by Tara Brown
His tongue parts my lips and I push him back. He pulls me with him and my feet lift off the ground. I shake my head. “No, stop.” I am breathless. I can taste his drink on my lips when I lick them. He grins at me, cocky and confident.
“I like you,” he says plainly.
I look at him and feel like my world is about to explode. “You don’t know me.”
He nods. “I know, but it feels like I do. It feels like we've met before. Like our souls know each other.”
I want to roll my eyes and mock him, but he has described how I feel exactly. I'm trembling. “You probably say that to all the girls,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like I'm convinced.
I bite my lip and feel lost in his eyes.
“Your eyes look weird,” he whispers, mesmerized by them. He is really drunk. He slurs his words, “I like them.”
I shake my head and look away. “Something is wrong with them. They keep glowing.”
He smirks. “Like a cat.”
I feel sick. My stomach clenches and I double over. He looks worried. “You okay?” I heave as he lifts me up and carries me. I don’t know where we are going, but my feet hit people and my shoes slide off as he walks. The pain is everywhere all at once.
The air hits when we get outside. He puts me down, and I throw up everywhere. It splashes on my feet and my bare legs. People in the lineup to the bar groan, “Get her outta here.”
His arms are behind me, pushing me along. My stomach is clenching again.
“Come on.” Heat rips through me again, and I throw up a second time.
His arms circle around me as I hobble along.
“What did you drink?” he asks.
“Water.”
He looks at my face. “Did you put your drink down?”
I shake my head and feel my eyes starting to flutter.
“Frig, I think you have the flu or something.” He picks me up. Just as he lifts me, everything goes black.
I wake to the sound of water. I look around me, but there is no one.
My head is pounding, and my mouth is dry. I try to sit up, but I'm weak. The room spins, and in the movement I see something. A man is sitting in a chair watching me. It's not Wyatt, and no matter how hard I try to stay awake and focus, I can't. He watches me in silence. Like he is debating something.
I wake the second time in a puddle of sweat. Something is on me, weighing me down. I struggle to get it off. When I move, it moves with me and ends up covering me more. Then it moans and I almost leap from the bed.
“Rayne?” Wyatt mutters into my back. I remain frozen and try to gather my wits. My brain struggles to remember the last things I'd done. My blue shorts-wedgie outfit is on the floor beside me. Wide-eyed, I lift the covers expecting to see my naked body. I have a bandeau and my granny underwear on. I wince.
“Rayne, you awake?”
I turn over to see him. He looks horrified. “How are you feeling?”
I frown. “Fine, why?”
He laughs. “Your eye makeup is all the way to your cheekbones.”
I catch a glimpse of his boxers and avert my eyes. “How long have I been here?” I'm glad he never slept in the sheets with me.
He stretches. “Two days. You slept mostly. You had a high fever and threw up a lot. I think you had the flu.”
“You never thought that maybe you should take me to a doctor?”
He shakes his head. “No, your friends came and said for sure you were just sick. They said you'd been coming down with it for a few days. I phoned the nurse hotline. They said sleep and fluids. Apparently, it's going around campus.”
I move my head and notice I feel better. Amazingly better. “I'm starving.”
He leans in and kisses my shoulder. “Good. Me too. I have hardly eaten. Luckily, I keep rations in here.”
I'm not comfortable with the shoulder kiss.
“You stayed the whole time?” I ask.
He looks wounded. “Of course. I wouldn’t have left you alone in here.” He grins and his face looks cocky. “Not wearing what you're wearing.”
My eyes narrow. He laughs.
“Who was the man watching me from the armchair?” There’s a chill when I see the chair and recall him.
“What man?”
I point to the chair across the huge room. “The man who was in that chair. It was dark and he was sitting there. He had his legs crossed and he looked annoyed. Older, with a sweater on.”
He shakes his head. “There was no man. No one has come here except Mona and Michelle. You must have been dreaming.”
