But as we left the lounge, I at least had enough presence of mind to ask him about Brooklyn and if she had a cell phone yet.
“Not yet,” he said, pushing his fingers through the hair that I’d had a very good time messing up. “I’ll text you when she does.”
I nodded as we walked side by side down the hall, just like we had the day before, although so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. I stole a glance at him. “Okay. Thanks.”
We got to the stairs and stopped, an awkward silence stretching between us before we both spoke.
“Are you working tomorrow?” I said.
“Sorry we didn’t get to watch the movie,” he said at the same time.
We laughed. I waved him to go first.
“I’m not working tomorrow,” he said. “And sorry about the movie.”
Right. Like I cared about that. “Thanks for the treats,” I said. And the kissing. Especially the kissing.
He smiled, like he read my thoughts.
“Should we watch the rest of the movie?” I asked, not caring even a little about the actual movie (my apologies to Colin Firth, but kissing a real boy...man trumps a TV hottie. Every. Single. Time).
Rob looked down the hall and dragged his hand through his hair again before he looked at me. “I don’t think we should. I mean, I’d like to see you again, but I think we need to cool it a bit, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, making him smirk. “But I’m not the one who thinks this is a bad idea.”
“Emmie...”
I waved him off and turned toward the stairs. “It’s fine. Text me your sister’s number, okay?”
“I will,” he said as I started up the steps. “Emmie?”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder.
“If I could, I would, you know.”
I nodded and began climbing up the stairs, listening for his footsteps, but there was only the sound of my own. It took every ounce of will power I had not to look back, but I didn’t, knowing he was watching me.
I allowed a smile to creep across my face; I hate using violent metaphors, but I knew in that second that although I’d lost the battle, I would win the war.
There was no doubt in my mind that in time, he would be mine; I’d bet money on it.
The Smell of Fresh Laundry
Sunday was spent catching up on the homework I’d put off all weekend in preparation for returning to our regularly scheduled program of classes come Monday morning. I’d gotten another good night’s sleep on Saturday thanks to convincing Kaylee to stay, bribing her with movies and candy, but her own roommate, Celia, was returning to campus so I was going to be on my own from now until whenever Brooklyn returned.
Either way, being well-rested meant I was able to easily catch up on my homework, finish up the Santa Hop shopping and even manage to do some planning and e-mailing for the event, leaving me plenty of time on Sunday night to sit around with my friends in the lounge and listen to their Thanksgiving stories.
The best one being when, ever the animated storyteller, Chelly spun her tales of sibling rivalry and how she’d cornered her brother Bryce’s poor and unsuspecting friend in the butler’s pantry where she “made a meal out of his face” before dinner. Turned out the friend was an easy mark. Chelly had plenty to be thankful for.
I might have been a little jealous of my friends’ time spent with family if I hadn’t spent my holiday weekend hanging out with and kissing a hot guy of my own. Though that was my little secret for now.
Even Kaylee didn’t know about the making out part, and I was kind of dying to tell her—or anyone, for that matter—but until I had a way to come clean to Brooklyn, I felt it was probably best to keep that to myself.
After the evening spent with friends, I returned to my empty dorm room by myself, mourning the loss of my roommate and worried about her at the same time. She should have contacted me by now, I thought. I texted Rob, but he still didn’t have a cell phone number for her, though he said they were working on it. I exchanged more texts with him, keeping him engaged as long as I could, but eventually he had to go, saying he had a busy and early day on Monday and needed to get to sleep.
Reluctantly, I wished him a good night and rolled over in bed to stare at the wall.
After maybe a total of an hour of restless sleep, the alarm went off. It was full dark out, which made it harder to drag my butt out of bed, but I needed to report to the laundry for my community service assignment. The bitter irony was that four days off made it harder to get up at such an ungodly hour to return to my assignment, but return I must. At least it probably wouldn’t be too busy with most girls having been away, but I still had to get myself down there.
I threw some cold water on my face, pulled on sweats and a t-shirt and I headed down to the dungeon that was Sub-Basement B.
~ ♥ ~
Remember when I said the laundry probably wouldn’t be busy after so many girls had been away for the weekend? Well, I forgot to factor in that the laundry had shut down for four days and everything that had arrived there in the two days before the holiday (which included pretty much everyone’s sheets and towels because their regularly scheduled days for sending them down were messed up for the week) had stockpiled and we had to rush to even make a dent in the pile. Add to that the fact that Ida, the forewoman, had a terrible bout of arthritis in her hip that was acting up, and we were pretty much screwed. I was suddenly very thankful that I had classes to get to later in the morning, otherwise I would have been worked like a dog all day long. As it was, I promised to come back after last period to help out, despite Ida’s protests. She was such a sweet lady and was obviously stressed about everything, so the least I could do was pitch in a little extra.
By the end of P.E. later that day, I was totally regretting that decision. I was exhausted and crabby and just wanted to go back to my dorm room and crawl into bed. But of course, I’d made a commitment, and thinking of poor Ida hobbling around and trying not to show that her hip was killing her got me moving back toward the laundry, not bothering to change out of my gym clothes: yoga pants and Rosewood hoodie.
