by Eliza Jane
“What do I need this for?” I’m not used to wearing anything that covers my whole face.
“It evens your skin tone out,” MJ says. I study her more closely and see that her makeup is flawless, but still manages to look natural. I loosen my shoulders, and begin to relax a little.
“So, what will tonight be like?” I ask.
MJ concentrates on sharpening a black eye pencil into a tissue lying on the bed.
Sara tucks her dark hair behind her ears. “It’ll be most of our class, plus a few second years hanging out, playing games, reveling in their geekiness. A few people will drink too much. Some of the girls will get annoying and turn up the music to grind on each other, you know, pretty typical stuff.”
I smile while MJ swipes bronzer across my cheeks and forehead. “Sounds like fun.”
She shrugs and finished by lining my eyes with the black pencil and adding a few swipes of mascara. When I look in the mirror I’m pleasantly surprised. My complexion is clear, I’m a bit tan and my blue eyes stand out against the dark makeup.
MJ gathers everything from the bed, stuffing it into the pink makeup bag and then we set off for the basement.
“You go ahead.” I shoo her out the door. “I’ll meet you down there in minute.” MJ eyes me curiously. “I’m gonna make a quick phone call.”
She nods once and turns to leave. The phone call home’s not a bad idea, but really I need a minute alone. I don’t have the energy to fake sounding happy and well-adjusted right now. I just want a second to myself. I open the trunk at the end of my bed and refold all the clothes I shoved inside when I was too overwhelmed to unpack earlier this week. At home, I had two dressers plus a walk in closet that were never this organized, but with less space to work with, I have a strange desire to keep it tidy.
I’m not sure why I’m hesitating joining them at the party. Maybe because if I make friends here, it’ll be like admitting I’m staying. I haven’t decided yet, but I certainly haven’t been doing anything that would get me kicked out like I’d originally planned. Piper’s recent texts to me have gone unanswered. I didn’t know how to tell her that it doesn’t look like I’ll be thrown out anytime soon and that I’m enjoying this reprieve from seeing Wes.
When I’ve refolded the last tank top and placed it on the top of the stack, I let the lid drop closed. I steal one last glance at the mirror and head into the hall. Just as I’m turning the corner, I meet Colt at top of the staircase. He stops his descent from the third floor and waits. His eyes linger on me and suddenly I’m self-conscious under his scrutiny. I can’t help but wonder if he’s remembering me in all my glory: hip cocked out and gyrating like a drunken lunatic.
My patience is shot. All week I’ve answered endless questions, I’m adjusting fine – thank you – with plastered on fake smiles and polite nods, and I don’t have it in me to be polite right now, especially to the guy who stood by watching me attempt to dance at Bria’s command. Mostly I’m mad at myself for allowing her to make me into a fool.
I intend to step around him, but as I take a step down, in my flustered state I’ve misjudged the distance and end up tripping. Colt’s steady hands around my waist stop me from tumbling to my death.
“Thanks,” I mumble without meeting his eyes.
His hands are still at my waist. We both look down and notice, and he slowly removes his hands, and stuffs them into his pockets. “Are you going to the party?”
I nod and try another step. I’m steady this time, but I reach out and trail my hand along the banister just to be safe.
He jogs down next to me until we’re side by side. I wouldn’t have thought instructors would be going to the party, but somehow I know that’s where he’s headed. I try to ignore him and not let him get under my skin, but with his faint trace of cologne invading my senses and his snug fit T-shirt, he’s incredibly distracting.
We reach the basement in silence and he slides open a heavy door set on a rolling track. He keeps his hand on the door, holding it open for me and I slide in around him, brushing past his chest in the process.
Inside is a large open room with a concrete floor and walls. The wall on the far side of the room is painted in multi-colored graffiti. There are signatures, a rough sketch of a dragon, a long math equation and lots of drippy handprints. I step closer and read some of the writing. Tabitha + David. Adrianna ’07. McAllister sucks donkey ballz. Bria is written in large flowy writing with a heart dotting the i. Gag me.
Dance music is thumping from the speakers plugged into a laptop. MJ and a few others sway to the music in the center of the room and pass a flask back and forth.
There’s a group sitting around a table, a few guys along with Bria and a girl I don’t recognize who must be a second year. They seem to be in the middle of an over-eager game of strip poker. Bria is shirtless with a hot pink bra pushing her cleavage up to her throat. One of the guys is also shirtless, but the rest have opted for lesser articles. Watches, belts and socks litter the floor at their feet. Colt is still at my side and my eyes flick up to his. He seems amused by the innocence and surprise in my reaction.
MJ spots us at the door and jogs over. “Hey!” She passes me a flask. I take it and look from her to Colt. Our instructor. I assume since he’s here and no one seems concerned, I shouldn’t be either, but this is beyond strange. I make a move to pass the flask back to her, but Colt’s sly smile makes me want to show him I’m not a stuck up stiff. I don’t know why his mere presence infuriates me, but I suddenly want to be more reckless. I tip back the flask, taking a long swig, then break into a coughing fit. “What is that?”
“Tequila.”
“Tastes like gasoline.” I take another quick sip which goes down a little easier than the first, and pass it back to her. Colt’s smile has faded. I can’t read him.
