"What do you do, sweetheart?" I ask. "When you're not in school, I mean."
Her response is more like an instantaneous reaction. "Don't call me sweetheart. It's condescending."
I almost laugh. Man, she's testy. Does she not realize she's just making me want to mess with her even more? Just to see her wind up, tighter and tighter?
I watch her though she's still avoiding looking in my direction. I can't tell if it's because I'm shirtless or if just my presence annoys her. I can't help myself and ask, "So is your problem with me, specifically? Or do you just hate men in general?"
She hesitates as she sets down the box of cereal on the counter. I wonder if she notices the box is suspiciously light. Not answering me, she tilts the box over her bowl but only a few crumbs fall out. There's no cereal in the box. It's completely empty.
I'm chewing on another mouthful of that very cereal when she spins around to face me.
"I just bought this cereal last night. Did you seriously eat the entire box? You didn't think to leave some for the person who bought it?"
I take a moment to swallow, then run a hand over my mouth and chin, trying not to smile. "I'm a hungry guy. Thought you wouldn't mind, since you drilled a hole through my hand earlier." I lift my hand to show off my bandage.
"Oh right, because you nearly died," she says with an eye roll.
I flex the hand, as though testing it still works. "I had to practically sew it back together. It was gnarly."
Shaking her head, she grabs the empty box of cereal and stuffs it into the recycling bin. "You know, you're an asshole for putting the empty box back in the cabinet."
"Don't get your panties in a knot…Or, wait—do you not wear those, either?"
"Is this yours?" she asks, snatching up a box of Pop-Tarts from the cabinet. I nod and she adds, "Not anymore it isn't."
She tears open a pair of pastries and sticks them into the toaster.
I muse out loud, "Do you realize you've lived here less than twenty-four hours, we've been alone for less than two, and we've managed to bicker non stop?"
My question causes her to look up at me and narrow her eyes again.
"All right," she says, "what's the stupid theory you mentioned earlier?"
So, she did take the bait.
The corners of my lips twitch as I grab my empty bowl and head toward her. She stiffens when she sees me approaching and I don't miss the way her eyes drag over my bare shoulders, biceps, and down my abs. Down to where my underwear peeks out from the waist of my jeans. I like her looking. I like the shadow that flashes over her expression. Most of all, I like the little breath she takes when she catches herself and snaps her eyes back to mine.
The toaster clicks up and her attention swings back to her breakfast. But by the way she tries to flush her body to the counter, I know she can sense me getting closer.
I get much closer than I need to and slip my bowl into the dishwasher. Her elbow grazes the skin under my ribs as I straighten again. She moves farther down the short counter, pulling her breakfast onto a plate. But when I lean back against the edge of the counter and cross my arms over my chest, her gaze trails over my biceps for a few seconds too long.
"See something you like?" I ask her, feigning offense.
"What's your stupid theory?" she asks again, taking a bite of one of the Pop-Tarts.
She's deceptively nonchalant, standing there in her pajamas, just a few feet away from me. I'm surprised she hasn't rushed to sit at the table just to put more distance between us, but if I had to guess I'd bet she's trying to show me she's not intimidated by me.
"Doesn't matter, you proved me right."
She raises an eyebrow and I stare at her for a moment, pretending to decide whether or not to let her in on the secret.
"Just tell me," she says, wiping crumbs from her lips. Her full lips are the color of pale plums, making me wonder if they taste as delicious as they look.
"Okay." I lean forward a bit. "I heard you weren't into guys. And I just didn't think that was true."
"I—wait, what?" Her eyes widen a notch. "Who said that?" But she doesn't give me a chance to respond because it's obvious whom I'd hear that from. "Ava told you I'm a lesbian?"
"She said you weren't into guys, so yeah, that's what I understood. Are you? A lesbian?"
"No." She's frowning. I'm not sure if it's at the question or at the fact that Ava told me something that wasn't true about her.
