by Ines Vieira
“I won’t be able to pay you straight away for this,” she says sullenly.
“I didn’t ask you to. This is my idea, so why would you have to pay me back?”
“It might be your idea, but it’s still me that will benefit from it.” There’s that bite again that I’m starting to love.
“Did you not hear me when I said that this would make it that I won’t have to be on you 24/7?” Jess reddens with that statement, and when I hear it back in my mind, I think I blush just as fiercely. “I mean, I’m sure that you don’t want to have me breathing down your neck every five minutes?” Again with the blush! Jesus! Why can’t I say anything that doesn’t make an instant image of me entwined with Jess, pop straight up in my head? Her eyes go wide looking straight through me, and my palms start to sweat all on their own.
“What I meant to say is you don’t want to make me out as a liar, do you? I promised Carlos that I would make sure you were ok. So this is only my way of making that happen. Any expense should be covered by me, so don’t sweat it.” I say gaining control back in my voice, and hopefully my face too. Her words from last night making their presence known and cooling me off completely.
“A beautiful lie,” she called me. Even though too much happened yesterday for me to think about all that was said, those three little words keep popping up in the forefront of my brain every so often bringing with them memories that I would prefer being locked away in my subconscious. Of course, being back in this house brings these unwanted recollections anyway.
“Fine, where can I go and change?” I point to a side door where she can find changing room slash shower room of the gym. She strolls to it, and the minute she locks the door behind her, I pray that I’m not biting more than I can chew. Before I can dwell too much on that thought, my phone vibrates in my left pocket. When I see that its J blowing up my phone, I answer it immediately.
“You got something for me?” I grunt.
“Well hello to you too Mr. Fucking Sunshine,” Jason replies.
“I’m not in the mood for small talk J, so you either got something I want to hear or call me back when you do.”
“Yeah I got something for you, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“What do you mean? The house isn’t going to have a sit-down? They refuse the meet?” I ask incredulously. Sure, I’ve only been at Delta Kappa Tau a few months and have seen with my own eyes that a lot of shit that went on in the house was swept neatly under the rug, but I would think something of this magnitude would make them take some sort of action. At least a fucking discussion.
“No Q, they didn’t refuse the meet. In fact, it’s already done,” Jason says, and I hear it in his voice loud and clear, that whatever he’s going to tell me next, I’m sure as hell not going to like it.
“Done? What do you mean done? Why didn’t you call me? I should have been there don’t you think?”
“Chill man, I know you’re right, but the brothers thought it be best if neither your or Dave attended.”
“Well, how the hell is a trial of use if the guilty party and the respective witness don’t fucking attend in the first place?” I start to yell out but looking over to where Jess is changing; I decide to walk over to the other side of the room, so she doesn’t have to hear me losing it.
“The brothers thought that having you two in the same room would be counterproductive.” I hear defeat in Jason’s voice, so I know that whatever the outcome of this morning’s meeting will not bode well for my sanity.”
“That’s bull, and you know it!” I place my fist to rub my temple, feeling a headache coming on with all this injustice. Jess was right. Dave has nothing coming his way just like she predicted.
“I should have broken the prick’s knees when I had the chance,” I say more to myself than to Jason.
“You’re probably right, but that would have only made your situation more precarious. I doubt they’d be so lenient with your punishment.”
“My punishment?” I raise my voice again.
“Q, just breathe for a second, will ya? Do you want to know what happened or what, ‘cause you interrupting me every five seconds is not gonna give you the answers you want?”
“Fine. Talk,” I groan. Jason lets out a breath, and I know he’s not taking any pleasure in this call.
“So Dave is out. We all agreed that whatever did or did not happen last night with him, and your girl was not the kind of attention the house needs.” I start to argue with his did or did not happen comment, but J quickly cuts me off.
“If word got around that girls were being hassled in any of our frat parties, then sooner or later we’d be unsanctioned to throw them at all. Not something any brother wants. Also it’s a total fucking cliché that Delta Kappa Tau doesn't want to fall into. If rumor got out that shit like that happened in our house, then not only will the Dean take action, but the girls would start to be no-shows too, and no one likes a fucking meat party.” Of course my brothers would be thinking with their dicks rather than the severity of an actual fall out should a girl get hurt in our house. I want to focus on the fact that Dave is out of the fraternity, but that gives me little comfort.
“The brothers all voted for Dave's sorry ass to be dropped. They weren’t too certain about you though.”
“What about me?”
“Let's say that some guys in the house didn’t like how quickly you turned on a brother and broke his nose for a piece of ass,” Jason says reluctantly.
“The asshole was lucky that’s all I broke and if you call Jess a piece of ass again, he’s not the only one that should be scared of me,” I huff out, seeing all sorts of red.
“Dude, I know you're in the right here, okay, I’m just passing off the message. Most guys have the ‘bros before ho’s’ mentality.” This time my growl is loud enough that I’m sure even Jess heard it from the other room.
“Q, damn it man, cool it will you? Again, don’t kill the messenger, I’m just laying out what was discussed. Damn, I’ve never seen you this high tempered before. This girl really got your number, doesn’t she?” he laughs out, trying to lighten an otherwise bleak conversation.
