by Harper James
Of course, I can’t very well tell her that my guy trouble surrounds the guy who killed her sister-in-law. But still, I know I can chat with her about generic emotional woe and get some sound advice.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” she asks as soon as I tell her that I’ve been feeling distracted and depressed and lonely, lately.
“I am— well, I’m trying to, anyway. I had four shifts at Papa Pig’s this week. I don’t know. I think there’s just too much going on in my head, right now. It’s like I need to stick my thoughts on a hard drive for a few hours just to get a break from them,” I sigh back at her. I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and the dozens of tape marks where whomever lived here before me had posters stuck up right over her bed. I’d take them down, but they make a flawless tape-version of the Big Dipper, which I think is kind of cool.
“Maybe Papa Pig’s needs to be down an employee, for a while? Or maybe you can try to take only delivery shifts. Those are lower stress, you said,” Mom replies. She’s not wrong; with deliveries, I can sort of zone out on the drive. Unfortunately, deliveries now remind me of the night I met Sebastian. And working in the restaurant reminds me of the night we were together on the restaurant patio. And not working makes me sit around and think of how I want to see him, how I want him to touch me, to touch him, to feel him, to feel him in me—
Maybe I shouldn’t have called my mother about this, now that I think about it.
“Hey, question,” I say offhand, in my best changing-the-subject voice. “So, one of my roommates—“
“Which one?”
“Uh, Maddy,” I say swiftly. “Maddy is with this guy. She is totally in to him, but he’s not the sort of guy she’d normally date. He’s not the sort of guy the world would approve of her dating, either.”
“The world?” Mom asks skeptically.
“Well, her family, mostly. Anyway, she’s having a hard time— she feels badly for being with him, but she wants to be with him, and they seem to be pretty great together.”
“Is he dangerous? Is that why her family would object? Is he a crack dealer or something?”
“No. No crack.”
“Meth?”
“What? No! No meth. No drugs at all,” I say.
“Hookers?”
“Mom, be serious,” I say.
She laughs. “As long as he isn’t bad for her, then I think she shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks. If they’re great together, and they make each other better people…her family has to accept that. It’s hard, I know, when your kids start making their own decisions, especially when they’re not the decisions you would have made. But it’s also something that’s bound to happen sooner or later. Your family can’t pick your love for you.”
“I have a feeling she’ll say all that is easier said than done,” I answer, sighing.
“Maddy’s tough. She’ll manage. Also, have any of them gotten a tattoo yet? My bingo card is looking sad,” she says. I laugh, and from the sound my mom makes I can tell she’s relieved to hear the sound. My mom got a funny “so, your kid is moving to college” card from a friend that has BAD DECISION BINGO on the front. She’s been legitimately playing it for months, now, but is more or less stuck since as far as I know, we’re a tattoo-free apartment.
“Well, if I get this square here,” she says, and I can’t tell she’s pointing even though I can’t see it, “Change Major: Philosophy, then you’re going to have to convince one of them to get Tattoo: Chinese Symbol, because I’ll have bingo.”
“I’ll get on that,” I say.
At eight o’clock that evening, I’m working on putting together my notes for the student advocacy group. Last I checked, Emily and Becca were making ramen together in the kitchen, using vegetables stolen from a dining hall salad bar to class it up. Someone knocks at the door at such a fast clip that I assume my roommates have managed to botch ramen and ordered delivery Chinese instead.
But then I hear the voice.
“I’m here to see Ashlynn Sawyer. Does she live here?”
The voice is deep and powerful and carries through the walls, like the apartment itself wants to be certain it reaches my ears. I faintly hear Becca or Emily say something in reply, then, “Sure, thanks.”
It’s Sebastian. And, given the fact that I hear footsteps pittering my way, it sounds like he’s sent one of my roommates to fetch me. Becca flings open my bedroom door without knocking, her eyes wide and lips parted in a bright, eager grin. “Oh my god, Ashlynn—“
“Sebastian Slate,” I say, nodding, then rise.
