by Anthology
The woman had been a goddamn ambassador to the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold war. Shelby would never be so rude as to blow off her class, even if Florence was standing outside the door to professor’s off-campus house where they met every Friday.
Her momma had taught her better manners than that.
Although you’d be damn tempted…
She shook her head, grinning at herself as she left the theater and hustled into the white clapboard office tower at the southern corner of the property. The skybridge from this tower to the building that contained the bookstore, movie theater, and deli was rarely used. She couldn’t imagine why it had been built, other than as an experiment in creative design, but it worked well as a way to cross ground in potential enemy territory without being spotted.
The idea of losing a game to Florence Truong wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it had been at the beginning of this crazy contest. In fact, if the choice were offered to end it all and spend the day rolling around naked in bed with the gloriously high fashion and dirty-minded Florence, Shelby would be hard pressed to resist.
That didn’t mean Shelby had to make it easy for her.
Chapter 5
After two more days passed, Sunday afternoon arrived and as far as Shelby knew, no further assassinations had taken place. It was down to Florence and it was down to Shelby, plus Shelby’s final target, as far as she knew. She could hardly remember that guy’s name, because all she wanted was to end this damn contest between her and Florence.
Nothing is one hundred percent sure, girl. There could be more assassins left.
By this time, there wasn’t a soul on campus who didn’t know she and Florence were battling it out to win the game of Assassin. Shelby almost felt bad for the poor guy she was still hunting, because as far as she could tell, not a damn soul was rooting for him.
In the post office, Shelby dropped her guard and glared at the campus newspaper in her hands. Florence had her sex and politics seminar at this hour and Roberson was almost the only professor left on campus who took attendance and points off for absences.
“BDOC? Why does she get to be the BDOC?”
“What’s a BDOC?” Katie asked, staring over Shelby’s shoulder nervously. She took her guard duty seriously, even though Shelby kept reminding her that there was only one very visible boy to watch out for.
Painting platinum highlights on spiky black hair was just poor planning before a game of Assassin, although admittedly, Shelby was having a rather hard time remembering that is was just a game, herself.
Not spending every waking moment with Florence felt strange after the past few days, and her dreams at night were malaria-medicine vivid with hot breath and strong hands and the slick slide of skin against skin.
“Big dyke on campus. It’s an…unofficial honor,” Shelby muttered, skimming the front page story. The student reporter had hit the highlights, mainly their first clothes-switching gag and the early battles at trivia night, but hadn’t seemed to pick up on the fact that she and Florence had partnered up for most of the week to take out their targets.
“And you wanted…” Katie’s voice trailed away, as if she weren’t sure why anyone would wish to pick up a nickname like that.
“No, not really.” And of course she hadn’t a hope in hell of ever getting the moniker. Shelby sighed. Things were simpler back home in Texas. There, even the lesbians understood that some girls wanted to do their hair and wear makeup and eat pussy. But at this New England school, she’d been red-flagged as a probably bi-curious but definitely straight girl by the lesbian clique. “I’m just tired of everyone treating me like a LUG.”
She didn’t even need to look at Katie to know her face had wrinkled up in confusion.
“A lesbian until graduation.”
Katie’s sharp bark of laughter turned heads.
Tired of giving a damn, Shelby grabbed her friend—and wasn’t that funny? How she’d ended up with friends after all with all this nonsense—and headed for the stairs up to the snack bar.
“Come on. Let’s eat something and not get shot. My treat.”
Spending an afternoon hanging out with a friend was easy and light and just what she needed when her energy for this competition was hitting its final low point.
Guarding against Florence took every ounce of Shelby’s prodigious concentration, but she spared a brain cell or two for searching for her own target. Not knowing for sure if there was anyone else left in the game made it harder, though. Her French professor held her back after class to discuss the students Shelby was tutoring in her two-hundred level course, and Shelby’s distraction when she finally left the classroom was in high gear.
