by Tiffany King
“That’s so clever,” I said sarcastically as I kept moving.
“Dude, I don’t think that was her costume.”
I pretended not to hear them, but the red on my cheeks told a different story. If it were the middle of the day, I could stop and say something, but being dark outside, and the fact that there weren’t many people around who I could see, I would be an idiot to stand up for myself now. Not that I would be much braver around a packed courtyard of students.
“Hey, wait, don’t go away mad. Here, stop and have a drink with us.” I could hear their footsteps approaching from behind, and I began to panic. There was no way I could run and get away.
“Please just leave me alone. I’m just trying to get to my dorm,” I stated as they jumped in front of me to stop my progress.
“What’s the matter? You too good to party?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Is there a problem?” Bentley interrupted as he forced his way between me and the two idiots. He towered over both of them and with his chest puffed up looked even more intimidating.
“Uh, sorry, dude. I guess she’s with you?” one of them asked, taking a step backward. “We were just trying to invite her to the party we’re headed to. You guys can both come if you want.”
“Fuck yourself,” Bentley answered, taking another step forward to make his point.
“It’s cool, bro.” One of them held up his hands. “We’ll just head this way. It’s all good.”
Bentley made sure they were well on their way before he turned around. Judging by their quickened pace, they had no interest in coming back.
“Who called in the asshole brigade?” he asked, walking back toward me. I lifted my eyes from the sidewalk with a relieved smile on my face.
“Were you being a creeper and following me, or did you just happen to be walking by?” The words slipped out, surprising us both. I could feel the red return to my cheeks. That wasn’t what I had in mind when I promised myself I would apologize to him.
Thankfully, he responded to my teasing by laughing.
“Would I be a total dick if I said yes?”
“That depends. Yes to which part?”
“Ah, in that case, I plead the fifth,” he countered. “Wait, let me just add that I’m glad I was here to intervene. How about that?”
“Well, I do appreciate it. They were obviously drunk, and I’m used to being teased. This makes being inconspicuous pretty hard,” I said, holding up my cane. The words to apologize about last night were on the tip of my tongue, but he seemed to have forgotten about it.
His eyes hardened as he glared over my shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to be used to it. Besides, those dipshits had something else in mind. So, are you done studying?” His expression instantly changed to a crooked smile like someone had flipped a switch.
His question threw me off and took me a few seconds to process. “What?”
“I asked if you were done studying tonight.” He grinned.
“Um—why?”
“Because it’s a holiday, and I thought maybe we could go do something.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
“Why not? Do you have other plans for the holiday?”
My eyes narrowed. Was he mocking me? It was hard to tell since he was still grinning. “I’m not sure Halloween is technically considered a holiday.”
“Sure it is. Check the calendar. It’s on there. I think that makes it a law that it has to be observed, recognized, and celebrated.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “Well, Presidents’ Day is on the calendar, too. What about that one?”
“Absolutely. We exchange political presents for that one.”
“What, like a year of Obamacare?” I teased.
“Exactly.” He winked at me. “So, what do you say? Want to blow this Cracker Jack box and have some fun?”
“I probably shouldn’t,” I answered, thinking of the safe haven of my dorm room. It may be lonely, but it would keep me veiled in obscurity.
“Come on. We’re friends, right?”
“We are?” The claim was new to me. Besides, it had been so long since I had made a new friend.
“Please. Of course we are. How about it, then?” he asked like a child begging to open presents on Christmas morning.
“What did you have in mind?” I could feel the butterflies taking flight in my stomach.
“My roommates said there’s a Halloween party going on at our building.”
“Oh.” My stomach dropped. “I don’t do parties.”
“Like at all, ever?”
My throat became as dry as the Sahara. “No, not ever.” It was a lie. There was a time when I would have gone to my share of parties, but my crew was always with me. We hung out together in our own little bubble. People would filter in and out, talking and joking, but in the end, they were outsiders. We didn’t do it intentionally. It was just the way it had always been.
“That’s cool. We can do something else. How about going to a haunted house? I heard the Petrified Forest is killer this year.”
I shook my head as the first stirrings of despair began to claw their way through me. Walking through a crowded haunted house with my leg wasn’t the best idea anyway, but the Petrified Forest was outside, which would be nearly impossible. My leg wasn’t ready for unpaved terrain.
“Wait. I got it! Do you like chocolate?”
“Love it,” I answered, wondering if he was going to suggest trick-or-treating. I hated to shoot down another suggestion.
“Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together like a kid before reaching for my backpack. “Okay, well, let’s hit it.”
“Where are we going?” I asked apprehensively as he shouldered my backpack. I had no idea how I’d suddenly gone from wishing for the sanctity of my dorm room to going who knows where to do who knows what.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” He reached for my hand.
“You know trick-or-treating is probably out, too,” I said, looking down at our linked hands. Whether I was reading more into it than he intended, I wasn’t sure, but I pulled away. It was a little presumptuous of him to think I would jump immediately from talking in the library to becoming the type of friends who held hands.
