This thing we have.
Those words don’t sit well with me. It’s a relationship, dummy. That’s what it’s called when you spend all your free time with someone, give your body to them, give your heart to them.
It’s a relationship.
“Okay,” I tell him, thoroughly confused.
Kal drops me off at the train station. He offers to wait with me, but I tell him there’s no need. These trains often run late, so who knows how long he’d be waiting? He smiles and sets my weekend bag down, then plants a giant kiss on me. When he doesn’t let up and our tongues get involved, I’m at first self-conscious about the nearby people. Then I melt into that kiss and it becomes a glorious, evolving thing.
It’s incendiary, and if it’s possible to express love in a kiss, that’s what Kal is doing. At least if he can’t say it with words, he manages to get the point across.
Afterward, he whispers, “Let’s talk about this when you get back. I’d never forgive myself if I lost you.”
It’s such a sweet thing to say. I watch as he walks to his car, gives me a little wave, then drives off.
Half of me wants to scream at him to stop, to tell him I’m ready to talk about it now and that my parents can wait until summer to see me. I remain quiet though, and my train shows up a few minutes later, right on time.
The train ride back home is three hours long. For two hours, I sit in my seat thinking of nothing but Kal and his willingness to commit to what we have. He said he wanted to make it work, that we can do it if we’re both dedicated to the idea.
I’d never forgive myself if I lost you.
The words keep tumbling in my mind, as does the heat of that kiss.
Over and over and over, until it dawns on me that I don’t want to see my parents this weekend. I want to spend it with Kal, discussing our future.
I impulsively get off at the next stop and buy a ticket back to Oak Ridge, then wait for the next train. This is not the kind of thing I do; as a rule, I’m quite pragmatic. But nothing in the world appeals to me more at this moment than spending the night—hell, the entire weekend—in Kal’s arms. I call my parents and tell them something came up and I can’t make it this weekend.
I decide to surprise him. With any luck, he’ll be at his place when I get there, instead of out drinking with his buddies. I tell myself if I arrive and he’s not there, I can call and tell him what I did. But I’m hoping he’s there. I have an image of me knocking on his bedroom door and him answering, then I leap up into his arms and we tumble back into his bed.
By the time my train gets to Oak Ridge and I take an Uber to Kal’s house, I’m so excited I can barely stand it. The front door is unlocked, so I let myself in. Kal and his roommates rarely lock the place, since nobody would be stupid enough to try to rob a house full of football players.
The house is quieter than usual, but I assume that the guys are out on a Friday night. I pad quietly up the stairs and proceed down the hallway toward Kal’s room at the very end. Before I get halfway there, I hear giggling, then a woman’s voice.
“Let me go!”
A door flies open down the hall and a naked woman runs out, coming right at me. She’s tall and curvy, with long, curly black hair and giant breasts that are bouncing around like crazy.
“Sorry!” she giggles as I step aside so she can run past me. Then she ducks into the house’s sole bathroom.
When I turn and look down the hallway again, I realize that Kal’s door is the one that’s wide open—that’s the room she ran out of.
I freeze, wondering what to do. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear my own pulse in my ears, and my lungs don’t seem to want to work properly.
It can’t be. There must be a mistake.
My head is buzzing like crazy. I don’t know how long I stand there, but the bathroom door opens, and the woman emerges, still naked and this time trying her best to cover those huge tits with her hands. She giggles again as she passes, then she disappears back into the room, slamming the door behind her.
Kal’s door.
Kal’s room.
The slamming door jolts me out of my trance and I turn and dash out of the house. I signal for another Uber and by the time they get there a few minutes later, I’m a bawling mess. The poor Uber drive is concerned and asks me if there’s anything he can do to help.
Maybe he can tell me why man are such assholes.
At midnight I’m in my room at the MAA house, crying my eyes out with Brinly and Samantha trying to console me. My T-shirt is thoroughly soaked with tears.
“What do I do?”
Brinly twirls a dark auburn lock in thought. “You’re sure you want to break up with him?”
“It’s the only thing I’m sure about. I won’t let any man cheat on me, especially one I love.”
I turn to Samantha, my red eyes pleading for help. I value her advice because she’s the oldest girl in the house at age 26 and she’s been through this kind of shit before.
“Do you want to give him a chance to explain?” she asks.
I don’t want to give Kal the courtesy of listening to whatever excuse he could possibly have. I’m done with him. No second chance. He dropped me off at the train station with sweet-talk and kisses, then had another woman in his bed hours later. I shake my head, trying to control my tears.
“Okay, then do it by text,” Samantha says. “And block him right after. The girls and I have your back and we’ll make sure he never sets foot in this house again.”
Brinly adds, “In another few weeks the semester will be over, and you’ll never see him again.”
Just like that, I burst into huge sobs again. I get hugs from both girls, and we sit there on my bed in a little triangle.
Then my phone dings with Kal’s text signal. Dammit! I should have turned the ringer off.
“Is that him?” Samantha asks.
I nod.
“Let me see,” Brinly says, and I hand her the phone. She looks at it, then reads the text aloud:
Hi, baby. I’m bored. What are you up to?
