Hard Knox

by Nicole Williams

  “I love a humanitarian,” Knox interjected from back inside the room.

  “Oh yeah, you positively embrace humanitarian philosophies,” I threw over my shoulder.

  Harlow popped her head back through the door long enough to say, “I love a person who loves a humanitarian.”

  “Control yourself,” I hissed, giving her a soft shove down the hall. “That’s Knox Jagger, the guy whose name has become synonymous with sex.”

  Harlow smiled. It was a little too dreamy for my liking. “There are worse synonyms out there.”

  “Filthy sex. Synonymous with filthy sex.”

  She batted her eyelashes. “Even better.”

  “Get to class already,” I ordered, waving her down the hall. “And don’t forget to stop by the health center on your way back and get your brain checked.”

  Harlow waved and headed on her way. “Don’t forget to check in every day, or else I’m going to come knocking at Filthy Sex’s front door and tapping my foot until you answer.”

  “You’re a true friend!”

  She was almost to the stairwell when she laughed. “I didn’t think you knew what one of those was.”

  She was already gone, but I still stuck my tongue out in her direction.

  Of course that would be when Knox appeared beside me, looking at me with that familiar look of amusement. “I like your roommate.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warned, bristling. Why was I bristling? It shouldn’t matter to me if Knox thought Harlow was the bee’s knees. It shouldn’t matter to me if Harlow returned the sentiment. So why did it? Whatever the answer was, I probably didn’t want to know it, so I shoved the question aside and filed it in the shred-and-destroy folder.

  “I’m not. Believe me,” he said, shaking his head. “At least not in the way you’re warning me off of.”

  And cue the suddenly defensive emoticon. What the hell? I felt like I was on some kind of emotional roller coaster I couldn’t get off of. If it didn’t stop, then I wouldn’t scratch leaping out of the cart off the list of options.

  I turned on Knox, crossing my arms. “Why’s that? Because you could do so much better with the girls who think the height of class is shoving their panties—their worn panties—down your pockets?”

  His smile morphed into a laugh—one that reverberated down the hall. Apparently, while I had half a million emotions when he was around, he only had one—amusement. “No, as college girls go, Harlow seems like the exception to the classy rule, but it’s just a policy I have.”

  Other than never sleeping with the same girl twice, as there were four billion of them to go through, I hadn’t been aware Knox had policies when it came to the past, present, and future women in his life. “What policy?”

  “No college girls.”

  That took a moment to set in, but once it had, disbelief was the next stop on the emotion train. “I’m going to need to hear that one again.”

  Knox leaned in. “No. College. Girls.”

  By that point, plenty of college girls had filled the hall, trying to look busy redecorating the boards on their doors or chatting with a neighbor a few doors down. Some were obviously doing nothing other than staring at Knox with wanton desire written all over their expressions. Since I didn’t want to be responsible for a panty shortage in Stewart Hall, I tugged Knox back into my room. I could almost hear the combined sigh of disappointment echo down the hall when I closed the door.

  “So I’m going to need an explanation of that one.”

  “An explanation of what?” Knox asked, looking around the room as though it was the first time he’d seen it.

  When his gaze shifted back to me, his eyes darkened. I was alone in my room with Knox. Behind a closed door. Tempting fate might have been fun for some people, but it wasn’t for this person. Opening the door a crack, I felt the tension waft out.

  “Your no-college-girls policy,” I said. “Because from what I’ve heard, your policy is pretty much the opposite.”

  He crashed on my bed, making the frame groan beneath his weight. And now he was lying on my bed, stretched out across it, almost exactly where my body would be if I were asleep in it. “Haven’t I proven by now that you shouldn’t believe everything you’ve heard about me?”

  “And yet rumors don’t just spring out of nowhere.” My back hit the wall behind me. Without realizing it, I’d put as much distance between Knox and me as the room allowed.

  Knox tilted his head. “I’ll concede to that in certain instances.”

  “In this instance?”

