I gasped. “Oh my gosh. Are those mine?”
Oliver rolled his eyes. “No. They’re mine. I just keep a pair in my pocket for emergencies.”
I snatched them from him, and he looked sheepishly down at me. “I grabbed them while we were hurrying to get dressed. I didn’t want some random janitor to find them, but I got in a hurry and ran off with them.”
I eyed him curiously. “So, you’ve been walking around all day with my underwear in your pocket?”
He smirked. “Maybe.”
I bit my lip and playfully swatted at him. “Pervert.”
He shrugged. “Better me than some random guy you haven’t seduced with your sugary confections, though, right?”
“Seduced?” I acted as if this accusation shocked me. “Is that what you think I was doing when I gave you cupcakes?”
He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “A guy can hope.”
He took my hand, and I moved back into his side as we started walking again. I slid my underwear in my jacket pocket. We made it half a block, and Oliver paused outside one of the fancy high-rise apartment complexes that sat just off campus. “Do you mind if we stop by my place for a second? I need to let my dog out.”
I stopped mid-step. “Wait. You live here?”
I glanced up at the tall, obviously new building with its untarnished bricks and modern architecture. “Technically, yes.” He motioned toward the front door. “Do you mind?”
“No, of course not. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
I followed him up to his apartment, my mouth gaping the entire way. The building definitely didn’t look like something a college student could afford. Ever. Oliver lived on the top floor in the freaking penthouse, of all places. There was something definitely fishy about that. My apartment could fit in the elevator of this place. He unlocked the door, and as soon as he twisted the knob, a large, shadowy figure darted out the front door toward him. Oliver stumbled back a couple feet, and it was only then I realized the dark figure was his dog. A giant black lab jumped up and down in an attempt to reach Oliver’s face with his slobbery tongue. Oliver tried to keep the dog down. “Yes, I know, Scuba. I’m happy to see you too.”
Oliver scratched the dog’s ears and patted his head affectionately. Oliver looked over at me and smiled. “Scuba here isn’t used to apartment living yet. He doesn’t understand why he isn’t out on the boat every day.”
“The boat?”
Please, tell me he didn’t own a yacht. I didn’t think I could date a guy with a yacht.
“My parents, they own a fish hatchery off the coast up north. Scuba would go out with me and my dad every day on our boat and help bring in the catch.”
“Ah. That’s right. You’re from Maine. That’s what your number showed up as on my caller ID.”
Oliver led me into his apartment, or mansion, whatever you wanted to call it, and threw his keys on the table by the door. “Yeah. I’ve lived there all my life until I was shipped off to college.”
My head turned toward the side. “Shipped off?”
“Ah, well, I guess I shouldn’t say it like that. My parents…they were very adamant about making sure I got the college experience. They’ve had it hard making a living, and they just want to make sure my life is easier. They can be a little overbearing about it.”
Now I was really confused. If his parents weren’t rolling in the dough, then how the heck did he afford this apartment?
Scuba scarfed down his bowl of food while Oliver grabbed his leash off the top of the fridge. The gesture pulled his shirt up, and I saw a hint of the creamy flesh beneath. More specifically, his amazingly toned body. “So, you helped your dad out on his boat. I guess that explains the mystery of your abs.”
Oliver turned around. “My abs?”
“You have very nice abs for a guy who spends a lot of time in a library studying. Now it makes sense.”
Oliver bit the inside of his cheek. “Do you play a game to see how many times you can get me to blush in one day?”
I smirked, unrepentant. “Yes.”
We shared a smile as he walked over and hooked Scuba up to his leash. “Do you care if we both escort you the rest of the way home? He could really use a long walk.”
I walked over and gave Scuba a pat on the head. He licked my hand before scarfing down the remainder of his snack. “Does he get embarrassed easily? Because I’m going to kiss my Jedi hero goodnight.”
Oliver blushed for the third time, because he was totally right. I kept count.
“Maybe, but he’ll survive it.”
