by Claire Adams
As we walked, he joked with me, pointing out different people he recognized in the crowd of students coming and going and murmuring little comments about them. Such and such a person had gotten a reputation by getting plastered the first week of classes and throwing up in one of the introductory classes that all of the freshmen had to take, another person had jumped up on one of the tables in the dining hall and proclaimed his love for the girl he ended up dating seriously—little details that started to put me at ease, all while we made our way over to the building where my class was going to be. “And here is the Marchman building! Hall of horrors.” He shuddered and grinned.
“Hey, I like English!” I countered. “It’s what I’m majoring in, after all. I love books—I guess that makes me a nerd, but it’s true.” Johnny laughed.
“If you’re a nerd, you’re at least a cute nerd. I’ve just always been better at math.” I shook my head.
“I’m okay at it if I try really, really hard.” Johnny led me towards the stairs and explained that the elevators in the Marchman building were cranky—it was easier just to take the stairs up, instead of waiting for the elevator to get there and possibly ending up stuck for hours until one of the maintenance staff was able to get it running again. “You know,” I said as we came to the floor my class was on, feeling daring—and nervous all at the same time. “If you needed like, help in any of your English classes, I could lend a hand… I’m really grateful you’re helping me out.” Johnny grinned.
“It’s nothing, but if you’re offering, I might take you up on that. I never seem to be able to get my papers done on time.” He shook his head. I had gotten the impression as he talked, and from how readily he brushed off the possibility of getting in trouble for being late, that Johnny Steel did whatever he wanted without anyone much telling him to stop.
He stopped at a classroom marked MC1012. “Here you are—and you’ve got a minute or two before the Barrett gets here, even! How’s that for luck?” I grinned, feeling like an idiot but not caring. “Hey, now that I think about it: the frat I belong to is throwing a party soon—well, we throw a lot of great parties. You should come out. First, best party of the year.” I fought down the urge to make a face; the last thing I wanted was to go to a frat party. I knew Johnny was too good to be true: of course he belonged to a frat. There had to be at least a little something wrong with him. But if he was in a frat, it couldn’t be that bad; and I had been to plenty of parties—they were all the same at the bottom of it. He had been so sweet and kind to me that I couldn’t resist, even if I was doubtful about how much fun I would have. I told him that I would definitely come by to check it out and slipped into my classroom feeling like I was walking on air. I watched Johnny start off back to the stairs and took my seat, still smiling to myself at the luck I was having.
Chapter Five
Georgia and I had agreed to meet up for lunch on the first day of classes before we had to go to our Precalculus class together, so I left my first session of American Literature and found my way across campus, back to the dining hall, as quickly as I could. I knew that I’d eventually know the campus like the back of my hand, the same as Johnny; and I told myself that when I did, if some Freshman came up to me and asked for directions to one of the dozen or so buildings, I’d make sure to at least give them some kind of advice on how to get there.
Georgia was waiting for me at the entrance to the dining hall, peering through the crowds of students coming and going. She leaped up from the bench when she saw me, running over and grinning. “Did you get lost? I did. But at least I managed to get to my class on time; man, there was one kid who came in twenty minutes into class…” Gigi and I talked about the impossibility of finding our way across the campus, and how there should have been a much more involved orientation that centered on where everything was.
When I told her about Johnny saving me, she gaped, staring at me in shock. “Seriously? Man, you have the best luck. I just wish some hot guy could have swooped in and showed me where the classroom was.” She shook her head as we moved slowly forward in line, commenting again on how lucky I was. “Oh man, Becky, he’s totally into you.” I shook my head.
“He’s a frat guy, I doubt it.” I told her about the party that Johnny had invited me to and Gigi made the face that I hadn’t quite dared to make when Johnny had mentioned the frat party.
“What frat is he with, do you know?” I shrugged; he had mentioned it, but I hadn’t really paid much attention.
