I kissed him like I’d never get to do so again. Tears came to my eyes, and he cupped my face, swatting them away with his thumbs. “Giovanna?” he asked me again.
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted him deep inside of me. With less gentleness than I’d done his pants, I tugged down his briefs. He scooted further into the back of the seat and reached into the glove compartment where he pulled out a condom.
Maven then pulled my shirt over my head, discarding it. “You stay here with me. Do you understand? We can do this any way you want, but you’re here with me and not lost somewhere in your head right now.”
I nodded. “I’m here.”
He tugged me slightly forward, holding onto the back of my neck to draw my face toward him. “With me.”
Maven bit down on my earlobe. A surge of heat moved through my insides. I cried out. I’d never known I liked that, but now I wanted him to do it again and again. I squirmed on him, and his cock jumped. He tugged off my pants and then my undies, discarding them to the back of the car.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He sheathed himself.
He made me feel that way. I pulled him inside of me, squeezing him before I pushed down on his hard cock. He cried out, the muscles clenching in his throat. I leaned over to bite down on his skin.
“Move on me, baby.” He lifted his hips to meet my movements until we were making the small space we had work for us. I manipulated my body until I could rub my clit against him with every pass. Soon, I was panting. I was dying for it. This was just Maven and me. The rest of the world could go to hell.
I pressed my hand against his chest. I could feel his heart race beneath my palm. My body throbbed. I wanted, no needed this release, and I wanted Maven to have it with me. Together. Us. With that thought, I came, hard, and he followed, crying out my name.
His arms came around me the next second, pulling me hard against his chest. I let my head fall forward, and the tears I’d started to shed earlier flowed from my eyes like waterfalls.
He must have known I was going to cry. His arms were there, his slowing heartbeat steady, and if he had any qualms about what was happening, he didn’t voice them. Instead, his voice was low in my ear. “If I could figure out who posted all that shit, I’d figure out a way to make them pay. I promise you that.”
I shook my head, some of my tears dissipating. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. Blondie.”
I full on laughed and so did he. Rain started to pound on the car. Neither of us moved. “I guess I shouldn’t care, right? I’m just not used to being exposed, or even noticed. I mean, I’m sleeping with the three of you. They should all be jealous.”
He tapped my chin. “That’s not who you are. Don’t try to make yourself that way. It’s not a good fit. It’ll chafe you. Just go with what is. Even if they’re shitty feelings.”
“You don’t think people can change?” I’d already done this huge, drastic thing with my hair.
“I do, actually. But maybe not the fundamentals. You have a soft, truthful, soul. You’d never be okay with someone being upset that you had something they wanted.” He shook his head. “You might get to a point where it doesn’t bother you that someone is gossiping about you. And for that, I hate the world.”
I don’t know how long we stayed, but it was long enough that the sun had gone done and there was a crick in my neck from the odd position we sat in. We drove home in silence, and I kept my gaze out the window.
Maven was silent, whatever he was thinking about he kept to himself. He pulled into the parking lot nearest my dorm and popped out of the car.
I stared at him for a second. “Are you coming in with me?”
“I’m not hiding my relationship with you. They can all get used to seeing it if they’re small enough souls to give a shit.” He linked our hands, squeezing our fingers together. “Come on, library, it’s late and the rain isn’t going to hold off forever.”
I had thought I would hate that nickname, but I found that the more he used it the more I loved it. Only Maven called me that. We walked together into my dorm and as we passed through the entrance a thought dawned on me. “How do you get in and out when you guys come? You don’t have the fob.”
“Sometimes people are here and they open it, and if they’re not, I hate to tell you, but the fraternities always have the fobs.” He shrugged. “Just how it works.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”
We made it to my room without incident but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to end up on the message board that I’d come into the building with Maven. I’d no sooner entered the room than I found Banyan and Chance, side-by-side, on my bed staring at their phones. Either Molly or I must have left the door unlocked. It didn’t bother me at all that they were there. It felt sort of… normal.
“What. The. Fuck.” Banyan jumped to his feet. “Neither one of you can answer your phones?”
Maven pulled his out of his back pocket. “Some kind of issue?”
“Other than we haven’t heard from Vonni all day? We’re all worrying about her. You were supposed to pick her up. And then… fuck. What did you do to your hair?”
Banyan had gone quiet sometime during Chance’s response. My gaze was drawn to his. He’d narrowed his eyes, fixated on me in a way I wasn’t used to. “Bad?”
Maven answered. “I already told you. It’s beautiful. She and I were spending time together working some things out.” He crossed to my desk and sat down. “I didn’t know you two were obsessing.”
Chance cleared his throat, catching my attention. “It is beautiful, Vonni. Sorry. I… I don’t always do well with change. You look stunning.”
“Thanks.”
Banyan still hadn’t said anything. I touched the long locks. “That bad, Banyan?”
“What kind of pain have you been in today to go and just do that? Did you do it at work? Take a break? Dye your hair? Go back to stocking shelves?”