Oliver and Scuba walked me home underneath the blue glow of his umbrella. Even with my tangled hair, wet feet, and bare bottom, it was a perfect night. Now I just had to make sure I made the grade to keep these perfect nights a possibility.
Chapter Sixteen
JOCK
Sloan bought me three cups of hot chocolate at the game Saturday. The guilt was strong with that one. As it should have been after they so rudely interrupted my poetry time with Oliver. I didn’t go knock on the broom closet door after she dragged Preston out of the coffee shop. My friends needed to learn boundaries. The major boundary being not to interrupt any kind of alone time I had with Oliver, especially if they found us in the poetry section.
Ava had yet to buy me a cup, but she was currently busy. By busy, I meant she straddled the railing of the outfield, whining like a cat in heat while she watched Brad and his teammates warm up for their game. “It’s not fair. I can’t tackle Brad on the baseball field. People make the evening news for that kind of craziness.”
I took a gulp of my hot chocolate, giggling. I wasn’t going to lie. It felt good to be making progress with Oliver while watching Ava suffer a little. Usually, I was the one who got left walking home from the bar alone because Ava had met some guy and bailed on me. I wanted Ava to succeed in her pursuit of Brad, but it felt good to finally beat her to the punch for once. “You’ll have to find a different place to pounce him,” Sloan suggested, casually offering me some nachos.
I took them, smiling appreciatively. Sloan earned brownie points like a boss.
Ava turned around. Her eyes narrowed at both of us. “I’ve tried. I can’t find one single place that boy hangs out other than this stupid baseball field. I’ve been at Rowdy Randy’s every weekend for weeks, and nothing.”
I crunched down on my nacho. “How about the locker room?”
Sloan laughed, propping her feet up on the railing in front of us. “You can’t break into a locker room.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not breaking in if you get lost. People make mistakes all the time.”
“That’s not a half bad idea.” Ava’s eyes widened and she jumped off the railing, running over to me. “Oh, Elle, please come get lost in the locker room with me. Please. Please. Please.”
I took another sip of my drink, glancing over at Sloan. I wouldn’t do it without her. Sloan shrugged. “I’ll get arrested if you will.”
I turned back to Ava, who had her hands fisted around the arm of my seat. “You owe me hot chocolate.”
She practically tackled me. “Oh, thank you so much, Elle. I will owe you forever!”
“Damn right, you will,” I said, throwing back my last drink. “And both of you will never interfere in my alone time with Oliver ever again.”
“Never.” She hugged me to pieces. “I promise.”
“All right. All right.” I pushed her off and leaned over to take more nachos from Sloan. “We shall help you land your jock today.”
The game took forever, or at least it felt that way with Ava babbling on and on about what she might say or do once she made her way inside the locker room. Ava was never patient or subtle when it came to guys, and it didn’t matter how much Sloan and I tried to convince her to take it a little slower. It was all or nothing with her all the time. We finally learned to live with it.
We waited by the bathroom, pretending to have some in depth conversation about a fiction
al heartthrob we all knew while everyone filed out of the stadium after the game. The walkway became heavily crowded, so we slowly made our way toward the back corner. Once we got past the crowd, we had to go into stealth mode. Suddenly the “Mission Impossible” theme song started playing through my head. We hid behind columns, peeked around corners, and bolted down a staircase clearly marked “Players and Employees Only.”
At the edge of the stairs, I stopped and carefully glanced around the corner. Players and coaches filed out of the locker room carrying their bags and slinging the water off their wet hair. I held up my hand, signaling for them to wait. Ava climbed up on my back, trying to peer around the corner, but I managed to shake her off. “Would you please be patient? You’re going to get us caught.”
The horde of people finally slowed down, and Ava pushed against my back. “Hurry or we will miss him.”
