“You did.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. That’s one of my biggest regrets in life.” He massaged the top of his knee again and made a big show of limping.
Oh you’re not hurt.
He landed on my bed with a hard plop. I bounced as he landed.
“Let’s split the bar,” he suggested.
“No. You know I don’t eat after nine. That’s how I keep my hot figure.”
“Really? What happened to your theory about how those hips and behind came from the motherland and that’s why all the sisters have them?” He did a dramatic snapping of his fingers, which looked ridiculous coming from him. His green eyes gleamed in the light coming from Cynthia’s Kermit the Frog lamp.
“Whatever.” I checked the clock. “It’s midnight. You shouldn’t eat either.”
“I can eat anything I want.” He slipped his hands over the rows of muscle wrapped around his waist. “Grandpa says the college football years are the best time to stuff your face. Once I retire from pro football, then I’ll be subjected to rabbit food as I sit my lazy ass in a chair, broadcasting sports for all of America.”
“Well if Grandpa says it, then it must be so. Although your grandfather told me we all descended from dinosaurs too, so… I’m just saying.”
“Well…maybe not all of his theories are true.”
I lay back down, rolled over, and put my back to Jay, never able to truly deal with him when he was half-naked and so close. “I expect another Snickers in my drawer by this time tomorrow. If I don’t see one in here, I’m rushing off to your room and—”
“Beating my ass. Yes, I’m well aware of what happens when I don’t replace your chocolate.” The bed moved under me. His body smoothed against mine as he lay next to me and placed his arm over my hip.
Thank god, he can’t see my face.
Desire coursed through every cell in my body. Warmth radiated from him to me. His scent enveloped me—a dark vanilla fragrance with a hint of mint and sex.
Why is it always so easy for him to be close to me like this, when it tugs at my heart and does insane things to my insides?
“Are you going to eat lying down?” I swallowed.
“I’m not hungry anymore. I just couldn’t go to sleep. I figured I would make myself get the itis with your candy bar and then pass out.”
“Oh god. How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t say that word?”
“Why not?”
“It would sound like you’re racist if other black people heard you say ‘itis.’”
“I’m not saying the first part of the word, so I’m fine.”
“They would know you’re saying ‘niggeritis’ if you said ‘itis.’ I swear to God, if I hear you say it again, I’m notifying the NAACP.” A chuckle escaped my lips.
One time his grandparents let him stay with my mom and me for Thanksgiving. My Aunt Bernice rubbed her stomach after the meal and declared, “Girl, I ate so much. I’ve got a touch of the itis. I’ll be sleeping for days.”
At the end of the table, Jay leaned my way and whispered, “What’s itis, a disease or something?”
I giggled. “No, crazy. That’s what we say when we’ve eaten so much that our stomachs are packed and all we can do is sit on the couch in a comatose state. Someone always says they have the it is after a big meal. It’s like complimenting the cook.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
Jay loudly cleared his throat and proclaimed to everyone, “I think I have the
itis too.”
Everyone joked about it the rest of the night.
I shifted under his arm. “Put my candy bar up if you’re not going to eat it.”
He squeezed my waist and moved away. Jay returned the Snickers to my drawer then got back into bed and molded himself to my body. His hardness smoothed against my behind. As if he noticed, he scooted that part of him back a little, taking that luscious hardness away.
If only he could be mine.
“Your chocolate is safe.” His voice skittered across my skin like a gentle massage.
I shivered as my nerves flared. He’d lain in bed with me before. Most of the time, it happened after my tutoring sessions with him. If we studied late into the night, he stayed over and slept in my bed. All that changed once I got a roommate who actually stayed in my room and not with her boyfriend. Jay pretty much lived with me then, taking breaks during football camps and away games, or whenever he had a girlfriend.
When Cynthia came along first semester junior year, everything changed. Not only did she spend all her time in our room, she’d managed to trap Jay’s attention and rein him in with the wink of an eye and a jiggle of her big breasts.
“Why are you so quiet?” he asked.
“I’m tired. Why are you in my bed?”
“Because this bed is more comfortable. Cynthia keeps a piece of plywood between the mattress and box spring. No matter how many times I tell her it won’t help her back, she keeps it there. It’s so uncomfortable.”
I yawned and leaned my back into his chest. “It can’t be that bad.”
“The plywood doesn’t let the mattress flex or box spring do its job. I’m always aching all over.”
“Poor baby.” I closed my eyes and enjoyed his hold on me while I could. My nipples still remained hard. They pressed against my shirt’s material, begging to be touched. “I doubt Cynthia would understand that an uncomfortable mattress is the reason you’re over here. Especially since you were hooking up with her only minutes ago.”
“How long have you been awake?”
I opened my eyes and could have hit myself for blurting that out. “Umm…not too long.”
“How long is ‘not too long?’”
“A few minutes or so. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“If you heard anything.” He nuzzled the back of my head and combed his fingers through my curly hair, his fingertips starting at my scalp, traveling through my naturally long curls, and ending at the tips before beginning a new path.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, before admitting, “I heard a little moaning and other things.”
“Sorry. We woke you.”