“Anyway, you’re on probation for the next sixty days. This means you can't go off beating anybody or make the house look bad in any way during that time. Otherwise, you’re out too. Since you’re a legacy and all, that helped you out a bit. Some of the guys thought you shouldn’t have been shown such leniency.”
“I bet I know just the brothers that were out for my blood, too.” It doesn’t take a genius that Grant and his pompous crew were just salivating at the bone to get rid of me. Grant never hid that he’d prefer I didn’t rush Delta Kappa Tau in the first place. Having a Stevens there was like having a Rothchild in Grant’s book, which means that in the power ladder, his family name was a definite step lower from mine. Not that I gave a crap about any of it, but to guys like Grant, this meant a whole fucking lot. He’s always been a competitive jerk, always trying to outshine or one-up me, even if I didn’t give a rats ass. To him Delta Kappa Tau only had one possible King, and I was way too much of a threat. If his insecurities and vanity didn’t cloud his judgment so often, he would see that I would crown him myself if that would take away the spotlight from me.
“So, that’s all I got. You okay with this?”
“I’m not okay with any of it, but apparently I can’t rock the boat for the next sixty days, so I guess I’ll have to bite my tongue until then.”
“Ain’t that a shame? I know it must suck since you love to hear yourself talk so much, but gag it for the next couple of months and this should blow over,” J answers sarcastically. “I’ll see you back at the house then,” I mumble my agreement and end the call at the same time that Jess strolls out of the changing room in tight legging and what looks to be a sports bra that leaves little to the imagination.
Fan-Freaking-tastic
Not only am I pissed as hell, now I’m turned on too. I should have paid attention
to what the store clerk was choosing when I told her I needed girl’s sports gear for boxing and what not. I can even tell by her glacier stare that she is uncomfortable wearing that crap, but she’s owning it regardless. Hell, if that’s what she decided to come out with amongst all the stuff I bought her, I shudder to think what the rest looked like if this was her safest option. I control my features to be as frozen in place as possible in order for her not to feel intimidated in any way and walk halfway to her, letting her come to me in her own time.
“So, should we begin?” she asks with a no-nonsense attitude. If before I was wondering I might be over my head with this situation I created for myself, then Jessica Silva in skin tight, barely there spandex, showing off all her luscious curves with a take no prisoners aura around her, is confirmation enough.
I am totally screwed beyond measure, and the cause of my impending grief will be this 5 foot nothing of a Goddess before me.
Chapter 15
Jess
As soon as I stepped outside, Quaid was nothing if not efficient in his schooling, which I was grateful for. Having to come out of the changing room at all was a feat in itself. At first, I thought Quaid was testing me with the skimpy clothes he'd purchased and that only made me want to run out of this house entirely, but not before I gave him a piece of my mind. But as I ransacked the bags looking for something less revealing, I found a card from what I could only assume was the sales girl that helped him buy all this ridiculous stuff. It had her name and number along with the logo of the store and in the back, a handwritten note saying that should any of the items she chose need to be returned, she would gladly make a house call. I bet! Crumpling the card in my hand, I threw it in the trash bin without a second thought. Five minutes later, I was pissed at myself for throwing the stupid card away in the first place. Quaid was nothing to me so I shouldn’t have reacted as if he was, so I got the crumpled card from out of its grave, evened it out as best as I could and placed it back in an empty bag for him to find later.
I looked hard in the mirror, hyping myself up that this idea of Quaid teaching me how to defend myself was a good thing. I knew I was quick and could deliver a punch, but learning some new tricks was something I needed to do for myself. I won’t lie and say what happened at the frat house didn’t shake my confidence. It did, so there is no way around it. I prayed that feeling stronger in body would also strengthen my mind. I needed to get back that assurance in myself, and if knocking Quaid on his ass gave me that, then I was all for it. After what felt like hours of training, I was less inclined to think that though.
Quaid was brutal, showing no ounce of leniency whatsoever. I would bet good money that this was how he trained with Decker and the guys back at Riverside. He pushed me on every machine this house held, that at one point I was almost relieved we were running out of new equipment to use. When Quaid finally directs me to the floor mats, my clothes are sticking to my body like a second skin, drenched in sweat. Whatever previous thoughts about how revealing the outfit was, now I wished the girl at the store had gotten me something with even less material. I was burning up, and Quaid looked like he was fresh from a shower in a t-shirt and basketball shorts. Which is insane since he’d been working alongside me just as hard.
“Okay, now that we're warmed up, let’s start with you showing me what you got,” he says stoically.
“You got to be shitting me? You call that a warm up? A warm up to what? To join the Navy Seals or something?” I holler, feeling my body ache in places I didn’t even know could hurt this bad. Bending down, with my hands on my knees I try to get some much-needed oxygen back in me. It’s official. Quaid is going to kill me with all this training.
“Jess, I told you we need to strengthen some of your muscle. Again I promise I won’t make you look like a MMA fighter or anything, but still, you need to toughen up your body a bit.” By his tone alone, I know he won’t back down on everything he has planned for me.
