by Penny Wylder
Before I can answer, Keanen speaks up. “Actually, Missy is here on a partial scholarship.” Between us, Bette sniffs surreptitiously.
When I look over, I notice tears leaking down her cheeks. Unable to stand it, I dig in my pocket and pass her a tissue.
She stares at me, wide-eyed, like she can’t believe what I just did. I shrug one shoulder, let it fall.
Only then do I process the rest of what Keanen is saying. “Perhaps Tanglewood University would see fit to raise Missy’s scholarship amount to full tuition, in order to help her in paying the bills she’s been working so hard to meet, and of course replace the things in her room that have been ruined.”
The chancellor glances from his son to me and back, his brow furrowed.
My breath catches in my chest. It can’t be this easy. Can it? But a moment later—“Yes, yes, all right,” the chancellor says, waving a hand as if he’s swatting at an annoying fly. It’s that simple for him. Barely even a consideration. My chest tightens again, and I barely hear him continue. “Assuming you can maintain the grades required for our full ride candidacy,” he adds.
I realize he’s speaking to me again.
It takes all my energy to force a broad, reassuring smile. To make my voice work normally, at least for long enough for me to reply. “I assure you, sir, I’m a good student and a hard worker.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are.” The chancellor gives me one last long once-over, and then holds out a hand.
I stare, confused.
“Do we have a deal?” he asks, and I realize what I’ve just done. Agreed to be paid off in scholarship money for Bette’s misbehavior. But when I steal a glance at Keanen and his sister, they’re both watching me. Bette shrugs one shoulder, smirking just a little. Take it, her expression seems to say.
It still itches at me, how simple it is for this man to just wave a hand and fix my life. It’s not fair. How hard I had to work before he came along. Before his daughter tried to ruin all my hard work, I remind myself.
But my mother raised me to take what comes my way. To not look a gift horse in the mouth—at least not one this practical and obviously useful.
“We do,” I reply, and reach out to shake Chancellor Kross’s hand.
Just like that, a huge weight is lifted from my shoulders.
11
Two weeks later, I wake up to a knock at my dorm room door. It’s one of the first nights I’ve spent back in my room—Keanen made Bette hire cleaners, and he tried to get her to buy me a whole new wardrobe too, but I drew the line there. The last thing I wanted was to wind up dressed exactly like Bette and all the other girls here, paid for by her dime.
Now that I don’t have the enormous tuition bill weighing on me, I can spare a little of the money I saved up at Henry’s to buy myself a wardrobe I actually like. It’s mostly just torn skinny jeans and simple T-shirts.
I’ve decided that, much as I love my mother, her advice was wrong. I shouldn’t have come to Tanglewood pretending to be someone I’m not. I should have just shown up here as myself and forced all these preppy, stuck up elites to either accept me or deal with it.
I keep my job, too, although I cut way back on the hours. Only working one or two nights a week now, so I have more time to study, go to classes, and actually have a social life here.
Speaking of my social life… I open the door to find Bette standing there, hands in the pockets of her designer skirt, looking sheepish.
I sigh and roll my eyes. “If your brother forced you to do something nice again,” I start, but she cuts me off, holding up a hand.
“No. This is all me.” She finally meets my gaze. I’m surprised to notice her eyes are red-rimmed, the whites bloodshot, as if she hasn’t been sleeping well. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you. There’s no excuse, seriously. And… I don’t blame you if you don’t want anything to do with me. But, well…” She gestures over her shoulder, up the hallway in general. “A bunch of us are going to a tailgate before the football game tonight. I know you’re going to watch Keanen for the first time, so I thought… maybe you’d want to come with us.”
I hesitate, expecting someone to jump out and attack me with beer cans or paint again. But when no pranks are forthcoming, I realize she’s serious.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started to hang out with Yvette again, and Sara and Leah have offered me their own apologies. I’m still hurt, but they promised they would make it up to me, and they’ve been trying, to their credit. We’ve been eating meals together again, going to casual dorm room hangouts around campus.
