No Bad Days

by J. Sterling

  “Hey, Nick! Sit over here,” a girl all but cooed at him from somewhere near the front.

  “Hey, Stacy. I think I’m gonna sit in back.” He nodded toward her as he passed and then settled into the desk right next to mine. His friends plopped down in the row directly in front of us.

  Of all the empty seats to choose from, he had to pick the one next to mine?

  “Is anyone sitting here?” he asked, his voice so low and sultry that I had to cross my legs to stop the want from settling between them. The last thing I needed was to daydream all through class about the things I’d let Nick Fisher do to me.

  I swallowed. “Apparently you are.”

  He laughed and extended his arm. “I’m Nick.”

  I stared at his offered hand for a moment before reaching out and placing my hand in his. His fingers wrapped around mine easily, his grip firm, yet gentle.

  “Do you honestly think I don’t know who you are?” I smiled as I tried to pull my hand from his, but he only tightened his grip on me.

  “It would be rude of me to assume. And how else would I get to know your name?”

  Smooth.

  “I’m Jess Michaelson.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said, his voice low. He brought my hand to his lips and planted a kiss on top of my knuckles.

  I pulled my hand away and couldn’t help but scowl. “Are you for real?”

  Who kisses someone’s hand? I can’t believe I thought he was charming two seconds ago.

  “Do I look imaginary? Wait, don’t answer that,” he said with a grin, holding a hand in the air to stop me.

  “You do seem like sort of a nightmare, now that I think about it. Those come from your imagination, right?” I pointed at my head, my tone playful, even if my words seemed otherwise.

  He leaned back into his seat and grinned. “I like you, Jess.”

  I wanted to play hard to get, but I couldn’t find the strength. I shouldn’t have been so willing to feed Nick’s ego, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing it. The guy was hot, I was attracted to him, and I clearly didn’t care if he knew it.

  “The feeling’s mutual, Nick,” I said, falling into his eyes.

  They were so blue, they looked almost black in the lighting of our classroom, but I knew the truth—they were dark blue with a ring of lighter blue in them.

  He smirked, and my cheeks warmed as I looked away.

  Here’s what I knew about Nick Fisher. He was a serial dater, the type of guy who always had someone vying for his attention. He wasn’t the typical type of player who only screwed a girl once and then never spoke to her again. No, Nick actually dated girls. The “relationship,” if you could call it that, never lasted longer than a month, but still, you had to at least give the guy props for trying.

  Props for trying? What the hell was I thinking? This guy turned me into a complete traitor to my gender in two seconds flat.

  Nick was currently in a “single” phase, but according to my roommate, those never lasted very long. Rachel had made it her mission to know everything about the guys worth knowing on campus. She called them GIMS, which stood for Guys I Might Stalk. She had a file on her computer with detailed notes and everything.

  Poor Rachel, the girl would never have a chance with Nick. Apparently he lived by a set of rules, and one of them was that he never messed around with a girl who used to date one of his fraternity brothers. Rachel had dated Trevor for six months last year, and since he was in the same frat as Nick, she was now off-limits.

  Much to her displeasure.

  One night when she was drunk, Rachel told me that if she had known about Nick’s stupid rule, she never would have dated Trevor in the first place. Then she asked me how any girl in her right mind would willingly pull themselves out of Nick’s dating pool, muttered something I couldn’t understand in Spanish, and then puked into the sink.

  My roommate was all class, but at least she was honest. And I loved her for it.

  She Wants Me

  Nick

  Jess Michaelson was hot as hell. How I’d never noticed her before was beyond me.

  She sure seemed to know me, which wasn’t unusual, but the fact that I didn’t know her . . . well, that was. I prided myself on knowing as many people as I could on campus. It was part of what I deemed my job to get to know my fellow students and make them feel like they mattered to me, that I cared. It was part of what made me so good at what I did, and how I earned the reputation of being the go-to guy on campus for all things.

  I was a marketer by nature, bred into the business by my old man. I could sell anything to anyone. Literally.

  Anything. To anyone.

  Selling shit seemed to come naturally to me, so it only made sense that I would major in it at State. My old man was a marketing genius too, but he was old school and refused to adapt to this century. He hired people to handle certain aspects of the business instead of learning it himself and saving a bundle. Where he failed, I excelled.

  From an early age, I watched the way my dad would charm people, making eye contact, always shaking hands, giving people pats on the back when he passed by them. Small gestures like that made people feel he was invested in them. It was amazing what a little contact could do, and how people responded to it. If you gave them your attention and remembered small details they mentioned, people associated that with trust. And once you earned their trust, you held all the cards.

  Taking his strengths and combining them with my own made me feel like a million bucks. I knew I was good. Hell, if being here at State had taught me anything, it was that I was even better than I’d thought. Even the professors came to me when they wanted to promote a new business venture or idea, needed help learning the newest social-media app, or wanted help thinking outside the box, as they liked to call it. Last semester, I gave a group of professors a crash course in all things Snapchat. It was slightly disturbing, to say the least, but they were grateful for my expertise. Each of them recommended me to everyone they knew who could use my help.

