We both munched quietly on our popcorn as we watched the show with renewed interest, even though we had seen every episode at least three times. You could never go wrong with Friends, especially when there was nothing else on to watch. It was nearing ten, and we had been in the same position for a good hour.
Both of us should have been getting ready for bed since we had class tomorrow, but we still didn’t move. Even though I only had one class tomorrow, I was ready for the weekend. The first week of college had really worn me out, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep in and not do homework. But sadly, I did have homework. College definitely wasn’t like high school on the first day of school.
“You know, their pizza looks really good. Wonder where they get it,” Macey pondered. I answered in agreement because the pizza Joey always had did look really good. As the episode continued, I thought back to yesterday night, back to Gage’s fight.
***
After Gage was declared the winner, he walked out of the ring and headed back to the room we were in before, not even glancing in my direction. Since I didn’t want to get caught up in the crowd that was getting ready to leave, I held onto Dylan’s shirt as he weaved his way to the back room. We were almost there when a hand gripped my elbow, pulling me away from Dylan. Whirling around, I came face to face with a very pissed off Macey.
Her green eyes were narrowed, and her face was flushed. I wanted to take a step back, afraid she was going to kill me. I tilted my body away from her, knowing a rant was on its way.
“Carter, where the hell have you been? I have been looking for you all over the place. I thought you were killed or kidnapped! You just disappeared, leaving me to worry about you,” she ranted, waving her hands in the air. I tried to talk but she never stopped, so I stood there taking it in. When she stopped to take a breath, I went to say something when another voice spoke before me.
“Carter, are you coming?” Dylan asked behind me. At hearing my name Macey’s eyes widened. She looked between Dylan and me. I knew she was about to spew out questions any moment.
“I’m coming.” Not waiting for Macey, I grabbed her wrist and tugged her after me. Behind me I could hear her sputtering, but I ignored her. When we got in the room, Dylan shut the door after us. I barely let Mace’s wrist go before she turned to me and shouted out questions one after another.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said once she was done. “Some guy cornered me and wouldn’t let me pass, so I lost you and Amy. Dylan here came to help me and before I knew it, I was up front watching the fight.” Macey turned to Dylan and I watched as her eyes widened.
“Wait, you’re in my math class.” She pointed at him.
“I’m Dylan, and you are?” Dylan took that moment to sweep in with a charming smile.
“I’m Macey Terry,” Macey introduced herself, sending him a wide grin. I rolled my eyes at her.
“Mace, where’s Amy?” I asked a minute later.
“Oh, she met some guy who invited her to grab something to eat.” She waved her hand at me. Of course she did. While my friend and Dylan moved toward one another to talk, I looked around for Gage. I didn’t see him, but I saw the light in the bathroom on, and heard running water. Tired of standing, I flopped onto the couch looking at my two friends, well my best friend and new friend.
“What are you doing here?” I heard Mace ask.
“My friend was fighting.”
“Oh, who’s your friend?” I could practically see the gears in her head moving. She was probably wondering if Gage was nice looking so she could try and set us up.
“Gage Harper. Otherwise known as ‘The Beast’ in the ring.” A proud tone rang in his voice.
“Wait, Gage Harper? Gage, Gage.” Macey repeated slowly. She obviously knew the name from somewhere. I tried to sink lower into the couch, waiting for her to realize. Here it comes. A second later it was like I saw the light bulb go off in her head. When she turned to me, I sent her a sheepish look.
“You have a lot of explaining to do.” She pointed at me. I groaned inwardly, not wanting to hear Macey’s onslaught.
“What’s with all the girl voices?” Gage muttered as he exited the bathroom using a towel to dry his hair. My eyes immediately snapped from his shirtless chest down to the water dripping onto his low shorts. Macey shut up and stared at Gage too. If someone was watching us they would think we had never seen a shirtless guy before.
“Great, you’re still here,” he said when he glanced at me. I narrowed my blue eyes at him. How did he go from smirking at me not even fifteen minutes ago, to hating me?