Wow. He really didn’t like it. But my temper was done. I’d had enough of feeling like shit. Maybe Chance cued into what was about to happen because he spoke low. “Banyan.”
“I mean, seriously, it was so bad to be associated with the three of us that you decided to become unrecognizable?”
I stepped toward him. “If I’m so unrecognizable then maybe you don’t want to see me anymore?”
He blinked. “That was a shitty thing to say.”
“So was what you just said.” Okay, now I was seething. “You know what Banyan? If I want to dye my hair every day at work I can do so. If I want to… tear up my clothes… have plastic surgery… or decide to start going to class in nothing but black, I’m going to do it and if you don’t like it then that’s just going to be your happy crappy. Got it?”
His eyes widened. Maven must have gotten up during my speech because he stepped toward Molly’s bed, watching all of us. Chance, by contrast, was doing his best imitation of a statute, not moving at all.
Banyan put his hands on his hips. “I’m sorry, Giovanna.” He looked away for a second. “I’ve never felt as ineffectual in my life as I have today. I can’t make this stop. If I try to, I’ll just make it worse. Please don’t start wearing all black, tear your clothes, or have plastic surgery at work.”
That last bit, the at work part, was sort of ridiculous. The whole day had been ridiculous. I threw my arms around his neck, and he shook against me, a low vibration no one else would notice unless they held him like this.
“You hate it?”
He kissed the top of my head. “I don’t. You’re beautiful. Always will be. But be a redhead again someday, okay? I care about colors. They resonate in my brain. If I’d known last time I saw you was the last time I would see you as a redhead I would have appreciated the moment more.”
That was the thing about last moments. We never did know when they were going to come. Did we?
Chapter 8
After the first week back at school, routine bec
ame my best friend. My time looked so different than previous years that I hardly recognized my schedule. It seemed to work though. I went to my job, and I studied for my classes, but my free time was spent with my guys. What started out as all three of them quickly—as Chance warned me it would—became more like two of them. It wasn’t that I didn’t hear from Chance. I did. Over text message every day but not more than that, not much, anyway.
We managed quick dinners before he had to go back to do whatever it was he did with the pledges.
“I know there’s nothing to do about it,” I told him over an ice cream sundae. “But I feel like there are whole parts of your life that are blacked out where I can’t see them.”
He nodded, his smile falling slightly. “Not forever. The second I graduate my life will be an open book.”
“Yes,” I answered. “Only you’ll be in New York City, and I’ll be in India and then back here.”
He pointed his spoon at me. “Don’t rain on my almost done with secrecy parade. Truth is, quickly after spring break things will change. New officers will get elected. We’ll be lame ducks. It’ll be smooth sailing, Vonni.”
I smiled at him because Chance’s grin was infectious. Plus, I was tired of all our conversations ending this way. I had to figure it was mostly my fault. “What will you be doing for spring break?”
The college had announced that we weren’t going to be able to stay in the dorms over the week because of safety concerns. Our resident arsonist was nowhere to be seen and the dean was said to be crediting that with scooting the homeless people farther from campus. I just didn’t believe that. What were the chances that a group of homeless people had targeted the campus garbage cans to all burn at the same time?
But in any case it had stopped.
I wanted to work the week so Kay had offered to let me stay with her. Connie had then nixed the idea. It turned out they had had a rodent problem at home that Kay refused to treat. I shuddered at the thought. So, rather than work I was going home with Molly. She’d kindly invited me. Of course, if an invitation were to suddenly come from the three people I’d spent Christmas with that would be amazing, too.
“We take the pledges away during spring break.” He looked down at his ice cream. “What are you going to be doing? Staying here? If you need somewhere to go you should go to my house in New York. I’d really like that.”
He must not know about the new rules. “Molly invited me.”
Chance made a face. “At least R.J. will be busy.”
“There is that. You look handsome in that blue shirt.” I tapped him with my foot under the table. “I read that book you wanted me to about the woman who lived below ground for a year. It was really fun. Thanks for that.”
He shook his head. “How are you finding time to read when you’re also writing that secret book? The one you won’t tell us about, but I wake up to find you doing in the middle of the night and have to drag you back to bed so you don’t conk over during the job where you work too many hours?”
I raised my eyebrows. “You just said that whole thing without taking a breath.”
“I am a man of many talents.”
I leaned forward. “Reading is like breathing for me.”
And the truth was I was failing math. I didn’t even know what to do about it. My school assigned tutor was frustrated with me, and I didn’t have the time to put into the subject to make headway with it. Oh, who was I kidding? There would never be enough time for me to understand math.
I set down my spoon. “I’d show you my book I’m writing if I wasn’t pretty sure it was terrible.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure it’s not.”
“I feel compelled to get it out.” To the point of absolutely not getting my work done otherwise. The whole failing math issue was bad enough. Add to that the C in science and I was all kinds of borderline pathetic this semester.
He nodded. “Then I guess you’d better do that.”
Chance’s phone dinged loudly and he looked down. “Shit.”
