by K. B. Nelson
Instead, I throw out the most tactful response I can think of. “I haven’t actually decided yet.” This is the perfect response. It opens many different doors and routes to victory, while closing off none.
He sighs, uncrosses his legs, and places a firm hand on each of his thighs. He begins to address the rest of the group and I begin to zone out, daydreaming about a boy that sits two seats down from Jensen.
He’s as young as Cece, but hardly looks innocent. Under the thin fabric of his cotton tee, I see the faint outline of a thick tribal tattoo. A part of me wonders if he’s here for the same reason I am. If I hadn’t already market my target—Jensen—Mr. Brown Eyes would be in for one hell of a ride.
He catches my gaze and stares right back. When he bites into his lip in the most seductive way you can do such a thing, I’m forced to avert my attention away. Stay focused, Apple. Stay focused.
When the meeting is adjourned, I stick around so I can continue to lay the framework for my conquest. Jensen is occupied with two of the pure ones, so I look around for someone to keep me busy while I wait.
Everything has to seem like an accident. If I rush up to Jensen the moment he’s done giving pointers to these girls, it’ll look calculated. I give my hair a quick fix and make a purposeful beeline to Mr. Brown Eyes. He’s in the process of making light conversation with some dark-haired brunette who appears as if she’s too deep into the abstinence occult—she has a cross necklace draped across her chest and a pair of cross earrings dangling from her lobes.
I tap him on the shoulder and he cranes his neck around, biting into his lip again. “One sec,” he whispers.
I’m not a patient person. I’ll admit that much. I raise my hand to tap him again, but he turns around before I can connect my finger to his shoulder.
“I’m Apple,” I say without hesitation. “And you are?”
“Teddy.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the two girls that were talking to Jensen walking away. I hold my finger to Teddy. “Hold that thought.”
He might be the sexiest freshman on campus, but #priorities. I rush over to Jensen when he has his back turned and he’s walking away. Just like I had done with Teddy, the brown-eyed stud, I tap Jensen on the shoulder.
He turns around to see me and lets out a frustrated sigh.
“Damn,” I say out loud, taken aback by his lack of enthusiasm at seeing me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well… I’m not here for the free food.” I laugh, desperate to dissipate the tension in the air. If he’s going to become annoyed with me for no apparent reason, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Unfortunately, he’s not having it and crosses his arms and pushes his tongue against his cheek. I switch tactics, from comedy to soul-searching. “I don’t want to sound like a loser, but it’s been hard to find people to connect to on a spiritual level.” Yeah, I did that. I stole Cece’s mantra.
He leans in close. “I don’t know how to say this with any tact, so I’m just going to spit it out.” He gets closer still, so nobody around can hear him. “I know you. You have a bad reputation and I cannot figure out why you’re here.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“It’s not hard to forget the girl who would always sit in the back row when she actually had the courtesy to show up to class. It is hard, however, to forget the girl who was giving oral to a fellow student during a mid-term exam.”
My eyes bulge and I just know that the look on my face isn’t too different from the look that’ll be on Cece’s face when she learns what the word cunninlingus means. Shock. “You saw that?”
“And I didn’t report it. So, let’s be honest. I deserve that much. Why are you here?”
“You have pretty eyes,” I say, taking notice of them for the first time. They’re the perfect shade of Blue, fit for an oceanic backdrop. They’re powerful and deep, swirling with hints of a past unknown. “They’re beautiful,” I continue, being honest but also working my magic.
“Why are you here?” His face is stern, his lips clenched tight together.
“Inner peace is so hard to find…” I run out of steam long before the bullshit train can even depart the station. “Uhm…”
“You’re wasting my time.” He gives a slight nod of his head, before turning to hightail his ass away from me.
“Fine,” I shout and I wait for him to turn around. He doesn’t. He’s too smart and I’m going to have to rethink my entire strategy. This whole I wanna be a saint act isn’t going to get me in his pants, let alone get him to the point where I’m able to break his heart. The only thing that’s currently at risk of being broken is my ego. I rush to him until I’m in perfect stride with him.
He shakes his head in annoyance. “Oh Good. You’re back.”
“I’m going to come out and say it,” I say through ragged breaths. I’m flustered and it’s taking my breath away. “I’m full of shit.” That stops him in his tracks. His interest is officially piqued. “I don’t give a damn about purity or Jesus or two out of the three Jonas Brothers.”
“Jonas—“
“Nick managed to escape the occult.”
“I have places to be, Apple.”
“I need your class to graduate and I know it’s unsavory to ask—“
“I’m not going to sleep with you for a retroactive A.”
That hadn’t even crossed my mind, but I’m going to add it to the to-do list. If I can get a boost to my GPA from this endeavor then fuck yeah. “That’s not even close to the direction I was heading. You’re going straight to Texas there, and I’m standing up here in freezing-cold Canada.” I shove my hand into my pocket and swivel on my feet. “Like I said, I need your class to graduate. And I want to graduate on time, so please don’t tell me I have to take it in the summer.”