  From his tilted grin alone, I knew the rumor had been hatched from some kernel of truth. “I might have gone a little crazy at the start of my freshman year. I didn’t have that no-college-girls policy, and man, did I pay the penalty.”

  “Define ‘a little crazy,’” I said, tapping my heel into the wall and trying to behave like he was any other guy sprawled across my bed. In this moment, though, trying was not succeeding.

  “Are you sure you want me to?” He met my stare and waited.

  “Never mind. Add that to the list of ‘Questions that Should Never be Answered.’” I shifted when my mind fired off a number. All I could do was hope his actual number of sexual partners and the one rolling around in my head were nowhere close to each other. “So what happened to make you put that policy into effect?”

  “Just to be clear—is this a question you actually want answered?” He curled his hands behind his head and stared at the paper chain looped around the ceiling. “Because you can ask me any question you want and I’ll give you the answer—the truthful answer—so make sure you really want to know the answer before you come at me with a question. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Was that an okay as in you understand or an okay in that you’re sure you want your last question answered?”

  “That was an okay to both.”

  Knox shifted, making himself more comfortable. “To put it simply, college girls are like a bipolar person on crack. One minute they want to be taken care of, the next they want to be independent. In the morning, they love themselves. By nighttime, they hate themselves. Everyone’s their friend, or no one’s their friend. They know what they want; they don’t have a fucking clue. They know what they want to do tomorrow but can’t seem to get past yesterday.” Knox exhaled, like merely thinking about it was exhausting. Keeping up with him was exhausting enough, so I could imagine what life had been like for this rampant womanizer during his first year of school. It wasn’t enough for me to bring out the sympathy tissues though. “They’re still trying to make up their minds about almost everything, and go them for doing that whole personal reflection thing, but it’s too much damn drama to deal with on a day-to-day basis.”

  “A bipolar person on crack?” I smiled, despite knowing, as a member of the college girl demographic, I shouldn’t. “Okay, I’m coming to you whenever I need a brilliant, albeit politically incorrect, descriptor of the next person or group I write an article about.”

  Knox held his arms out before folding them back over his stomach. “My brilliance is here for your exploitation.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” When I started to push off the wall toward him, I forced myself back. The wall was my safe haven. Move away from it, and nothing was certain. “So no more college girls . . . Then why the hell do all of them flash their unmentionables your way if none of them have gotten any action from you since your wild first tour of Sinclair?”

  “Because they’ve heard the rumors that you have,” he said, continuing his stare-a-thon at the ceiling. “It’s not like I wear my policy stamped across my forehead. Or my shirt.” Picking his head up, he inspected my shirt—Don’t Make Me Get My Flying Monkeys.

  The next question that came to mind gave me pause—hot on the heels of Knox’s warning not to ask him a question I didn’t want answered. I thought about it for a few moments before voicing it. “So if it’s not the college-aged girls getting a piece of th
e Knox Jagger pie, who is?”

  Sure, celibate was an eight-letter word some college guys might have navigated from time-to-time, but it wasn’t a place a guy like Knox had ever wandered longer than a few days. My own lack of experience didn’t make me immune to the fact that his strut and knowing smile had been earned with excessive amounts of between-the-sheets time.

  “Who isn’t?” he replied. Although his tone was clearly teasing, I guessed his reply was closer to the truth than not. “There’s this great thing known as the mid-twenties female. It’s a true phenomenon how a few years and some Oprah-recommended reading can change an unsure breed into a so-sure-they’d-make-you-their-bitch-if-you-let-them species—both in and out of the bedroom.”

  His answer made me shift.

  “Sorry. Too much? I forget that in my quest to answer you truthfully, I don’t have to give the whole whole truth. Discretion is something I’m still working on.”

