Candy huffed, tugging her dress down as if it would give her back her dignity. I had a feeling she gave two shits about it, too. She stomped away, and a tiny gnat of guilt nibbled at my conscience. It wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive, but she didn’t have girlfriend quality. God, I was pathetic. Guess I hadn’t given up on happily ever after. Such a dumbass.
Barry leaned over from the couch. “Dude, what the hell was that about?”
“She’s not my type,” I answered, taking a swig from the water bottle he offered. It was filled with straight vodka and went down smooth. This was the type of painkiller I needed tonight. Screw the meds and the rules.
“Do you care if I…” He motioned after Candy, wiggling his eyebrows.
“She’s all yours, just leave the bottle.”
Barry grinned. “Deal.”
I didn’t bother to watch him hit on Candy. There wasn’t any way she’d turn Barry down if he told her he played first base. Hell, Barry would probably hit a home run tonight. The pun made me laugh. I sipped the rest of the vodka and let the alcohol dull my senses, not really caring anymore. I thought about Trish and the ideal. The more I thought about her, the less it hurt. The less I missed her. But the ideal, that was a different story. I gulped a shot. Getting over Trish wasn’t hard, but giving up on what I wanted was. Fuck me. Fuck happily ever after. I was no fucking prince.
My phone dinged a new text message. I didn’t even glance at it.
Chapter Eight
Needless to say, I had a massive hangover. I suffered through the morning, thankful for not taking an early class this semester. At least I didn’t have Monroe. The swelling in my knee ballooned, but I blamed the alcohol. Chelsea had sent me some water retention pills she took once a month to help. There were things about my little sister I never wanted to know, and that was one of them. I preferred to think of her with pigtails and a gap between her teeth instead of the eighteen-year-old who wanted nothing more than to move to New York.
The pills helped with the swelling. The pain I ignored, something I’d gotten pretty damn good at lately. I’d also doubled up on the prednisone as the doctor ordered.
I entered the student union for lunch and saw Barry sitting with Seth at our usual spot.
“How’d it go last night, Barry?” I asked as I plopped into the booth. Seth grinned before stuffing his face with a chicken leg.
Barry didn’t bother to look up from his notebook. “Be glad you didn’t hit that, Betts.”
I swallowed the laugh that his morose tone solicited and cleared my throat. “Why do you say that?”
“It was like driving a Beetle into the hangar of a seven-forty-seven, dude.”
“That’s harsh,” I said before erupting into laughter. Seth’s cackle joined mine. When I finally got control of myself, Barry glared at me. “What?”
“What was up with you last night? Turning down a chick willing to put out. And you looked like someone maimed your cat.” He tapped his pen on the table.
“Guess I haven’t been single long enough.”
Seth shook a clean chicken bone my way. “Yeah, whatever, dude. I’m not stupid. Trish is a bitch, but you aren’t dead. Get laid.”
“Maybe,” I answered. But I wasn’t looking at him or Barry anymore. Over Barry’s shoulder, Mallory sat with Hipster. That made the previous night’s rejection all the more painful. Why did I even care? I turned back to Seth who was picking through his green beans. “Anything going on tonight?”
He shook his head. “Nah, unless you want to head into town for some shots at O’Malley’s.”
“Sounds like a plan. Come by around six thirty.”
Seth raised his eyebrows. “You serious, dude? ’Cause I’m in, but you don’t normally go for this sort of thing on a school night.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“All right then, son, let’s get stupid tonight. I’ll tag Chuck to DD.” He raised his fist at the same time I did for a bro bump. “’Bout time you came around to the real college experience. You in, Barry?”
Barry nodded, too busy scribbling in his notebook. He kept studying and flipping pages in his textbook. I shook my head and let my gaze fall back toward Mallory.
