by James, Ella
He looks down at me out of the corner of his eye, a smug smile curving his lips. At least, I imagine he’s smug.
I feel the word “thanks” form on my tongue, but I clamp my mouth shut before it can roll out.
I glance down at our joined hands. His wrist is bent a little. His fingers grip mine, light but firm—an easy cradle. They’re long and elegant. The angles of his wrist and forearm are the same. He’s just... well-hewn. Andddd, I’m lusting after a forearm. I’m in such big fucking trouble.
“You got Marx for cal?” Kellan asks as we pass closed classroom doors. My boots and his black leather shoes echo around us.
I’m hyper-aware of my damp fingers in his, so it takes me a moment to remember he asked me a question. I nod. “Business calculus.”
“You’re going into business?”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds high and forced.
It’s his damn hand.
His fingers shift in mine, tickling my palm, and heat shoots up my arm. We reach the building’s front corridor, where a stairwell leads up to two more levels of classrooms and a row of glass doors leads outside. His thumb strokes the back of my hand.
“What sort of business?” He leans forward to push one of the doors open with his free hand. He flattens his broad back against it, and I squeeze through beside him while my pulse pounds in my head.
Outside, sunlight is streaming through the clouds: a soft, cool, filmy light that seems to set the scene for something serious. The pearly glow flickers through the trees, making a shadowy kaleidoscope of leaf-shapes that flickers across Kellan’s face and shoulders.
“Psychology,” I fudge. I don’t want to get into my real ambitions with him. I have a feeling he wouldn’t get it.
I look around at the wide, brick concourse out ahead, empty because everyone is in class; at the impeccably manicured lawns that spread out underneath giant, mossy oaks. The lawns and flower beds are striped by pebble walking paths.
He leads me toward the nearest trail, curling between rows of massive azalea bushes. Despite all my reservations, I follow.
My forearm brushes his, and suddenly I just can’t keep touching him. Not without bursting into flames. I wriggle my fingers impatiently, and his hand relaxes to free mine. He stops moving, and we stand there on the shaded trail, watching each other. He looks like a real prince in his vest-suit thing.
I feel like a pumpkin.
He trails a finger lightly down my forearm. “Relax, Cleo.” His voice is stern and soft. “I won’t bite—this time.” He winks, and I roll my eyes, despite the increase in my heart rate.
He walks, and my traitorous feet follow.
“You’re a senior?” he asks, glancing back at me.
My stomach writhes under his blue gaze. “Yeah.”
“So, grad school after this?”
The azaleas on each side of the path rise up around us, fluffy green bushes taller even than Kellan. The feeling of privacy makes my head buzz. Makes me sound breathless when I say, “It’s one of the reasons I need money.”
I search his face for hidden motives, but he’s looking at me the same way he was before: with sincere interest, as if he’s interviewing me for an important job. “What will you do with your degree?” he asks, in his resonant voice.
“Help kids.” Kids like my sister and me. After our youngest sister, Olive, died, Mary Claire and I both struggled. We had a hard time in school, and an even harder time at home. Our house was so gloomy. Both my grandmother and my mom cried all the time. My mom closed her sewing shop and took a factory job. Grans started cleaning houses when she could. Mary Claire and I were on our own. To understand why Olive was taken and we weren’t. To make sense of the knowledge that we’d never, ever see her freckled face again. For years, I would go to the cemetery on the fourteenth of every month, because she died on the fourteenth. Mary Claire has never been. She just can’t go.
Neither of us ever got “therapy,” because we couldn’t afford it. At our elementary school, there was one counselor, and she was busy helping with the kids who acted out.
My business will target kids like us. I’ll do private art classes, and I’ll charge my patrons... aggressively. I’ll make the classes really fun. I’ll make my clients feel like artists, and ensure they’re able to take home a nice canvas. Then I’ll use some of the money to offer free art classes to kids who’ve experienced tragedy. I talked to the local school superintendent here in Chattahoochee, and she said a plan like mine would definitely work in most school districts.
