Unexpected Lover: College Romance Book 1

by Scarlett Archer

  He takes a long gulp of his drink and I return the straw to my mouth and drink it, delicately. I watch him subtly and he runs his thumb down through the condensation on the side of the bottle. I can feel the mood plummeting, and while I want to be supportive of his mid-college crisis, I also want to have fun.

  I know it sounds horrific and disgustingly selfish, but I can appease myself by saying that he needs to have some fun too. Maybe, when I reveal myself properly, we can have a real talk about why he doesn’t feel like it’s worth his time, and I can convince him out of quitting.

  “So, you have no real plans. I have no real plans. Want to have no real plans together?” I offer.

  He lowers his drink back onto the bar and regards me closely, but not in the way other men do. He’s not looking at me like a piece of entertainment, but rather like an actual person.

  “That, Isobel, sounds like a plan.”

  I laugh and his eyes brighten. He takes the final gulp of his drink and orders another as I move onto my second of the night. I’m no stranger to alcohol, but it has been a while since I’ve been drinking, and I’m worried it will hit me too hard and too quickly. I should really slow it down.

  “You OK?” He asks, and I realize that while I was thinking to myself, I’d let my face drop.

  I do that sometimes, and people worry that I’m sad or angry, but I’m not. I’m just easily distracted and my face doesn’t externally represent my internal thoughts. It’s a great conversation starter, but it bothers me that people worry so much.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… thinking.” I respond, elusively.

  “Anything interesting?”

  I could use this to my advantage. I should say something seductive, something to draw him in.

  “I was just thinking about where this night will take us.” I take another drink and look at him through my eyelashes. “Maybe we’ll find ourselves an adventure?”

  “An adventure?” He seems intrigued. That’s good.

  “Well, yes. Goodness only knows what will happen between now and us getting home.” I pull a stray lock of my dark hair and begin twisting it between my fingers. “I always feel that the world is just beyond my fingertips.”

  I stretch out my arm and wiggle my fingers, making a show of what I’m saying.

  “When the moon climbs into the sky, I always feel like I can actually touch it. We’re open to so many possibilities.” My fingers lightly brush on his arm and he looks down at my hand. “We can do whatever we want, be whoever we feel, go wherever our hearts drive us.”

  He looks at my hand that I’ve placed on the bar and he lifts his own hand and places it next to mine. He looks up at me and winks.

  “I know what you mean.”

  We sit in comfortable silence, our fingers a hair-width apart as we drink the remainder of our drinks.

  “Shall we move to a table?” I ask, eyeing up a table in the corner, set for two.

  It’s one of the few empty tables in the entire bar. The rest are filled with groups and couples.

  Peter turns to look at the table and nods in agreement.

  “Yeah. I’ll get another round delivered to the table.”

  I stand up and walk to the table, lowering myself into the chair and making sure that no one see’s anything they shouldn’t by holding by dress against my thighs.

  While I wait for him to arrive, I observe the rest of the bar. Behind this table is a couple with their heads together, whispering lovely nonsense to each other. They’re so quiet that I cannot hear a word that they’re saying. A stark contrast from the table a few feet to our left, who’re obnoxiously loud and unashamedly gossiping.

  I want to throw my glass at them, but I forget about them the moment Peter sits down opposite me.

  “Can I be honest with you, Isobel?” He asks, as he plays with the lime in the top of his beer bottle.

  “Of course. Honesty is a great policy.”

  He laughs and takes a drink, before slowly setting his bottle down and looking down at his coaster.

  “I didn’t come here tonight with any particular plan.”

  “We established that earlier.”

  “Yeah, but I mean that I didn’t know what I wanted. I came here looking for something to do, something to help me change the direction of my life.”

  I give him a scrutinizing look, but he remains focused on the coaster. He’s definitely not making eye contact with me on purpose. What is he thinking? What is he going to say?

  “I think you are going to be an important part of my life after tonight.” He finishes, still not looking up at me.

  I wait, hoping there’s more because what he said doesn’t really make any sense. Why would I be important in his life? I’m barely important in my own. Everything I want is dependent on other people and other circumstances. So, why would he consider me important?

  He finally looks up and stares deep into my eyes, as if he’s going to find the answers for his life in there. I feel myself leaning forward, like I’m letting him get a better look.

  “Isobel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Not at all.”

  Peter sighs heavily and leans back in his chair. I let myself fall back, not sure what to do now. I don’t want him to be sad, but I’m not sure if he truly expected me to understand what he was talking about.

  “Are you ok?” I ask, apprehensively.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” He lifts his chin and smiles at me, his mouth slanted, as though he’s a boy getting up to no good.

