by Carly White
“Wow, even worse. Just not me huh?”
She pushed the bags that had his books in it and smiled. “Look, I am sure you are really nice and all, but I don’t date men like you.”
“Like me?”
“You know, come in here with your suit that cost more than my old family house, buying up a couple grand in books. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you paid for my advertising for the month and for that I am grateful.”
“But?”
“But that doesn’t mean that I want to date a guy that throws money around so easily. I don’t know what you do, but I doubt it has anything to do with small. They don’t rent those kind of suits Sir.”
Thomas couldn’t hold back his laughter. He was pegged but he would not concede to her. “Sometimes you have to look away from the routine, to find what you are really looking for.”
“I suppose. Sounds like a fortune cookie to me.”
“I will see you again Tilly. Have a great day.”
He left the store feeling strangely invigorated. Looking down at his overstuffed bags, her words made a little sense. How many people would just go buy all the books on one subject, just because they could? Shaking his head, he tried to forget about the quick-witted girl in the bookstore that had a tongue sharper than his.
***
While Tilly had tried to appear not afflicted by the encounter, it was hard to when he left. She could feel her palms partly sweaty and her heart still beat hard in her chest. It was a good thing that all of that could be hidden, because it would have been embarrassing if he would have known. What a strange day it was turning out to be.
“Marla?”
“Yeah.”
“Call Carlos back and tell him to put up the usual. I will send him a check later this evening.”
“Okay.”
Yes, what a strange day indeed.
Chapter 2
Her day got a little better after such a large sale and she was able to take off a little early to get some studying in. While her roommate Bree was getting ready for a party, she was stuck reading literature from hundreds of years ago, trying to memorize as much as possible for the test in the morning. She was stressed out about school, the bookstore okay for the moment. If it wasn’t one thing it was another.
“Why don’t you come with? You don’t have to stay all night. You can come for an hour and then come back here to study. You have to have some fun in college because before you know it, you are doing nothing else but working anyways.”
Tilly laughed. “After college I will still work, but won’t have classes. I will probably have more time.”
“Fine, don’t go. I am just saying, your body is only going to look that way for so long. Why waste it?”
Tilly giggled again. “You’re right. Give me a few minutes and I will come down for a bit. Only a couple of drinks though. Not going crazy like New Years. I wouldn’t even make it to class for the test.”
Bree smiled and pushed the short black hair out of her face. She wasn’t ready either, so she went back to the bathroom. Tilly was a lot less of a primper, so she merely changed into a short dress and shoes, brushed her hair and slid some lip gloss over her soft lips and she was done. It was she that had to wait for Bree to finish with her third coat of spackle. “Are you about done?”
“Almost.”
“Don’t you think that is false advertising?”
Bree stopped what she was doing and looked at her in the mirror. “You say the craziest things, you know that right?”
“What? I am just saying Bree. You are gorgeous without all that craziness. I just don’t have time for it.”
“Yeah and you don’t have time for sex either, so obviously your priorities are way off.”
Laughing, she agreed. “Obviously.”
***
The party was much like she expected from a college party. Tilly swore that graduates partied harder than most of the four-years did. When she got there, most of the people were already three sheets to the wind. She looked around and found the kitchen. She grabbed a beer out of the fridge and turned around to her roommate gone. She had already took off and left her. Tilly cursed her under her breath but it wasn’t like she didn’t figure she would anyways. Bree couldn’t be bothered once she had her eye on something. When she finally found her in the crowd, it appeared that a man had pulled her from her friend. Sighing, she looked around for other familiar faces.
Seeing a few friends from her Law class, Tilly talked to them for a while. A couple of guys asked if she wanted to dance, but she just politely turned them down. If she was going to turn down a hot, rich guy like Thomas from before, she certainly did not have time for a half-drunk pair of goons.
After telling them no nicely a few times, she had to get more firm and they eventually went away with a comment about her being a bitch. It wasn’t the first time she had heard it. There was also the names of prude and tease, but it was only because she was not as willing as most of her school mates to hook up with some guy right after meeting them. It wasn’t like she was still a virgin, but Tilly seen sex as more than just a physical moment. It could be transcending, but only when it was the right person. She just didn’t have time for anything less and what she wanted was a tall order to fill.
She searched the moving throng of people and didn’t see Bree’s bright red top. She had probably taken off with the guy she had just met. Tilly never judged her friend, she even wished she could be so free-spirited at times, but instead of staying around, Tilly found herself out in the cool night air, walking back towards the small house she rented with Bree. She knew her friend would be along after a while, so she didn’t worry too much about her.
It was dark on the walk home and she almost had herself skittish from the change to quiet around her. Something about it was almost unnerving, making her walk faster from invisible things behind her. She finally breathed easy when her house was in sight and she went in, starting on the studying with a slight buzz from the few drinks she had. It was only ten and still early, but she was in bed by midnight, wanting to get a full night sleep for her eight o clock class in the morning.