She didn’t give the skinny Asian kid bent over the water fountain down the hall a second glance until he whipped around to face her, platinum highlights finally ringing a bell as he pointed his paint ball gun at her chest.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Was Florence faking me out? This can’t be the end! I need…
It didn’t matter what she needed to prove. This boy with the spiky hair was a split second from nailing her dumb, distracted ass.
She rose up slightly on the balls of her feet. Attack or flee, she’d go down fighting.
The boy raised his hands and let loose his grip on the gun, leaving it dangling on one finger.
Shelby froze.
What the hell?
“You guys are killing it,” the kid grinned, eyes wrinkling as he smiled. “There’s no way in the rules for me to surrender to you, but I wanted to let you know I’m totally rooting for you. So, you know…” He waved at his chest.
Target here. Go ahead and shoot.
“You’re what?” Her mind raced at light speed. “Are you serious?”
“Two girls hunting each other across campus like, well…assassins? Are you kidding?” He raised an open palm.
She shot him in the chest.
Then walked over to high-five him, still confused.
“We’re going to have so many girls sign up next year! It’s going to be great!” The boy kept babbling at her as he followed her out of the building, rubbing at his chest and wincing every couple of steps.
Those paint balls stung up close.
By the time she managed to shake him loose, Shelby was most of the way back to her dorm and swamped with confusion that left her ignoring the phone as it rang while she curled up on her bed.
This should be the highlight. The final moments of the game that was meant to redeem her, to wipe out the sting of her embarrassment from all those weeks ago.
So why did she feel so fucking stupid all of a sudden?
Why was she spending days avoiding Florence, when all she wanted to do was curl up with her on a skinny mattress and make her laugh with stories Shelby told, voice thick with an exaggerated Texas twang, because it made Florence laugh?
By the time the knock at her door startled her out of a dozy fog, Shelby had figured out one or two things.
She pulled the door open wide, knowing exactly who she’d find on the other side.
They smiled at each other, but it felt hesitant. Awkward.
“Dorm rooms are safety zones,” Shelby said from inside her room.
Florence nodded. “I know.”
“Hallways aren’t though.” Shelby held her breath in tight ribs as she waited for Florence’s reply. Was she here to surrender? Tired of the game already? She wasn’t even sure what to hope for.
“I know,” Florence murmured, laying one palm flat against the door and leaning her weight on it until the handle tugged in Shelby’s hand. “Wanna let me inside before some assassin shoots me?”
She grabbed the front of Florence’s shirt and hauled her inside, kicking the door shut behind them.
“God, yes.”
The arch of Florence’s bare back under her palm was an electric moment Shelby would remember until the day she died. By the time they were both breathing hard and sweating on each other’s skin, arms draped over legs in the narrow
bed, she didn’t even care what the answer was to the question she had to ask.
“So, this is a timeout?” She bit her lip and kept her eyes on Florence’s calm face.
“I guess. Don’t really care.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly clear.
“And what if I shoot you the second you set foot in the hall tomorrow morning?” she asked, pushing now.
Florence shrugged one elegant bare shoulder, the sheet she’d pulled over her falling low, exposing one small brown nipple. “You won’t.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” She was flat on her back, sweaty and wrecked and still tingling from her toes to the tips of her hair.
“You’re disgustingly decent,” Florence said, scooching down the bed so she could rest her head on Shelby’s shoulder. The stiff brush of her pompadour poked Shelby’s chin.
Shelby thought maybe she’d like to be poked in the chin for the rest of her life. “I am, aren’t I?”
“Made it hard for me to be pissed at you when you were being such a pain in my ass.” Florence traced small circles on Shelby’s stomach, tracing each twitch and shiver until Shelby’s skin was lit up like the Milky Way with sparks and stars.
“Well, you weren’t paying any attention to me.” Which felt like a pretty high school thing to say, but was the truth.
