The Minutes We Have

chapter twenty

I had my nose buried in a book. 

Literally. 

One of the many summer hobbies that I picked up was reading. I had always read books, but when I started college, it had tapered off. I didn't really have the time because I spent most of it studying, but with the free time in the summer; I was back to being a bookaholic. 

Malia and I had formed this mutual agreement that we would buy the same book once a month, and then read a certain amount of chapters every week. Thursday night was our discussion night, we would blow up each other's phones into late hours. It was our own little book club. 

I was laying on my back with my legs propped up on the wall beside my bed, holding the book above my head with both hands. Finley was stretched out beside me, gently snoring and twitching as he had sweet dreams. I had my book propped on his side a moment ago but I switched positions because his fur kept getting stuck in the pages. 

Finley had stolen the blanket Mikeal had gotten for me. We had started out with the blanket draped over my legs, and then through the progression of reading, the blanket somehow ended up bundled around a lucky dog. I didn't mind, it was pretty warm in my room and the sun shined on my happy plants perched on the windowsill. 

It was a beautiful summer day. I hadn't planned to read all morning but I had an issue with getting sucked into books and not realizing how much time passed. 

My door opened without the person knocking. 

I tipped my head back to stare at an upside-down Ezra. "Don't you ever knock?" I grumbled, my eyes returning to the pages. Finley stirred at my voice, blinking sleepily and huffing. "I could have been changing." 

"You've been reading that book for two hours."

"How do you know?" 

"No sound of movement." 

"Are you stalking me?" 

"No," was his blunt answer, and then he decided to say, "I've been studying."

"Studying?" I echoed and put my book down, rolling onto my stomach to look at him, "For what? It's summer!" 

"I have a summer final next week. Medical school doesn't give breaks."

I hummed. I did get summer and winter breaks but they were extremely short, and next year I would go to school for twenty-four months straight to finish my degree. "That sucks." 

He shrugged. 

There was a long pause of silence. 

"You wanna go kayaking?" He finally asked. 

I didn't really expect him to want to do something with me, of all people he could invite out. I remembered when he had said he wanted to learn how to kayak. We didn't have our own kayaks yet, even though Mikeal had looked into it, but I assumed we could rent some. "Alright, when?"

"Soon," He told me, "Emerson and Lance are coming up for the weekend and they wanted to go out. I figured they could just crash in the living room, they said they had sleeping bags."

I shrugged one shoulder. "I don't care. What did Mikeal say?" 

"I'll ask," He answered as he headed out of my room. 

I smiled and shook my head before I decided to crawl off my bed. I placed my bookmark in the book that I hated to put down, and then I changed out of my lounge clothes; which had consisted of a soft crop top that was more like a sports bra and cotton shorts.