“So who’s walking you home? It’s getting dark.”
“Thank you, genius. I might never have realized that if you hadn’t said something. It’s a damn good thing I’m not helpless.”
“Rion. No way.” Her heart stuttered when he said her name. “Seriously, I understand that you’re Miss Tough Girl, and I admire that. I do. But you are also barely over five feet tall and probably a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Whatever you dealt with back home, it’s no match for drunk-ass frat guys letting their dicks lead them down Francis.”
Rion rolled her eyes and gave him a look that said Please, asshole. He didn’t relent.
“You heard what Freckles said about campus, and I’ve been here awhile. I know he’s not wrong.”
Dammit, why hadn’t Mom ever made her take karate? Why hadn’t she focused more on fighting in the last two years, and less on hiding and dodging trouble? She met Crash’s eyes, desperately wanting to say something smart, strong, independent—but totally failing to come up with anything. Instead her face fell and she shook her head, frustrated.
She expected Crash to strut and gloat, or at least talk to her like a child. Instead he just took one more drag, then dropped his hand, letting the cigarette smolder for several long seconds. He pushed off the wall and motioned for her to follow him with a tip of his head. “Come on. It’s a free country, right? I can walk next to you on the sidewalk if I want.”
Rion bit her lip, turned, and started walking, setting her sights on the straightest path back to the safety of Harrison Suite 17C. She’d never thought someone so annoying could be so damn cute.
True to his word, Crash fell in step with Rion, clouds of breath puffing out in the cold night air. They walked for several silent minutes, their breathing growing slightly more labored, falling into pace with one another. With each flash of her feet over the sidewalk, Rion grew more resigned that they’d have to come up with something to talk about, so this wouldn’t be the most awkward walk ever.
Maybe she could give in, invite him in for a quick fuck in her XL twin dorm bed. Scratch the itch she had for whatever it was about him that went so deep under her skin.
Hell, maybe he was even a nice guy—nothing about him said he would be bad dating material. Well, besides the tattoos, and the punk clothes, and really long hours working at a tattoo shop that seemed to get half its business from bong sales. And the completely opting out of school. One or two of those things didn’t mean much, necessarily. But all in one guy? He had to be some kind of a loser.
Still, she couldn’t stop replaying their last conversation in her head. The way he’d noticed her, even her missing nose ring. The way he’d wanted to take care of her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Crash would never be content just to be a quick fuck.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” His answer was so quick, his expression so open, that any impression of cockiness she’d gotten when she first bumped into him kind of melted away.
“Why did you say something to me about my nose ring?”
“Did it bother you?”
“I’m the one asking you the question.” He laughed, then shook his head and stared down the street. “But seriously. You say you’re shy around strangers, and here you are giving this girl you’ve met once random fashion advice.”
“You and I both know it wasn’t fashion advice. It was life advice.”
Rion’s eyebrow raised.
“A nose stud…it’s not normal. Not for girls at Indiana Northern University, anyway. If you like it, wear it. Normal is overrated.”
Rion let that sit with her for a few seconds, letting the motion of his thumb against the butt of his cigarette mesmerize her. She knew how gross smoking was, but the smell and the glowing orange embers and the casual motions of smoking added up to a memory of the last ten months of her life. A good memory. One of something that relaxed her, made her feel like she was happy in her own body for a fleeting moment.
“I hate smoking,” Rion lied.
“Really? I find that hard to believe since you’re walking closer to me now than you were two minutes ago.”
“I am not…”
“You are. When we first stood out here I noticed how cool the street lights looked reflecting off that gorgeous bleach job. Now it’s all in the shadows and so close I could touch it.”
A lump rose in Rion’s throat. “Gorgeous” was a word that nobody had ever applied to her hair. A pressure started to squeeze at her chest and she knew exactly the words she had to say to relieve it. “You’re flirting with me.” Except the lump didn’t go away, and the tension didn’t dissipate, because Crash slowed his pace, then stopped. She stopped too, and faced him.
He considered her with a slight smile and tilt of the head, and then moved close enough to touch her.
Everything was amplified, from the near-silent hiss of the misty drizzle that had begun to fall to the reflection of the main drag’s lights in the wet asphalt to the sounds of the cars as they glided over the shallow skin of dampness on the road.
And the cool metal glide of his rings against her eyebrow as Crash reached up and brushed the long blonde bang, the one she’d considered turning pink or purple but never had the cash to make it happen, away from her eyes. Instead of dropping his hand, he moved his fingers along the line of her jaw and lightly trailed them over her throat before pulling away. His touch blocked everything else—her emotions, her speech, her breathing. She tried to make her stuttering sigh as quiet as possible, because he was still considering her, looking at her like a tattoo he had almost, but not quite, finished.
“Yes. I am flirting with you.” The corner of his mouth crooked up and he raised his eyebrows at her as if he was waiting for some answer.
God fucking dammit, how could he stand to be so patient? Did he know she felt like she would burst just from those gorgeous eyes studying her face? Maybe he did. Maybe he was just messing with her. Maybe he got his rocks off making passes at girls he never intended to actually do anything with.