“Phi Kappa something?” Georgia’s eyes widened again and she grinned.
“Oh man, that is the one with the worst reputation. All the different sports guys are in it, and they’ve nearly been broken up like—a dozen times for how wild their parties get.” She shook her head, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “It’s probably just all hype, though.”
“Yeah, I mean, parties are all the same.” We grabbed trays and browsed along the lunch line; I dared to get the eggplant parmesan with some salad and garlic bread, while Georgia ordered a sandwich from the deli line and got soup to go with it.
There weren’t quite as many people in the dining room as there had been at dinner before; some of the kids had just grabbed to-go boxes with food in them and rushed off to classes that met during the lunch hour. The dining hall stayed open until three, but they didn’t have much on offer after 1:30—just sandwiches, the salad bar, and leftover pizza and soup. Georgia and I agreed that we’d hit up the frozen yogurt machines for dessert, since none of the cake or pies looked particularly appetizing. I tried a new juice, along with pouring myself some more coffee.
We sat down and talked about Johnny and the other guys we’d seen rushing about campus. “You know, I still haven’t seen anyone as hot as he is. You’re lucky he’s interested.” I rolled my eyes.
“Oh please. He’s an upperclassman, obviously gets away with murder, and a frat boy. He’s got plenty of women who want him; I doubt he even gave me a second thought.”
“Really? He remembered your name from the night before last. He obviously thought about you a little bit.” I shook my head.
“Or he’s really good at remembering names.” Georgia laughed.
“Guys only remember names when it’s someone they want to fight or someone they want to bang.” I shook my head.
“My dad remembers plenty of names.” Georgia rolled her eyes.
“Whatever, Becky—Johnny wants you. I’m totally jelly, but you deserve to get a good lay after going without.” I threw a piece of garlic bread at her and she caught it and ate it. “You should totally go to the party, even if it’ll probably be lame.”
“Eh, it’s a party. How lame can it be?” Georgia grinned.
“I’m picturing half-naked ape-men hanging from the light fixtures in togas,” she said. “At least there will be plenty of other guys behaving badly.” I laughed, even though the idea of Johnny as an “ape-man” didn’t quite jibe with the impression that I’d already gotten of him. I didn’t like judging people I’d never met, but I didn’t have the most optimistic predictions about the party itself. I agreed that I would think about it and we put the whole topic behind us, focusing in on the rest of our classes for the day.
As I sat in Math with Georgia—after we both managed to find our way to the building it was in—I tried to focus on the introduction the professor was making, but my mind kept slipping up. I knew I needed to pay attention to what the professor was saying; I knew that since math wasn’t even close to my best subject, I especially needed to focus, but I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about Johnny. Oh God, this is bad, I thought, writing down notes without even really hearing what the professor was saying. All I could think about was the conversation I’d had with Johnny, how cute he was, how sweet and funny and nice. I had no idea what I was even putting down in my notebook; for all I knew the professor could have been speaking Latin and I would have just obediently written down words I couldn’t even understand.
Instead, I was thinking of w
hat it would be like to talk to Johnny again. I was thinking about his strong hands, his cute smile, and the way his eyes sparkled when he told a joke. I remembered my fantasies from the night before last and thought about what it would be like to feel him touching me everywhere. I could feel myself getting hot, my skin tingling as I shivered in the cold classroom, thinking of him. I couldn’t help myself; he was just so hot, and even though I knew there was almost no chance of actually getting him, I had to admit that I was more than a little attracted to him. He was in a frat, which wasn’t the greatest thing, but at least he was a decent guy. I couldn’t imagine him being like some of the jerks my dad hung out with—he was way too nice for that.
Gigi and I parted ways, heading to our other classes for the afternoon, and the thoughts I was having about Johnny only got worse. I started imagining what he would look like naked, how it would be to kiss him, trying to speculate what he would be like in bed. I thought as funny and sweet as he was, it would have to be a lot of fun to sleep with him. I’d been with a couple of guys, but not very many; at the high school I’d gone to, word got out really fast. I definitely didn’t want to come across as a slut and it would have been really easy with the close-knit crowd I hung out with. Especially if I’d ever slept with anyone who wasn’t “approved.”