I look up at perfect Kellan, and I know I can’t tell him all that. He’d never understand.
I give him an easy little shrug. “Kids with troubles,” I say. “I’m going to help them.”
“That’s a noble calling.”
“I should warn you, I have a sensitive bullshit-o-meter.” I lift my eyes from the ground and find him staring at me earnestly. He’s all blue eyes, cheekbones, and lips. Anger wars with desire inside me, tightening my chest. “It’s got to be better than your criminal plans.”
He slants his gaze down at me. “You’re probably right.”
Curiosity seeps through me. I only fight it for a minute before loosening my tight shoulders and asking, “What are your plans, seriously? More of what you do right now? And you really do...what you said yesterday?”
He places a finger over my lips and looks into my eyes. His are so...intense. Almost hungry. I do this weird, mini-shiver thing, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he draws his hand away from my mouth and turns back to the path ahead. “Yes, Cleo. I really do. And...I don’t have plans,” he says, walking. His eyes are on the pebbles. His hands have disappeared into his pockets.
“Nothing?”
“Just keep thumbing through my wads,” he says. One corner of his mouth lifts, but it’s not a smile.
“Investing,” he adds, like it’s an afterthought. Our little path turns east, toward Taylor Hall, the tall, brick pre-Civil War administrative building.
I’m aware of his body, just a foot or so from mine. How quiet he suddenly is. How big—and also graceful. Like an athlete. Which makes sense, because he is. I keep forgetting Mr. Perfect plays soccer. I glance at his legs. I can see thick muscle through his slacks.
My eyes move back up him, over his lean waist and his muscular chest and shoulders. My throat is dry. I swallow. What were we talking about?
Our future plans.
I wonder what his really are. I wonder why he’s so intent on doing business with me. Could it really be as simple as it seems on the surface? Eliminate the competition—which just happens to be me? I should probably ask more questions.
“Do you do just the...um...M.J.?” I glance at the tall bushes that line our path, as if anyone is actually around. “Or more stuff, too?”
“You’re curious?” He gives me his beautiful, blue eagle eye.
“Isn’t that part of why we’re talking? Because you want to work together?”
His eyes darken. He stops walking, his arm brushing mine as he reaches up to touch my shoulder. “I made you come, Cleo. We both know that. We are going to work together.”
His low words drive the air out of my lungs. I can’t tear my eyes away from his. I gobble at the air like a goldfish on the sidewalk.
“Is that why you got me out of class?” I feel a swell of warmth between my legs and suck another breath in. “Kellan—no.” I shake my head, finally finding my equilibrium. I step away, forcing his hand off my shoulder. “There’s no way I’m living at your house. I don’t want to deal for you either. No offense, but... no. My answer is the same. No way.”
He brings a hand to his heart. The intensity of a few moments ago falls away, leaving a thick blanket of charm that makes my chest feel fuzzy. “You wound me.”
I give a hoarse laugh. “You’re hot and everything. You’ve got a really sexy voice, you’re the kind of guy that people post in my slutty Facebook group but—”
His brows arch. “Slutty Facebook group?” An instant
grin spreads over his face. “Cleo—tell.”
My face heats so fast, my eyes actually sting. I slam my palm against my forehead. “Never mind. Forget I said that. Please.”
“Are you an admin there?”
I take another step back and put my hands up again. “Slow down, Pervo. It’s not like you’re going to get to see. It’s a group for women. Smuffins,” I tell him, smiling just a little. I pull my shawl up and show him my long-sleeved black t-shirt, with its little, white Smuffin logo—an artful marriage of an “S” and a heart.
“That’s the logo?” He’s still grinning. Maybe smirking.
I laugh a little, real this time. “That’s the logo. It’s a women’s perv group. Totally amazing. Very fun. It’s more than that, too. It’s sort of like...a group of friends, who read and talk about girl shit. And smut.” I drop the shawl, feeling a little too exposed. “Anyway, they’d totally drool over a Kellan Walsh .gif, but that doesn’t mean I want to live with you. Or even screw you. No offense.”