She didn’t usually stress so much about school, but Tilly found it impossible to make the professor happy and she was getting a B in the class. She had to keep it up for her scholarships, so the test in his class was far more important than usual.
***
Bree was in her bed when Tilly went into to check on her before she left for class. The young woman was sprawled out on her bed passed out and the bit of drool coming out of her mouth made Tilly chuckle. At least there wasn’t a man in there with her, she thought to herself. Sometimes Tilly would come home from class or wake up in the morning and there was some stranger in their kitchen with boxers on.
She shut the door quietly behind her and went to the door. She grabbed her backpack and lugged it onto her shoulders. Tilly couldn’t wait for the day that she no longer had to carry that dreadful thing around with her. Waving at one of the neighbours, she headed out on the ten block walk to the campus. Cars were almost useless in a place that you had to pay as much to park your car, as you did to pay rent. Everything was close enough for walking and public transportation, but it was the cold, winter mornings that really made her wish that she had a vehicle. In early September, the air was crisp in the morning, but more of a prelude to the heat to come later in the day.
Tilly made it to class a few minutes before and the professor gave her the same fish-eyed look that he always did. Not only was he a jerk to most everyone there, he was also a tad lecherous and she could always feel him checking out her cleavage. Chris didn’t even bother to pretend that he wasn’t an old perv, so she didn’t bother to hide the fact that she found him disgusting.
“I hope you all did your studying, because I would hate to see some of you fail because of a test. It is worth 40 percent of your grade, so keep that in mind.” His dark green eyes trained on her and the look made her want to sink down in her seat. She wa
s nowhere near failing, but she would lose a fifteen percent scholarship is she got below a B on any class.
The bell struck for the beginning of the period and Tilly was pretty relaxed as she went through the test. She sighed when she saw the last page was an essay question. Anything that he could mark wrong he would, so anything passed multiple choices was problematic. She hoped it wasn’t too much of her grade. Tilly told herself that if it was too bad, she would just report him to the school and battle it out with him. It was never good to start something with a teacher, but every term, there were small injustices or that one that she didn’t mesh well with.
She was finished before anyone else and she even went through it again, scanning it for mistakes. Finally she stood up and put it on his table. “Can we just go afterwards or?”
“Yes, that will be all for today. Homework is written on the board.”
Chris watched her leave. She was cocky and he wanted to fail her for his own personal reasons. There was always a method to the madness and as he went through the test, he was actually disappointed when she didn’t miss any of the multiple choice answers. She had been paying attention.
When Chris got to the essay part, he stopped and read the sentence over and over again.
“You are going to fail this part anyways, so have at it.”
It was signed with a little smiley face and he didn’t know if he wanted to smile or be pissed. Tilly was just showing once again that she was rude and didn’t care about authority. The final straw in his mind and he did just like she suggested. The essay was a large amount of the score and he was satisfied with the results. He knew that the grade would get him the after-class meeting that he was looking to have.
Tilly made her way back to her house. She had a class later that evening, but at least the test was done and over. Bree was still sleeping, so Tilly made herself a sandwich and went to sit down. Her mind went to the bookstore and she called Marla to see how things were going. “Hey hon. You guys having a busy day?”
“Not really, but there was a gentleman here to see you earlier.”
“Oh? Who was it?”
“I am not sure. I haven’t seen him before and he didn’t leave a name. He said he would come back another day.”
Tilly thought of Thomas, the man she had met the day before. “What did he look like?”
“My, aren’t you interested?”
“Marla…”
“Okay fine, just having a bit of a laugh, that’s all. You are so sensitive nowadays.”
“The guy…”
“Yes, well he was real tall, with dark hair and really nice brown eyes. He looked a little foreign, but real handsome. Wasn’t he in here yesterday too?”
“Yea, it sounds like the guy that bought all those Peruvian site books. Well I wonder why he came in again? He must be looking for another book or something.”
Marla made a sound, conveying that she did not really believe her take on it. “Well, whatever he was in here for, do you want me to get his number if he comes in again?”
“No Marla really. You know I don’t have time for all of that.”
She made a disparaging remark. “You need to make time Tilly. You aren’t going to be young forever.”
While Tilly loved Marla and she had known her all of her life, she was at times exasperating. Marla had taken over as her watcher when her mother died and like her mom, she wanted to see her settled with a nice man. Tilly tried to remind her that it was not like it was when she was single, but they didn’t want to hear it. Marla wanted to hear it as much as Tilly wanted to hear that she needed one.
She hung up and thought about the man that called his self, Thomas. Tilly remembered that he had given her a last name, but she couldn’t for the life of her think of what it was. His large body and smiling face came to mind and made her smile. He seemed like a really nice guy, but there was something not quite right about how he acted, as opposed to who he said he was. A man that carried himself like that was not in her league or rather she was not in his.
