“McPherson, lend this girl your book. She clearly needs it.”
Shayler dimmed as her gaze followed Hale’s pointer finger to the cluttered desk and saw the body that occupied the seat. No. Fucking. Way.
“Sure.” David stood, stretching briefly before walking up to her desk and dropping the eight-hundred-pound book dangerously close to her phone.
She looked at him, a bit slack-jawed and unnerved by his vaguely friendly smile. “Thanks,” she mumbled, talking more to the universe for setting her up again than to David.
He raised his brows and marched back to his workspace, sticking his head in his hand and concentrating on a pile of papers—just like he’d done at the bar.
“Will you be able to participate now or do you require someone to read it for you?”
She turned her attention back to Hale and nodded. David had to be stalking her, or she had insanely bad luck. Opening the book, she made sure to use her pinky finger to turn the pages. The less she touched something David owned, the better she’d feel. Being around him only reminded her of how many times she’d struck out this weekend.
As Hale began an extremely boring lecture on classification systems, Shayler decided it was a good opportunity to day dream. She turned the page, in sync with the rest of the class as she wondered what the professor looked like under all those stuffy clothes. What would he be like in bed? All that anger screamed that he’d be hardcore and rough. Her thighs tingled as she thought about him slamming her against the classroom door and ripping her sweater off with his teeth.
“I’ll repeat myself. What is the answer?”
Shayler snapped out of the dream thanks to his cold voice. As she glanced around, she noticed everyone staring at her. Again. “Sorry?”
“I asked you a question. You need to start paying attention.”
At first, Shayler was pure fury and frustration as her veins sizzled and her heart pounded. Then, she watched his gaze drift below her face and stop on her chest. She popped her hip out and grinned. “You need to start making your lectures more interesting.”
There was a low gasp and sudden silence. Shayler waited for his reaction, betting on him either blowing a fuse or shrugging her off. Either she’d be fine with.
His fist closed around the podium. “Pay attention or leave.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” She gave him a salute and licked her bottom lip. Oh yeah, definite pupil dilation. Thank God someone wanted to fuck her.
“Carrying on…” He nodded to someone in the back. “What are some of the things that fall under a part-two offense?”
Shayler sunk back into her seat, knowing David’s gaze was on her without even looking at him. As good as it was to know that, by the end of the week, she’d have a new professor-with-benefits, she hated that David would be there to watch the whole thing unfold, no doubt judging her the entire time.
She flipped her hair over one shoulder and began to draw on one of the pages of the textbook. For fun, she doodled a hand giving the middle finger. The giggles it brought were enough to make her forget what she’d been so pissed about, so she spent the rest of class drawing obscene doodles in the margins of David’s book.
When she was in the middle of drawing a particularly hairy rendition of male genitalia, Hale cleared his throat and dismissed the class with a short wave. Shayler shut the book and stood, prepared to sashay out of the class so Hale could stare at her curvy butt. Instead, David blocked her exit.
“I didn’t know you were in this class.”
She looked behind her, but Hale had disappeared. Her posture slumped. “Don’t you get a roster or something?”
“I just grade stuff and help with the assignments and lectures.”
“Some TA you are.” She offered him his book back. “Thanks for the loan.”
“You can keep it. I have two copies.”
Shayler stared at him. It was impossible that someone could be so sexy and so geeky at the same time. “You have two copies of a textbook?”
“Yeah. Anyway, I saw you drawing in this one. Figured you oughtta keep it.”
“Um, thanks.”
“No problem.” He moved aside so they could walk out of the class together. “How are you feeling, by the way? I was worried you wouldn’t get home, but—”
“Are you serious? I was fine. It’s not that hard to dial a ride.” The longer she looked at him, the more she wanted to set his maroon polo shirt on fire. She had no clue why she hated it so much. Maybe it was that he wore it with dark-wash jeans which could’ve made him look badass instead of like Mr. Mom had he paired them with something darker and more dangerous than a collared shirt. Maybe it was that she just hated his body being covered and felt an urge to yank it off and straddle him.
“Okay.”
The winter air blasted them as David opened the door. Shayler shivered, wishing she’d brought her jacket. But the bulky leather would’ve covered up her hourglass figure, and she’d decided it wasn’t worth the loss. Pain for beauty, she blamed society for ingraining such bullshit into her brain.
“Do you want to borrow my co—”
She whipped around to face him, stopping them both in their tracks. “If you offer me your jacket, I swear to God I’ll vomit all over your textbook the next time I get drunk.”
He chuckled and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Sorry.”
Shayler kicked an acorn away from her boots, exhaling softly as she reminded herself to be patient. “It’s fine.”
“What are you up to later?” he asked as they resumed their walk.
“Why?”
He laughed. “What?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t know… I thought we were friends.”
Shayler cackled, stopping just before the hill so David could put on some dopey windbreaker. “Nope. No way.”
He crossed his arms. “Excuse me?”
“We’re not friends.”
“Why not? I helped you when you were sick, we talked…”
“It’s not like we gossiped as though we were a couple of girlies going to brunch. I was drunk and angry and needed to vent, and you just happened to be there.”
