Carnal Pledge: A College Bully Romance

by Vixen Kane

  “I think this was a mistake.” I turn around and run face-first into a wall of muscle. My head raises and I peer into ice-blue eyes. Frozen, confused, ice-blue eyes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I swallow, trying to think of a response when another voice catches my attention.

  “Seth, dude, don’t question it.” I don’t know the new guy’s name but I’m glad for his interruption. “When a hot chick comes to a party, we celebrate.” New guy turns his head toward me and thrusts his hand out for me to shake. “I’m Nate.”

  I ignore his hand, but not him. “I’m… Val.”

  “Val. Hot name to go with a hot body.” Nate turns toward Lexie. “Hey Lex. Glad you could make it.”

  “We were here before, asshole.” There’s venom in Lexie’s voice that causes both Seth and me to raise our brows.

  “Ah, right. Sorry ‘bout that.” Nate smiles, displaying dimples that don’t quite match the cocky frat-boy persona.

  “Whatever.” Lexie grabs my hand again and pulls me between the two guys, toward the kitchen. As we walk away, I hear Seth and Nate arguing, and I feel intense satisfaction at Seth’s discomfort with me being here.

  Lexie grabs two red, plastic cups from the counter and hands me one before taking a long drink from hers. “Girl, I don’t know the details about the history you have with Seth, but I’m dying to find out. Spill.”

  “Yeah, Val, spill.” Seth’s voice is right in my ear, causing me to jump, sloshing the beer over the rim of the cup.

  I slowly turn to face him, and his eyes bore into me with a hatred that seems to have only intensified over the years.

  “Not much to tell. He’s an asshole with some serious self-esteem issues. Kind of sad, really.”

  His lips lift into a grin, and one eyebrow raises. “Self-esteem issues?”

  “That’s why you hate Josh, right? Because he’s better than you?”

  The smile vanishes, and his face contorts into an angry mask you could wear on Halloween. “Is that so?”

  I shrug and don’t bother to hide my smirk. It amazes me that I can have this effect on him. Any effect on him. I could’ve sworn he didn’t care I existed.

  “Well I guess he could’ve bagged a better girl than you then. Is that why you broke up? Or did Mommy and Daddy tell him he wasn’t allowed to date a whore?”

  The crack of my palm across his cheek brings the room into silence. Every last person at the party is staring at me, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

  His head whipped to the side from the blow, and he slowly turns it back to face me. His eyes are hard and cold, and that hatred? They’re overflowing with it.

  Another guy steps up to Seth’s side, and Seth raises a hand to halt him. The guy pauses, but he’s staring at me like he’s contemplating murder.

  We both stand in silence for a few moments, glaring at each other and daring the other to make the next move. I wonder if he can see the hatred pouring from me as much as I can see it from him.

  When Seth’s stare breaks first, and he goes to turn, my eyes widen in surprise.

  Is that it?

  “Are you gonna let her get away with that?” Pissed-off Guy asks, waving a hand at me.

  Seth pauses, as if contemplating it. “I still have one more challenge to complete. I think I’ll focus on that.”

  Then he walks away. Just like that. Pissed-off Guy gives me one last look of disgust before following after him.

  I track his every move and once he’s out of my sight, I realize my face is pinched in confusion, and I relax it. I won this round, and I’m going to enjoy it.

  “Ladies, sorry about that.” Connor appears out of nowhere as the party returns to normal. He reaches around me to pick up two more full plastic cups. “Here, have a few more drinks and enjoy the rest of the night.”

  “Holy shit!” Lexie exclaims once Connor walks away. “I can’t believe you slapped him. Oh my god, oh my god. You slapped him and got away with it.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I shake my head to clear the fogginess of the last few minutes. “Sorry I made a scene.”

  “Girl, you don’t have to be sorry. That was epic!” Lexie is laughing now and it’s infectious. Before I know it, we’re both laughing so hard that people are starting to stare again.

  When we manage to calm down, I glance back toward the patio doors that Seth walked through.

  “I wonder what challenge he has to complete next,” I mumble to no one in particular.

  Hopefully something awful. Karma’s a bitch.

  6

  Seth

  As I stare at the closed door of Valerie’s classroom, I suppress a yawn for what feels like the thousandth time this morning. It figures she’d take an eight o’clock class. Bright and early, conquer the day and all that bullshit.

  This is going to be hell.

  I shift the coffee I bought for Valerie in my other hand and glance at the clock hanging in the hallway of the English building. Three more minutes until her class gets out. I drank my cup dry and it’s been sitting at the top of a trash pile for the last five minutes.

  I run a hand over the back of my neck and lean against the wall, ignoring a tack sticking into my shoulder blade from someone’s flyer about their shitty band playing this Friday night. I got here way too early and managed to read every flyer pinned to this corkboard out of sheer boredom. Correction, it’s not going to be hell. I’m already there.

  Get her to say she loves you.

  Connor’s words play in my mind on a loop, and because there’s nothing left to do but wait, I can’t get it out of my head. My last challenge. And I only have three weeks to pull it off. She has to say the words either on video or to a brother by midnight on the last day of classes, and she has to be sincere. Valerie Tilson, Pennsylvania’s sweetheart.