“You’ll have to take it in the summer.” He nods as if we’ve reached the conclusion of our conversation and prepares to leave me standing in the middle of the quad.
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
He looks over his shoulder and smiles. “We’re back to that again, huh?”
“Not that.” I rush around to the front of him and pace backward. I have no intention of not getting what I came here for. “I know it’s past the deadline to take an incomplete and finish the coursework.”
“That’s an astute observation.” His brow furrows in the most patronizing way possible. “Color me shocked that you’ve read the student handbook.”
“I’ve never opened the damn thing.” I smile, because I’m too cute. Way too cute. I straighten my expression into one more in line with seriousness. “My advisor informed me of the rules and all the blah, blah, blah. She also said that deadlines are like Jello.”
“They only taste good with alcohol?” Bless his sarcastic soul. If he wasn’t standing in my path to victory over Brick, he could have been a keeper.
“You’re full of surprises, sarcasm and wit and I can’t tell the difference when you speak.”
“Get to the point.”
“Right,” I say and throw my hand to my chest. “Walking in reverse is quite the workout. That’s code for you should stop walking.”
He comes to a stop and shakes his wrist, showing off that beautiful watch. “You have a minute.”
“I’m asking you to consider playing loose with this whole deadline issue. It would mean the world to me and I’ll do anything.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Please.” I throw my hand to his chest, getting a handful of muscle in the process. Wow, I say to myself. This is going to be so much better than I had dreamed. I’d prefer to skip over this tirade of menial banter and skip to the undressing portion of the event. But, the setup is a part of the game. “Look, I know you think I’m a spoiled, entitled, occasionally racy brat, but the truth is that I can’t afford another semester. Not even one more class. My parents are broke and my scholarships have dried up after getting an ‘F’ last
semester of which you had nothing to do with.”
“I’ll think about it,” he huffs and crosses his arms.
“That would mean the world to me.”
“I have conditions.” He looks away and shakes his head, as if he can’t believe he’s even considering this. “My assistant, Eve, left school last month with no explanation—“
Oh, shit. Eve was Brick’s last conquest. The girl he seduced and destroyed before he ever set his sights on Tyra Young. This is the very fucking definition of coming full-circle.
“You’re not qualified to be a teacher’s assistant, but you could help me grade papers and report attendance. Stuff like that. We’ll work around your schedule.” He exhales and cracks a wide smile, showcasing sparkling white teeth that would give Brick a run for his money. “A blowjob or two wouldn’t hurt either.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “So much easier—“
“I’m kidding,” he snarls and shakes his head again. “Something tells me I’m going to regret this.”
That’s for fucking certain.
4
FOUR YEARS AGO
Freshman year seems like yesterday. I was still a girl afraid of my own shadow, terrified to let anyone in. Who could blame me? I tried to put prom night—and Mason—behind me, but that wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
Mason was wrong. Our lives weren’t heading in such different directions. Imagine my shock and horror to discover he was in my Intro to Psych class. Thankfully, that was a class in a lecture hall with a few hundred other students. I hid away from him in that gargantuan room, preferring to hug the back wall.
Each day, after class, I would become one with the herd of students and bolt from class. One day, during a particularly speedy retreat I ran straight into a man. He was unaffected by the mass of my body colliding with his, but in the most cliché way possible, my books went flying across the floor.
He had a wicked, but charming smile as he bent down to help me assemble my pile of books. When the job was done, and all my textbooks were assembled in a transportable stack, he looked deep into my eyes and extended his hand.
“I’m Brick,” he said.
I smiled like a damn idiotic fool. “I—I’m Apple.” I reached forward expecting a handshake, but instead he pulled me to my feet like a true gentlemen.
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re beautiful?”
“Sure,” I said with an uneven shrug.
“Good for them.” He nodded, never letting his gaze wander away from mine. “Do you want to get coffee or something?”
I knew better. I really did. There’s no way I could have went through what I did with Mason and not have learned my lesson. But the thing about lessons, especially the ones you learn in high school, is that with time and age, they all begin to fade away.
I was blinded by his hospitality. I was blinded by his promising eyes. I was blinded in the way he made promises without uttering anything that resembled the word.
There was a table between us, stacked with coffee and textbooks.
He had a suaveness to him, like he didn’t have a care in the world. It was an admirable quality, and one that I was jealous of. My life was full of worry. Between the anxiety of exams, and the anxiety of always wondering if the guy beside me was secretly judging me, I was always on edge.
I wasn’t on edge with him. I should have known better. I guess I did. It didn’t matter, though, because Brick was more than some random stranger. He was a thing of wonder, so full of something I couldn’t describe or succinctly put into words.
He had to feel the same way about me, as well. Otherwise, I would have been nothing more than one of his victims scribbled away in a long-kept journal.
