Vera
On Christmas Eve, I made a wish for a miracle: a round, perky, Kardashian-worthy butt.
That night, I actually dreamed about Theodore Blake, the ice-cold captain of our college hockey team.
He braced one hand on a desk, caging me in as he stared at a glowing screen flickering above it.
[A dream you can't escape until you've built the perfect 'XXX'?]
He raised an eyebrow. “What's the missing word?”
It was only a dream, so I made something up.
“It's... 'body.' Who doesn't want the perfect body?”
He nodded, though he still looked skeptical.
From then on, he appeared in my dreams every night, putting me through a grueling workout routine. He wouldn't let me sleep until I was drenched in sweat.
Ten days later, my butt was still nowhere near peach-perfect.
Mission failed. The bedroom in my dream suddenly shrank until there was only room for a single dorm bed!
He was six-foot-three. I was five-foot-three. And there we were, trapped together, looking utterly helpless.
We stared at each other awkwardly.
My face burning, I turned away.
His eight-pack pressed right up against my back.
Wait a second. Why can I feel his skin? And why is he so warm?
When I woke up the next morning, I was wrapped up tight in my comforter.
After the hockey game that day, Theodore, the campus bad boy, pinned me against the locker room door and glared at me.
“Listen, from now on, stop hogging the blanket at night!
“And tell me. What the hell does that damn 'XXX' mean?”