Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy)

by Brooke Jaxsen

  “Coffee,” said Skylar, but it was probably more of an insistence. I knew why and my heart sank, as I’d played this same game before, but Skylar obviously played it better. He was definitely older than me (but most people were) and he knew the games that the girls played. He’d made that evident, the way he’d navigated through our (or rather, my) sticky situation with ease while inside, I was panicking, screaming. He was better at being me than I was, and better at playing my games. He wanted to get rid of me, rid of how annoying I was to him. Too bad for him, because I fucking loved coffee and I’d order the most expensive drink on the menu.

  “What?” I asked incredulously. How far was he planning on going with this? He didn’t have to play their game, but I don’t know if he knew that. I don’t know if he knew that he could just laugh, say “fuck that”, and leave so that the girls and I could talk shit about him and that in that moment, he could have just shut the entire game down, easily. What did he have to gain?

  “There’s a Starbucks around here, right?” he asked.

  “There’s a Starbucks everywhere,” said Kim, rolling her eyes. Becca lightly pushed her shoulder against Kim’s. Becca was the only person that Kim would take that shit from and Becca pushed that limit all the time. The girl from the streets of Compton and the South Korean businessman’s daughter, who would have guessed?

  “Starbucks is great, she’ll be there,” promised Becca with a grin. Her teeth were so perfect, so pearly white. That was the one thing I hadn’t had fixed yet: my teeth. They were still like a white picket fence from back home: a bit scraggly, a bit dingy, and getting worse since I’d started to smoke. I’d put off stuff like going to the doctor or dentist or orthodontist since I’d come to LA, since all my hours had been filled with either classes or sorority activities, but I knew I wasn’t perfect yet. My nails were done, but that was cheap. I needed more: I needed hair extensions like Samantha, that could be molded and dyed into anything I wanted. I needed to get my teeth straightened and bleached like Becca. I needed Kim Lee’s immaculate style and elegance.

  I needed more.

  But more had never been enough, just leaving me needing...more.

  “Great, should we go dance more, babe? I can fit in one more song on my break,” asked Skylar, looking me straight in the eyes in a way that to the girls, probably looked like the gaze of a lover, but to me, was a commanding glare.

  I returned the look with a fake smile. “Sure, babe.” I put emphasis on the last word as I tilted my head. I hoped the girls couldn’t tell that I was putting on an act, that although I’d tried to get Skylar before, he wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted anymore. I didn’t want something complex. I didn’t want drama. I didn’t want to have to work for a guy’s attention like this was high school and I was a wallflower again.

  “Great.” Except it wasn’t. He took me onto the floor as a new song came up, a static dubstep beat. I couldn’t hear him over the pounding music so he wrote it in his phone’s note app instead. I was dancing to shield him from the girls who would be watching, judging. Always watching. Always judging. Always there. But that’s what sororities were for, right? So that we’d always be there for each other, through thick and thin, through days of class and nights of clubbing.

  “Give me your number,” said the black letters glowing on a lined yellow background that looked like a kid’s notebook. The cartoony font was so childlike that it made me laugh. I was that drunk. That drunk!

  “Give me yours.” I wrote back by erasing the word number and adding an s.

  “No, I’ll text you.” The music pulsed in the background and so did my heart, but this time, I think it wasn’t because of the pills. It was because in that moment, Skylar had more power over me than most guys ever had in their life. Guys had practically lined up to fuck me at the frat house social mixers, but Skylar was pushing me away. He promised he’d text me, that he’d pull me back in, but how did I know that he wasn’t like me, that he wasn’t a liar?

  This had stopped feeling like an LMFAO song and more like something by The Lonely Island as I just danced there awkwardly, half expecting myself to be in a polyester leisure suit, index fingers pointing to the ceiling and to the floor back and forth.

