by Jenn Hype
PRESSING
ADALYN
Jenn Hype
Pressing Adalyn
Copyright © 2015 by All The Hype, Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by All The Hype.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Book design by J. F. Rountree
Cover photograph © Aleshyn_Andrei/ShutterStock.com
www.jennhype.com
[email protected]
August 2015
Chapter 1
6 years ago
“Shit!” I heard someone yell from one of the dorm rooms down the hall. A long string of curse words followed, most of which I wouldn’t even feel comfortable repeating. And to my horror, as I approached the room where the yelling was coming from, I realized that it was, in fact, my dorm room.
And that blonde cursing out an empty room, yeah that was my new roommate, Stacy.
“Um, excuse me? Are you Stacy?” I asked, my voice sounding a little more hesitant than I had intended, but I had to live with this girl for the next year so I figured I should approach her delicately. I didn’t want to end up on the receiving end of whatever had gotten her so angry.
“Yeah, who the hell wants to know?” she replied without even turning around to face me.
“I’m Adalyn, your new roommate.” I walked toward her, my hand outstretched in greeting and stood there for what felt like several minutes. As she finally turned around to face me, she just looked down at my hand and back up at me and without another word walked out of the room.
I quickly threw my bags on the empty bed, which I assumed was mine, and chased after her.
“Wait! Where are you going? I thought maybe we could get to know each other a little bit since we’re going to spend so much time together over the next year.”
She stopped so abruptly that I almost crashed into her.
“Look, Avery.”
“Um, it’s Adalyn.”
“Whatever…. Adalyn. I’m having a bad fucking day, okay? I don’t have time to sit around and braid your hair and play twenty questions or do whatever form of female bonding shit you thought was going to happen. If you hadn’t noticed, I spilled my entire latte all down the front of my shirt. See?” she said, gesturing at a big brown splotch on her white blouse - a splotch that was now dripping down onto her jeans.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even notice. You had your back to me. Do you need help?”
“Do I need…” she sighed impatiently and muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “dumb bitches,” as she massaged her temples.
“No, I don’t need your help wiping off my shirt. I’m perfectly capable of using a towel. I also know how to use a spoon and put my own clothes on in the morning, so you won’t have to help with any of that shit, either. Just to clear that up for you before you offer.”
She turned around again and stormed off, still mumbling under her breath.
I walked back to our dorm room and sat on my empty bed trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. At first I ran through the events that led up to her leaving, trying to figure out if I had said or done something offensive in that exchange that would have caused her to act so rudely towards me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I hadn’t done anything wrong. She was just being a bitch. And if I was going to be stuck in this room with someone as hateful as her, I needed to make sure she understood that I wasn’t going to put up with her treating me like shit all the time.
So, being the immature brat that I was, I completely stripped her bedding, wadded it up and threw it out the door into the hallway. That was quickly followed by an armful of her clothes. She returned to the room just as I was getting another armful of clothes and she yanked on my shoulder, causing me to stumble backwards and drop everything to the ground.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”, she screamed at me, getting entirely too close to my face. I did not like people in my personal space. So I pushed her with both hands as hard as I could and she tripped over the pile of clothes I had just dropped and landed hard on her ass.
I tried hard not to laugh. I really did. But I couldn’t help it. The shock and anger on her face was hysterical.
“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m helping you move out.” Confusion joined the mix of emotions being displayed on her face, but I kept going before she could interrupt. “There is no way I’m putting up with being treated like crap all year, and because I’m a nice person, I decided to help you pack. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to finish getting all of your crap out of my dorm room,” I said as I made my way back to the closet to get more of her clothes.
I’d only made it a few steps when she reached out and grabbed me by the ankle, causing me to lunge forward. I regained my balance just in time, preventing myself from going all the way down. She didn’t give me much time to recover from almost falling though, because as soon as I stood upright, she tackled me.
We continued to struggle, rolling around on the ground, pulling each other’s hair and trying unsuccessfully to slap each other. At some point a crowd had gathered just outside our door and several girls were laughing while the boys were chanting “girl fight” over and over.
Just as I bit down on Stacy’s forearm, she got a good jab into my eye with her elbow. It was utterly ridiculous. Neither of us was really making any progress in hurting the other, we mostly just took turns rolling on top of each other, somersaulting all across the room.
Finally, when we were both so winded from fighting, the Resident Assistant showed up. She broke up the crowd and started yelling loudly, pulling us out of our rage-induced cat fight. We both paused at the same time, my right hand tangled in her hair with my left hand wrapped tightly around her wrist. She had both of her legs wrapped around my waist and she was pushing my face away with the palm of her free hand.
