Big Box Of New Adult Romance

by Kelly Favor

  It’s move-in day.

  I started walking with a purpose. “Excuse me, where do I go to get my registration…ah…materials?” I asked some kid with big ears and spiky hair who was walking his bike through the quad.

  He looked at me, a little perplexed, but then pointed to the large building almost directly in front of us. “Registration ended hours ago,” he said, shaking his head at my ignorance. “They moved everything into the library, but I’m not sure if there’s anyone there anymore.”

  “Thanks,” I said, running past him and into the library. It was enormous, intimidating even. There were a couple of students – a girl and a boy -- at a big round table with pamphlets and binders on it. They appeared to be packing up.

  “Excuse me!” I yelled, running towards them. “Excuse me.”

  They looked up at me, surprised. After all, I’d just committed the cardinal sin of yelling in a library.

  “Can I help you?” the girl asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Yeah, sorry. I just—I got lost. I’m looking for a student, her name is Lindsay Cramer. I’m her brother and I was supposed to help her move in today.”

  The girl frowned. “I’m sorry, we’re closing for the day and we can’t give out any student room numbers.”

  “Please. She’s not answering her phone and I know she needs my help. Or you can call her room for me and check my story out? Please.”

  The students exchanged glances. The guy quickly opened a binder. “Lindsay Cramer?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s in Lanard Hall, straight across the common, next to the Faculty Club. Room 232.”

  “I so appreciate it,” I told them. “Thank you so much.”

  Then I ran out of there, my heart pumping. I wasn’t thinking about anything but finding her again, and I wasn’t sure what I would say when I saw her or why I was even doing this.

  I ran into Lanard Hall, and it was easy to get past security because there were so many people still moving in. I ran up the first flight of stairs, and then, still out of breath, made my way to Room 232.

  I hesitated for less than a second before knocking rapidly, three times.

  “Hello?” she called.

  It occurred to me that her family might be inside with her, and that would be awkward. “Is it okay if I come in?” I asked, and then turned the knob and opened the door to her dorm room before she could answer.

  Lindsay was coming to the door, and she stopped in the middle of her room, like a deer in the headlights and stared at me. “What…what the…how did you…”

  “Relax.” I was really glad to see her. It was strange how much better I felt, the instant I saw her face. She was real again, she existed. I’d found her.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking behind me, as if cops might burst in and arrest me at any moment.

  “Why not?”

  “Because….you don’t go to school here.”

  “Yeah, but I came to see you.”

  “How did you know where I live?”

  I shrugged. “I’m pretty smart, I guess. Maybe not a rocket scientist like your friend—the guy at the hospital. But I can hold my own.” I looked around her room. “Nice place you got here.” I saw the empty bed nearby. “Where’s your roommate?”

  “She’s not coming until tomorrow.”

  “So you have a single tonight.”

  Lindsay’s face turned red and she looked away. “I…I’ve got a lot to do. I’m unpacking and I have to get ready for my classes tomorrow. I have a super heavy class load and it’s stressful.”

  “You really need to relax. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  “Thanks.” She turned and walked to her desk, where she was unpacking a box of office supplies. “I should really get back to what I was doing. I mean, I appreciate you coming and everything…” She trailed off, like she wasn’t sure she meant it.

  I liked watching her work. I crossed my arms. “You’re cute when you’re being serious.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Let me help you unpack.”

  “No, that’s okay. I can do it myself.”

  “Fine.” I crossed the room and sat on the empty bed. It squeaked loudly and Lindsay turned and stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “So, I guess you’re just going to sit and stare at me?”

  “Not at all.” That’s when I noticed the rug on the floor. She’d put a throw rug down near her little mini fridge, and it was all gathered up and lumpy. I got up and went over to it, kneeled down and smoothed it out. “You don’t want to trip on your rug,” I explained. “Not on your first day of college. That would suck.” I looked up at her.

  “Thanks” she whispered, a slight smile on her face.

  “No problem.”

  Somehow, that seemed to relax her. She turned around and began unpacking again.

  “So, do I get to know your name?”

  “Justin. But everyone calls me JB.”

  “Do you go to school in Boston?”

  I had to laugh. “Not exactly.”

  “What’s so funny? I can’t ask if you’re in college?”

  “Do I look like a college boy?”

  She turned and looked at me with those clear blue eyes. “I don’t know what a college boy is supposed to look like,” she said, all smart.

  “Well, I’m not going to school. At least, not this kind of school.”

  “Are there other kinds?”

  “Sure there are,” I said, moving to the window and looking out at the students walking through the campus. “I guess I’m at more of an academy.”

  “Like a military academy?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Lindsay turned and faced me. “If you don’t think I’d understand what you do, then I don’t see why you went through all the trouble to find out where I live.”

  I grinned at her. She was pretty damn smart. “I’m a fighter.”