  “Fine.” I gave him the number. Before I could check to see what his number was through the settings (so sneaky!), he snatched it back and walked away. I went back to the VIP and explained he had to get back to work, so I sat with Kim, who was watching the rest of the ex pledges dance and gyrate, and we did a line of coke on her clipboard. This was my reward for not failing her this time. This was the only thing that I wanted more than Skylar, the only guy I wanted more than the cocaine touching my brain. The white gold filled my nose and burned my lungs until it filled me with a sense of ecstasy even ecstasy itself couldn’t rival. I trusted Kim to know exactly how much to portion out and trusted her to stop me when she thought we had too much too soon. Usually, with the girls, I joked about stuff when we got high, but with Kim, who just smiled, I observed the dance floor.

  The other girls from my pledge class, the freshman and a few sophomores, had all found guys that were cute enough, but none that were really as cute as Skylar. Skylar, the one guy I’d never thought I’d actually end up on a date with. Skylar, the one guy who was sexier than all the others in the club. Someone had to be the hottest. That somehow had to be him. Of course. I felt my thoughts slurring, as I thought about Skylar one moment and about how jealous the others were going to be that I had a cute new boyfriend. I’d be the only girl to get a townie boyfriend in my pledge class, and the only to be having hot sex with a guy that was a solid ten. I’d be the only girl for Skylar. He’d be the only one for me. Skylar. Emma. Maybe our nickname would be Skymma. Or Emmylar. Ha ha. Maybe. Fuck it, fucking fuck fuck it, I was getting stupider by the minute, but I kept smiling. Kim didn’t ask about what but she didn’t need to. Or maybe, she just didn’t care.

  It felt good to have my plans fall into place, even if it meant I had to see Skylar again.

  But in a way? It wasn’t a have to. It was a get to.

  Chapter Three, #StarbucksFail:

  THAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I got a text from Skylar saying we should meet at the Starbucks on campus in thirty minutes. Was he crazy or something? That was nowhere near enough time to put together a cute outfit, but somehow, I managed. I kept my makeup simple enough: dewey foundation with a bit of creme blush, some natural style eyeshadow from my Naked palette (I could finally afford the things that I’d seen on beauty sites and listed in magazines I’d read when waiting to check out at the grocery store), with some light pink lip gloss that made my already light lips even lighter, shinier, more plump and kissable. I felt the cinnamon oil sting but I knew that just meant it was working.

  Then, I slipped on a pair of my cut off shorts, which were ironically cute in Los Angeles but the kind of thing I would have worn all summer in Iowa, as well as one of the flannel shirts over a white spaghetti strap tank top, paired with a thin natural colored leather belt and a pair of strappy leather sandals that would have been super impractical anywhere but Cali.

  Before I left the house, I went to my not so secret stash of pills inside one of my purses. The pills inside glistened like sweets at a candy shop and I took out two I remembered Kim had told me were uppers and another that I used for studying. I wanted to be perky and at my most focused for the date with Skylar. I wasn’t going to rely on pills forever, just until I was ready to stop using them, just until things got easier, got better.

  I’d been saying that for three quarters now, almost a full school year.

  But hey, I was a freshman. It wasn’t like I’d be hooked for the next three years and relying on the pills for everything. I’d just take them when I partied, or when I was pulling all-nighters, or if I needed to study for tests, or if I needed a pick me up or a confidence boost or if I was bored, right?

  Luckily, Omega House was only a few minutes’ walk from the twenty-four hour Starbucks, to the point that the
in kitchen espresso machine was barely ever used and the coffee grounds that were purchased for it were thrown away stale by the bagful.

  I kept my white earbuds in as I walked to the café, but as I opened the door, felt a hand on my shoulders. I turned: it was him. He’d actually shown up, and he looked even better by the light of day.

  Skylar was dressed in another dark pair of jeans like he’d worn the past few nights as well as a flannel shirt like mine. He was wearing a plain black and white pair of Converse high tops as well as a leather messenger bag. His hair wasn’t styled with product, and it sort of fell on his face like bangs instead of rising in a pompadour style peak. The tattoo sleeves peeked out of his shirt sleeves but all I could really make out was the thick black X’s emblazoned on the back of his hands like two engraved shadows. As embarrassing as it was, I couldn’t tell you what his tats were yet. It’d been too dark in the club, that was my excuse, but really, I’d been too drunk to notice.