Colt tips his head, motioning to the wall as a tug of a smile pulls on his mouth. “Nicely done.”
I turn to see a big poster on the wall displays the results of this week’s geek tests, and I’m surprised to find my name listed second from the top, only behind a guy named Pete who is galloping around the room in a cape.
Strange. I shake the feeling of panic away. I have nothing to be ashamed of.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get back to the dorm safe and sound,” he says, his voice dropping an octave lower so only I can hear him.
“So are you chaperoning this shin dig?” I whisper back.
He chuckles under his breath. “Um, no.”
I watch him scan the room and when his eyes stop on Bria, I weave around him. I head to the far end of the room where I spot Logan sitting against the wall.
I slide down and collapse onto the floor next to him. He glances over once before pulling a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his black hoodie. He shakes one out and lights it, then offers me the pack.
“No thanks.”
Logan and I play tic tac toe with chalk on the floor, the most innocent of pastimes by far compared to what’s going on around us. Couples have paired off and found not-so-private corners of the room to make out in, others are getting sloppy drunk, including Bria’s friend who’s still in the poker game. Though she tries to cover herself, I swear I just caught a glimpse of a nipple.
I shudder and roll my eyes. I thought this was supposed to be a geek party. I hadn’t been expecting…this. But I guess this was bound to happen with teenage hormones running free and unchecked.
Colt surprises me by ignoring Bria, though once she spotted him, she gave up her spot at the card table and pressed her perky boobs up against his chest. I suppressed a smile when he retrieved her shirt for her.
She pouted, but she put it back on.
“Your turn.” Logan says, bringing my attention back to our game. I draw an X through the square, blocking him from winning.
He rolls the chalk between his fingers. “Colt keeps looking at you.”
I glance up and see that he’s right. Colt’s dark eyes are locked on me from across
the room. Yep, he’s definitely gorgeous. His eyes, which at first glance were brown, are actually hazel with flecks of deep green. And he has dark, thick eyelashes that I would gladly murder someone for.
I do my best to ignore him for the next hour, but the feeling that someone is watching me is unmistakable. I have no idea why he’d be looking at me, with a room full of girls and one who’s practically throwing herself at him. But I do my best to ignore him.
A few more sips from MJ’s flask provide me with the courage to steal a glance toward Colt. He’s sitting alone across the room in a bean bag chair, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. For some strange reason I think of Wes and my chest gets tight.
MJ purses her lips and directs a glare at Colt. “The jackass needs to keep his eyes to himself,” she complains.
I can see him looking our way. He chuckles at MJ’s obvious death glare. “So other than the obvious, what’s with your hatred for Colt?” I look at her. “You and he never…”
“God, no.”
“Do you just despise him on principle then?”
She bites into her bottom lip, hesitating, as if deciding how much to tell me. Her eyes blaze, resolute. “He slept with my friend, Jewel. She only lasted here four months. When he broke her heart, she purposely failed out and got sent home so she didn’t have to see him.”
I grimace. “That’s awful. Was she a first year?”
She shakes her head. “Second year, but she and I started here around the same time. She was hilarious, smart, spoke six languages. It was such a waste – her going back to rot away in public school just to escape him.”
I nod. That is sort of horrible, but strangely, it’s something I can relate to. I can see how Colt’s attention could easily turn weaker girls into his playthings, to use once and then discard. And how it would feel after. I knew firsthand how bad it stung when a boy you gave your heart to moved on. I’d been inexperienced in love, well what I thought was love with Wes.
Wes was practically a high school celebrity at the local skate park. Flocks of girls sat on the curb watching him for hours. I’d been stupid enough to think he was mine when we started dating. I’d been on that ride before, and had no plans to get back in line.
MJ cuts into my private thoughts, continuing on. “Colt’s philosophy was if Jewel wasn’t strong enough to withstand that, she wasn’t cut out for this anyway. He didn’t even feel bad. I question if he has human emotions at all.”
I do my best to see only his bad qualities, which is difficult, since none of them are physical.
“Logan, pass me that flask.”
He gives me a strange look, but hands it over. I take a long swig, swallowing down the gasoline flavored tequila, but it does little to quench the uneasiness inside me.
Chapter 10
I stretch out in bed and try to shake the image of Taylor from my mind. She’s off limits, which makes keeping my thoughts clean right now even more difficult. I replay the way she drank from that flask. Determination burned in her eyes, as she licked the amber-colored liquor from her very kissable lips. That image is seared into my brain whether I like it or not.
But a girl like Taylor would never be happy with a once-and-done type of a guy. Which I remind myself doesn’t matter. I enjoy my lifestyle and I’m not looking to change that, no matter how bad I’d like her in my bed. I had it made – a different girl every weekend, more money than I knew what to do with and adrenaline pumping assignments. I wasn’t about to throw that away for a girl who would want commitment and romance. No thanks. That shit never works in the end anyways.
I’m not looking for a relationship, but figure there’s nothing wrong with a little flirting, especially when it seemed to have such a profound effect on her. Showing her the slightest attention left her flustered and pink-cheeked. And call me masochistic, but I liked provoking that response in her.