“Uh, okay, so if you know Sebastian Slate is here to see you, why does your face look like that?” Becca hisses, pointing at my grim expression. “Does he want the jersey back, you think? Stall. Say you need help finding it. Is it in here? I’ll hide it—“ Becca says, and her eyes begin skirting around my floor.
“I— no, he’s not here for the jersey,” I say, walking toward her. “It’s complicated. Really complicated.”
“What’s so complicated?” Emily whispers, butting herself in between Becca and the doorframe. “What happened? I asked him if he wanted ramen but he said no and then I told him we added carrots to it like Sebastian Slate cares if there are carrots in his ramen and oh my god, Ashlynn, why are you making that face?”
“I asked the same thing!” Becca said.
“Look,” I interrupt their horrified expressions. “I’ll tell you more about it later, okay? Let me just…let me go handle this.” I’d sort of hoped I might ask one of them to send him away, but I know that a) that’s a cowardly thing to do and b) there’s no way they’re going to do that. I glance in the mirror— I’m wearing old jeans and a t-shirt, and I’m not wearing makeup. Becca and Emily notice this at the same second, and before I can do much about it, Becca is tearing a hairbrush through my hair and Emily is forcing lip tint onto my lips.
“That’ll have to do,” Emily says. “Go, hurry. Go.”
I take a deep breath and step out my door, then make my way down the hall. My stomach flips when I see Sebastian filling the doorframe, his shoulders nearly wide as the frame itself. He hears me coming, and his eyes flick up— those eyes. Dark and liquid and warm and perfect. I remember looking up at them while he was on top of me, staring down into them while I rode him for what felt like hours of bliss. I lick my lips at the memory, probably ruining Emily’s makeup handiwork, but I can’t help it.
“Ashlynn,” Sebastian says, voice stern.
“Hi,” I answer, flushing. I’m ashamed of how I left things with him, excited to see him, embarrassed that I’m thinking about how he looks undressed…I never really knew I was capable of experiencing so many emotions, so strongly, at the same moment.
“I needed to come see you.” His voice is clipped, almost angry.
I take the final few steps toward him, leaving a few feet between us. “I’m sorry about the way I left things.”
He nods slowly, and his eyes dart over my shoulder; I spin around and see Becca and Emily’s heads poking around the hall corner. They pretend to be studying the paint on the walls when they realize we’ve seen them. Slick, guys, I think, but it makes me laugh all the same. When I turn back to Sebastian, the laugh fades.
“I’d like to talk,” he says shortly.
“Here?”
“No,” he says, eyes flicking back to where my roommates are looming. “Someplace private.”
I force and exhale, but nod. “Yeah, just— let me get my shoes, okay?”
14
I don’t know where we’re headed, exactly, but I follow Sebastian down the stairs and onto campus. We keep a small amount of space between one another, but Sebastian seems to be fighting to keep his hands in his pockets— I think he wants to wrap his arm around me, like we did that morning we went out for breakfast. Moreover, I want him to. My mom said I have to live my own life, didn’t she? That you couldn’t let your parents dictate who you have feelings for?
Of course, my mom thought I was t
alking about Maddy, not myself and Dennis Slate’s son, but…still.
“So. You were a New Recruits Week spy,” Sebastian says with an air of sarcastic amusement in his voice.
“Yes. I’m working with the student advocacy group, and the lawyer running my section basically thinks New Recruits Week is the devil’s work. So…”
“And because of that, you don’t think we should see one another?” Sebastian asks.
“It just…I mean, it seems like a conflict of interest. I can’t give up the advocacy group. It’s important, especially for a pre-law major,” I say. “It’s a huge part of who I am.”
“Spying on players hooking up is a huge part of who you are?”
