Read My Lips (A College Obsession Romance)

by Daryl Banner

  His hand slips behind my neck. “What … What are you doing?” I ask, knowing full well. My heart is hammering against my chest. Heat surges between my thighs and I’m trembling with anticipation. “All I needed … was help in … in finding the School of Sex.”

  “Consider it found,” he murmurs, his lips drawing close to mine.

  Then I open my eyes, and I’m all alone in my dorm room again. Evil. My mind is pure evil. The crushing vacuum from my dream’s sudden departure leaves a hole in my chest that I literally, physically clutch at. I shut my eyes and beg to return to where I left off. It felt so fucking real. I try to imagine his face and it’s already gone. I try to feel his touch again and all I feel are bed sheets and my own thumping heart.

  Believe it or not, this is the second night in a row that I’ve had this dream. Sunday was an uneventful yet totally necessary day where I got to decompress from the move (still without a roommate), buy my books from the crowded campus bookstore, and then enjoy three totally normal college meals at the Quad cafeteria. I even successfully dodged yet another call from my mother.

  But nothing seems to ease the ache I carry for that sexy hunk from the mixer. Prick, I had called him.

  Ugh.

  Then, I hear the turning of a page. I’m not alone. I bolt up, drawing the sheets to my neck as if I’m naked, and I see her. “Who’re you??”

  The girl sitting cross-legged on the other bed lifts her sullen, shapeless face from the book she reads. A sad pair of thick-rimmed glasses rest at the end of her nose. Her hair, straight and plain as the bristles on a broom, is cropped dully at the neck. An unfortunate pox of red bumps I’ll pray aren’t chickenpox dance up the side of her short, blunt neck. Her nose is a round bulb of flesh and her eyebrows are thick and black and unsightly. She stares at me with the enthusiasm of a sock, her eyes dead and blank.

  “Sam,” she answers plainly, her voice two octaves lower than I was expecting.

  Sam? Samantha, my roommate? Obviously. “When did you move in?” I ask, flabbergasted. “I … I’ve been asleep. I didn’t even hear you at all.”

  “I didn’t really move in.”

  I blink a few times in the semidarkness, waiting for more of an explanation. I don’t get one. I stretch my neck up a bit, scanning her side of the room only to find three books on her desk alongside an ancient brick of a laptop and a sad table lamp, the only source of light in the room other than the sunrise coming through the blinds and painting stripes of orange across the back of her head.

  I wipe my eyes and stare. “You don’t even have sheets. You’re … You’re sleeping on the bare mattress.”

  “It’s okay,” she decides, looking down at it. Her every movement is as slow as a sloth. She wears sweatpants and a loose shirt that looks scavenged from a charity donation bin. For half a second, I worry she is exactly that: a girl with cents in her pockets, here on the last scraps of money her parents could find. They had to put a second mortgage on the house to afford tuition. They sold their grandma’s ashes on eBay. She is her family’s last hope.

  “So … we’re roommates,” I state unnecessarily.

  “Yep.” She offers me an odd, straight line of her lips, almost like an apology, before returning to the book in her lap, a curtain of hair covering her face.

  I stare at her for a while, still clutching the sheets to my neck. I’m pretty sure the worry is obvious on my face and she saw every bit of it. For as little emotion as she seems to show, I might never know whether I’ve offended her or not.

  Well, she’s who I got. Might as well make the best of it. “So … you’re a Music major? What instrument do you play?”

  Sam lifts her head again, drawing a curtain of her greasy hair behind her ear. “Piano.”

  The girl sounds like a dude. She seriously sounds like a dude. “Oh. Don’t you need to practice?” I let my eyes do another scan of the room. “Did you bring, like, a little keyboard or something?”

  “They have private piano-playing rooms at the Music building.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  “I wanted a Yamaha,” she admits, fiddling with the bent corner of a page in her book, “but my mom made me choose between paying for school or buying expensive electronics, and … well, I’m here, so …”

  “Yes. Right. You’re … You’re here.”