  “No, you don’t have to be discreet with me.” I shook my head. “I find your honesty strangely refreshing. Unlike the rest of the college dipshits, you don’t feel the need to lie and fudge your answers to the intimacy questions. It’s nice that when a guy looks me in the eye and tells me just how much or how little action he’s getting, I actually believe him.” I went to shove off of the wall again, and this time I made it a couple of steps before I plastered myself back to that puppy. “You’re not like the rest of the college guys out there, Knox. Go figure.” I’d assumed he was the quintessential one, pumped up on the ‘roids of experience and bloated ego, and I’d been wrong. He might have been the only one out there I trusted at that juncture.

  He lifted up onto his elbows, staring at me in a way that made wall-planting nearly impossible. “I could say the same for you.”

  My heart pounded in a familiar way. At least, in the kind of way that had become familiar since I’d met Knox. “I’m not like the rest of the college guys out there?” As I couldn’t do or say what my body was pulling me toward, I went with my response default—sarcasm.

  “You know what I mean.” He peaked a brow, seeing right through me.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe I’m admitting it, but I think I do know what you mean.”

  Knox sat up slowly and deliberately, and just when it looked like he was about to get up and cross the room toward me, he stopped. With a sigh, his expression twisted, and he seemed to force himself back down on the bed.

  So we were both being careful. We were both holding ourselves back. I wasn’t sure if that made staying where I was easier or harder.

  “Do you need help packing up anything else? Or should I finish hauling the rest of your boxes down to the truck?” His eyes stayed focused on the ceiling the entire time.

  “If there were a kitchen sink, I’d say that’s about all you missed.” In contrast to Harlow’s side of the room, which was a blend of Mardi Gras and a carnival (mainly due to the abundance of stuffed animals and beaded necklaces), mine looked empty. And desolate. And depressing. A sigh slipped past my lips.

  “Hey, Charlie? Are you still okay with this?” Knox sat up again but stayed planted on the mattress. “I know this all happened fast, but do you want to talk about it some more or something?”

  “I think we talked-slash-argued about it enough this morning. I’m going to have the wisdom to accept the things I cannot change, for once, and focus on the things I can change—like the future permanent address of the bastard who’s after me. What’s the street number of the state penitentiary again?” I asked, tapping my chin.

  Knox eyed the boxes. “Are you okay with this?”

  I huffed. “A little late for checking to see if I’m okay with this, don’t you think?”

  He was silent for the span of a breath. “Are you okay with this?”

  My teeth gritted. Why was it the calmer he stayed, the less calm I did? “Here’s a tip: when you pretty much coerce a person into agreeing to something, it’s not considered good form to ask them a few hours later if they’re okay with it.”

  “Are you okay with this?”

  “If by okay with this you mean forced into this, then yeah, I’m ‘okay.’”

  Another span of a breath. “Are you okay with this?”

  “When a girl is under duress of peeing her pants, she’ll agree to just about anything. You took advantage of that knowledge, so stop playing the ‘I care’ card now.” I was running out of witty responses. If he kept at this ‘Are you okay?’ battle, I was going to lose because, truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure why I was battling him over it. I just knew that I had to continue. Maybe I hated to lose, or maybe it was just that I hated the idea of losing to him, but I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag.

  “Are you okay with this?” For seeming to have such a hard time looking at me a few minutes ago, his penetrating stare was pinning me to the wall.

  “There’s okay. And there’s me.”

  “Are. You. Okay. With. This?” He didn’t wait the length of a breath that time.

  My mouth opened to fire something off, but nothing came out . . . because nothing was left. My witty-meets-difficult tank had officially been drained. Knox waited, as still and silent as a sentinel, while I felt close to breaking a sweat from trying and failing to pull out one more round of resistance. Other than a No!, sticking out my tongue, muttering a You’re a jerk, or flipping him an always classic bird, it seemed I had nothing more creative to answer him with.

  Well, nothing more creative than the actual truth.

  “I’m okay with this,” I said softly, scuffing my toes against the low-pile carpet. Saying those words had been like trying to push an elephant up the side of a mountain—except harder. “It’s only temporary, and you’re right, we will work better as a team. The faster we find this guy, the faster I can get back to living my crazy life of sneaking into frat parties for research and puckering over a plastic cup filled with Piss Light.”