  But back to Jess, the hot little number sitting next to me. I wanted to find out more about her, so I bumped my knee against hers. Damn, her skin was soft.

  She glanced at me, her eyes narrowed slightly as her lips pulled into a straight line.

  Tempted to reach out and pull her face toward mine, I leaned in slightly and whispered, “Have you ever been to any of my parties?”

  She looked toward the professor before meeting my eyes again, and nodded.

  I swallowed, racking my brain for any images of her. After coming up blank, I whispered, “When?”

  She shook her head slightly. “Last Friday, stupid.”

  “Stupid?” I fought back the urge to laugh out loud. She was a mouthy little thing.

  “I’m not surprised you didn’t see me. You had your tongue down some girl’s throat the whole night.”

  This time I did laugh. Out fucking loud.

  The professor looked up from his textbook, adjusting the glasses on his nose as he scanned the room for the offenders before he continued, his tone broadcasting his annoyance at my disruption.

  Half-tempted to pull out a piece of paper and start writing her notes to her like a fifth grader, I decided I’d have to talk to Jess later when I wouldn’t get us both into trouble. The last thing I needed was to get screwed in this class and not have enough credits to graduate.

  But even with the lingering threat, I still couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

  “Maybe next time that will be you,” I said, hoping to win her over a little.

  “I’m already seeing someone. Sorry,” she said, her flat tone signaling the end of the conversation.

  But it wasn’t.

  Not at all.

  Intrigued

  Jess

  When the professor slammed his book shut in a display of authority before dismissing the class, I fumbled with my notebook as I tried to stuff it into my bag.

  Nick had distracted me, and after his questions, he spent the
rest of class either staring at me with a shit-eating grin on his face, or touching my leg with his. I don’t think I took a single note after that. Anytime his skin pressed against mine, I wanted to hop into his lap, tell him I surrender, and let him have his way with me.

  Pushing up from my chair, I started for the classroom door and away from Nick when he shouted my name. I stopped and turned to find him and his two friends heading toward me in a rush.

  “You always travel in packs?” I asked, lifting my chin at his frat brothers.

  He turned to them. “I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit.”

  “Are you sure?” one of them said. “We’re supposed to meet Marcus at Bites.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said curtly with a nod. The guys walked away slowly and left Nick and me standing at the front of the classroom with the rest of the class hurrying out around us.

  “They seem lost without you,” I said with a smirk.

  “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” He reached for my elbow and pulled me toward the glass doors. “Let’s walk and talk.”

  Without responding, I started moving along with him, my body language telling him everything my mouth wasn’t. He held the door open for me and I walked through, thankful that the sun was hidden behind tree branches. I didn’t want to put my sunglasses on when Nick wasn’t wearing any. Call it another quirk of mine, but I always considered it rude to wear sunglasses during a conversation if the other person wasn’t. There was something intimate about eye contact.

  “So you were at the party last Friday. And I was too busy making out with Monika to notice.”

  “Oh, so you do remember her name,” I teased, and he stopped walking to laugh a little, which caused me to stop as well. Whatever his body did, mine seemed to mimic.

  He leaned in close, his mouth mere inches from mine. “I’m not a total scumbag, Jess. I do remember the names of the girls I kiss.”

  “How nice for them,” I said with a little more snark than I’d intended, feeling absolutely bipolar with my emotions. One second I was wanting to throw myself at this guy, and the next I was a snide brat basically calling him a pig.

  Pick a side. I mentally chastised myself, wondering if I even could. Nick seemed to bring out warring emotions in me, even if the side that wanted to jump into his lap was definitely favored.

  “So mouthy,” he said, staring at my lips.

  Pretending not to notice the chills his attention sent through my body, I blurted, “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Wait . . . why the hell was I apologizing?

  “Don’t apologize. I like it.” He started moving, and again, my body automatically followed. “So, Jess, tell me about yourself.”

  I swallowed hard and hoped he didn’t notice. How on earth was I supposed to even answer that question?

  “What do you want to know?” I cast a glance in his direction, taking in the way he moved with an air of confidence most guys only pretended to have.

  A few choruses of Hi, Nick broke through our otherwise private conversation. He cast smiles at the girls and bumped knuckles with a few guys, but never stopped walking or focusing his attention on me.

  “What year are you,” he asked, “and why have I never seen you before?”

  “I’m a sophomore, and I don’t know.”

  “Did you live in the dorms as a freshman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there’s one reason. I don’t hang out at the dorms. Did you go to any of my parties last year?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I considered telling him a lie to sound cool, but opted for the truth instead.

  “I was so terrified that I was going to fail out of school, that I didn’t really have any fun at all last year.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it. You don’t strike me as the type of person to fail or not have any fun.”

  His gaze raked the length of my body, making me feel very underdressed in my crop top and shorts. It was the first time since we started talking or flirting or whatever it was we were doing that he made me feel like a potential notch in his bedpost with just a glance.