I let it go, but I know I wasn’t dreaming. The man was real. He was creepy. His eyes looked like mine. They were gray, and I swear a light came out of them.
He pulls me into him and kisses my neck. I am frozen and not caught up in the instant relationship we seem to have. The sparks start where he touches me. My stomach hurts. I pull away and wrap myself tighter in the blankets.
“You okay?”
I look back at him and shake my head. “No. I know I owe you for taking care of me, but I don’t want to owe that. This. Whatever this is.”
He frowns. “You're kind of a jerk, you know that? I'm being nice and trying to help, and you act like I've got a hidden agenda. I'm not doing it to get into your granny panties.” He smirks again.
I cover my face. “Oh my God. I need to go home. I need to borrow some clothes.”
He hugs me and kisses the top of my head. “You smell. You should shower first.”
I shake my head. “I'm not showering here. This is a den of sin. I can sense the virgins who have come here only to have their innocence stolen. I don’t even want to think about this bed and the things you’ve done in here. You guys probably have Wiserhood meetings in here.”
He laughs. “You're weird.”
I laugh. “You're weird. And in a frat. Which means you're slutty, probably.”
He nods toward the bathroom. “And she's jerky again. Take that shower.” He leans in. “You smell. It's almost vomit, mixed with something like honey or beeswax candles maybe. Your breath is bad. Use my toothbrush.”
I look horrified. “What? Eww. No. Dude. Never share toothbrushes. You can get plaque bacteria from other people and mess up the pH in your mouth.”
“Kissing can do it too.”
I blush. I remember the kiss. I remember him holding me and his lips pressed against mine. I remember his hands on my bare skin and his tongue in my mouth. I remember liking it. All of it.
He pushes my hair back from my eyes. “I have a shower in my room. It’s the suite. Only the seniors get it. Go jump in, and I'll put some clothes in the bathroom.”
I nod at the wall and point. “Turn around.”
He laughs. “I saw all there was to see when I was taking the vomit-covered clothes off of you.”
“I wasn’t aware of it then. Now I am. Turn around.”
“You always wear granny panties?” he asks.
I snarl. “Yes. Turn around.”
He turns around. “You need to go underwear shopping. I can come if you need help choosing.”
I slap my hand against my face and cringe. “You're an asshole, and I don’t want new underwear. Mine is organic unbleached cotton. It's good for my body.”
I creep from the bed and run into the bathroom, closing the door. I look at myself in the mirror and almost scream. My hair is sticking up all over. Makeup is all over my face. A fake eyelash is stuck to the side of my face. I never even knew that I was wearing them. My fingers shake as I pull the other one from my other eye.
I turn on the shower and peel my clothes off. The hot water feels amazing. I can't help but be pissed at my friends. Mona is new, so she is kind of off the hook, but Michelle has been my friend since we were five. How could she leave me here? They should have made him bring me home.
He has no conditioner so I wash my hair twice with his Axe shampoo and bodywash. I smell like a dude and will have to condition my hair at some point. I climb out a
nd grab a towel. I smell it to be sure. It's got the Bounce freshness my friends’ houses always had. Not like my house, where the laundry always smells like tea-tree oil. I towel off and pull on the huge black shirt and boxers he has left me on the counter. I ball my underwear and bandeau up in my hand and hang the towel up. His bathroom is nice. It's pretty clean for a twenty-one-year-old guy. I scrub his toothbrush with antibacterial soap and brush my teeth. It feels amazing to be clean and have fresh breath.
I leave the bathroom, nervous. Nervous of being alone and clean. I make a silent pact that I will not lose my virginity in his dirty frat bed. No matter what. Not matter how I seem to feel about him.
He is still in his boxers on the bed. I notice for the first time he has tattoos. A black band around his left bicep and a blade coming up the underside of his right arm. His chest has a tribal-looking thing in a circle. It's big and black, with something red in the middle. It looks like there is writing on the other side of the chest tat, but I can't see it because he's lying on his side.
He smirks. “You look better.”
