Winter Jacket: New Beginnings Read Online Free PDF

usual due to the early morning hour. Hunter rolled onto her back and brushed her sleep-wild hair out of her eyes. The sheets rearranged as she fought to tame her stubborn hair, revealing more of her slightly tanned skin, a leftover from our trip to California.
    “Hey.”
    She looked over at me with a sweet, sleepy smile. She had lines from her pillow on one cheek and her mascara and eyeliner were smudged. Her hair became impossibly tangled in the night, curling ever so slightly at her temples. She was a hot mess, but she was my mess, and I loved it.
    I pulled my own brunette tangles into a loose ponytail. “Sleep okay?” I asked, still feeling uneasy from my dream.
    Hunter stretched and emitted a sound that resembled a low purr. The sheet traveled further sout h down her elongated torso. “Mmmhmm. Like a log.” She paused and cocked her head to the side. “What does that even mean, anyways? ‘Sleep like a log’…I mean, logs don’t sleep?”
    “Well, if that’s not a rhetorical question, the phrase originated in the 1600s and re fers to one sleeping immobile –.”
    “Thanks for the history lesson, Dr. Graft,” she teased.
    “Well actually, it’s not history; it’s an idiom,” I corrected.
    “Uh huh,” she said through a yawn. “You’re cute. ”
    I anxiously toyed with the top edge of the comforter. “Have any, um…weird dreams?”
    She gave me a lopsided grin as she turned on her side and rested her weight on one elbow. “Nothing except the memory of some hot action last night.”
    I felt my face flush, unable to resist the lascivious grin Hunter was currently giving me. She often looked ready and eager to devour me. It was a part of her personality I hadn’t expected when we ’d first started dating, but I certainly had no complaints.
    “I’ve got to review some lecture notes,” I announced, pushing back the covers. If she kept grinning at me like that, we’d never get out of bed, and I actually had to be productive today. “You getting up soon?”
    Hunter buried her face back into the downy goodness of her pillow. She wasn’t much of a morning person. Her eyes, like a newborn kitten, didn’t quite fully open until she’d had her coffee. She mumbled incoherently and waved a hand at me, shooing me away.
    Before crawling out of bed, I turned and kissed her bare shoulder, the soft skin peeking above the top of the comforter. “I’ll make coffee,” I mumbled into her soft, fragrant skin. “Come down when you’re ready, okay?”
    Hunter growled into the pillow, but made no motion to get up. Despite the memory of my unsettling dre am trampling noisily through my brain, I smiled at the disgruntled woman beside me. Finally, I slid out of bed and redressed in my pajamas, not wanting to disturb Hunter’s rest anymore than I already had that morning.
    +++++
    Chewing on her toothbrush, Hunter bounced downstairs and found me in the kitchen, sitting on a stool at the island counter. I looked up from my lecture notes when I heard the wooden floorboards creak upon her entrance. Today I was teaching my writing seminar students about Quote Sandwiches and lecturing about the Harlem Renaissance in my 20 th Century American Literature class.
    Hunter helped herself to some coffee and grabbed a box of cereal out of the pantry. I was a fan of the cartoon-on-the-box sugary stuff, but Hunter was more about raisin bran and granola. Sometimes I forgot which one of us was in their thirties.
    “What do you want do for Spring Break?” I asked.
    “Spring Break? ” Hunter looked up from pouring cornflakes into a bowl. “Babe, the semester just started…like three days ago.”
    “I know, but I’ve been looking online for some travel deals , and I was thinking someplace in the South Caribbean might be nice, or I could ask Troian if she could get us a good price on that Malibu condo again.”
    Hunter bit her lip and her face visibly crumpled. I could anticipate what she was going to say.
    “And don’t you