But I’ve yet to go to a big event like this. I was planning to test out the waters slowly—go with Yvette to the game tonight and sit somewhere way up in the stands where nobody could see me. Or insult me.
This… isn’t what I had in mind. But Bette must read my mind, because she shrugs and takes a step back.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to. I get it. Just thought I’d offer.”
“No, I—” I hesitate. Bite my lower lip. Then I spin around and grab my bag. “Why not. Let’s do it.”
Her expression brightens into something that looks like genuine happiness. “Really? I mean… okay. Cool.” She starts off down the hall, and I trail after her, wondering why I was so scared of this girl when I first showed up on campus. Because she’s campus royalty, essentially? Who cares?
Underneath all the spoiled wealth and the shitty father, she’s just a person. Just another girl like me.
At the end of the hall, a cluster of Bette’s usual friends is waiting, along with Sara and Leah, who offer me waves and tentative smiles. I smile back, only pausing in the walk to knock on Yvette’s door so she can come too.
Then, my arm linked through Yvette’s, with Sara excitedly telling me all about something I missed after our Bio class ended earlier, Leah laughing along at her jokes, and Bette and her friends enveloping us, including us like we’re just normal fixtures of the school, I realize… I feel at home. I feel like I belong here, and I’m not pretending to be anyone at all. I’m just being me.
The game is more fun than I imagined it would be. I’ve only watched football games in passing on the TVs at the bar where I worked back in Boston. Being at one in person has a whole different energy to it.
I find myself really getting into it, screaming at the top of my lungs every time one of our players has the ball. Especially any time that Keanen touches it.
Watching him on the field is like watching a whole new side to him. He’s his same confident, cool, collected self as ever. But the things he can do with that ball—the way he always seems to know exactly where to throw it in order to connect with just the right player to rush through our opponent’s offense… It’s impressive as hell.
Not to mention sexy.
He pulls off a particularly wild pass, across half the length of the whole football field, to one of the players behind enemy lines already. Our guy catches it, and we all go wild, leaping to our feet, stomping and cheering, because the other team doesn’t have any defensemen within miles.
The rest of the school watches the guy with the ball books it for the end zone. But my eyes linger on Keanen. And I notice him doing the same—looking away from his teammate to scan the stands.
I jump up and down, waving with both arms. One row of bleachers down and a couple seats over, I notice Bette doing the same. We catch each other’s eyes and flash each other quick smiles and nods, before we go back to waving.
Keanen’s eyes catch mine first, then his sister’s. When he looks back at me, his smile widens about a million watts at once. He flashes us both a quick thumbs up, and then he turns to race up the field, because his teammate just ran the ball into the end zone, and all the players are clustering up, chanting and surrounding the guy who scored.
Then they line up across from one another again, and I prepare myself for more screaming myself hoarse.
By the end of the game, my throat aches, and my legs are sore from all the j
umping on and off the bleachers. But I’m riding higher than I’ve felt in a long time, surrounded by classmates—by new potential friends, maybe?—and about to run down into the arms of the first person on campus to fully embrace me for who I am. To make me feel seen, protected, safe, in this unfamiliar and at times hostile place.
The buzzer sounds to end the game, but it’s hardly necessary–the score is a total blow out. Thanks in no small part to Keanen and that killer arm of his.
I watch all the guys on the team congratulating him as they huddle up, slapping his back, shaking hands.
I notice more than a few of the cheerleaders on the sidelines checking him out, too, but it only makes my grin widen. Because I know he’s all mine.
By the time I reach the fence at the bottom of the stands, Keanen has finally managed to extricate himself from the huddle of guys around him. He strides across the field, locking eyes with me as he walks. I’m not sure what to expect. We’ve not exactly hidden our status since that night in the chancellor’s office, since all of my other secrets came spilling out all over campus, but neither of us are big PDA people, and although we’ve held hands on campus, we haven’t done much more.