"I figured you weren't," I say. "You've been practically holding your breath this whole time. And I haven't even showed you anything interesting."
She scoffs. I don't think I've ever heard someone make a sound that adorable. Like a little train about to take off from the station. The sound is exaggerated and defensive. Because she knows I'm right.
"And just how'd you know I'd react to you being shirtless?"
"I didn't know. But you obviously did."
"Put your shirt back on, Giles," she says. "That's the dumbest lesbian test I've ever heard of. And, really, your nipples…they offend me."
I grin. "Oh yeah? Your nipples offended me more when they were pointing right at me earlier. Those things could take out someone's eye."
"Shut up. I wasn't shirtless and that wasn't on purpose. And for the record, if I walked around the house without a shirt, it would be considered inappropriate. A major double standard if you ask me."
"If you walked around the house without a shirt on, it would be considered extremely hot. And very much encouraged." I place a hand over my chest. "I, for one, don't think it's inappropriate. In fact, Ava and I both want you to feel as comfortable as possible."
Julia's entire face is smiling even while her lips remain straight. She's trying so hard to pretend she doesn't find me amusing.
"Please," she says, brushing crumbs from the counter beside her into her palm. "I'd be wiping you off the floor."
"I don't doubt it."
She doesn't look at me when I say it, but she goes a little still at my words. It's strange, I haven't moved an inch, but she feels closer to me than before.
"I heard you transferred down for the spring quarter," I say. "Why not wait for fall, instead?"
It's hectic to transfer between the winter and spring quarter, with just a few days between them. I get the feeling she was in a rush to move. And I want to know why.
She looks down to where her pointer finger taps on the empty plate on the counter beside her. "I needed a change," she says, simply.
"Why?"
She looks up and I expect her to snap and tell me it's none of my business. Instead, she asks, "Did you really get cheated on?"
I nod. "Caught my girlfriend screwing my best friend on our couch. I nearly threw him out of the third-story window."
That's pretty much the whole story in a nutshell.
Julia's mouth hangs open a little. "Are you okay?"
I pull my brows together at her question. It's not that I don't understand it; I just don't expect it from her.
She hesitates at my reaction before adding, "I mean, you're not about to go jump off a bridge or something, are you?"
A beat.
"Don't worry about me," I give her an easy smile, "I always land on my feet."
There's something unspoken that hangs in the brief silence that follows. Something that implicitly tells me she was fishing to find common ground. That someone betrayed her, too. Someone she trusted.
But the moment passes and she slips her dish into the sink and heads off to the bathroom. A few minutes later, at the sound of the shower running, I edge down to her side of the hall and chance a peek into her room. There, over her windows, are white curtains hanging on at an awkward angle. She installed the curtain rod, unapologetically crooked.
I chuckle quietly to myself.
CHAPTER SIX
Giles
THE LAST OF MY final exams was exactly eight hours ago, at two thirty in the afternoon. I've got a huge platter of tacos in front of me and I've spied more
than a handful of pretty girls out tonight. One in particular keeps looking my way from the next table over.
Tacos, beer, and girls. I should be in heaven. Yet, I'm sitting here, barely listening to my friend Luke's story. I'm staring at my mug of beer, my mood sinking every minute. I know the drink's not to blame. It's the thoughts that manage to come nearly every night. Thoughts of Claire and what she did and how I never saw it coming. The anger that was fueling my escapades is now starting to dull at the edges. What I'm left with isn't something I can use. What I'm left with is something that's harder to ignore.
I'll admit I don't do breakups well. The night it happened I went out and found myself a leggy blonde with a sassy little mouth. I screwed her like I was mad at her. Mean. Hard. Relentless. She loved every minute and I felt a hell of a lot better after. But, yeah, it would've been a smarter idea if I had picked someone who wasn't friends with Ava. Took the girl nearly a week to stop texting and calling me, despite my responses dwindling down to radio silence by day three. There's nothing wrong with her and in different circumstances, I might even be inclined to see her again. I can tell she wants more and I'm in no way interested in willingly trapping myself in a cage again.