“So you figured you’d piss me off until I had to hit on you.”
“I’m not saying William T. Sherman would have laid siege in quite the same way…” Shelby admitted, closing her eyes and smiling, because looking at her water-stained ceiling made everything a little too real, and since she was pretty sure this was a dream, the best dream she’d ever had, real felt dangerous.
“And I’m not saying it worked…” Florence murmured against the curve of Shelby’s breast, her hand sliding lower, blunt fingernails skimming against flesh that still trembled with remembered ecstasy. Shelby’s breath caught in her throat.
Lower, please. Touch me again. Touch me until I die from it.
As if she’d heard the words Shelby hadn’t said out loud, Florence did.
On a cry that slipped out with a hitch of her breath and an arched back, Shelby clung to the last word like a lifeline, “But look—” Florence slid lower in the bed as Shelby spoke, pressing her knees apart and wedging an arm between them. “—where you are now.”
Florence bit her hipbone and blew a soft breath across her curls, making Shelby shiver.
“Shut up, Shel.”
The nickname liquefied her insides and melted her spine. Shelby sprawled back against the pillow, lungs full to bursting as she sucked in air and tried not to grab Florence’s hair, not wanting anything to disrupt the path of her clever, clever mouth.
She lost track of time and space and everything except the clever fingers that played her body until it sang.
* * * * *
Shelby hugged the pillow under her chest, the one that smelled like Florence, sharp and spicy, resting her cheek on crossed wrists as she watched Florence in the dim light. All long lines and elegant angles, Florence bent to scoop her clothes off the floor, shaking the tailored shirt and pants out with a sigh of dismay at their wrinkles. She draped the trousers over the back of Shelby’s desk chair and wiggled her way into the tight white sleeves of the buttondown.
Trousers next, the tan fabric hugging her legs like riding pants. Shelby could picture it, suddenly. Florence, perched atop a perfectly groomed hunter, booted heels down in the stirrups,
For a girl who’d only ever ridden with long Western stirrups and a cowboy hat, she decided, that image was maybe the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
“I love your clothes,” she sighed, dreamy now, picturing tumbles in the hay—but fantasy hay, because Shelby’s Uncle Billy owned two thousand head of Hereford and she’d spent enough time in his barn to know that real hay was itchy and got up her nose until she sneezed—and all kinds of sexy things that could be done with a riding crop.
She crossed her legs under the sheet and squeezed her legs together. The slow surge of heat that bloomed between her legs was promising.
Maybe she could persuade Florence to sleep in.
“I know.” But Florence’s voice was flat, her back stiff as she bent down again to scoop her sports bra, white this time, off the floor and shove it in her trouser pocket, ruining the line with the peculiar bulge. “You always make that damn clear.”
“They’re so sharp. So fuck-you perfect. So—”
“Masculine?” Sharp now, that voice. Florence’s don’t-fuck-with-me voice normally made Shelby shiver, but was currently ramrodding tension up Shelby’s spine “Is that what you like best?”
Shelby wasn’t sure where she’d put her foot wrong this time. “Yes,” she answered slowly. “I love how your look is so polished. You wear menswear like you were born for it.”
“It’s not menswear. I’m a woman, and I’m wearing it, so they’re women’s clothes, damn it.”
“It’s just an expression.” She sat up now. Somehow they’d gone far afield from the dreamy appreciation she’d let lay on her like a blanket. This felt like a battle again, only Shelby wasn’t sure who the enemy was supposed to be.
She was very much afraid it was supposed to be her.
“I don’t like it. And I don’t like how much you focus on my clothes. Damn it. I knew this was going to happen.”
“What was going to happen? I know exactly how much you spent on those pants, and no one who spends bank on a pair of Chanel slacks doesn’t want people to focus on her clothes.” Riding the edge of real anger, Shelby tried to tease their way back to more pleasant topics, but Florence tightened her mouth and slipped on her shoes.
“Not like that.”
