However, I can’t complain about this one. I actually have an admiration for classical literature and have quite a few books in my room on a shelf. Ty teased me, calling me a book nerd, but I believe in escaping reality and jumping into another world. How does that not sound enticing? Especially with all the tragic and heartbreaking incidents going on in the world, starting with our shitty president, and the rest is never-ending, with terrorism and hatred and cruelty. It’s a real wonder how everyone doesn’t read to get away from it all, even if it’s just for a second.
I pack up my things and sling my backpack over my shoulder. Red passes by me in such a rush, she’s mostly a blur. She melts into the growing crowd dispersing out of the room. Watching her shove through the throng of people makes me smile for some reason. Her rudeness should be a warning, a sign to back up and let her fire away. But it only draws me closer. I watch her leave the room and follow closely behind.
“So, I was thinking eight,” I say, walking next to her.
She looks at me, shocked, then angry. “What are you talking about, prep?”
I gasp as if offended. “The time you should come over to start our short story. I was thinking it should be about a ballerina and a bad boy. You know, mix things up a bit.”
“Are you on something? LSD? Molly? Crack?” she accuses.
“Clean as a whistle.” I whistle low, and her mouth tilts upward for a split second. But that glorious second is enough to make my heart go nuts. “And besides, I think we’d work very well together.”
“I think otherwise,” she says and stops walking. She’s looking ahead, jaw tense and locked. Whatever it is, it’s pissing her off.
Tanner, her boyfriend I’m assuming, appears from behind a column, smoking a cigarette. Am I going crazy, or is he glaring at me, but also smirking? Does he have a problem with me, or is he naturally this weird? What I’m really wondering is why is she with him?
He creeps me out, so I put my attention back on Red, who’s already staring up at me.
“I really mean no on the project. I’m sure one of the many bimbos in there would love the help, though.” She pats my shoulder like I’m a pathetic puppy that tripped over its paws and fell on its face. Then she spins around on her batty combat boots and struts over to her asshole, creepy boyfriend who has this sinister smirk on his face before he pulls her away from my sight.
When I get to the fraternity house, most of the guys are already here. There’s a group in the living room playing video games. It’s like they’re addicted to the PlayStation. I wonder if their parents know they piss away their time here on video games rather than the coursework. But I get it. They need time away from this place, and the controllers are their getaway cars. It’s the same with me, except instead of PlayStation, an empty canvas is my way out of this horrible world. And, for the time being, terrible place.
I walk over to the entryway and notice Mike on one of the leather couches, trash talking a guy with dark hair as they shoot at each other on the 50-inch flat TV screen. “I got next game,” I say and flop onto the spot next to Mike. He and the guy are playing Call of Duty. I’m not the best at the game, but I’m not entirely hopeless.
“All right. Just gimme a few to finish whooping his ass,” he says and veers left with the remote. He shoots the suited-up soldier in the face and fist pumps the air. “Fuck yeah!” he shouts. I laugh and accept the remote from the pissed-off guy, who glares at Mike before sauntering out of the living room. “Sore loser.” He shakes his head and flashes a grin at me. “Ready to die, fool?”
“Excuse me?” I cue up the next game. “You’re the one that should start planning your funeral. Do you want a rose thrown on your casket or…?”
He bumps his shoulder into mine, chuckling. “Shut up and pick out your guns.”
“Fine, fine.” I choose three random guns, and Mike whistles next to me. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, watching the three-second countdown on the screen. “I just wouldn’t have picked your last gun choice.”
“And why is that?” I ask as the game initiates. We’re on either side of a large yacht. I begin moving my character on the left side, watching out for him all around. I saw a glimpse of him playing the other guy, and he’s pretty good. He must clock in some good hours to be able to scope out the guy fifty meters away.
“Because of this,” he says. It all happens so fast, I don’t even see it coming. He rounds the corner, sliding on the floor, shooting me before I can pull out my heavy shotgun.
“Damn,” I mutter, and he chuckles. “Don’t be like that. I’ll just switch out the gun.”
