by Mia Storm
Chapter 23
Blaire
School keeps me busy. Busy is good. Less time to think.
I bust my ass studying and only manage Bs in most of my first semester classes. Berkeley is a world away from high school…and even Sierra State, where the grading seemed a little more lenient.
Nate is in Reno, a six-hour drive from Berkeley, so we only manage to see each other when we are both home for Thanksgiving. His mother invites Marcus and me over for Thanksgiving dinner, but Marcus still isn’t speaking to Nate, so we stay home with our parents and go out to Denny’s instead. Mom’s never seen the point of cooking a huge turkey for just the four of us.
Nate and I text every day, and I call him on the nights I’m feeling Caiden’s gravitational pull trying to crush my heart to a pulp against my ribcage. Hearing Nate’s voice grounds me in my reality. A reality I have to accept.
But as I drive home for winter break, the closer I get to home—to Caiden—the more I feel it. I stay on the highway an extra few exits and take the long way home through East Overton. It’s after nine when I pull up to his complex. The streetlights near his complex are all out, and low roiling cloud cover charges the air and makes me edgy. My hands shake on the wheel as I drive slowly through the dark parking lot. My heart breaks into a gallop when I see his car in a spot near his apartment. Upstairs, his bedroom light is on and the shade is open. I back into a parking space across the lot, where I’ve got a clear view of the window, and turn off the engine.
He can’t be arrested for me stalking him, right?
I convince myself I only need a glimpse of him. Then I can go home and live my sorry excuse for a life. I’ll give it fifteen minutes. If he hasn’t come to the window in that time, I’ll leave. I recline my seat back and wait.
It’s nearly two hours later when a bare-chested Caiden appears in the window. My heart lurches me forward, pressing my chest against the steering wheel in an attempt to get closer.
He’s grown a beard—short and golden blond, a few shades lighter than the honey brown waves on his head. And he’s been working out. His body was amazing before, but now he’s ripped. I etch the image into my memory as he reaches up to pulls the blinds.
But he lowers his hand when a tall blonde wraps her arms around his shoulders from behind. She’s nearly his height, and is wearing a thin white cami. She says something close to his ear and he turns in her arms.
A stone fist crushes my heart when she grasps a handful of his hair and yanks him to her, kissing him hard. He reaches for the blinds again when she lets him go, and the window goes dark.
All I can do is stare at where he was for another minute, his image still outlined on my retinas. I close my eyes as tears hitch up my throat.
I never expected Caiden would wait around for a year for me. I’m with Nate. Of course he’s found someone else. He’s beautiful and smart and incredible. What did I think he was going to do, become a monk?
I breathe back the tears and almost have it together when a loud bang on my window makes me jump. I look up to see a guy with gold teeth shining out of his depraved grin.
“Chica! Come out and play!” He pushes off my car and grabs his junk. “I got some toys you gonna like!”
Three more guys stalk my direction from farther down the parking lot. Gold Teeth jumps back when I start the car and peal out.
My shaking has started to subside by the time I pull up to the curb in front of the house twenty minutes later. But it’s back when the car I pull up behind is Nate’s. Over the course of the semester, Marcus and I have gradually gotten back to shooting texts at each other a couple times a day. But we never mention Nate. He’s still the elephant in the room. As long as we ignore his existence, Marcus and I do okay. But as far as I know, Nate is still on Marcus’s shit list.
I rush inside and find Nate and Marcus in the family room. They’re wrestling on the floor, crashing into the coffee table and nearly knocking it over. There’s a lot of grunting and cursing, but no one’s laughing…so it looks like they’re working things out in their own way.
I leave them to deal with each other and go to the shower.
∞
Spring semester seems to drag. But that’s mostly because I forgo any semblance of a social life and spend every waking minute holed up in the library or my room with my books. I’m down to my last final, but Nate just drove down from Reno today. He finished finals a few days earlier than me and came straight to Berkeley to stay with me while I finish up.