  Her expression turned to confusion. She almost said, I don’t get it. It was like one of those thought bubbles in a cartoon, above her head. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she just nodded. “Okay.”

  “That’s what I meant about going to an academy. I belong to a gym and I train with a team. I’m a student of martial arts.”

  She nodded again, uncertainly. “Like The Karate Kid or something.”

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said, trying not to laugh at her.

  “That’s how you got the cut on your face?”

  “I was going for a double-leg takedown and the guy just kneed me in the face. It happens.”

  Lindsay frowned, confused.

  “A double-leg takedown is a wrestling move.”

  “So you’re a wrestler.”

  “It’s called mixed martial arts. That means we learn everything. Wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu…”

  “Oh. And you enjoy it?”

  “Yeah, I love it.”

  She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “It’s just…I don’t understand what’s fun about beating people up.”

  “It isn’t just beating people up. It’s an art. It takes a lot of skill and technique.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.” I walked towards her. “And besides, you can’t say you hate something you never tried.”

  “I didn’t say I hated it, I said I didn’t understand it.”

  “Maybe you should come see me fight sometime.”

  Lindsay crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I don’t get hurt.”

  “What about your face?” She suddenly reached out and touched the cut above my eye. Her fingertips felt cool and soft and amazing. I let her do it.

  Our eyes met and this time neither of us looked away.

  “Sometimes you get cut or bruised. It’s just like how if y
ou drive a car, you might get a flat tire or a broken taillight sometimes.”

  “You can’t replace an eye or a tooth,” she said.

  “Sure you can,” I laughed. “I know a lot of guys with fake teeth.”

  “Are you really that strong?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I don’t know. Usually when people talk about how great they are at something, they’re overcompensating.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I ducked down and swept her legs into my arms. She was light as a feather, and I easily swung her up onto my shoulder. “Now this is called a double-leg takedown.”

  “Stop,” she laughed. “Let me down.”

  “You want me to let you down?”

  “YES!” she squealed.

  I tossed her lightly onto the bed and then landed on top of her. “Now, if we were wrestling, you’d be pinned. But in mixed martial arts, the match isn’t over when you’re pinned. I need to submit you.”

  “I don’t submit to anyone,” she said.

  I was so close to her now. I could smell the sweet smell of her skin and her perfume. Even her hair smelled sweet. And from this distance, a kiss would be even easier.

  Her body was so soft against mine. I could tell that she wanted me to kiss her. We looked at one another for what felt like a long time.

  And that’s when the door to her room flew open and someone stepped into the room. “What’s going on in here?”

  LINDSAY

  Justin jumped off of me like I was on fire.

  “There’s nothing going on,” I said, sitting up. My mind was still reeling from the wrestling, and I was lightheaded.

  “It didn’t sound like nothing.” The R.A., Dennis, took another step into my room.

  I’d met him earlier, when we were moving into the dorm, and he’d seemed friendly enough. But now he just looked angry.

  “We were just messing around, Dennis,” I said, hoping that if I used his name it would calm him down.

  “Yeah, Dennis,” Justin said, standing up. “We were just messing around.”

  “What’s your name?” Dennis demanded.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Justin moved away from me and stood by the window, his arms crossed.

  “Do you go to school here?”

  Justin didn’t answer, so I did.

  “No,” I said. “He doesn’t. He’s my guest. We just –”

  “You signed him in?” Dennis asked.

  “No. I didn’t know I had to.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. My first night at Cambridge, and I was already in trouble.

  “Well, you do have to. You’re going to have to go downstairs and sign him in.”

  “Fine.”

  “And I’m still going to have to write you up for this,” Dennis said.

  I was going to complain, but then I decided not to make matters worse. I couldn’t believe I was being written up on my very first day of college.

  “Fuck that,” Justin said. “Why would you write her up? She said she didn’t know.

  She made a mistake.” He moved toward Dennis, challenging, and the look on his face made it clear he was two seconds away from a fight.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I said, standing up. “It’s fine. I don’t even care.” I stepped in between the boys and put my hands on Justin’s chest. “Come on, let’s just go sign you in.

  Or maybe we should go get a coffee or something.”

  Justin took a step back, then reached up and gently pulled my hands away from his body. He was still glaring at Dennis. “Nah, it’s cool,” he said. “I’m out. ”

  And then he was gone.

  ***

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I tossed and turned, my mind racing. My whole body felt like it was on high alert. I couldn’t stop thinking about Justin. It made no sense, since I’d just met him, but there was something about him, something I knew I needed to be close to. And now I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him again. I didn’t know his phone number, or his email, or his facebook -- in fact, I hardly knew anything about him.

  My thoughts went in circles, replaying everything over and over. The way his body had looked while he was getting stitched up, how he’d waited for me at the hospital, how it had felt when he picked me up in his arms, how badly I’d wanted to kiss him. It was like a movie in my head, running on a loop.