  An awkward silence settles between us once again. I put a smile into that silence. She glances sullenly through the window, stripes of the morning sun drawn across her plain face. Then she turns back to me, her eyes like two spots of mud. “And you are—”

  “A Theatre major,” I finish for her, hugging my sheets tightly. “I’m Dessie.”

  “I’m Sam,” she repeats, like I’d already forgotten.

  And with that, Sam returns to reading, and I let myself lie back down, my eyes catching the time on the clock: not a minute past seven in the morning. That is decidedly too early to be awake, considering my first class isn’t until ten.

  But try as I might, that damn dream of mine won’t resume where we left off.

  I don’t understand what’s so special about one hot guy. Why am I finding myself so … obsessed with him? I’m on a campus full of countless good-looking guys. Engineers. Artists. Architects. Singers. Other actors. Why am I so focused on the one guy who wouldn’t bother to turn and acknowledge my existence, even when I was talking directly to him?

  A half hour passes. I can’t seem to hear anything but the quiet turning of pages.

  Another half hour, and that lamp seems brighter than the sun at noon, somehow blinding me through my clenched-shut eyelids. Or maybe it’s the actual sun.

  When I give up and rise at half past eight, I feel like I got approximately zero hours of sleep. My head spins and a queasiness settles into my stomach. Why do I instantly want to blame mister hot-shit from the mixer for my lack of rest?

  I help myself to a morning shower. Even with all the soap and the slipperiness and the assumption of privacy, I’m too distracted with what diseases my feet might be picking up to revive the morning’s dream. Mental note: purchase some flip-flops for the shower. I keep hitting my elbows against the wall every time I turn. The room steams up in a matter of five seconds.

  I can’t even sing as I like to do in the shower, not when I know an entire hallway of boys and girls will hear me. I try to hum and even that miniscule hint of melody feels amplified to the point of vibrating the tiled walls. I feel utterly silenced when I want to sing.

  Outside, the campus is alive with tons of bright-eyed students. I fall right in line, following the path to the School of Theatre Victoria showed me Saturday night, though it looks dramatically different in the day. The buildings look so much taller. There’s a glow to the Art building I didn’t notice in the darkness. When I pass the University Center, there’s a big band playing some tune I don’t recognize, but it’s catchy as hell. I start humming it as I move along, a smile finding my face at long last. Nothing eases me the way singing does. Look at me, I’m a college student, I realize, blending in with the crowd of others who head to their ten o’clock Monday classes.

  This is what I’ve been missing.

  Most of my Theatre courses don’t require books, so I just carry a small bag with my laptop dancing around inside. The School of Theatre is shockingly bright during the day, its front glass windows reflecting the sun and blinding me as I approach.

  My first class of the day—a required course for all: Technical Theatre—is held in the main auditorium. Surprisingly, I spot Victoria right away in the seats. She notices me too, quickly beckoning me over.

  “Where the hell did you go Saturday night?” she whispers when I take the seat next to her. “You just up and left! Then, you wouldn’t answer any of my knocking on your door all day …”

  “I got tired,” I lie. My foot kicks into a red cup from Saturday that was left by the seat. “Yesterday, I was probably at the campus bookstore. Did you know that Klangburg University has its own clothing line?
”

  “Yeah, it’s called college merch. Every school’s got it. Do you know what crew you want, Des?”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Tech crew. That’s the point of this class. You get introduced to the five tech crews and get to pick which one you want to do for the semester. Or, rather, they assign you one based on your preference. If you get cast in a play, it counts for a tech credit. No, I haven’t been cast yet.” Victoria rolls her eyes, clearly holding back a flood of rants. “Are you all actress? Or do you ever get your hands dirty?”

  That’d be Cece who is all actress and can’t even be bothered to move a damn curtain out of her way when she enters or exits the stage. “That’s what the stagehands are for,” she had the gall to say to me once.

  And just before I answer Victoria, all of my composure is ruined in an instant.

  I see him.

  The tatted hottie from Saturday night’s mixer. The man who still hasn’t given me proper directions to the School of Sex. The nameless wonder from the wings with the body of a demigod.

  I claw at my bag. I’ve never wanted someone so badly.