“Look. Uh…Crash.” There was no way that was his real name, but now wasn’t the time to push. “I don’t date guys like you.”
His short laugh broke the still air between them. “I wasn’t aware there were other guys like me.”
Jesus. He may have been cute, but he sure as hell was cocky. “You know what I mean.”
His eyebrows raised again. “Tell me.”
“Guys who sell bongs. Guys who drink, who party,” she said, gesturing to the cigarette. “Guys who smoke.”
“First, I don’t sell bongs. I do tattoos in a shop that sells bongs. I don’t drink. The most exciting party in my recent history was a 48-hour Netflix binge. And by ‘smoking,’ do you mean my once a week cigarette?”
“You’re not serious.” Nobody smoked just once a week.
Crash smiled flicked the cigarette again. “Serious as death. I look forward to one or two after a hard week. They relax me without making my head fuzzy, like alcohol or drugs would. If I ever did them.”
The guy had to be lying. Working where he worked, inked to high heaven, sporting a lip ring…you only looked like that if you were heavily into the drugs and alcohol scene. She took a step forward and blinked at him. Maybe she could catch him in his lie. Rion got closer and lightly ran an index finger along the curving lines of one of his tattoos, starting halfway up his neck and trailing over his collarbone, then dipping below the collar. Quieter than a whisper, his breath hitched, and Rion knew she had him right where she wanted him.
“You don’t do drugs? Don’t drink? Nothing illicit besides this one little cigarette?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he turned his eyes to hers. “Neither. Not ever. And I’ll do you one better—I don’t date girls who do, either.”
Rion’s heart sped up. She reached down and pulled the cigarette from his fingers, lifted it to her lips, and took a long drag. Then she dropped it on the concrete and snuffed it out, still looking at him. Hi
s lips were so close to hers that if she leaned forward just a few inches…damn him. What if he was telling the truth?
She let her hand drop, and stepped back, putting some air between them once again so that she could maybe take a deep breath. Air filled her lungs, but her heart kept hammering away, pushing heat over her chest and up to her cheeks. Damn it all, how could she keep him in her sights while making sure that he was actually dateable, as he claimed?
“Then why …?”
“Why do I have so much ink? And dress like a punk?” He shrugged. “I like how it looks.” He lowered his voice. “And I think you do too.”
Shit. She had to break this spell and get an answer about him, one way or another. “Pee in a cup,” she said, letting the words rush out before she thought better of it.
“Excuse me?” Instead of the indignation Rion would have expected, his eyebrow and lip twitched in annoyingly attractive unison again. He stepped back, and Rion ached to be closer to him again.
“Prove it to me. Do a drug test at the student health center.”
Both of Crash’s eyebrows flew up, betraying very real shock. “What the …?” His quick recovery only took away some of Rion’s satisfaction. He crooked his lips into a smirk and hooked one thumb into the waistband of his jeans. “Do you need to watch, or …?”
Rion rolled her eyes. “I just need the results.”
“Alright, but you’ll be missing out. Probably not the most romantic setting for your first time seeing…me, though.”
She couldn’t help but crack a grin at that. “Okay, if you’re planning on there being a first time for me seeing your dick, you’re making a lot of assumptions.”
Crash nodded. “I am. In fact, I’m assuming you’ll say yes to going out with me the minute I pass that test. If I’m not mistaken, the center opens Monday at 10:00, so…brunch?”
A slow smile spread her lips. Considering how hard she’d worked to put a defensive wall up against the types of guys she found most attractive—guys with tattoos and lip piercings and combat boots who– fuck her against the wall–obviously worked out, that wasn’t too likely. “We’ll see,” she said, turning away from him before her grin made her look like a fucking cheerleader at a pep rally. “Monday?” she called over her shoulder as she walked into her dorm.
Rion didn’t even try to calm her grin as she walked into Suite 17C.
Amy
Amy would be lying if she said she hadn’t been looking for Matt for the past two weeks.
He wasn’t hard to find, either. His brownish-red hair turned out to be more unusual than Amy would have expected, and he always seemed to be crossing the quad when she was getting out of class, or studying at his usual table in the just-off-campus coffee shop when she was ducking in for a latte on her way back to the dorm.
He also almost always had a Jesus shirt on.
Whenever she saw him, she smiled, and he smiled back, and before she knew it she was heading over to ask how he was doing, and to answer his questions about her search for a decent worship service to go to.
Which, honestly, wasn’t going too well.
Back home in Tripp Creek, Shiloh Tabernacle Southern Baptist Church was small and familiar, where everyone knew everyone and Sunday services were just as much a chance to gossip and to gather gossip material than to be religious. She’d never thought much of it until this past summer, when the pastor—Adam’s father—had spoken in his rumbly voice about heaven and hell and sin and she had felt as though he had seen into her thoughts. The things she had done with Adam, the secrets they had kept, must have been written all over her face. She always felt like Pastor Mason was speaking directly to her. She’d never been able to understand how Adam could look so calm during those same sermons, and when she’d asked him how he made it through services, he’d just shrugged and changed the subject. Or pushed her into a dark corner of the church and started making out with her.
