by Bella King
I looked around Oliver’s bedroom, never thinking that I would end up here. His walls were bare aside from an anatomical poster with labeled muscle groups. There were a few free weights scattered on the floor in the corner, and a desk with a desktop computer neatly arranged on it.
Oliver came back out of the bathroom and leaned against the doorway. “So,” he said. “Why did you come here?”
“Uh, Mia wanted to,” I replied.
Oliver waved a hand of dismissal. “She’s not really important, is she?”
“She’s my friend, so yeah,” I replied. I crossed my arms and lowered my eyes at Oliver. “I only came here because she wanted to.”
Oliver shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, that’s cool and all,” he said, stepping toward me. His eyes were glazed over from the booze, and I could tell that he was in a worse state than I was. He had definitely started drinking before I had.
I was very nearly in a state of stupor like he was, but not quite there. I didn’t want to be either, so I thought it time to leave. I began to reach for the doorknob to leave when Oliver lurched toward me, grabbing my hand firmly.
He had no control over the tightness of his grip. The vodka had taken his fine motor skills before I had even arrived at the apartment with Mia.
“Oliver, what are you doing?” I asked, tugging my arm. “That hurts.”
Oliver stared into my eyes, moving in a light sway as he attempted to keep his balance. “I thought you wanted to spend some time here with me,” he grumbled.
His voice was deep and animalistic, a surge of testosterone hitting him as he leered at my body in the black dress I was wearing. His hand reached out to my leg and lifted it.
“I don’t know,” I said, unable to concentrate on what was happening. My pulse was throbbing in my ears, and I felt the strong urge to lay down on his bed and let whatever was destined to happen, happen.
Oliver title his head down, peering at my panties as he raised my dress further. I had worn pink panties with a little silk bow on the front of them, which may have been a mistake. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so interested in me had I put on something more conservative.
My clothing choices didn’t excuse his behavior. I smacked his hand done as I realized where this would lead. “I need to head home,” I said. A slight sense of panic spread over me. My hands were sweaty, and I realized that I barely knew what was going on.
“You can lay down if you feel bad,” Oliver said, motioning to his bed.
“No,” I replied. “I want to go home.”
Oliver finally loosened his grip on my wrist. “I’m not keeping you from going,” he said, his blue eyes swirling with sexual intent.
His words made me feel more in control, and the panic subsided into a vague concern. “It would be scary if you did keep me here. You know, Mia is still outside waiting for me,” I warned.
Oliver’s hands found my waist, and he pushed himself toward me, pressing me against the wall. “She probably thinks we’re having sex,” he said slowly, studying my face for a reaction.
I felt his crotch pressed between my legs, and the familiar heat of longing formed between mine. No, this wasn’t my plan. I wasn’t going to let him win over me like that. Drunk or not, I wasn’t losing my dignity to a teacher’s pet who screwed me out of half my paycheck.
But then again, it had been so long since I let myself have fun. I looked up into his handsome face, and I guess that was enough of a signal for him to plant his lips against mine. It wasn’t my intention, but once they hit, I was sucked into the passion like a hummingbird to nectar.
I drank the excitement that he flowed from his lips, lapping up his intention with sensual greed. My body felt all kind of pleasure as he pressed in closer, showing me how much he desired me. His hand ran down my cheek, lingering om my chin before falling straight down to my collar.
Oliver yanked at my dress, nearly tearing it and definitely breaking a few threads as he sought access to my breasts. A rush of adrenaline hit me from his actions, and that’s what pulled me out of the spell.
With adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream, I found myself feeling more sober, and reason flooded back into my brain. I slipped sideways from his intimidating figure and grabbed the doorknob.
“I’m going to leave now,” I blurted.
Oliver frowned. “Why?”
“I’m too drunk. Let’s not talk about this,” I said hastily.
Oliver smirked at me. “What a tease,” he said, pushing me away from the door and opening it himself. “Get out,” he said sternly.
I slunk out of his bedroom, walking shamefully back to the living room. All heads turned to me, as though I had just got done sucking Oliver’s cock in the bedroom.
“Come on, I wasn’t gone for that long,” I scolded as Mia winked at me. She sat at the table with a pile of chips in front of her. Her only remaining opponent was Oliver.
Oliver strode out of the room behind me, nearly busting a hole in the flimsy drywall as he banged against it after overestimating how far he needed to move forward to get into the living room. He was drunker than I thought.
“Yeah, I think we can finish this game tomorrow,” Mia laughed, pulling out her phone to take a picture of the table, so she didn’t have to count the chips before leaving.
Oliver waved drunkenly at Mia and me as we put our shoes on. His friends rushed toward him, trying to hold him up as he swayed violently as though the house was boat rocking in the sea.
I shook my head, unable to hide a smile as Oliver blew me a kiss. I hoped he didn’t even remember this in the morning. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about him, but being drunk, I couldn’t really gauge my true feelings at the moment. I was one drink away from being in the state he was in.
Mia and entered into the night air, and walked arm in arm back to our apartment, leaving the booze there to pick up the next day. I doubted they would be breaking into the next bottle of vodka tonight.
