by Sarina Bowen
He gave his head a shake. “That’s not the point. I want the whole package. We’re supposed to have that tricky night’s sleep, where I’m trying not to give you a black eye when I roll over. And I believe I’m entitled to some awkward conversation in the morning.”
“Seriously?” I fought off a grin.
“Seriously.” He leaned over to kiss my eyebrow, and then had to turn away so he could yawn.
It was catching, so I yawned too. “The problem is that I only have a dress to wear. Walking home tomorrow morning…” I let the sentence trail off. Because he’d understand what I meant. Anyone who saw me would know I was doing the Walk of Shame.
It was called that for a reason.
Andy frowned. “I have sweats you could borrow.”
I pointed across the room at my spike heels, lying on the floor where I’d shed them so hastily a little while ago.
He chewed on his lip for a second. “Okay. I’ll walk you home right now, if that’s what makes you the most comfortable,” he said. “Otherwise, I can set my alarm for seven. But we’ll probably wake up then anyway, after elbowing each other all night.” He gave me a shy smile. “And we could walk you home before anyone else even thinks about waking up. Then I could wait at the coffee shop while you shower and change. And then we’ll get the earliest possible start on memorizing two hundred European paintings.”
“Hmm,” I said, as my heart gave a little flutter. That all sounded too good to be true.
“There won’t be a soul outside at seven in the morning. Especially during exams,” he pointed out.
“You really want me to stay?” He was probably just being nice.
He gathered me up in his long arms. “I really, really do.”
Chapter 20
Andy
I found a t-shirt for Katie to wear. Actually, I picked out my favorite one, which had an X-wing fighter on the front of it. And that made her laugh. And I loved her laugh, because it sounded a little bit out of control. Here was a girl who usually matched her hair band to her sweater. She looked pristine and put-together every time I saw her. But the sound of her giggle gave her away. It was riotous.
And man, my X-wing t-shirt had never looked so good as it did with her long legs sticking out from under the hem. I found her an extra toothbrush, too. And then I checked to see if the bathroom was empty, and it was. So Katie did the mini Walk of Shame into the bathroom to brush.
“Do you want the inside or the outside?” I asked when she returned, pointing at the bed.
“You first,” she said.
I shut the lamp off and then climbed in, scooting all the way over to the wall. She got into bed then, gingerly. First, I pulled the covers up. Then I put my hands on her hips and pulled her closer to me. “Let me show you how this works best,” I said, angling the pillow just so. I positioned Katie’s back against me so that her head was level with my sternum. That way we both had some breathing room.
“Mmm,” she lazed against me. “Okay. I think I get it.”
Luckily it was dark, and she was facing the other way. So she couldn’t see how big my dorky smile was just then. Seriously, you could probably see my teeth from space. Because I’d never been happier than I was right then. I had the girl of my dreams in my bed, curled up against me. I was optimistic that maybe this would become a thing. But that was probably getting ahead of myself, right?
I wasn’t going to lie here and worry about it, though. No matter what happened tomorrow, I would always have this night.
“So,” I prompted. “Which European paintings are we going to memorize first?”
“The medieval ones,” she said immediately. “There aren’t as many of those as in the Renaissance section.”
“Good point,” I whispered, smoothing my hand down her hair.
“I’m a little worried about the modern stuff,” she confessed. “He covered it really fast. The Russians… I don’t remember what any of those paintings look like.”
“Like… The Knife Grinder? We can tackle those,” I said. “You know that little sofa in the back of the coffee shop? I’ll park my butt on that puppy while you’re changing. We can sit there and flip through the paintings on my laptop.”
There was a pause, and I hoped she wasn’t about to tell me that she’d rather study alone. “We are going to rock that test,” she said instead. “We are going to kick its ass.”
Again, I grinned in the dark. “We are going to send it home, crying for its mama.” Katie giggled again, and I felt it in my chest.
Then it got quiet for a little while, and I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to fall asleep. Because I didn’t want to miss a moment of being with her.
“Andy?” she asked suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever had a one-night stand before?”
Now there was a tricky question. “Well… I’m not sure I can say.”
She turned to peek at me over her shoulder. “Never mind. That was a really personal question.”
I dropped my arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. “That’s not the problem. It’s just that I’m not sure. The answer is no. Unless I’m having one right now, and I was really hoping that wasn’t the case.”
After I said it, my heart nearly failed. Was that too much, too soon?
“You’re definitely safe,” Katie whispered.
Whew. I dropped my nose into her hair and took a deep breath of her. “Good to know,” I said.
Her slim fingers gently stroked my wrist for a few minutes. And then she began to breathe deeply. I lay there smiling in the dark for awhile longer, until I fell asleep too.
And I had very, very good dreams.
Epilogue
Dash McGibb had a way of flipping his pen up in the air and catching it again. He did this while sitting in one of the old wooden lecture hall seats, waiting for the exam to begin. He flipped the pen a dozen times. Flip. Catch. Flip. Catch. It helped take his mind off of two uncomfortable things.
