The College Obsession Complete Series (Includes BONUS Sequel Novella)

by Daryl Banner

  A vibration ringing through the table brings my attention back to my friends. I look up at a waving hand. It’s Brant, his eyes flashing with excitement. He nudges Dmitri, then starts to move his hands.

  Holy shit. Brant is signing at me.

  He says: I want to have sex with the table really bad. I like singing vaginas. Can I suck your cock please?

  I quirk an eyebrow. The fuck …?

  Dmitri starts laughing his ass off, which inspires a look of utter bafflement on Brant’s face. Too late, Brant realizes he’s been pranked, as I watch his mouth form the words, “What did I just sign? Dmitri?? What the fuck did I just sign to Clayton?”

  I join in the laughter, unable to help myself. Brant meets my eyes, shaking his head with his mouth wrinkled in frustration, then he grabs Dmitri and puts him in a headlock, wrestling him to the ground and inspiring an eye roll both from Dmitri’s girl as well as Brant’s.

  I notice light flood in from the front door, but sink when I see it isn’t Dessie. My eyes comb the crowd, anxious for her to walk through that door. She’s been working on a new song. I can’t fucking wait to hear it.

  Yes, hear it. Every time she sings, I hear her music. I hear it in the way her eyes clench shut on the high notes and her nose wrinkles, as if the beauty of her music is so great, she literally feels pain. I hear it in the way she caresses the microphone stand, squirming and embracing it like a lover. I hear it in the way her lips move, working every lyric and squeezing every drop of passion from those notes that vibrate out from her core.

  Make no mistake about it. My world may be silent, but it’s her song that fills every inch of space between her mouth and my patient, hungry ears. I love that woman with every damaged piece of me—both good and bad.

  Now if she’d just get her sexy ass here, I could tell that to her face.

  Dessie

  “We’re so fucking late,” I cry out.

  “Blame it on the damn GPS. Ugh. This is such a mess,” whines Victoria.

  “I told you to use Google Maps.”

  “I know, I know. We’re basically on the right road, it’s just that it’s—”

  “Bumper-to-bumper traffic.” I sulk in my seat, frustrated beyond measure. I really should have planned this whole thing better. “This is all my fault. By the time we get there, everyone will have gone home. I’m going to be singing to a table of two.”

  “Dessie.” Victoria faces me importantly, taking her eyes off the road since we’re not moving at all anyway. I look at her, paying attention despite my sad eyes and pouty lip. “You can sing to a table of one for all I care. Clayton’s the only one who matters where this particular song is concerned, anyway. And he sure as hell will wait for you.”

  I turn to my side, staring at Victoria. I feel my insides calming at her words. “You’re so right,” I mutter finally.

  “Just you and him,” she goes on soothingly. “It doesn’t matter what time we get there. Screw everyone else.”

  I smile. “You remember when we first met and had that falling out and, like, we hated each other for a month?”

  “It was longer than a month, but yeah, I remember.” She smirks knowingly, looking away with a chuckle.

  “I’m so glad we made up. We make much better friends than enemies.”

  She nods slowly. “Agreed.”

  “Even if you have terrible taste in music.” I grab the iPhone off the dash, thumbing through her Spotify for something better to jam to.

  She totally lets me, maybe too tired from today’s “adventure” to care. The car moves a little, then brakes again. Moves, brakes. Moves, brakes. It becomes a steady, tortuous rhythm that genuinely makes me consider if we’ll even make it back to the Throng before midnight.

  “So why him?”

  I look up from the phone, thrown by the question. “What do you mean?”

  “Why Clayton?” She shrugs, her hands hanging from the bottom of the steering wheel. “I mean, everyone and their dog warned you about him. He has anger issues. Or had. Or has. He’s got this big shady question mark of a past.”

  “Not so much a question mark anymore,” I point out quietly.

  “I’m certainly not trying to plant a big ol’ bag of doubt in your heart,” she adds with a sympathetic touch to my arm, “but there was just a zillion reasons to break it off and find someone else when you two first started dating and things got rocky. Why’d you stick around?” she asks, cocking her head at me. “Why him?”

  I smile coyly, considering her question. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been juggling around in my mind all day. Why Clayton, indeed? Why is he the man for me? “I’ve always felt like there’s something dark and damaged about me,” I start off. “I don’t want to sound too self-deprecating, but after living a childhood in the shadow of my perfect sister Cece and the incomparable monolith of a shadow cast by my mother, I always felt like there was something wrong with me … or failed, or broken, or completely lacking. My life changed when I took the leap and came down here to Klangburg University. Clayton … He’s been misunderstood his whole life. He’s fought demons thanklessly. It’s not even about him being deaf, even if that’s a huge part of him. He doesn’t see it as a struggle, and neither do I. It’s just a quality about him, and a quality to be proud of, at that. He has brown eyes. He has brown hair. He has a laugh that lights me up, a smile that can kill, and he’s deaf. And he loves lighting up the world, and why shouldn’t he? There’s so much darkness in it. And whether I like to admit it or not, there’s darkness in me. He lights up my life.” I scoff at my own words suddenly, rolling my eyes to face Victoria. “Ugh, that was cheesy. Never let me say ‘He lights up my life’ again.”