Chapter 10
Unlike Mia, I didn’t spend the rest of my evening chugging glasses of water and running to the bathroom every five minutes due to overhydration. If I had, I wouldn’t have been so hungover the next morning.
“God, do you have anything for a headache?” I groaned, dragging my feet into the kitchen to find Mia making coffee.
She gave me a sympathetic look and pointed to a bottle of painkillers on the kitchen table. I held my throbbing cranium, popping the lid off and pouring three directly into my mouth. “Water,” I demanded, stumbling over to the sink.
Mia laughed as I stuck my dry mouth under the faucet. Tap water never tasted so good as it did when I was sorely hungover and had powdery pills to swallow.
I lifted my head up, bracing myself against the counter as my skull pounded with the change of pressure. I looked up at Mia with bloodshot eyes, who seemed content with a steaming cup of black coffee. “I guess you feel better than I do.”
Mia nodded. “I would assume so. I always drink water after a night of boozing it up. It helps with the hangover.”
I held up a finger. “I’ll have to remember that next time.”
Mia sipped her coffee and sat down in a wobbly wooden chair that we had picked up from a yard sale not long after we moved into the apartment. “So, did you have sex with Oliver or what?”
I dug back into the fuzzy memories from the night before. “No, but he certainly tried.”
“And you said no?”
I went to the coffee machine and poured my own cup of bitter liquid. I hated this stuff, but I wasn’t about to go to the coffee shop to get iced coffee just yet. I needed to recover first.
I pulled out the only other chair in the kitchen and sat down, rubbing my temple with one hand. “Not exactly. I think we kissed.”
Mia’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s progress.”
I shook my head gently, careful not to shake my painful brain around too violently. “I don’t think it was a good idea. Now he probably thinks I like him.”
“D
on’t you?”
I took a sip of the piping hot coffee and made a face. It was far too bitter for me to ingest, especially while my stomach was churning from all the sugary alcohol that I had consumed last night. “I don’t trust him,” I stated. “There’s something about him that’s off.”
Mia raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that, or are you just scared to fall in love?”
“Don’t make me throw up, please,” I said, sliding the cup of coffee across the table away from me. “I don’t like Oliver like that.”
Mia shrugged. “We still have to finish the poker game. I’m going to take every last dime he has.”
I laughed. “I’d like to see you do that and give me my 50 bucks back when you do.”
“Of course,” Mia replied, taking another sip of her coffee. “Any plan for today?”
Judging by the state of my hangover, I assumed that I would be spending the rest of the day recovering. I had no energy for any more fun, but I would have liked to get some prep work done for class on Monday. School doesn’t stop for anyone. I knew that well.
“No,” I replied softly. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep after I eat something.”
“Probably for the best,” Mia said, getting up and circling around to the back of me. She patted my shoulder and left the room.
I sunk into my chair, cradling my aching head until I got the energy to get up and dig around the fridge for whatever leftovers I could find. Cold spaghetti it would have to be.
I couldn’t get the odd feeling about Oliver out of my head. It was as though I had encountered him before in the past, but digging that deep came up with very little in the form of true recognition. If he hadn’t shown up somewhere in my past, then why was I so wary of him now? He hadn’t done anything expressly forceful or unwanted to me. He respected my boundaries, for the most part, and he was cheerful when he was close to me.
We had established last night that he was sexually attracted to me, and perhaps that brought back old feelings of disgust with myself. I knew that I had to get over that if I was ever to have a functional relationship, but the past is a hard thing to shrug off. It sticks to you like maple syrup, refusing to let go every after you have washed your hands clean. It will show up in places you never touched, and the flavor will cling to your teeth long after you brushed them.
I wanted to cleanse myself of my ex-boyfriend and be done with it. Why shouldn’t I, a young woman who had beat the odds, be so locked down by someone who didn’t even matter anymore.
Was it the verbal abuse and manipulation that I was scared of? Oliver didn’t seem to exhibit either of those behaviors. He was as normal as they came, aside from his strictness about his cabinet. That could be what I didn’t like about him. His reaction could have been softer, but he was rigid and uncaring, not unlike my parents and my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t need more of that in my life.
I’d have to be more careful around him after what happened in his bedroom. I didn’t need a repeat of that incident to drive his feelings for me further. I prayed that he didn’t even remember what we did. A girl can hope.
I didn’t bother heating up the spaghetti on the stove before I shoveled it down my throat. I wasn’t keen on staying up much longer once I was fed. I retreated back to my bed and dove beneath the crisp sheets, planning the sleep it out until the next day.
Chapter 11
Monday moved in quickly, bringing me back to the science building to endure new lectures with Oliver close by. I spotted him at his desk in the middle of the class and purposefully sat as far as I could from him to avoid contact. That didn’t work.
I was always early to class, coming in five to ten minutes before the professor arrived. Nobody ever wanted to be late to Professor Lyche’s classes, because she was a bitch, plain and simple. If you arrived after her, you would be locked out of the room, unable to participate in the lecture, and given a big fat red X on her attendance sheet. Not good, considering that three of those would bump you down a whole letter grade. She took attendance seriously.
