room when her mom comes into the kitchen, says a hushed goodnight to Fez when Cassie comes into their room all messy and smeary and he promises to talk to her tomorrow.
The first night that Cassie isn’t home after moving in with Nate--which she still can’t even believe is real, no matter how unhinged her sister has been acting lately—Lexi tries to convince herself it’s fine. It’s not unusual that she ends up with the room to herself, with Cassie off doing whatever it is she does with her friends or the guy she’s seeing at the time, so really, this shouldn’t feel so different.
It does, though.
At least on those nights, there would be evidence of Cassie’s life scattered around the room, her makeup left all over her vanity, rejected outfit options abandoned on the floor, a curling iron left turned on on the bathroom counter. Now, there are only the things Cassie left behind in her rush to get out of the Howard household, her rush to get away from Lexi. Her half of the room is quieter, emptier than normal in an all-consuming way.
The second night is somehow worse. Lexi is sleep-deprived from the night before, had pretty much everything possible go wrong at her play rehearsal earlier and nearly had to take a break to go cry in the bathroom, and she’d hardly even recognized Cassie walking hand-in-hand with Nate down the school hallway. It made her want to throw up.
“It’s just really fucked up,” she had told Fezco on the phone earlier that evening, staring up at her ceiling trying her hardest to not start crying. If she started, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to stop.
“It’s like, I can’t even have a civil conversation with her. Every single thing I say she takes as a personal attack or thinks I’m trying to, like, attack Nate. She hasn’t responded to any of my messages and I know we’re fighting for whatever reason, but I just want to make sure she’s okay.” Her voice is still soft, despite the fact that her mom is passed out on the living room sofa and there’s nobody else in the house to hear her. She likes it this way, when their conversations felt private.
“She bein’ real unfair,” Fez agrees through the earbuds in her ear. “And you know how I feel ‘bout playboy. You need me to beat his ass again, you just say the word.” Lexi laughs at that, even though it comes out all watery because she really might be about to cry, and is thankful that she has him on her side.
“Thank you,” she hums, rolling onto her side and burrowing further under her blankets, trying and failing to stifle a yawn.
“Yo, you should get some sleep.”
“Mkay,” she mumbles because she’s too exhausted to fight even that, to say that she would rather talk to him all night than deal with her full head and empty bedroom.
“But call me if you need anything, for real. Don’t matter what time it is.”
It’s that that prompts her to pull out her phone again at 2:30 in the morning, after four hours of fruitlessly staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning, not coming anywhere close to sleeping. you up? she texts Fez, immediately regretting her wording but not having a chance to care when a typing bubble pops up on his end.
u booty callin me lex?
She doesn’t even have a chance to type a sarcastic haha back before her phone is buzzing and she’s hitting accept for the second time that night.
“What’s goin’ on?” Fezco’s voice is low in her ear, soft and soothing. “Still not sleepin’?”
“Can you come over?” Lexi asks without meaning to. She doesn’t know where the words came from, definitely had not texted him with the intention of inviting him over or talking to him for like, more than ten minutes. She doesn’t want to be a bother, doesn’t want to have him go out of his way to see her. She’s about to start backtracking, tell him she’s sorry, she’s just tired and doesn’t know why she said that, but he beats her to a response.
“I gotchu. Be there in fifteen,” he says, no questions asked. Oh.
“Thank you. Text me when you’re here and I’ll come let you in. Don’t want to wake up my mom.”
“Can’t believe you breakin’ the rules for me, Lex.” She can imagine the teasing smile he has, hears it in his voice as he rummages around in the background.
“This is not a booty call,” she laughs but is also a tiny bit serious. She knows that he isn’t like that, knows that that is not at all why he is leaving his house at quarter to three in the morning to come see her, but still needs to say it for herself anyway. A little self-indulgent, maybe, but sue her, it’s been a rough few weeks. Few years.
“Nah, I know. Wouldn’t take advantage of you when you all sad and shit like that.” His voice is serious.
“I know. I’ll see you soon.”
Lexi is not generally an impulsive person, which makes a lot of sense when Fezco’s Cadillac parks on her street and she’s got to figure out how to sneak him into her house. Luckily, Suze is still out cold and has reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos playing loudly from the television, which works out well for masking the sound of the front door opening. Lexi grins at the sight of Fez’s M&M printed pajama pants, but says nothing until they have crept up the stairs as quietly as possible and shut the door to her room.
“You doin’ okay?” Fez asks quietly. Right now, she is trying very hard not to think about the fact that they are about to be laying in her twin sized bed. She is trying very hard not to think about the fact that this boy who she definitely likes, who she is loosely confident also likes her, is in her bedroom at three in the morning just because she asked him to be.