“No problem.”
“No?”
“Never.”
Silence passed for a few seconds as he continued to play with my hair. My eyelids drooped until finally I shut them again.
“What did you think of her moaning?” he asked.
“Oh God. Go to sleep. What type of question is that?”
“I’m just saying. Did it seem like she was faking it?”
Her face didn’t seem like she liked it, but who knows if that even mattered.
I shrugged. “I don’t think she’s faking. Do you?”
“I don’t know. She stops to answer the phone all the time. The only time she doesn’t answer the phone is the few times she’s done other things for me. I’ve yet to come inside her and she’s never had an orgasm. It’s been like three months. Either she’s messing around with someone else, or she’s really bored with what I’m doing and faking it.”
Oh, I know. She’s taken the term cock tease to the tenth power.
“Why would she fake it?”
“I’m up for the Heisman. Everybody’s spoiling me and pretending to be my best friend…well, except you of course. You’ve remained the same.”
“I doubt she’s faking just because you’re up for an award.”
“The Heisman is not just an award. I’ll be the twelfth junior in history to get one.”
I smirked. “I think you’ve mentioned that to me twelve times. Even crazier is the fact that you keep talking like you’ve already won.”
“Well, Coach thinks it’s mine. Others do too, including Cynthia. It’s all she talks about.”
I elbowed him in the stomach. “She’s not faking. I really doubt she is.”
“Why?”
Because you lick her center like a skil
led artist paints his masterpiece.
I cleared my throat. “I just doubt it. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“Because you’re horny?”
“Insanely horny.”
“What type of person stops having sex to answer the phone?”
“One that is not enjoying themselves, probably.” Annoyance laced his voice. “I wish she would just tell me what she likes. I would do anything she needed. We could use toys or something. I don’t care.”
I snorted. “Oh goodness. From what I witnessed tonight, it looked like Cynthia was having a good time.”
Kind of. She had to be, right?
“You saw us too?” He paused from messing with my hair.
“A little. Why? Would you rather I hadn’t? You were both barely four feet from my bed.”
He kept quiet.
“I was curious,” I lied, knowing this had been the fourth time I’d watched them begin to make love only to be interrupted by a phone call.
He rested his hand on my hip. “I guess that makes sense.”
“You wouldn’t look if I was having sex? Would it be too icky?”
“I don’t know. It would definitely be unusual. I doubt it would be icky. It’s not that you wouldn’t be good to look at. I mean…you know what I mean. I think the worst part would be watching some douchebag on top of you.”
I almost asked why but didn’t. The answer would probably be a disappointing reminder that he saw me as nothing more than a good friend or worse, a sister. “Go to sleep, Jay.”
“I’m trying.”
“On your girlfriend’s bed.”
An exasperated sigh left his lips. “Fine. Fine.”
A cool breeze swept over me when he left, but it was all for the best. Our friendship was like a tree rooted in nutrient-rich soil. No matter how we branched out, growing fruit and relishing in the sun, we remained united. We stayed as one. Even though I yearned for him, I feared that if our friendship was yanked out of its soil and thrown into new land, the tree wouldn’t survive.
“So why do you think she’s always getting the phone?” Jay disturbed my thoughts.
“Maybe she wants you to continue to desire her. Some guys lose interest and move on once they get what they want.”
“You know that’s not me, right?”
“Of course, but you being Mr. Popular Quarterback now kind of shoves you into the stereotypical playboy realm. Whether you want to be there, or not.”
“I already made her my girlfriend. What more assurance does she need?”
“A lot more, I guess. Not that I know whether she’s making the phone calls up or not.”
Though she probably is.
“Either way,” Jay said, “if she answers the phone again, I’m calling her out on it.”
“You should.”
Quiet returned. His rhythmic breathing rose in the room and soothed me as if I was a baby being rocked in a cradle.
“You want me to turn off the light?” he mumbled from Cynthia’s bed.
I rubbed my eyes and turned over to face him, pulling the covers up to my neck. He’d been staring at me the whole time or at least it seemed that way. That green light made the curves of his chest glow.
How pitiful am I?
I bit my bottom lip. “Leave the light on, please.”
He closed his eyes. “Goodnight, Evie.”
I stared at him longer than I should have. “Goodnight, Jay.”
Chapter Three
Evie
The next night, I stood in a fraternity house kitchen with the shortest jean skirt I owned and a purple tube top. I wasn’t a fan of bright colors and tended to enjoy dark shades of black, brown, and gray with a hint of white mixed in every now and then. However, my close friend Melanie explained that in order to get inside that particular frat party, guests had to wear purple. With the sea of purple-clad people waving around me, I was glad I’d listened. I would’ve been the only person in there wearing black.
My phone vibrated. I checked the screen. My other best friend, Pipe’s name glowed.
Pipe: Did u get the black roses?
Me: OMG! Yes.
I’d slicked my hair back into a bun and placed the biggest rose in my hair on the side.
Me: You’re awesome. Those were the real deal too. Not the tinted roses I usually get.
Pipe: I got them delivered from Turkey.
Me: You’re spoiling me!