That first night helped me to remember how good it feels to enjoy a good time and not worry about what the girl does when I'm not around. I like the options, the ability to keep things simple.
The weeks after Claire have been a blur of classes, partying, and very generous amounts of female company. Especially these last few weeks of the spring quarter, with finals looming over the entire campus. Stress has been high and feeling good has been in even higher demand.
All just distractions, I know. My days are a chain of well-timed distractions. It's all I know right now, because nothing holds my attention the way it used to. I've been keeping busy to outpace the cloud of blandness that seems two steps behind me. I can't think of any other time I can be completely in the moment than when I have a gorgeous girl writhing beneath me and crooning in my ear. Even before, when I was content with just one girl, I kept busy the same way. Claire knew that my time inside her was a way to avoid glimpsing the inside of my own head. She knew it and she didn't like it. I'm sure she used that fact to justify what she did.
You don't talk to me, she kept saying, you're so distant.
She wasn't lying, I couldn't quite figure out how to tell her what was on my mind, things that had nothing to do with her. Things I've never said aloud to anyone.
You can trust me, she'd say. A lie that became blatantly obvious when I walked in to the sight of her straddling my best friend right in our living room.
Surprise, my class was cancelled.
We'd only been exclusive for a few months, but seeing those two going at it fucked me up badly. I'm not sure what stung the worst. That she messed around on me, or that she picked someone I'd been close to since high school. Man, it hit home hard that Kyle would even touch my girl. I trusted him. I used to look at him like a brother. But a brother wouldn't fuck your girlfriend.
Goes to show that loyalty is an illusion, an elusive trait on borrowed time, waiting to dissolve. Things that once felt certain now have a sharper light on them, revealing crevices where the unknown can hide. In one clean swoop, I lost the two people I thought I was closest to. Not the first time that's happened but it will be the last.
The thought tastes bitter so I wash it down with a mouthful of my beer.
"Don't tell me you're still hung up on that bitch," Luke says.
"Huh?"
"Your face, man. It tells a sad story. I'm waiting for the single tear to roll down your cheek."
"Fuck off."
"Then get it together. You haven't even looked at that sweet thing at the end of the bar. She keeps checking you out."
I glance in the direction he's indicating. Sure enough, there's a redhead with stick straight hair. Her dress is skintight but she looks pained in it. Uncomfortable. Stiff. When we lock eyes, she smiles shyly before glancing down and looking up again.
"No," I say to Luke. "I don't like that innocent vibe she's got going on."
"You can't be serious."
I shrug.
"You're wrong," Luke argues. "There is nothing innocent about that one."
Luke's terrible at reading women. She's not the one-night-stand type. That's a light flirting, kiss on the cheek, 'here's my number for later' sort of girl. The type of girl that should stay the hell away from me. And from him.
Luke drains his beer and stands up. "You can sit here and make excuses for your wallowing. I'm going to bring this chick home and find out if that hair color is natural."
I raise my glass to him in a toast. Redhead looks like a deer caught in headlights when she realizes Luke is walking up to talk to her. She glances over her shoulders then back in my direction just as Luke leans in to say something to her. She smiles a little, visibly nervous, and says something in response.
I'm not sure where my motivation went. My plan for tonight was to find a sexy little thing to take home—not my house, hers. I don't bring women to my bed. It's my safe haven, drama free, and with no awkward morning-after encounters. I'd like to think women feel more in control in their homes, anyway. And when they're more comfortable it just facilitates everything we can do together.
Already bored watching Luke and the redhead, I refocus my attention on the glass in my hands just as thin fingers pry it from my grip.
"You might want to take it easy there, cowboy," Ava says, refilling my glass with a pitcher of beer. She's being sarcastic. I've been drinking that same beer for the past two hours.
