by Rachel Hanna
That was when I finally realized how close we were.
This boy—this man—was poised over me his chest close enough to press slightly into mine. I was suddenly very aware of my choice to forgo the bra this morning and wondered if he was, too. One of his hands was wrapped in my hair as it cradled my head and the other was at my hip, fingers touching the bare skin beneath my shirt. It had been rucked up by my fall.
A fall that had been caused by the boy laying on top of me, I realized as a blush started to creep along my skin. While I could still blame the rosy color of my cheek on the chilly morning, I placed both of my hands against his chest and pushed at him.
His body was hard, solid beneath my hands. I could feel the outline of muscles tensed beneath his tight black t-shirt.
There was a long moment where he didn’t move, letting my hands rest against his chest. Finally, he took my hint and moved off of me. As soon as our bodies were separated, I scrambled to put some distance between us. Picking myself up and dusting off my clothing. Pieces of my dark hair had escaped my bun, falling around my face in long ringlets that I had hoped so much to avoid this morning.
I was trying to be haughty and annoyed with the guy for just randomly falling into me, but I was staring at his tall, lean, yet muscular body and his long blonde locks that brushed along his broad shoulders. And those eyes.
They were bright and blue and like the depths of the ocean. They were like a hurricane, the edges the color of a wild storm, while inside was the perfect center of peace and tranquility.
“What the hell?” I yelled at him, angry at myself for not being as angry at him as I should have been. His looks still had more of my attention than I appreciated and all I wanted was to be able to turn up my nose and stomp away.
Instead, I stood riveted as his full lips pulled into a wide smile that showed straight white teeth. He opened his mouth saying, “I’m sor—”
But what I could only assume was an apology was cut off before he could finish as a second body propelled into him, catching him around the middle. The man didn’t crash to the ground as I had, instead folding over the second projectile college boy and grabbing him about the neck.
Annoyed, I rolled my eyes and let out a huff. Crouching, I gathered up my books as quickly as I could. They had scattered when I fell, some of them sliding off into the wet grass. I made a frustrated sound as I found their covers and some of the pages to be damp with moisture.
I thought about turning to yell at him for the books, but then I remembered his strong, hard body and those stormy blue eyes. If I caught them again…
Shaking my head, I decided it was best to just get out of there as fast as I could and leave mad before I did anything stupid that would ruin everything. I knew myself too well to let myself get wrapped up in the looks of some idiot college boy.
As I headed to the building, I heard his deep voice call out to me again, laughing and clearly amused.
“Sorry!” he called, but I pretended not to listen.
I pulled open the door of the building. Out of the corner of my eye, while I was pretending not to notice the tumbling boys anymore, I saw the gorgeous blonde man grab the hem of the other boy’s shirt and pull it up over his back, flipping it over his head. Then he proceeded to punch him several times.
I forced myself to look away and continued to class.
I didn’t need to see violence, I reminded myself. There was nothing impressive about it, nothing useful. We existed in a civilized society, and there was nothing civilized about that. Although I had to admit to myself, however reluctantly, that I had been taken in by the boy’s striking, sexy features, I didn’t have to be drawn in by his fighting.
I was a full ten minutes late to class and Professor Anderson spent the next ten minutes reminding me why students who didn’t take his class seriously—like me, apparently—didn’t last long in his class. Or any other real academic college level course.
By the time he was through, my cheeks were flaming. I sat in the very back, wishing I could blend in with the walls and disappear. My embarrassment was almost enough to distract me from the blonde boy who had crashed into me twenty minutes ago.
Almost.
Except that when Anderson went back to lecturing, I remembered his blue eyes and those full lips stretching into a wide grin.
And his voice. I didn’t even get to hear him utter two full words, but they were deep and sultry, filled with promises of dangerous, wonderful things. He had a bedroom voice that made me want to crawl into bed with him and—
I shook my head, focusing down on my paper and deliberately listening to Anderson lecture. I took diligent notes the rest of the day.
It was the only way I could keep from thinking of him.
Chapter 4
The dining hall seemed rowdier than usual to me that afternoon. It felt like the whole campus was there right then in that moment, which wasn’t possible, but that’s what it felt like. I was sitting across from Danny for a few minutes earlier, but she had once again left for practice. She was dedicated to her sport, both out of love and out of need. She was on a scholarship that was contingent on her playing volleyball for the campus. That meant that both her studies and all practice times were incredibly important to her.
I admired her dedication, even envied her it sometimes. It was so easy for her to just lose herself in her determination, focusing everything else out until she was lost in the moment and whatever was most important in that moment.
I, on the other hand, was plagued by the past and the future both. Living in the moment was impossible for me—and that was a choice fueled by a promise I couldn’t break.
Today, the dining hall had one of its good days. The food wasn’t as good as a home cooked meal or anything, but it didn’t look like the lunch ladies just threw up onto a plate this time. The salad was relatively fresh and the pasta looked like pasta instead of a large clump of gooey Velveeta.