  “I guess we match,” I joked. “Twinsies!” I held up two fingers to make the number two, and realized I must look like a fucking dork making a peace sign. When Kim Lee pulled it off with her friends from South Korea who all wore designer clothes like her and pouted their lips perfectly, it looked cute. When I did it, I looked like a weird in an anime costume at a convention instead of a cute young lady. Obviously, it was a skill I needed to work on. I still wasn’t used to this new look, this way of life, even this body.

  He smiled for once, forming a dimple on his chiseled cheeks, the one soft point I’d found on him. “Yeah, it’s cute. I’m glad you like coffee. My treat, as usual,” he joked. I got the reference to the cab rides and blushed.

  “Ha. Ha, ha. Funny. You’re lucky you’re so cute, Skylar,” I said, wanting to ruffle his hair with my hand or punch him in the arm playfully, but I know I didn’t know him like that, even if he’d basically pretended to be smitten with me in the club that past Friday night. Why did he have to be so cute but so infuriating? Why did he have to be a bouncer instead of a student here? Fuck.

  “Funny and cute? Truly, I am blessed,” he said. Something was different about his voice, about the way he talked. It wasn’t like it was in the club. It was...smarter. He sounded like a teacher’s aide instead of a body builder. Now that I looked at him, he dressed like one too. I’d half expected him to roll up on a motorcycle, wearing gold chains, a graphic shirt with rhinestones, and a snapback with a witty phrase, but instead, he looked like an actual grown-up adult, like someone’s sexy dad.

  But, some things never changed.

  Like those tattooed arms, the ones that I knew had more secrets hidden underneath the sleeves that were rolled up to his elbows but not any further, although his biceps were practically popping out of the sleeves, threatening to tear the fabric open.

  Like the sly turn of his smile and the way it made the two dimples pop out as they popped in as he talked, and now, outside the world of Club Grit, let himself talk faster, longer, and gesture.

  Like the way he made me want him, not despite his duality, but due to it. He had so many secrets. Why was he the bouncer at Club Grit if he was so smart and witty? Why had he defended me and been so protective, so possessive, just to push me away before pulling me back in? Why did I keep taking his bait, and why did he seem happy with me one minute and the next, royally annoyed? What was this thing we had going on? And why did I find myself wanting it, wanting something complicated instead of simple, something was making me feel things I thought were meant for girls in books instead of girls like me, who lived in the real world, the raw world.

  I ordered my usual, a vanilla bean Frappuccino, extra whip, with whole milk in the base, and three pumps of raspberry syrup. Kim, who basically used this as her office away from the sorority when things got too loud, too noisy, too social, had taught me about that recipe. It tasted like cotton candy and had probably, like, ten times the calories, but I didn’t care. I’d just hit the sorority’s state of the art private in home gym later, double time. Skylar just got plain green tea in a plain paper cup. Boring!

  It was also cheaper than what I got by a few dollars. I remembered when that mattered, back before the black card, the credit limit that was nonexistent, the ability to charge whatever I wanted to some checking account my dad kept full. I remembered when I couldn’t afford to go to Starbucks on even a monthly basis, when it was cheaper for me to get a shake to split with my siblings at a fast food restaurant or when we packed thermoses of powdered drinks mixed with water in custom flavor combos because it was too expensive to buy juice, not to mention soda at a gas station. That wasn’t the time I wanted to remember because that wasn’t the girl I wanted to be anymore, especially not around Skylar. If he didn’t like me now, he wouldn’t like me if he learned about my past.

  We got a seat on a couch and put our stuff under the coffee table. He asked me about my day, I asked about his. He was surprised to learn I was nineteen; I was surprised to learn he was twenty three because he looked a lot younger, even with the tats and muscles. I learned that he didn’t work during the day, just nights as a bouncer at the club because he was in a band, The Eldritch Poet’s Society, inspired by the works of some guy named Dell Hatecraft or something. I asked what had gotten him into it.