"I'm done after this," I say. "Let me get the check when you get a chance."
"That reminds me…" She digs into her apron pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, setting it down on the table. "What the hell is this?"
I don't look at it because I already know what it is. The check I wrote out this morning and stuck under her door. "It's my rent check."
"Except it's made out for the wrong amount."
"I would say if I had an idiot tenant who willingly overpaid for rent, I wouldn't chastise them about it."
"Cut the crap, Giles. I know what you're doing. I don't want your handouts. Just pay your portion of the rent and that's it."
I match her determined glare. When Ava offered for me to move into her house, I didn't think twice about it. We'd always been close, more like siblings than cousins. I thought I'd get to see her more often, but nights like this, when I come to have dinner at the restaurant where she works, are the only times I get to see my cousin lately. She works like a maniac and sometimes it makes me feel guilty that I don't work half as much as she does.
"It's not my money," I remind her. "And he would've wanted you to have it. Or do you forget she's not just your mom, she's his sister, too. And my aunt."
She looks down and I know she realizes that bringing up my dad isn't something I do lightly.
"I'm managing just fine taking care of her on my own," she says.
"But why just manage when family is willing to help?"
She doesn't answer right away. I know part of the answer is that our parents didn't always have the best relationship. In truth, Ava's parents didn't get along with most people, including each other. They have always been difficult and immature, in more ways than one. Yet, she's always loved them more than anything else in the world. Growing up mediating between them is what cultivated her tendency to smooth over or mislead on details, just out of a desire to keep things civil between the people around her. I don't even think she realizes she does it. It's like a defense mechanism when she predicts trouble.
But that's what worries me about her. That she could be drowning right in front of me and I wouldn't know, because I wouldn't have the right information to gauge from.
"That insurance money isn't a fortune, Giles. Your father wanted your education expenses paid for so you could focus on school and internships and not get sucked into a dead-end job. If you thin
k I'm taking a penny more than your share of the rent, you really are an idiot."
Tension shoots up my temples and I realize I'm grinding my teeth. It's not that she called me an idiot, that's almost a pet name coming from her. It's her reminder of my father's expectations.
"Fine," I say. "You'll have a new check tonight."
Satisfied, Ava collects the plates from the table and my credit card to pay for my bill. When she returns to wipe down the table surface, I keep busy, rolling my newly filled glass between my palms, wondering if maybe Ava embodies the type of loyalty that I've so easily discarded as myth. She's not without her faults, though.
"You're lying again, little one," I say. This is as good a time as any to bring it up. I haven't been able to confront her on this over the past few days. "I guess old habits die hard."
"Stop calling me little one," she says, barely glancing at me. "It worked when we were kids, but it just sounds stupid now, since I'm practically as tall as you."
She's tall, nowhere near as tall as I am, but I suppose her ego makes up the difference.
"Why'd you tell me Julia's a lesbian?"
"I never said she was a lesbian."
"You know you did, in not so many words. Too bad she's not into guys. Took me less than a day to figure out that wasn't true."
Her eyes widen. "Did you—?"
"No. I didn't sleep with her. There are other ways of finding out, such as asking the person. So, answer my question. Why did you lie?"
"I just got the impression she's not a fan of men at the moment. I don't know. Some of the things she said." Ava shrugs. "What's it matter, anyway? You're going to stay away from her."
"I am?"
My smirk seems to piss her off and I know her well enough to duck and fling my arms over my head to protect from the slaps she rains down all over me. Some of them sting the skin on the back of my forearm.
"Okay, okay. Stop." I straighten in my seat when she lets up on her attack, but I don't make any promises.
I simply can't stay away from Julia. She's too fun to mess with. One of my admittedly less mature pastimes over the past few days has been watching my new roommate's eyes spark in anger when I prod her and get under her skin. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed pushing someone's buttons as much as I enjoy it with Julia.
Enamor (Hearts of Stone #3) Page 4