But with every stride he takes toward me, my chest swells more, my throat tightening. Because I recognize the look in his eyes.
He reaches me, and damn the waist high fence between us. But he doesn’t seem to care. He catches my face in both hands and pulls me into a kiss, right there on the field, with the whole school watching. I hear a ragged cheer somewhere behind us, but I don’t care.
I reach up and wrap both arms around his neck, as he shifts, his lips parting mine, his tongue tracing a familiar path across my lips, my teeth, my tongue.
He smells like sweat and grass and victory, but he tastes the way he always does, like molasses or honey, sweet and heady enough to make my breath catch and my knees go weak.
When he breaks away to take a breath, I seriously have to catch mine, leaning against him for support, wishing I could make the fence between us vanish, because—
“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, his gaze searching mine, those deep, dark brown eyes of his just inches from my gaze.
I laugh. When he doesn’t join in, I raise an eyebrow, and reach down to press my palm flat against his chest. “Don’t you need to stay and celebrate with your team?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “I’d much rather celebrate with my girlfriend. In private.” Then he waves a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I spend too much time at practice with those guys anyway.”
I laugh again. But there’s a bubbling, happy, hopeful feeling growing in my chest. Because he just said girlfriend. And because I can still feel the stares of everyone else in this stadium on us right now, and it sends a thrill through me to know that everyone knows we’re together now. And Keanen doesn’t mind. In fact, he seems to want them all to know.
So do I.
“Well…” I bite my lower lip, enjoying the way Keanen’s gaze immediately drops to take that in. “If my boyfriend wants to get out of here, then who am I to say no?” I reply, grinning.
He leans in to kiss me again, slower this time. When our lips part, my heart is beating so fast I can feel the pulse fluttering in my throat, right under my collarbone. “Let’s go,” he murmurs. Then he vaults over the fence in one move—who knew it was as easy as that?
I grin, watching him. At least until he catches my hand and tugs me along to walk with him.
As we head for the stadium exit, I spot Bette in the stands above us, surrounded by her usual cluster of girls. Yvette and Sara and Leah all wave excitedly. After a moment, even Bette nods, and I notice a small smile on her face when she looks from her brother to me. Almost like she’s happy for us.
Finally.
Then we’re exiting the stadium, and I don’t have any thoughts to spare for anyone else because Keanen isn’t leading me back to his dorm room across the wide open green, like I expected. Instead, he pulls me under the stadium steps, into a series of offices I didn’t even know were down here.
“What are you doing?” I ask, laughing, breathless.
He grins. “I’m far too impatient to wait until we get all the way across campus.” Then he pulls me inside a small office. Although there’s a desk in here, there’s not much else. Just empty shelves, and one dusty trophy in a corner.
Keanen walks me backward, until my heels bump up against the desk. His hands slide down my curves, and he grins at me, so close I have to tilt my head all the way back to keep my eyes on his. “You look too good in that skirt,” he murmurs, and his hands slide down to my thighs, to the bottom of the jean skirt I paired with a ripped jersey in the school colors for tonight. “I didn’t think I could keep my hands off of you for one second longer.”
His hands slide up my thighs, and he leans in close again, stopping just before he kisses me, grinning, teasing. “You’re mine now, Missy.”
“I already was,” I reply. And then I reach up to slide one arm around the back of his neck and pull him into a longer, slower kiss.
As his tongue parts my lips again, his hands slide up my skirt, hiking it up around my waist. He reaches around to grab my ass tightly with both hands, which makes me gasp a little against his lips. Then he hoists me up and plants me onto the table in front of him.
In response, I wrap both of my legs around his waist, my free hand sliding over his jersey to tug it free from his pants. He’s still hot from the game, but it only makes me want him more. The way he’s riled up, smelling of sweat and heat and masculine energy.
He presses against me, and I can feel the thick outline of his cock through his pants, which are tight enough that when I steal a glance down, I can see him, too.
