Freshman year had proven that this never happened to me, the boy others wanted wanting me. That was probably why I felt eyes on my back as I followed him away from the light, but it didn’t matter. It would have been surprising if they even knew who I was.
My heels sunk in the grass as I followed him back to the path, up the stairs to the unlit doorway of the building where I was pretty sure the English department had their offices. My back pressed against the brick, looking up at him. His hands were warm on my waist.
This. Never. Happened. Not to me.
He was gorgeous and hot and had big eyes looking down at me. And I was just me, who never did this, whatever this was. But damn it if I didn’t want to.
“Hey, Bizza?” I could barely see his smile in the dark.
“Hey, Dev?” His nickname slid off lips too lazy to speak the extra syllable.
“You okay?” I had no idea if he was talking about what I thought he was talking about, but all I had to do was hesitate.
It was a classic kiss, sweet and soft. His lips were warm and light and soft, giving gently against mine.
It stayed that way for about half a second. Before my arms were even around his neck, my feet were only barely touching the ground and my body was pinned between his and the brick behind me—and it apparently knew exactly which one it wanted to be closer to. I couldn’t get close enough.
There was something to be said for experience. Practice had evidently made pretty damn perfect.
My hands slid down to his chest, playing with his open collar.
I didn’t know exactly what to do when his lips moved down to my neck, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with tilting my head back, and then conscious planning found itself roughly shoved out of the front of my mind by a Greek chorus of hormones and teeny bopper squeals. Air ran quickly over my lips and I ran my fingers through the hair at the base of his scalp.
When he pulled away to rest his forehead on my shoulder, my fingers slid down his chest, my thumbs tracing the diagonal line of his hipbone. He draped his arms over my hips as his head lifted to kiss my temple.
“Having fun?” He was just a little bit short of breath.
“Are you?” Conscious planning hadn’t returned in time to provide an answer. He smiled against my skin, and I could feel his lips move as they curved upward.
“Mmm, only a little.” He kissed my lips in a way I would describe as chaste, except there was nothing chaste about the way my hips were pressed against his. “And I think you are too.”
“Really?” I leaned forward as his lips moved farther away to get another hit. Devin-aholics Anonymous anyone?
“Yeah.” I couldn’t see his smile, but I had a feeling I’d be glad no one else could either. He had passed self-confident for an unmistakably smug and self-congratulatory expression, with that twist to the corner and a boyish self-satisfaction written in the relaxed lines of his face. Guess I wasn’t the only one whose hormones were running the show. “I think you wanted to do that all week.”
Me and everyone else. But he was cocky enough to know that too.
“Why do you think that?” I really was trying to control my breathing, but he made it extremely difficult.
“Because it’s exactly what I have been dying to do to you.” It was a good thing he kissed me again, because I really had no response. It was so obviously crap, too well scripted, too often rehearsed. People don’t actually say things like that. Too bad I couldn’t help buying it.
There was every chance that tomorrow would be awkward, if he was even talking to me, and I had no idea when or if this opportunity would arise again. I thought it was slutty and desperate and completely stupid, but I didn’t care.
My mom would have told me I was way too young.
Why the hell was I thinking about my mom?
I didn’t let him come up for air, which seemed to be fine with him. If I kissed him harder, kissed him hotter, maybe he wouldn’t notice how inexperienced, how inadequate, I really was.
The music was barely audible from where we were and, preoccupied, I missed its ending point. It was, however, impossible to miss the sound of people heading back from the dance. That meant ten forty-five and dorms locked at eleven. A few people had already passed our niche and hadn’t even noticed us making out, but I was sure I looked like a mess as we slipped back into the crowd. Dev looked ridiculously composed. He probably did this all the time.