“I make you that sick that you can’t even stomach being friends?” He shrugged off the jacket he’d only just zipped up and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She blinked. Her nipples were practically frozen and would need to be amputated soon if she didn’t stay warm, so she kept the jacket on. “It’s not you. I just don’t do the whole ‘guy friend’ thing.”
His eyebrows scrunched as he searched her face for … something. “Why?”
His body was too close to hers now, and the longer she was near him, the more her mind clouded over and all she could think about was tearing his clothes off and dragging his mouth to hers. Shayler shook her head. “I just don’t.”
“There has to be reason.”
“You really want to know?” She tightened the jacket, holding it from the inside. “Because any guy I like enough to be friends with, I like enough to sleep with.”
“Seriously?”
Her face flushed under his scrutiny, something that hadn’t happened since she’d let out a huge fart in the middle of Booty Bootcamp last summer. “Well, it’s not like I know that many guys to begin with. I have a lot of girlfriends. And any guy I come across who’s cool enough to hang out with, I end up having sex with. So … yeah.”
David nodded. “That’s dumb.”
Shayler laughed at his bluntness. “How so, wise TA?”
“Because we men are people too, and we have more to offer than—”
“Your dicks?” She quirked her head to the right.
He rolled his eyes. “If that’s how you want to put it.”
“What do you have to offer me then?”
“Should I have something?”
“If I can’t use you for your—”
“You can’t,” he interrupted.
“Then you should have something t
o offer me that I can’t find in a girl on this campus.”
He narrowed his eyes, rubbing a hand on that damn scruffy chin. “I can help you with homework.”
Shayler scoffed. “Please. So can anyone else I flash my boobs at in the library.”
“Don’t do that.” He pondered the question some more. “I have a free fro-yo coupon in my wallet.”
Shayler swallowed an impending grin, ignoring the way her stomach fizzled like she’d downed a liter of soda with a box of Pop Rocks. “Anything else?”
“I once ate thirty-four wings in a wing eating competition at Husky’s?”
“Nuh-uh, where did you put it all?” Her eyes roamed down his body, and she held in a wistful sigh. This conversation would’ve been a lot easier for her if he’d had an eye patch or clown nose or something weird to distract her.
“Ha-ha. Any of that do anything for ya?”
“Mmm … nope. But if I ever need someone to go to wing night with, now I know who to call.”
His neck reddened. “Sounds like a deal.”
Shayler was about to spin around on her heel and jog-walk to the parking garage when her feet cemented to the ground. There was something else she wanted to ask before they parted ways. “Why do you want to be friends so badly?”
David grinned and stepped forward, zipping up the jacket. Shayler shivered as his hands neared her breasts. She blamed her sudden dry spell for wishing she could moan loudly and stick his hands under the fabric.
“Because you’re funny, and I think you’re a lot smarter than you let on.”
“What you see is pretty much what you get with me.”
“I don’t think so.”
Shayler held his gaze, willing him to tilt his head, close his eyes, and grab her ass. He didn’t. He stepped back and pointed in the opposite direction. “I gotta head to the library.”
“Of course you do.”
He smiled. “I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t you want your jacket? You’re gonna freeze.”
“Just bring it with you Wednesday. I usually run hot anyway.”
Shayler watched as he made his way down the hill and past the quad, unable to do much else but agree with his assessment. Though his jacket blocked the icy wind, Shayler thought there was another reason she felt slightly warmer than normal. And she didn’t like it.
Chapter Eight
There was nothing more depressing than a bar during a weekday. At least, that’s what Shayler had thought until she ventured to a mall food court on a Wednesday morning. She scrunched her nose as a mother herded five small children toward the coffee shop on the corner.
“Why are we meeting here again?” she asked Ansley, pushing her butt all the way back in the plastic purple chair she’d been forced to sit in.
“Because it’s the last place Becca would be.”
“I would rather be at the strip club down on Twelfth Avenue.”
“Well, you won’t get gonorrhea from a food court, so shut up and deal.”
“You’re catty today.”
Ansley tied her hair up and crossed her legs, draping an arm across the table so that her wrist dangled off the edge. Everything the blonde did was so obnoxiously elegant, even when she was being abrasive and cynical.
“Sorry. My mom called last night.”
“She still bragging about her Christmas vacation?”
“Yes, and she’s planning another for summer.”
Shayler frowned. As much as her own mom got on her nerves, Ansley’s was on a whole other scale. Shayler’s mom was too warm, too friendly sometimes. Ansley’s was cold, selfish. It was a miracle Ansley was sane, really, and not knuckle deep in a bottle of pills.
“You know you can stay with me.”
“It’s cool.” Ansley adjusted the gold charm bracelet that hung off her wrist. “I’m just gonna take summer courses.”
Shayler nodded, avoiding being pushy. Ansley hated pity, almost as much as Shayler and maybe even more. She shrugged her jacket tighter around her and settled in the seat, spotting a tall, tan, and handsome figure heading their way.
“Fucking finally,” she commented as Derek slid into a chair beside Ansley.
He ran his hands through his hair and pulled off an old red and black letterman’s jacket. “Sorry. I was busy.”