I shake my head. “That was gross. I never wear makeup, so I had a tough time getting it all off. Axe is apparently not makeup remover.”
I look at the door and the bed, and my romper on the floor. I pick it up and roll it into the ball of clothes I'm holding.
“Well, thanks, and I guess I'll see you around,” I mutter.
He smirks. “You don’t want to climb back in here and repay me? I mean, you owe me, right?” He smiles like the wolf would to the bunny.
I laugh and shake my head. I pick up my one shoe and look around for the other. I hold it up. “I have to get going. Where is the other one?”
He makes a face. “You lost it on the way out of the bar.”
I grimace. “Crap. Not my shoe. Mona's gonna have a fit.” I walk to the door barefoot and smile back. “Thanks again.”
He looks pissed. “Stay.”
I shake my head. He scares me. His intensity scares me. The way I like him scares me. I don’t know him. “No. I can't. I have to go. I haven’t called my mom in a while. She's going to freak. I need to get ready. Classes start soon, so . . . see ya 'round. Thanks for everything. I owe you dinner or something. Something friendly.”
I open the door and make the walk of shame. It's almost the run of shame. I know I look like the biggest slut ever. One shoe, a ball of vomit-covered clothing, and leaving a frat house in an oversized black t-shirt and men's underwear. The guys in his house smirk, smile, grin, and make every face imaginable. I get a couple whistles and a few catcalls. I ignore them.
Thankfully, his house and my building aren’t too far apart. I keep my gaze ahead and try to piece together my missing two days.
If my mom smudging my building didn’t almost kill me, walking the hallway was going to. Everyone smirks and nods. The blonde with the mean-girl glare laughs and gives me a thumbs up.
I almost fall into the room. I slam the door, pressing my back into it once it’s closed, and wait for it.
Mona smiles. “Hey, you. How are you feeling?”
I frown; not what I was expecting. “I lost one of your shoes.”
She points to the closet. “I got it back at the bar. They had it in the lost and found.”
I toss my dirty clothes into a pile on the floor and look at her. “You left me at his place?”
She bites her lip and smiles. “He's so sweet and nice, and I think he's really into you. When I got there, he was putting cold cloths on your forehead, and you were smiling at him and passing out. You were really sick.”
I flop onto my bed. “Yeah, I should have seen a doctor. I wouldn’t have left you with some random dude.”
She looks confused. “He's not some random dude. I saw you making out with him, and I know you were sober. Michelle said you guys kinda had a thing going on.”
I cover my face with my hands. “School hasn’t even started yet. For Christ's sake. I shouldn’t be this into a guy—the first guy that looks at me. Ahhh. I'm becoming one of those girls. You know. The girls who lose their virginity in a frat bed.”
She laughs. “Eww, you were sick. You didn’t? Not while you were sick?”
I shake my head with my hands still covering my face. “No, I didn’t, but oh my God . . . I wanted to. What is wrong with me? He was lying there with boxers and tattoos and I thought dirty thoughts. Lots of them.”
I lift a hand and look at the crap-eating grin crossing her lips. “You need to do some poses, Mrs. I-Don’t-Get-Urges.”
I laugh and rub my eyes.
She laughs it off. “That is normal for a girl like you. You're sheltered and now, for the first time ever, you're partying and making out with boys.”
I shake my head. “Eww. No. I don’t want to have this talk.”
My phone vibrates and she scowls. “Dude, that thing has been making ungodly noises all effing weekend.”
I pick it up and see the hundred texts from my mom.
Yikes.
Nene, call me.
Nene, where r u?
Okay, I'm getting worried now.
Look kid, you call or I'm coming there.
Fine, be there at lunch.
Is your phone dead?
Fine, be that way. Be the irresponsible kid who breaks her mother's heart when she goes off to college
Dammit, Nene.
I had a bad dream about you last night. There was a man watching you sleep in an armchair and he was evil.
WTF! How could she have had the same dream as me? That's never happened before.
I think it means you are feeling sad about a boy.
