by Claire Adams
I lost all track of time and stopped even being aware of where I was; nothing was as important as the kiss, the feeling of Zack’s body against mine. I arched up against him, standing on the balls of my feet, wanting to feel even more of him, wanting to feel his cock harden in his pants. Zack sucked my bottom lip between his lips, nibbling on it with his teeth, the same way he had used to kiss me before, the way that used to make me weak in the knees. I shivered even though it was easily a hundred degrees in the frat house main room, wondering—in the back of my mind—just what I was doing. “Zack!” the sound of someone’s voice calling out broke through the haze on my mind—it must have broken through Zack’s brain, too. We pulled apart all at once, at the same time. I was panting a little, my heart pounding in my chest, my whole body drenched in sweat.
I swallowed, my lips still tingling, my whole body crackling from how hot the kiss had been. Zack turned his head in the direction of whoever had called to him and raised a hand, acknowledging the shout. The guy walked up—one of the other members of the frat, a grin on his face as he handed something off to Zack. “I see you’ve found your piece of ass tonight,” he said—he couldn’t have thought I’d hear him. The guy was unsteady on his feet, and his eyes were glassy; he was obviously drunk. Or maybe, I thought, the people who usually partied with the ‘bad boy frat’ were jaded enough not to care about being called a piece of ass. But something about it definitely bothered me. It sent a cold jolt through my body and I stepped back from Zack, remembering everything that was going on around me—and everything I had had in mind for the party. I had never had any intention of making out with anyone; my goal had just been to enjoy myself and to watch out for Jess. The last thing on my mind when I’d agreed to come out was that I’d make out with an ex-boyfriend. I swallowed again, taking a deep breath.
“It’s really hot in here,” I said to Zack, struggling to keep a smile on my face. “I need to see if I can find my friend; I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”
Zack’s look of satisfaction fell from his face in an instant.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Zack said, reaching out to grab my hand. “Come on, Evie—if you need to cool off I can get you a water or something.”
I shook my head and snatched my hand free, trying not to make too much of a scene. My heart was pounding for a completely different reason.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll…I’ll check out the back yard and see if she’s there, maybe get some fresh air.”
I smiled again and darted away from Zack before he could say anything else, plunging into the crowd. I closed my eyes for a second, thinking what an idiot I had been. I should have stuck to my plan. I should have just had a drink or two—ones I had mixed myself, not the over-powered punch the frat was serving—and kept in sight of Jess, instead of letting myself get distracted by Zack. The drunken brother’s comment, that I was Zack’s piece of ass for the night, rattled around in my head. He didn’t know what he was talking about, I told myself firmly. Even if we hadn’t been distracted by the guy, I wouldn’t have gone to bed with Zack.
I went outside, but there was no sign of Jess anywhere—and the people hanging around and in the pool were even drunker than those inside. It reeked of pot and vomit, and as the alcohol continued to hit my system I had to hold my breath to keep from puking at the smell. I plunged back inside and breathed in the sweat-and-alcohol smell, surprised to be relieved by it. I shook my head at myself; there was no way I’d be able to find Jess in the crowd that packed the frat house. I pulled my phone out and looked at it, hoping she had texted me. No such luck. I would have to keep looking.
I finally found Jess in one of the smaller public areas of the frat house, sitting on a couch with an African American frat member whose toga was sloppily wrapped around him. I wondered if that was the guy that Jess had come to the party to meet up with or if she had given up on the guy she’d been interested in and had taken the attention of this new guy as a good second option. She looked pretty pleased with herself either way. I hurried into the room, hoping that Zack wouldn’t come into it—that he had already moved on to greener pastures, as much as the thought of him ending up in bed with another girl after making out with me hurt, just a little.
“Jess,” I said, sitting down in the empty spot next to her. “It’s time to go, girl.”
Jess turned to look at me, at least a little drunk by the glassiness of her eyes, and grinned.
“Oh come on, the party’s just getting good,” she said, reaching down and holding the guy’s hand. “Have one more drink and then we’ll go.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew in her current state of mind, Jess would be impossible to convince. I let the frat guy she was with get one of the pledges to grab me another dose of punch. I wanted to leave; the longer I stayed, the better the chances would be that Zack would find me again, and that was—at that moment at least—the last thing in the world that I wanted. I drank the punch as quickly as I could while Jess continued to talk to the guy she was with, laughing at his jokes and cuddling up to him. I finished off the punch and showed Jess the empty cup.
“I had another drink; I finished it, now can we please go?”
I knew we’d only been there a couple of hours—I’d checked the time when I looked to see if Jess had texted me. But I wanted out of there. The night had been an unmitigated disaster, as far as I was concerned. Jess finally relented and leaned in to give her companion a long, sloppy kiss before she traipsed out of the room with me in tow. The last cup of punch was going straight to my head and I dreaded the next morning, but we managed to make our way out of the frat house without falling, and soon enough, we were on the sidewalk headed back to the dorms, switching out our heels for our flats so we wouldn’t sprain an ankle in the dark.