The exam was one of them. He’d taken this course because it had sounded easy. Looking at paintings — how hard could that be? And football season had ended only two weeks ago. That had taken up most of his time.
This test? It might go badly.
Also, there was the matter of the empty seat next to his. Until a week ago, that seat was always occupied by the most attractive girl in the freshman class. But Katie Vickery had not appeared in class for the last two lectures. And Dash guessed that he was the reason why.
The other night at the party, she had seemed okay. She’d even spoken to him a little bit. (Something about party planning trucks with pigs on them?) He’d hardly been able to concentrate on their discussion, because he’d been freaking out.
Because she knew.
Somehow, she’d figured out the ridiculous prank they’d made him pull. He’d seen the knowledge of it on her face the moment she appeared beside the Christmas tree. Even though his frat brothers had told him that the girls never found out. They’d promised that it would be a secret, and that there wouldn’t be a shred of evidence.
At least that last part held true. He sure didn’t want pictures floating around campus of him getting…
Shit. It was such a stupid thing that he’d done. So colossally stupid.
And for what good reason?
She must have figured it out immediately. Because Katie wasn’t the sort of girl who would skip the last two lectures. All he could do about it now was watch the door, hoping that Katie didn’t blow off the final exam just because he’d been the world’s biggest asshole. He didn’t want that on his conscience.
There was plenty on it already.
The minutes ticked by, and he waited. At the front of the room, the teaching assistants set up a projector. They would show sixty paintings, pausing thirty seconds on each one. There had to be a few easy ones in there, right? He was hoping to see the Mona Lisa’s odd smile, or maybe The Last Supper.
At last, Kati
e hurried through the door, her gaze sweeping the crowd. He lifted a hand to wave to her, to let her know that he’d welcome having her as his seatmate. Even though she probably hated him.
Her gaze slid right on past.
Dash watched as Katie scanned the room, a ripple of uncertainty on her face. Then that ripple broke into a shy little smile, which she directed at a lanky boy two rows up. Wait — he was the basketball player. Her date from the other night.
The guy sat up straighter as she approached. Katie had that effect on people. They wanted to be just a little bit more of whatever they were when she was around. Dash had felt the same way. It’s just that he’d never figured out what to do about it. Katie scared the shit out of him most of the time. That’s how he always ended up slipping into the lowbrow humor of his frat buddies. He knew it wasn’t the right way to talk to her. It’s just that he’d never figured out what to say instead.
Looked like he’d never get that chance, now.
She scooted into the row where the basketball player sat. Following exam day rules, she didn’t take the seat next to his, but left an empty one between them. Still looking a little awkward — maybe even sheepish — Katie lowered her bag onto the empty chair, then turned to face him.
The basketball player reached a long arm behind the empty chair to give her ponytail a playful tug. And Dash saw Katie’s smile melt into something warmer and less self-conscious than it had been a few seconds before.
“I wanted to ask you to lunch,” the guy said. “But my bossy sister is going to be waiting for me in her car after the exam. She’s my ride to New Hampshire.”
“We’ll go for lunch after the break,” Katie said. “Three weeks from now.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But that sounds like a long wait to me.”
Her face got soft then. And Dash didn’t recognize that expression. He wondered if she’d never shown it to him, or if maybe he hadn’t recognized it when he’d had the chance.
“I almost forgot,” her date said, reaching to the floor for what turned out to be a tiny little gift bag. “This is a good luck present. For the exam.”
Her eyes sparkled as she took the gift in two hands. Reaching inside, she removed two long, thin objects. “They’re… a lightsaber pen and pencil?”
“Those are really good luck.”
Katie giggled. “Because the force is with me?”
“Now you’re getting it. There’s one more thing in that bag.”
Katie reached inside one more time, removing a little green thing, which she balanced on her palm. “It’s Yoda.”
“He’s wise. And he also erases,” the basketball player said.
She laughed. “That’s… they’re perfect. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” was his reply. But obviously that wasn’t true. Because Katie arranged those funny things on the little wooden writing arm of the lecture hall seat, then smiled at them as if she’d been given a set of crown jewels.
Dash flipped his very ordinary pen up into the air again, puzzling over what he’d just seen. He knew that girls liked flowers, which he’d never really understood. Flowers were expensive and they looked really sad when they began to wilt. But a Star Wars pen? What the everloving fuck?
It was almost exam time, though. A graduate student had passed a stack of test booklets down the aisle. Dash took one and passed the rest of the stack onwards.
“Quick,” Katie said. She handed the basketball player a bulging gift bag.
From inside, he pulled… that awful pink basketball he’d been playing with the other night. Then he put a hand over his mouth and laughed.
Katie beamed at him. “It made me think of you. Sorry. There’s something else in the bottom of the bag.”
He pulled out a large bar of gourmet chocolate. “Hey… salted caramel!”
“Because we didn’t make it to the ice cream shop.” After she said that, her ears began to turn pink.