“So I’m not going to look like Ronda Rousey, but I’ll be able to kick someone’s ass just like her?” I grin.
“Exactly.”
“So you don’t think I can take you on now?” I smirk. He has no clue.
“No, I don’t,” Quaid states, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You want to bet that I’ll have you on the floor in less than a minute?” I can’t help the arrogant smile I produce. I’ve put down my brother Mickey in less, but Quaid’s a big boy, so I have to accommodate for size at least.
“You really think you can swing that, don’t you?” He’s amused. Can’t blame him really for thinking I can’t take him. I mean Dave was half his size, and I didn’t even make a dent in him. But my wits were obliterated last night, not so much today though. I need to show myself if I was on my game I could have in fact, gotten that creep off of me. If Quaid has to be the guinea pig for my experiment, then so be it. I stand up straight giving Quaid my most self-assured pose.
“Okay then. Let me see your hands first,” he says passing me and going straight to one of the lockers on the right side of the wall.
“Why do you need to see my hands?” I ask as he marches back to me with a small box.
“Because if we’re going to do this, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” He places the box at my feet and bends down to open it. As he does so, I see tiny beads of sweat slipping down the back of his neck. So I guess he is human after all. But as the trail of salt water rolls down his back, I can’t seem to look away. Powerless to my own female hormones, I lick my lips, tempted to see that bead of sweat travel all the way down that gorgeous sculpted back. My eager eyes skim the length of his body. I'm admiring Quaid's amazing broad shoulders when they stand to attention. He must have sensed my blatant staring and to my embarrassment, catches me red-handed.
Busted!
Crapola!
I move away and head to the mini fridge to get two bottles of water, attempting at least to distract him with cold H2O from my brazen ogling. I hand him his bottle and his expression gives nothing away as he drinks his fill and places the bottle on the floor next to his precious box.
“Give me your hands,” he repeats gruffly, and I obediently offer both to him, but he only grabs one. Quaid’s hands aren’t soft, but his touch is. Yet another of the many contractions I seem to find in him. My hand in his looks so fragile in comparison to his firm sturdy ones. They are a true representation of the boy himself. Grandiose in every way possible.
“This is a puncher’s wrap. I’m going to wrap both your hands, and it will prevent you from hurting them in your attempt in kicking my ass,” he goads. I want to rise up to his challenge but my mind is still on the feeling his hands are giving me. I wouldn’t even dare say one word to him right now, too afraid he’d read my concupiscent thoughts. Nope, huh huh! Not a fucking peep coming out of this girl right here. He must sense my reluctance for small talk and starts with the whole wrapping process, without a further word. First by placing the loop at the end of the wrap around my thumb and then turning my hand the other way so he can place the wrap securely above my wrist three times, and then again around to my hand another three. He then starts to crisscross the wrap between each finger and my thumb, and once he’s satisfied that I’m not constricted in any way, he secures the back end of the wrap to my wrist.
“Feel good?” he asks and I, yet again, feel my face heating up from his question. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was doing this on purpose. I just nod and give him my right hand so he can conduct the same process on it. He grabs my hand, and I close my eyes avoiding looking down at our hands entwined with one another. I guess now I understand why Mickey and my cousins always say that to get over a hard on you either take a cold shower, start thinking about the grossest things ever, or go over baseball statistics. I am literally in girl hard on mode, so I take a page from the boys and start reciting by term, the names of all the US presidents from George Washington on up. When I reach Garfield, I swear that my imagination is still running hav
oc, because I could have sworn Quaid had softly stroked with his thumb, in a little circle motion, my inner wrist. It takes me longer than I care to admit even to remember who our twenty-first president was.
“Chester A. Arthur!” I yell out and then internally slap myself on the head. Luckily Quaid seems oblivious to my awkward word vomit and continues to wrap my hand up. When he finishes, I hop back two steps away from him which gets me a quizzical look from him in return.
“Aren’t you going to do yours next?” I ask trying to sound as cool as I can while avoiding making direct eye contact. Letting on that Quaid is getting under my skin, like no one’s business, is not going to do any of us any good.
“Not today,” he smugly replies. Good. His arrogance is just the drop of cold water I needed.
“That confident are you? You think that being strapping muscle and big as a house is going to work in your favor against little old me, right?”
“There you go again, flattering and insulting me in one go. It’s an uncanny ability, Jess.”
“Jessica. Only my friends call me Jess, and since I’m a few minutes away from bringing you down, I doubt you’d be interested in my friendship. Too much for your ego to take, I venture.”
“Oh I’m interested, Jess. Very interested.” His penetrating eyes follow me from head to toe, and again I’m lost for words. As Izzy would say; bloody freaking hell!
“Less talk, more walk,” I reprimand him and head onto the floor mats. I place myself right in the middle of the cushioned surface, and as soon as he’s near enough, I strike him as hard as I can right at his center. The boy doesn’t even flinch.
“We’ve started, have we?” He smiles down at me, and I would roll my eyes at his cockiness if my hand didn’t hurt like hell from that one punch. I try and go at him again, this time jabbing him in his ribs and all I feel is hard muscle hit against my knuckles making them ache and plead me to stop.