The rooftop of Patterson Hall is technically off-limits. The door is supposed to be locked. The RA has a key. Derek has a key.
But the lock is broken. Has been since September. Everyone knows. Nobody reports it.
On Saturday night, someone threw a party on the roof. String lights. A Bluetooth speaker. Red solo cups. About forty people crammed onto a space meant for twenty. By 11 PM, it was dying. People were leaving. Going to after-parties. Going home. Going to bed.
By 11:47 PM, it was just me and Diego.
Diego is the guy from Game Night. The one who eats Goldfish and sends cat pictures. The one who sat on the floor against the couch and watched me with those careful eyes for weeks before finally saying something.
He’s also the one who brought me up to the roof at 10:30 PM and said “I wanted to show you something.”
The something was the view. Highland’s campus at night. The lights of the dorms. The glow of the library. The football field lit up for night practice. It was beautiful.
I didn’t look at the view. I looked at Diego.
“You’re not looking at the view,” he said.
“I’m looking at you.”
“The view is better.”
“You’re the view.”
He smiled. That slow, careful smile he has when he’s trying not to show how much he likes something.
We stood at the railing. The party had died below us. The string lights flickered. The Bluetooth speaker had stopped playing music an hour ago. It was just us and the November air and the fact that Diego’s hand was on the railing next to mine and neither of us was moving it away.
“It’s cold,” I said.
“I know.”
“You should’ve brought a jacket.”
“I didn’t think we’d stay this long.”
“How long did you think we’d stay.”
He looked at me. The roof lights caught his curly hair. His eyes were dark and warm and there.
“I don’t know,” he said. “As long as you wanted.”
“I want to stay.”
“Okay.”
His hand moved. From the railing. To my waist. Just rested there. Like it belonged there. Like it had been waiting to be there.
I leaned into him. His arm went around me. We stood at the railing of the Patterson Hall roof at 11:53 PM on a Saturday night and watched the campus glow below us.
“You’ve been staring at me since September,” Diego said.
“You’ve been staring at me since September.”
“I noticed.”
“I know you noticed.”
“Why didn’t you say anything.”
“Because I wanted you to come to me.”
“I came to you.”
“You brought me to the roof.”
“Yeah.”
“That counts.”
He smiled. Tightened his arm around my waist.
“Is this —” he started.
“Yeah.”
“This is —”
“Yeah.”
“We’re —”
“Yeah.”
He laughed. The kind of laugh that comes from relief. From finally stopping pretending.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay.”
At 11:58 PM, he kissed me. Finally. The railing was cold against my palm and his mouth was warm and the whole campus was spread out under us, all lit windows and black roofs, and he kissed me like he’d been rehearsing it since September, which, it turned out, he had.
I got my hands under his shirt. He got his hands on my ass through my skirt, the short gray one I’d worn on purpose, and pulled me flat against him, and I felt exactly how much he’d been waiting.
The dead speaker coughed back to life midway through whatever we were doing and started blasting Whitney Houston loud enough to make both of us laugh into each other’s shoulders.
At 12:14 AM, the roof door opened.
Derek — our RA, built like a vending machine, clipboard permanently attached to his hand — stepped onto the roof.
He saw us.
We saw him.
Nobody moved.
Derek looked at me. Looked at Diego. Looked at the abandoned cups. Looked at the Bluetooth speaker, which was now playing “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston at full volume.
He didn’t say anything.
He just turned around. Walked back through the door. Closed it.
And from the other side, we heard the lock click.
He’d locked us on the roof.
Diego and I looked at each other.
“He locked us on the roof,” Diego said.
“He did.”
“We’re stuck up here.”
“We are.”
“For how long.”
“Until he decides to unlock it.”
“When will that be.”
I looked at the campus below us. The lights. The glow. The football field where night practice had ended and the players were walking back to the dorms.
“Probably not until morning,” I said.
Diego laughed. Pulled me closer.
“Well,” he said. “We’ve got time.”
“Diego.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to spend the time talking.”
He went very still. Whitney hit the big note.
“Okay,” he said. “Me neither. Is that—are you sure?”
“I’m wearing a skirt on a roof in November. I’ve been sure since nine.”
Somebody had dragged a plastic lounge chair up here sometime in September and left a fleece blanket on it with a Patterson Hall Welcome Week logo. Diego shook it out like he was a gentleman setting a table. I pushed him down onto the chair before he finished.
I climbed on top of him with my knees on either side of his hips and kissed him until we were both shaking, and only some of it was the cold. He had his hands up my skirt. He found out I wasn’t wearing anything under it and made a sound that echoed off the water tower.
“Since nine?” he said.
“I told you.”
He got his jeans open. I got my hand around him and stroked, slow, watching his face go slack under the string lights. Then I slid down his body to the end of the chair and took him in my mouth, and he grabbed the plastic armrests so hard they creaked.
“Oh my god,” Diego said, to the sky. “Oh my god.”
I sucked him until he was gasping my name and pulling at my shoulders, and then I came back up.
“I want you in me,” I said. “I’ve got stuff. In my jacket.”
“You brought stuff to a party.”
“I brought stuff to a party you invited me to.”
He laughed, and then stopped laughing when I tore the condom open with my teeth.
I rode him on the lounge chair under the string lights, the fleece blanket around my shoulders like a cape, the whole campus glowing below us. Slow at first, sinking down an inch at a time until he was all the way inside me and we both had to stop and breathe. Then faster. The chair creaked like it was going to die. Diego held my hips and pushed up to meet me and kept saying you’re so pretty, you’re so pretty, you look so pretty up there, like he couldn’t stop it coming out of him, and I didn’t want him to stop.
He wrapped his hand around my cock under the skirt and stroked me in time and I came first, all over his stomach, my head thrown back at the November sky. He held me down on him and came a few seconds later, deep, with his face pressed into my neck.
The speaker started playing Whitney again. Somebody had put it on repeat.
We lay there under the blanket, his arm around me, the chair still creaking every time either of us breathed.
“Round two at 2 a.m.,” he said.
“You’re optimistic.”
He was right, though.
At 7:23 AM, Derek unlocked the door.
Diego and I were sitting at the railing. His arm was around me. My head was on his shoulder. We’d stayed up all night. Not much of it talking. Watching the sunrise. Not sleeping.
Derek looked at us. Looked at the time on his phone.
“You guys okay,” he asked.
“We’re great,” I said.
“You’ve been up here for seven hours.”
“We lost track of time.”
He nodded. Didn’t say anything else. Just walked away.
Diego and I stood up. Stretched. Walked to the door.
“Breakfast,” Diego said.
“Breakfast.”
“Dining hall opens at 8.”
“I’ll be there.”
He smiled. Took my hand. We walked down the stairs together.
At 8:03 AM, we walked into the dining hall. Tyler was there. Marcus was there. Devon was there.
They all looked at us. Looked at our messy hair. Our wrinkled clothes. The fact that we were holding hands.
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “You guys stay up all night.”
“We did,” Diego said.
“On the roof.”
“On the roof.”
“Derek locked you up there.”
“He did.”
“For seven hours.”
“Yeah.”
Tyler looked at me. “You good.”
“I’m great.”
Marcus looked at Diego. “You good.”
Diego smiled. “I’m great.”
Devon didn’t say anything. Just nodded. Went back to his cereal.
We got our food. Sat down. Ate breakfast.
And nobody said anything else about it.
Because that’s how it is. That’s how we are.
And honestly?
I wouldn’t change a thing.
