Bring Down the Stars

by Scott, Emma

  “No, I need to get back to my place anyway,” I said, buttoning my dress up the front. “Shower and change.”

  “‘Kay.”

  I grabbed my shoes and purse, then bent to kiss Connor.

  “Have a good day,” I said. I hesitated for a second, then bent to kiss him again, trying to recapture the warmth of the morning that Weston’s cold snap had ruined.

  Connor’s lazy smile widened. “You sure you can’t stay?”

  “No, I’ll be late.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Bye.”

  I hurried out of the apartment, one of my father’s sayings in my thoughts.

  If you hear the snake’s rattle, best to listen to it.

  Weston was an asshole. That was his rep, and I had no concrete reason to think otherwise. He’d hardly spoken a handful of words to me over the last month. He left a room minutes after I walked into it, often with a cutting remark. And yet…

  I always felt there was more to Weston than he let on, and that he did nothing to alter his asshole reputation because it guarded him. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew it. Instinctively. And it made me immune to his crankiness.

  But it hurts a little, I thought as I walked home, shivering in the gray, misty morning. Just a little.

  Weston

  Shit shit shit…

  I fled the apartment as if it were on fire, my blood running just as hot. I thought those two fucking in Connor’s room all night was the worst thing that could happen.

  How wrong I was.

  Last night, I ran at the track, pushing myself faster and faster, trying to marathon Autumn out of my system. I ran until I puked, then walked home hollowed out with exhaustion. I’d opened the door to the unmistakable rhythm of a headboard banging against the wall, and Autumn’s cries filling the rooms of the apartment.

  It slammed me in the chest. Rock bottom. The absolute worst. Nothing could bring me lower.

  I’d immediately turned around and headed for Matt Decker’s place, and a sleepless night on his couch, but had forgotten nearly all of my books for class. Naturally, I timed my return to get them perfectly with Autumn emerging from Connor’s room. There she stood, straight from Connor’s bed, looking freshly fucked and so damn beautiful I could hardly breathe.

  “Why the hell was she wearing my shirt?” I muttered under my breath as I stalked down the quiet street toward the university, trying to outpace the memory of Autumn, her copper hair tousled, her legs bare and showing porcelain skin. My shirt barely covering her nakedness.

  A raging hard-on began to strain at the front of my jeans.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  I walked faster, nearly a jog, but I couldn’t get away from how badly I wanted her.

  Feeling like the world’s biggest jackass, I found a bathroom on campus—mercifully empty—on the first floor of the Business and Economics Building. I locked myself in the handicap stall, grabbed a wad of toilet paper off the roll, yanked my fly open and took myself in hand.

  I was rock-hard. Autumn in my shirt and nothing else would haunt me until I died if I didn’t do something. I closed my eyes, letting my fertile imagination reset the scene as my hand worked to give me some relief.

  “I thought you left,” she says, biting her lower lip that's still swollen from my kisses. She rests one bare foot on the other and her eyes rake me up and down. The way we fucked all night with relentless abandon is reflected in the hazel depths of her eyes, darkening them with renewed want.

  “I did,” I say, my voice thick with need. “I came back.”

  “For me?” she asks coyly.

  I nod. My bag drops to the ground.

  “What are you waiting for?” Then her sweet smile fades and she lowers her hands to the tops of her thighs, lifting my shirt an inch. “Come here, Weston, and put your mouth on me.”

  In three long strides, I’m in front of her, kneeling, pressing my tongue into her…

  I bit back a sound and barely managed to contain it to a grunt. Tasting Autumn in my fevered imagination, I came hard. My body shuddered with release, delirium suffusing me and leaving me drained.

  I leaned against the stall with one hand, sucking in deep breaths. Someone came in the bathroom to take a piss. I tossed the wad of paper in the toilet, tucked myself back in my jeans and flushed.

  Fucking pathetic, I thought, grabbing my bag.