  But when my eyes meet Victoria’s, I don’t find her sharing in the cheesiness. Quite the opposite, I find her teary-eyed and touched, a hand drawn to her mouth. “Oh, Dessie,” she murmurs.

  “What?” I blurt, concerned.

  “You have to tell him that. All of that. That was so beautiful.” She sniffles, then wipes away a tear. “Shit, girl, you made me cry. Shit, fuck, damn. ‘Lights up my life’ … Lord, help me, if I ever found someone like that.” She wipes away another tear from the other eye, flicking it away.

  “You will,” I assure her, taking her hand into mine and giving it a squeeze. “You will.”

  “We’re getting you to the Throng in time. We’re getting you up on that stage.” She faces me importantly, her eyes shimmering with emotion. “And you’re singing him your song.”

  Clayton

  It’s two hours later that the lights suddenly dim, as if preparing for the show. I flinch because I wasn’t expecting it to start. Where’s Dessie? I look at my tablemates, concerned, but none of them seem to share my worries as they all focus up on the stage, which now bears the full brunt of the lights boldly shining.

  And then Dessie appears. I melt at the sight of her. I love that woman so fucking much. She wears the red top I got her for her birthday, which flows and caresses her body in all the right places. Her hair cascades in tangles and waves around her shoulders, a coil or two resting on her beautiful breasts. Her face is angelic and smooth and beautiful. I want to toss the table over, rush up to her, and make love with her right there where she stands.

  She eyes me importantly, then mouths the words, “I love you,” at me.

  I hold up the sign right back at her—a fist with just the thumb, index finger, and pinky sticking out: I love you.

  She takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, and then she starts to speak, and she signs at the same time so I know exactly what it is that she says: “Thank you so much for coming here tonight. I know I’m late. A particular errand I had to run put quite a wrinkle in my schedule today. Thank you for your patience. I have a song that I’ve written and prepared with the help of the band, as well as my good friend Sam, that I would like to share with you. It’s a deeply personal song. And …”

  She stops, her eyes meeting mine again. She smiles, overcome with som
e sort of emotion that seems to boil up from within her, spilling over.

  “And,” she resumes, both with her mouth and her hands, “I want to dedicate this to my boyfriend, my love, my one and only. It’s called, His Song Of Silence.”

  Vibrations thrum through the room. I feel the work of a bass guitar, or perhaps the deep, bass notes on the piano. I feel the surge of music through the room and the effect it has on those at the table with me. Dessie rocks slowly to the music, dancing with the notes that swarm and flutter and push past her like a breeze.

  Then she opens her eyes, presses her lips to the microphone, and she sings. Her hands join the dance, feeding me her beautiful lyrics in sign form.

  And I listen.

  A tree sings a song of leaves

  Knows what it ought to do

  Knows what it ought to be

  A bird sings a song of homes

  Where it ought to fly

  Where its family roams

  But there is another, another sound no one hears

  It’s a song of silence

  It’s a song of fears

  And when I press my head to my lover’s chest

  It’s the only song I hear

  Yes, there’s another, another music no one knows

  That song of silence

  A song that grows

  I wish I was lucky enough to hear that music

  That only my lover knows

  Maybe if I’m lucky enough to wake every day

  Next to my lover

  Then I’ll discover

  The song of silence he’s come to embrace

  I see my love for him

  All over his face

  Another light fades in, slowly mixing with the rest, until its color burns bright and sets it apart from the others. A spotlight now shines on a dark wall in the back of the room, a light that comes from that strange instrument I was observing earlier, the instrument with the peculiarly-shaped gobo installed within it.

  The shape of the light against the back wall is a ring.

  My eyes flash open at the realization. A ring …

  Dessie continues her song:

  And if I’m not just another, another woman in your life

  Take this ring from me, baby

  Let me be your lucky wife

  And if you’ll have me forever, let me know

  So you can light up my life

  Every day. Every morning.

  Every show.

  Suddenly, there’s a slap on my back. Brant’s there and he’s guiding me out of my chair. He was in on this. They were all in on this. I can’t even seem to make my legs work on their own. Is this really happening? The chair falls back when I rise, but I pay it no mind. I see hands moving everywhere—Are they applauding?—and Brant guides me to the stage.

  I draw closer and closer to Dessie, my love, my everything. I’m breathing so deeply. The world is going blurry. Fuck, am I crying?

  “Baby …” she says and signs. “My love … Clayton.”