“We won’t miss him, idiot.” I tried to push her back. “He’ll be the last one out.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s the star player, Ava. I’m sure he had to do a ton of interviews after the game, which means he’ll be the last one to leave. “
It had been about five minutes, and no one had emerged, so I gave Ava the go-ahead. We walked down the hall pretending to be thoroughly confused and one by one backed our way through the locker room door. Once inside, the room opened into a giant empty space. Large, navy blue lockers outlined the walls of the room, and the floor was littered with towels, socks, and other smelly, weird things I didn’t feel the need to inspect. Ava looked around, disappointed. “He’s gone.”
A noise erupted behind us. We all three jumped. Technically, Ava and Sloan jumped at me as if I was some grand protector. Little did they know I was about to hightail it out of there and leave them for dead. However, that wasn’t necessary, and I shoved them off me. “It’s the shower,” I said as quietly as possible. “He turned on the shower.”
Ava’s eyes lit up like she’d seen the Holy Grail.
“No, Ava. We are not busting in on somebody in the shower.”
“But, Elle,” she said bouncing up and down, “he’s all wet and naked in there.”
I pointed my finger at her. “No.”
Somebody had to keep her under control. Ava was too much like Sloan. She had no boundaries or fear of consequences. She snarled at me before turning to the lockers. She ran her hand down the sides, inspecting the name plates above each one. Surprise, surprise whose she stopped at. The door was cracked, with a pair of shorts hanging off the edge. She slid her hand along the edge, opening it. Her other hand darted inside, pulling out a piece of clothing. She smirked as she held them up. A pair of skimpy Under Armour undies. She stretched them out, watching them contract. “Oh, can you just imagine?”
Sloan eyed them warily. “How the hell does he fit all of that in those little things?”
“I will find out,” Ava vowed, “and I will report back.”
The water suddenly cut off, replaced by a loud, booming voice, singing. We panicked. Ava slung the shorts up in the air, and we started frantically turning in circles searching for a place to hide. I let out a very frantic, yet silent squeal of terror. I hastily started jerking down locker handles like they were the zipper on Oliver’s pants.
Locked. Shit.
Locked. Damn it.
Locked. Mother chucker.
Click.
I jerked the door open. It looked spacious enough. Sloan was the nearest to me, so I grabbed her and shoved her in. I followed after her. Ava tried to stick her foot in, but she wouldn’t fit. “Try a different locker.”
The vibrant voice continued to sing on the other side of the corner. I mouthed “sorry” and shut the door in Ava’s horrified face. That was what she got for not buying me hot chocolate. She cursed me under her breath before the singing suddenly cut off. There was silence for about five seconds before I heard a very familiar yet explicit seductive voice. “Oh, well…hello, Brad.”
“Umm, hello,” Brad stuttered.
I tried to crane down and place my ear to the edge of the slit in the door to hear better, but there was no room to budge. Not to mention it smelled liked rotten jock straps. Sloan managed to bring her fingers up and clamp her nose off.
“I’m Ava,” she cooed, still laying on the charm.
“Yeah, I remember. You do know you’re in the guys’ locker room, right?”
“Huh? Really? I had no idea.”
That a girl, Ava. Play dumb.
Sloan giggled, and I jabbed her in the ribs. Ava’s voice got smoother with a hint of a pout. “I got separated from my friends on the way out of the stadium, and I got lost.”
“Well, that wasn’t very nice of them to go off and leave you,” Brad said, letting out a laugh.
“Yeah, they are quite inconsiderate.”
I could only imagine the bitch-fest she was having at my expense in her head right now.
There was silence again, and I struggled to bend down. I shoved Sloan and she hit me back, but I managed to maneuver low enough to peek through the top slit. I saw flesh and a bright white towel. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Ava asked innocently.
“No,” he blurted out, but quickly regained his composure. “I was just taking a shower.”
“And I missed it?” Ava giggled and her ass blocked the view of Brad’s white towel.
I slapped Sloan in the side. “Holy crap. She’s going for it.”
“For what?”
“The towel.”