  I find myself copying him, and I suddenly feel very rebellious. I want to go and run around and get up to mischief with Peter. I want to do stuff with this boy, I don’t want to be Isobel, the good little girl with her head down and her mind on her studies. I want to be exciting, and I think I understand what Peter means. I think he’s going to be important to me after tonight, too.

  “Shall we go and do something fun?” I ask, making no attempt to hide my hidden agenda.

  He reaches over the table and takes me hand.

  “Sure. Where are you thinking?”

  Well, not my room. He can’t see that I live like an animal. He’d more likely fall over and get a head injury. A trip to the emergency room is not my idea of a great night out, and I doubt that it’s his either.

  “I don’t know.” I admit, hoping to all the gods that he doesn’t ask to come back to my house.

  “Want to come to my apartment?”

  Oh, thank god.

  “Sounds like we finally have a plan.”

  I finish my drink, and he does the same. He goes to the bar to pay, even though I would happily have paid my share. I don’t complain though. That’s something the other Isobel would have done. Not this Isobel. She is used to men buying her drinks, and she doesn’t care about the fairness of it. She will happily repay the favour later.

  I quickly look in my purse to make sure I have protection, because while this Isobel may be up for a little fun, she definitely isn’t up for getting pregnant or an STI. I sigh a breath of relief when I spot it and I clip my bag closed and wait patiently for Peter to return.

  We step into the street and I feel the cold take hold of my skin, forcing goose bumps to rise. Peter puts his arms around me and we begin to walk before he pulls his jacket off and places it over my shoulders. I pull it tighter around me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not to worry. Look at all this muscle I have to protect me.” He wiggles his biceps and I laugh.

  He pulls me into him and we walk up the street.

  The moon hangs high in the sky, casting an eerie glow on the concrete jungle below. Some of the houses in this are high rise, but most of them are only three floors. It looks like a game of Tetris.

  I shift my arm from under his and take his hand. In comparison, mine are tiny. He could easily take both of mine in his.

  “So, aside from… uh, waitressing, what else do you do?” He asks, giving me
a sidelong glance.

  “You mean ‘aside from waitressing and partying’?”

  He laughs and looks at me skeptically.

  “Sure.” He squeezes my hand, and I feel strangely reassured in my alter-ego. “Tell me what kinds of things you do.”

  “I want…”

  I let my voice die out.

  What does other me want? What would I want to be if I wasn’t working towards being a doctor? I consider my options for a few moments and then look down at myself, regarding my body with keen, criticizing eyes.

  “I want to be a model.” I say, not sure if I’m even lying or not.

  “Well, I think you’d be perfectly suited for that job. You’re beautiful.”

  I smile shyly, but have to remind myself that Isobel wouldn’t be shy, so I lift my chin up and smile smugly.

  “Thank you. I think so too.”

  He laughs aloud, throwing his head back and opening his mouth so wide that I can see all of her perfect teeth.

  Secretly, I want to thank him for saying I’m beautiful. All of me, and not just my body. Most people consider the body to be the most important part of modelling, and I understand why, but when someone says, ‘you have a great body’, it actually doesn’t do very much for one’s self-esteem. Like, yeah, my body is good, but what about me.

  Peter may be the first person I’ve known who’s called my entirety beautiful. There’s nothing I can do to stop the burning blush spreading across my nose and cheeks.

  Suddenly, Stacy’s words ring out in my head.

  “Never go near one of the college students, Bell. The rumours are bound to be horrific. Besides, you need a man. Not a boy.”

  Does this apply to Peter? He’s not a boy, I can tell that just by looking at him. He’s a man, and a good one at that, if not a little misguided. Would he spread rumours about me? Is that something I’m willing to risk?

  No.

  But other me is. Other me knows that if rumours do start to spread, it doesn’t matter because the real Isobel is mostly sweet and innocent. People either won’t believe them, or I won’t be around enough to suffer the consequences. Like I said, I don’t go out often. My time is spent studying and attending lectures.

  But I don’t think he would do that. He seems too nice. Too sweet.

  “What about you? Would you really want to be an artist?” I ask, curious about what he would do without his degree in medicine.

  “Well, I do have surgeon’s hands, so I could definitely be an artist. I’ve got some hidden talents up my sleeve, but if I’m honest, then no. Art really isn’t something I’d consider a career in.” He goes silent for a minute and I can feel his mind working through some options. “I guess I’d love to study chemistry. I always did experiments as a kid, but when I got to senior year at high school, I didn’t have time to get any of my ideas on paper.”

  He runs his spare hand through his hair and falls silent again. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never truly considered another option. I used to really enjoy dance as a child, but there was never a point in which I’d genuinely though about a career in it, despite both my mother and my dance instructor telling me I had a future there.