But even with the more appetizing meal in front of me, I couldn’t eat. My phone had gone off during class earlier that day. I’d forgotten to turn it to silent and after being scolded by Anderson that morning, the last thing I needed was one more reason to get my ass in trouble.
So I hadn’t checked the message until after class.
I was glad I hadn’t, because as soon as I saw that new message image blinking on my screen with my mother’s name beneath it, I knew I didn’t want to read it at all. It would be the same thing. It would be last night all over again.
Apparently she hadn’t gotten the message that I wasn’t interested in talking to her or Miranda.
But I did eventually open the message. It was burning a hole in my pocket, like a ticking time bomb, the fuse burning down until it would eventually explode and send my world spiraling out of control. It was short once more, to the point and without an ounce of warmth to speak of.
Miranda asked about you.
I wanted to throttle her for her cryptic, short and curt, without any real information texts, but I knew why they were like that. It was a mixture of my mother’s personality, our rocky relationship, and the touchy subject of Miranda.
She was waiting for me to ask about Miranda, for the curiosity to eat away at me until I was dying to know what they had talked about. What she had told Miranda and most of all, what Miranda wanted.
I hadn’t spoken to Miranda since—
Well, I wasn’t interested in talking to her again. Or talking about her with my mother. I didn’t want anything to do with home, as a matter of fact. That was the whole point of traveling across the country to the opposite coast.
It made visiting awful hard.
I was lost in thoughts of home and all I had left there—most of it willingly and with relief—when Mason dropped down in the seat across from me. I looked up in surprise at him. I hadn’t expected to see anyone today.
Danny had only had a moment, which hadn’t surprised me, and Kass had texted me earlier to let me know that she was leaving early tod
ay for a club meeting—French and it was for extra credit she had told me—so I hadn’t expected anyone. I thought maybe Lexie would pop in, but we weren’t close or anything.
Lexie only sat with us every so often, and rarely when it was just me. We’d met her at the beginning of the semester and she could be fun to hang out with. She had a tendency to be overly flirtatious with the opposite sex and had thrown herself at the twins more than once, but they had kept her at arms’ length and any potential crises had been averted.
I didn’t know her well enough to really know if I liked her or not, but I didn’t have a problem with her. I doubted we would ever be best friends, but we weren’t mortal enemies either.
Mason and Mark only sat with us about half the time, so it wasn’t a guarantee to see them, especially since they were a year ahead of us.
Sitting with sophomores wasn’t as embarrassing as freshmen, but we definitely weren’t the highest you could be up the social ladder.
“Hey there,” he said casually, putting his plate down in front of him. “What are you doing sitting here all alone?”
It took a moment, but I managed to put a smile on my face. “Hey,” I responded as cheerfully as I could, determined to keep the look of sadness and dread off my face. “I thought I could use some alone time.” Gesturing to the huge crowd surrounding us, I added wryly, “Just me and a few of my closest friends.”
He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, it’s kinda busy here today, isn’t it?”
“Wonder what’s going on,” I mused, glancing around at all of the people. The dining hall wasn’t unpopular, but it was rarely this full. “Think there’s a celebrity among us or something?” I joked.
But when I glanced over at Mason he looked thoughtful and maybe a little nervous. Ultimately, he shrugged and answered, “Who knows. People are crazy. I’ll bet Danny would say it’s some sort of subconscious social cue that we’re all following without knowing the real reason why.”
I laughed, feeling lighter already and agreed. “Yeah. She was probably taking mental notes on it earlier before she headed off to practice.”
Mason nodded.
We fell silent as Mason took a bite of his food, chewing and considering at the same time. Mark and Mason looked a lot alike. They were twins, reverse identical, but I had always thought that Mason was the slightly more attractive of the two. His dark hair was a little more deliberately styled than his brother’s and he dressed nicely, usually in long sleeved knit shirts and gently worn jeans. His style happened to reflect the kind of person he was inside, too.
Whatever similarities there were between them in the looks department, often times it seemed like they could be complete opposites of each other in personalities. Sure, they did that freaky twin thing sometimes, finishing sentences or knowing what the other was going to do without saying anything.
They even had a tendency to get the same grades on homework, though only when they both bothered to turn it in, and Mason almost always got the better grade in the class overall.
But that was because he did his work. Mark was a bit of a clown, a joker. He always had a joke and was all about the fun side of college, but not so much about the work part of it. Fun was his major, he liked to say, but Mason was a little different.
He still went to the parties and did the drinking thing, but he also forced himself to go to class and do the work part of it, too. He wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but he had a good average and was generally very likable. Mark was maybe more well-known, but Mason was popular with all who did know him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked between bites of food.
I brought my attention back to the moment at hand. Forcing a smile, I shrugged my shoulders. “What do you mean?”
His brown eyes darted down to my plate and then back up to my face. “You haven’t touched your food. Not even before I got here, it looks like.”