  Finally, at around three in the morning, I drifted off into a troubled sleep.

  When I awoke, the sun was streaming through the blinds. It was seven am. The dorm was still quiet. My roommate, Rachel, would be arriving in about an hour, and I figured I should take a shower before she got there.

  I got out of bed, slid into my new house slippers, and grabbed my shower caddy.

  Then, just as I was about to leave, I noticed a piece of paper on the floor, like someone had slipped something under the door while I was sleeping.

  I picked it up, hoping it wasn’t a notice alerting me to the fact that I’d gotten written up for what had happened last night.

  But it wasn’t a notice from Dennis.

  It was a note.

  From Justin.

  Which meant that at some point during the night, he’d snuck into the dorms again and slipped it under my door.

  “I’ll make it up to you.

  -JB”

  LINDSAY

  Here is the part where I explain my experience with the opposite sex. Contrary to popular belief, I was not woefully ignorant when it came to boys.

  I was ignorant, but not woefully so. I’d had a boyfriend – Ian Marlowe, who I dated sophomore year for about three months. He went to a different school, so the only time I really got to see him was when our parents agreed to drive us somewhere. We would meet at the mall a lot, where we’d make out in the dark movie theatre and he’d try to get his hand up my shirt.

  Then there was my date to the prom, a guy named Steven McGruder who I knew from math club. We were supposed to be going just as friends, but he kissed me at the end of the night. I tried not to think about it too much, because even though Steven was cute, he wasn’t a good kisser. His tongue was like sandpaper, and his lips were too soft.

  And of course I’d played spin the bottle a couple of times at various parties. Well, if you can call trips away with the debate team parties.

  Anyway, the bottom line was I didn’t know what to make of the note Justin left, or the things that I was feeling.

  I knew I should be upset. After all, Justin had already gotten me into trouble with my RA, and then apparently thought it would be okay to sneak back into my dorm in the middle of the night and slide a note under my door. (Who did something like that? And how had he gotten in here anyway?) He didn’t leave a phone number, or an email address, or a way to text him.

  He just slid this note under my door and what? Now I was supposed to wait for him to come back into my life, to just show up whenever he wanted? It was insulting.

  Another part of me was extremely excited at the prospect of seeing him again. Last night I thought there was no way, that he’d left my life forever. But now that there was a chance he might be back….I was surprised to find that I was smiling.

  And I hated myself for it.

  But before I could decide just how much I hated myself, there was a sound of a key turning in a lock, and then the door to my room went flying open.

  A girl stood in the hallway. She had long curly blonde hair and she was dressed in a pair of grey leggings, a fuchsia shirt with a black leather vest over it, and three or four long silver necklaces. A huge black hobo bag was slung over one shoulder.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Lola.”

  “Oh,” I said dumbly. I had no idea who Lola was, or how she had a key to my room.

  “Otherwise known as Rachel Flowers,” she said. She dropped her bag onto the floor. “I’m experimenting with names.”

  I was completely confused. This person standing in front of me was my roommate?

  “I didn’t … I wasn’t expecting you until later.�
�� I grabbed a hoodie off the back of my chair and slid it on, suddenly aware that I was wearing only a tank top and a thin pair of pajama pants. “You’re experimenting with names?” I repeated.

  “Yes. I think names are extremely important. Your name controls almost everything in your life, from the way you’re perceived to what jobs you get.”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  “You should.” She frowned. “Although I don’t think Lola is the way to go. I didn’t like your reaction.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d had a reaction, and part of me wanted to ask her about it, but the other part felt that if I did, it would lead to a long conversation that I wasn’t sure I wanted to take part in.

  “I thought you weren’t coming until later,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, my plans changed.” She didn’t offer any more information, just walked into the room and look around.

  “I, um, took the bed by the window. I hope you don’t mind. We can always switch if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay. I don’t like sleeping by the window. I had a bad experience once with a tornado.”

  “Oh.” I was starting to panic a little. My roommate obviously had a screw loose. I didn’t even know what this conversation was about anymore, much less how to add to it.

  “Where’s your stuff?”

  “My parents are going to bring it by later. They’re late sleepers. But not me, I love the morning dew.”

  I tried to remember if I’d put anything on my roommate questionnaire about whether or not I was a morning person. “That’s good,” I said. “It’s nice to get an early start on the day.”

  “Mmmm.” She was over by the closets now, and she opened mine and ran her hand over my clothes. “You have a lot of black.”

  “Yeah. The other one’s yours,” I pointed out helpfully.

  She crossed the room, and as she did, she spotted Justin’s note, which I’d left on the desk. Immediately, I regretted leaving it out in the open like that. But how could I have possibly known that my insane roommate would barge in and start looking at all of my personal property?

  Rachel picked up the piece of paper. “I’ll make it up to you,” she read out loud.