My hot face was a blatant confession. That was either really good or really bad. Common sense screamed that it was very, very, extremely bad. But there was a part of me that wanted people to know that Bizza Johnson and Dev Kennedy had been in the niche by the English building. He had his arm around my shoulders and my hand settled easily on his waist, feeling the elastic of his boxers through his shirt. Tonight, it seemed comfortable. I tried not to think about tomorrow.
Like the gentleman he was not, he walked me back to my dorm. Thanks to the killjoy old lady R.A. standing in the front hall with a scary look on her face and the large crowd of couples blocking the entrance, he only squeezed my shoulders. Then he released me to push my way through and then run up the stairs as quickly as one can run in stilettos. He might have said “good night,” but it could have been wishful thinking.
4.
Cleo was sitting on my bed when I walked into my room, with a classic Cheshire cat grin all over her face.
“Elizabeth Johnson.” She spoke slowly, a knowing smile in every syllable of my name. She raised one eyebrow.
I bit my lip, turning a fierce red under the hallway lights.
Cleo took one look at my face and her smile widened. She dragged me into her room as other girls began to climb the stairs and pushed a white Styrofoam container of unmade dehydrated noodles at me. “Food, then details. I’m starving!” Easy Mac in hand, she followed me into the hall.
Both containers fit in the grungy microwave. For three minutes and thirty seconds of microwave time, I stared at the garish bulletin board in the hall with cleanup duties around the dorm for the next month. Cleo alternately looked at her nails and the countertop, spotted with miscellaneous food stains. When we had (relatively) edible food, we stirred in powdery flavoring and went back to her room. I kicked off my heels with a sigh of relief and slid to her floor, leaning back against her bed.
“Soooo?” She dropped onto her bed, shoving unmarked handouts and empty folders to the side.
“So?” I smiled, taking a slurping bite of chicken-flavored noodles.
“Shut up, bitch.” She grinned. “Did you or didn’t you?”
I giggled. “I didn’t!” Like that was convincing. And then I looked up at her as it occurred to me. “Does everybody know?”
“Not yet.” Cleo laughed. “I only noticed because Alec was looking for Dev and I saw you two dancing. Next time I looked, you two had vanished.”
I glanced down again and bit my lip, in perpetual uncertainty now that there was no one to kiss it and make it go away. “He wouldn’t think I’m a slut…would he? I mean, I never do this kind of thing. It was just Dev…and the dance…and, I mean, I do this sometimes, not never, but…”
“Whoa!” Cleo laughed, taking a bite of neon orange pasta with a nonchalance I envied. “Virgin much?”
I was stung by the laughter in her voice. “I’m not a prude, I…” I swallowed. “The guys at home are just prudes.”
Lies.
Cleo took another neon mouthful. “Relax. You guys are friends and Dev has done this many, many times. Even we hooked up a couple times, before we decided we made better friends than fuck buddies.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh my God…You guys Did It?” I was trying so hard not to think about the mental images that created. Ew.
Also incredibly intimidating.
Cleo’s lopsided smile was sly and most definitely satisfied. “Depends on your definition.”
That was one mental image I would be blocking for the rest of forever. I dropped my fork. “Cleo!”
She s
hrugged. “Told you he had history.”
“Not with you.” I picked up my fork and took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “So, does he just do this then? Like, am I supposed to just act like this never happened?”
Cleo swallowed another bite, shrugged and set her Easy Mac container aside. “No idea. But Jesus, Bizza. Breathe.”
I tried hard not to be offended that she was laughing a little. My attempts to “play it cool”? Failing miserably.
“How far did you guys go anyway?”
As I finished my ramen, she slid to the floor next to me so that I could see the screen of her laptop. How much was I supposed to tell her? “Not that far.” She looked unsatisfied. Not enough? “Just like…making out?” My voice rose at the end. Damn inexperience to hell. Times a fucking million.
“That’s not bad,” she said. Her laptop came to life with a soft beep. “He wouldn’t think you’re a slut. And neither will anyone else.”
“I thought you said no one knew!” I was horrified. Slightly.