  I washed my hands and got the hell out of there, hoping the cold air would bring me around. Hoping that jerking off to my best friend’s new girlfriend would relieve some of the deep ache in my gut—and heart, if I were being honest. The physical lust was satiated for the time being, but that pang of longing ate away at me from the inside out.

  I miss our talks.

  “Me too,” I’d nearly replied, but of course that wouldn’t fly. The more Autumn and I spoke, the more I knew her and spent time with her, the harder it would be on me.

  They’re sleeping together.

  I stopped midstride and sagged against the wall of the Econ building and took a minute to gather up what I felt and push it down.

  “You’re surprised, Sock Boy?” I muttered. “Keep going.”

  After Econ—a new economics class, since I’d dropped the one Autumn took too—I grabbed a coffee at the student union, then headed to Professor Ondiwuje’s poetry class. I sat slouched in my seat, my pen twirling around and around as the echo of Autumn’s voice on the other side of Connor’s bedroom door resounded in my head. I gripped the pen so tightly my knuckles turned white and then nearly dropped it in shock as a hand clapped my shoulder.

  I whipped around to see Connor in the row behind me.

  “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” I hissed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m auditing the class,” he whispered back, looking calm, relaxed, confident, and radiating his own brand of I got epically laid last night.

  I could’ve hated him if he didn’t look so happy. Then a sense of territorial defensiveness washed over me.

  This is my fucking class. My refuge. My outlet.

  “You’re auditing this class?”

  “I sort of have to.”

  “Why?”

  He shifted in his seat. “I figure I should learn a thing or two about poetry, now that Autumn and I are a thing.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that mean?”

  His smile widened, blinding me with white teeth and triumph. “We did the deed last night. All night.”

  “Congratulations,” I said through clenched teeth. The words coming out of his mouth hit me like fists to the gut all over again. “That’s not what I was asking. Why are you here?”

  Connor was lost in his memories of last night. “Sorry if we kept you awake but damn… She’s nothing like I expected. A firecracker.”

  Nausea boiled in my guts. I glanced at the nearest classmates who didn’t need to hear these private details about Autumn.

  “She’s also really fucking intelligent,” I muttered, as if I hadn’t been jerking off to her in a goddamn public bathroom hours earlier.

  “She is,” Connor said. “That’s sort of why I’m here. If I hope to keep her, I need to brush up on my romance.” He gave me a knowing, hopeful look. “I was hoping to enlist your help—”

  “No,” I said loudly.

  Professor O turned his gaze my way. “Not a fan of assonance, Mr. Turner?”

  The class tittered.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  The professor resumed his lesson, and after a moment, Connor leaned over my shoulder again.

  “So, here’s the thing…” he whispered hesitantly.

  “No, there is no thing,” I hissed back. “You need to shut up. I’m trying to actually learn something.”

  Connor was stunned into silence, and sat back in his seat, his confusion wafting over my shoulder.

  After class, I gathered my shit and headed up the auditorium stairs instead of down, to the back stairwel
l without a word to Connor. He followed, his voice echoing down the two flights in the back stairwell.

  Outside, he grabbed my shoulder on the back pathway of the Creative Arts Building and turned me around.

  “Wes, Jesus, will you wait a second?”

  “I don’t have a second.”

  “Dude, talk to me.”

  “I’m late for—”

  “Autumn read your poem.”

  I froze. My stomach tightened. “What poem?”

  He rummaged in his bag and then he handed me a paper. One of my papers with my words on it.

  Without you,

  The hours stretch

  into suffocating days;

  gasping through nights

  My hand made a fist, crumpling the paper before I could read the rest, as the world suddenly felt airless.

  Fuck, she knows…

  I divided straight down the center: anxiety at being exposed, coupled with a strange sense of relief.

  She knows.

  But she slept with Connor.

  Now a swirl of confusion battered me, a terrible suspicion making its way up through the storm.

  “She read it,” I said slowly. “And?”

