by Anyta Sunday
I declined the offer. Dylan would have no idea who I was or what I was after, and I didn’t want to leave details in a note on his door. I certainly didn’t want to involve his friend.
Just before I hung up, the girl spoke again, “So, like, how do you choose what party you write about?”
“Random, mostly.” This wasn’t entirely true; I chose parties that were close to my apartment.
She continued, “Beckman Hall is having a ball this Friday, would that count as a party?”
I almost declined, but I reconsidered. If I attended this ball, I’d be at Beckman Hall, where a photo of The Raven hung in Dylan’s room. Maybe, if I was clever enough, I wouldn’t have to wait until Dylan returned to get a glimpse of the vigilante.
I leaned back. “Actually, I think Beckman Hall ball would work splendidly. How do I go about getting a ticket?”
Beckman Hall cafeteria-turned-ballroom looked like it had been sucking on gangster hats, feather eyelashes, fringed skirts and cigarette holders for so long that it started spitting feathered scarves and velveteen gloves to the floor in protest.
Wearing plain black slacks and a black shirt, I slipped easily into the shadows, and no one gave me much more than a passing glance. Now that I was here, all I had to do was write some notes for my column, find out where exactly Dylan roomed, and sneak inside for a quick look around.
A voice cut through the plucking of bass strings, and the familiarity stilled me. Trying to fit myself against a life-size silhouette showcased on the wall, I skimmed the heads of the crowd toward the voice. No. It just wasn’t possible. How could he be here?
I blinked at the guy dancing to the lively jazz—black pants, white shirt and suspenders.
Quinn.
It’s no wonder he doesn’t have friends.
My throat pinched as I swallowed, and despite the . . . rawness that overcame me seeing him, I couldn’t look away. Thank God he wasn’t gazing in my direction. I slunk closer to the wall, trying to be more inconspicuous.
How was it that Quinn was at almost all the parties I went to?
I’d read up on Beckman Hall, and this ball was famous, but really? It was unfathomable that we would run into each other at a party—three times in a row.
I searched for Shannon, but didn’t see her anywhere in the thickening crowds of top hats and suave come-ons. Nor did I spot Hunter hidden in a corner. Was it just Quinn?
I narrowed my gaze on him again. Judging by the chipper smile on his face, he was quite simply having a ball.
The girl he danced with laughed loudly when he mirrored her moves. Something about them had me itching to pull out my notebook and start writing. I couldn’t get enough of trying to make sense of this bleached-blond, green-eyed, broad-shouldered, club-eared man who seemed so at ease at these parties. Maybe, if I studied him long enough, I’d uncover the key ingredient to fitting in well in social situations.
Rested against the silhouette, I pulled out my notebook. I had to write a column on the ball anyway, so I could start with a description of the dancing. I wouldn’t actually use him as my angle or anything; he was just one example of the numerous people swinging their hips. . . .
Quinn kept scanning the crowds as if waiting for someone to turn up, and each time his head swung around my way, I ducked into a crouch and pretended to pick up the pen I’d “dropped.”
Inching back up the wall until I was standing again, I skimmed the room trying to spot who he was looking for. Shannon, perhaps? Or maybe he was trying to get back with that guy he broke up with?
When the jazz band started improvising mid-song and the saxophonist burst out into a complex melody, I twisted toward the stage, my gaze sweeping over Quinn—
I froze. He’d stopped dancing, and was focused directly on me.
I couldn’t figure out why a jolt of guilt zapped me from head to foot. Just because he had friends and fit in better didn’t mean I couldn’t be here too.
I clapped my notebook shut, slipped it into my deep pocket, and without any acknowledgement, turned toward the exit. I didn’t care to exchange words with him. In fact, I shouldn’t have even cared how energetically he danced.
I was at Beckman Hall for another reason.
It was time to execute my plan of sneaking into Dylan’s room.