  He saunters past carrying a Fresnel lantern by the handle, his bicep bulging in the effort as he crosses the stage. His shirt is tight. His jeans, loose and sexy. I’ve broken out in a sweat just watching him.

  “Dessie?”

  A smirk finds my lips. “Yeah,” I murmur back to her. “I get my hands dirty. Real, real dirty.”

  Then a lean, bearded man who looks like a wizard in coveralls rises from the front row and faces the auditorium. “Good morning, you bunch of brats, you. I see a lot of new faces out there, so I’m going to assume that most of you are freshmen. Sure, a lot of you are probably hopeful actors, figuring you waltzed in here from a high school that kissed your butt every time you projected loud enough for someone beyond the front row to hear you. Loud voices earned you parts. Well, you’re in for a rude awakening.”

  Rude, indeed. I can’t stop watching him onstage as he transports lighting equipment from one end to the other. There is very little imagination involved in picturing his naked torso, what with the tightness of his shirt leaving little to be curious about.

  He is ripped. I could spot his godlike physique from a mile away. His eyes pierce me and he’s not even looking at me.

  I’ve never been jealous of lighting equipment before.

  “College is your first taste of the real world,” the wizard is going on. “Plays only have so many roles, and chances are, you won’t get any your first year here. You might not ever get cast. This is a reality you must face.”

  That man onstage is a reality I want to face. I want to face him so hard. I want him to face me. I’m staring at his bulging biceps as he works, my heart racing so hard I wonder if Victoria can hear it.

  “Technical Theatre is not for failed actors. These people make a living. More often, they make a better living than you actors ever will because there is always work for lighting monkeys, soundboard operators, costume stitch-weaver-people, prop masters, house managers—the list goes on and on. Our program requires only six hours of tech crew before you can graduate. That’s six times I’m gonna see your ugly faces in this room. We only meet here today. This Wednesday, you will be meeting at your assigned crew area. Understood? Good.”

  Hot guy sets down a light, which issues a loud bang that ripples across the stage. He returns to the rack for yet another, sauntering as he goes. Boy, does that sexy man know how to walk. He has gloves on those big hands of his, those long leather things that come halfway up his arm, the kind I imagine welders wear.

  I can’t seriously be the only one staring at him. That man is fine.

  “The five departments are: costume crew, set crew, props crew, lighting crew, and box office,” the bearded wizard tells us.

  As he goes on to describe the typical duties of each technical crew, I’m stuck in a daze watching the hottie carry Fresnel after Fresnel across the stage, his arms bulging with each trip, sometimes taking two at a time. His face is slick with sweat. Patches of wetness adorn his tight shirt, causing it to plaster to his muscles more and more by the second.

  He stops after his five-hundredth trip and runs an arm slowly across the whole length of his forehead, taking just a moment to survey the house. His brow wrinkles as he looks out at us. He has to be an upperclassmen. His presence is so commanding that I can’t pay attention to anything else, not with him in the room.

  Some papers are shoved at me. I stare down in confusion at what looks like a stack of forms. “Take one and pass them,” Victoria tells me. I do so, passing the stack to a girl two seats away from me. “Now you get to pick the crew you want. Preference one, and preference two, see?”

  “I see.” I’m very thankful for Victoria’s guidance, considering how little attention I was paying to the wizard-person. I stare at the five options for crew and consider them.

  Victoria leans into me, her bony shoulder poking into my arm. “Costume crew is a living hell,” she whispers to me. “Box office is a total blow-off. I’d go for that one, so long as you’re not claustrophobic and can do basic math. Ever work with money?”

  My eyes wander to the stage. He’s examining one of the lights that still hangs from the rack. The gloves are off and tucked under his arm while his fingers expertly inspect the equipment. I imagine those fingers expertly inspecting me, the way they’d feel as they trace up and down my arms, run over the length of my body, and awaken a wave of excited goose bumps across my skin. I feel my toes curling in my shoes just thinking about it.

  “Made up your mind?” whispers Victoria.