The look on the RA’s face was sheer terror. Stacy and I looked at each other and after a long pause, we broke into a hysterical fit of laughter. Our now irritated RA huffed out of the room, grumbling about us being immature children, and Stacy and I just continued to crack up over how ridiculous we must have looked in that moment. We untangled ourselves from each other and gripped hands, pulling one another up, then reintroduced ourselves.
“Do over?” I asked.
“You got it, whore.”
And that’s how I met my best friend.
Chapter 2
Present Day
Adalyn
“Hurry up and finish getting ready, whore. We have a ton of shit to do today before the party tonight.”
Yep. Six years later and my best friend hadn’t changed a bit.
“Shut up, Stacy. I already don’t feel like going out tonight and your friends are bitches. I am way too exhausted to have to put up with people I don’t like, especially at a club. There probably won’t be anywhere to sit and I’ll end up whining the whole time and making you regret that you bothered to force me to go out with you in the first place.”
I already knew she wasn’t going to let me off the hook. I’d packed up and moved across several states to live with her over a month ago and I still hadn’t even attempted to go out and see the city. There were a few times she dragged me out to local clubs or bars, but I hadn’t been good company.
Recently having made the decision to forgo any kind of p
hysical or emotional relationship with men had me avoiding them like the plague. So whereas normally I would be out dancing, stealing the mic from the DJ or generally throwing myself at a hot stranger, now I was a self declared wall fly. Hunkering in a corner, simply there to observe and be the designated driver.
I don’t drink. Haven’t since college. Nothing against drinking, I just have control issues. When I say control issues, I mean in every aspect of my life. I don’t give in to peer pressure, or pressure of any kind for that matter. Nothing will make me act out or behave irrationally more than someone trying to tell me what to do. These control issues have caused problems in almost every facet of my life, but I’ve come to terms with this and am in no hurry to change.
Unfortunately, ‘annoyingly stubborn’ and ‘irritatingly difficult’ apparently can’t be listed under ‘skill set’ on your resume. At least not if you actually want the job. So since graduating college with some bs degree because I never could decide on a major, I’ve bounced around between one shitty job to the next. I’m very smart, easy on the eyes and a quick learner. However, none of that overshadows my uncanny ability to piss off my bosses. Did you know that there is no job that exists out there where you get to call all the shots and boss people around without actually being the boss? Go figure.
I’ve also never stayed at a job long enough to be able to work my way into a management position. Not that time would make a difference, because I will never kiss ass to get higher up in a company. I’d rather suck an egg. Plus, even managers have bosses. Being homeless, wandering the city, having to answer to no one was actually a tempting concept on some days. Of course I would never actually do that, but it was nice to dream.
Dream of being homeless? Now that was just sad...
I’ve also found out over the last few years that men hate being bossed around as much as I do. I guess not holding a steady job, never letting your date decide where you’re going for the night and refusing to let the man have any control in bed is not really what most men are looking for in a woman. Never mind the fact that I’m intelligent, have great tits and killer legs and could rival the best of them in a game of darts. The movies and books are lying, ladies. That bullshit where the guy likes a woman with a mind of her own, who is beautiful and acts like one of the guys is just lies. LIES, I TELL YOU! I’m lucky to make it past the second date.
Yeah, men act like they want a gorgeous woman who can eat her weight in steak, watches sports and act like one of the guys while still keeping up in an intellectual conversation. That may be true, but they also want this woman to laugh at all of their jokes even if they aren’t funny, swoon over any romantic gesture they make, no matter how lame it is, and to constantly praise them and validate their egos.
I’m happy to be the first part of that description, straight up refuse the latter. If I can’t find a man who appreciates my extreme honesty, even if it’s at their expense, then I’d rather be alone. And I’m damn sure never going to give anyone praise they don’t deserve. Remember how I said I wouldn’t kiss my boss’s ass? That really applies to everyone.
On top of all my domineering qualities, I’m also picky as hell. Yeah, I could probably find a guy to put up with me. I’ve actually found quite a few. However, they were all weak minded, insecure man- children who couldn’t find my clit even if a giant neon sign were pointing directly at it.
Just because I can’t find a man who I feel is actually deserving of my time who will stick around long enough to look past some of my overbearing personality traits, doesn’t mean I’m willing to just drop my standards entirely. Winning an argument isn’t fun if the person doesn’t even try to argue back. What’s the fun in winning if your opponent could care less if they won or not? And I’m very competitive about literally everything.
I’m so competitive that no one will play anything with me, no matter what it is. Board games, video games, cards, pool… doesn’t matter what it is. If in the end someone will be declared a winner, then all of a sudden no one is “in the mood” to play. Wusses.
It took a couple of years, lots of therapy and several memories I wish I could forget, for me to discover all of this about myself. Becoming more self aware actually made it worse in the beginning, because my ways of coping were more than unhealthy. I was still trying to figure out a happy medium but compromising, even with myself, was never my strong suit. I was working on it though. Well...kind of...