  “You don’t even know anything about me,” I shot back, my defenses coming up.

  “That’s all going to change, Jess Michaelson. I’m going to get to know you. Very well.”

  “I told you I’m seeing someone,” I reminded him.

  “For now,” he said, his confidence oozing out of him as easily as breathing. “I’ve gotta go. See you in class.”

  With those words ringing in my head, he took off toward the small group of guys clustered in front of the student store.

  That was hands down the single most confusing, exciting, and weird conversation I’d ever had. And I loved almost everything about it.

  “Rachel, are you home?” I shouted as I walked through our apartment door, hoping to hear her Latina accent fill my ears. Silence greeted me instead and I groaned, dying to share today’s happenings with her.

  I had ninety minutes between classes and instead of hanging around school, I decided to come home, grab something quick to eat, and hopefully talk my roommate’s ear off. I was too excited to stay on campus with no one to talk to.

  Scanning the fridge for something to eat, I fired off a text to Rachel, asking when she’d be home. She responded immediately that she was on her way.

  I made a grilled-cheese sandwich for each of us while I waited. Right as I stuffed a gooey cheese-filled bite into my mouth, she burst through the door, a smile on her pretty face as her long dark ponytail swung back and forth.

  Rachel was a little thing, only five foot two, but filled with more piss and vinegar than should legally be allowed to fit into one person’s body. She always claimed it was her mother who made her so feisty, so she couldn’t be held responsible. All I knew was that I loved her for whatever it was that made her a force to be reckoned with.

  “What’s up? Get lost yet?” she asked before tossing her bag onto the couch.

  “No, smartass, but you’ll never guess who was in my first class.”

  She pursed her lips, glancing up toward the ceiling as she pretended to think. “Hmm, Julio Cavanaugh? Jacob Styler? David Wescott?”

  “No, no, and no,” I said before taking another bite of my sandwich. I pushed the other sandwich across the counter toward her as she made her way into the kitchen.

  “Ay, dios mio!” She groaned, already sounding exasperated with me. “I could go down the entire list of GIMS by class, but it will save time if you just tell me. Thanks for the sandwich, by the way,” she said as she refilled her water bottle, then took a big swig.

  “Nick Fisher,” I said, trying not to smile.

  She choked and spit the remaining water into the sink. “But he’s a senior. Shit, Jess, tell me you sat in full view of that body all class. And next time, take some pictures so I can get through mine.”

  Laughing, I shook my head at her craziness. “He sat next to me. There were a ton of empty seats, but he plopped his happy ass right next to mine.”

  Rachel grabbed me by both arms and turned me to face her, her expression shocked and serious. “Shut the hell up. Are you lying to me?”

  “Why would I lie to you?”

  “He sat next to you? Did he talk to you? Tell me everything right now.”

  This was exactly why I couldn’t wait to tell Rachel about my encounter. I knew she’d be more excited than I was. I filled her in on our little whatever it was, all the while waiting for the redness in her cheeks to fade.

  “Are you holding your breath?”

  “I can’t help it. You’re blowing my mind right now.” She shook her head quickly before exhaling.

  “What do you think it means? You’re the stalker, so you tell me. What does he want with me?”

  “Want with you? Duh, Jess. You’re obviously going to be the next girl he dates. I thought that muc
h was obvious.” She reached for my hands and clasped them in hers, releasing a high-pitched squeal that only dolphins should be able to hear.

  “I told him I was seeing someone,” I blurted.

  “You what? Why would you tell him that?” She dropped my hands and eyeballed me like I was insane.

  Hell, maybe I was.

  “I don’t know, it just came out,” I said about the lie I’d told. “He said something about kissing me at one of his parties, and he was so cocky about it that I just—” I blew out an irritated breath. “I told him I was taken. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “So now he thinks you’re dating someone. Might not be a bad thing.” She tapped a finger against her lips as fear filled me from the inside out.

  Did I want to date Nick Fisher? Hell yes, of course I did. At least, I think I did.

  But did I want to completely wreck myself and my heart in the process? Absolutely not.

  I was conflicted, torn between wanting to be chosen by him, but not wanting to be tossed away like all the others. The tossed-away part was probably the real reason why I told him I was dating someone. My subconscious was clearly all about my sense of self-preservation, even if the rest of me wasn’t.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” I said in a low voice, filled with self-doubt.

  “What don’t you know if you can do? Go out with Nick Fisher?” Rachel frowned, clucking her tongue at me. “Are you dead? No, you’re not. So of course you can.” She pinned me with her brown eyes, seeing right through me.

  “I’m already stupidly crushing on him, no thanks to you. But if I go out with him, he’s going to break me. I’m sensitive, Rach. I want the guy I go out with to actually like me back.”

  “Who says he doesn’t?”

  “He doesn’t even know me.”

  She rolled her eyes and took another sip of water before groaning. “That’s the whole point, gringa. How else will he get to know you if he doesn’t take you out? Stop reading into this and just have some fun. We’re in college; it’s not like we’re looking to get married.”