I waited until people started to get inebriated. Then I waved a piece of paper and asked students where his room was so I could tack the note to his door.
In fact, what I intended to do was hide out in the hall until the guy crashing in there returned. I’d hook him into conversation and push my way into his room to check out the walls, where the picture of The Raven hung.
A drunk guy with flushed cheeks and a goatee led me all the way to Dylan’s room, on the second floor above the cafeteria-ballroom. Jazz vibrated faintly underfoot as Drunk Guy used his keycard to let us both in.
“His room is just down there—” He unleashed a beer-flavored belch, and I gulped for fresher air at my side, which wasn’t that much fresher—there was a distinct smell of sweaty guy and stale beer in this dorm.
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a quick nod and moving over the thinning navy carpet toward the door he’d pointed at. From here, it seemed to be partially open; light spilled in a wedge into the dim hall.
Brilliant. The plan worked.
“Sure,” Drunk Guy said, and shuffled off in the opposite direction with another large belch.
Slowing my step, I calculated my next move. Seemed the guy crashing in there was already here. Now all I had to do was make some conversation while slyly scanning the walls.
Simple enough.
I hoped.
Voices trilled down the hall, followed by laughter and doors opening and shutting. Footsteps followed me to Dylan’s door. I moved to the side to let the guy pass, but he didn’t. I blinked at the scuffed black shoes as they moved to my side, and—
“Gah!” I startled, lurching into Dylan’s door and swinging it open.
“Liam,” Quinn said, grabbing my arm tightly to stop me from toppling into the room. He pulled me back to a standing position as the door thumped against the wall, revealing an unoccupied room. Maybe the guy had just gone to the bathroom?
“What are you doing here?” I asked, torn between the need to grab my pen and the need to investigate The Raven so I could leave before the guy returned from his toilet trip.
Quinn frowned at my hurried words and guilt-ridden tone. “Maybe I should ask what you are doing here?”
I scanned the hall and made a decision. In the name of truth, in the name of journalism, in the name of helping The Raven who’d saved me, I stepped into the decent-sized room and yanked Quinn in with me by his suspenders. I’d have preferred him to turn around and go the other way, but he might have lingered in the doorway and demanded answers, drawing all the wrong attention to us.
Once we were safely inside—the suspenders having come to a hearty snap against Quinn’s chest—I carefully placed the door in its original spot.
“Again, what are you doing?” Quinn said, this time with more curiosity.
“Just a bit of research. This shouldn’t take more than half a minute.”
“Are you . . .” Quinn said, following me around the king-size bed. He stopped at the two desks in the middle of the room. “Are you snooping?”
“I prefer to call it investigating,” I said, scanning the corkboard of pictures overhanging the desks. One of these shots might be the one. Quinn stood with his arms folded, shaking his head. I glanced and added, “But I suppose I could live with sleuthing, too.”
A hint of a smile touched his lips. Lifting pictures to see the ones hidden underneath, I asked, “And what are you doing here?” I couldn’t deny I was marginally curious as well.
Quinn shrugged. “Confession: I wanted to find you. I rang up the Scribe and some girl, Hannah, I think, said you mentioned you would be here tonight.”
“Hannah?” I asked, ripping my gaze from the corkboard for a
n astonished second.
“Yeah, I know someone who lives here and it was pretty easy to get a ticket. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive.”
“I’d have thought I was the last person you’d want to see. Or if not the last, close to it.”
He ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip. “It’s just . . . you haven’t been at home. Every time I go there you never answer.”
Quinn had visited? “I’ve been working late.”
“Fine, but I needed to finally tell you that I’m sorry. What I said last weekend, well, I was a complete prick, and I never should have been so cruel.”
I re-focused on the pictures. “Stating a fact isn’t cruel.”
He winced. “Look, Hunter seems to think you’re the best so, you know, I had no right to say what I did.” He tried for a small smile and then reached out his hand. “Do you think we can start again?”