“Not like what?”
“Everything you love about my clothes has to do with how masculine they are. How much they make me look like a boy. Makes me wonder why you don’t just go get a boy of your very own.”
“Are you crazy? I don’t give a damn what clothes you’re wearing. I know you’re a woman. And you know how I know that? Because I’ve wanted you for a whole year now.” Shelby pushed off the bed and stalked naked over to her closet. Five minutes ago, she’d have strolled, but she wasn’t in the mood to play anymore.
Goddamn it. She was tired. Tired of this crap. She thrust a stiff arm into her closet and retrieved her robe by feel, the silky slither of fabric between her fingers identifying the peach satin gown.
“I fuck women. Butch, femme, doesn’t matter to me. But you know who I don’t fuck? Men.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, then dropped them to her side when it felt like she was serving them up on a platter. Damn double Ds. She tightened her belt tie. “Listen, I get it.”
“What do you get?”
“I know that you were screwed over by someone who wanted you to look more girly. Honey, I get it. But I don’t want you to change a thing. I like you just the way you are.”
Florence grimaced. “Because I look like a boy.”
“You couldn’t look like a boy if you shaved your head and wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey. Sweet baby Jesus, what do I have to do to be your girlfriend? Sing Closer to Fine a hundred times to earn the password to the lesbian clubhouse?” She threw her hands in the air, which she knew was a mistake the second she did it, because melodrama was the one thing guaranteed not to bring out Florence’s sympathies.
“It’s not a clubhouse.” Florence ran her fingers through her hair, straightening the short strands until it looked like she’d never mussed them up in Shelby’s bed at all.
“Well, it damn sure feels like it, and I’m not the one who’s sucked a dick, honey, so I don’t know why you won’t let me in.” She lashed out with a temper she knew she ought to shove down. But seriously, how dare she? How dare Florence tell her she wasn’t a good enough lesbian?
Every insecurity and doubt she’d had from the first time Florence had embarrassed her in public came roaring back, freezing the icy expression on her face as her lo
ver—yes, lover, damn it—opened her door and crossed out of the neutral zone and back into the competition that existed in the hallway, and everywhere else on campus.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Florence said, shaking her head.
Shelby’s heart thumped so loudly in her chest she couldn’t even hear the click of her door as it shut and Florence left her.
“Well, shoot.” She stared at the closed door. “That went wrong in a hurry.”
She fell back on her bed and curled up in a ball, wishing she had just one best girlfriend close to hand for emergencies like this.
After a minute, she decided a long-distance best girlfriend would have to do, and pulled her phone by the cord until it landed on her bed and she could snatch up the handset.
* * * * *
“Hey, girl. How you doin?” Sharita’s voice was honey drizzled over hotcakes, and Shelby had been waiting long enough that her anxiety over having fucked up the one thing she’d wanted desperately to go perfectly kept her from complaining about how long it had taken Sharita to call her back.
Shelby rolled over on her bed, staring at the Klimt poster of The Kiss on her wall. She gotten it framed her freshman year, before she’d realized that would mark her off as the kind of uptight, pretentious girl who didn’t know how to stick a poster to her own wall with blobs of sticky blue gum. She liked the sensuality of the picture too much to get rid of it though.
“I am purely aggravated, girl.” If she’d been back home, she’d have hopped in her Mazda Miata, put the top down, and zoomed up to Austin to grab Sharita and drag her out on Lake Travis for margaritas and gossip. A late night bitch session was a poor substitute, but she’d take it if it was all she could get.
Unloading the Saga of Florence took most of an hour.
“She lit out of here like her hair was on fire,” Shelby admitted as she wrapped up her story, the sting of that rejection having worked its way deep under her skin. It was one thing to have been judged after a hallway encounter and a glance, but damn it. Florence should know her better by now. How many times Shelby protected her and then screwed her brains out in one of their dorm rooms, or a random closet, or another?