Two girls, one with long straight hair and the other with too-big glasses, stopped by her table. Mallory’s face lightened, then they all laughed at something. Mallory stood and threw her messenger bag over her left shoulder. Hipster reached out to touch her, but she shrank away from him. The smile stayed on her lips as she stepped back from the dude to add space. Hipster didn’t seem to get it. He made a move toward her, but the glasses girl stepped in between them. Mallory made a hasty getaway. What was up with that?
You know what, I didn’t care. It wasn’t my business.
“Yeah.” I turned my attention back to Seth. “It’s time to get stupid for a change.”
The elevator door dinged and I walked out onto the third floor. Mallory wasn’t there yet. That was surprising.
I sat in the chair opposite of where she normally did. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I barely glanced at it when I saw a familiar number without a name. Trish. I’d deleted her out of my contact list, but I knew her number by heart. I hesitated for only a second before hitting decline, sending her to voicemail.
The little message icon showed two new texts. I clicked open and saw both were from last night. My mind circled before remembering I’d ignored it because I was too busy drinking vodka. I scrolled back to the oldest one I hadn’t read.
Mallory: Who won the presidential election in 1952?
Like I’d know that. Hell, like I cared.
Mallory: Are you okay?
I scrolled through the rest of the messages between us. They looked like two people trying to one up each other. Two people with a constant competitive edge. Shaking my head, I cleared them all, wishing there was a way to get out of this tutoring thing. The mystery of Mallory Fine was one I had no interest in anymore.
“Hey,” she said behind me. I spun in my chair to face her. Her hair was pulled into a massive ponytail and her eyes flashed to my face before darting back to the blue-gray carpeting. “How…”
“We should get started. I’ve got something to do later.” I turned in my chair and opened a book.
“Fine.” As soon as she sat down, Mallory became all business. “Did you find out who won the 1952 presidential election?”
I snorted. “Ah, so that was homework?” Shaking my head, I fought the childish and girly eyeroll. “No, I was busy last night.”
She eyed me for several seconds. “Then we’ll start there.”
An hour later I still had no idea what we’d been talking about. She slammed the book closed, bringing me out of my stupidity.
“What?” I asked, stunned by the anger radiating off her.
“You’re not concentrating. I can’t do this without you, Aaron. You need to focus.” She shoved the books into her bag and stood so fast her chair tottered behind her before resting back on its legs. “Let’s pick this up tomorrow. And bring your brain next time.”
Anger welled inside me, waiting to spring on her. I grabbed my stuff and scurried to catch her at the elevator. By the time I got near her, I felt like a limping zombie, but damned if I was going to let a little agony stop me. She pushed the call button five times before crossing her arms over her chest. Her breasts heaved beneath the shirt, and the silver locket around her neck rose and fell with each breath. She tapped her foot against the padded carpet until the door dinged.
After hurrying into the tiny space, she held out her arm so I couldn’t get in. “Take the stairs, Aaron.”
“Like hell I will.” I pushed inside, pressing her against the wall. When the doors closed, I stepped back. My breathing huffed like I’d just run a marathon. “Like I can.”
The elevator creaked before stopping somewhere between the second and third floors. Not an uncommon occurrence, but it would more than likely jumpstart in a minute or so. The football field had new sod, but
the library couldn’t get an elevator fixed. Priorities.
Mallory reached for the red emergency button. Her hand hung for a moment before falling back to her side.
“Look, I’m sorry about yesterday, okay? I really did have plans that I couldn’t get out of and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to get out of.” She let her bag drop to the floor as she paced in circles around me. “You can’t let that get in the way of the tutoring session.”
I put my arm out to stop her. She stared up at me, a question in her eyes. It was probably “what the fuck” because that was going through my head. As in “what the fuck am I doing?”
She pressed her hands against my chest. My body went on autopilot. I wasn’t thinking, only acting and reacting. My hand moved to her face, my fingertips gliding down her cheek until my thumb slipped over her lower lip. Her hands slid up to my neck. Her lips quivered under my touch. I leaned in and brushed my mouth against hers. Every cell in my body lit up at the contact. I moved my lips gently, more so than I wanted to, and Mallory responded by kissing me back.