My fingers brushed over a blurry picture of a figure in the darkness, wearing a hood. Was this the picture Dylan had taken?
I ignored Quinn’s hand as I searched for more. Nothing. The fuzzy photo didn’t capture any facial features or give any clue about where to find The Raven.
“So, can we?” Quinn asked again, perching himself on the bed’s patchwork quilt.
“Well—”
A scuffling sound outside the room startled me.
I guess I had expected I’d get out of the room without having to confront anyone, because suddenly I jumped a step in Quinn’s direction. What was my excuse again? Where was the fake note?
Flustered, I couldn’t quite figure out my next move.
Just stand there and take it as it comes, ad lib.
Quinn stood quickly, and we both would have faced the music of getting caught investigating if it weren’t for what happened next.
Among the sounds of pants, groans and kisses, came the sound of a zipper being undone and a girl’s plea. “Turn off the light in there.”
There was only time for an awkward glance to Quinn, who looked as uncertain what to do as I felt, before a male’s arm stretched through the gap in the door, fishing for the light switch—
Click!
Darkness. Slurping smooches assaulted my ears.
I flew to the ground, crawling for a space to hide myself. I glanced toward the door at the live silhouettes of legs imprisoning us in this room. I yanked on Quinn’s pant leg, making him drop to all fours too. He came down lightly without a sound, like he’d done this before.
The bed. It was our only option for hiding. The desks were too small, and there wasn’t any other furniture.
So, the bed it was.
I slithered under and thought I heard a soft curse as Quinn pressed himself in behind me. “Snooping, snooping, snoopster!” he said.
Thankfully, I could only make out the wooden slats and the corner feet of the bed because, tangled around my legs, was something that felt like clothing and I prayed wasn’t dirty underwear.
Quinn sidled in closer until his breath tickled my side and his deodorant filled my nose with every breath. Jazz music beat through the thin carpet and against my stomach, legs and arms, and I hoped it would disguise our breathing.
More groans sounded, and then footsteps moved into the room, followed quickly by discarded clothes hitting the floor, slick kissing sounds, and light slaps. The horrific sounds got closer and closer until, looking over Quinn, I glimpsed two pairs of feet.
Was it too late to start praying they’d do it somewhere other than the bed?
Kaplank! Boing!
“Christ!” Quinn whispered as their bodies hit the mattress.
I pressed my finger to my lips, instantly realizing it was too dark under the bed for him to see my cue, so I fished for his mouth and pinched it shut. His lips grazed the length of my finger as he turned his head in my direction. I yanked my arm back. We flinched as the slats groaned above us, followed by a moan that sounded as if it were trying to harmonize.
“Yeah, oh yeah. That’s right. Suck it. Suck it.”
My eyes adjusted to the darkness under the bed. The way Quinn was looking at me, as if unsure whether to laugh or scowl, had me wishing for the cloaking darkness to return. He shook his head and rubbed his forehead like he just couldn’t believe this was happening.
“All the way in, yeah, you can take it. God, your mouth is fucking beautiful.”
Quinn shut his eyes and looked at me when he reopened them. He was mouthing something that I couldn’t make out, but I knew he was cussing.
I agreed that the situation wasn’t ideal, but we had to live through it. I shoved my glasses up and twisted just enough to reach into my pocket—
The slats thumped and I froze, pressing myself closer to the floor, my hand jammed in my pocket.
The girl spoke. “Give it here.”
I predicted the coming event, so I quickly wriggled into a better position, pulling out my pen and notebook from my pocket. I might just be able to read some of my notes from earlier. I’d concentrate on the column I had to write, and not on the thumping that—thump, groan, thump, groan—had just started.
“God, you’re so tight.”
Silent laughter shook Quinn’s body and grated against my side. Well, while he laughed, I’d focus on the historical elements that were portrayed at this ball and—
Quinn shuffled closer to me and brought his mouth to my ear. His warm hand rested on my pen-clenching hand. “Are you serious?” The words slid down my neck and his breath turned my skin into goosebump soup.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
“Fuck. Fuck yeah. Ride me, baby.”