Shayler rolled her eyes, ignoring Ansley’s pointed glare. “What’s so important we have to meet up during Mom and Tots hour?”
“Whoa, who shoved a stick up your ass?” Derek asked, raising a brow.
She wanted to blurt out that it was officially twenty-seven days since she had last orgasmed from something not made out of silicone, and she would have if a rowdy five-year-old hadn’t been bumping into the back of her chair. “Probably the same person who forced you to wear that lame-ass jacket. You look like a Friday Night Lights reject.”
“You wanna talk about lame jackets, Shayler? What the hell are you wearing? It looks like it’s made out of tarp and belongs to a giant.”
“It’s called a windbreaker,” she mumbled, sticking her hands in the pockets.
“That’s some dude’s jacket, isn’t it?”
Ansley hit the tabletop. “Enough! Can we just talk about this?”
“Fine,” Shayler mumbled.
Derek raised his hands in surrender. “So Rebecca’s birthday is a month away, and I want to do something special for it.”
“I remember.” Shayler leaned back in the seat, thankful the kids had moved on to antagonizing some elderly couple in matching jogging suits. The mall was slowly becoming her personal hell.
He ignored her attitude and continued. “I was thinking a surprise party.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s your bright idea? Becca hates parties, and she hardly knows enough people to make it a good one.”
Ansley nodded, her pink lips twisted into a grimace. “She’s not wrong.”
“I’m not an idiot. I thought maybe a small get together would be nice. You guys, Trish, Debbie, Damion, his boyfriend, that Keith kid…”
“His name is Ken, and why would you want to invite some guy she almost dated?”
“He’s not that bad,” Derek defended, crossing his arms.
“We could invite some of her friends from her classes,” Ansley agreed.
“Awesome. I was thinking of renting out the backroom at that Italian place, Bella Mia.”
“I could get the cake and guest list started,” Ansley offered, pulling her phone out.
“Great. I’ll reserve the restaurant and see if they can do appetizers and shit like that.”
“What about decorations?” Ansley asked.
Shayler watched as they lobbied ideas back and forth, like an even more boring version of Pong. It unsettled her that they sounded so old, planning a get-together with appetizers that didn’t come out of a bag and decorations that didn’t involve coconut bras, bed sheets, or neon colors.
“Anything you wanna do, Shayler?”
What she wanted to do was screech and pull her hair out, strand by strand, until she was completely hairless. But this was for Rebecca, her best friend, so she had to come up with something. “I’ll, uh, get her there.”
“I can do that,” Derek said.
“If you do it, she’s going to expect something. And you’ll get all weird and nervous and ramble again.” She saw the confusion on his face and explained. “She told us about the whole locket proposal thing. Anyway, if I tell her I wanna go because some hot guy works there, she’ll totally buy it.”
“Fine. You get Rebecca there.”
She smiled proudly. “Consider it done.”
“I’ll do invites,” Ansley announced.
“I was just gonna shoot some texts,” Derek explained.
Ansley’s jaw clenched. “I know. I’ll send real ones.”
He leaned back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head. “Whatever makes you feel better.”
Shayler pushed the sleeves of her navy-blue windbreaker up and
fiddled with a curl that wouldn’t untangle from her hoop earring. “Are we done then?”
Ansley looked to Derek for confirmation, her hands folded in her lap.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“That’s it?” Shayler stared at the ceiling. “You made us drive all the way to this crummy mall, and you don’t even know if we’re done?”
“I just wanted to talk somewhere Rebecca wouldn’t find us.”
“It’s a Wednesday at the start of the semester. She’s probably up to her elbows in notecards and lecture recordings.”
“She records lectures?” Derek asked, one of those horrible love-struck smiles filling up his face.
Shayler shook her head and stood. “I can’t do this. You guys are impossible.”
Instead of letting her storm away by herself, Derek and Ansley followed. Shayler shuffled her feet, careful not to catch her boots on the corner of the kiosks that cluttered the center of the mall, even though it meant sacrificing speed for safety.
“Why are we impossible?” Derek asked, catching up to her quickly. Shayler cursed his long legs.
“I don’t know. You’re just nauseating.”
“Is this about the whole sex thing?” Ansley asked, undoing her ponytail, running her hands over her scalp, and tying it back up again.
“No.”
“Sex thing?” Derek blocked the path to the double doors that were just feet away.
Shayler tossed Ansley the dirtiest look she could muster. “Thanks a lot.” Turning back to Derek, she held in a growl. “I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Come on, I’m practically one of the girls now.” He shoved her playfully on the shoulder. “What’s up, girlfriend?”
Shayler huffed. Another off-limits hot guy that wanted to be friends? She was so done with the male population. “Nothing.”
“She’s upset because she hasn’t had sex in a month.” Ansley’s eyes widened as Shayler kicked her shin. “What? He’s right. He’s basically the fourth amigo.”
“There are only three amigos!”
Derek’s laughter made her blood boil. “Seriously? Why don’t you just go get some then? No need to take it out on innocent bystanders.”
“If I could, I would,” she bit out, still glaring at Ansley. Good thing the blonde was doing everything she could to avoid eye contact.
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