by JB Salsbury
Her palms flatten on my chest and she smiles seductively up at me. “Nice to meet you too.”
“You feel like getting out of here?”
Her eyes light with excitement. “Yes.”
Perfect.
I slide my arm up around Callie’s shoulders and give Kaipo a fist bump, then make my way through the crowd of drunken college students, most of the women dressed in skimpy clothes. I say goodbye to my teammates with a non-verbal lift of my chin as I pass by them. The music gets louder towards the front and if it weren’t for the colored lights and ornaments hanging from the ceiling, I'd never know Christmas is one week away. Christmas in Los Angeles is similar to Las Vegas—sunny and seventy degrees.
Out on the sidewalk I release my hold on Callie. “Where’s your car?”
“I took a Lyft here.” She’s steady on her feet and she doesn’t smell like booze.
“Didn’t expect to go home alone, huh?”
She shrugs her bare shoulders. “I hoped not.”
I shove my hands in my pockets and level with her. “I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“And you think I am?”
“I don’t know. I just met you five minutes ago.”
“Well, I’m not.”
I watch her body language and try to decipher if she’s telling the truth. The last thing I want to do is lead this girl on. “We agree to one night, no strings?”
She holds out her hand as if we’re making some kind of business deal.
I shake it and release her. “Where do you live?”
She rambles off her address and I jerk my head toward the lot. “Perfect. Come on, my truck is over here.”
I don’t touch her, don’t take her hand. This is not a romantic rendezvous, this is two consenting adults blowing off some steam.
I resign to pushing my frustration about retaking my test to the back of my mind and I give myself the next couple hours to get lost in a beautiful woman’s body.
Rowan
“Good morning, Marcus,” I whisper and set down the large double shot mocha for the guy at the front desk of the library.
Looking up from his graphic novel, he pushes his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose and smiles. “Hey, Rowan.” His eyes grow bigger behind his lenses. “Double?”
I nod. “Of course.”
He takes the offered drink and moans at the first sip. “Thank you.”
I am not above bribing library staff with caffeine if it means securing my favorite study room. The one on the corner has two windows instead of one and overlooks the campus. It’s also close to the bathrooms and drinking fountain.
“Room 430?”
He runs a hand through his shaggy black hair. “Reserved and ready.”
“If you see a big jock walking around looking lost, send him up?”
“It’s the library. All jocks looks lost in here.” He holds up his coffee. “I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks again.”
Amazing how happy an expensive coffee makes a poor college student. Not that I have to pay for the coffee. I work the opening shift at the campus coffee shop, Bean Madness. The manager always lets staff take something to go.
I hike up the stairs to the fourth floor and flip on the lights in the study room. There’s a table that seats six and although I only tutor one-on-one I like the extra room to spread out.
I don’t know much about the guy I’m supposed to meet this morning other than he’s a football player and he has one week to study and ace his accounting II final. Professor Neal emailed me the study guide, but never did tell me the guy’s name.
Not that I’m all that surprised. Prof Neal is a walking calculator, but he struggles with basic social skills and forgets the simplest things. I was his TA last year and he lectured with his zipper down seventeen times. Yes, I counted.
I go over the study guide—future value of sum, stream of equal payments, net present value… Not simple stuff, but I know the concepts well and should be able to teach them.
I hit the bathroom, and while washing my hands I take in my reflection. The girl staring back at me is just so…ordinary. I don’t usually worry too much about what I look like, but the thought of sitting a foot away from a BSU football player has me redoing my ponytail and making sure I don’t have anything in my teeth.
“That’s as good as it gets,” I mumble and head back to the study room.
I check the news on my phone. Play a game. Then check the time again.
He’s ten minutes late.
I’ll give him five more minutes and then I’m leaving.
In those five minutes a swell of irritation forms in my gut.
Like I have nothing better to do than sit here with my thumb up my butt waiting on some entitled athlete to grace me with his presence.
I hear his footsteps before I see him and I have just enough time to suck in a breath before the door swings open to reveal a tall, muscled figure of a man.
Not just any tall muscled man.
Holy shit.
It’s Carey Slade.
He doesn’t spare me a single glance, but pulls out the seat across from me, drops into the chair and then sinks down into it with a groan. “Fuck, I’m tired.”
He’s tired?! Going off his raspy voice and wrinkled shirt, I’d say he just woke up.
“You’re late,” I manage to say through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Only then do his eyes meet mine. “Stage five clinger, ya know? Do you have any food? Protein bar? Anything?” He flashes the same cocky, one-dimpled grin I remember from high school.
I close my eyes to avoid the devastating effect that smile has on those with a Y-chromosome. “No. Wait, so…you’re late because you were in bed with your girlfriend—”
“Fuck no.”
My eyes snap open to find him with his fists rubbing holes in his eyes.
“Not a girlfriend.” When his hazel eyes meet mine I’m surprised not to see even a glimmer of recognition in his gaze.
I can’t help it. I’m so annoyed the words slip freely from my lips. “Boyfriend. I apologize.”
“Boyfriend—no. What? I’m not gay.”