  Knox smiled. Actually, Knox smiled at me. “You’re sure?” He was already moving toward the remaining boxes.

  “See this? It’s my sure face.” Circling my finger around my face, I frowned.

  “Well, good. Because you being unsure about moving in wouldn’t have changed anything, but it eases my conscience knowing you’re okay with it.” The wink he flashed me didn’t keep me from grabbing the can of Silly String Harlow kept on her desk. Up until now, I hadn’t been able to comprehend what kind of situation could ever arise that would require Silly String, but this one kind of did.

  Ripping the cap off, I aimed it in his direction. “You’re a pain in my ass.”

  Knox lifted an unimpressed brow when he saw the can. “Right back at ya, sweetheart.”

  My finger moved to the depressor. “Being forced to move in with you is one thing. Being chained to you all night and morning when you knew how to free us is another. But calling me sweetheart?” With a shake of the can, I aimed it at his head. “Yeah, not even close to okay.” I pressed the button, and a line of bright purple string burst from the can, splatting on his forehead.

  For a moment, Knox didn’t seem to realize his face was being assaulted by a purple string of foam, but as soon as that cleared, a challenging smirk went into place right before he charged me. I didn’t stop spraying, covering even more of his face, but it didn’t slow him any.

  “Haven’t you heard? I’m Knox Jagger. If brass knuckles and steel-toed boots can’t keep me down, the girl spraying a can of Silly String at me’s in trouble.”

  “Yeah, but haven’t you heard?” When his hand wrapped around my wrist, I pulled away, but his grip was about as breakable as when I’d tried to bust through the handcuffs. “I’m Charlie Chase—the girl who name-calling and general loathing can’t shut up, so too bad for the guy trying to intimidate me with words.”

  Right before he yanked the can out of my hand, I got in one last squirt. It gushed right into his eyes, immediately followed by a huff and, “You’re going to regret that.”

  The harder I tried to stay
serious, the more I felt the laughter ready to rip through me. When his fingers gripped my side and squeezed, I let lose.

  “Stop it, Knox!” I shouted between spurts of laughter. “Not fair! The rules of Silly String war clearly state tickling is off limits!”

  All that did was make him squeeze my sides harder, and now having possession of the Silly String can, he paired the tickling up with spraying Silly String into my hair.

  “I’m going to kill you!” I squealed, trying to wrench it out of his grasp—to no avail.

  “Nah, you won’t. You like me too much.” Now he was laughing—probably because the Silly String was so thick on top of my head it was spilling over onto my forehead. “Your world would be colorless and void without me in it.”

  “Yeah, sell your lies some place else.” I leapt up, trying to snatch the can away. “We’re all stocked up here.”

  Knox’s reply was pinching my waist faster, making me laugh even harder.

  “Who’s the funny girl now?” he said, laughing right along with me.

  “You!” I screeched, trying to wrench out of his grasp. “You’re the funny girl now!”

  Then, in a moment of sheer genius or stupidity, I twisted my leg behind Knox’s, curled it back sharply, and yanked with all of my might. I had the element of surprise, but the thing about taking down a guy the size of Hulk’s half-brother was that he took down whoever was still attached to him. In a heap of limbs and surprised huffs, we tumbled to the floor, him falling an instant before me, which was handy since he broke my fall. Although since his body wasn’t much softer than the floor, he only cushioned my fall marginally.

  Knox groaned. “You might not weigh much, but you come down like a ton of bricks, Charlie.”

  Kicking the can of Silly String out of his hand, I pinned his shoulders. “Though I be but little, I am fierce.”

  Knox inspected my hands on his shoulders and me above him, then something in his eyes gleamed. We were both covered in ribbons of neon purple string and had just been engaged in a sibling-like war, but I could still feel heat bursting to the surface and traveling through my body until the entirety of it seemed to be consumed.