by Fiona Starr
“Heads up, Blaze!” Something hits the back of my head and I turn to see a frisbee bounce down the steps as Brandon and Skip, two of my fraternity brothers, laugh and take the library steps two at a time.
Brandon shoves me and then claps me on the shoulder. Skip flips the frisbee off the steps with his foot and watches as Violet turns back and retreats into the library like she’s just seen a ghost. I want to tell her to stay, that it’s ok… but she’s clearly not comfortable being here.
“Who’s the mouse?” Skip says.
I watch Violet disappear around the door into the library. “Mouse?”
Skip spins the frisbee on his finger like a plate. “Yeah, the library chick. You putting the moves on the geek class?”
I don’t respond. They wouldn’t understand. They’d laugh if I told them that I might have a thing with Violet Duchenne. “She’s nobody. Just a library chick.”
Brandon laughs and tips his chin at the door. “My man Charlie? With that? Come on…” He puts his arm over my shoulder, turning me away from the door and walking me down the steps. “Look, you’re not with Phoebe anymore—and that’s fine, man… you do you. But you don’t have to go from filet mignon to ground beef, overnight, man. There’s a whole pile of Phoebes just waiting to get their hands on you.”
“Ground beef. Right. Whatever.” I try to laugh but it’s forced and comes out like a bark.
Skip flings the frisbee toward a lamp post across the quad, continuing his endless game of one-man frisbee golf. “Speaking of beef. Declan’s got the grill going back at the house. Let’s go before there are no burgers left.”
Chapter Six
VIOLET
I lean against the inside of the library door, hugging my arms tight around me, afraid to breathe. I listen to Charlie and his friends, my humiliation complete. I feel like I am back in middle school when Bobby Cramer from English discovered a poem called Shrinking Violet and the whole class decided that was the perfect way to describe me and my shyness.
The nickname stuck with me through high school. I wasn’t taunted or bullied like some other kids were, but anytime my shyness became a thing someone would say it and it kind of became a self-fulfilling thing. I discovered that the only thing to do was to make myself invisible. The more I was able to do that, the less likely they were to notice me and tease me about being Shrinking Violet.
What is it with people who think it’s okay to do that to another person? Why didn’t Charlie stand up to them and defend me? Why did he pretend he didn’t know me?
He said I was nobody. When they compared me to Phoebe and called me ground beef, Charlie laughed out loud.
I wish he’d never come to the library today. I wish I had never laid eyes on Charlie Blaze.
Chapter Seven
CHARLIE
The following afternoon, I head to the library as soon as my class lets out. I have to talk to Violet, let her know what happened when Phoebe called. I was up half the night tossing and turning, replaying the fantastic moments with Violet yesterday, and then cycling through the crash when Phoebe called and everything came to a screeching halt. Her red-rimmed eyes kept flashing in my mind. I fucked up. I feel like a world-class jerk.
I pull the heavy wooden door open and head to the research desk at the back of the main hall. When Violet sees me her face goes white and she turns to leave.
“Hey, Violet,” I say, trying to act like everything is normal for the sake of her co-worker who is able to hear everything and is clearly interested.
She freezes and turns back toward me. “Charlie.” Her face is red now, and she tries to look away while also keeping her back to her coworker.
I point in the direction of the carrel where she took me yesterday. “Can I talk to you?”
She glares at me and I can see her weighing whether or not she wants to give me any time. “Fine.” She leaves the desk and walks toward the back of the library.
She passes by me and flips her hair defiantly. I catch the scent of her hair as I follow, trying not to get caught up in her swaying hips and heart-shaped ass.
Chapter Eight
VIOLET
I can feel Charlie’s eyes on me as I walk away from the desk. I have no idea what he came here to say, but I know that I don’t want Louis, one of our new interns, to overhear. I pull out my keys and move them along the ring until I locate the one for his carrel. I locked it after he left yesterday, before I realized he was such a jerk.
I let the door swing open, revealing the desk and the stacks of books on body language and human behavior. “I figured you’d need to keep doing your research.” I can’t look at him. I won’t.
He sighs. “Violet, I owe you an explanation. About yesterday. When my phone rang.”
“You really don’t have to do this.” Oh my god, I need to not be here. This is awful. I don’t want to hear about anything.
He reaches out to touch me and I recoil.
He drops his arm. “But I do need to. I want to. It matters to me that you know. I broke up with Phoebe a couple of weeks ago. She isn’t happy about it, keeps calling me, trying to get back together.” He runs a hand through his hair. “And when you and I… when we were… um. And then I saw it was her on the phone… it was habit, nothing more.”
I shake my head. “But I heard you.”
“Heard me?” He looks confused. He can’t recall what he said? Did it mean that little to him? His confusion makes it even worse.
I won’t back down. “Outside. Yesterday, with your friends?” I surprise myself by looking him right in the eyes. “You said I was nobody. Just some chick.” I can feel my throat tighten and I force myself not to cry. He isn’t worth my tears.