  Fuck. Me.

  The door to Valerie’s class opens, and I stand up straight. I scan the horde of people until I spot her blonde hair and bubbly face talking to another girl, one I don’t recognize from the party. She doesn’t even notice me and starts down the hall, nodding her head to something the friend says.

  “Valerie.” My voice echoes off the walls of the hallway.

  When she turns around and meets my gaze, she frowns. Her eyebrows pinch in a way that’s either to say ‘what do you want?’ or ‘fuck off’. When she turns back around and continues down the hall it clears up which one.

  Rolling my neck, I take a breath and stride her way to catch up. I have to hand it to Connor and Nate, this would absolutely be a challenge. More than they knew.

  “Hey.” I fall into step beside her and pretend she didn’t just blow me off. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  She doesn’t look my way. She stares straight ahead, hugging a notebook to her chest, but the black-haired friend speaks up. “I’ll see you Wednesday, Val.” She glances at me and blushes before speed walking ahead of us.

  “See ya!” Valerie lets the friend go, but there’s a hesitation in her step. Like she doesn’t want to be left alone with me. She’s not, of course. The hallway is full of people whose classes just got let out, but still. If she’s afraid to be alone with me, this is going to be a problem.

  “So, how was class?”

  “Fuck off, Seth.”

  “Excuse me?” I’m genuinely taken aback, pausing beside her as we wait for the turtles in front of us to make it through the door. She still doesn’t look my way. It’s like she thinks that if she doesn’t see me, I’ll disappear. Sorry, babe. I’m not goin’ anywhere.

  She doesn’t respond until we make it outside, sunlight warming my face and the smell of fresh-cut grass filling my nostrils.

  She leads the way to the side of the building and spins around to face me.

  “What do you want?”

  Her nostrils flare, and her eyebrows still have that pinched look. It hits me that this is what she looks like when she’s angry and that I’d better get used to it, but I don’t fucking want to. I feel
like a child going to the dentist, and no matter how much I pretend to be sick, I still have to go. Except in this case, it’s ‘I have to look at this annoying fucking face for the—

  “Seth?”

  I shake my head. “What?”

  “What. Do. You. Want?” She says it slowly, enunciating each word as if she’s talking to a child, and my head nearly explodes. The muscles in my neck are tense again, but I don’t roll it. Instead, I hold out the coffee.

  “Peace.”

  “Peace?” She glances at the coffee but makes no move to take it. At least the pissed off look is morphing to confusion.

  “Yeah… Listen, Valerie,” I pull the coffee she’s clearly not taking back toward me, “I feel really bad about the other night. I didn’t mean for that to happen, and I don’t want any hard feelings.”

  Her eyes widen and lips part, and for a minute I just think she’s surprised that I’m apologizing. Then those Goddamn eyebrows pinch, and it’s not surprise. She’s pissed again.

  “You feel bad about the other night? What about the past two years, Seth, do you feel badly about that?” She lets out a huff and drops her notebook to her side. “You don’t need to pretend you’re a good guy. I know exactly who you are, so just leave me the hell alone.”

  She tries to step around me, but I’m there to block her. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you before either, so yeah, I’m sorry about that too.” My teeth grind together, and I’m not even sure why. I mean what I’m saying, and I am sorry. She wasn’t even my target, her jackass boyfriend was, but for some reason I can’t seem to wrap my head around, I still don’t like her. She reminds me of him. Reminds me of the type of person that makes me want to puke and scream at the same time, and in that moment I have no idea how I’m going to complete this challenge. I’m not even sure I want to.

  “Well, apology not accepted.”

  She pierces me with her glare a couple more seconds before trying to step around me again. This time I let her. I turn around and watch as she walks away. I don’t even realize I’m clutching the coffee too hard until hot liquid burns my hand and I drop the cup to the ground, dowsing my shoes and the hems of my jeans.

  I close my eyes and take a steadying breath, waiting until enough time has passed that I’m sure she’s gone by now. She is. It’s past nine so classes have already begun and the courtyard is sparse with people, so I’m standing here by myself looking like an idiot. This was a stupid plan, waiting outside her class. I should just pay her to act sincere when she says the words… but I can’t. It’d kill my pride, and it’d take away from the satisfaction of ‘earning it’. I have no idea what I’ll do, but I’ll figure it out.

  Right now, I’m just going back to sleep.

  7

  Valerie

  “Why won’t you talk to me? I know something is going on.”

  Gemma’s right. Something is going on, but I can’t quite figure out what that something is. Seth apologized to me. Hell, he even brought me coffee this morning as a ‘peace’ offering. Whatever the hell that means. He was actually… nice. The whole scene with him threw me for a loop, and it feels like everything I knew to be true is a lie.

  “Valerie, please.” Gemma grips my arm and forces me to stop in my tracks and turn to face her.

  “We’re going to be late to Research Methods. Can we talk about this later?” What I don’t say is that, later, I plan on following up on all the applications I’ve submitted for a summer job.

  “Yeah. Sure,” she mumbles before turning from me to walk the remaining ten feet to the door of our next class.

  All through class I think about the scene with Seth some more. What’s his game?