“Something wrong with the pledges.”
He didn’t look up. “For once, no. Something is on fire.”
I went very still. It was hard for me to think about the fires without feeling completely frozen inside. It was such a dichotomy of a reaction. The heat from the flames in contrast to the ice it caused inside of me.
It was funny how I’d learned to live with fear. The administration assured us they had it under control, the homeless population dealt with. They installed cameras. They’d put in more lighting. All measures taken to keep us safer. Or, as Maven pointed out, to limit their liability and to be able to claim they were never negligent.
And they kept us on campus for fear of what moving us off would do to their stats.
But living with the worry had become so constant I didn’t notice it until something caused the anxiety to flare up. Like an infection to my soul. I rubbed the back of my neck. I’d not known I could walk around, function, go about my day-to-day business with this level of worry. How was it possible that it still hadn’t toppled me over?
I smiled. That was one way to cover. A therapist would have a field day with me. Why was I smiling? This was bad news. I was in no obligation to make Chance feel better in this moment any more than he had to for me. Years with my parents. Would I ever undo all the years of having to cover every feeling I ever had?
Maybe. But not here since I was going to fail out. I drummed my fingers on the table. Lately, I just wasn’t me. I couldn’t focus. There was fire. I needed to let myself experience that terror and stay in the moment.
Only that was easier said than done.
“What’s burning?”
Chance raised his head. “The volleyball shed.”
The volleyball shed? Behind the major gymnasium complex, there was a small shed filled with volleyball equipment. I’d never understood why it hadn’t been moved indoors when the rest of the sporting stuff had been given homes inside. It was a constant joke on campus. The inclination was that people went to the volleyball shed to have sex, not to get volleyball equipment.
“Was anyone hurt?”
He indicated to the waiter he wanted the check before turning his attention back to me. “Not that Maven knows.” He pointed his finger at me. “You okay, Vonni?”
“Perfectly fine.”
That’s how I would stay because I always, always had to be.
“You’re sure? You can talk to me. I talk to you all the time. It goes both ways.”
What should I tell him first? That my parents were completely out of touch. That I was failing a class I had no chance of catching up. That the job I had was not enough to cover things over spring break. That I was going to have to use the credit card I was sure they hadn’t paid and that it would likely be denied. I couldn’t even cope with the idea of my future credit score. No, that had to be then not now.
I was alone in the world. Failing. And Chance wanted me to share? I knew he understood loneliness. After his mother died, his brother had taken off as fast as possible and Chance had to separate from his father because of the abuse. There was real understanding of what it was to be truly alone inside of him.
But he was rich. If his father ever disappeared with the money, Chance’s grandmother had left him so much he never had to work. He was planning on being a doctor. He didn’t intend to sit around. For all of his lonely, he’d never have to be afraid like this.
“Should we go? I’m sure the pledges need you.”
He sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. You could come by and see them with me.”
“No thanks. If I never go anywhere near your frat again, it would be too soon.”
He raised his eyebrows slowly. “That strong, huh? You feel that against it?”
How did I know what I felt about anything? I was so tired it felt like I’d never been to bed in my life, and I was sleeping like a baby every night. Maybe there was something physically wrong with me.
“What
if I did?”
He whistled. “Question with a question.” Chance held up his hands. “I am not interested in having a fight. Are you? Do you want to have a fight with me?”
No, Chance I want you to save me. That was such a ridiculous thought I’d never been so happy to not vocalize something in my life. That wasn’t his job. It was my job. I just had no idea how to do it.
“I don’t.” I touched his hand. “I’m grouchy. The fires. They make me feel raw.” I wasn’t lying. I was just not telling him the whole truth. “I used to love when my father lit a fire in the winter on snowy days. Right this second? I’m not sure I ever want to see one again.”
What was funny was how it was building inside of me. Maven had lit one right after the building burned and I’d been okay. Now, I’d have to leave the place if he did that.
Chance nodded. “I don’t blame you. I didn’t have to run out of a burning building and I’m sick over all of this. They keep insisting it’s the homeless, but as you’ve pointed out, that is not likely. Where is all this protection?”
“Clearly not pointing their video cameras at the volleyball shed.”
Chance snorted. Had I been funny? I hadn’t meant to be. “True. They probably didn’t stick one on the back of the athletic facility. What’s worse, is that since the entire student body is being kept abreast of every move they’re making so everybody knows what to look for.”
I leaned forward. “If I was writing this, it’s a disgruntled ex-employee. Fell in love with a co-ed who never loved him back. Now he’s burning the place to the ground like she burned his love.”
Chance’s grin shocked me. “You usually tell Maven about your creative stuff and you just told me. Yes. Awesome. Keep going.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “I don’t know. That’s just the small plot thing I thought of. I’d have to know more about arson. More about… a lot of things.”
This wasn’t my black dress book. That was pure fiction. It had turned into a race in time and space. I still felt like I was behind the eight ball in knowledge, even with all the Doctor Who and Star Trek I watched. I blinked.
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