“Too late.” He veers to the right, and he appears behind me after I re-spawn. I try to whip around and defend myself, but he shoots me in the back, and I watch the last three seconds before re-spawning again. “I’m already whooping your ass.”
And whoop my ass he does for the next ten minutes. The rounds seem never-ending. I’m guessing it’s his doing. He really seems to enjoy watching me die as I try to defend myself each time I find him a little too late. When I ask him how come he’s so good at it, he tells me he played constantly with his little brothers, Nicky and James, and that his parents fought so much it was a routine, so they played to tune it out. My heartstrings are tugged at when he tells me. And when he asks why I suck so much, I tell him I’m an only child and that my parents wanted me to play tennis and learn the piano instead.
“So,” I say after the game ends and another pair of guys take the remotes to continue playing, “what do you know about Red?”
He looks at me suspiciously, lips tugged up in a smirk. “Why? You falling in love already?”
“Is it that noticeable?” I joke, and he laughs. I run a hand over my hair. “Nah, it’s just…I don’t know. She’s just a bit complicated. And I’m kind of not used to that. Not that I’m into her or anything. I don’t know how to talk to her without pissing her off somehow.”
His brows concave, and he nods. “Trust me, it took me a while to get the hang of her too. But I sort of had to, since Majesty loves to hang around here and mess with her brother. Once you get used to her intensity, it gets easier.” He pauses. “But for real, you thinking of getting with her?”
I shake my head, gripping my hair. “Of course not. We just have a class together and, like you said, she’ll probably be around. I want to know how to talk to her. That’s all.”
“Okay. I believe you,” he says but winks with a knowing smile.
Why does he look like that?
“Shut up.” I bump shoulders with him, and he laughs. I stand up. “Thanks for the game. See you around.” He nods at me before one of the guys begins talking to him. I leave him and the rest in the living room, jogging up the long stairs.
On the second floor, I decide I’m going to take a long nap. When I wake up, I’ll work on the English assignment. Red pops up in my brain and how she turned me down comically by doodling a big fat no above her head. Even though she harshly turned me down, I can’t get over her laughter when she did. It was as if bruising my ego was a fun hobby she’d discovered and loved. I weirdly don’t mind, I realize, as I recall how her eyes lit up and she looked so amused.
I wonder how much of my ego she plans on crumbling. And I wonder how much will be destroyed before I’m not solely focused on that damned smile.
When I open my bedroom door, I feel my energy drop. It isn’t fully open before I spot a lean guy with dark hair, wearing all black, leaning against a study desk, his eyes trained on the floor, head tilted to the side. I try to recall all the faces of the people living in this house, but even so, he looks a few years older. So he doesn’t go to this school. And by the looks of it, he doesn’t belong on this campus. I spot a neck tattoo creeping up under the collar of his leather jacket, when he turns his head and looks me up and down. He doesn’t say anything, which just makes this even weirder.
“Um, hi.” I nod at him unsurely. Maybe Ty knows him…
He grins, but it doe
sn’t reach his light blue eyes. “Hey.” There’s something about his smile that doesn’t sit right with me.
I should say something. I don’t want to be rude. But I have no idea who he is, and he gives me the creeps. What is it with guys dressing like the Grim Reaper today? First Timmy, or whatever Red’s boyfriend’s name is, and now this guy.
“Yo, Noah!” Ty enters the room and stops short. His face falls a little when he sees the man, almost like he’s…scared. “’Sup.” He nods at him, and the guy smiles wider. Something crosses his shining blue eyes, and Ty nods to himself. “Mind if I talk to you outside?” he asks me.
He pulls me out of the room, leaving the door cracked with a tiny gap.
“What’s wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost,” I joke lightly, but the look of slight fear and anxiety doesn’t fade away. “Seriously. Are you okay? Is there something wrong with that guy in there?”
“You should not be worrying about that guy.”
“Why not?”