“Come on, this way.” He continued as if he hadn’t even noticed my reluctance.
His legs were easily a foot longer than mine, but he matched my pace so I wouldn’t fall behind. It was hard not to feel self-conscious about it, even though Bentley didn’t seem to care. He kept me entertained with a running commentary about his roommates. I had discovered in my eavesdropping earlier that week at the library that Bentley was a good storyteller. He knew how to use words to paint a picture. By now I had a pretty good visual of Sherman, the iguana, who apparently had it out for him, and Chad, his best friend, the gamer. I couldn’t help smiling at how animated Bentley became in his descriptions. It had been a long time since I’d felt so carefree. I wondered if that was his intention or just a coincidence of his charm. The nice thing was not once did the conversation go to my leg, my friends, or anything else about the accident.
Wherever Bentley’s surprise destination was, the walk was longer than I was used to. I began to worry about my leg tiring, but he kept the pace slow, and for the time being I was holding up fairly well. Finally, we had made it off campus on the opposite side of the property from where my dorm building was. He seemed to be guiding me toward an apartment complex. I thought I had made it clear a party was out.
“You okay?” he asked when I paused in the middle of the sidewalk. He looked down at my leg, clearly concerned. “Do you need to sit down for a minute?”
“Where are you taking me?” My tone was completely bitchy, but I didn’t care. I was not relishing a long hike all the way back to my dorm because he’d decided to ignore my wishes.
“My apartment.” He looked surprisingly confused at my sudden mood swing. “Oh, shit. My bad. Look, I was just trying to be charming
ly mysterious, but it’s not what you think. I promise.”
“So, why else would we go to your apartment? I told you I didn’t want to go to a party.” My stomach began to clench. This is what I got for letting my guard down around people.
“I know. Trust me. We’re not going to a party. I have something else planned.”
“In your apartment?”
“I swear these hands will come nowhere near you if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets for emphasis. He began walking backward while coaxing me to follow him with a nod of his head.
I stood in place, waiting for my legs to make the one-hundred-eighty-degree turn to walk back to campus. I felt like a child who couldn’t make up her mind. I just didn’t want him to think he could force me to do something I didn’t want to do. This was ridiculous. One way or another, I had to make up my mind.
“Come on,” Bentley continued to tease me. “You know you want to.”
“Gah, fine. Just so you know, I’m going because I want to, not because you’re forcing me to.”
“I would never. I know how to respect the wishes of a lady,” he said in a mocking tone.
“Not funny, jerk.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. So, you’re good with this?”
“I still don’t know what this is,” I said, waving my cane toward the apartment building.
“Come on and I’ll show you.” He grabbed my hand and led me toward the apartment complex. This guy didn’t know how to take a hint. His grip was strong, but not like he was trying to pull me anywhere against my will. Evidently, I was going with the flow, and tonight would be another first.
The feeling was a bit liberating. It wasn’t that often anymore that I left caution to the wind like I had tonight. Then I noticed the concrete set of stairs. “Oh, please no,” I mouthed to myself. I guess it was too much to ask the cosmos for Bentley to suddenly turn toward an apartment on the ground floor. There was no way I’d be able to climb them, not after the long walk it took to get here.
I ran several scenarios through my head on how to get out of making a fool of myself with the stairs. I could claim to be sick. Tell him I changed my mind and didn’t feel comfortable going to a guy’s apartment who I barely knew. That seemed like the more reasonable excuse. Of course, it didn’t feel like that with Bentley. I felt like I’d known him forever. A week was far from forever. I was smart enough to realize that, but he had also been there to help me during the worst night of my life.
Before I could shoot down another one of his ideas, he’d already taken matters into his own hands—literally. One minute both my feet were firmly on the ground, the next they were dangling over his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Killing two birds with one stone. I need to keep in shape for work. What better way than carrying a pretty lady up a flight of stairs. It’s the least I can do after dragging you all the way across campus.”
“Put me down.” I tried to sound stern, but I couldn’t help laughing as I bounced up and down with each step he took.
“Trust me, ma’am. I’m a trained professional,” he answered as I continued to laugh. Damn him. Why did he have to be so sweet? As we reached the midpoint between floors, he stopped and gently moved me from his shoulder to where I was cradled in his arms. He held me like I weighed next to nothing, pulling me snugly against his chest. His breathing was smooth and effortless. I held myself stiff in his arms, although the urge to relax and nestle closer was strong as my heart raced. I felt safe, which was a problem. That feeling frightened the ever-living daylights out of me.
Bentley chatted away as he climbed the stairs, just like he had done during the walk to the apartment complex. He talked so much I never noticed that his apartment was only on the second floor, and even though we were no longer on the stairs, he was still carrying me.
“You know. You broke your promise.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said your hands would come nowhere near me,” I reminded him.
“Oh, yeah. You sure you don’t have a photographic memory?”
“I know a player when I see one.”
“What? You overestimate me. I’m just a servant of the people.”
