Mimi shifted under the weight of her backpack and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It was horribly hot trekking across campus, butshe had absolutely no choice. She hadn't been to her statistics class in at least a week. Too many skips could cost her her solid B average. So, breaking a little sweat, she pressed on across the long campus to the air-conditioned building.

Jason had been sleeping off a small hangover when his roommate shook him awake. "Hey, Welles. You goin' to stats?" Jeff asked after Jason cracked his eyes. "Oh, shit, man. What time is it?" The pounding in his head was overpowering, making him stay stretched out on his ratty sofa. "It's one-fifteen. You've got about fifteen minutes to get you ass up and to class." Jason shot up off the sofa, darted across the room, picked up his huge backpack, and shot out the door. He was half-way across town when he noticed that his hair was sticking straight up on one side and his breath was reeking of stale beer. His head was still pounding as well. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to remedy the problems.

"Assuming that we have an area under a standard normal distribution, the mean must be zero, and the standard deviation must be one. With these two pieces of information, we are able to convert the area from a normal distribution, or the raw score, to a standard distribution, or the z score. We can do this using this equation..." Mimi quickly jotted down what the professor was droning on about, looking around briefly to see if Jason had made it to class. He was nowhere to be found. 'I wonder if he went out last night...' she thought to herself, remembering how loud and hot the clubs had been last night. She felt herself slip easily into the daydream, not caring that the professor had moved on with the lecture.

She was bumping to the music, smiling with her girl friends, and searching the dance floor for any gorgeous guys. She had been single for far too long...Kevin and her had split not long after graduation, knowing that being 3000 miles away from each other would only cause more heartbreak. Her eyes flitted across the crowded bar, catching the attention of a set of dark brown eyes. And they were headed right towards her.

At that moment, Jason flew through the doors in the back of the classroom, causing Mimi to lose her place in both her notes and her daydream. "Mr. Welles," the professor said sternly, cross about being interrupted. "Please take your seat. Next class, try to be on time...or at least quiet."

"Yes, sir." Jason slid into a desk in the back of the room, pulling out a tattered notebook and a pen. His eyes scanned the room, and came to rest on Mimi Lockhart. She was the only person he had really kept in touch with from Salem. Everyone else was scattered around the nation, not that he really minded much. He had much better things to think about now. Like the future. He blinked a few times, realizing that Mimi had caught him staring. Then, he quickly began scribbling notes from the board in front.

'Jason Welles was staring at me!' Mimi shrieked in her head. He was definately hot, but he had never looked at her for that long before. Or in that way. 'Maybe he's coming around? Nah!' She went back to work catching up on notes, glancing back at Jason's desk periodically.

~*~

"Hey, Mimi! Wait up for a sec!" Jason bellowed, trailing after the girl's figure. She had been stealing glances of him during class, and he was certain they weren't all platonic. "Meems!"

Mimi veered off the sidewalk and onto the dark green grass, stopping and turning around to face the fast approaching Jason Welles. "What?" she asked, a bit annoyed by his incessent shouting. He followed her onto the grass and plopped his bag down.

"I need to borrow your notes from the beginning of class," he said nonchalantly.

"Why should I give them to you? You're the one who was late to class. And it looks like you were out late last night drinking."

She couldn't believe two things: one, that she was talking to Jason this way, and two, that she was seriously loving the way his eyes crinkled in laughter as he replied to her. She was losing it. For Jason.

"I'm not the only one who was out last night," he lauged, knowing that she would eventually give in and hand him the notes. "I saw you at the club. You seemed to be having a great time...with my roommate."

"Y,your...roommate?" she asked incredulously. She quickly played back the events of the evening, her mind coming to rest on a certain dark haired guy she danced with all night. She smiled a little. He was fun to dance with, she thought. But before she could slip into her daydream fully, Jason cleared his throat.

"Yeah. My roommate. Jeff Huncovsky."

"Oh..I...uh...well...er..."

"Give it up, Meems. Pass over the notes."