“Noah, seriously. Just…” He takes a long, thoughtful breath. “Do you mind lending me a fifty? I promise, I swear, I will pay you back. I just don’t have it on me right now and he—”
I place a hand on his tense shoulder. “Calm down, okay? It’s totally fine. I’ve got you.” I give him an assuring smile. I dig into my pocket and pull out my wallet. He thanks me repeatedly and tries giving me a smile back, but it merely bleeds through the sheer look of terror on his face. Whoever the guy is, he’s dangerous. And Ty obviously owes him money—for what, God knows, but I hope it isn’t for what I think it is.
I give him the crisp bill, and he asks me to stay out of the room for a moment, so I do. When the guy finally leaves, he leaves deftly, and when I enter the room, his dark presence lingers. I want to ask him about the guy, but the way he sighs into a hand on his bed and claps large headphones over his ears tells me he isn’t feeling too chatty. My head floods with theories before I can help it. None of them are good.
Worry fills me, and I glance over at him as I jot down ideas for my short story for a few minutes. Before I can toss a shoe at him and ask if he’s in any trouble, my phone buzzes in my pocket. It must be Liv. I pull it out and put my spiral notebook aside. There’s a new text message.
Unknown: okay.
I rack my brain for someone I gave my number to recently but come up empty. Ty, Mike, and a few other guys are already programmed into my phone, so this has to be a stranger.
I unlock my phone.
Noah: Okay what? And who is this?
Unknown: Red, idiot.
My eyes widen, and a million thoughts infiltrate my mind. One: how did she get my number? Two: what does she mean, okay? And three: when did I start to program her in my phone?
And okay means???
I text her and nearly snort when I read her response.
Red: It means OK I WILL WORK ON THE FUCKING PROJECT WITH YOU NOW SHUT UP ABOUT IT OK?!
Noah: All right, I got it, Rossa.
I smirk because I know for a fact she doesn’t know what that means.
Red: The name’s Red, stupid.
I can perfectly see her sneering at me with a nasty eye roll.
Noah: It means Red in Italian.
I await her response. I bite my thumb nervously, but I stop when I realize I must look like a shy schoolgirl texting her crush. And Red is not my crush. And I’m also not a teenage schoolgirl. Duh. But I can’t even seem to help it; she has this energy about her that pulls me in when I should be running away. Sort of like an unknowing moth drawn to a flame. In this case, I’m the moth and she’s the fire: hot, enthralling, and painful to touch. Yet I keep getting closer and closer, ignoring the surrounding waves of heat.
Red: Shut up.
I burst into laughter. Ty glances over at me, and I blush, supporting the theory that I’m secretly a schoolgirl, but looks away when something on his phone interests him more. I look at my screen and type back a reply, smiling as I do, but she interrupts.
Red: I’ve gotta go. But we’re only doing this on one condition.
Noah: Which is???
Red: You delete my number when it’s done.
I pause.
Noah: Sure you don’t wanna keep my number? I’m a great listener. I’d text you good morning every day.
She fires back the way I expected her to.
Red: It’s either that or nothing Picasso. I don’t need you for that extra gooey shit. K?
Noah: Got it. Talk to you later, Rossa.
I attach a peace sign behind the words.
Her response is almost immediate.
Red: And no emojis.
I’m cracking up at myself when I text her back.
Noah: Byee Red.
I add the kiss emoji and fire emoji.
She doesn’t respond.
I burst out into laughter and stare at the lack of text on her side. She’s just as unenthusiastic with me in text, and it tickles my funny bone. It’s strange because she’s reacting the opposite of all the girls I’ve interacted with. It’s refreshing in a way. She’s definitely different—a challenge. I haven’t experienced much, so it’s like a breath of fresh air. Not that girls are supposed to be taken as tests and used for excitement. With Red, it’s like a siren whispering in my ear, Do you have what it takes? And instead of looking for a hidden message, I’m replying, Let me find out.