The elevator lurched to a start, sending us to opposite sides. I slammed into the wall, knocking the wind out of my chest and sense back into my head. God, what in the hell was wrong with me?
Mallory righted herself, smoothing down her shirt before lifting her bag back over her shoulder. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, her fingers on her lips. In that moment, I knew she was as confused as I was.
“Aaron, we can’t do this,” she said, tearing her gaze from me. Her voice trembled. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this with you. I don’t…I won’t date a baseball player.”
If I was confused before, this only made things worse. “Just baseball players? But wannabe hipsters with faux hawks are okay?”
“What’re you talking about?” She shook her head, still facing the elevator doors. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just…this won’t happen, okay?”
I nodded, still sorting through everything that just occurred. Did I even want to date her? Hell, I didn’t know I was going to kiss her until I did it. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it…”
“That’s the way it has to be,” she said.
“This is…this is stupid.” I stretched my arm above my head, pressing it against the wall. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I… I’m not looking for anything here. I just got out of a relationship and I’m not interested in starting another one, okay? That…that kiss was a mistake. I won’t let it happen again.”
Mallory nodded once as the doors opened to the first floor. Without glancing back, she rushed from the elevator and around the corner toward the exit.
Her lips still burned on mine, and they’d barely touched. I replayed her words as I finally exited the elevator. She didn’t date baseball players. On purpose. There was so much more to this girl than I imagined. She knew more about baseball than most of the guys I played with, but she claimed she didn’t watch the game. Whenever I saw her on campus, she was with that Hipster most of the time. What was it about him?
My phone buzzed a text message. Hoping it was from Mallory, I pulled it from my pocket.
Seth: You ready to get stupid tonight, bro?
A smile spread over my face. Seth was right earlier. It was time I started living a little, started having some fun. In all my years with Trish, I’d been the good boy to her good girl. If she was going to go bad, why couldn’t I?
Me: Yeah. Let’s get stupid.
Chapter Nine
The last thing I remembered was doing shots at O’Malley’s. I groaned as the light infiltrated my room. Then I wondered how the blinds got opened. Living on the first floor of the dorm, I kept my blinds closed. Learned the hard way my freshman year when a drunk girl climbed in the wrong window.
“Hey, sweetie,” a soft feminine voice said on the other side of my room.
I flipped over, groaning at the pain that encircled my head. It was nothing compared to what shot from my knee. What the hell?
A blonde sat in my chair, tugging on a pair of well-worn cowboy boots. She smiled, and her face flashed before me from the night before. The waitress at O’Malley’s was in my room, obviously getting dressed. She stood and strode toward me.
“Thanks for a great night,” she said as she bent and kissed my forehead. “Mallory’s one lucky girl. See you around.”
She sashayed out of my room and closed the door behind her. As soon as the latch clicked, I fell back against my pillows, grabbing my head. I vaguely remembered her feeding me shots. I vaguely remembered her running her red nails down my arm. I vaguely remembered… Holy Shit. I didn’t even know her name.
I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. Twenty until ten. History class didn’t start until ten after. So I had time. Icing my knee seemed like a good idea.
My cell buzzed on the desk, vibrating itself right onto the floor. Chelsea’s face flashed on the screen in one of her classiest poses: tongue sticking out and eyes crossed. I grabbed it and swiped to answer.
“Hey, Chels,” I said, trying to seem wide awake and not at all hungover.
“Fun night in the cesspool of college life?” My little sister rarely missed a beat. “You sound like you ate gravel with breakfast.”
I cleared my throat. “Funny. What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Aren’t you?” A nervous laugh followed, setting me on high alert.
“Seriously, what’s going on? Is everything okay?” I tried to sit up, but that lasted all of two seconds before my head hit the pillow.
She sighed; the burden of the world weighed it down. “You remember Amanda?”