“Well, he’ll tell Alec for sure since they live together. And Scott.” She started typing, her fingers clicking over the keyboard. “Anyway, everyone knows everything on this campus. Your last boyfriend, who you like, your last test grade, your dog’s birthday…we’re worse than a small town. We have nothing to do but gossip.”
“But…” What was I supposed to do? I really didn’t do stuff like this. Despite the shameless exhibitionist that almost wanted people to know, I really didn’t want people to know.
What if I was a really bad kisser? Oh God.
She laughed. “Breathe,” she repeated. “This is middle school shit. You’re fine.”
That stung. I laughed anyway.
Her voice rose over the click of her fingers on the keyboard like she hadn’t noticed my reaction. “Seriously.” She looked at me. “Nobody gives a shit.”
Maybe for her. But, whatever I was, I certainly was not Cleo.
5.
It was not a good night for sleeping. When I finally shut my eyes at two in the morning, I had spent a lot of time contemplating the cracked off-white paint on Cleo’s ceiling. Then, I woke up at least three times, the first when Cleo got up at eight, presumably to go to the bathroom, and the second when she came back at eight-ten to fall back into bed. The third and final time I opened my eyes, it was almost ten and Cleo was sprawled across her bed in a heavy tangle of sheets and limbs.
It was reflex to reach out and grab my laptop from its position on the floor.
No emails.
It was a slightly less automatic action to reach out and turn on my phone, but I could almost justify that as habit.
No texts.
My body slumped forward over my crossed legs, my elbows leaning on my knees. I needed to shave.
It didn’t matter how many times I told myself that maybe he hadn’t woken up or maybe he’d been busy. That familiar doubt in the back of my head still snidely informed me that he had better things to be doing, and the usual defeatist simply sighed and asked me what, really, I had expected.
The only way to stop compulsively checking my email every five seconds was to go do something. So I took my angsting self to the showers. The self-control to not check my email between brushing my hair and throwing on clothes wasn’t something I possessed. Still looking for something to do, I went to the vending machines for Diet Mountain Dew.
There was no way he’d call me this morning. But every signal I thought I’d been getting said he would. There was no way he would like me. But there had been something when he’d looked at me, something other than (or in addition to) the realization he might get some. Even if there hadn’t been, really.
It could have been the light. Or a childhood overdose of Disney.
Eleven o’clock and seventeen minutes into a movie I’d only been half watching, the envelope icon popped up at the bottom of my screen. I got mail. Slowly, deliberately, I closed the movie and took a deep breath before opening it. I feared the third prophylactic ad that morning or, worse, my mom on her daily check-in. Thankfully, it wasn’t.
call me when you’re up
So maybe Dev didn’t exactly answer any questions. I didn’t even know if I wanted to know what that meant. My hand reached for the phone anyway.
And then I pulled it back. Five minutes. Then I’d call.
I made it four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. The phone rang three times before it was picked up.
“’Lo?”
Alec. I’d almost forgotten they were roommates.
“Hey. It’s Bizza.”
“Deeeeev! Take it so I can sleep.”
“Sorry!” I stifled the nervous giggles bubbling up in my throat. They didn’t exactly lend themselves to the apologetic impression I was going for.
“Hey, you.”
Dev’s voice was anything but immature.
“Hey.” Really, what could a girl do but be hopelessly, awkwardly shy?
“How’d you sleep?”
I wondered how much he knew (or guessed) about the talk Cleo and I had had.
“Love having the room to myself.”
He laughed. “I bet. Willing to leave it for lunch, with me?”
Duh.
“I think so. Give me half an hour?”
“Meet you in front of your dorm.” He hung up with a click.
I put the receiver down and jumped off my bed. One would think uniforms made the age-old “what to wear” question obsolete.
I wish.
The straightening iron, toothbrush and face wash in my arms barely left me the free fingers to open doors as I staggered down the hall to the bathroom. It was way too early for this.