I was early to every class I went to, aside from Chemistry lab because it was directly after History, leaving me with a sliver of time to run from one side of campus to the other. Thankfully, campus was small enough to pull that off.
I traced my finger around on my desk, waiting nervously for Professor Lyche to arrive. I never thought I would look forward to seeing that unpleasant woman, but today there was someone who I wanted to see even less.
Oliver spotted me quickly, getting up almost immediately and coming to my desk. With several minutes to kill, he wouldn’t have to go back to his desk any time soon. I mentally braced myself for his arrival, clutching the thermos full of iced coffee in my hand, condensation wetting my hand.
“How was your Sunday?” Oliver asked, standing over me and blocking out nearly all the light in the process.
I looked up at his massive body, my eyes finding his crotch first since it was pushed up so close to me. “Hungover,” I answered simply.
He chuckled. “Yeah, same. Hey, listen. Could you not talk about what happened in my room. I’d prefer to keep that lowkey.”
I was surprised. Part of me had expected him to brag to the entire school how he had managed to kiss me the first time we hung out.
Oliver was able to read the look on my face. “Let’s just say I have a crazy ex. Best to keep stuff like that out of the public ear, you know?”
I highly doubted his story about his supposed ex the moment it left his lips, but since I also didn’t want people to think that he and I were an item, I nodded along with his words. “Of course, the only one who knows anything is Mia.”
Oliver rubbed his chin. “Fair enough. Alright, that’s really all I wanted to say,” he said, stepping back from my desk and allowing the light to pour back into my space.
“This is not a thing,” I blurted, “We aren’t a thing.” I desperately wanted to make that point clear to him. It wasn’t going to be some type of secret relationships with subtle meetups. I didn’t want him pulling me into empty rooms during parties and trying to kiss me again.
Oliver looked confused. “I was drunk, Lydia. You’re too much of a dork for me. Peace,” he said, waving his hand and walking back to his desk.
Even though I didn’t like him, I was upset that he had called me a dork and dismissed me so easily. If he didn’t like me, then why had he left me a note while I was at work, and why was he so glued to me during the party. He really seemed to want something from me, whether he would openly admit it or not.
I wanted to find out what his deal was, but that would have to wait until later. I could probably ask Mia to dig into him a little, and fact check his crazy ex claim. The suspicion toward him that I initially had was growing, and I wasn’t going to lay this to rest just yet. He had my interest.
I twisted off the large cap to my thermos and took a sip of the iced coffee that I had dumped into it from the coffee shop. I liked to keep it ice cold all day, and carrying it around in the plastic cup they provided at the shop didn’t provide that luxury. I brought my own thermos to hold my iced coffee.
I drummed my nails against the side of the large metal cylinder holding my coffee while I waited for Professor Lyche to enter the class and start the lecture. I kept glancing over at Oliver, but he remained stoic.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Professor Lyche walked in, slammed the door shut, and began her lecture.
Chapter 12
Mia insisted on going over to Oliver’s again to finish her game of poker with him, but I decided to hold back so that I could study in the library. I didn’t want to risk another secret encounter with Oliver even though he had expressly stated that we weren’t going to be a thing.
I walked to the library as rain began to fall on the trampled grass that led to the library. The most direct path to the library from each building had its own path worn into the soil to the point where no grass would grow there.
My feet hit the
dirt quicker than usual, eager to get to the library before a torrential downpour. This time of year got a lot of rain, but I hadn’t packed my rain jacket because the skies had been clear that morning. Not anymore.
Cold droplets reminded me that winter was on its way, sooner than I wanted it to be. It was still warm outside, but the rain was cold enough to give me a chill. I hurried toward the library as the sky grew darker.
I took the shallow concrete steps by fours up to the enormous wood and brass library doors. Leaning into my pull as I brought the door open in front of me. I slipped inside into the warmth of the library, glad to be out of the cold rain.
My phone buzzed in my front pocket. I pulled it out to find an email notification from my ex-boyfriend. Jesus, not again. He had taken to sending me emails every few months since we broke up, and even though it had been years, he still sent them.
I had stopped reading these emails almost a year ago when they had begun to turn weird an obsessive. There was something seriously wrong with that guy, and I didn’t want to entertain the notion that I still cared about him. It was best to ignore this behavior.
The police weren’t going to do anything about the emails because my ex had never threatened me or exhibited the intent to stalk me. I chose not to read any of the emails now because they would only upset me. He would talk about how I could return to him whenever I was ready, but that he was waiting for me.
He couldn’t have been more delusional. I long-pressed the email and deleted it. I wasn’t going to start reading his nonsense today, or ever. I wanted to keep my brain focused on school. I wasn’t going to let petty drama get in the way of my grants and scholarships.
Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I took a turn down a long corridor leading away from the study hall. Everyone with any sense knew that studying in the study hall was the worst option for productivity because of all the students there socializing and ignoring their homework.