When she arrived at Northern, she’d given finding church services to attend the same level of thought as finding a place to get her hair cut. It would be good to have one on hand, but if all else failed, she could definitely get what she needed the next time she went home. But when Adam dumped her, church had turned from something she should do into something she knew she needed, but felt hopelessly separated from. She’d gone looking, of course, attending three Sunday services so far. One of them the ultra-hip-with-electric-guitars variety, one at a church mostly populated by seventy-year-olds, and one with the same roaring sermons that had terrified her back home.
None of them made her feel close to herself, let alone to God.
She wasn’t going to do that anymore, she’d decided. If she was going to find that connection with Jesus that everyone always talked about, but she had never quite felt in the way she thought she was supposed to, it wasn’t going to happen via someone screaming into a head mike, or swooning to the sound of his own voice with long guitar solos. Not for her, anyway.
“You know,” Matt said one early-October day as she sat explaining this while sipping her half-caff macchiato, “you could always come with me.”
“Come where?”
His eyes crinkled with his soft smile. Even if either of her roommates had asked her to describe his eyes, she wouldn’t have been able to. Amy just knew that the greenish-brownish-gold made her heart, and then her shoulders, relax every time she saw them.
Rion had teased her at each Broken Hearts’ Society meeting about Matt, who she insisted on calling Carrot Top, or Goldfish, or Big Red. Even Arielle had commented that Amy hung out with him an awful lot for just being friends. But she assured the girls what she’d been thinking about Matt since the first moment she met him—he wasn’t her type. He just wasn’t. The fact that she didn’t drool when she saw him, didn’t feel the urge to plant her lips on his, was just part of it. Each time she ran into him in that coffee shop, new evidence mounted. He was unambitious, floating through a philosophy degree, still unsure about his career goals at the beginning of his sophomore year.
Besides all that, he may have been a Christian, but he didn’t really take religion seriously. In fact, Amy felt a little squirmy over every new t-shirt she saw on him. The bust of Jesus and “BRB” was just the beginning of it. Last week, he’d been wearing one with the Virgin Mary on it. The text said, “Abstinence—only 99.99% effective.” Another featured Jesus in hockey gear and said “Jesus Saves.” Amy got the jokes, but something about them felt more like mockery and less like professing faith.
“Go with you where?”
“To church.”
“You go to church? I thought these shirts were a joke.”
Matt started laughing, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and leaning over his open textbook.
“What?” Amy asked, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “What’s so funny?”
“Go to church? I work for church.”
“What?” Panic rose up in Amy, fluttering around her chest. Was he a pastor? A deacon? There was no way. “But you’re a student!”
“I’m also a pastor’s kid who’s passionate about community service. Well, priest’s kid. I grew up Episcopalian. My parents know one of the pastors out here, and he got me a job working with the youth group kids. Fourth to sixth graders are a pain in the ass, but they can be sweet, too. Especially when they’re doing volunteer work.”
Amy’s jaw dropped as she took all this in. “Okay, okay. Back up. You’re a pastor’s kid? Where is this church?”
“Francis Street United Church of Christ? Used to be Methodist. It’s the oldest church within forty miles.”
“Ohhhh, the huge stone one with stained glass?” Amy had seen it. She’d also been thinking that it was probably old and boring, filled with locals and no students. Old people. So, she asked him.
“That’s right. Almost no students, but that’s kind of what I like about it. If that makes sense. I don’t have to worry about anyone else but myself, and what I’m thinking. What I’m saying. What my purpose i
s supposed to be that week. Besides, the congregants are old but the prayers aren’t. The pastor there is cool.”
Purpose. Such a calm word, and he looked so calm talking about it, too. There was a peace about him when he mentioned church, and volunteering.
Which, Amy now realized, was exactly what she had been wanting. She imagined sitting beside Matt during services. They would probably sit side by side, their legs almost touching, which they hadn’t done since that night watching the stars. The thought made her anxious. What if she accidentally touched him? She had always insisted on sitting far from Adam during services for that reason. And, geez. There he was again. Always in the back of her mind.
“So, do you want to? Come with me?”
“I…it sounds great. Maybe I will. I guess.”
“What’s your hesitation? Didn’t think a guy like me could work at a holy institution? Or don’t think a holy institution that would hire me could be that holy? I’m perfectly normal.” He held his arms out and leaned back in his chair. He really was normal. Normal jeans, normal brown guy shoes. All except for the t-shirt that screamed, “Jesus is my Love Machine.” A t-shirt whose sleeves pulled back when he spread his arms out, and showed what she hadn’t noticed before—Matt may not have been as tall or as large as Adam was, but his muscles were seriously defined.
“Do you work out?” she blurted, and her eyes went round when she realized what she’d said. Out loud. “I mean…um…it’s just…I hung out with the football team at school. The guys who were the heaviest lifters? They had arms like that.” She held a breath in her belly, waiting for his response. She tried to ignore how much she suddenly itched to touch those biceps.
“Funny you ask. I had to lift for soccer at school, but since I got to Northern I’ve hardly worked out at all. But now one of my old friends from when we were little goes here, and she teaches some kind of self-defense class at the rec center. So I promised my mom, who promised her mom, I would go.”
The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C Page 11