I steady myself, then dare to say it. “Justice is a huge part of who I am. Pursuing it is a huge part of who I am.” I meet his eyes, and even though I know it’s impossible, I wish he knew that New Recruits Week is only a fraction of the “conflict of interest” as far as I’m concerned.
Instead, Sebastian nods. “Mine too, actually.” I know he’s talking about his father, of course, but he’s so sincere that it makes me freeze in place. He takes another few steps, then turns around to see why I’ve stopped. “What?”
“Nothing. I just— we have a lot in common, but not in the ways I’d have expected,” I stammer, shaking my head and hurrying to catch back up. We’re toward the center of campus, now, which is dark, with enormous oak trees blotting out the stars above. A few students are zipping to or from the library, and a few others cutting across to get to downtown in their going-out-best. I’m grateful that the darkness means they don’t recognize Sebastian and gawk at who he’s with.
Sebastian looks at me as we continue on in slow, dawdling steps. “What if I told you that I don’t give a flying fuck about the conflict of interest? Spy on me. Spy on the rest of the team. I think you’re going to see that New Recruits Week isn’t something you need to seek justice from. Or…for. Or whatever.”
“What if I don’t see that, though? What if I agree with the lawyer, and we try to stop the whole thing?” I test him.
Sebastian shrugs. “That’s fine too. Doing the right thing is more important than football. I know it’s basically sacrilege for me to say that, especially in my family, but it’s true. I’m a senior, I’m nearly done with college ball, and I’m focused on the NFL. I really don’t care if incoming freshman get their week of parties and drinking or not. If they’re good players, they’ll want to come here because we have a great team that hopefully, I’ve helped make even greater. If they’re the type of guys who look elsewhere because we stopped handing out free PBRs, then I don’t want them here anyway.”
“Seriously? But…does the rest of the team feel like that?”
“I have no idea. Some of them like to party, so probably not. But that’s fine. We have to play together, but we don’t always have to agree on what happens off the field.”
“Won’t they be pretty pissed, though, if you’re with a girl who is sort of raining on their binge drinking and sexism parade?”
Sebastian snorts at my choice of words. “Are you trying to argue your way out of being with me?”
“No.”
He stops, and turns, a triumphant look in his eyes. “So you do want to be with me.”
I flush, bite my lip. “Of course I do.”
His eyes darken as he takes a step toward me. My body tenses, but it’s not at all like the freezing situation that happened back when we met the first time; it’s like the crest of a roller coaster’s hill. I lock up, in anticipation of something amazing. He steps closer, then sweeps his arms around me and lifts me up against him. My legs lock around his waist immediately, like we’ve practiced this, and he kisses me deeply, aggressively, like he’s making up for the week we lost. I slip my tongue into his mouth delicately, and he nips at it, then sucks on my lip just long enough that I feel my core heat up, wanting him to suck me in other, more private places…
After a moment, he lets me slide back to my feet; the motion means I drag over his cock, which is semi-erect. We walk on, faster now.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we step off campus and toward one of the downtown area’s side streets.
“My car,” he says.
“And then?”
“It’s a surprise. You’re free tonight, right? And tomorrow morning?”
“Are we going to your house?” I ask, and there’s no hiding the eagerness in my voice. Sebastian slides his hand down my back and raps me lightly on the ass.
“No.”
“Wait, really? We’re not?”
“You sound disappointed. But no, we’re not. And like I said: It’s a surprise,” he repeats. “You told me you trusted me, Ashlynn. Or was that only in the context of the bedroom?”
“I trust you,” I say, and I mean it.
“Good. Then come on,” he says, and hurries me along to his car.
15
It isn’t until we’ve been driving for nearly an hour that I start to question both my and Sebastian’s sanity. Where the hell are we going? North— I know that much, but that’s more or less all I know, seeing as how Sebastian isn’t so much as giving the smallest hint about our destination.
“I have a class at noon tomorrow, you know,” I say, shaking my head at this guy’s audacity. “And I’m also pretty sure this constitutes kidnapping.”