His shoulders drop and his eyes go wide. “Violet, no. It isn’t like that. Those guys are jerks. I didn’t want to…”
“Don’t. Don’t try to backpedal. I was there.”
“Violet, please…”
“No. There’s nothing to say. I thought you were different, Charlie Blaze. I thought you were something else… but you’re just like the rest of them.”
The look on his face tells me that I’ve made my point. I don’t wait for him to respond. I turn on my heels and leave him standing at the door.
I spend the rest of the afternoon at the library, unable to focus, forcing myself to keep busy. After a while I get lost in the routine of helping students research and locating books. When Louis walks past with a rolling cart absolutely heaped with books to return to the shelves, I offer to take it from him. It’s a boring job and he gives up eagerly. I’m grateful for the opportunity to disappear in the stacks for a while and not have to deal with any people.
It takes a couple of hours to empty the cart. When I get back to my desk, there’s a huge bouquet of red roses in a tall glass vase standing at the desk. Louis is smiling when I arrive.
“Someone has an admirer,” he teases and waggles his eyebrows at me.
I ignore him, pull the card from the clip and open it up.
Roses are red.
I made Violet blue.
Please give me a chance
to make it up to you.
I am so sorry, Violet.
You deserve better and
I’d love another chance.
-Charlie
Charlie steps out from behind the bookshelf. “I’ll do anything, Violet. Please.” He stands off to the side of the desk, looking forlorn and serious.
“Shh!” a student at a nearby table scolds him.
He steps closer, but he doesn’t lower his voice. “I messed up, Violet. I don’t deserve it…”
“Quiet!” a different person shouts.
Charlie ignores them. “…but if you’d give me the opportunity, I’d like the chance to make it up to you.”
“SHH!”
He’s being so loud, disrupting everyone. I have to stop this. I come around the desk and grab him by the hand, dragging him back to the carrel. “You need to be quiet,” I whisper.
“I know. Sorry. I just—” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Violet, I am really sorry you heard me and my friends yesterday. But it isn’t what it sounded like. They’re jerks and they wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand what? That you’ve acquired a taste for ground beef?”
“What? No. Violet, no. They wouldn’t understand that what happened yesterday wasn’t just hot and sexy… I can’t explain what it is.”
I don’t look away. I jam my hands into my hips and look him full in the face. “I’d like you to try, Charlie.”
He runs his hands through his hair. “When I met you, I thought you were totally repulsed by me. Every time I caught your eye, you seemed to flinch and turn away like I was the worst thing. But now I see that maybe you’re just really shy? I don’t know. What I do know is that with you I am… I was… You do something to me, Violet. And those guys? They’re not bad guys, but they see me one way—to them I am Charlie, baseball captain and frat brother. Who I date matters to people like them.”
He is making no sense. “What does that even mean?”
“Honestly, I spent most of the night thinking about it and I don’t know, either. I think I was worried that they’d stop being my friend—saying it out loud sounds so childish, but that’s what it is. I have an image to uphold to them and I think I was worried about being real. How messed up is that?”
“It’s pretty messed up.”
“The other part of it is that if I tried to explain what happened between you and me, they would misread it as bragging, and that felt like an even worse way to disrespect you. Because whatever we had here yesterday wasn’t about conquest.”
“So you chose the path of the lesser disrespect?”
“Oh man, I am making this worse.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just hate that I hurt you. I feel like what we have here is special and…”
I touch his hand. “You can stop now.”
“Okay. But, I am really sorry, Violet. Thanks for letting me try to explain.” He turns to leave.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
He turns back, a confused look on his face.
I smile. “You said you wanted to make it up to me. You can take me to dinner.”
“Yeah?” His smile lights his face and makes my heart race.
I want to believe him. I want to trust that he means what he said. I smile and force myself not to hide my face. “Yeah.”
Chapter Nine
CHARLIE
The restaurant we decide on isn’t fancy, but it’s quiet and the food is good. The hostess seats us in a booth in the back and when we slide in it’s like the rest of the world disappears. It’s just me and Violet and the spark between us.
She’s got her hair pulled up in a twist on top of her head, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her wearing it off her face.
“You look nice. I like your hair like that.”
She blushes and I feel like I’ve made a wrong move.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
“I know you don’t. It’s me. I don’t know why it’s so hard.” She clutches her hands together wringing them like she’s nervous. “I feel like I don’t belong here—with you. Like I am going to wake up tomorrow and go back to being nobody.”
“You’re not nobody.” I reach over and place my hand over hers. I want to reassure her, help her realize that she’s got nothing to be insecure about. “You do belong here. How can you think you don’t?”
She smiles. “People like you don’t understand. I mean, you couldn’t possibly.”
“What are people like me?”
“Popular people. Confident people. People who fit in. You walk into a room and people see you and accept you. They want to be near you. That doesn’t happen with me. When I walk into a room I am invisible—and that makes me want to be invisible. I am not like you.”
