Wanting More (Love on Campus #2)

by Jessica Ruddick

  “Don’t,” Mitch warned. “Not a word. I will pay you to take this dog from me before I strangle her.”

  “How much are we talking?” Josh asked.

  Mitch’s eyes bulged, and Josh laughed. Then he grabbed an apron from the pantry and carefully wrapped it around Elsa, taking her from his father and cradling her in his arms. She immediately stopped squirming and gave Josh’s cheek a few licks.

  “You might want to wash up,” Josh quipped.

  Mitch gave Josh a dirty look—which he totally deserved—and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of mud on his skin and grass in his hair. Then he stalked out of the room, muttering under his breath.

  Josh laughed and petted Elsa, who was now furiously wiggling, trying to get out of his arms. “Have you ever given a dog a bath?” he asked me.

  I shook my head, keeping my distance. I had packed limited clothes and didn’t want mine to look like Mitch’s.

  He shrugged. “It can’t be that hard.”

  Once in the upstairs bathroom, Josh quickly deposited Elsa into the bathtub, holding the scruff of her neck so she couldn’t escape. “Do you see any puppy shampoo?”

  I checked under the sink. “No. Here’s some baby shampoo, though. That should be all right, don’t you think? I mean, she is a baby.”

  “True.”

  Josh used Mackenzie’s watering can bath toy to douse Elsa, then he poured a generous amount of shampoo down her back. He seemed to have it under control so I sat down on the toilet—well out of the way of her frequent shakes, which flung water everywhere—to watch.

  “You’re a pretty girl, aren’t you?” he murmured to the dog. “Yes, you are.”

  “Are you…are you talking baby talk to the dog?”

  He looked over at me with a wry smile. “She is a baby.”

  “True.” I grinned.

  He turned to Elsa again, giving her a full-on body rub. The puppy’s eyes started to roll back in her head, and she whined in appreciation.

  I had to admit—I was slightly jealous.

  “You must be a dog person,” I said.

  “Sort of,” he replied. “I always wanted a dog, but my dad never let me have one.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “You’re really good with her.”

  “It’s not hard.” He leaned in and let the dog lick his face. “Dogs just want love and attention. Isn’t that right, Elsa?” He was back to the baby talk.

  I wished I had my phone with me so I could film this and show it to his fraternity brothers. It would be the perfect blackmail material. Threaten him with exposing the footage, and he’d try any study strategy I wanted.

  Actually, on second thought, Josh probably wouldn’t care. He was an open book, which was one of the things I loved about him. He wouldn’t care who saw him wrap up a puppy in a towel like a baby and rock it, like he was doing now.

  Getting him to succumb to my counseling methods was soon to be a moot point, anyway. I was going to have to have him transferred to another counselor. I had a definite conflict of interest.

  Because I was definitely interested.

  I was finally comfortable admitting it. Josh didn’t fit my norm, but I was beginning to see that might be a good thing.

  I never in a million years would have gone to play laser tag on my own. And never in a million years would I have guessed how much I’d like it. Creeping around with my laser gun had given me such a rush. My adrenaline pumped like it never had before. It was a thrill.

  I wasn’t a risk taker. I’d played it safe my whole life. Brett had been safe—he was steady, predictable. Or so I thought. And look where that got me. There was no such thing as a risk-free life. So why not take some calculated ones?

  Starting with Josh.

  …

  Josh

  I spun Mackenzie around once, twice, then a third time for good measure. She was blindfolded and holding a paper carrot—otherwise known as Olaf’s nose—in her hand.

  “And go,” I said, giving her a little push in the direction of the life-size Olaf picture that was tacked on the wall. She veered off course and ended up sticking the carrot on the closet door. When she took her blindfold off, she stamped her foot in frustration.

  “It was too hard!” she said.

  “It’s supposed to be hard,” I said. “Now come here and help me spin your friends.”

  She got a kick out of spinning her friends around and making them dizzy. In the end, out of fourteen carrots only two actually made it onto the snowman’s body. Perhaps Mackenzie and I were too good at our spinning duties.

  With the exception of Elsa snarfing down a few cupcakes, the party went well. Bri knew what she was doing when she’d picked out the present for Mackenzie. All the other girls were jealous, and I had to admit—I was kind of a hero. Just saying.

  Bri spent the afternoon working on assignments while I helped put the house back to normal after the party, but I’d practically had to nail her door shut. I’d promised her she’d have time to do her work, but she said she felt guilty about not pitching in.

  Crazy girl.

  And I was crazy about her.

  Especially now. We were about to take Elsa for her first walk around the neighborhood, and Bri had bundled up in so many layers only her cheeks and eyes were showing.

  I grinned and tightened the knot on her knit scarf. “Are you sure you’re going to be warm enough?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I hope so.”

  Even though I gave her shit, I was similarly attired. Cold weather wasn’t my favorite, either, but I needed to get out of the house. Too much family togetherness time. When we’d gathered around Mackenzie to sing her “Happy Birthday,” my dad had put his arm around my shoulders. Like he was trying to have a real father-son moment.

