by Andra Lake
Here Comes Trouble
(Ian Crawford, #1)
by
Andra Lake
Published by Nuit Rouge Press, 2013
Text copyright © 2013 Andra Lake
www.andralake.com
smashwords edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
About the Author
Chapter One
I’d always felt unusual. It was as if I was only pretending to fit into the world like everyone else. My teachers called me a dreamer, while my mother said I had no fixed identity. Maybe she just didn’t want to see who I was.
I longed to work in the music industry. My parents kept telling me how hard it was to get those kinds of jobs and how poor I’d be. I kept telling them that I didn’t care if I was poor. I didn’t need a lot to be happy—not the way they did with their fancy cars and country club memberships. I’d been looking forward to going away to school for the entire last year of High School. University was where I was going to discover myself and what I was meant to do in this world. I’d find likeminded people and finally feel like I belonged.
So, I’d saved up enough money and taken a loan in order to attend school out of state and get a shared room in a dorm. Then I’d enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts.
Mr. and Mrs. Watson had hated that, so I knew it was the right decision.
I’d desperately wanted my own room, being an introvert, but splurging for one would mean I couldn’t eat for the rest of the year. As it was, I’d been barely able to afford the plane ticket and had been restricted to bringing only one large suitcase, my messenger bag with laptop and purse.
On a warm day at the end of summer, I arrived on campus with my measly possessions and found the building that would be my home for the next eights months: a grey building shaped like a block. The main floor of the building consisted of the lounge and kitchen. Several guys were sitting in the lounge watching something on TV, the volume cranked. Most of them were holding beers. They turned their heads and waved hello to me as I yanked my bag over the lip of the door but didn’t make a move to help as I proceeded to lift and carry it up the next three stories.
I finally got to the fourth floor and dropped my suitcase heavily. On the front of every room was a whiteboard with the names of the occupants written in such neat script, it almost looked like a computer had written it. I counted the doors as I pulled my bag down the hall and calculated room 414 would be at the end of the hall. The door was open, the room empty. The whiteboard read “Melissa and Alexis”, only it wasn’t written in the beautiful script like the others. It was as if our names had been erased and rewritten.
As I stood there frowning at it, the bathroom door opened behind me, and a tall brunette passed into our room.
“Your last name is Watson, but your name was written first because it starts with an ‘A’. I just changed it to be correct.”
Okay then.
I followed her into our room, which was shaped oddly at best. My guess was that it had once been a large single room but they were low on rooms and now they needed to cram two people in here. Best way to describe it was a large rectangle with a small rectangular jut out, which held a desk and a wardrobe. It became apparent Melissa had already claimed these when she sat down at the desk, swiveled her chair to face me. The larger rectangle held my desk, a wardrobe and both of our beds...which sat perpendicular head-to-foot. I really hoped her feet didn’t smell.
“I’m Alexis,” I said just to say something. I’d been worried about sharing a room, and the fact we were going to be squished together only made me feel worse.
Melissa had black curly hair held up in a messy bun and thick, black eyebrows. On most people they would beg to be plucked, but on her they somehow worked. Her skin was pale, her jaw quite square. She frowned at me with those dark eyebrows as she took me in.
“How old are you?” she asked. “You look like you should still be in High School.”
Yeah, I heard stuff like that a lot. I was a tiny build—very tiny—with fine features and a line of freckles across my nose. Oh, and small boobs. Nothing made you look younger than that.
“I’m Seventeen, but I turn Eighteen September 30th.”
“Did you skip a grade or something?”
“No, my parents just didn’t want to hold me back. I was already starting to read and ready for grade one.”
Melissa sniffed, a habit I was going to get very used to.
I sat down on the edge of what would be my bed and glanced around the tight room. Yep, this was definitely a single that had been converted. “What about you?”
“Nineteen.” The way she said it, I knew she’d assumed some sort of roommate superiority over me. “You’re kind of late getting here.”
“I had to work up until yesterday.”
“You missed the best party ever.”
I turned in the direction of the voice to see a short, blonde girl in our doorway. She had been speaking to me, but her eyes were still on Melissa, and she looked wary. Apparently Melissa didn’t make anyone comfortable.
“This is Alexis,” Melissa said. “Or Mini-me as I’m going to call her.”
Mini-me? Seriously?
I smiled tightly. “Except I look nothing like you.”
“I meant because you’re so small and young.” She smiled smugly.
Sensing the tension in the room, our visitor piped up. “I’m Carly. I live in the single room next door.”
Lucky girl. I smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
“So yeah there was this epic party in another building—all the freshman in residence pretty much. It got pretty crazy. Everyone moved to Quad and drank until Campus Cops kicked us out. Too bad you missed it.” Then she quickly rushed to add, “But there’s an orientation for this group of buildings in Quad today at two. We were just going to grab lunch and go. Do you want to meet us there?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” Melissa stood up abruptly and gave me a tight smile. “See you there then.”
