Free Stereo by Trevion Burns

the sight.  She was right, he hadn’t taken the time to look at her place because, if he had, he would have noticed how charming it was.  It was a small studio, but the vaulted ceilings made it feel roomy and airy.  The cherry wood flooring gave the room an elegant feel.  Against the farthest back wall of the space was a bookshelf that reached from floor to ceiling and was jammed packed with what looked like every book that ever existed, as well as a few candles and personal knick-knacks. At the end of the bookcase was a ladder that reached all the way to the top of the impossibly high shelves.  Her furniture was modern and he could tell she had a thing for red, black and white.  All three of those colors were splattered throughout her kitchen and living area.
    A full sized bed situated at the far end of the room was all white and looked plush and inviting.  Adam thought about how many men had known that bed.  Was it soft?  Warm?  Did it smell like her?  He wondered how many different positions he could get her into in that small bed, how many different ways he could make her scream.
    He willed himself to focus. “Look, I didn’t come here to fight.”  The space was small, and the neighborhood was sketchy, but her place was well kept, comfortable.  And it did smell like her.
    “Could have fooled me,” she whispered.
    His gaze fell to her lips, which were pressed together as she concentrated on her ironing, but still rocketed him right back to the day before at the shoot. He could still feel her weight on top of him.  He could still taste her.  His stomach muscles tightened at the thought.
    “Why are you here, Adam?”  She looked up from the ironing board.
    “I got the final cut of the music video this morning.  It's pretty sick.  I can email it to you if you want.”
    Shaun nodded. “Okay.  Yeah, I’d love to see it.”
    Adam swallowed hard.  “What’s your email?”
    “It’s [email protected].”
    Adam’s eyes grew wide. “UCLA?”
    Shaun’s heart began to race. “Yeah.”
    “Wow. What are you studying?”
    She was able to think on her feet. “Fashion.”
    “Ah…”  Adam nodded. “I should have guessed, huh?” he asked as his eyes searched her body.  “I have to be honest though… you somehow… you just don’t strike me as the fashion major type.”
    “Well, I’m a model.  Models work in fashion.”  Even though she was lying, Shaun was offended that he didn’t see her as fashion major material.  It seemed like a nice way of saying she had no taste.
    “I know that you’re a model you just…”  He shrugged.  “You’re like this crazy smart chick, too. I figured you’d major in something that involved a lot of… writing…”
    Shaun’s heart jumped.
    Adam continued. “Or numbers… or analytical thinking.  God knows you analyze the hell out of everything else.”  He shrugged his shoulders and looked off, willing himself to stop talking.
    Shaun was pretending to be very intrigued by the shirt she was ironing and trying desperately to fight the urge to tell him that not only was she a writer, but she loved writing, and had managed to pull a 3.9 GPA in Journalism.  She wanted to tell him all of those things, and the reality was that she couldn't.  Still, she was drinking in his every word.  He’d just said she was smart which, while it was a word she regarded as the highest compliment, could mean one of two things.  Either he was really good at reading people or she was just a really bad liar.  She looked up at him, thinking it was probably some strange combination of the two.   “So that’s why you drove all the way down here?  To get my email address and criticize my major?”   The truth was that she had a new found respect for him for criticizing her “fashion major.”
    Adam watched her quietly for a moment, amused at the concentration on her face as she ironed her shirt.  “You know my road crew has three black members in it.”
    Shaun