“Better now,” she says. “Thanks for coming.” She doesn’t look at him as she putters around the room, rearranging the mussed up sheets on the bed from hours of tossing and turning, clicking off the lamp on her bedside table.
“No need to thank me,” his silhouette shrugs. “It okay if I … ?” Fez trails off, gesturing towards the bed.
“Yeah. Yeah, go for it,” Lexi nods, pulls back the sheets on her side, wonders what the actual fuck is happening. Fezco is in her room, in her bed.
He reaches for her when she slips beneath the covers and lays down beside him, maybe because there are few other options with the two of them in a bed so small, maybe because he wants to.
They’ve held hands a few times, mostly when they’re watching movies on his couch or when he’s dropping her off at home after spending the afternoon studying perched on top of one of the coolers at the store. It’s so small, but makes her feel giddy inside every time. It hasn’t really gone farther than that. She thinks Fezco is waiting for her, wants things to be on her terms. She has no idea what the fuck she’s doing and is standing in her own way. Now, his arm drapes across her, hand warm on her back as they lay on their sides facing each other. Tomorrow, when she’s not so sleepy, she knows she’s going to overanalyze the shit out of this whole night.
“You wanna talk ‘bout it?” Fez asks, but knows the answer in the way her eyes have already shut, as she curls closer into him, forgetting to be self-conscious. When she shakes her head, her hair tickles his arm.
“Tomorrow,” she says, then reaches for him, too, tucks her arms around his ribcage, relishes in having someone warm and steady in her space.
When her alarm goes off to get up for school at 6:30, she wakes up to a boy in her bed. Their M&M and cat print pajama legs are all tangled together under her pink sheets and she is snuggled into him far more than she ever would be brave enough to be under regular, waking circumstances.
“Lexi Howard,” Fezco says, all soft and grumbly just-woken-up voice as she untangles herself from him, having to get up to put herself together for the day. Despite it being only three hours, the sleep she got has left her feeling much better than the day before, much more ready to take on whatever this Thursday morning has for her.
“Morning,” she whispers, feeling shy for a million reasons but also startlingly at ease. She can hear her mom puttering around in the kitchen, getting ready to head to her morning yoga class that she only ever complains about. “Please stay here until I can figure out how to get you out of my house.” Fezco grins as she disappears into the bathroom.
When she emerges a little while later, dressed and made up, the sight of Fezco in her bed, looking so at home, so much like he belongs there, is jarring. While she was getting ready, Suze had thankfully shouted something up the stairs about leaving for yoga early—something about somebody’s daughter having been arrested for a DUI and needed to get the gossip before she would be able to fully relax—telling her she’ll see her that evening. “There’s an extra toothbrush in the bathroom cupboard if you want,” Lexi offers. “I don’t really know what we have for breakfast food, but I could probably make you, like, some toast or something.”
“Whatever you’re havin’s good with me.”
“Okay, meet me downstairs when you’re ready.”
Lexi is trying so hard not to think about the domesticity of the situation when Fezco comes downstairs, sits at her kitchen table, eats breakfast with her in his pajama pants. He watches as she goes about the house, packing her bag, telling him about the recent changes to her play script, her worries about how it’s all going to go down.
“Shit,” Lexi says, checking the time on her phone, realizing she’s running a little bit late. “I’ve got to go if I’m going to make it on time.”
“You wanna ride? I got the car out front,” Fez offers. The idea of pulling up to East Highland in the passenger seat of his Cadillac, him in his M&M pants, makes Lexi grin. He’s got the same smile on his face.
“I should bike,” she laughs, shaking her head. “The fresh air will probably be good for me, anyway. But seriously, thank you. For tonight and also for, like, always,” Lexi says as she follows him out the front door, backpack slung over one of her shoulders, grabs her bike from the front yard and wheels it along, walking with him over to his car.
“Nah, like I said yesterday, you ain’t got nothin’ to thank me for.” He’s looking at her with an open, genuine expression, eyes bright blue in the morning sun.
“Well, thanks anyway,” she says, presses up on her toes, presses a kiss to the side of his scratchy jaw where she can reach before she loses the nerve to do so, when she’s no longer caught up in the weirdness of this morning, of the last 12 hours.
“I’mma call you later,” Fez says, and she thinks he might be blushing a little as she gets onto her bike.
“I know,” she smiles softly. “I’m looking forward to it.”
When she turns to look over her shoulder, swerving a little on her bike because looking behind her while biking isn’t her best move, Fezco is leaning against the car, watching her go with a gentle, hopeful smile on his face.