  It kinda freaked me out. So yeah, I needed some distance. And Elsa needed a walk.

  Elsa chewed on her leash as we walked down the driveway, then got caught up in it and did a triple somersault down to the sidewalk.

  Bri laughed. “She’s a spunky little thing.”

  We were nearly a block away when Bri slowly reached over and held my hand. I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot into the darkness.

  I’d held hands lots of times—among other things—but I somehow felt like I was twelve years old again, just getting my feet wet in the dating world. Everything with Bri felt new.

  My elementary school was several blocks in the distance, and I was reminded of my first female experience, back when I was young and stupid. I’d written a “check yes or no” note, and little Amy Walker, with the long blond pigtails, had checked “no.” She’d crushed my twelve-year-old heart. I’d come a long way since then, and the “no” box was rarely checked these days.

  I took Bri’s holding my hand as a check in the “yes” box.

  If only it weren’t so freaking cold out here—layers of gloves separated our skin, and I wanted to feel her.

  This was surprisingly awesome—just walking along with her, not in a hurry, in the calmness of the night in the DC suburb. I’d never thought I’d be content with something like this, but it just felt right being here with her.

  We stopped in the elementary school playground to let Elsa off her leash. Bri sat on a bench, and I stretched out beside her.

  “Did you go to school here?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  “It looks nice.”

  I looked at the brick building. I didn’t see what was so nice about it. It was just like any other generic school building. But then again, school was never my thing.

  Bri shivered beside me, and I put my arm around her, pulling her into me. For once I didn’t mind the cold weather so much.

  “Thanks again for bringing me this weekend.”

  “Do you feel better about things?”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “That punch in the face was a real slap in the face—a wake-up call.” She laughed bitterly. “Brett seemed like the right choice. On paper,
he was perfect.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “I know. Once I got some distance from him, I realized it wasn’t right between us. I want you to know that our relationship died a long time ago, even if we were still technically together.”

  “Okay,” I said cautiously. She seemed to be trying to tell me something, but she was being too vague.

  “I just wanted you to know that before…” She swallowed and licked her lips. “Before I did this.”

  She put her gloved hand on my cheek, and I turned toward her slightly, letting her take the lead when I really wanted to pull her into my lap and explore her mouth with my tongue. To unwrap her layers, one by one.

  She seemed to need to do this—to take the first step on her own—so I held back. It took an amazing amount of restraint on my part. I’m talking Superman, He-man, and Batman level restraint.

  Her lips gently caressed mine. I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck, which seemed to give her confidence, and her tongue shyly touched mine. The kiss was representative of Bri: controlled and collected.

  Fuck it. Restraint was overrated. It wasn’t who I was.

  In one swift move, I pulled her closer to me, and deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth. I ripped my gloves off, then her hat so I could run my hands through her thick hair. I didn’t want any more layers than necessary separating us.

  God, I wanted to pull her coat off and feel her skin under my hands.

  She seemed to throw all control out the window and wrapped herself around me. My lips left her mouth, and as they traveled lower, I pulled away her scarf so I could access the tender flesh on her neck.

  She gasped, and her hand fisted around my coat.

  I brought my mouth back to hers. She nipped my lower lip one last time with her teeth, then pulled away, breathing hard.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said quietly, resting her forehead against mine.

  “Why?” I whispered. I really wanted to know. I knew she felt what I felt, so what in her head was holding her back?

  “I’m not impulsive. This isn’t me.”

  “If this isn’t you, then who is it?”

  She looked up at me, startled by the question. I guess she didn’t expect me to go existential on her. But hey, I’d been telling her all along—I was a lot deeper than I looked.

  And for the first time, I was okay showing that side of myself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Josh

  Bri had already turned in for the night—after I’d made sure to give her a proper good night kiss. She’d shooed me away sooner than I wanted, saying something about not doing that in my parents’ house.

  Whatever. I was a big boy. I was pretty sure they knew I kissed girls.

  Still, though, I respected Bri’s boundaries. As much as I hated to admit it, I kinda liked her prim and proper side. It was a refreshing change from most of the girls I’d dated in the past.

  What had I seen in some of them anyway?

  The past was in the past. I wasn’t going there.

  I wandered down to the kitchen to find a late-night snack and found my dad sitting at the counter drinking coffee—decaf. He’d always had decaf coffee before bed. I didn’t get it. Without the caffeine, what was the point?

  I considered going back up to my room, but he saw me, so I continued to the refrigerator. I pulled out a cold slice of pizza left over from the party and wrapped it in a paper towel to take it back to my room.

  “Be careful with that girl,” my dad said as I was leaving.

  I stopped in my tracks and turned on my heel to face him. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  He said nothing for moment, just looked at me over the rim of his mug as he took a sip. “It’s for your own good.”

  “What the hell do you know? You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you’re like your mother.”

  I blinked, taken aback. That was the first time he’d mentioned her in fifteen years. When she’d left, he’d taken down all the pictures of her and threw away anything she’d left behind. He’d tried to erase her. It was like she hadn’t existed.