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning, I woke up feeling as if I had poison in my stomach. I buried my face against my pillow, groaning; my head was pounding, every joint in my body felt like it was packed with broken glass, and I was sure that if I moved too quickly, I’d throw up everywhere. I managed to get out of my bed, crawling on my hands and knees to my desk. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the bottom drawer—it was warm, but it would help—and I rummaged in one of the other drawers until I found the bottle of aspirin I kept for regular headaches. I pulled the shades over my window and crawled back into bed, sipping Gatorade while I waited for the aspirin to kick in. It had been ages since I’d had a hangover, and this one felt like it was worse than the last one I’d ever gotten. That punch had been lethal.
My headache started to wear off, but I still felt aches all over, and my stomach told me in no uncertain terms that if I put anything else into it before the Gatorade was fully in my system, it would punish me. I took a deep breath and told myself that a shower would make it at least a little better. I managed to grab my towel and robe and staggered out of my room; the walls swooped and twisted around me, the floor seemed to be tilted. Somehow, I got into the bathroom and threw my things onto the countertop before I lurched into the shower and sat down on the bench Jess had bought the second week into term. I turned the water on; it was ice-cold and I yelped in shock as it hit my hot skin. Definitely not a great way to improve things.
It began to heat up and I sat underneath the flow, letting it soak me from head to toe. I wondered as my brain started to regain normal functioning if I had remembered to take my makeup off when Jess and I had gotten in; it didn’t seem that important. I stayed on the bench while I scrubbed, washing from head to toe. I still didn’t feel fully human, but by the time I finally turned the water off, I thought I could at least manage to stay upright, and maybe even eat something. I dried myself off and wrapped the robe around myself and padded into the common area, keeping the towel over my head as I sank down onto the couch and grabbed a box of cheese crackers that was on the coffee table—anything in the common area was free game. They were a little stale, but they tasted good; I thought longingly of a nice, big cup of coffee.
/> Jess bounded out of her room with a smile on her face, throwing herself on the couch next to me. “You should not even be this chipper,” I said. My head still ached—not as much as before, but a dull throbbing at my temples and behind my eyes that the aspirin didn’t seem to touch.
“Ah, hungover are we?” I frowned at Jess and she laughed. “You should have gotten the cure from me before you went to bed.”
I rolled my eyes in spite of the fact that it sent a cold jolt of pain through my skull.
“What’s the cure?”
Jess leaned against me. She was in pajamas, and she had somehow managed to take a shower either right when we’d gotten back, or earlier in the morning than I had.
“Oh, you drink a whole bottle of water and eat a big bowl of ramen before you go to bed. Works every time.”
I shuddered. “I can’t even imagine how that would even do anything about the fact that I feel like someone tried to poison me.”
Jess rumpled my hair with the towel. “We’ll go down to the dining hall and get some pancakes in you and you’ll be good as new.”
On the weekends, the dining hall did brunch through the early afternoon, with pancakes and make-your-own waffles. I’d gone a few times even though I hadn’t been out late the night before, just to keep Jess company and because there were some lunch items I liked.
“These crackers are doing me just fine for right now. But you’re kind of a bitch for insisting I have that last drink—just so you know.”
Jess laughed. “You didn’t have to; you could have totally faked that shit. I was pretty drunk myself.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t worth fighting over then. It is now, though.”
Jess got up and went into her room, coming back with a can of coffee—barely chilled. She put it in my hands and I cracked it; it wasn’t as good as a hot coffee, but it would do the job.
“So tell me about that guy you were talking to last night,” she said, her bright blue eyes dancing.
I shrugged, feeling my face burn. “Eh. He’s not important.”
Jess raised her eyebrows. “Oh come on, you wouldn’t have talked to him if he wasn’t important. I saw him make a beeline to you. You know each other, don’t you?”
I shrugged again, not wanting to admit how turned on—and then how turned off—I had been the night before, all because of Zack.
“Well, he’s… it’s not important, but he and I dated for a couple of years in high school. We broke up when he started college; he’s a couple of years ahead of me.”
Jess’s eyes widened. “Oooh, tell me more!”
I rolled my eyes. The coffee and the cheese crackers were starting to help.
“Not much to tell, really. He saw me, we talked a bit…we danced, we kissed, and that was it.”
Jess looked at me for a long moment, shaking her head. “It’s like every hot guy in the world is totally wasted on you. He’s totally fuckable—why didn’t you stay the night?”
I shook my head at her. “Someone came up and said I was his piece of ass for the night and just…ugh.”
Jess made a face, her lips twisting in a grimace. “Yeah, I can see where that would put you off, especially if you have history with him.” She shrugged. “So tell me about him! Come on, if you dated for two years, it had to have been good.”
I thought about it—about the dates Zack and I had gone on, about the little presents he had given me, about watching him play.
I thought to myself that it wasn’t like Jess would run around telling everyone, so I told her about Zack asking me out in my freshman year, and how he’d been with me when my mom started to get sick. I told her about the stupid little things—the dates, being some kind of hot commodity because I was dating an upperclassman.
“But what was the sex like? I know you aren’t a virgin.”
I blushed. She was right—I had lost my virginity in sophomore year.