“Well, I don’t know what I can do about any of that, but I can assure you that you’re not invisible to me. From the first moment I met you I’ve wanted to be near you. And since the other day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
I can’t help but smile. “Me too.”
After dinner, we walk slowly through campus, talking and looping around, trying to prolong the night.
A few times her hand brushes mine and I am tempted to hold it, but I can’t read her and I don’t want to scare her off. “I’d like to kiss you,” I say.
She stops and looks up at me, then goes up on her toes and presses her mouth to mine.
The spark inside me ignites into a five-alarm fire and the only thing it needs is Violet. She tastes like the wine we had at dinner and she smells of fruit and flowers, and it’s like a bouquet of flavors bombarding my senses.
My cock throbs between my legs and this time I don’t have anything to hide behind. I press against her as I kiss her, letting her feel me and when she responds to my body, something in me breaks open and it is like I have finally found another part of me I never realized was actually missing.
Chapter Ten
VIOLET
You go girl! Diary Violet takes a back seat tonight because this is all me. Now that I’ve had a taste of Charlie Blaze, I don’t want to let him go. He’s so good and after talking everything through I realize that he’s just as insecure as I am, despite seeming confident and popular.
It isn’t okay that he cares so much about what his friends think of him and his choices. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am in the same boat, but maybe on the opposite side. I also care what people think of me, but I care so much that I don’t let anyone really see me. I’ve decided to work on that, and with Charlie, maybe, I’ll have a chance.
We’re kissing like love-starved teenagers under a streetlight in the middle of the darkened quad. The campus is quiet this late in the evening.
He pulls away, breaking his wonderful kiss. “Would you like to…?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“My apartment is on First Street.”
“So close,” I say.
He holds my hand as we walk and I am so aware of his touch and the way it keeps the heat in my belly burning. A tiny part of me is nervous. This is it. Tonight it is the night. I am going to give myself to Charlie Blaze.
Chapter Eleven
CHARLIE
We step inside my apartment and I lead Violet to my room. My roommates are out, but I have no idea when they will be back and I don’t think Violet would like it if anyone walked in on us.
We step into my room and I stand there, not sure what to do. Then she closes the door and leans against it and smiles nervously.
“Are you all right?” I ask. I want everything to be perfect for her, for us. I don’t want anything about tonight to go wrong. I feel like I got a second chance and I don’t want to screw it up.
She nods quickly and her voice is a whisper. “Yes.”
I walk over to her and kiss her once, slowly. “You don’t need to be nervous, Violet. Not with me.”
“I know.” She kisses my neck and moves up to my ear. “I’ve never done this before.” Her words are like air and it takes me a second to process what she just said.
I pull back, my hands on her waist. “You’re a virgin?” I am so surprised that it hadn’t occurred to me. Of course, it makes sense, and it explains a little about why she’s so shy. But the way she moved in the library… “I didn’t know. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She smiles. “Oh, yes. Please. Don’t make me beg, Charlie.”
I laugh. “Oh, it won’t come to that,” I assure her.
I wanted her before, but now, knowing that I would be her first, it changes something. I want this to be perfect for her. I want her to be able to look back on this night and cherish the memory for the rest of her life. I know will never forget my first time—with all the fumbling and missteps and embarrassing teenage stuff. I also know it’s different for women, and I want to get it right.
I wa
nt her to love every minute, and then come back for more. My caveman wants to be the first and the only man to possess her. But the rational side just wants her to choose me.
I bend to kiss her and move my hands under her soft bottom. Then I lift her into my arms so she’s above me and I have to arch my neck to maintain the kiss. She runs her hands over my cheeks and her nails scratch my stubble.
My cock is rigid and straining against my clothes. I lean into her, pressing her against the door, thrusting my body slowly into hers.
She responds by curling herself against me. Her body grinds over my cock and she moans with pleasure. “I want you, Charlie.”
I want to rip her clothes off and take her. I want to feel myself inside her. I want to see her mouth on my skin and know what she looks like when she comes.
I push off the door and carry her to the bed, laying her gently on the pillow. She moves her hands to my belt, unbuckling it urgently. Then her hands are on my cock and the heat between us makes my breath catch.
I kiss her neck and pull the collar of her shirt down so I can get near her breast. She peels her shirt off and I run my hands over her belly and around the side of her ribs. She shivers in the cool of the room and I want to warm her. I take off my shirt and her hands move all over my chest, feeling my muscles and combing through my hair. I bend and take her breast in my mouth, flicking her nipple with my tongue and feeling it grow hard in mouth. My hands move over her belly and down her thighs until they find the hem of her skirt and move underneath.
I crawl to the foot of the bed as she unbuttons her skirt and shimmies out of it. Her panties are purple lace, just like her bra and I roll them down her thighs and toss them onto the floor.