“Can I be honest?” he asked with a furrowed brow, the kind of inquisition that seemed to come from the heart. He didn’t wait for me to respond. “I’m not a good guy.”
“Sure you are,” I said in the most naïve of tones. I was enamored and beholden by a man I had built up in my mind.
“No,” he said grimly, “I’m not.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Running into you was no accident. The entire thing was planned.”
“Planned?”
“Like the best magic tricks” He leaned across the table and started to whisper, “The plan was to make you fall in love with me and then I would rip your heart out.”
I was taken aback, and shook my head in disbelief. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the truth is freeing, and after knowing you for less than an hour, I see something in you.”
“You’re an asshole.” I scooped my books off the table and into the pit of my arm. “But you already know that.” I thought it was fate that I had ran into him, and it was destiny as I turned to flee, pushing through the glass doors of the campus café.
“You’re damaged goods,” he said as he followed me out the doors and onto the busy sidewalk. “Anyone can see that.”
“Oh, thank you,” I screamed as I turned to face him. “Just what every girl wants to hear.”
“It’s not about what you want.” He stepped toward me and gestured with his hands. “It’s about what you need.”
“And what do I need?”
“Someone to watch over you. Someone to guide you.”
I scoffed incredulously. “I think I’ll have to take a pass.” And with that, I found myself fleeing again, walking as fast as I could back toward the dorms.
But he followed me, staying the course right beside my side. “You’ve been hurt by some guy.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“I haven’t.” He laughed, but I didn’t return the laughter at his lame joke. “Let me in, and I promise you will never have your heart broken by a man again.”
“My Spidey-sense is tingling and you’re a creep.”
“There’s a fire to you, Apple.” He seemed so sure of himself, like a pastor preaching to his disciples. “It’s beautiful and it burns hotter than revenge. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Please,” I shouted and came to a halt at a busy crosswalk. “Please, continue telling me more about me. You don’t know me.”
“I do, though. More than you could ever know yourself.”
“And the award for the most clichéd goes to Brick Valmont.”
“Men are monsters, sweetheart.” He shook his head in affirmation. “You know what they say about fighting fire with fire? Well, you fight monsters with monsters.”
“I’m listening, but only because I don’t have a choice.”
“I mean…” He pointed to the line of cars cruising through the intersection. “You could always walk out into traffic.”
“You have until that light turns red.”
He took a deep, hard breath before he pressed on. I prepared myself to ignore everything he said. “I’m a user and an abuser. I get what I want, when I want it. I will never be a victim to anyone in this world again.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and I found myself drawn into what he was saying. “I think that speaks to you, and I think you’re understanding me.”
I knew I had to resist his indescribable charms, but I also knew it would be more difficult than it had seemed. The devil could sell you a nightmare and you’d think it was a dream. I was torn between utter night terrors and the promise of pearly gates. “Are you in love with me or something?” That’s all I could think to ask. Nothing made sense, even if the wheels of my mind—and my heart—were turning with his apparent false promises.
“No.” He smiled just like the devil. “I’m in love with who you’re going to be.”
“And tell me, who am I going to be?”
He leaned in close and whispered, “Let me show you.”
“No.” I shook my head and took a long step back, almost pushing myself against the flow of traffic. “I don’t think so.”
He just stared at me. It’s almost as if he knew I would change my mind—but fuck, he seemed to know everyt
hing else. “The light’s red now.”
“And?”
“You’re still standing here.”
5
PRESENT
Like a queen on her throne, I sit comfortably perched in the valley of an antique chair. It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon and I’m lost in a daze, staring at the space between the front door and I. I’m planning my next move, and the move after that. If I’m going to beat Brick at his own game, I have to always be thinking ten steps ahead.
“Where is your sweet roommate?” Bricks voice cuts through the silence as he closes the front door behind him.
“You can find her in the library when she’s not in class.” I push myself back against the chair and throw on my game face. “Thank God.”
He cuts into the living room and drops down onto the couch opposite of me. He kicks his feet out onto the fabric of the couch without taking his shoes off. “She’s a good girl, Apple.”
I reach down, remove my shoe and throw it at him. He dodges out of the way, and spins his feet onto the floor. “That’s the fucking problem. If I wanted to be a nanny, I’d don the nicest sundress I own and be a fucking nanny.”
“You don’t own any sundresses,” he says with a sly nod of his head.
“Touche.” I rise to my feet and slip off my other shoe. “Speaking of sundresses and imbeciles, are you making any progress with Tyra?”
“I met her for lunch today.” He smirks and crosses his right leg over his knee. “Well, I ran into her during lunch.”
“How did that go?” I move to a tall table lobbied in the corner of the room, and twist the cap off a bottle of expensive vodka. “Was she on her knees begging to suck your cock in the Domino’s bathroom?”
“Funny, but no. Quite the opposite.”
“Don’t leave me hanging.” I pour two drinks—one for him and one for me. “Get to the fucking climax of the story.”