Nene.
I stop reading and press home on the phone with shaking fingers.
Mona snaps me out of my panic attack. “You okay?”
I glance at Mona and nod.
Willow doesn’t answer the phone like she normally would. Instead, she screams so loud Mona can hear her.
I hold the phone away from my face as she blasts me, “What the hell is your problem? How can you leave for college and not send me a message or a phone call for four days? I've been worried sick.”
I sigh. “Hi, Willow.”
“Hi, Willow. Hi, Willow. Are you kidding me?” She is pissed.
I go on the defensive immediately. “Mom, stop. I was sick. I got the flu. I've been asleep for two days.”
She snaps louder. “Don’t Mom me, Rayne Willow Whynde Phillips. I was worried. Who is the boy?”
I sigh into the phone. “His name is Wyatt. He's nice. He helped when I was sick.”
She sighs back. “Okay, well, you better be sure he's nice, and you better not be doing anything you shouldn’t be doing.”
I rub my temples and plot how to tell her about my night. “Mom, I'm nineteen years old. I can do things that I want to do. I can choose for myself. I didn’t do anything. I was sick.”
“Rayne, please stop calling me Mom. You know how I feel about labels. I'm sorry I called you kid. Did you sleep in your room every night? No meat or sex, right? You know it'll age you and waste your chi.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and count backward. “I was sick, Willow, and my phone was dead. I slept in my room.” I glance at Mona, who stifles a laugh.
“What did you have for dinner? Did it have active plant enzymes or bacteria?” She starts her harping.
I nod and lie. “Yeah, it did. Vegan menu, remember?”
She sighs. “I love you and miss you. I just think maybe this was too soon for school. Most studies show the most successful career choices are made when a person is in their thirties.”
I shake my head. I'm done. “I love you and I will call next weekend, okay?”
“A whole week?” She sounds like she's getting pissed again.
I can't do this. “Four days, Willow, not a week. It's Monday. I will call Saturday.”
“Fine. I'll send a care package.”
I know it's pointless to argue. “Okay. I'd like that.”
&nb
sp; “Want the carob bark?” she asks sweetly.
I nod rapidly as if she can see me. “Yes. Yes, please. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I put the phone down and Mona bursts into laughter. “She is so awesome. I want to be friends with her. She is intense.”
I give her my best eff-off look and lie back down. “You wouldn’t make it through the colonics.”
Chapter Five
I'm not avoiding him as much as I am avoiding myself. I grip my books tight the first time I see him. I think he's watching me, but I can't be sure. He is talking to someone, and I see his eyes dart my way. I bow my head and almost break into a run.
“Rayne, wait up.” He says goodbye to the guy he's talking to and then runs to where I am. He looks sexy. He has a dress shirt on and the sleeves are rolled up. Some of his tattoos stick out through the bottoms of the sleeves. His forearms are big. He's very muscled for someone as tall and lean as he is. I blush, remembering the way he looked in his boxers and all messy. I want to touch his tattoos.
His dark hair and blue eyes suit the pale-blue dress shirt and dark jeans. I bet he smells good.
“Hey.” I mutter it and pick up the pace. I just want to pretend I barely know him—that I’ve not made out with him or slept in his bed. In my granny panties, no less.
“Where have you been?” he asks.
I don’t say the Living and Learning Center or anywhere I think you won't go, which is what I’m thinking. Instead, I shrug nonchalantly. “Around.”
He looks confused. “I tried calling you a few times.”
I never gave him my number. “What?”
He nods and looks around. “Yeah, I got your number from Michelle. You never answered.”
I swallow hard. “I never saw the calls.” I'm lying. I don’t know why. Just like I don’t know why I never answered his calls. I didn’t know it was him, but the calls made the magic in my tummy hurt. Something about him makes me feel unclean. I can feel it now.
“Want to have dinner tonight?”
I shake my head. My stomach starts to feel uneasy. “I can't. I have a night class.” I don’t really. I have a study group. It's our first night.