As I sat through my classes for the afternoon, I thought with dread about how bad it was that I couldn’t even manage to keep it together on the first day. I’d never had a problem with keeping my mind on my work when I had been in high school. Even when I’d had a huge crush on someone, I had been able to at least focus on whatever task was in front of me. But suddenly, with Johnny on my mind, I couldn’t think of anything but him. I would make up for it later, but for the moment, I kept picturing him, remembering every detail of the two short conversations we’d had—the way he’d touched my shoulder or tweaked at my hair. I couldn’t even really remember the last time I had been with someone and knew for a fact that the last guy I had dated was nowhere near as hot as Johnny was. No matter how much I tried to push him out of my mind, I kept coming back to thoughts of him, my imagination running wild. It was hopeless. I will just have to cope with it as best as I could, I thought as the class ended surprisingly suddenly, with me none the wiser about what it was even about, what anyone had discussed, or what any of the deadlines for the semester would be. I have my syllabus, it can’t be that hard. I took a deep breath as I gathered up my things. Get your head straight, Becky. You can’t get behind your first week.
Chapter Six
Later that day, Georgia and I had decided to head over to the dining hall with some of the other girls on our floor. After classes I’d run into them and we’d started talking, and to my surprise we actually had a little bit in common with each other. One of the girls on our floor was from a family like mine, with parents who had wanted her to go to an Ivy League school, another one was an English major—she was taking British literature instead of American for her first semester, but she was pretty interesting and smart all the same.
We had both started getting to know people; even as distracted as I was, thinking about Johnny all afternoon, I had at least managed to make conversation with a couple of people in one of my classes, and I wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to get to know some of the better kids in the dorms just because my brain was all twisted around Johnny.
We all went to the dining hall as a group and were talking about the different classes; I found out that I hadn’t really missed out on much while I’d been daydreaming, which was a relief. The dinner that night was some kind of Asian-fusion stuff, and we all joked about whether there was or was not the stereotypical low-grade meat in the stir-fry. We piled food on our plates; I realized that I hadn’t really eaten much all day, I’d been so distracted.
We all grabbed a corner of the table and started talking about what we wanted to do with our majors. Georgia told the other girls about my goal to possibly join Greenpeace, and we came up with one or two other post-graduation scenarios that would be just as wild. Giselle thought she might want to go to Korea to teach English, Sam said she was going to go backpacking through India. We started to get to know each other better, comparing notes on what we had learned over the couple of days since we’d moved in. Apparently the RA on our floor was pretty nice—though Annie had managed to embarrass herself by knocking on the RA’s door in the middle of the night, locked out of her dorm, and discovered that while our RA had strict rules for us against having boys in our rooms, she had one of the other RAs over—and they were barely dressed.
I was relaxing, my mind off of Johnny for once, talking to the girls on my floor and getting to know everyone. It was nice to have a little bit of time when I wasn’t thinking about the incredibly hot guy I’d only run into twice. I smiled and laughed, telling an edited story about what had happened to me that morning, without mentioning Johnny—and fortunately, Georgia had the presence of mind not to bring it up. We all joked about how hard it was to get around on campus and how we were eventually going to be the mistresses of the layout, how we were all going to end up being much nicer than the upperclassmen who refused to help us freshmen when we were lost or frazzled.
As I was talking, though, I was looking around, just taking in the scene around me and trying to get a feeling for the people in the dining hall. I had eaten my dinner and got up to get some dessert—the brownies actually looked decent, and I thought I had seen “Chinese donuts” among the offerings. “I’m going to get something sweet, anyone want anything?” A few of the girls said that they would come with, and I started back into the food service area.