“I am offended,” he says gravely. “You tell me you only like me for my looks, and they don’t even make up for my perceived...shortcomings? Is that it?” He looks mortally offended, and I scoff.
“You’re a—I won’t say what,” I hiss, “but we both know it.” I cut my eyes at him. “Let’s just put it this way: You’re the wolf, and I’m a lamb.”
“Twilight fan girl?” He makes air quotes around ‘fan girl.’ His brows are arched.
“Familiar with the movie?”
We’re walking again, having fallen into an easy pace, still winding through the azaleas toward the Taylor building.
“Book,” he tells me. “Actually, books.” He smiles a little, looking secretive—and way too handsome.
“Did you read it for a girl?”
“A woman.”
I rake my eyes down his body and try to imagine her: the woman-not-girl who got a guy like Kellan Walsh to read the Twilight books.
“Her name is Dr. Merchant,” he says, with a quirk of his lower lip.
“You took her ‘Guide to Modern Publishing?’ Color me shocked.”
“The blows keep coming.”
I snort, trying desperately to pretend my heart’s not pounding every time his eyes meet mine. Trying to pretend I think about him what I should: that he’s a liar, a phony, and a threat. “Why would you want to write and sell a book?”
Again, the eagle eye. I can’t tell what he’s feeling. “Maybe I was thinking of writing my memoir.”
I throw my head back. “A comedian, too!”
His lips twist into a smile; he’s smirking at me even as he shakes his head. “You think so low of me.”
I nod. “That’s why I’m not going to live with you. Or do you.”
He gives me a sidelong, thoughtful look. “You said you struggle with math?”
“I hate it. Why?”
We’re in sight of Taylor now. It looms above us, a dark brick building with two huge towers. Pines sway gently around it.
“I’ve got another deal for you.”
My heart thumps. “Oh boy.”
He holds a hand up. “What are you studying now? What specifically?”
“Intro to basic antiderivatives and—damnit, what are they called? Indefinite integrals! And I already know where you’re going with this. Even if you can perform lobotomies, I’m not changing my mind.”
“What if I enlighten you completely? Make you a math whiz.”
I snort. “No one’s that good.”
“I’m a finance major, Cleo. That means I’m a god at math. You need help, so let’s see if I can help you.” He catches my elbow with his fingers, and I look into his eyes.
“Give me two hours. Just two. If I don’t change things for you, then the deal is off. I’ll let you back out of our agreement from last night.”
My gaze dips to the ground. To our feet, standing so close together. I don’t know what would be the best move. All I do know is that he throws me off. He makes me nervous. “I have an officers’ meeting tonight,” I tell him lamely.
He waves at his clothes. “I have a trustee selection committee meeting. After that?”
I step away, drawing my elbow out of his hand. I’m not sure if I should sign on for the study session just to call his bluff, or if I should simply run. I smooth a hand over my hair, a nervous gesture I thought I left behind with freshman year. “My meeting isn’t over until seven-thirty.”
“I’ll be by to get you then.”
I rub my lips together, and finally work up the nerve to look him in the eye again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His face turns serious—gravely so. “It’s because of yesterday,” he says. “I scared you.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I thought I was getting busted. Then I find out you’re some drug lord. Yeah.” I shrug, feeling annoyed all over again. “That’s not fun.”
He lifts my hand and surprises me by kissing the back of it. “I know you’re surprised. I know I must seem—”
“Shady? Very.”
He shakes his head. “I can make this work for you. I can make it easy.”
Looking up into his earnest face, it seems improbable enough to almost make me laugh. “I don’t believe you, Kellan. I shouldn’t hang out with you, even to study. You stress me out.”
His face is unreadable again, his full lips pressed together. “If you’re as bad as you say, tonight will be the end of it. I don’t help you, you go back to dealing swag.”
“Or not dealing,” I correct. “That’s what will happen.”
“It won’t happen.” He rolls his shoulders and grins his arrogant grin. “I’ll be at your place at seven forty. Then, the library.” He narrows his eyes into a funny little winky face, then points his finger and thumb into a gun shape.