But I realize that might have been a really bad idea when I’m on the bed, trying to study, and he’s sitting behind me, playing with my tits.
“Glad I didn’t miss your birthday,” he says in my ear. He takes my hand and lays it on his junk. “I’ve got a very special package with your name on it.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say, taking my hand off him. “But I really have to study this.”
A key rattles in the lock just before my roommate, Aimee, pushes through the door into the room. She’s all blond Malibu Barbie, which is a little scary because that’s really where she’s from.
“Well, look at that!” she says, smiling at Nate. “You exist!”
He gives her his full-dimple grin as he pats himself down. “Last I checked, yeah.”
She drops her bag near her desk. “It’s just, Blaire tells any guy that comes onto her she’s got this boyfriend, but it’s been an entire school year and no one’s ever met you, so…you can see why we were a little skeptical.”
He looks at me as if he doesn’t like that someone might have been touching his stuff. “Guys hit on you?”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
Aimee drops onto her bed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Her nose is always in a book. If I can drag her to a party, it must be a freaking ice storm in hell.”
Nate climbs off my bed. “Nate,” he says, holding out a hand to Aimee. “The real live boyfriend. Great to meet you.”
“You ready in there?” I hear Dee, who lives across the hall, call from the hallway. A second later, she comes through the open door with a…
“Is that a cake?” I ask, scooting off the bed.
She puts it on my desk and brushes her long afro off her face, leaving a smudge of white frosting across her black cheek. Her boyfriend, Mike, come through behind her and starts singing “Happy Birthday.” He’s tall, skinny, and blond. Dee’s negative image.
Everyone joins in, even Nate, who hams it up, acting the song out like he’s in some Broadway musical. I walk over and look at the sorriest excuse for a cake I’ve ever seen.
“Aimee couldn’t get it out of the pan in one piece,” Dee explains.
“You didn’t grease the pan!” Aimee shoots back. “It stuck!”
Dee does a ‘whatever’ eye roll. “I had to glue it back together with frosting.”
I stare at it, then crack up. Crumbs of chocolate cake are all mixed in with the white frosting, and the top layer has slid halfway off. Happy Birthday Blaire is written on top in green frosting, but both Ys are more on the side of the cake then on top of it. But it’s the first time I can remember that anyone actually baked me a cake.
When Marcus and I were little, Mom would buy a six pack of cupcakes at the supermarket on her way home from work and stick a candle in each one. Once I was about ten, she decided we were too old for birthday cake. Or, at least that’s what she said. I always suspected she just forgot to stop at the store.
“This is the most awesome cake I’ve ever had,” I tell them truthfully.
“What are you guys doing for dinner?” Aimee asks.
I look at the chapters I still have to review before tomorrow. “That sorry ass birthday cake, I’m pretty sure.”
“No way,” Dee says, grabbing my hand and dragging me toward the door. “It’s your birthday.”
I pry my hand away. “I don’t think Professor Canton gives a shit. I’m barely squeaking by with a C in his class. I need to kick this final’s ass or they’re goin
g to pull my scholarship money next year.”
Aimee splits a glance between us. “Listen, if you need to study, why don’t we take Nate out to The Bowl so he can see what we do for fun around here and you can get some work done. We’ll have a drink in your honor.”
I look at Nate, pleading with my eyes for him to say yes.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, giving me a nod. “So what’s this Bowl?”
“It’s an all-ages club in Oakland with this outdoor stage,” Aimee says as Dee and Mike file into the hall. Nate steps through the door and gives me a wave as Aimee keeps talking. “They get these great indie bands all year and...” The door closes and I hear her voice fade down the hall.
I dive into my book and have gotten through enough of it that I feel like I might actually pass my final when they all spill back into the room three hours later, laughing and holding each other up. We spend the next hour eating cake—which despite its pathetic appearance, tastes amazing—and shooting the shit.