The word “baby” now feels like a knife in my stomach. What can I possibly say? I want to scream at him, to confront him about the naked woman in his room.
Samantha, as usual, is the voice of reason. “My advice is to end it as quietly and quickly as possible. Don’t explain a damn thing. You don’t owe him an explanation. Just walk away and let him try to figure out what the hell he did wrong.”
So that’s exactly what I do, in a single text.
Kal, after further thought, I’ve decided we’re not a good enough match and have no real future together. Please respect my wishes and do not contact me again, ever. Bye.
I look at both girls, and they nod. Then I hit send.
“Now block him,” Samantha says. “Before he can reply, because you know you’ll read it if he does.”
I quickly block him entirely. Text, phone, Snapchat. Even Facebook, which I rarely even use.
Brinly tells me, “I would turn off your phone for the night, just to be sure.”
I turn off my phone, aching at the thought of never being able to speak to Kal again. How could he be so shallow as to stick his cock in that big-tit woman when he thought I was out of town?
Samantha says, “I’ll be right back.” She returns with Tillie, Alyssa, Lexi, Cadence, a bottle of tequila and a lime.
An hour later, I’m drunk as fuck and feeling no pain.
Or more accurately, not quite as much pain.
Chapter 4
Kal
Still April
What the fuck?
I stare my phone, bewildered. Just a few hours ago, Dani and I were talking about finding a way to keep our relationship going while I’m in grad school. The not-so-buried implication is that we’d be together after grad school as well. Maybe permanently.
Now she suddenly doesn’t ever want to hear from me again? This makes no sense at all.
I’ve never been the kind of guy to get em
otional, but when I think of a life without Dani in it, my heart grows heavy and I feel vacant inside.
I lie in my bed, wondering what could have happened at her parents’ house to turn her against me.
Obviously, I need to find out what went wrong and make it right again.
But how? Dani has apparently blocked me. My calls won’t go through and my texts aren’t being delivered.
Late Sunday evening I show up at the Mi Alpha Alpha house, strutting between the tall white Greek columns and knocking on the door.
Stacy, the chapter’s current president, opens the door and greets me with a glare.
“Is Dani back from her parents’ yet?”
“Dani doesn’t want to see you, Kal. I have instructions to tell you to leave her alone. And you are no longer welcome here at the MAA house under any circumstances.”
“Wait a minute, I don’t even know—”
The door slams in my face.
I’m not one to give up easily, but after a week I grow tired of my repeated attempts to contact Dani being denied. Sure, I could park myself in front of the Alpha house or wait next to the door of one of her classrooms, but I’m not a stalker.
Still, every time I tell myself that it’s hopeless, that I should just give up on the idea of the two of us having any kind of future together, I feel the energy drain from my entire body.
I want Dani.
Hell, I need Dani.
We are too perfect together. I have to find out what went wrong and fix it.
It’s already the end of April, so I need to come up with a plan and start working on it now.
Chapter 5
Dani
October: The Haunted House!
“Maybe I should undo one more button?”
Lola cocks an eyebrow at me as she takes a swig of her vanilla vodka cocktail.
I’m supposed to be helping her with her costume, but I’m just dispensing advice that subsequently gets ignored. “That depends. Are you trying to be a sexy cop or a slutty cop?”
The question is facetious and meant to point out that maybe undoing the top two buttons of her tight navy-blue shirt would be sufficient.
“It’s Halloween, Dani. This is the time of year where slutty wins over sexy.”
She pops the third button and pulls the top of the shirt back, exposing half of her breasts in the process. With no bra under the Lycra shirt, it’s approaching scandalous. Lucky for her she’s got a badge pinned on so that only one nipple can be seen poking out.
The Mi Alpha Alphas have a long-standing tradition for Halloween. Every year we do a haunted house, with proceeds going to the Oak Ridge Children’s Hospital. A committee of MAA sisters finds a suitable house, and we transform it into the spookiest, creepiest place imaginable.
Each MAA girl gets a room and is tasked with coming up with a theme to transform it into something scary, and we’re given full rein to be as creative as we want. Other college students pay to come into the house, then go from room to room being frightened by us. Around campus, we’re called the Halloween Honeys throughout the month of October.
“How’s the back look?” Lola asks, turning around. I see the bottom half of both of her butt cheeks because the tight shorts just don’t cover very much.
“I can see your ass, plain as day.”
“Perfect,” she says with a deviant smile.
This year’s house is an old Victorian place known locally as the Shackleford Mansion. The Shacklefords died a few year ago and the house sat vacant until Stacy’s parents bought it over the summer. They were kind enough to hold off on the scheduled renovations until after Halloween, so we’re able to use it in its existing creepy state, with the Shacklefords’ old furniture and belongings still in it.
Lola’s room has been transformed into a jail cell, with wooden “steel bars” painted black. There’s a sparse bed and fake rats around the floor. Some of the cobwebs are real. With only a single dim lightbulb to illuminate it, it’s pretty scary.
Of course, the MAA girls thought it would be hilarious for me to be Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones. The fact that it might remind me of Kal and I being known as the couple from the series didn’t seem to occur to them. I took the challenge and I’ll be the Dragon Queen every night for the next two weeks.
