Free Star Crossed by Alisha Watts

on the fifth ring. He chuckled as he pictured her looking frantically around for her phone during the time he had been anticipating and dreading hearing her voice.
    “Hey! You haven’t called in a while.” She said sounding genuinely excited.
    “Hey yourself, and yeah I was thinking about that, it’s why I called actually”
    “Well what a shock you actually had thoughts other than research.”
    “Har de har har. Yes, I do, thank you. I was wondering if you’d like to get together sometime this week?”
    “Oh, during the week is not so good for me actually,” Skylar said with obvious disappointment. Chris started to feel more nervous because the other part of the conversation he had planned involved making plans to meet up, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen.
    “Well, that’s a shame,” He said quickly, “I guess it’ll just have to wait until we’re less busy then. I’ll talk to you soon I suppose.”
    “I can talk now if you’d like. I’m not really doing anything at the moment.” She said nonchalantly.
    “I have to get back to my studies actually and we can hang out later when you don’t have as much going on.” Chris hurriedly replied. Maybe calling her wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
    “Oh, okay then, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
    “All right, bye.”
    Chris hung up the phone and sat there wanting to die a little. How juvenile was that? What made him think that he would have any time to spend with someone else in the first place? Lord, he had worked so hard to get here and he didn’t want to lead Skylar on when he couldn’t commit to plans he might make. He couldn’t even make it to Tuesday night wings and he was sure Steve would be at his door again before he even realized he had missed the next wing-outing. If he hadn’t missed one or two of them already.
    Also, he was babbling in his own head.
“Oh this is just great. Badly timed and great.” He said to the empty room.       
    Chris sat up and decided to dive back into his thesis with Skylar still on his brain. The hardest part of writing anything for him was tying everything together. Much like his life, Chris thought much to his chagrin. What would he do when he was done with classes and studying. He had been so busy writing papers, reading, and apparently fawning to decide the exact direction he wanted to go in life and what all this work had been for anyway.
    Then, like a blow to the chest, it hit him. How to fix his problems with Skylar, with his thesis, and with his undetermined direction. Well, his thesis first. He couldn’t believe the now seemingly unnecessary emotional distress he had put himself under and was determined to face and solve all of his problems. With that thought, Chris began typing like a madman, while an ever-widening smile stretched across his face as he worked.
                “Okay, life,” he chuckled to his computer, “I’m going to get you back in order again. No funny business, nobody gets sued. The mess you’ve become begins and ends here.”

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    “Woah, Nellie, slow down!” Skylar scolded as the mischievous border collie knocked into her knees excitedly to greet her. “Down, no, down!” she said as she bopped her nose to startle her out of her excited prancing. “That’s enough!”
    “You don’t have to scold her that harshly,” her mother said.
    “I do when she freaks out like that. She forgets she’s a puppy sometimes and it’s not okay, Mom,” she complained.
    “Who’s the animal? Give her some credit. She’s just happy to see you.”
    “Well she can be happy on the ground,” Skylar replied as she went to the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal for herself. “Do you have any plans for the day?”
    “No, not really. I’m off to work soon but have a shorter shift today. You have the day off, right?”
    “Yeah, I was going to go down to the lake with Grayson later. Did you need me to get anything from the