Chapter Seven
Red isn’t in English class the next day. For some reason, theories—insane, crazy theories—fill my head the entire class as I repeatedly look toward the door. All involve that strange guy that was in Ty’s and my bedroom yesterday. One of them speculates if he sought her out and whisked her away to some island to do God knows what with her…but the idea sounds too crazy and too ridiculous to remain in my head, so I expel it and try my best to focus on what the professor is saying.
When the professor announces the end of class, I realize I drew her lips on the corner of my spiral notebook. I don’t know how to feel about it. I chalk it up to the lack of time I’ve had to really paint anything. Sure, I drew that cartoon and a few other things mindlessly, but it isn’t physically picking up a brush and creating a sunset out of a few colors. It isn’t smelling the scent of beds of flowers beneath a terrace. It just isn’t.
The second I step outside, I spot her.
Red.
She’s casually leaning against the wall, staring at her chipped black fingernails with a bored expression sketched on her face. A small smile gravitates on my face, and I walk over to her and lean against the wall. Her gaze flies up, and she stares at me for a moment as if struck by a flash of light before clearing her throat and taking a step back for good distance.
“Were you waiting for me?” I ask in a teasing manner.
“Yes, but just because I want to get started on this damned project,” she explains and pushes off the wall completely. “And we gotta go now. I have something else to do.” She begins to walk away before I can even register her words. I catch up next to her as we walk onto the campus lawn. The quad is buzzing with activity and laughter and lots of groups wearing the school’s hoodie.
“Can I ask where we’re going?” I ask her.
“No,” she says, clipped.
I smile. “Oh, come on. That isn’t so far, now is it?”
We walk for a while, her face blank and refusing to give me at least a hint at her mind, before she glances at me and mumbles, “You’ll see.” Her fingers dig into her jeans that I now notice hug her body very well, and she pops a cigarette between her full lips.
I frown. “You shouldn’t smoke.” I speak my mind before thinking. I expect her to glare at me and maybe shiv me with the black lighter she’s using to spark up her cigarette, but she surprisingly bursts into a pretty-sounding laughter. It makes me smile, and her nose crinkles. God, she is absolutely gorgeous. What I wouldn’t kill to paint her lips, her nose—hell, everything about her.
“Don’t worry about me, prep.” Blowing out smoke up
in the air, showing off her long, smooth-looking neck, she says, “This world is too fucked up for anyone to be worried about me.”
“But that’s just it,” I say, and she looks over at me, skeptically. “Someone should worry about you because of this world. It’s already wrecked beyond repair. So why shouldn’t anyone worry about preserving one of the precious things left?”
“Do you use that line on every girl to make them swoon?” she mumbles, the cigarette clenched between her teeth. Her eyes are squinting up at me, beneath the glare of the sun, observing me in a way that takes my breath away and breathes a whirlwind inside my chest.
“Just the ones with face piercings.”
“Better not say that too loud or your past bimbo flings’ll hear you,” she jokes, and I laugh. I think I see the corner of her lips curl up a bit, but I can’t tell under the sun shining down on her, making her glow.
We continue walking even though I don’t even realize we’ve stopped. Entering the parking lot, I expect to find her Chevy Impala, but instead am bestowed a glorious red motorcycle. From the looks of it, it has a beast of an engine and a sleek body. It burns brightly under the sun, and Red doesn’t hesitate in swinging her amazon legs onto the bike and sitting on the seat.
I do a double take as she jams a key in the ignition and starts it up. It rumbles, and she slightly vibrates but gets acclimated and pulls on a pair of fingerless leather gloves. I have never seen a girl look so badass before. I want to snap a picture, but I also have this instinct in me to run away. Instead, I stare in awe.
“Gonna stand there staring at me all day, or are you gonna get on? Make up your mind quickly before I leave your ass and give myself all the credit on the story,” she says and flicks her cigarette to the ground. Her heavy combat boots stomp on it, and she glances up at me underneath her lashes before tugging on a vibrant red helmet. She flips the visor down, shielding her brilliant blue eyes from me.
Red: Burning Desire (Spectrum Series Book 7) Page 5