He was right, of course. I hadn’t been in the least bit hungry, too preoccupied with the things from my past that refused to let me go. But I didn’t tell him any of that. Instead, I said, “I ate a big breakfast.” It was a boldfaced lie and he likely saw right through it. There was a good chance that Kass had told him how late I had been to class—and worse, I still looked like hell from that morning.
I had managed to fix my hair, pulling back what pieces had been determined to curl and I had washed my face and put on some make-up, but I was still dressed in my nightshirt and definitely didn’t look up to standards.
He stared at me for a moment, assessing me. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not, but he shrugged it off and let me change the topic.
“I’m surprised you’re here without your better half.” We liked to tease the twins, saying they were each other’s better half. It drove Mark nuts, but Mason took it all in stride.
He smiled at me. “He had to stay late after class.” Leaning forward across the table so he could half-whisper conspiratorially, as though someone were listening, he said, “The professor said he had missed too many classes and would have to make some of them up.”
Sitting back, he put on his best somber expression and nodded his head sagely. “Poor dude is going to have to come in to one of her other classes twice a week for the next month to make it up.”
I laughed at him, shaking my head. “How can he have possibly missed that much class? It’s only half-way through the semester!”
He shrugged. “It takes talent to be as big of a dipshit as my brother.”
I smiled at him. He was sort of being honest, but mostly just joking. He loved his brother and would do anything for him, but he wasn’t blind to his faults. Mark had a gift when it came to slacking off and his brother knew it.
We fell silent, and I hazarded a bite of my food. My fork was half-way to my mouth when my phone, which I had left sitting beside my tray, buzzed. I froze, dreading the sound it made.
Mason noticed my sudden pause, and opened his mouth to ask about it, but I quickly grabbed my phone off the table. I didn’t look at the message I had just received, and gave him a fake smile.
“I should probably get to class. I was late to my first one today and the last thing I want to do is be late for another one.”
Frowning, Mason studied my face and got up with me. “Okay, well, I’ve got to go anyway. I only have a few more minutes. I’ll walk you.”
I kept the grimace off my face at his offer. I really didn’t want to hurt his feelings or anything, especially since he was just being nice, but I didn’t want to walk with anyone right then. I didn’t want to be around anyone just then.
I needed a quiet, private moment to check my message. Somewhere where no one would notice that I was on the verge of panic or even a breakdown.
But instead, I nodded at him and we tossed our trash, putting the trays on the trashcan before heading to the doors. We walked in silence down the halls, my phone once more shut away in my pocket. I felt urgency pushing me forward, begging me to go faster, but I couldn’t really make myself do it. It felt like Mason was setting the pace and that it would be rude to just leave him behind.
I didn’t even have the excuse that my class was going to start any minute, really, because I had another twenty minutes before class would begin. Ten of those even belonged to the class before me.
I had said I didn’t want to be late to get out of talking any further with him, but it hadn’t really worked out like that.
After another painfully slow moment, I heard him sigh beside me. Glancing over at him, I saw him nervously run his hand through his short, dark hair.
“You seem pretty upset about something,” he told me, but quickly moved on to the next part before I could jump in and assure him it was nothing. “And I’m not going to bug you about it or anything. It’s your shit, and if you want to talk, I’m all ears, but I’m not going to force it out of you either.”
I deflated a little, releasing some of the pent up energy that had been making me tense and worried and slightly awkward
around Mason, whom was usually pretty easy to get on with.
Smiling in gratitude, I mumbled a tiny, quiet thanks.
He nodded. “But if you wanted something to take your mind off of—” he gestured with his hands momentarily before settling on the word, “—whatever it is, a bunch of us are getting together this Friday.”
When he saw me lean towards declining—a bunch sounded a lot like a party and I had promised myself no parties—he quickly held up his hands. “Just some friends. Me, Mark, Kass, Danny—if she can take one goddamn minute off of practicing or studying—and Lexie. No one else.” He gave me a slanted smile. “Well, unless you decide to come.”
I thought it over for a moment. It wasn’t really a party, I conceded to myself. A few friends, that was all, and I knew them. Well, I didn’t know Lexie really well, but she wasn’t a stranger. And if Kass was going, it would probably be alright.
Plus, the twins were pretty mellow—when they weren’t drinking and partying with their frat brothers.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I asked, “What are we going to be doing? Drinking?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Kass said you’d ask that.”
I looked at him in surprise. I hadn’t thought he would discuss this with Kass before asking me. Shrugging, I said, “Well, I just don’t want to hang out with a bunch of drunks and I’m not going to be drinking.”
He shook his head, still smiling a little. “No, no drinking. It’ll be at the house, but the brothers will mostly be out with pledges and we’re just planning on a movie anyway. Mark might toss back a few beers, but that’s Mark. The rest of us are planning on a sober night.”
That sounded pretty okay. A movie night with the gang? And he was right about Mark. He always had a drink or two, even if the whole group wasn’t drinking.
“Okay,” I finally said, warming up to the idea. I could use a good distraction. “What time were you guys planning?”
“Around six.” He looked at me hopefully. “You’ll be there?”