The two girls left and I sighed, fell back on my bed. Alone time. Finally. I was just about to get up and close the door when another girl stuck her head in. She was tall and super thin with wavy brown that ended at her chin.
“We were wondering when you’d come,” she smiled. “Lex, right? I’m Lena.”
“Alexis,” I corrected.
“You should go with Lex,” she advised solemnly. “It sounds cool.”
Right. I bit my lip. Apparently everyone had a name for me. “Um, are you going to that orientation thingie?”
Lena laughed. “I don’t do organized events. Have fun though.” And then she left.
I spent the next hour unpacking my clothes and personal items and putting sheets on my bed. Then I sprinted to Quad to meet Carly and Melissa for the orientation. I wasn’t an organized events person either, but I wasn’t going to be rude when Carly was trying to include me. And even if Melissa seemed controlling and, well, bitchy, I had to put in an effort. She was going to be my roommate for an entire eight months. The last thing I needed was to make an enemy my first day arriving.
In the middle of the Quad was a large fountain. Only when I got close did I rea
lize how massive it actually was. It was situated in a circle that had been cut out of the earth like an amphitheatre with stairs leading down to it. On the ledge of the fountain, four people—two girls, two guys—stood wearing red sweatshirts with the words “Resident Coordinator” written across them. I searched the crowd until I found Melissa and Carly standing at the top of the stairs. A female voice welcomed us as I pushed through the crowd toward them.
“Today we’re going to play an icebreaker to help you get to know each other. When Ian calls your name, come down and get your piece of fabric. After all the names are called, we’ll make our way to the forest on the edge of campus where we’ll explain the rules of the game.”
I stepped out from the crowd to stand beside Carly, and that’s when I saw him. He was holding a sheet of names and waving a piece of orange fabric over his head, his eyes scanning the crowd as he waited for someone to come down and take it from him.
I actually had to blink to make sure he was actually standing there. My only thought was holy shit. I’d never seen such a good looking person in the flesh before. He looked like he belonged in a magazine ad or on television rather than working as an RC. His features were chiseled and perfect, his dark hair falling in waves across his forehead and his chin smattered with stubble. I longed to rub my hand or face along it.
Apparently Melissa thought the same thing. She was practically drooling a she asked, “Who is that?”
Carly smiled knowingly. “That’s Ian. I heard all about him last night. He’s in second year and supposedly he was nominated for president last year but decided not to run.”
“Why?”
Carly shrugged. “I guess he’s not really into that kind of thing. He only acts as RC for the perks of living for free and doesn’t want all the responsibility of being a president.”
“He’s so hot.”
That was an understatement. He was gorgeous, in this completely natural I-just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way. I continued to stare, the girls’ voices wafting over me until I’d tuned them out. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. If he looked this good in a sweatshirt, what did he look like in a tight shirt? Or better yet, naked?
As if sensing my eyes on him, he looked up, and our eyes locked. My first instinct was the glance away, to pretend I hadn’t been staring, but his eyes held me in their grasp. And I knew in my gut what was coming, that he was going to avert his gaze, act like he hadn’t noticed me…only he didn’t. Instead, the side of his lip lifted in a small smile.
“Stop staring at him.” Melissa nudged me, hard. “He can see you!”
I glared at her, effectively breaking eye contact with him.
“He looks like a god,” Carly said. “Like a Greek god. Don’t you think?”
“Alexis Watson.”
My name rang out over the crowd. Ian was holding a blue piece of fabric over his head, looking left and right. In the midst of my daydreaming, I’d totally forgotten we were waiting to be called.
He called my name again, and I hurried down the steps to him.
“Alexis?” He raised a dark eyebrow as I approached. I hadn’t been able to see from my old vantage point, but his eyes were strikingly green against his hair.
“I go by Lex,” I said, hoping it would make up for the fact that I’d appeared not to know my own name, or at least make me sound cool.
“I like Lex.” He held out a piece orange fabric, not the blue one he’d been waving around. When I grabbed it, he held tight, leaned forward so that his mouth was beside my ear. Our fingers touched, sending sparks of electricity down my arm and into my core. I’d never experienced anything like it before. He still had a firm grip on the paper, and when I pulled harder, a smile twitched at his lips.
“It rhymes with sex,” he whispered, finally releasing the fabric.
Well shit. Pivoting quickly, I ducked my head, hoping to hide my flaming cheeks as I took the stairs back up two-by-two. At the top, Melissa was waiting with her arms crossed and Carly’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
“What was that about?” Carly asked. “You said you go by Lex and he said he likes Lex, and then we saw him whisper something to you.”
“It was nothing.” I shrugged and tied the orange fabric around my wrist. “He was just...flirting or something. He probably does it all the time.”
“Well what did he say?”
“He said ‘Lex rhymes with sex’.”
Carly let out an excited shriek and Melissa snorted, crossing her arms tighter if it were possible. “Definitely a flirt. Lex sounds like a boy’s name.”