My room has been made over into a Dragon Queen’s lair, a fake cave with gray tarps made to look like rock walls. The best part of all is the giant dragon head I convinced the school’s Robotics Challenge Team to make for me. Now I have a big-ass dragon head with glowing red eyes that breathes dry-ice smoke (but only because the Oak Ridge Fire Department nixed their plan for actual flames). It’s a pretty cool effect because people will walk into the room not noticing the dragon, whose mouth is closed. Suddenly his eyes will light up and his mouth springs open, and out comes the billowing smoke.
“Now here’s what I suggest for you, Queen Daenerys,” Lola says as she eyes me up and down. Lola is bratty and can be overly bossy, but she’s also a lot of fun at times. “Definitely ditch the bra.”
I’m not exactly the kind of girl you’d call daring by nature. Some girls are, which is great for them. Lola has a bit of an exhibitionistic streak, so her costume’s abundance of exposed cleavage makes her happy. As for me, I’m wearing four items of clothing: a chainmail halter top, a skimpy little chainmail skirt, chainmail forearm bracers and a pair of knee-high leather boots with leather strapping circling them. Oh, and I have a fake sword to go with it all.
“The panties, too. Don’t worry, you can’t really see through the chainmail in the dark.”
“The bra and panties are the only things keeping me from feeling completely exposed, so they’re staying on.”
“It looks silly,” Lola says, snapping my bra strap. “It ruins the effect.”
Because I’ve already had two vanilla vodkas myself, we end up compromising in a way that feels more like Lola won. Specifically, I agree to wear pasties made from tan felt and taped to my boobs. When I check myself in the mirror, I have to say Lola was right. It looks sexier and less silly. Thank God my big breasts are firm enough to stand up on their own. The panties are traded in for a tan thong. I do feel exposed, but as she pointed out, the entire house is pretty dark.
An hour before the haunted house opens to the public, we gather in the large living room on the ground floor. Even this room looks creepy, with its old peeling wallpaper and worn-out painted woodwork.
The other Mi Alpha Alphas have such great costumes and are equally sexy and/or scary. Alyssa is a Brazen Angel, Samantha’s a Curvy Cougar, Marissa’s a Dirty Devil, Casey’s a Naughty Nurse, and Tillie is a Wicked Witch. Katie's a Kinky Kitten, Ava's the cutest French Maid ever, Sadie is Little Red Riding Hood, Maddie’s a Naughty Schoolgirl, Lexi’s a Dirty Dancer, Cadence is a Sexy Football Player, and Abby, MAA’s resident stoner, is Bob Marley. Jeanie will be selling tickets at the door dressed as Marilyn Monroe.
Everyone is buzzing with excitement, ready to have fun. The other girls tease me about all my exposed skin, even though most of them are showing just as much. I guess they’re not used to seeing it on me.
“Is everyone ready to go?” Stacy shouts.
“YES!” comes the group response.
“Everybody to their places,” Stacy orders, and we all giggle as we scramble to our respective rooms.
By the time we’re in our third hour of scaring people, I’m a little drunk and having a great time.
Hell, we’re all a little drunk and having a great time. Except Candace, of course, who as usual is more than a little drunk.
And I have to give Lola credit, it’s kind of awesome watching the guys who into my room and lose their composure because they think I’m naked under this chainmail. I’ve gotten hit on a few times, too. I probably should be taking their numbers, because my social life could sure use a boost after the dreadful summer I had.
The only real work involved is occasionally dropping a chunk of dry ice from the
cooler into the tub inside the dragon’s head. The robotics does all the rest, and I just welcome the guests to the Dragon Queen’s Lair and talk to them in character as Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons. It’s all good fun, and I love seeing these guys try to act all cool talking to me in my chainmail, then jump out of their skin when the dragon head comes to life.
By midnight things are beginning to calm down a little. I leave my room for a few minutes to quickly check on the other girls, sticking my head in their rooms to see how they’re doing. Everybody seems to be having an amazing time. I rush back to my room so I won’t miss any guests.
When I walk into the Dragon Queen’s Lair, I see a giant man in the middle of the room. He’s wearing brown distressed leather pants and boots, with a giant black leather cummerbund-looking thing around his waist and bunches of leather straps around his forearms.
I recognize him immediately as Khal Drogo, Daenerys’s husband from Game of Thrones. He’s got dark eye shadow and a beard with a long, braided goatee. His super-long hair is also braided, and the braids of both his hair and goatee are gathered occasionally and tied with little gold ribbons. And of course, he’s shirtless, with multiple dark stripes painted on from his biceps running back over his shoulders on both sides, just like on the show.
The costume is so dead-on perfect I can’t do anything but stand rooted in place, staring.
“Khaleesi.”
I know that deep voice.
Shit. What do I do?
“Kal, what are you doing here?”
His answer comes quickly.
“I have traveled from Vaes Dothrak to find you, Khaleesi.”
My heart starts to hurt all over again and I rapidly find myself growing angry.
“This isn’t funny. At all. Why are you here?”
His Dragon Queen (The Halloween Honeys) Page 3