“Yeah, right. I think I can manage now, by the way.” I began to squirm so he would put me down.
“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I guess you can walk the rest of the way, huh?”
“Obviously. Lead the way.” I straightened my clothes before bumping into his backside.
“Here we are,” he said after taking one step forward.
“You shit.” I slapped him on the arm for good measure.
He unlocked the door and I smirked, stepping into his apartment. It looked fairly nice, but glancing around, I could tell it was what you would call “guy” clean. One of the cushions on the couch was slightly askew, hinting that there might be something beneath it. The entertainment center looked like a halfhearted attempt had been made at dusting, judging by the leftover trail of grime that was visible. Still, I had to admit I liked it.
“See, not too shabby, right?” Bentley asked, shoving a stray sock out of sight that was poking out from under the couch.
“What are you doing there?”
“Fixing the carpet,” he lied, smoothing a hand over the spot where the sock had just been.
“Won’t you forget that’s under there?”
He grinned at me, flashing a pair of dimples. “Nah, besides, my mom gives me novelty socks for every holiday.” He laughed, lifting the pant leg of his jeans to reveal a black sock covered in white skeletons.
“Wow, you weren’t lying about celebrating every holiday.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Told you. We take our holidays seriously. My mom was bumped from one foster home to another growing up. Needless to say, birthdays and Christmas were pretty much nonexistent for her. When Dad asked her to marry him, he vowed to make every holiday special. I guess you could say my sister and I reaped the benefits.”
“You have a sister?”
“Oh yeah, but actually she’s not into the holiday thing anymore. She’s younger than me, but thinks she knows everything.”
“That’s cool. Holidays used to be a big deal with us, too . . .” My voice trailed off. I shouldn’t have been surprised that we had ended up here. This was why I avoided talking to anyone. It was hard to get personal without the subject of family coming up at some point. Tanya told me it was part of the healing process, but I had no idea how that was possible when everything seemed to remind me of my friends.
Bentley looked at me like he was trying to get a read on what I was thinking. I’m sure he was asking himself how he’d gotten stuck with such a dud.
“So, are you ready to do some celebrating?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.
He had a way of lightening the mood, I’d give him that. It was nice to be with someone who was able to let things roll off his back. Doom and gloom just didn’t seem to be in his DNA. “You did promise me chocolate.”
“And chocolate I will deliver,” he said, heading toward the kitchen. I trailed behind him and watched as he pulled a large box of brownie mix from the cabinet.
“You’re making brownies?”
“Correction: we’re making brownies. Will you get the eggs out of the fridge?”
“Oh, we’re making them?” I opened the fridge, nearly laughing out loud at the contents. There was an entire shelf dedicated to Red Bull and beer, while another held about a half-dozen jugs of milk. Squeezed in the space of the final shelf was a pizza box with a leftover Chinese food container and a carton of eggs perched on top. I would have expected nothing less from an apartment of guys. “You have a calcium fetish or something?” I asked, closing the door.
“More like a cereal fetish.” He opened one of the cabinets to show me what looked like more than a dozen boxes of cereal crammed inside.
“Holy crap. That’s a lot of cereal.”
“It’s chea
p. Well, for us it’s sorta free.”
“Free?”
“Yeah. Chad’s parents gave him their BJ’s Warehouse credit card to buy a few things for the apartment. He just neglected to give it back.”
“Oh Lord. Isn’t he afraid what they’ll say when they see the bill?”
“Nah. His parents spoil him. I doubt they’ll say anything. His mom’s not quite ready to cut the cord, if you know what I mean.”
“Is he a freshman?” I assumed he must be by the way Bentley was describing him.
Bentley laughed at my question as he dumped the contents of the box into a pot instead of a mixing bowl. “Hell no. He’s a junior like me. He turned twenty-one a couple months ago. She just treats him like he’s still a baby. He doesn’t care, though. He likes being coddled. The asshole is twenty-one and has never held down a job.” His words were harsh, but his tone was affectionate.
“I’m not much better. I worked at an ice cream stand not far from my house the summer I was seventeen, but the hours were a bit of a joke.”
“Hey, you get an A for effort,” he said, cracking some eggs and depositing the contents into the pot.
“You know you’ll need a different pan to cook them in, right?” I wasn’t the best baker, but watching Dad, who was the cook in our house, I’d picked up a few things. I definitely knew a stockpot was not the best choice to bake brownies.
“Are you sure?” He winked at me. “Kidding.” He pulled a baking pan from the drawer at the bottom of the stove. “We bought this when we got the brownies. We just forgot a mixing bowl. This worked, though.”
After a moment of vigorous stirring, he handed me the spoon to lick, which I accepted happily. Brownie mix was even better than cookie dough. Mom always thought it was gross that Dad and I licked the bowl after making brownies or cookies, but we considered it a perk.
I flushed slightly, finding Bentley watching me. I licked my lips, trying to erase the last traces of the brownie mix. His eyes flickered and he raised his hand toward me. My body immediately tensed in anticipation.