Mimi snapped back into reality once more. "I can't right now, Jason. I have to get to class," she said quickly. She was running ten minutes late now, no thanks to the only other Salemite in the state. She hurridly turned on her heel and walked back to the sidewalk, leading to her class. She vaguely remembered hearing Jason yell something from behind her, but she was long gone by the time she realized it.

~*~

Later that evening, she sat on her tiny loveseat, trying to figure out how to work the statistics problems that were assigned for the evening. Unfortunately, all that was running through her mind was Jason and his adorable roommate. She jotted down an equation from the textbook onto her paper just as the phone rang shrilly.

"Hello?" she said, having reached over the arm of the loveseat to retrieve the cordless.

"Hey, Meems. What's up?" an odd male voice said into the reciever.

"Uh...who is this?"

"Well, a funny thing happened today on my way home from class. You see, I got back to my building and was minding my own business when I overheard the landlord say your name. It seems that you live directly below me, Miriam Lockhart," the mysterious caller cackled. There was a sharp click and a dial tone instantly, making Mimi shiver involuntarily. She knew that voice...but couldn't place it. And just who lived upstairs?

She didn't have time to think about it much because there was a loud rap at the door soon after. She jumped at the sound.

"I know you're in there! I can hear you breathing!" the voice called out to her. The phone still in hand, she glanced at it, wondering if she should call the police. Or at very least the landlord. Stop being such a scaredy cat, she thought, tossing the phone onto her discarded book. She strode to the door and looked out the peephole. There wasn't anyone there.

Flinging the door open, she growled into the hallway, "Whoever that is...you're not funny!" At that moment, she found herself staring into a pair of forest green eyes. "JASON WELLES!!! You scared me half to death!"

She leapt for him, intent on making him suffer for scaring her, but he stepped into the doorway before she even left the ground. "That was not funny, Jason," she grouched, watching as he walked into her living room and plopped into the tattered recliner. She shut the door behind her and crossed to her previous seat. "What do you want, anyway?"

"I came with a deal for you," he replied, eyeing her choice of loungewear. She was cute in her tiny white tank top and blue boxers, her hair pulled up halfway. She looked generally intrigued by his comeback, so he continued. "If I'm not mistaken, you seem to like my roomie."

"A little. So?"

"Well, I like your stats notes. We can make an even exchange. I rent you my roomie for one hour, in return for an hour alone with your notes."

Mimi choked and sputtered. He wanted to what? Rent his roommate to her? What kind of deal was that? "What kind of deal is that?" she asked quickly. Her mind wandered to the things he and his roommate probably were thinking about "an hour's rent." "I'm not that kind of girl, Jason. And you know that."

"No, no, no! That's not what I was thinking! Just an hour to talk and whatnot. Not..."

"Whatever," she muttered, collecting her papers and textbook from the seat next to her.

"So you'll do it?" he said, jumping out of the recliner. "Great!" Without another word, he raced out the door and up the stairs. Mimi looked at herself. She felt gross and tired, much too tired to end up doing homework for hours after the 'deal' was done. She had her hand on the phone, thumb ready to dial *69 when he returned...Jeff being pushed inside.

"Here you go! Where are your notes?" he asked, eyes searching the room. She reluctantly handed him the notes, noticing how Jeff still stood in the doorway, silent and shy. He was sort of cute...if you like the strong silent types. And Mimi did.

"Okay. It's 9:30 now. So...I'll be back at 10:30 sharp. If I knock and you don't answer after two tries, I'll consider the deal sweetened. I'll leave your notes under the door. But, if you guys can't handle it for the whole hour, your notes are mine until next class. Got it?"

Mimi shook her head, about to speak up about the 'sweetening' part, but Jason had once again darted out of the apartment, this time leaving Jeff standing quiet and blushing in the door.

~*~

"So...you're from where again?"

"Hays, Kansas. It's a rural town in the middle of nowhere," Jeff replied, still standing in the doorframe.