  “And, well, it’s kind of funny, actually.” He coughed. “She thought I wrote it.”

  “But you told her you didn’t,” I said, already knowing the answer.

  “I kind of just…went with it.”

  “Is that why she slept with you?” I asked. A pit of dread settled into my stomach. “Because she read that poem?”

  It was one thing to write a couple of texts to help a friend out. Another if my words affected Autumn enough to convince her to get naked with that friend, to lie in his bed and share her body with him.

  Connor shook his head. “Not entirely.”

  “Partially? Fractionally?” My lip curled. “Give me a ballpark percentage.”

  “I don’t know, it was like the…catalyst?” He held up his hands. “Let’s put it this way, it sure as hell didn’t hurt.”

  I thought I was going to be sick. My jaw and fists clenched.

  “So that’s why I’m here.” Connor gestured at the Creative Arts Building. “If I take this class and you help me out a little—”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Forget it.”

  I turned to go and his hand gripped my shoulder again.

  “What the hell is your problem?” Connor demanded, spinning me around. “Why are you being such a dick about this? Because she slept with me? I told you, your stupid poem wasn’t the only reason—”

  “Isn’t it? Let’s examine the chain of events, shall we? You thought she was going to break up with you. She read the poem. She let you fuck her. Have I got that right?”

  I started walking again and Connor followed.

  “Hey. Asshole. I’m not completely helpless, you know. She likes me.”

  “Good for you,” I said. “But don’t steal my shit again.”

  “Why are you so pissed? I didn’t steal your damn poem. Autumn found it under an econ paper and thought it was mine.”

  “And you let her keep thinking that.”

  “Yeah? So? What’s the big deal? Damn poem told the truth, anyway. You think I haven’t jerked off a hundred times this month, waiting for her?” He stopped, his brows coming together. “Hold on…Why are you writing about jerking off to her?”

  “I’m not. It’s not her,” I said quickly, shifting my backpack to my other shoulder, my heart pounding now with guilt instead of anger. “It’s…thoughts. Words. Shit I dream up.”

  “Really?” Connor crossed his arms. “It’s not about Autumn?”

  “No,” I said, and the flat lie tasted like acid in my mouth. “Ever hear of write-what-you-know? She’s around a lot. I haven’t been with a girl in months so it came out in the poem, but it’s not about her.”

  “Well, Autumn sure as shit thought it was about her.”

  “Yeah, and look how well that turned out for you.”

  My hands were still balled into fists. Against Connor. We’d never been this at odds with each other. It felt like the solid foundation between us had sprouted its first cracks and I hated it.

  Connor must’ve felt the same. He backed off and held up his hands.

  “I’m sorry I stole your poem. It just sort of happened. The way she was looking at me…no girl has ever looked at me that way. Not over a feeling. Or thoughts. It felt fucking good so I went with it, okay?”

  I shook my head. “If she finds out…”

  “So let’s not tell her,” Connor said. “If it comes up again, help me out a little, like you did with the texts.”

  I ran my hand through my hair then jabbed a finger at the Creative Arts Building. “If you’re serious about auditing that class, then do it and pay attention. But I’m not writing a damn thing for you. Not one word.”

  He held up his hands. “What the hell is the big deal? It’s like an econ paper—”

  “It’s nothing like an econ paper. It’s about her. Her feelings. She’s serious about you now, right?”

  Connor shrugged. “Yeah, she is. We are.”

  I closed my eyes for a second. “You have to be careful. Don’t…”

  Don’t break her heart.

  “…fuck around with her.”

  “I won’t,” Connor said. “It may shock you, but I actually care about her.”

  “Good.” I shouldered my bag. “I gotta go.”

  I took a few steps and then Connor called my name. His voice sounded like it did when he spoke on the phone with his dad. Unsettled and full of worry.

  It made me turn around.

  “Yeah, man.”

  His uncertain smile nearly cracked my damn heart. “See you at home?”