  Sometimes I felt like he wanted to erase me, too.

  “All I’m saying is Bri seems like a nice girl,” he continued. “Don’t make a commitment you’re not willing to keep.”

  My jaw dropped open for a moment, then I slammed my mouth shut. I didn’t even know what to say to that.

  But I knew what to say to him.

  “Fuck off.”

  I spun on my heel and left, dropping the cold pizza in the trash on my way out. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

  And for once, he didn’t have anything to say about my language or the way I’d talked to him.

  But what the fuck? Who the hell did he think he was? He hadn’t given two shits about me since he got his new family, and now he suddenly wanted to give me relationship advice?

  I knew almost nothing about my mother. I was so young when she’d left that I barely remembered her. Whenever I used to ask questions, my dad would only say “she’s gone, and she’s not coming back,” so it didn’t take me long to stop asking.

  Now, after all these years, to compare me to her as a warning was a crock of shit.

  She’d left him, so maybe she’d had the right idea. If I were her, I would’ve left his ass, too.

  But why did leaving him mean leaving me, too?

  I wanted to slam my fist through a wall, but somehow I knew my dad would be even less forgiving of a hole in the wall than Luke. Tonight had been a damn near perfect night. Now instead of going to sleep with thoughts of Bri on my mind, I’d be tossing and turning trying to decode the cryptic message my dad had given me about my mom, the ghost he never talked about.

  Leave it to my dad to taint the first really good thing to happen to me in a long time.

  Fucker.

  …

  Bri

  We pulled out of the driveway before I even had my seat belt buckled.

  “Whoa,” I said, quickly clicking the buckle. “I guess you’re eager to get back.”

  He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and clutched a Coke can in the other. “Something like that.”

  “Your family seems really nice.”

  He grunted.

  I eyed him warily. It was just after nine in the morning, and we hadn’t spoken much since he’d kissed me good night.

  It had been all I could think about last night, all I could dream about. I’d woken up with a smile.

  Then when I’d come down to breakfast, I’d been greeted with an ice storm, an obvious cold war going on between Josh and his father. Had I missed something? What possibly could have happened in the last twelve hours to turn their frosty relationship into a solid block of ice?

  I mean, I knew he and his father were adversarial. But so what? A lot of fathers and sons butted heads. No parent-child relationship was perfect. I could attest to that. My birth parents had abandoned me, and from age ten on, I was immersed in worry that my adopted parents would abandon me, too. I didn’t know what Josh’s problem was with his stepmom, though. Laura was great. I’d really enjoyed getting my nails done with her and Mackenzie yesterday. They didn’t have to include me, but I got the feeling that’s just how she was. While Josh didn’t display any animosity toward her, he wasn’t exuding the warm and fuzzy either. I obviously had not been around when Laura first entered the picture, but I saw no reason for him to harbor resentment toward her in the present.

  And she wasn’t blind to the problems between Josh and his father. A few comments she’d made at the spa, as well as how she tried to smooth things over between them, attested to that fact.

  If Josh didn’t want to talk, that was fine. I had more reading I could do, starting with something I’d been putting off, but not because I was dreading it—the opposite, in fact.

  It was a brochure for
the grad school’s study abroad program. Every once in a while, the glossy pamphlets with the smiling students in exotic locations would show up in the academic services workroom or they’d arrive in the mail. Before, they’d always gone straight into the trash. It was never an option—Brett and I had been barely making it work when we were only several hours away. But put me on another continent? That would have as good as signed the death certificate for our relationship.

  But now, things were different. I didn’t have Brett holding me back. And that’s what he’d been—an anchor tethered around my ankle. I’d never realized how much I craved his approval, and how I’d based so many decisions in the past two years on him. I didn’t think I would ever fully shake the little girl inside who tried to be good so people wouldn’t leave.

  If I took an extra class this summer, then I could study abroad in the fall and not get behind. The courses they offered abroad didn’t exactly line up with my current course of study, but you couldn’t put a course credit value on life experience. How cool would it be to hop on the Tube, cross the Thames, and live in a flat?

  I was giddy just thinking about it.

  Josh glanced over at me. “What’s that?”

  I quickly shoved the brochure in my textbook. “Nothing.” There was no guarantee I’d get accepted into the program and until I knew for sure, I wasn’t sharing.

  The closer we got to home—or should I say the farther we got from Josh’s parents’ house—the more his mood improved. The reverse was true for me. When he pulled to a stop in front of my apartment, I looked up at my building with trepidation.

  I hated Brett for this. The knowledge that the locks had been changed didn’t erase the churning in my stomach.

  Josh got out and pulled my suitcase out of the back. I stayed seated.

  He knocked on the window. “This is your building, right?” He had a smile on his face, but his eyes were searching mine. He knows.

  He really was a lot smarter and in tune with what was going on around him than he let people know. Now that I saw it, I didn’t know how I had ever missed it.

  I got out of the car and reached for my suitcase. Josh picked it up. “I’ll carry it up for you.”

  “Thanks.”