“You like me, don’t deny it.” I leaned back further into the couch. I was already fed up with his grumpiness and it had only been a few days
“You brought another one?” He swung his towel over his shoulder, his brown hair sticking up in all directions. Gage continued to look at Macey, who just stared back at him.
“So you’re Gage.” She looked him up and down as if inspecting him. Gage raised an eyebrow at her, probably wondering why she was basically undressing him with her eyes.
“Sure, you’re cute, but that’s it.” She shrugged as if she didn’t just tell one of the hottest guys I had ever met that he wasn’t hot at all. I stifled a laugh behind my hand as Gage’s jaw dropped. Beside Mace, Dylan laughed out loud.
“You just got owned, dude.” He chuckled. Gage looked Macey up and down just like she had done with him.
“Eh, you’re cute, but that’s it.” He threw her words back at her with a smirk. For a split second I thought Macey would lunge at him, but instead she surprised me by giving him an ear-splitting grin.
“I like you,” she said simply before coming over to join me on the couch. I stared at her like she had just grown three heads. If Luke had said that, she would have tackled him. Maybe she knew that if she did that to Gage, he would kick her ass.
Gage sent me a look to ask if my friend was psycho, to which I just shrugged. Macey was Macey. The next few minutes were spent in awkward silence as Mace and I sat on the couch, not saying anything. I didn’t really know what to say.
“That was an interesting fight,” Macey said, the first to break the silence.
“Thank you?” Gage said, well more like asked. He looked at Dylan, silently communicating something. Mace looked at me, but I just shrugged. Those two had some sort of mind reading abilities or something.
“Well…” Dylan started to say but trailed off.
“I think you two should probably get going. It’s getting late. Dylan and I have a few things left to do, so…” Gage made a shooing motion toward the door. I just stared at him, waiting for him to just be blunt about us leaving him alone. “That means get out.” There it is.
“Okay fine.” I stood up, followed by Macey. “Thank you, Dylan, for everything tonight. I’ll see you later.” I pulled him into a quick hug before heading to the door. “Glad you didn’t die,” I shot over my shoulder to Gage with a small smirk. Quickly I shut the door before he could make some remark.
We barely made it a few feet before Macey was launching question after question at me. I of course knew to wait until she was finished before answering. We made it out to the empty parking lot. I looked around for a familiar car, but it wasn’t there.
“Mace?” I said her name, but she didn’t stop her babbling. “Macey!”
“What?”
“Where is Amy’s car?” I asked, turning my head to look at her.
“It should be right…” She stopped when she noticed it wasn’t where we parked it. “She didn’t give me the keys.”
“No shit,” I muttered softly. “So she took it with that guy she hooked up with then.” I sighed. Great, just great. We were stranded here in a bad part of town.
“I’m sorry. I forgot to grab the keys from her. I just thought she would leave them for us and go with that guy.” I wanted to let out a scream, but I closed my eyes taking a deep breath.
“What are we going to do?”
“I gues
s call for a cab.” Macey scrunched up her face at that. “Or we can see if the two we were with will give us a ride,” she suggested. I opened my mouth to say hell no, but she held up her hand stopping me. “What else can we do, Carter? To get a cab will take forever. Let’s just go and see if they can give us a ride. They have to be going back to campus anyways.”
I thought about it before letting out a loud sigh. It was our best option, even though I bet Gage would say no. Macey was right about getting a cab: it would take forever, and they would probably charge us a ton just to drive ten minutes away.
“Let’s go,” I muttered, heading back toward the building.
“Oh don’t act like you don’t want to do this. You want to see Gage again, not that I really blame you. He is hot.”
“I don’t want to see him again. He is an ass.”
“But you totally flirted with him a few minutes ago,” Macey pressed.
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did. You said, ‘Glad you didn’t die.’ Totally flirting with him I tell you.”
“I didn’t flirt with him, Mace. I just made a sarcastic comment.” I felt my cheeks turn red.