  Nothing. He was just being nice.

  That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? Seth Carnes is not nice and it would be really great if I could remember that.

  My inner voice plagues me all through class and then the entire walk back to my dorm room. Gemma tried again to get me to talk, but I refused. She wouldn’t understand. She gave up when we reached my dorm, and I promised her I would talk to her tomorrow. She wasn’t happy about it, but she relented and went on to her own dorm, two buildings from mine.

  “Hey, Val.” Lexie is standing in front of her closet in a towel. “Wanna go to a party tonight?” She pulls out a red halter top and squints at it, as if to determine if it was slutty enough for yet another frat party.

  “No thanks.” I toss my bag on the desk on my side of the room and flop down into the chair in front of it.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t let Seth Carnes scare you away.”

  Immediately the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “What did you hear?”

  “What? Nothing. I just meant after the last party.” She looks at me with questions in her eyes.

  “Oh, right. The party.” That seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality, it’d only been two days. Two days since I was humiliated, very publicly.

  At least that humiliation didn’t make it to the internet.

  “There is that,” I mumble to myself.

  “What did you say?” Lexie drops her towel and shimmies into a purple lace thong, no issue whatsoever with me seeing her naked.

  “Nothing. So, where is this party tonight?”

  “Delta Gamma Phi.” She stands before me in her bra and thong, hands on her hips. “C’mon. You can’t hide out here forever.”

  “Why would Seth be nice to me?” The words are out before I can even think to call them back.

  “Ah, so that’s what this is all about?” She waves her hand in the air like I didn’t just ask a question that has an answer that could shift my entire world.

  “I’m serious. I need to understand.”

  “Sweetie, Seth isn’t a bad guy. And from what I hear, you two were looking awfully cozy this morning drinking your coffee.” She winks before pulling her halter top on and shifting it into place.

  “We were not having coffee together!” I’m up out of my chair and in her face. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Nate told me. He said that you and Seth have sort of come to a truce. Shit, Val, I’m sorry. I just assumed…”

  “Assumed what? Spit it out.”

  “Well, you know.”

  “No. I don’t know.” I’m starting to shake, and I hate that it makes me feel weak.

  “There was a lot of chemistry in the air between you and Seth. I just figured there was more there than either of you were willing to admit.” She shrugs and walks to the bed to pick up her cell phone and shoves it into her back pocket. How it fits in the skin-tight jeans, I have no idea, but it does. Barely.

  “There is nothing between Seth and me. Nothing.”

  “Okay, sweetie. Whatever you say.” Lexie halts at the door before opening it and throws a look over her shoulder. “You sure you don’t wanna come? I can wait while you get ready.”

  At that moment, my laptop dings with a notification, and I glance at it quickly to see that it’s an alert for a new job posting. Without looking back to her I say, “Nope. I’m good.”

  “Later, then.” I hear the door click shut as I click on the notification.

  My skin begins to tingle as I read the job description.

  Companion needed for 21 year old autistic college student. Must be available during evening hours to assist with transportation to and from night classes at local college. Ideal candidate would be familiar with Autism and have previous work with individuals on the autism spectrum and be close in age to client. Candidate MUST be willing to come to our home for a two day trial period to ensure that they are the right fit for our daughter. If interested, please submit resume, along with 3 references to the following email address:

  companionposition@gmail.com

  Pay is $100 per day and the position would be Monday - Friday. Hours would depend on our daughter’s class schedule. Nights and weekends are required.

  This is perfect. I could certainly save money, and the job sounds like it would be great

&n
bsp; experience. I love working with individuals who might not otherwise be seen. I may not have a disability, but I know exactly what it’s like to be overlooked and undervalued.

  I quickly pull up my resume and make a few tweaks to address the requirements of the position and draft a cover letter. The tingling feeling from earlier intensifies with my excitement. I compose the email to apply for the job, and when it’s ready, I hit send.

  For the first time today, I feel like the world isn’t tilting on its axis. I feel… happy.

  8

  Seth

  “Just ask her on a date. Buy her flowers or some shit like that.”

  I catch the ball I’ve been tossing into the air for the past half hour and turn my head towards Tristan. He’s sitting in the bean bag chair in the corner of my room with his eyes glued to the TV. His fingers tap at the remote, and he winces as his character on GTA gets arrested again.

  “Dude, you suck at this game.”

  “And apparently, you suck with girls.” He cocks his head my way and tosses the remote on the bed. I sit up and start the game again.

  “That’s not what your mom said.”

  A water bottle knocks me on the side of the head, and I glance over at Tristan long enough to wink before going back to the Playstation.

  “Seriously, though. What are you gonna do?” Tristan’s voice is cool and disinterested, but underneath I can tell he’s scrambling. If I get elected, I’m making him my VP. Keyword being if. There’s not really anyone else to take my place. I’m the one nominated, so his worrying isn’t necessary anyway, but still. I get the nervousness because I have no fucking clue how I’m going to get Valerie to even tolerate me, let alone fall in love with me.

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yup.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him nod and run a hand through his hair, not quite convinced. And again, I don’t blame him. I sigh and pause the game before tossing the remote and turning toward him.