When I arrived in Sub-Basement B, the noisy machines were rumbling and whirring along in a loud hum that was almost too loud to talk over, but was at the same time comforting. That, paired with the smell of bleach and fabric softener were almost meditative for me. Truth be told, I normally didn’t mind working in the laundry. I mean, sure it’s really hard work, but it’s good work and there’s nothing quite like the smell and feel of crisp clean sheets.
Maybe it made me nostalgic for when I was a kid and our housekeeper would let me help her fold laundry. I’d sit and watch ‘stories’ with her (my mother would not have found it quite so amusing as I did, that in another wing of the house, she was often watching the same program—The Young and the Restless—though with a martini in her hand instead of an iron) while the housekeeper ironed my father’s shirts, spraying starch on them and shooting steam out of the bottom of the iron with a soft whussshhh. When she was done, it was my job to hang the shirts on cedar hangers just so and put them up on the rack, ready to go to Papa’s closet.
Whatever it was, I didn’t mind my time in the laundry most days once I was awake and moving. Though this wasn’t one of those days. I looked around to see where I could best help, but before I could determine what to do, Ida came hobbling up to me with a laundry basket in her hands.
“Hey, Ida,” I said. “What can I do?”
“Oh you’re an angel, Emmie-Lou Who,” she said, making me smile with her pet name for me. “I normally do this myself, but I can’t bear to cross the room, let alone campus.”
“Whatever you need,” I said automatically as I glanced down at the basket’s contents: it was someone’s neatly folded clothes. Underwear mostly. Guys’ underwear—those sexy boxer brief kind. I couldn’t help but blush a little, even though I had no idea who they might belong to, although if someone upstairs had a good sense of humor, they’d be Rob’s. Or
a really good sense of humor and they’d be the thousand year old janitor’s. Yeah, I was totally betting on him being the owner of these sexy black Calvins.
Ida pushed the basket at me until I took it from her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a key ring and put it on top of the underwear. “Bless your heart. Just take this to the dean’s cottage.”
“The dean’s cottage?” I blurted, looking down at the underwear again.
Ida nodded. “Yes. She’s away with her son. You know him: Brady, the horse coach?”
I nodded, definitely knowing him, but only having found out recently that he was the dean’s son. What was alarming was that his underwear was right in front of my face. The underwear that he wears. Under his sexy riding pants. The only thing between those pants and his...
“Emmie? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I just...it’s really hot in here today.”
Ida frowned. “You’ve not got a fever, do you? You look a little off.”
“Maybe,” I said stupidly. “But I’m fine. Just tired,” I added quickly, not wanting to alarm her.
She gave me a curt nod. “Okay, just take that, will you? They’re not home, so you won’t be barging in on anyone. She took him to New York to see a specialist about his ankle, poor thing. I hope he doesn’t miss his chance to go to the Olympics. Such a talented boy.” She shook her head with a tsk and then seemed to remember she was really busy and should probably get back to it. “Anyhow, you go do that for me and bring the keys back and then you’re done for the day.” She held up her palm when I opened my mouth to protest, and I knew by that determined look on her face that there was no point arguing, so I nodded and left without another word.
To go deliver laundry to the dean’s cottage.
Breaking In
I contemplated going to my dorm room for a jacket before delivering the dean’s laundry, but I didn’t want to carry the full basket all the way up to the third floor and—yes, call me a coward—the elevators that went up to the dorm floors looked a whole lot like the ones from The Shining. The ones that become flooded with blood in the movie. So, I skipped the jacket and just braced myself for a quick run across campus.
At least the freezing rain was done, I thought. Though as I left the main Rosewood building, I could see the effects of the storm still strewn about the normally pristine lawn: all sorts of tree branches and other debris tossed about. I was surprised it hadn’t been picked up by the grounds crew yet, but then realized Chelly was on the grounds crew for her CSA and if I knew her at all, she was probably around the back of the maintenance shed with some cute gardener, distracting him away from his job.
I smiled at this as I walked quickly toward the dean’s cottage, trying not to think too hard about going into her home. Even though I had a key and was only doing a task I’d been asked to do, I still felt like I was about to do something very wrong. I glanced down at the underwear and then quickly brought my eyes up, not wanting to think about the sexy Olympian with the really nice butt and how he would fill out the underwear, but kind of finding it difficult not to.
As I rounded the stables and came into full view of the dean’s cottage, I stopped in my tracks as I was met with an odd noise. It wasn’t banging, but a weird thudding sound. Then there was some cursing. No, a lot of cursing. I ducked behind a bush—the same bush I’d ducked behind when the girls and I had spied on the dean, in fact—and put down the laundry basket to figure out what was going on.
It was a large man in a t-shirt and jeans standing outside the large window at the side of the dean’s cottage. I had half a second to admire his big, tattooed arms as he turned and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. He was obviously working hard to be sweating like that in the brisk autumn wind.
As I saw the side of his face, I gasped involuntarily, remembering meeting him before. Well, not meeting him so much as standing in line behind him at the drug store when I’d bought my hair dye on the day of the Thanksgiving food drive.