Finally, when they’ve started sobering up, Mike stands from where he’s sitting on my desk. “Got an eight o’clock final,” he says as he tugs Dee out of my desk chair by the hand. “The prof locks the door at the start of the exam and if you’re like one second late, you’re shit out of luck.”
“’Night,” I say as they disappear through the door, leaving it open behind them.
Nate scoots off the bed next to me and pulls me up. “You got a toothbrush I can borrow, babe? Left mine in the car.”
I give him my extra toothbrush and let him into the guy’s bathroom on my way to the girls. I pee and brush my teeth and when I get back to the room, Nate is stripped down to his boxers, already in my bed.
“Come give papa some sugar,” he says, lifting the covers for me.
I climb in next to him and lay with my back to him. Nate spoons me and sucks my earlobe as Aimee comes back from the bathroom in her Hello Kitty tank top and pink flannel PJ pants.
This is a little awkward. Neither of us has had a boyfriend sleep over in our room before. She’s been with hers, a cute guy named Erik, for almost three years, since the start of junior year in high school, but he goes to school back east. I met him once when he helped her move in, but he went home with Aimee’s parents that night.
“You guys good?” she asks with a hand on the light switch near the door.
“Yeah,” I say.
She flips off the light on her way to her bed. “’Night,” she says as she climbs in, like this isn’t weird at all, so I decide not to worry.
Nate spoons tighter against my back and wraps his arms around me, kissing my neck. And the room goes quiet.
A little while later, Aimee starts to mutter under her breath. She always does that as she’s falling asleep and just before she wakes up. And then I feel Nate pressing his hard-on against my ass. He slides a hand under the front of my panties and glides his fingers between my legs.
“Nate, we’re not alone,” I whisper.
“She’s asleep.” He dips his middle finger inside me. “I want to give you that birthday present I promised you.”
“She might wake up.”
“God, baby, please,” he begs. “It’s been so long and I want you so much. You’re all I can think about.” His fingers pick up pace as he talks, and his breathing is getting heavier on my neck. He kisses my neck and shoulder as he inches my underwear over my hips. Even without my help, he manages to get them down to my thighs “I love you so much,” he whispers. “Please, baby. I need you.”
I feel him behind me wrestling with his boxers, then he rolls on top of me. I turn my face to the side so I don’t suffocate when his weight lowers onto my back. He lifts my ass a little as he wedges between my legs. “We’ll be quiet,” he whispers into my hair. “She’ll never know.”
Nate starts slow, easing himself into me from behind, but it’s only a minute later that the slap of skin as he pounds me is loud enough I’m sure Dee can hear it across the hall. I bury my face in the pillow until he comes with a low rumbling groan deep in his chest.
He collapses on top of me. “Fuck, I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I whisper.
“I fucking love you, baby.”
I lay here feeling his warmth against my back, feeling him breathe slow and deep, and realize if I stop comparing Nate to Caiden, I could be happy. He says he loves me. I’ve always loved him. This could turn into something if I’d let it.
If I can let go of the hope of Caiden.
After several minutes, when I feel his dick wither enough that it falls out of me on its own, I realize he’s asleep. I squirm out from under him and go to the bathroom to clean up.
I went to the student health center when I got to campus last fall and went on the pill, but I’ve since decided I like condoms better. All the mess ends up in a tidy little package that way. I get myself put together and tiptoe back into the room.
Nate is sprawled face down and naked across my whole bed. As I crawl over him, I realize this is the first time I’ve had to actually sleep with him. He usually leaves when he’s done. I wedge myself between him and the wall and steal all the covers.
∞
The studying paid off. I’m pretty sure I killed my last final. If I scored at least a ninety, that would bring me up to a B in Dr. Canton’s class to go with all my other As I nailed this semester. It’s a huge improvement over last semester and should keep me my scholarship.