“Right,” he chuckled. “I was really broken up about that.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, looking toward the proctor, who was passing out the actual test now.
“Thank you, Katie,” the basketball player said. He put his gifts on the floor and smoothed the test down onto the tiny desk in front of him. “And good luck.”
“May the force be with you,” she replied.
Dash looked down at the test he’d just been handed. It was time to stop worrying about Katie, and start worrying about European art. The painting identifications were tough, but probably not a total disaster. The essay question he chose took a long time, though. And by the time he’d finished comparing the Baroque period to Renaissance painting, he was one of the last people left in the room.
Tired now, Dash gathered up his things and turned in his exam booklet. He shook out his cramped writing hand and headed for the door.
He had managed not to think about Katie for ninety minutes. But that streak ended when he exited the building.
The basketball player was just tossing a duffel bag into the back of a car. Then he chucked the pink basketball inside too. Turning to Katie, he opened his arms.
With a sweet smile, she stepped in close and hugged him.
Looking away, Dash punched the traffic button to activate the crosswalk. (And did those buttons really do anything, anyway? Or were they just a way of asking for your patience while cars kept rolling by?)
Out of the corner of his eye, Dash could still see Katie and the tall guy. They were kissing now. But “kissing” didn’t even do it justice. They were kissing each other as if they’d just invented it. She’d risen up onto tiptoes to reach him. And his arms encircled hers as if he were holding a rare and precious thing.
The look of pure absorption on the guy’s face did something to Dash’s gut. He’d once held five feet and four inches worth of perfection in his arms, and he hadn’t tried even half as hard to hold on to it.
Now that seemed like an error. A big one.
The car that the happy couple leaned against gave a loud and impatient blast of its horn. They broke off their lip-lock, laughing. “I’ll call you,” the guy said.
“I hope you will,” was Katie’s answer. “Now go, before you get in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble,” he said, opening the passenger door. He winked, folded himself into the car and closed the door. Katie gave him one more wave.
Dash glared up at the traffic light, willing it to change. Finally, it did. But he hesitated for a second anyway as Katie closed the distance to the corner.
I’m sorry. The words formed themselves on the tip of his tongue as she approached. He could say that, right? That was the thing he really needed to do.
Pedestrians moved forward, stepping off the curb. Including Katie. So Dash followed her, readying himself to speak to her once they’d crossed the busy street.
“Katie?” he said.
But she didn’t turn around. She hadn’t heard him. And now the trill of a cell phone rang out. Katie pulled her phone from her pocket, answering even as she walked down College Street. “Hi there.” He could hear a smile in her voice. “I didn’t think you meant you’d call right away,” she giggled. Without a backward glance, she kept right on moving, her long strides carrying her up the street. Away from Dash.
He watched her until she well and truly disappeared.
T H E
E N D
Studly Period
There are 1016 people in the freshman class at Harkness College.
I can’t be the only socially awkward nerd girl virgin among them. Right?
It’s time I learn to talk to guys without blushing and stammering. So I take a confidence-building job at the student tutoring center. Twelve bucks an hour, plus human interaction. What could go wrong?
A fun-loving French Canadian hockey hunk, that’s what.
When Pepe Gerault sits down at my tutoring table, my brain shuts off and my mouth goes right into hyperdrive. Even the sound of my name on his lips—Josephine—g
ives me a mini orgasm.
I want to hand him my V-card. But all I manage to hand him is…my thesaurus. And my dignity. All seems lost, until I hatch a plan to get him alone…
Studly Period happens during the same school year as The Shameless Hour and The Fifteenth Minute
Chapter 1
September
It’s a quiet moment in the Harkness College tutoring center.
Okay—let’s face it. They’re all quiet moments at the tutoring center. But that’s how we shy girls roll. We like the hush of whispered voices as the tutors pitch in to help. We like the walnut paneling and the pharmacist’s lamps on each table. Each one makes a pool of warm light on whichever homework assignment has brought another student in for help.
My subject is English and writing. I was the only freshman to apply for a tutoring job, which means I’m often helping upperclassmen. That was half the point of getting this job—forcing me to talk to people.
Sometimes it’s not so hard. I’ve just finished proofreading a junior’s philosophy take-home test. She wore a Harkness Tennis jacket and diamond earrings. In other words, she’s one of the attractive, sporty people. I call them the BPs, which is short for Beautiful People. But the paper was well-written and barely needed a second pair of eyes. So I can’t hold her beauty and confidence against her. Not too much.
Now I have a free moment to myself, so I pull out my phone and open up the YipStack app to see who’s online. My own most recent contribution has 26 likes and six comments. Not bad.
YipStack is my secret passion. It’s a completely anonymous app that works by geolocation. So most every comment and every thread is from another Harkness college student.
I’d never heard of YipStack until my roommate suggested I take a look. She meant well. She was trying to prove to me that my acute awkwardness isn’t all that rare. Unlike a real social network, YipStack doesn’t bolster your popularity. It’s anonymous, so it’s more of a raw, unvarnished look at Harkness College.