Pipe: Who’s ur daddy?
I laughed so hard I almost dropped my phone.
Me: Pipe is my daddy!
Pipe: A better friend than Jay?
Me: Yes. And yes I will tell him that! Now what’s up with U?
Pipe: I’m in love.
Me: With Old Guy?
Pipe: Stop it. He’s only 35. How are U and Jay?
Me: Both fine. I’ll tell him you texted.
Pipe: U tell him ur in love with him yet?
Every time I talked to, saw, or texted Pipe, he asked the same question about Jay. He was Jay’s next-door neighbor and played with us the few times his nanny allowed it. Pipe still lived in California, a rich kid with no motivation to go to college or work.
Me: When are u coming to visit? I miss u so much.
Pipe: Sooner than u think. Gotta go. Loves!
Me: Loves!
I dropped my phone back into my pocketbook and laughed to myself, waiting for Melanie to return from the bathroom. Besides Jay, Melanie was one of my favorite friends to hang with on campus. It also helped that she stayed in the room next door, which made her always available to go do things.
Hip-hop blasted from the speakers nailed to the ceiling. A guy’s hood-rich lyrics rode the booming beat. He rapped about nights where he swam in piles upon piles of thousand dollar bills and rolled around in a bed full of naked women, who apparently screamed his name due to his elephant-sized penis.
“Your girl wants to ride this stick,” the rapper bragged. “I take it out and let her touch this stick. She comes so hard, she can’t quit this stick. But when I come, I’m done, and let the next chick lick.”
What an idiot.
He repeated those same lines two more times.
Oh god! Is that the chorus? Shoot me directly in the heart right now, Lord. Just get it over with.
Purple and gold embellished the frat house, from the walls to the carpet. The motto, “Friendship is essential to the soul” hung everywhere. Images of pit bulls with gold or purple shirts were plastered on any empty space. Apparently, pit bulls had interesting lives. Posters of them dancing among curvy cats could be seen most of the time, but there were a few illustrations of pits reading, accepting Oscars or Grammys, lounging in the Oval Office, climbing mountains, feeding children in third world countries, flying to the moon in astronaut gear, and even testing potions in a purple lab.
Leave it to the Q-dogs of Omega Psi Phi fraternity to make pit bulls appear studious and groundbreaking.
“Give it to me,” some female begged on the song. “Oh, give it to me.”
Please give it to her so she can be quiet.
Wall-to-wall, people danced, chatted, drank, smoked, and laughed. I leaned forward towards the kitchen counter, which served as the festivities’ open bar. Being a female at a frat party meant I could help myself to all the liquor available. Frat brothers encouraged mass consumption of alcohol and hosted the rowdiest parties on campus, and the Ques were no exception. But tonight, was different. Tonight, on the eve of their eviction, there was bound to be even more rowdiness.
The song finally ended. A new beat pounded.
“I love hoes!” another rapper screamed. “All you hoes are beautiful to me.”
Melanie returned right in time to catch me forming my fingers into a pistol and making a show of pulling the trigger.
“Why are you killing yourself with your finger?” she asked.
“Because I’ve been forced to listen to so many slut-slamming, women-bashing hip-hop songs that my vagina has shrivele
d up and my brain cells have withered into dead matter.”
“I had no idea hip-hop could do that.” Melanie’s braids swung in front of her face until she tucked a few behind her hair. “How could you not like this song? It’s so hot. Just forget the lyrics and listen to the beat.”
“Hoes from black to white, you all my hoes,” the song continued.
I bet he doesn’t call his mom or aunts, hoes. Better yet, he probably does.
Against all logic, I bobbed my head to the beat. That was the problem with most misogynist rap songs, they always had the best beats, forcing me to want to dance while they insulted me. It was a sick little circular game of toxin and consumption. The rappers called women garbage. The women bought it, thus confirming it and so the rappers continued with the same songs, generation after generation. And when we called the music companies out on it, all they could do was point to the record sales and shrug.
“So finish the story about last night,” she said. “Did Princess Barbie return to the room and finally give Jay some ass?”
“Nope. Jay fell asleep by the time she got off the phone, so Cynthia turned off the lights and went to bed.”
“She’s playing games. I mean, seriously. Answering the phone once or twice I can see, but you said she’s answering all of the time. Something is up.”
“Maybe. I don’t know who she’s talking to, but the person is definitely more important than Jay’s dick.”
“Shoot. Then I need to meet this person because Jay is fine as hell.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“More important, however, is you. I mean seriously, girl. You need to get some.” Melanie poured me a bigger glass of Puerto Rican rum, more than I would need in two lifetimes. “You watching your roommate and Jay have sex has to be the most pathetic story I’ve heard all semester.”
“This is why I don’t tell you stuff, Miss Insulting Counselor. Apparently, the psychology department should include Compassionate Responses 101 in their curriculum.” I stopped her from putting more liquor in my cup and grabbed the liter of coke at the edge of the table. Nearby, several frat guys bumped into the table near us and talked loudly.
The COMPLETE Coventon Campus Series: Books I, II, & III Page 2