“The one you were glued to forever? Of course.” They were so close, Amanda even joined us on a family vacation the summer before Chelsea started high school. Things went downhill after that. “What about her?”
“She started spreading this rumor that I’m smoking pot behind the gym at lunch. Mr. Evans even asked me about it. Thank God, he’s not the type of teacher to rat me out to Mom and Dad. At least he believed me.” She gulped down another sigh. Or maybe it was a sob. Chelsea kept her emotions in check when she needed to. She’d hold it in at school, but it would all come out later. I felt sorry for the shitstorm Mom and Dad were going to end up in. “The thing is, I don’t have any idea why Amanda started hating me to begin with.”
I knew why, but I never wanted to hurt Chelsea. Amanda came on to me one night during a party. She was drunk off her ass, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing mine. I turned her down and made it clear nothing was ever going to happen between us. Unfortunately, she took her anger out on my sister instead of me.
“I just… It’s not even that big of a deal, but it still bothers me, you know? I mean, she was like my sister.”
I stuck my arm under my head and stretched. The strain on my leg actually felt good. “Betrayal sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.” Chelsea sighed again, her favorite silence filler. “Speaking of betrayal, how’s life without Trish?”
I snorted. “Great.”
“Good. I hated her anyway.” A bell rang in the distance. “Shit, I have to go. Thanks, I just needed to get that out of my system.”
“Anytime, sis.”
We hung up, and I thought about Trish. Actually, I thought about how I hadn’t thought about Trish. Chelsea mentioning my ex’s name didn’t cause any great flare of pain or remorse. I felt nothing. I stretched again, and the knee sent a shot of lightning through my nerves.
Ice and an aspirin then off to Monroe’s class. Twenty minutes for a ten… Fuck! I didn’t have time. I was going to be fucking late to history. Rolling off my bed and landing on my good leg, I reached for the sweats, noticing not one but two empty condom wrappers on the floor. Great, I got laid twice, and I didn’t remember either time. Just fucking great.
It took me all of five minutes to get dressed, grab my bag, and limp out the door. I was halfway down the hall when Seth fell into step beside me.
&n
bsp; “Guessing you got lucky last night,” he said, glancing down at my limp. “You’re limping pretty bad, Betts. I can help with that.”
“Not a good time. I’ll talk to you later.” I popped a prednisone and an aspirin, downing them with the water I’d grabbed and sped up my pace, which wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t a good idea. As soon as I cleared the front doors of the dorm, my knee buckled the wrong way. But I couldn’t be late. And I couldn’t miss class. On top of the agony, I’d forgotten my jacket. The cold, cloudy air drizzled just enough rain to be an annoyance.
I got across campus to Brexin Hall with less than a minute to spare. Yanking the door open, I slammed my knee into it. The slew of curses spewing from my lips would’ve made a sailor blush, but I couldn’t let a little pain stop me. I used the wall for support as I hustled toward the room. Dr. Monroe strolled from the opposite end of the hall, his head down in a newspaper. If I walked into the room after him, he’d chastise me in front of the class and deduct stupid participation points from my grade. Which I couldn’t afford to lose.
Sweat broke out on my forehead as my knee threatened to come apart. I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything this physical yet. My therapist was going to kill me. My doc was going to kill me. Not to mention my dad. At least I made it into the room before Monroe. I slid into my desk, fighting the urge to reach down and grab my knee.
Dr. Monroe glared at me for a moment before setting his worn-out briefcase on the table and jumping into a lecture. He talked for the entire fifty minute period. I swear he didn’t even take a breath. I tried to listen, but my tendons and muscles sawed away at my nerves. It was easy for my mind to wander back to the chick in my room.
Then it hit me like a piano from the eighth floor. She knew about Mallory, or at least her name. What in the hell did I say last night? I already knew what I did, but what did I fucking tell her? I had to get to O’Malley’s to find out. But what did I ask a girl whose name I couldn’t even remember?
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