“Eh…it wasn’t really anything special. I mean, I think—I’m not sure—but I don’t think I was his first. But he was mine. It was just sort of…sex, you know? I just kind of laid there. The first time I guess it was hot just because, you know, it was the first time. But we only did it a couple of times after that and it didn’t ever really get to be good, exactly. Certainly no screaming orgasms.”
“That’s a damn shame. I would think a guy like that at least would have a nice-sized dick to get things done with.”
I thought about it; it occurred to me that I didn’t really have any way to gauge how big Zack was. I had been with one other guy since him, and while the sex had been better, I hadn’t really paid attention to size.
“I guess he was average? I wasn’t really paying attention to that so much.”
Jess nodded slowly.
“Oh man! I have to tell you about my night.”
I grinned. “Okay, so what was up with the guy you were with?”
I knew that it would be more than I wanted to know—Jess always told more than I wanted to know—but I also knew that Jess would be hurt if I didn’t pretend to be at least a little curious about her night.
“He was hot, right?” Jess raised her eyebrows at me and I nodded; the guy had been good-looking, though since he was tall and skinny he wasn’t really my type. “His name is Nelson. Hoo buddy, he was a good time. I might see him again.”
“So you two were just cuddling on the couch and making out?” That didn’t seem like Jess’s usual MO.
Jess laughed out loud. “Nah, we were in the bathroom before you caught up to me. Nelson’s room was too far away. We danced for a while and then we had a quickie there—he wanted me to stay the night, but I know better.”
It was the second time in two months Jess had mentioned a quickie like that. I didn’t think any the worse of her for it, but I could never have a one-night stand like that.
“Oh man, you should’ve seen his cock, Evie—I don’t know if it’s true of all black guys, but Nelson was definitely packing. Totally lived up to stereotype.” I rolled my eyes. “I swear to god it was like a baseball bat in his pants. It was good though—right up against the sink.”
Jess went on about Nelson for a while and I only partially paid attention, enough for her to think I was listening to every word. He was apparently on a basketball scholarship, top pick for the pros in a year or two. He’d been the top college pick out of high school and the frat had barely even made him work to be a pledge—they’d let him in right away. He definitely fit into the bad boy image that Phi Alpha Kappa had; Jess told me that she’d almost want to date him, if it weren’t for the fact that he was a total hound.
“Man, as good as that quickie was, I wouldn’t mind bringing him back here for the night. But he’s definitely not relationship material. He’d be chasing the next skirt the minute I turned my back.”
I nodded. In spite of the fact that I’d told myself I wouldn’t even think about Zack again, he rose up in my mind, along with the “piece of ass” comment his frat brother had made. When we’d been dating, Zack had been faithful; but it was easy to imagine he’d turned into the kind of guy who just slept with a girl and evicted her from his bed the next morning without batting an eyelash.
I didn’t like to think about Zack being that way. It was his right to sleep around as much as he wanted; I had no hold on him. We’d been broken up for over a year. But it still turned my stomach to think about Zack sleeping around without being attached to anyone. I wondered while I dried my hair if it would make me feel worse to know that Zack was sleeping around or to know that he had started up a new relationship. It wasn’t important, I told myself firmly. I shouldn’t feel bad either way. If Zack had a new girlfriend, that was his business. I wondered how he would react if I had a new boyfriend; but then I took a deep breath and told myself that that didn’t matter either. We were two separate people who happened to run into each other, and because of alcohol and old feelings, we’d ended up making out a little. It was no big deal. I wouldn’t think about it again.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER THREE
My journalism class was wrapping up for the day; everyone else was looking at the clock or the door, putting their stuff away even though there was another ten minutes and even though Professor Grant wasn’t done saying the last few things about our reading on style.
“Remember, everyone: it’s important to cultivate your own journalistic voice, but you also have to be mindful of the rules of style—the basic elements that every publication looks for—and the specific style rules that your publication demands.”
I took another look at the diagram on the overhead—it compared AP style to Chicago style. Grant had had us all read Politics and the English Language, along with part of Elements of Style for the class; I’d liked both—especially the bitter, harsh humor in “Politics.” I was really starting to enjoy the course, an introduction to journalism.
The end of class arrived and I joined in with everyone else loading my stuff into my bag, ready to go. I was taking a pretty full course load, but I had a couple of hours free before my next class.
“Evelyn, do you have a minute to talk?” Grant called out as the other students started to file out.
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure, Professor Grant,” I replied, calling out over the murmurs and screech of desks against the linoleum floor. I sat back down, settling my books, my laptop, and my pens in my bag while everyone left.
Professor Grant was gathering up his stuff, and as the last of the other students left the room I got up and approached the front of the room, stopping short of the desk.
“You wanted to talk to me, Professor Grant?” I said, feeling anxious in spite of myself. I knew I was making decent grades in the class.
“Absolutely, Evelyn,” Grant said, looking up from his laptop bag with a grin.
He was in his forties, starting to go gray but with all of his hair still there. Lots of girls at the college had crushes on Grant, I knew; everyone vied to have him as their advisor and I’d seen plenty of my classmates giggling as they left his office during office hours. I could see why they liked him—he was nice, and he looked good—but I wasn’t into older guys.