  She pulls a silver ring out of her pocket that’s textured to look like a coil of rope. I’m paralyzed by the rugged beauty of it as it glimmers in the stage light between her fingers.

  “Will you marry me?” she mouths.

  And I read her lips.

  I read her lips perfectly.

  “Yes,” I tell her in one fleeting breath.

  The corners of my eyes erupt in the visual noise of celebration, of bodies moving and hands applauding. Dessie slips the ring on my finger and meets my eyes.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, overcome. “Every day, forever, always, you’re my favorite song.”

  “And you’re my light,” she says, and I hear her words with every cell in my body.

  I pull her close, our lips uniting, and embrace her in my arms. The room can celebrate with all its noise made by hundreds of other people’s happiness—and all the hands in the room that erupt in applause, clapping their excitement and approval. Hundreds of lips that shout their joy and their celebration.

  But it’s only one person’s happiness I’ll ever need. Only one set of hands. Only one set of lips. Hers, hers, hers.

  The End.

  Keep turning the page to read the final full-length novel in the series, With These Hands, which is both a prequel and a sequel to the series. Right under our noses, there was a romance brewing since freshman year that no one knew about.

  Sam & Dmitri are about to tell us the four-year-long story of what really happened between them.

  Book 3: With These Hands

  Dedication

  I want to dedicate this book to my mom, whose tireless devotion and encouragement got me through college, and who still stands by my side through this post-college journey as I chase a dream or two. I hope someday to be half the warrior she is!

  This book is nothing like the first two. You should be warned. This is not a sweet boy-meets-girl romance that ties neatly into a bow. Like real life, our hero and heroine endure a lot of trials and missteps on their journey toward one another. Love isn’t always a straight path.

  I had to tell Sam and Dmitri’s story with as much integrity as I could. It spans four years, taking us back to when it started: freshman year. This book is a prequel, a parallel book, and a sequel to the others in the series, which makes With These Hands a particularly unique sort of standalone novel. To make the timeline more clear for you:

  - Freshman year tells the events occurring before the series began.

  - Sophomore year takes place during Read My Lips, book 1.

  - Junior year takes place during Beneath The Skin, book 2.

  - Senior year is completely new territory, like a sequel to the series.

  Now it’s time to let Sam & Dmitri tell their story. There will be some upset, a lot of angst, and some heartbreak before our lovers find their happiness. It’s all woven into a journey of self-discovery, growing up, and learning from our mistakes through four years of college.

  With all that said, I’ll leave Sam & Dmitri to tell their story. Please enjoy your enrollment at Klangburg University one last time.

  With love & happy reading always,

  Daryl

  Prologue

  Dmitri

  I want to put my hands all over her body.

  But they’re too busy writing my fantasy instead of living it.

  I’m so used to spinning love stories in my head that I’ve lost track of the one in my heart.

  Doesn’t she see that my strength begins and ends within the four corners of the page?

  I may be a writer, but with her, I’m a romantic. I want to pin her against every wall on this campus and devour her – lips to lips, skin to skin, hand to hand. I want to feel her heart race against mine and her body quake under my touch.

  I’m finished being a loveless prisoner to the page.

  Now I want the real thing – and I think she’s it.

  Sam

  Everyone thinks I’m just a weirdo, the quiet girl, the music nerd. No one sees me for who I really am – except him.

  He watches me with those dark, sensitive eyes of his, melting me. He knows my pain. Maybe he shares it. He brushes the hair out of my eyes with his soft, skillful hand and it drives me insane. I think he’s the music I’ve been looking for all along. You can’t make harmony with just one voice. I need another – and I want it to be his.

  Freshman Year

  Chapter 1

  Sam

  I didn’t realize scratching those words down on that crinkled sheet of paper would change my life. But it did.

  Everything that happens comes from the moment when my pale, quivery, uncertain hand writes those two words which, put together, happen to become my name.

  Samantha Hart.

  I’ve seen my name all my life—on chalkboards, on forms, on every homework assignment I ever turned in. But now, my little harmless name is about to change everything.

  And it’s all because of the hot boy across the room—the tortured
one with the poetry and the pain in his eyes. He’s the reason my whole life flips on its plump, baffled ass.

  But before I gaze into those deep black pools he has for eyes, or hunger across the classroom for the soft touch of his fingers on my skin, or dream of what his lips might feel like searching for mine in the dark, I’m busy stumbling across the campus in search of my class.

  The class he’s at right now.

  But I don’t know that yet. I’m lost, hugging a fat textbook to my chest and staring at the cacophony of noise, laughter, and students crashing like ocean waves before me.

  First day of college. Freshman year.

  Suddenly I’m a woman. And I’m on my own.

  High school was hell and a half, and I already miss it desperately. It made sense. I was told what to do all day long. I had guidance.

  Where’s my first class again?