Tilly wondered why he had showed up again and she wondered if she had been there, if he would have asked her out again. The bigger question was if she would have agreed to it that time. While she knew that he wasn’t her type at all, he was actually the type of guy that she stayed away from. There was something about Thomas and the way his dark eyes had looked at her. It made her insides want to melt and there was not much else she could but have a few wistful thoughts about him.
Chapter 3
Thomas made his way to that little bookstore on the corner three days in a row, before he decided that he had to try another approach, the one he was currently trying not working. Sending her name and information out, he found out which school she was attending, as well as what her classes were and when she actually worked at the bookstore. As the owner of several huge companies, there was no way that he could take the time to find it all out himself and he wasted several lunches trying to catch of glimpses of the young blonde again.
She had become his unicorn and he fixated on how he could accomplish what he wanted to do. What he wanted to do was take her out and seduce her in the most gentlemanly way possible. The fact that she didn’t seem to have the time or desire to date or at least him specifically, just made him want her more in the sick, twisted fate of it all.
It was almost a week later before he seen her again and though he had thought about going on campus to find her, Thomas was afraid that someone would recognize him and then she would know more than he wanted her too. Instead, he waited until the next week on the same day as when they had met. She was in the back like before and he looked around in the ancient section while he waited for her to come back out. It became clear after a time that a chance meeting was less likely to happen and he was just going to have to put himself out there. It wasn’t hard to hide that he had been there several times asking about her. Why was his losing all of his confidence the closer he got to the one woman he couldn’t have?
Spotting her through the large window into the shop, his heart started to race faster and though he tried to act cool on the outside, the inside of him was practically vibrating with a need for her. The last straw for him was when he had a beautiful girl back at his place and his cock didn’t want to cooperate because the woman underneath him was not Tilly. He had to find out what it was that made him want her so badly that it was affecting his life in such a way. It was like she had a spell on him or something and he needed the anecdote.
She saw him as he walked in and there was a look that gave him a bit of hope. She had been thinking about him as well it seemed. “Ah, I see I have finally caught you at work.”
“So it appears. Were you looking for more books? I can’t believe you have gone through all of those since last week.”
“I haven’t. I was here to see you. To see if I could talk you into getting some coffee or something.”
“Well I am working right now or I would take you up on such a kind offer.”
Marla came in from the back, the nosey woman already listening to the exchange. “Nonsense Tilly. You go on and have a good time. I got things here.”
Thomas nodded at her, smiling as he watched Tilly come to grips with being ganged up on. He knew that the older woman would hear about it later, but there was no way that she could refuse nicely, so she clamped her jaw and nodded. “Okay sounds great.”
She followed him out and he was beaming. “That was wrong of you two.”
“Oh come on, it is just coffee. It is not like I am proposing to you or something.”
Tilly looked at him strangely. Noticing what they were both wearing, it was probably strange for them to be walking together. He was in a nice suit and coat, while she was in a long sundress with sandals. They looked to be night and day.
“So why are you stalking me? Thomas right?”
He liked that she remembered. If she didn’t, he would have been a little more upset than he would have liked to admit. “I just wanted to see yo
u again, but you are a hard person to get ahold of.”
“Well I told you I was busy and that you weren’t my type. Just seems kind of suspicious that you rope in an innocent old lady to your schemes.”
Tilly had taking the lead and she walked into the bar down from the store. She was there once or twice on the weekends. “I thought we were going for coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee. It is seven at night, time for a big boy drink. That is, unless you feel too old to be here.”
He grabbed his chest. “Man you are harsh. I am not but a few years older than you.”
“Really?” Her hands went to his tie and she started to loosen it up as they stopped in front of the bar.
“What are you getting Till?”
“I want a shot Jeffries, a couple for my friend here too.”
The bartender went off to get her some tequila. It was all that Tilly ever wanted to drink. The man brought it back and she thanked him, paying with a nice tip. She slid a shot to him and he looked at her questioningly. She slid the other one over to him. “Drink, you need two.”
Tilly drank hers down and made a call for a few more. She felt like she needed more than one around Thomas anyways. He had a way of making her skin tingle and the way he looked at her was hard to ignore. It was a hunger that she had experienced a few times, overwhelmed once or twice by the intensity. Tilly was not ready for anything like that again and the tequila gave her the ability to sit next to him a bit better.
Thomas did not usually drink so early and even though he didn’t know what it was in the small glass, he surely couldn’t let her put him to shame like that. He drank the first one and the cheap liquor reminded him of his Spring Breaks in South America. When the second round came, he paid and slid two to her, while he shot the third. The alcohol buzzing in his blood, making him warmer and the woman next to him, even more beautiful than before.
“So why don’t you want me?”
She was stunned by the question. “What makes you think I don’t? I am here aren’t I?”