  His biceps flex as he works, his fingers making art out of that lighting instrument. I swallow hard, unable to pull my eyes away, unable to slow my thumping heart, unable to ignore my ache any longer.

  Yes, I have, I think to myself, bringing the pen to paper and circling my first choice: lighting crew.

  “There’s a whole row of restaurants on Kelly street, but they’re a bit on the pricy side …”

  “Done! Lunch is on me!” I decide with a smile.

  That’s how Victoria, Eric, Chloe, and I end up at an Italian restaurant on the not criminally-inclined edge of campus for an early evening meal after my first Tuesday morning movement class and afternoon voice class are over. Chloe’s the one I met at the mixer with choppy black hair whose eyes bleed eyeliner, and Eric is the one who just a moment ago politely asked me to stop calling him Other Eric. I apologized for calling his homebrew “cat pee”.

  “Auditions are this Friday,” Victoria reminds me between bites of a very aromatic plate of basil pesto chicken fettuccini. “I hope you have two contrasting monologues prepared. Oh, I didn’t even ask! Which role are you gunning for?”

  To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought. My mind’s been circling thoughts of a certain someone so much that I forgot about auditions for Our Town. “I was considering the wife, maybe?”

  “Myrtle? That’s Emily’s mother,” explains Victoria. “Maybe try for Mrs. Gibbs, George’s wife, if you want to play a wife. Oh, you’d be cute as her! Go for whichever you want, just as long as it’s not Emily.”

  “The lead? But she has the look,” protests Eric.

  “That’s my role,” Victoria insists. “I’ve waited two years for it, and I shall claim it. Besides, Nina basically already told me I got the part.”

  “Nina the acting prof,” Eric clarifies for me.

  “I know. I have her for acting class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And it’s okay,” I insist with a nervous titter. “I don’t want any leads. I should really, uh … reread the play.” For all my “Theatre background”, I sure feel so uneducated right now.

  “Not to mention Dessie’s experience,” Eric goes on, despite Victoria’s annoyed snort. “You’d make a great Emily. You have world experience. You’ve been to Italy and shit.”

  “Yeah,” I admit, “but that was a small black box theater, and it was more of a t
raining camp, and—”

  “You studied in New York City,” he goes on, despite Victoria’s look of disbelief. “You already know the life. You have so much to offer us. Really, it isn’t unheard of for freshmen to land roles, and you’re technically not a freshman, so …”

  “I already said the role is mine,” Victoria interjects, her eyes playing back and forth between us. “I like you, Dessie, I really do. We’re hall mates and we’re becoming friends and all that, but I think—”

  “I think auditions will determine it,” states Eric. “I mean, if you’re meant to get the role of Emily—”

  “I already have it in the bag,” she retorts.

  “Then you got nothing to worry about, do you?” With that, he gives a light shrug, then forks another sauce-drenched ravioli past his lips.

  I smile at my new friends, hoping the mask of my smile adequately hides all my misgivings. They think so highly of me, just for the ritzy school I half-attended and the fact that I’m from New York City. If they knew who my family was, I’d certainly be ruined. Spoiled, they’d call me. Privileged snob, they’d think of me. I’d become my sister before their eyes, a girl who’s been handed everything she ever wanted.

  What’ll they think when they learn the truth?

  “Your résumé has to be a mile long,” Victoria jokes with a shake of her head. “I bet you have to leave stuff off of it just to make it fit on one page. Wish I had that sort of problem.” The comment earns a chuckle from Chloe and Eric.

  The truth is, since high school, I’ve only been cast in a single production. It was an original two-act play at Claudio & Rigby’s called Quieter The Scream. By some remarkable twist of circumstance, I was cast as the leading role. Claudio could not easily mask his disappointment in me during every single rehearsal, which led me to speculate how I’d landed the role in the first place. My speculation ended the day Claudio threw his favorite mug and I quit the school.

  Even still, the whole situation confounds me. “You’ll be a famous actress someday just like your sweet mother.” That’s what Claudio said the first day he met me. My, how quickly that opinion soured. The truth is, I never fit the skin my parents and sister tried so ruthlessly to put on me. I needed to find my own.