“I’m coming armed,” I call over my shoulder.
My heart is still pounding when I walk out of the garden, into the parking lot behind Taylor.
Chapter Eight
Kellan
The USC/Arizona game goes to commercial, and I lean back against the couch in my living room. The ceiling in this room is striped with skylights, so I’m staring up at my reflection in the glass: my arms crossed behind my head, my sleeves rolled up to my elbows, so my forearms are on display. I shut my eyes and I can see my right one stretched in front of me. I can smell the grass. The dirt. The sweat. I can feel the gallop of my heart.
The game I’m watching now is recorded on DVD. It’s from the Trojans’ 2012 football season. In May, I ordered everything from 2010 forward, but I only started watching them last week.
I’m calling this game a loss for the Trojans. That’s the worst part of watching recorded games: the sense of inevitability when you can feel a loss coming. There’s no changing fate when it’s already been sealed.
And with that thought hanging around my neck, I turn the game off and reach onto the mahogany end table beside the couch. I keep a stack of post cards by the coasters where I sit my iced tea. Also a fountain pen.
Most of the time, after I pick a card and prop it on my thigh, I can’t write a word. My hand freezes. My throat feels thick, as I stare down at the paper. This time, like almost every time before it, my fingers, wrapped around the pen, are cold and still.
What can I say? I’ve got nothing for her.
Fury rises in me: sharp, then suffocating.
I crush the card—a picture of CC’s campus in autumn—in my fist and stab the pen into the couch cushion. I watch the ink spill out of it, creating a small, black cloud on the cappuccino suede.
I duck down over my lap and curl my arm around my head and take deep breaths. Now, before I lose my nerve, I grab a fresh, clean post card and try the pen’s bent tip against it.
I’m surprised it works. It’s my surprise that jars me into action, so I’m able to write a few words. Five... six... seven.
That’s all I can.
I fold the card into my back pocket, stand up, and stretch. I
look at the stairs that lead from the living area up to my room. I could change clothes, but I don’t feel like trudging upstairs.
I walk into the kitchen, where I serve myself some ravioli and slam back a shake. I grab a few sticks of beef jerky for the road and a glass of sweet tea. I might be a Southern transplant, but I love this shit.
I grab my bag off the front staircase, then open the top drawer of the massive, Victorian-era table beside the stairs. I pull out a couple of notebooks, an extra calculator, and my old Calculus 1 text book. I sling the items into my bag and pull the front door shut without locking it or setting the alarm.
It’s a cool night—cool for September in Georgia. The air feels lighter than it has in months. It’s breezy on my cheeks, taunting me with all that I can’t have.
I press “unlock” on my Escalade’s key fob, climb into the front seat, and turn around so I can lean into the back. There’s a white laundry basket on the seat behind mine, filled with thick, pink fleece blankets. Manning must have dropped it off while I was watching the game.
I had to call and let him know I wouldn’t be at the trustee meeting—I dipped out early—and to bring it here instead. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he did what I asked, when I asked for it. He’s my manager of operations, and efficiency is his middle name. Actually, Manning is. He’s Adam Manning Smith—and using an alias just like I am.
I can smell what’s in the blankets as I drive. I roll the windows down, jack the heat up, and listen to The Doors. And then the Dead. And then the Stones. And then The Strokes. And then nothing.
I’m too damn edgy.
Because I need her: Cleopatra Whatley.
I can’t decide if it’s her impertinence, her blasé, or my own urge to circumvent both and make her submit to me in every way—but I ache when I imagine her in the glass-walled room upstairs.
I park in the U-shaped lot behind the Tri Gam house and carry the basket under my left arm. I’m not afraid of getting caught. Not now. I’ve lost fear.
I open the front door and climb the old ass, creaky stairs like I own the place. The “executive suite” is on the front of the second story, arranged around a rocking-chair littered balcony that juts over the first-floor porch. If my sources are correct, there’s one door that leads to the “suite,” which houses all the officers’ bedrooms. I knock twice and listen to light footfall, hoping it’s Cleo’s.