I made my way over to the dessert area and looked around as I grabbed a brownie and one of the sugared donuts. Off to the side, my gaze stuttered to a stop as I caught sight of Johnny. He was talking to one of the upperclassmen girls, smiling—not quite the way he had smiled at me, but smiling at her nonetheless. For a moment I was frozen in place. The girl, whoever she was, was obviously into Johnny; she kept touching him, moving her hips, tilting her head, playing with her hair. I heard her cloyingly sweet laugh and wanted to throw up.
Georgia had come with the rest of us to grab a quick dessert; she saw me staring and glanced in the direction I was looking in. “Oh,” she said. She nudged me, shaking her head. “Snap out of it, girl,” she told me quietly.
I gave myself a shake and shrugged. “It’s a free country, I guess,” I muttered, grabbing another brownie and piling it on top of the one I’d already gotten. Georgia rolled her eyes.
“Dude, he’s the hottest guy in the school,” she said lowly. “Of course women are going to throw themselves at him. I mean, it’s no big deal, right?” I shrugged again, taking a deep breath and trying to get better control over my face.
“Right, of course.” I turned and made myself walk away without causing a scene, without trying to interrupt the two. I knew I was being foolish; after all, how many times had I told Georgia that Johnny probably hadn’t even taken any particular notice of me? But I felt a little rattled, nonetheless. He’s just a nice guy, and he probably flirts as easily as he breathes. It’s no big deal. Let it go. I told myself I was getting depressed over nothing, and that probably Johnny didn’t mean anything with the upperclassman girl any more than he had meant anything with me. He probably invited every girl he ran into to the frat parties. He had just been being nice to me when he’d helped me get to class. I should take what I’d said to Georgia seriously and just pretend like nothing at all had happened—because obviously, Johnny didn’t think anything at all had happened.
Georgia and the girls and I headed back to the dorms a little while after that, and we parted ways from the other girls on our floor. “We should get some reading done,” Georgia pointed out, and I had to agree. We sat in the common area of the room, our books out, talking about our classes while we took notes and went over what we could remember from our classes. I could barely remember anything; my whole brain was still consumed with the sight of John
ny—not just the shock of seeing him talking to the other girl, but also the way he’d been so nice to me when I’d literally run into him, when he’d found me lost and wandering around campus. I flipped through the chapters I’d been assigned in the textbook for the first couple of weeks of American Literature and tried not to think about him.
Eventually, it was too much for me to stand. I got up out of my chair and put my books aside. “I’m going to grab a shower before I turn in,” I told Gigi. She shrugged.
“Sounds good to me. I just want to finish this chapter.” I went into my bedroom to grab my towel and went immediately into the shower half of our split bathroom. Technically, my bedroom should have been private enough, but the walls were paper-thin, and I didn’t want anyone to know what I was up to. I plugged in the dock for my iPhone and put the phone in the base. I started up the shower and gave it a couple of minutes to warm up while I scrolled through my music; I didn’t want anything that would be loud enough to get us in trouble—it was quiet hours in the dorm—but I wanted to cover up any noises I might make.
I finally settled on an old TLC album and stripped my clothes off, beginning to think of what Johnny had been wearing earlier when he’d helped me make it to class. He’d been in jeans and a t-shirt, standard college guy fare, but the jeans had fit him perfectly—not sagging, not overly tight. The tee shirt had given me a decent view of his broad shoulders and the muscling of his chest and arms without being obvious.
I stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain shut behind me and started to imagine what he must look like under those clothes; his skin was a little less pale than mine, I could remember that easily. I pictured him in my mind, taking his shirt off, and bit my bottom lip, my hands staring to wander over my body, touching my breasts, giving them a squeeze. I imagined what it would feel like for Johnny to be doing it instead of me, how his strong hands would feel, and I played with my nipples, rolling and twisting them until a hot jolt shot from my breasts straight down to my pussy.