I hold my hands up in defense. “I don’t care that you’re gay. I’m an LGBTQ ally,” I say proudly.
He’s poised to defend himself, but changes his mind and falls back in his seat with a wicked grin. “Hold on…do we know each other?”
“You tell me.” I push around a pad of paper and move the pencil to the other side of it as if organization is my top priority.
He leans forward, his big body dwarfing the table between us. “You are so familiar.” He studies my face, hair, neck, chest and shoulders with an intensity that makes me perspire.
A sigh falls from my lips. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.”
“Freshman year, the Sigma party, right? It was dark.” He licks his lips. “We hooked up in the—”
I reel back, horrified. “No!”
“Huh…did we fuck on the golf course that night after the—”
“Stop it.” I cover my ears. “You’re disgusting.”
He now studies me through skeptical hazel eyes. “If we didn’t hookup, then how do I know you?”
“We went to high school together.” Jackass.
He blinks, his expression morphs from sharp inspection to blank.
I roll my eyes. “We didn’t hang in the same circles.” More specifically, he was always the middle of his circle and I was my own.
“What’s your name?”
If he doesn’t know my face, he certainly won’t remember my name. To the popular crowd, I was as significant as furniture. “Rowan Cam—”
“Rowan Campbell!” His eyes are wide now as they skitter over my hair and face. “No shit, Rowan! I haven’t seen you since…since…”
I groan when I realize how he remembers me.
“AP calculus.”
“Yep, that’s me.” The girl who had her academic scholarship taken away for c
heating on my final. I try hard to hold his eyes rather than drop my head in shame and embarrassment.
Men like Carey Slade are similar to predatory dogs. They smell fear.
His expression changes, draining of surprise. “Right.” He runs a hand through his messy dark hair, avoiding my eyes. “You look different.”
Yes, well, it’s amazing what two years of hell can do to a girl. I sniff and act casual when I say, “You look the same.” Big. Handsome. Untouchable.
The silence between us is unbearable so I clear my throat. “Now that the introductions are out of the way, we should get to work. If you’ll pull out your study guide we’ll just start at the top and work—”
“Yeah, about that…”
He didn’t come in with a backpack or books.
“Can I borrow a pencil?” He chuckles, the sound deep and gravelly. “And some paper.”
Here we go again.
I square my shoulders. “On second thought, maybe we should go over the rules first.”
Carey
Rowan. Fucking. Campbell.
Talk about a late bloomer. Rowan has grown from awkward nerd to hot nerd. Her face is slimmer, more angular, with high cheekbones and pouty lips. And her nose and cheeks are dusted with the sexiest freckles. How did I never notice those about her before? Her auburn hair is longer, even in a ponytail her hair comes over her shoulder to her boobs, not that I can see much of them. She has them hidden behind a baggy Bean Madness sweatshirt, but I can tell she’s rockin’ some curves. My gaze darts back to her eyes at the sound of her throat clearing.
“Rule number one, you have to be on time. I only have an hour and a half between jobs and you only have a week to make sure you nail your final. Let’s not waste time.” She lifts her brows requesting a verbal acknowledgement.
“On time. Got it.”
“Rule number two, come prepared, so pencil, paper, and your study guide printed out so we don’t have to work off the phone.”
My lips twitch for some stupid reason. I blame sleep deprivation. Callie was insatiable last night, and I’m competitive as fuck so I refused to be the first to give in and fall asleep. I left her in a sex coma in her sorority house. I win.
“Three, I expect you to work hard. The moment I feel you slacking, I quit. You need me more than I need you, I am not afraid to get up and walk out.”
“Deal.”
“Oh, and we’ll be studying through Christmas so we’ll need to decide on an alternative place to meet on Christmas Eve because the library will be closed.”
“How about your place?” I’ve said those words so many times to so many different women that I somehow make it sound like a proposition.
Her cheeks flush and she seems irritated by her reaction. “No. We can meet at a coffee shop.”
“Or my place.” When she doesn’t immediately shoot the idea down, I go on to warn her. “I live in a house with four of my teammates so I can’t guarantee it’ll be quiet.”
She opens her mouth to talk, clears her throat, then tries again. “We should exchange phone numbers,” she says very professionally. “In case something comes up.”
I fish my phone from my pocket and pull up my contacts handing it to her. She does the same.
“iPhone six?” I study the relic. “I didn’t know people still used these.”
She’s punching her finger on the screen of my phone, squinting, and I wonder if she wears glasses.
The screen on her phone is tiny, the numbers so small, but I eventually get my big fingers to hit the appropriate keys and hand it back to her.
She looks at it and frowns.
“Something wrong?” I’m trying hard not to smile.
Her cheeks flush pink. “No.”
“You sure?”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “Carey My Anaconda Slade?”
“That’s right.” I shrug and lean back in my chair, laughing. “Say it again.”
She shakes her head and that’s when I see it, the minute lift of her lips.
Rowan Campbell, hot and a sense of humor.
Maybe this tutoring thing won’t be so bad after all.