He grins, and shifts to kiss my jawline. His teeth nip at my neck, and I inhale sharply. “Someone’s just as thirsty as I am.”
“I blame you,” I murmur. Then my breath catches again, when he runs his tongue down the length of my neck. His hands shift, one sliding up to catch my shirt. “Watching you out on the field today,” I start, watching him again now. He pulls my shirt up, and I lean back to let him take it off. He tosses it over his shoulder, and makes short work of my bra after, his lips pressing against my collarbone, the dip in my neck.
I tilt my head back, arching my back as my breasts spring free of the bra, and he throws that the way of my shirt.
“You’re incredible, you know that?” I murmur. “The way you take control of the field…”
He grins up at me, his face positioned just between my breasts. Then he leans down to kiss, lick, and suck his way across one, his tongue pressing at my skin, swirling, tasting me. “I much prefer taking command of you, though,” he murmurs, just before he catches my nipple with his tongue, and sucks it into his mouth.
I gasp as he sucks at it, just hard enough to make my nipple begin to harden. All the while his free hand cups my other breast, his thumb working over my nipple until it, too, feels hard as a pebble beneath his touch.
Just when the pleasure becomes almost too much, as if sensing it, he shifts, kissing his way across my chest to take my other nipple in his mouth, licking and sucking at me, as his free hand slides up and he hooks his fingertips under the edge of my panties.
One swift move, and he tugs those away from between his, grinning as he leans back in, his torso between my thighs, the hard press of his cock on my inner thigh.
I reach down to trace the edges of his cock, tilting my head up to catch his eyes. “I want your thick cock inside me,” I say, my gaze on his. I tighten my grip around him for emphasis, and I can feel the pulse as his cock jumps beneath my fingers, already hard as steel.
His grin turns heated. Sly. “Whatever you command,” he tells me. Then he shifts a little, reaches down to grab his pants, and I reach down to help him, practically shoving them off his waist in my eagerness.
My lips part when he draws his cock free, the same way I always do when I see him like this, so hungry for me he
can barely contain it. I reach down to wrap both hands around his shaft, stroking his length, my hands tracing the veins that stand out on the edge of his thick shaft, my thumb tracing across his soft, spongy tip, where a pearl of precum has gathered, that’s how much he wants me.
He watches me through hooded eyes, his breath coming harder. Faster. “Missy… You make me so fucking hard.”
I look up to meet his gaze, hiding a smile. At the same time, I tighten my hands around his shaft. “Do you want me right now, Keanen?”
He steps closer with a growl, low in the back of his throat. “Always.” He leans in to kiss the crook of my neck, the hollow at the base of my throat. “But right now?” He draws back a little to meet my gaze again, his own heated. “More than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my life,” he murmurs.
My breath catches.
When he shifts between my legs again, it’s slower this time. He guides the tip of his cock to my entrance, pausing to meet my gaze before he slowly eases inside me. I gasp as the tip of his cock slips between my lips. But with every inch that he pushes deeper into my pussy, I feel my muscles relaxing, my body expanding to take him in, to fit him into where he belongs.
By the time he’s fully inside me, I have both legs wrapped tight around his waist, my hands fisted in his shirt to hold myself up.
He wraps one hand around the small of my back and slowly leans over me, laying me back down across the desk until he’s standing at the edge, his body pressing mine down into the desk, as his cock fills me fully. “Missy.” The emotion in his voice stops me cold, freezes my breath in my lungs as I watch him. He searches my gaze for a moment, shifting so I can feel every inch of his cock inside me, the full feeling that I love, the sense of being so close to him, so connected.
“I love you,” he whispers, and I swear my heart could burst straight through my chest right now, it beats so fast where it’s pressed against his, his body wrapped tight around mine.
“I love you,” I breathe. Then his lips collide with mine again, and he draws back, making me moan a little in the back of my throat in protest, not wanting to lose the feeling of him inside me. But he thrusts back again a moment later, and then we’re both moving, our hands tight around each other’s bodies, roaming.