“You’re unbelievable,” he whispered again in my ear. He plucked the notebook and pen from my suddenly limp hands, stuffing my much-needed distractions into his back pocket.
“Turn over. Up on your knees.”
Thump!
This one was so loud, Quinn flung his arm over me, half curling onto me as if to protect me from falling bed slats.
“I could fuck you like this all fucking night.”
“Christ, please don’t,” Quinn whispered against the back of my neck, where his face was pressed.
“Do you like this? Do. You. Like. This?”
Not particularly. Though I found it somewhat fascinating just how much fun the two of them seemed to be having. Sure I’d had sex before, but it was usually a quieter affair. Perhaps I’d just been with the wrong girl?
What would Hannah be like if we decided to pursue something?
Oh–oh-oh-oh!
The slats jumped and slammed and groaned, and Quinn pressed against me tighter until the groans and cries peaked, and the bed banged one last time against the wall. A shuddering cry ripped out of the male, dissipating into softer pants as they both caught their breath.
It was a stiff few minutes until—thank the heavens!—the two lovers slipped back into their clothes and returned to the ball.
Quinn and I waited no more than thirty seconds—just to be sure they wouldn’t come back—before we scrambled out from under the bed.
Quinn peeled off a stiff sock from his side, and we ushered ourselves out of the room.
As soon as we were in the hall, I snatched my notebook and pen from Quinn’s back pocket, making him jump. “Just wanted these back,” I said, shoving them back into place.
With a stiff nod and a stiffer walk, Quinn led the way out of the dorm.
Outside, I gulped down the cool air as we made our way from Beckman Hall to the street. Transitioning from the most unwelcome noise pollution to the still and quiet night wasn’t as refreshing as I’d hoped. “One thing we are good at,” I said, walking faster to beat off the chill, “is finding ourselves in awkward situations.”
“Yeah, well,” Quinn said, tugging my sleeve to stop. I hugged myself for warmth as he caught my gaze. “Here’s another awkward moment coming up.”
I rubbed my upper arms. “What’s that?”
Quinn pulled out a set of keys from his pocket and gesture
d toward the car in front of us. “You’re cold. Jump in. I’ll give you a lift home.”
I was cold (and still nervous walking home on my own since the Freddy incident), so I accepted the offer. Slipping into the passenger seat of the car, I buckled up. “Was that supposed to be the awkward moment?”
Quinn settled into his seat and gripped the steering wheel. “No,” he said. “The awkward part is when I ask you again if you forgive me for being such a prick last weekend.”
“Oh,” I said, looking out onto the dark street, peppered with streetlights. How many Freddies lurked in the shadows? I shivered. Focus on the forgiving-Quinn-the-prick conversation! “You want us to start over?”
He shifted. “Uh, yeah.”
“I don’t see what there is to start, but okay. I’m sure we can forget last week.” I studied his flushed face, clubbed ears, and thick lashes. A thought struck me as I took in his strong, Thor-like build. “Are you still apartment-less?”
“I’m staying at Shannon’s.”
“Right.” We stared at each other a moment longer. Even with him a good couple feet away, I still felt tingling where he’d been pressed up against me. “Are we going to get moving anytime soon?” I asked. “I have some notes to convert into a column.”
He started the car, murmuring something under his breath with a roll of his eyes, and drove me to my place.
I spent the ten-minute drive noting Quinn’s silence and the way his breath kept hitching as if he wanted to say something. When I stepped out of the car, I braced one hand on the roof, the other clenched around the top of the door. I looked over at Quinn. “You want to ask if the room is still free, don’t you?”
He raised both his brows, as if caught off guard, and his cheeks reddened. “Again, I’m really sorry what I said the last few days. I was a dick.”