Thirty-fiveish minutes later, I was reminding myself to relax as I ran down the remaining few stairs. Whatever had happened last night, we couldn’t not be friends. I think.
I pushed pessimism far enough out of my mind to smile in a way that was supposedly easygoing. It was probably, hopefully, mildly less terrified, at the very least.
He had his hands in the pockets of his uniform pants and his shirt was hopelessly untucked. When he saw me coming down the stairs, he smiled.
“You up for lunch?” he asked.
Nonchalant, I reminded myself. Breathe.
Easier said than done. Was I supposed to hug him? Or expect him to kiss me, or act like this had never happened? “I’m starving.”
His lips curved, parting slightly as he smiled. Focus, Bizza, focus. I consciously moved my eyes up to his when he spoke. “Me too.”
We supposedly talked the same easy way we had been starting to even without Cleo’s buffer as we walked toward town. I didn’t know whether the funny feeling that fluttered in my stomach and bubbled up in nervous giggles was relief or Hormones: The Return.
I was so glad we were still friends.
I kind of hated that we were still just friends.
At some point on the walk, his arm ended up around my shoulders. Reminding myself not to overanalyze was a lost battle. My arm snuck around his waist, letting him lead me to the burger place where Cleo had satisfied the munchies yesterday.
Instead of eating in the crowd of students, we took our takeout to the park nearby. I sat on a swing, sipping my vanilla milkshake as he inhaled his food.
“Hey, Bizza?” He walked toward me, away from the trash can where he’d thrown away the empty, greasy wrappers from his burger and half of my shake.
I smiled, holding the chains of the swing. “Hey, Dev?”
He placed his hands over mine on the chains, leaning toward me. My stomach fluttered.
Don’t. Overanalyze.
Too late.
“Can I ask you something?” His eyes were unreadable.
I nodded.
He hesitated and leaned closer. My eyes fluttered shut as his hand cupped my cheek, traveling over my collarbone and shoulder with the same light pressure his lips exerted on mine.
While it may not have been verbal, the feeling of his fingertips skim
ming across my nerve endings was certainly a question. My hands gripped his shirt, my effort to communicate that I liked him right where he was.
After not nearly long enough, he pulled away. The familiar self-assured smile I had seen last night made its reappearance.
I felt the need to ask something glib and witty and flirtatious. “I didn’t quite understand the question.” I looked up at him, smiling and probably bright red. “Ask again?” I bit my lip, scraping my teeth over skin that now felt cracked and dehydrated.
His smile widened, running a tongue quickly over the chapped places on his lower lip. It had been rough when we had kissed. “Depends.”
Boys. Stupid, stupid boys. “So was last night more than a one-time thing?” I had no idea what I was doing and I felt my cheeks heat.
“If you want it to be.” His hands were still at my waist. I stood, so at least our faces weren’t quite as far apart.
“What do you want?” There was no way I could make that decision, even if, especially if, I knew exactly what I wanted.
He shrugged, calm and cool. “I dunno.” Dark blue eyes met mine. “Right now, you.” He hesitated, eyes serious. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Bizza. You’re an awesome girl.”
A smile spread over my face. “I’m not as innocent as you think I am.” I stepped closer to him.
I was so full of it. But there was a very promising smile on Dev’s face as I leaned in to kiss him.
His hands tightened on my waist and his lips moved to my ear. “You wanna find somewhere a little more private?”
Who could say no to that murmur, soft lips brushing my cheek as they moved, breath brushing past my neck? It was something out of every “How To” and horoscope and boy band cover, calculated to make you melt just enough.
“Mhmm.”
My fingers laced through his.
Hell yes.
Cleo knew something was up the minute I stepped into her room. Maybe it was the insane grin on my face that had been irrepressible the second I’d had my back to Dev.
“Your kilt is sideways.”
Or not. I turned bright red.
“Oops?” My innocent smile fooled no one.
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