  I’d watched the music videos. I refused to be one of the girls who dressed the way they did. I have no issues with the girls themselves. They’re doing what they want, and good on them, but I’m far too conservative. I don’t like the skimpy outfits, and I definitely wouldn’t like the idea of my dad seeing me dressed like that. I know he wouldn’t make a fuss, but I know he wouldn’t like it any more than I would.

  When I gave up dancing at fifteen, in order to focus on my school work, my mother didn’t speak to me for a week. I was so angry at her, and kept telling her that it was my future, not hers. My dad had taken me to the side, told me not to worry. Apparently, in my mother’s younger years, she’d hoped to be a dancer, but those dreams fell through when she met my father and became pregnant with me.

  I was even angrier then. Did she truly believe that she had any right to expect me to fall into her little dream because of guilt? It’s not my fault she wanted to fornicate. It’s not down to me that she threw away her dream, and it’s not my job to fill that hole. She should be proud of my achievements. I’m going to become a doctor. A doctor! Most parents would be ecstatic.

  My dad is, at least.

  We walk in thoughtful silence for about five minutes until I feel a tug on my arm, and find myself being taken inside a tall building.

  “This is my place. Are you sure you want to come in? I could call you a cab?”

  Normal me is considering his offer, but other me is saying; ‘Not today, Isobel.’

  Normal me also notices how sweet he is for offering. A lot of guys that I know would’ve considered it their god given right to have their way with me, especially after paying for the drink. He sees no sense of owner ship that those other pigs seem to have. He did something nice and does so see it as a one for the other kind of thing.

  He’s not a boy at all.

  “No, it’s OK. I’d like to… stay.”

  He beams at me, and pulls me up the stairs gently. I follow willingly, smiling to myself. I don’t notice anything about his apartment, because on the stairs he pulls me into him and his lips meet mine. We kiss for a few seconds, before climbing some more of the stairs. It must have taken us around two hours to get up the stairs because we kept stopping to kiss.

  Finally, he takes me into his arms and we fall onto the bed, our kissing growing more furious by the minute.

  Oh god, he’s such a good kisser.

  CHAPTER 02

  Peter wakes up, feeling stupidly happy. His head swims with images of Isobel, looking like a super star in her golden dress and with her long, dark hair hanging over one shoulder. Her bright smile and green eyes that swim with such enjoyment and innocence that Peter almost feels protective of her.

  Maybe it’s love.

  He throws out and arm and realizes that she isn’t still in bed with him. He sits up and looks around his room, alarmed that he can’t see her at all.

  “Crap.” He mutters to himself as her hastily pulls his dressing gown on and runs from his room the kitchen.

  “Mom!” He screeches to a half, momentarily dumbfounded by her appearance. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m cooking you breakfast, silly!” She says it so casually, as though it doesn’t take a five-hour car journey to get here.

  “Why?”

  “Is it such a crime to want to check in on my favorite son?”

  “I’m your only son.” Peter groans.

  “Same difference.” She shrugs and continues to flip bacon and fry eggs.

  He hears the toilet flush and he remembers that she still hasn’t found Isobel yet.

  “Mom, please don’t be weird but… Jake?”

  He was expecting Isobel to emerge, obviously, so seeing Jake is a surprise. It shouldn’t be, since he lives in the same house with Peter, but he usually isn’t around until late the day after he works. The boy has such lose morals that he tends to go back to the house of the drunkest girl in the bar, only rolling back to inform Peter of his latest endeavors.

  Jake’s cocky smile widens and he spreads his arms out like a kind addressing his people.

  “You seem shocked to find me here, in my own home.”

  “I’m surprised to see you here at this time of day.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought I’d surprise you.” He winks and seats himself at the table.

  “Dude, you could have warned me that my mom is here.”

  “Oh, shit yeah.” Jake puts on his serious face. “Peter, your moms here.”

  Peter takes a deep breath, knowing that he can’t get angry while his mom’s here, but he also wants to keep searching the house for Isobel.

  He looks down the corridor where the bathroom and Jake’s bedroom sit side-by-side. He sees no-one and there are no signs of life.

  “You looking for the girl in the golden dress? I�
��m afraid your little tart did a runner a few hours ago.” Jake says, as he takes a deep drink of his orange juice.

  Peter’s anger flares back up.

  “She is not a tart!” Peter spits, roughly pulling a chair towards him and sitting down.

  Why did she leave? He wonders, feeling a little hurt. We had a good time, didn’t we?

  His mom places a plate on the table in front of him and pats his shoulder lovingly.

  “Bacon and eggs will make you feel better, son.” She says, as she turns back into the kitchen and gives Jake a plate too.