  And so Skylar explained. “I’ve lived in LA all my life, and I’m in the music scene. No, you haven’t heard of my band, and yes, we’re trying to change that. But anyway, I was at a show and afterwards, I was approached by a nightclub owner. This guy, he wasn’t the kind of guy I’d take for decent, but obviously, I’m not about to judge someone based on appearances. I know what it’s like to be judged.” He rolled up his sleeves and I knew what he meant. My heart dropped and I looked away: what would he think of me if he’d known what I’d thought about him the first time I saw him? That he’d have to be an easy lay because he had his hair gel’d up and had arms full of tats? It wouldn’t be cute. At all.

  “You look a lot different outside of the club,” I blurted out and instantly wished I hadn’t. Fuck. Why was I so awkward around him, when he was the only guy I wanted to be my usually up-beat, cheery, fun self? Why was he getting this sort of reaction out of me? Was it the pills or something different? I’d been out with guys at parties and stuff stoned and high off my ass and I’d never made such an ass of myself, but then again, they’d also been majorly #fuckedup and Skylar was far from that. Did he even drink or smoke or do anything fun? For a bouncer, he wasn’t exactly the life of the party.

  This was supposed to be a fun date to give the whole mess closure and instead, I found myself caring what he thought of me. He wasn’t an Omega sister, he wasn’t in a frat, he didn’t even go to my college and I was sure that if I saw him again at the club it wouldn’t have had to have been a big deal, so why did I care what he thought?

  “Anyways, right now, I’m sort of between classes. I can’t afford to take classes every semester, so I only take them in the fall. During the spring and summer, I work. I’ve done this for four years so far, so I have two years of college done, at a community college, and I’m saving up now so I can get the last two years done all at once.”

  I just couldn’t stop looking in his eyes. In the bright of day, he looked so different, and the glasses he wore were plain, cheap, but drew attention to his eyes which were like two golden suns captured in milk and punctured with the deepest of abysses straight through the middle as if they were meant to be beads on a designer necklace. I watched as the caffeine took hold and his pupils widened, the irises changing slightly as they became thinner and the layers were squished together.

  I lost track of what he was talking about, between sips of my drink and nodding at what I thought was the right time. I thought he noticed so I quickly asked him a question. “So what’s in the bag? Are we going on a picnic?”

  He avoided the question. Fuck. It had been a long time since I’d actually just had a guy to talk to like a normal human being that I guess I forgot what to do. I wasn’t really all that di
fferent from the nerdy girls we made fun of at the sorority, the kind that joined academic societies instead of social ones, the kind that weren’t like us, but did have boyfriends who doted on them and surprised them with gifts and went with them to anime conventions. “Let’s take a picture,” he said, and so I pulled out my phone and took a picture with the front facing camera, making a cute pouty face next to his cheek.

  He looked at the picture and smiled, but no for the reason I wanted. “Great, now I can leave,” he said, as he started to get up. I was shocked. I thought the date had been going well. Why would he want to leave now, after I hadn’t even gotten wasted this time, or had to lie to anyone? I wanted him to sit back down, to put his arm around me like he had that night at the club when he pretended that we had something, except I wanted it to be genuine, for him to actually want me and to not have to put on an act to save me, but to fulfill my desires for him and for his firm touch.

  “Wait, what? Was it the duck face?” I asked. This wasn’t fucking funny but he had to be joking. Maybe he was an ass hat hipster (it’d explain his outfit), but that was no excuse for tasteless humor. Sarcasm was for douchebags who though things like ironic graphic shirts were funny.

  He raised a brow. “Uh, no? I did the date thing. My obligation is over, and you’ve got a picture for your friends to prove I met up with you. I’ve lied for you, but I’m not about to become your girlfriend. I never would, I wouldn’t even sleep with you, because I don’t date or fuck liars and that’s what you are. I shouldn’t have ever given you that cab ride home, Emma. You’ve been more trouble than anyone else I’ve helped. That’s what I try to do: I try to be the nice guy instead of the asshole, and I try to help people, but I just get tangled up in their webs of lies and messes.”