The group began leaving the Quad and we followed. I walking slightly behind Melissa and Carly so that they couldn’t see my face. My mind was on the feel of Ian’s fingers when they’d lightly grazed mine. Never before had I felt something like that—like static electricity that had started in his body and traveled into mine. And the way that he’d whispered in my ear... Flirt or not, I knew he wouldn’t have done that in front of an entire group of students unless he’d thought I was cute. The idea excited me more than it should. Guys hadn’t seen me as someone to flirt with back home.
I shook my head to return to reality, jogged a few steps to catch up with Melissa and Carly.
“He has a reputation for being a player,” Carly was saying, as if trying to make Melissa feel better. She stopped walking suddenly, grabbed both Melissa and my wrists to stop us too. “See that girl over there?”
I followed her gaze and saw a leggy blonde wearing a short, flowered dress standing in a group of girls. Her skin was lightly sun kissed and her straight hair was held back neatly with a headband. She looked exotic somehow, like she had a European heritage. My first and foremost thought was that she was absolutely beautiful.
“She was caught giving him a blowjob in a residence bathroom stall last night,” Carly said.
What? All the air left my chest in a whoosh as a jumble of emotions ran through me. She’d been caught sucking his dick. In a bathroom stall. Last night.
I’d never even had sex before. The idea of giving a guy a blowjob in a public space seemed so foreign and dangerous. How had they done it? Had he been sitting on the toilet seat and she’d been on the concrete before him? Had someone seen her under the stall door when they walked into the bathroom? And what had they looked like when they’d been caught? Had he looked embarrassed like I imagined she had, or had he simply smiled that smirk of his and took in stride?
As I stared at the girl, she turned her head and glanced at us, smiled prettily before turning back to her friends. The act appeared cool and uncaring, but I saw what was hidden in her eyes: she knew we’d heard and had been talking about her.
We started walking toward Quad again.
“What do you mean she got caught?” Melissa whispered even though there was no way the girl could hear us anymore.
“I heard it at the party last night.” Carly whispered back conspiratorially. “I don’t know how he got caught, but supposedly some of his friends were watching over the stall the entire time.”
Alexis shuddered, feeling dirty just hearing the story. “And what, now everyone knows about and talks about her, but his reputation is still good?”
Carly shrugged. “Pretty much.”
I gritted my teeth. There went any thoughts of Ian being a potential love interest. The idea had been stupid and far-fetched anyway. He probably had tons of willing participants beating down his door to sleep with him, or blow him in a public bathroom. Gross.
“It wasn’t one of his students then,” Melissa continued. “Otherwise he’d have been fired.”
“No, he isn’t her RC. She doesn’t live in our building. I don’t even know her name. They just called her Blowjob Girl.”
We stopped at the edge of campus, where a field ran into trees and up into the gentle slope of a small mountain. Ian lithely jumped onto a rock and his fellow RCs gathered around him.
“We will be playing the animal game,” he announced, grinning out over the crowd. He
was completely at ease with himself, even looked like he enjoyed being the center of attention.
“It's based on the food chain. If you were given a blue piece of fabric, you are at the top of the food chain and are a predator. If you were given a piece of green fabric, you are in the middle of the food chain and are an omnivore. And sadly, if you ended up with orange, you are at the bottom of the food chain as a herbivore. Carnivores can eat omnivores and herbivores, omnivores can eat herbivores, and herbivores can run for their lives.” He grinned wickedly, his bright green eyes landing on me.
“You got orange,” Carly said, looking at my arm wrap. “Bummer.”
I sighed. Bottom of the totem pole—that sounded about right. Both Melissa and Carly had the green fabric.
“Hey, wasn’t Ian holding a blue piece when he called your name?” Melissa asked, suddenly brightening. “Looks like he switched when he saw you.”
There was a cruel gleam in her eye, like she was implying he’d tried to screw me over. It was true; I remembered him holding up the blue fabric.
“It was probably a mistake. And it’s just a game anyway.”
Ian pulled another RC onto the rock beside him, held her around the waist to keep her up. Her cheeks turned a bit pink as she smiled at him before facing the crowd.
“The object of the game is to survive. If you get tagged, you die. Most of us RCs will be carnivores but two of us will be viruses so that carnivores can die off too. The boundaries include the field, the mountain and the two roads on either side of the forest.”
“Now we’ll let the herbivores enter the forest first, followed by the omnivores and then the carnivores,” Ian said. “Play nice and be safe. Good luck, everyone!” His voice boomed and nervous excitement filled the air.
“Better get going.” Melissa said smugly.
Half the crowd surged forward, and I moved with them, pushed into a jog with the others as we crossed the field and entered the forest. My heart rate picked up as soon as I entered the tall trees. It was only a game, but I felt nervous, like I really was a small animal about to be hunted. The morning air felt cooler in here, the humidity penetrating my lungs. It was a place I envisioned myself returning alone to walk or sit on a blanket and read.