If I was smart, I’d ignore Taylor. Which shouldn’t be difficult, given there are several other girls I can and will entertain myself with. Then no one would get hurt, especially me. But somehow thoughts of her creep in before I can block them out.
I absently twirl the leather strings on my right wrist, which I caught myself doing whenever I felt anxious, which for some reason this girl makes me. She keeps me on edge.
I pick up my phone, scanning through my contacts, trying to put faces to the names of girls I’d bothered to enter. I scroll through and pick one at random, and wait while it rings.
“Hey. It’s Colt. Come over and keep me company?”
When I hang up the phone, a pang of regret claws inside me. I shake the feeling away. This is the only way, even if I am starting to have mixed feelings about it. I lay back against my pillow, knowing I have time to wait before she gets here. I close my eyes and try to relax. I hate how on edge I’ve been since Taylor arrived here. I haven’t felt this off in a long time. I run my hands over my face, remembering back to a time I don’t often think about.
My mom died my freshman year of high school.
That first year was hell. I returned to school two weeks after her funeral and I wasn’t prepared for the sad looks everyone gave me, and the fact that every teacher seemed willing to cut me endless breaks. I wanted to hide, to forget everything that had happened, but everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, there were constant reminders, both at home and at school.
I eventually got that chance to hide from all that sadness. At a party one weekend I met a pretty junior named Jess, but instead of pity over my situation, she took mercy on me and said she was going to help me to forget. The first time I came that night, I pretty much forgot my own damn name. I had been a shell, a walking broken shell my entire freshman year, and that night I found a way out. A way to forget about all the sadness and sorrow in my life, if only for an hour. Being with her that night was like a revelation. I’ll never forget it.
Of course at the time, I’d been stupid enough to think that our night together meant we were going to start dating. When she realized I was only a freshman, she’d laughed and patted my chest. She told me I was fun, but in no way dating material. That’d stung, but when I realized it was better that I didn’t get attached to anyone, I knew she’d actually done me a favor. She’d woken me from a long and tortuous depression and showed mI could actually be happy again. Well, if not truly happy, at least distracted from the aching sadness.
I spent every weekend after chasing after girls. It wasn’t hard. I’d grown to well over six feet by then and looked much older than fifteen. I never really examined my actions too closely. And now I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s just part of my survival instincts. Sex was the only closeness I got, and I couldn’t give that up. And I couldn’t risk love when it had the probability of ending so badly.
Chapter 11
After turning in the Russian assassin assignment to McAllister, I receive my next assignment.
Wil-tech has been contracted by the descendants of a royal family in Lithuania. Their once-trusted financial advisor Lars stole priceless artifacts and jewels from their bank vault and disappeared. He’s now surfaced in Germany, trying to sell the stolen goods. My job is to figure out who his buyers are and where they plan to meet. McAllister says once we know the rendezvous point, he’ll send Colt and a few members of the team in to take him down, stolen goods in possession.
I’ve worked for hours trying to break into the network he’s using, but it’s no use. They have some type of firewall that I might be able to infiltrate only if I was operating under the same network, but that’s not going to happen. He’s in Germany. I’m in Connecticut. I even used MJ’s translation skills, but it didn’t help.
I may have to break the news to McAllister that this one is beyond me, but I want one last go at it in Independent Study today.
When I walk into the computer lab, McAllister is waiting for me. Colt is with him. They’re talking in low voices and stop abruptly when I enter the room.
I sit down in the chair across from them.
I assume McAllister is here to give me my next assignment, but Colt’s presence confuses me.
Once I’m seated, McAllister pulls a black envelope from his jacket pocket, but he makes no move to hand it to me. “I trust you know Colt?”
My eyes flick to Colt’s. He’s watching me too. I can tell by his flushed cheeks and by the pulse jumping in his neck that they’ve been arguing about something. I don’t think I’d have the guts to argue with McAllister about any subject. It makes me even more curious about why he’s here.
McAllister clears his throat and hands Colt the envelope, but looks over toward me. “The two of you will team up on this assignment.” While that’s still sinking in, McAllister turns to me. “This case hasn’t gone as expected, so you’ll be getting field experience earlier than anticipated.”
I’m not sure how I feel about this news. This is all still so surreal.
“But I’m sure you know you’re our only computer programmer here,” McAllister continues.
I nod.
Colt is quiet.
“You leave in the morning.”
“Leave?” I question.
“I’ve received a tip from an informant and Lars is in Cleveland for the weekend. You’ll be traveling there for the job. Shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”
Huh. Me and Colt? Alone. In Cleveland. Well this is an interesting development.
A moment later Colt stands. “Meet me at nine out front.” Without waiting for me to respond, he leaves.
I break the news to MJ and Logan that I leave in the morning. They’re shocked that I’m already assigned field work. But MJ helps me pack.
MJ holds up a pair of my jeans and makes a face, tossing them aside.
I snatch my jeans back. “These are my comfy jeans.”
“Oh yes, and comfort is the key spending a couple of nights on the road with the hottest instructor in school.” She smirks. “These are cuter.” She thrusts a pair of skintight black jeans inside my bag.