Mimi nodded her head and gave a polite smile. All they had seemed to covered was that Mimi lived right below Jason's apartment and that Mimi and Jason had gone to the same high school. Then, after a few intriguing exchanges of blackmail material, Mimi glanced at the clock.

10:00. The last thirty minutes had been hell. Mimi had tried, but now it was just too uncomfortable. And their conversation always seemed to come back to Jason. Finally, Mimi had had enough.

"Jeff. I know that you want what you want, but it's so not going to happen. I think maybe I'll just get my notes back from your roommate and hope to not find you here when I get back. Okay?" He nodded, kind of upset that he wouldn't be scoring. He would have to find somewhere else to go for a while so that Jason wasn't too dissappointed. It had only been thirty minutes. He slinked off into the hallway, his cell phone resonating it's annoying ring as he left.

"Mission impossible number one has been taken care of. Now, onto the harder objective," Mimi sighed. She stamped up the steps to the third floor of the building. When she got to the landing, she couldn't remember where Jason lived. Hell, he hadn't told her where he lived. Great, she thought. Just great.

Taking herself to the first door her instincts told her to, she quietly knocked. Fortunately, it was Jason who answered the door. He was bare except for a pair of red plaid boxers and a gold chain, something that made Mimi gasp in embarrassment. He didn't seem the least bit phased by his unclothed body. In fact, he stepped back to allow her to come inside. "I see that Jeff just wasn't doing the trick for you," he joked. He sat back down on the ugly orange sofa, and resumed copying notes from her notebook.

"No, he wasn't," she agreed. "In fact, all we seemed to do was talk about you." She clicked the door into place before walking farther into the living room. The apartment looked exactly like hers, except for the furniture and the deep purple stain on the carpet next to the brown armchair. Jason sighed deeply before shoving the notebook under the sofa and looking up at her, clicking his tongue in disappointment.

"Well, we had a deal, Miriam. And you didn't keep your end. So...your notes are mine for the next day and a half."

She lunged at him. "But I need them. I have to finish that assignment tonight or else it won't get done!"

She landed with a thud on top of him, hands coming to rest on the orange fabric underneath his back. She grunted in despair, hands searching the space below the couch for the spiral edge of her notebook. Her fingers grazed the cool metal, but before she could get a firm grasp on it, she was being pushed away from the sofa. Jason's eyes took on a competetive glow, a sly smile creeping across his face. "No way, Mimi. You'll have to go through me to get to it!"

"Fine," she stated. Then she lunged at him again, this time, knocking him backwards. He landed with his back against the couch, sitting up, with her on his lap. When her hands came out to reach under the cushions, he grabbed her wrists and pressed her back onto the floor. They wrestled around like this for a few moments, her desperately trying to break free from his hold, and him trying not to let go.

"Stop, Jason," she cried, eyes tightly closed, head thrashing violently on the carpet. He looked at her, with her face contorted in playful anger, and he could imagine her expression as one of orgasmic ecstacy. That single thought threw him off, his boxers slowly expanding to accommodate his growing arousal. Then, without his thinking, his lips were on hers. Suddenly, he pushed away from her, embarrassed and a little scared.

When he had suddenly thrown himself off her, she opened her eyes. He was retreating to the sofa, one leg crooked up onto the other, hands searching for the wire-bound notebook. "What's wrong, Jason?" she asked, sitting up and regaining composure. She had secretly liked being held down by him, wishing that they were more than friends, and more than playing around. But she had to admit as well, that she had enjoyed feeling his lips on hers.

He flung the notebook at her. "Here's your notes. Thanks for letting me use them. Have a nice night." he stated, not moving from his uncomfortable position.

"Okay..." she said, grabbing the notebook from the floor and rising to a standing position. He was certainly acting strangely. And she wanted to know why.

She didn't have to wait very long, because as she looked down at him, she could see that his boxers were out of shape, straining to hold him inside the fabric. Her face turned an awful shade of red before she scurried to the door. As her hand touched the cool doorknob, however, she felt herself being drawn back to him. The desire was mounting inside her, just thinking about how she had unknowingly turned him on. She turned back to him. "Jason," she said, unsure of her voice. It felt like it was shaking with lust.