Yeah, there was a brief time in my life where all of this was depressing. A VERY brief time. I’m not one to sit around and wallow and feel sorry for myself. So after several failed attempts at dating, I had decided being in a relationship could be put on hold. I needed to figure out my own crap anyway. Maybe if I at least held a steady job then I might be able to keep the attention of someone I was actually interested in.
So... since I’d pretty much exhausted most of my employment opportunities back home in Ohio, I called up Stacy and asked if she would like a roommate. I took the shrieking on the other end of the phone as a yes, and a week later I had packed up everything I would need to start over with my best friend in New York.
Stacy, God love her. She was a firecracker and keeping up with her was difficult. She’d been putting up with my grumpy ass for over a month now. Getting her to stay still for more than five minutes was exhausting and it tested my patience constantly. She was always looking for a good time, and right now I just wanted to take a step back and be with myself for a while. Getting her to listen to me and accept that that’s what I needed right now was driving me out of my ever-loving-mind.
Despite all of this, I was beyond excited to be living with my best friend again. We’d kept in touch after I moved back home when we graduated. Stacy was from New York, so staying here was just a given for her, but I had no idea what I was doing with my life so I thought going home would be the mature decision. Take some time to figure it out. Moving home, however, only made it worse. I felt like a loser. I was still depending on my parents, and barely able to pay my own cell phone bill since I was constantly between jobs.
I had originally come to New York for school because of their art program. Plans changed though after freshman year and when it came time to declare a major, I had already missed so much school and was dealing with so many personal issues that I just picked a generic business degree.... even though I had no desire to work in any type of office setting. I had dreamt my whole life of doing something with art. I had foolishly convinced myself that I could find a way to transfer my passion for art into an actual job, either by doing design work or actually getting paid to commission my own works.
Fail.
Stacy had been my rock and main source of moral support since we’d met. She had always stood behind me no matter what decisions I made, but she wasn’t afraid to let me know if my decisions were stupid, either. And despite how wild she was and how far out of my comfort zone she forced me, she was the only one who knew my history. She knew all of the reasons I was so messed up and why I didn’t drink alcohol.
When I did manage to force myself to go out with Stacy, I always ended up having a good time. Stacy was already a loose cannon, but when she was drinking it was hilarious. Every time we went out she made a complete ass out of herself. As much as I tried to use the multitude of stories, videos and pictures against her, it never worked. I’d never met someone who cared so little about what other people thought. To her, the more embarrassing the story, the more entertaining...even if it was at her expense.
Because I loved Stacy and she was one of my only friends in the city, I gave in to her relentless nagging and finally agreed to go out. One of Stacy’s friends knew the owner of some nightclub that was opening up and had gotten us VIP status for the night. Stacy had been dying to go. I was less than thrilled at the thought of a night out with her and her friends. Stacy’s friend Carrie, in particular, whom she’d known since she was four years old was the worst. I had a sneaking suspicion that Carrie hated me, though I had no idea why. She hadn�
��t been rude, at least not in an obvious way, but every time I was around she just glared at me and no matter how much I tried to engage her in conversation she barely responded. So I just started avoiding her, though my efforts were futile considering how close she was with Stacy.
Stacy had warned me about Carrie before I moved in with her. She didn’t go into detail about the reasons behind Carrie’s personality, but she made it clear that I was to take it easy and back off. I may or may not have a tendency to be pretty confrontational at times. I also may or may not struggle with having a filter for my thoughts. Apparently this Carrie chick was sensitive or some shit and Stacy was afraid I would cause drama. I didn’t need that crap right now anyway. I had tried being nice and it wasn’t working, so avoiding her was the next best option.
Having to be around Carrie while simultaneously trying to avoid her still wasn’t the worst part, though. Nope, the worst part was where we were going. The opening of this club had been talked about for weeks in the paper and on the local news. The name of this highly anticipated club? Grind. Yeah you heard me. The name of the club was Grind. I was sure it would be true to it’s name. Why? Because what do drunk boys do at clubs? They grind up against drunk girls. Or sober girls. Or anything with an orifice they can stick their dick into…no matter how unwanted their attention was.
Joy.
Not only did I not need the temptation of hot, sweaty men grinding against my leg, but since this was the opening night for this club and it was supposed to be an ultra exclusive, high profile type of ordeal, it was sure to be packed. Word was it was going to be filled with the city’s most gorgeous and eligible bachelors, so yep...tonight was going to be torturous.
“I know what you’re thinking, Adalyn...yes, it’s probably going to be packed and I know you’ve been completely anti-social lately, but the security is being doubled since it’s opening night and because they want the club to have a more exclusive feel so they aren’t going to put up with the usual drunken dumbasses that you would see in an average club.”