  He needs me.

  “See you at home.”

  Autumn

  “Someone didn’t come home last night,” Ruby called in a sing-song voice.

  I sank down on the grass at our usual lunchtime spot in front of the Admin building. “Will you hush? Half the campus heard you.”

  “Oh, who cares?” Ruby said. “You did the deed with Connor Drake. You should be singing it from the rooftops.” She made a face. “Unless it was bad.” Her eyes widened. “Was it bad? Oh my God, it was bad.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “He’s very…skilled.”

  She sighed in relief. “And here you were, ready to dump his cute ass. Must’ve been a pretty good reason to get you to jump in the sack instead.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You told me you needed a better reason to fuck him, other than he’s hot.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “So?”

  The cool October breeze swept over us. I wrapped my cardigan around me more tightly and tucked my legs underneath me. I wore black pants and flats, but soon enough it would be time for jackets and scarves. The leaves from the trees were already carpeting the ground in sprays of color.

  gold, green, and brown—

  your namesake captured

  in your eyes.

  I bit my lip over a smile. “You’re going to think I’m the biggest sap in the world.”

  “Too late.”

  I plucked at a blade of grass. “He wrote a poem.”

  Ruby did a double-take. “Come again? Connor Drake wrote a poem?”

  “Yes,” I said. “About me.”

  Her expression brightened. “That kind of thing’s right up your alley. You should be over the moon, right?”

  “I am,” I said, and sighed. “Or I should be. Instead I feel…I don’t know. Fragile. I can’t do one-night stands and this is exactly why. Sex is so intimate.” I shook my head. “It’s like part of me is still naked. I have to trust he feels it was just as special.”

  “How was the morning after?” Ruby asked. “That can be a deal breaker, right there.”

  “It was perfect.”

  Until I ran into Weston.

  Like lightnin
g, it hit me I hadn’t felt fragile or naked about sleeping with Connor until I’d mistakenly put on Weston’s shirt. Or rather, until Weston saw me wearing his shirt. His reaction unsettled me to the core and I couldn’t figure out why.

  “Connor did everything right.” I slumped over, covering my hands. “God, I am the queen of overthinking, aren’t I? Why I can’t just enjoy something for what it is?”

  “Because you’re a big softy,” Ruby said. “So tell me about this poem.”

  “It was simple,” I said. “A little window into a different, deeper layer of him. Feelings and thoughts he doesn’t share with me when we’re together.”

  Ruby nodded. “I’m still trying to imagine him writing a poem.”

  “Why? Because he’s a jock who drives a sports car?”

  “Whoa, put your sword away, Khaleesi,” she said. “And yes, call me a judgmental bitch, but I can’t picture it.”

  “I can. I’ve seen it. And now it makes sense why he wants to take me to the Dickinson Museum this Saturday after Weston’s track meet.”

  Ruby shrugged and got to her feet, brushing grass off her jeans. “Well, I’m happy for you. Sounds like you landed the perfect guy—hot, rich, and deep.”

  I nodded, rising too.

  “Hey,” she said, taking me by the shoulders. “Don’t apologize for who you are. You’re a slut for poetry. Own it.”

  I burst out laughing. “Is that what I am?”

  “But seriously. Hai una bella anima.”

  “Bella anima?”

  “You’re a beautiful soul,” Ruby said and shrugged. “It sounds better in Italian. Fact: most things sound better in Italian. And if Connor doesn’t treat you right, prendilo a calci in culo. I’ll kick his ass.”

  I smiled and hugged my friend, even as my unease deepened. Connor treated me perfectly. He’d done and said everything right. But Weston…

  I didn’t know how or why it was important, but if I was going to feel good about my relationship with Connor, I needed to fix things with Weston. I gave myself a solid list of reasons: they were best friends. I wouldn’t feel comfortable spending the night at their place if Weston kept giving me the cold shoulder. I didn’t want my boyfriend’s best friend to hate me…