"Yeah?"

"Do you...I mean...er...uh...do you find me attractive?" she grasped the doorknob once again, ready for his laughter and his shun. But it never came. Instead, he turned his head around to look at her. Had she said what he thought she said? Should he tell her the truth? The words came out before he could think. "Yeah. Yeah I do, Meems."

Her body was pulsing with adrenaline. He had just said that he thought she was attractive. And she was still standing by the door, blushing profusely. Tearing herself away from the saftey of the door, she took a few shaky steps towards him. "Really?" she asked.

"Yeah, really."

She mulled this over in her mind once before deciding that she felt trapped, as if she were suffocating. But not in a normal way. She had to get out. Now. She would deal with the consequences later. Without another thought, she flung open the door and stalked down the stairs to her apartment.

"Gee, Welles. You blew it this time," he muttered to himself. His papers and books were scattered around the apartment, but he didn't mind. In fact, he was too busy thinking of Mimi and the kiss they'd shared to notice the messy room. That's when his phone rang.

"Jason?"

"Mimi? What...er...what can I do for you?"

"I'll let you keep your end of the deal...if you come down here and get the notes from me civilly," she enticed. He thought a moment, glanced at his boxers, and mumbled an 'okay' before bounding down the stairs. When he reached the door, he lifted his hand to knock, but was interrupted by her voice purring, "Come on in...the door's unlocked." With that, he pushed open the door.

What he saw made him jump. There was Mimi...naked in all her glory. She was holding only the notebook in front of her, covering the only part of her he'd never seen before. Her breasts stuck out in front of her, nipples hardening from the air conditioned breeze in the room. And she was wearing a smile. A crazy smile that said, come here, tiger. His eyes caressed her body, unable to think clearly.

Without thinking, he was in front of her, hands taking over what his eyes had been doing only moments ago. She could feel his breath on her cheek, sweet and warm. Turning so their lips met, she guided his hands where she had longed to be touched for so long. His body shuddered as his fingers were led to her soft curls, moaning against her lips as he parted her thighs. She was already wet and waiting for him, but now he found that he couldn't do it. Not this way. He couldn't just have her. He had to keep her.

He pulled away, taking her by the hand and starting to lead her to the bedroom. But she stopped him. "No, Jason. Here. Now." She tugged at his arm, lips teasing his as she sat on the carpet. Then, she laid him down beside her, stripping him of his boxers, revealing his manhood.

"Ah..." she moaned softly. He was slightly bigger than she had thought, but that was a good thing. Definately a good thing. Then, she straddled him, parting his lips with her tongue as she descended upon him. He cried out against the softness of her mouth, reveling in her taste and feel. No girl had ever tasted sweeter, no girl had ever felt so tight and warm. Their bodies bucked against each other, both moving towards a powerful release. She gasped out in pleasure each time she came down over him, taking in deep breaths on the way up. This was almost too much for him. But when she screamed his name, he lost all control. His body shook as he pumped into her, calling her name over and over and clutched her to his chest.

They laid on the carpet for a while, his fingers silently playing with her hair, lips occasionally adorning her forehead with soft kisses. Her palm moved slowly back and forth on his chest. This was how life was supposed to be, he thought. Not some wild romp, turning over, and going to sleep. This was how real couples were. And he desperately wanted to be a part of that. Everyday.

"Meems," he said finally.

"Yeah?"

"Would you, uh...well, I guess...would you be my girlfriend?"

"Of course I will!" she brightened, lifting her head to look into his eyes. He was serious. "But here's the deal."

"Deal?"

"Yeah. We have to seal this 'boyfriend/girlfriend' thing with another round. Soon."

Her mouth crushed down onto his, and he instantly came back to life. Not long after, they were moving in rhythm together again. And as they worked each other into another earth-shattering orgasm, Jeff walked by the apartment. He smiled as he realized that the plan had worked. Jason had finally got the girl of his dreams...for real.

~*~THE END~*~