“Whatever you say. I know what I saw.” She winked at me. In response I stuck my tongue at her. “Very mature, Car.” We headed back to the same room, hoping that they were still there. When we reached the closed door, I suddenly felt nervous. My hormones were acting out these last few days. Raising a hand, I knocked on the door.
“This is so stupid,” I muttered under my breath. I wanted to deny what Macey said, but a part of me couldn’t. Even if Gage was being rude to me, something about him drew me in. Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was me wanting to try and get him to like me. I didn’t know. I couldn’t explain it.
The door opened a crack a minute later, Dylan’s hazel eye peeping out at us. I waved my fingers at him while smiling sheepishly. Seeing as it was just us, he opened the door fully. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared down at us.
“We’re back.”
“I can see that.” Dylan grinned at us. “Did you leave something here?” He stepped to the side to let us in, but I remained where I was.
“Not exactly. We, uh…kind of got left behind by our friend and now we don’t have a ride.” I rubbed the back of neck.
“Would you and your ‘kind’ friend give us a ride?” Mace asked, glancing around Dylan to see Gage walking toward us. He was now dressed in a pair of jeans and blue t-shirt that hugged his body.
“Sure, we can give you a ride,” Dylan said as Gage answered “No.”
“Well, you are. Come on, we have to get going,” Macey said, and even snapped her fingers at the two boys. Not waiting for a reply, she turned and headed back to the exit. I bit back a grin as I started after her.
It took the two boys a minute to follow after us. When they did catch up to us, which wasn’t hard since they both had long legs, they led us toward the back parking lot. Gage walked in front of me, and I couldn’t help but stare at the muscles in his back move. Even through his shirt I could see them.
I stopped in front of a nice-looking Jeep. It looked like my brother’s but slightly newer. I couldn’t really see what color it was, but I think it was either a black or dark charcoal gray. Gage had added bigger tires, making it jacked up. It also was a four door.
“Get in,” Gage said as he unlocked the door and slipped into the driver’s seat. Macey and I quickly went in the back. We were barely seated when Gage started backing out of the parking lot. The car ride was silent as we headed back to campus. It was kind of awkward, as all four of us just sat there quietly not saying a word.
I played with my ring on my right hand as I looked out the window. There was music playing softly in the background, but I had no idea what it was. Thankfully, though, it only took us about ten minutes to get back to campus. Gage pulled into a parking stall but made no move to turn the car off.
“Thank you for the ride, Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Macey said as she hopped out of the car. I wanted to say something, but nothing would come out.
“Thank you,” I murmured as I got out after Mace. I glanced over my shoulder only to see Gage staring right at me through the front window. I quickly whipped my head back around as Macey and I headed home. Tonight had definitely been weird.
***
I hadn’t seen Gage or Dylan today, but I had class with Gage tomorrow. I didn’t know if I should just ignore whatever happened from the other night or bring it up. I was leaning more toward ignoring it. I did not like how I was around him the other day. It was like all my sense flew out the window.
Macey and I finally went to bed after watching five episodes of Friends. It was nearing 11:30 p.m. and I was dead tired. Thankfully I slept well, without dreaming of anyone. The last few days I had been dreaming about Gage more and more. Usually I dreamt of Ethan, but it seemed Gage had replaced him for the moment.
Of course when my alarm went off eight hours later, I didn’t want to get up. It was definitely not enough sleep for me, but at least today I only had one class and after that, I was done until Monday. I stumbled out of the bed and into the bathroom. Since it was my Friday, I wasn’t planning on dressing to impress. I was past that point now; I didn’t care what I wore to classes, least of all only one class.
Being quiet because Macey didn’t have a class today, I got dressed in a pair of army-style leggings and a simple black t-shirt. Slipping on some black flats, I grabbed my bag. My hair was up in a messy ponytail because I had no energy to even try and do it. Grabbing an apple from the counter, I left the dorm heading for class.