I remembered him vividly because he’d been buying a box of condoms. Awkward. Though when he’d glanced at me and saw me notice his imminent purchase, he’d tried to hide the box behind a bag of chips. Nice try, guy, but too late.
On that day he’d been wearing a black leather jacket, so I couldn’t have seen his tattooed arms, but what had been most remarkable about him and what had imprinted the memory of him onto my brain even more than the condoms, was the teardrop tattoo under his eye. That and his stunning face, all angles and masculine beauty, the kind you see in print ads for men’s cologne and razors. As I’d scanned my gaze up his face, I was met by his very haunted eyes that had connected with mine for a split second until I’d quickly turned and noticed Dave across the street in front of the grocery store, pulling my attention away.
Thinking back, this guy had looked smolderingly sexy in a dangerous way then. But now as I watched him pick up some kind of metal bar and start prying away the window, he looked more dangerous than sexy. Although those arms...
But then my brain caught up and I realized what was actually happening.
“Oh my God,” I said out loud, almost disbelieving what I was seeing with my own eyes. “He’s breaking in.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, blurting out that there was a robbery in progress on the Rosewood campus. The dispatcher took all the pertinent information and warned me to stay away and to let the police get there and take control of the situation.
As I stood there watching with the phone to my ear, giving the dispatcher a whispered running commentary, a shiver ran through me. Though it had little to do with the late November wind that had kicked up.
The guy swore again as he continued trying to pry the window open. Then the sirens started, causing him to look toward the road.
That was fast, I thought, keeping an eye on him to see which way he bolted.
But the oddest thing was, he didn’t move. He wasn’t running away. He’d stopped breaking in, but seemed to be waiting for the sirens. Duh!
It was so stupid of me and made no sense that I’d even think it, but I almost wanted to yell at him to run. I couldn’t believe he was just standing there like an idiot while the police were about to catch him.
“You are the stupidest criminal ever,” I whispered as I watched the campus security scream up in two separate vehicles.
“What’s that?” the dispatcher said.
“The sirens: the police are coming and he’s not moving.”
“Just stay out of sight while they approach,” the woman warned unnecessarily, though I hunched down a little more behind the bush.
Then, the funniest thing happened: the guy started looking around. Like he wasn’t the reason they were there!
“Why aren’t you running?” I said under my breath. But now the guy was walking up to the campus cops.
I held my breath, my eyes riveted on what was surely going to be some sort of standoff, especially since he still had the metal rod in his hand. But instead of jumping out of their vehicles with guns drawn (do campus cops even have guns? I had no idea), they got out and started talking to him. There were four of them; two uniformed ones and two others in plain clothes: black pants and shirts and those earpieces that secret service wear. I’d never seen them before, but I had noticed more security around lately, so maybe one of the politicians’ kids had been threatened or something. Not that I had a lot of time to think about that with the scene unfolding in front of me.
“What’s going on?” the guy said to the first cop that got to him.
The cop looked around and said, “We got a call that someone was breaking into the dean’s cottage.”
Then the criminal looked around again, like he wasn’t the guy breaking in. Which he was. Wasn’t he? I looked back toward the window he’d been trying to pry open. The pane was broken. The pane that was under the big tree where a bunch of branches were still scattered about after being blown off by the storm.
I glanced back at the guy an
d noticed for the first time the writing on the back of his t-shirt: A1 Windows.
My heart lurched.
“Oh,” I exhaled as my very big mistake became evident. He wasn’t trying to pry open the window, he was trying to fix the window.
Oh. My. God.
Then there were more sirens as two cars full of real police showed up, making my mistake So. Much. Worse.
They jumped out of their cars, yelling and pointing guns. “Oh no,” I muttered.
Needing to fix things, I left the laundry basket and approached the group of men with my hands up. “Sorry, sorry! I’m the one who called,” I said loudly. “I think I made a big mistake.”
The head campus cop, a guy I’d waved at through the security booth many times, looked me over. “Somerville, right?”
I nodded, noticing his name tag on his uniform said his name was Doyle. “Yes,” I said, turning to the window guy. “I’m so sorry. I saw you trying to get the window off and I thought you were trying to break in. I...” feel so stupid.
The window guy’s eyes narrowed at me and he looked like he wanted to kill me. I felt like I’d be okay with that if it meant an end to this awkward humiliation. “I’m so sorry,” I said again.
Doyle looked at me. “You called because of him?”
I nodded, biting my thumbnail as I willed myself not to cry out of complete humiliation. Doyle sighed loudly and then turned toward the policemen. “It was a misunderstanding. Sorry to bother you.”
The police put away their guns and nodded before they got back into their cars and drove away. The second campus cop took off in his car, too, taking the plain-clothes guys with him, leaving me with Doyle and the window guy.
Who didn’t look very forgiving as he turned his back on me to speak to Doyle. “I need to get this window fixed before dark, can I get back to it?”
Doyle nodded. “Sorry about that, Danny,” he said, even though it was hardly his fault.
Danny? I thought. Like that messed up kid in The Shining? Seriously? Would I ever get away from that movie? I cursed Rob once more, making a note to put the finishing stitches on my voodoo doll with the dark hair and chocolate eyes.
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