A few more mumbling sounds chatted back and forth that I couldn’t make out, and the next thing I knew, a blur of white fabric headed for my face. The towel hit the outside of our locker, and Sloan gasped with a huge smile on her face.
Bow chica wow wow.
Sloan and I tried desperately to hold in our giggles as a moan erupted from the outside. I bent back down, and Ava had Brad pinned down on top of a bench…butt naked.
Sloan nudged me with her knee. “What’s happening?”
“I think she is going for the home run, Sloan. Ava isn’t playing games out there.”
If I could have seen Sloan’s face, I knew she would be rolling her eyes right now. “Just like her,” Sloan said. “She never learned how to run the bases.”
I peeked out and instantly wished I hadn’t. Stark white flesh headed our way. I quickly cupped my hand over Sloan’s mouth, just in time for the impact. Sloan screamed into my palm as Ava’s backside slammed into the locker. How had Brad stripped her clothes off that fast?
Psht. Who was I kidding? This was Ava. She probably went commando every day.
I removed my hand from Sloan’s mouth as she gasped at me in horror. The moans were definitely a lot louder and more distinct now.
Sloan gave me an ‘oh no, he isn’t’ look, but then it started. The pounding. I thought the locker was going to cave in. Sloan and I grabbed each other, sinking away from the door as much as possible as Ava’s ass slammed into it over and over again.
If that wasn’t bad enough, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Sloan felt it on her leg and practically dismantled the inside of the locker before she figured it was only my phone. Luckily Brad was distracted out there, or I was sure he would have heard that one.
I slid the phone out of my pocket, attempting to get a look at the number. It wasn’t local, but it wasn’t a number in my contact list. It was Oliver.
Shit.
I couldn’t answer it right now. Not with the McFreaksters going at it on the outside of the door. Sloan silently yelled at me to answer it. I glanced toward the number and then back at the imploding door.
Double shit.
“Hello,” I whispered into the receiver the same the time Ava let out a scream.
“Uhhh…Elle?”
“Yes?”
“This is Oliver.” There was a long pause. “What the heck is going on in the background?”
“Um.” I glanced at Sloan, who urged me with her eyes. “Sloan is working out. She�
��s a screamer.”
“Okay.” Another awkward pause. “I’ll take your word for it. I was calling to see if you wanted to get together later. I know we have study dates scheduled, but I wanted to ask you out on an official first date.”
There was a loud boom on the outside of the door, and it literally bent inward. Sloan nearly shrieked. “Sounds great, Oliver. How about you come to my house around eight?”
“Okay, sounds good. See you then.”
I quickly shut off the phone as glass-shattering shrieks of pleasures rang out. Well, at least the pounding had stopped. It got quiet after that except for the heavy panting. I tried to calm Sloan down, but she kept acting like R. Kelly was trying to break into her closet. There was light mumbling outside the door, but I didn’t bother to try and listen. I wasn’t in the mood to hear Ava’s acceptance speech for freak of the week.
I waited five minutes before even attempting to take a peek outside. When I did, Brad stood next to his locker, wearing that stretchy contraption he called boxers. He’d fit it all in, surprisingly, but it sure didn’t leave anything to the imagination. I had the sudden urge to get the hell out of this stink hole. Luckily, Ava lured Brad out of the room within minutes.
We busted open the door, gasping for fresh air. Sloan heaved it in like it was the last breath she would ever get to take. “It’s official,” Sloan said, panting between words, “we have got to start talking to guys in bars like normal people.”
I nodded in agreement as I tried to fan the stink away from me. “A flat surface and some sheets have never sounded better.”
I pulled her outside, sneaking out a back exit. We rounded our way to the parking lot, expecting to see Ava waiting for us at the car, but she wasn’t there. Instead, she lay on the hood of a black Cadillac about two hundred yards in the distance with Mount Brad hovering over her.
She could find her own way home. I jumped in the car, and Sloan quickly followed. I had a date to prepare for, and, well, horrible images to scrape out of my brain.
Confession Of A Nerdoholic Page 13