“You’ll miss it, unfortunately. And yeah, it probably does,” he answers, shooting me a challenging look as if to dare me to complain. I roll my eyes, but I’m excited and he knows it. I’d never do this sort of thing on my own, and I’m pretty sure I’d never have agreed to this sort of thing had he asked me. I feel alive and rebellious and jittery in the best way. When I text my roommates to let them know what’s happening, they send back nothing but long, elaborate strings of emojis. Maddy sends back nothing but eggplants, thumbs-ups, and winking faces.
I fall asleep around one o’clock in the morning, and am startled awake hours later when I realize the car has stopped moving. I look around frantically, trying to get my bearings— we’re in a well-lit parking lot, and Sebastian is asleep in the driver’s seat, leaned back and stretched out so far that he nearly takes up the entire car. He’s breathing deeply, totally out. I wonder how long he’s been asleep— how long he drove for before falling asleep. Is this our final destination, or did he just get too tired to drive?
I sit up as quietly as possible and take in the scenery. We’re outside an enormous old building, with pillars out front and windowpanes so ornate they look like they belong in a church. There are old rosebushes planted all around, with the last of the season’s flowers on full display. Oak trees, similar to those that dot the Berkfield campus, loom on the lawn in front of the building, but there’s no one in sight— which makes sense, given that according to my phone, it’s four o’clock in the morning.
I quietly open the car door and slink outside into the cool night air, shutting it by pressing lightly on the door’s exterior. Sebastian fidgets, but doesn’t wake up. I straighten and look around for a clue as to where we are. It’s a campus, I realize— another college. It’s not a campus I immediately recognize, but then, I didn’t look at all that many schools. Berkfield offered me a great scholarship, and that sort of made my higher education decisions for me. I creep forward, nervous in the dark, waiting to see a mascot or a sign or a something…
There— the enormous building we’re parked outside of has a beautiful label carved into the marble across the top: Sinclair Law Library. There are massive, heavy doors, and despite large windows on either side I’m unable to see anything in the darkened interior. I’m staring up at the building when I hear a car door open behind me; when I turn, Sebastian is extracting himself from the vehicle, all legs and arms and height.
“Surprised?” he asks.
“Confused,” I answer. “Why are we at the Sinclair Law Library? And where, exactly, is the Sinclair Law Library?”
He walks up to me and puts his arm ar
ound me again; I become incredibly aware of the fact that I’m wearing yesterday’s jeans and a t-shirt that I’m pretty sure I’d picked up off my bedroom floor last night— no, wait, earlier tonight— when I had no idea Sebastian Slate was on his way over. “We’re at Coastal State College. I have an old high school football buddy who goes here.”
“So we’re here to…visit your old football buddy?” I ask, feeling a surge of disappointment. Sebastian kisses my forehead swiftly, another one of those moves that tells me he’s confident we’ll be kissing plenty of times in the future.
“Nah, he’s just getting us in. We’re here for this,” he says, motioning at the law library.
My lips curve into a smile— I’m still not entirely sure what’s happening, but Sebastian is so pleased with himself and I’m so pleased to be here with him that I can’t stop a bloom of happiness from expanding in my chest. “Keep talking,” I say, leaning into him. I like that I can fall against him, like this, and know he’s not going to stumble; he’s too strong for that.
“You said last night that justice is a huge part of who you are. And given the fact that I had to literally show up at your house and take you away to get you to stop studying…I thought you might like this place. They say it’s the most beautiful college library in the country. And it’s only accessible to Coastal State law students, you know. And also only open between the hours of eight and eight.”
“But you’ve got a way to get us in, don’t you?”
“You know it,” he says, and sweeps me against him to kiss me, his face shadowed and elegant under the streetlights. He releases me, then says, “I wanted to have sex with you the moment I saw you, Ashlynn, but I also want you to know that it’s not just about that. I’m not always going to take you back to my bedroom.”