Aimee, Dee, Mike, and Nate all decide to go out to The Bowl again tonight, and this time I join them. It’s loud and packed, everyone out for one last good time before heading home for the summer. We dance as a group and in pairs, everyone rotating so Aimee doesn’t feel like a fifth wheel. Mike is a junior and the only one of us who’s twenty-one. He buys us all a few rounds of beer on the sly. We’re laughing and sweating and dancing until The Bowl closes down at two and throws everyone out.
“I think I’ll hang out with Dee and Mike for a while,” Aimee says with a wink at me when we get back to the dorm. My cheeks heat when I realize by the look she gives me that she heard us last night. “Maybe a half hour or so? Does that sound okay?”
My smile is really more of a cringe. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
Nate closes the door to our room and throws me onto the bed. “You hear that, woman? We’ve got a half hour to get nasty.”
I sit up on the edge of the bed and give him an incredulous look. “Did you just call me ‘woman’?”
He yanks his T-shirt over his head and thumps on his chest with his fists like a gorilla, except I think he thinks he’s being a caveman. “Me man. You woman.”
I shrug. “Guess I shouldn’t complain. It’s a big improvement over ‘baby girl.’”
He stops pounding on himself and looks stricken. “What’s wrong with baby girl?”
I think about Caiden, how I really was too much of a baby to be with him. “Just not how I like to think of myself.”
He juts his chin and gives a nod. “Okay, I’ll just call you ‘woman’ from now on.” He undoes his jeans as he saunters over. He wedges between my knees and pulls out his stiffy. “Dick, meet woman. Woman, this is Dick.” He grins dimples down at me as he braces his knees against the mattress between my legs and presses his pelvis forward, so his hard-on is right in my face. He laces his fingers around the nape of my neck and his eyes flash. There’s no question what he’s asking for.
I’ve never gone down on anyone but Caiden.
I try to block the thought as I take Nate’s dick in my hand and lean forward. When I part my lips over the head, he grasps the back of my neck and plunges himself deeper into my mouth.
“Fuck, yeah, woman,” he groans. “You’ve got lips that were made for this.”
I suck on him and he pumps into me, gagging me more than once. I expect a heads up or something when he’s getting close, but instead, he grasps me tighter by the hair and thrusts hard into the back of my mouth, unloading down my throat.
He growls as he co
mes, then his hands loosen in my hair. “I love you, baby.”
I swallow and take my mouth off him. “I love you too.”
I go to the bathroom a few minutes later and get ready for bed. On the way back, I knock on Dee’s door to tell Aimee it’s okay to come back in. But when Dee opens the door, Mike is gone and, where Aimee had been laughing when we got home, now she’s bawling into Dee’s pillow.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Erik sent a sort of weird text,” Dee says with a cringe. “Said he’d been thinking about some things and he and Aimee needed to talk when he gets home next week. She thinks he’s breaking up with her.”
“Shit.” I go over to her and sit on the edge of the bed. “Hey, Aim? Why don’t you come back to the room? We can pop some popcorn and watch a movie or something.”
She lifts her face out of the pillow. “I really don’t want to seem this needy in front of your boyfriend,” she says, sitting up.
“He’s not that sensitive to stuff like this. If the movie’s got car chases and explosions, he probably won’t even notice you’re crying.”
She smiles a little. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
She gives Dee a hug and I guide her back across the hall. When we open the door, Nate’s sprawled shirtless on my bed. At least he had the good sense to fasten his pants.
I pick up his T-shirt, where it still lays crumpled on the floor near the door, and toss it at him. “We’re going to put in a movie.”
“What you got?” he asks, tugging his shirt on and going to Aimee’s box of DVDs under the TV in the corner.
“I don’t even remember what I brought,” she says. “Just pick whatever looks good.”
He comes out with one of the X-men movies and Aimee goes to the bathroom to get ready for bed as he queues it up in the player.
“What’s going on?” Nate asks while she’s gone.
“Her three-year boyfriend is breaking up with her.”
He pulls a face, and I think he’s getting ready to make some crack about needy chicks or something. He shocks me by saying, “That sucks. She seems like a decent kid.”