Chapter Two
Rowan
The next tutoring session with Carey starts off much better than the first. He shows up two minutes early and he brought his backpack. What I was wholly unprepared for was Carey Slade fresh from a workout.
“If I took a shower I would’ve been late and I wouldn’t want to break one of your rules,” he says with a wink as he finishes off a massive hunk of protein bar and settles into the seat across from me. He’s wearing workout shorts and a t-shirt, but the sleeves are cut off and his biceps are…let’s just say I’m having a hard time concentrating on math. One arm is tan with veins popping out, the other is covered from wrist to shoulder cap in colorful tattoos. Different shades of blue, deep reds, even vibrant yellows and greens.
“Focus, Rowan.”
I squint as he works a problem on paper with a secret smile on his face. “What?”
He fixes his eyes on me and I feel my skin heat. “I’ll bring a sweatshirt next time.”
I squirm in my seat, feeling stupid at having been caught. “I was just trying to figure out what they were,” I mumble. Not a complete lie, but mostly.
He unfolds his arm, the massiveness laid out in front of me and he twists his arm back and forth. “Every piece represents someone I love. The old hot rod is my mom, the chain link with the heart is my dad.” He turns to show me his shoulder. “The paint splattered flowers are my sister.” He flips his arm over and on the underside of his bicep are scripted words. “The lyrics here are from a song my uncle wrote.”
I squint and read the words. “The road ahead is paved with pain and shards of a broken past. Life offers no guarantees, and no good is good that lasts. But when the darkness closes in, we’ll do what gets us through. We’ll clasp hands through the storm; I’ll find my refuge in you.” My heart swells with emotion. “That’s beautiful.”
He narrows his eyes. “You seem surprised.”
“It’s just…deeper than I expected.”
He lifts his brows. “Didn’t think I was deep, huh?”
“Honestly? No.”
“Fair enough.” His gaze drops to my lips and I lick them self-consciously. “Guess we’re both full of surprises.”
Feeling hot, I refuse to ask what he means, fearing any more attention on me and my quickly reddening face will make me burst into flames.
He flips his paper toward me. “Did I do this right?”
I check over his work, noting his nice handwriting. For a guy with such massive hands I expected chicken scratch. “Close, but you forgot to include the interest rate.”
“Shit.” He snags the paper back and works the problem again. “What’s in the bag?”
When I don’t answer him right away he nods toward my duffle on the floor. “Oh, my clothes for work.”
“Where do you work?”
I appreciate that he keeps his eyes to the equation while he asks me questions, he’s much less intimidating when he’s not looking directly at me. “I have three jobs, actually.”
“Coffee shop.” He nods toward my boob where the Bean Madness logo is printed on my uniform polo. “Tutoring.”
“Yes, and I clean houses.” I straighten my shoulders and try to look proud, because usually I am, but something about telling Carey that I clean houses for a living makes me want to crawl under a rock and die.
It probably has something to do with the fact that a man like Carey would never understand what it’s like to work for his next meal, and to keep a roof over his head and hot water in the pipes. Carey Slade grew up Las Vegas royalty with his dad being the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the world. Not that I know much about Jonah Slade other than the fact that he’s drop dead gorgeous.
Like father, like son.
“That’s cool.”
“Cleaning up other people’s messes is far from cool,” I say and then berate myself
for talking down what I do. “I mean…It is kind of cool. I started my own business, ya know, to get through college.”
“No shit?” He seems genuinely impressed.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” Even though it kind of is. I saved up for supplies, put ads on the university website.
“Do you have employees?”
“No. Maybe one day. Not that I want this to be my career forever. It’s temporary and it works because I can schedule my work hours around my school schedule and other jobs.”
He shakes his head, as if in awe. “I’m impressed, really. But when do you chill?”
Chill? Hell, I hardly sleep. “I don’t.”
I can’t read the expression on his face, but it doesn’t look good, so I flip the spotlight back on him. “How about you?”
“No job. Between football and my class load I don’t have a lot of extra time.”
“What about in the off season.”
“I train.”
“Have you ever had a job?”
Now it’s his turn to blush. Carey Slade gets embarrassed. Who knew? “No.”
I get a rush of satisfaction knowing that I have a one up on someone as perfect as the Carey Slade.
He goes back to the equation on the paper. I go back to fixating on his biceps.
Carey
“Run a mile before you hit the showers!” Coach yells as we break from a grueling Monday morning practice.
I jog up to the man who looks exactly like Ted Bundy which only intensifies the intimidation factor. “Coach, I have to get to my tutoring session. I have ten minutes to get across campus to the library and my tutor is a fiery pain in the ass who threatened to quit if I’m even a minute late.”
Coach dismisses me with one word and a flick of his hand. “Go.”
I’m grabbing my things from the locker room when my teammate Des stops me. “Where you off to, pretty boy?”
Desmond is a big fucking guy with black hair and a thick black beard, and he’s covered in tattoos. He’s got a scar that runs from his temple and cuts through his facial hair from a knife fight when he was fifteen. He’s intimidating as hell, and gave me the nickname Pretty Boy because, well, compared to him, I am pretty.