I was jealous of Macey at the moment, since she could just sleep in. But the feeling wasn’t too bad because I did like English a lot; I just wasn’t looking forward to seeing Gage. Having the last day away from him, I realized that maybe being around Gage wasn’t the best for me. He was an underground fighter, a womanizer, and an ass—just to name a few of his flaws.
While I thought that I shouldn’t be around him anymore, a part of me did want to hang out with him. I wanted to know what made him tick, learn how he learned how to fight, and why he was rude. It was a feeling that I couldn’t seem to push away, no matter how hard I tried.
I let out a sigh as I entered the building where my English class was held. I had multiple voices in my head telling me what to do, and none of them would shut up. Reaching the room, I took a deep breath to gather myself before pushing the door open. The room was pretty full, making it seem like I was late although I wasn’t. I glanced around for the professor but when I didn’t see him, I let out a sigh of relief, I definitely wasn’t late.
Making my way up the stairs to the seat I had used on Monday, I kept my gaze on the floor. I could almost feel people’s eyes on me as I headed for my seat. I always hated people staring at me. Finding the right aisle, I turned but stumbled over a pair of legs. I quickly caught myself on the back of another chair as I lifted my gaze. Sitting down was none other than Gage, and he had a smirk on his face. His long legs were still spread across where I needed to walk.
I looked between his legs and his face, silently communicating for him to move. Gage’s smirk just widened as I stood there getting annoyed. He purposefully put his feet there and knew I would trip on them. By the look on his face, I had it right. I continued to stare there awkwardly, feeling people starting to look at us wondering why I was just standing there like a weirdo.
“Move your legs,” I bit out, clenching onto the strap of my bag. He just smirked infuriatingly in return. He even started to put his hands behind his head, stretching out even more. My blue eyes narrowed at him.
“Move them or I will cut them off!” I hissed.
“I’m rather comfortable, if you don’t mind.” I could probably step over his legs, but who knew if he would do something to make me fall flat on my face. That would not be fun.
“Gage, move them right now.” When he made no move to do so, I clenched my jaw lifting my leg up to step over h
is. When I had one leg over, I stilled for a second waiting for him to do something. Seeing as he wasn’t going to, I quickly brought my other leg around. Just as I had it over his knee, Gage decided to move his legs, knocking them into me. I lost my footing. Instead of falling forward, I fell to the side, right on top of Gage.
Instantly I froze as I felt his hard body beneath me. For some reason I was glued to him, even though I could have gotten up the moment I fell. I felt his warm breath on my neck as I tried to make my limbs work.
“I knew you couldn’t resist me.” His deep voice whispered huskily in my ear. A blush creeped onto my face. I opened my mouth to reply when another new voice spoke before me.
“You know there are plenty of empty seats,” the voice said. My eyes snapped toward the voice to find an amused teacher at the front of the classroom, looking at Gage and me. The professor’s voice snapped me out of whatever trance I was in. Immediately I scrambled off of Gage’s rather comfortable lap, and scurried over to a seat a few away from him. I knew my cheeks were a bright red and every eye was on me.
“Sorry, sir,” I said quietly, but loud enough he could hear it.
“That is quite all right, Ms.—” He stopped, waiting for me to supply my name.
“Miller. Carter Miller,” I replied in a shaky voice.
“Just remember when you come in again that there are other seats besides that man’s lap, even though it is comfortable.” The professor sent me an amused smile before leaving me alone. I could feel heat all over my body from my embarrassment. Glancing over at Gage, I found him choking back on his laughter. Idiot thought it was funny I got called out.
“Jerk,” I muttered. Every thought I had about Gage maybe being misunderstood or that he just came off rude flew out the window just now. If I even thought about him being nice, I was wrong.
For the next two hours I made myself focus on the professor and what he was talking about. I didn’t find it too hard to do so, since I kind of liked what we were learning. I read the required text that he assigned on Monday, a short story called Young Goodman Brown, so I was prepared at least. I found the story weird and slightly confusing, but after hearing how Mr. Waite described the story and his in-depth analysis, I found myself leaning forward totally engrossed.
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