“Then what is it about?” I ask, exasperated. The phone buzzes with another text from Summer. She’s wondering where the hell I am—for the dozenth time.
Sorry, I text back. Phone was on silent. All good. Are you with Mike?
Mike’s a fucking asshole!!! She texts me immediately. I’m waiting for you outside.
Where?
Second level.
K. Be there soon.
I turn the phone off and focus my attention on James.
“Your friend?” he asks.
“Answer the fucking question!” I scream.
“Oh.” He smiles again. “That. Well, you see, Celeste—” He gets out of bed, completely naked, his body glorious in the dim light.
“Don’t come any closer!” I warn, stopping him mid-track. I cross my arms over my chest and wish his damn shirt were longer. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about his eyes roaming over my bare legs.
He stops and puts both hands up. “Fine,” he agrees. He smirks. “But you know what gives me the right? Fucking you gives me the right.”
I snort in disbelief and roll my eyes at him. “Whatever,” I say, turning away. “This was a mistake. And it won’t be happening again.”
He catches my hand just as I’m about to cross into the lobby. “No,” he growls. “This will be happening again.”
And then he tugs me into him and kisses me once more. I have every intention of resisting… but when his lips meet mine, I melt. I give in to temptation. All the while, a voice at the back of my head keeps screaming, You’re weak! You’re weak you’re weak you’re weak!
James releases me. He looks me straight in the eyes. “That,” he says, “was my second promise to you. We are fucking again. I do not make promises I cannot keep, Celeste.” He pinches my nipple through the clothes. “Lover.”
My head’s reeling. I’m angry and giddy all at once. My emotions are all screwed up, and I can’t seem to give myself the space I need to figure it out. I just stand there, sort of dazed, kind of staring at him, impressed and surprised and blown away at his incessant passion.
He turns me around and smacks my ass. “Now go,” he says. “I know your friend is waiting.”
13.
Ten minutes later I’m back out on the rooftop, weaving my way through the crowd. It’s thinner than before, but thankfully, the party hasn’t yet ended. It gives me a plausible excuse for disappearing for so long.
I catch my reflection in the glass just as I’m about to head up the stairs. Jesus Christ. I look freshly fucked. My cheeks are rosy, my lips swollen, my hair a complete mess.
I try to pat it down but it’s an exercise in futility. Thank God it’s dark, at least. Maybe Summer won’t be totally suspicious.
“Hah!” I snort a laugh. Yeah fucking right. She’ll know exactly what I’ve been up to the moment she sees me.
Whatever. I can’t very well help it now, can I? I put one hand on the railing and start up the stairs. I have to support myself with each step because my legs are still weak.
But on the second level, I see that I was freaking out for no reason. Summer’s still there by the bar—and she’s completely wasted. There’s a row of empty drinks in front of her. I know that can only signal one thing.
I walk up to her. “Hey,” I say gently.
She looks over and her eyes bulge out. “Ermagawd it’s you!” she exclaims. She throws her hands around my neck and sways a little when she lets go. “Where th’hell have you been?” She’s slurring her words. “Bitch.”
“I went to the bathroom… and got kind of lost in the crowd,” I say, making up a paper thin explanation on the spot. “A guy offered to buy me a drink on the way back. I sorta agreed. We started chatting, and I guess I just lost track of time. Sorry.”
“Was he hot, at least?” she wonders. “Was this man hot who you would ditch your friend for? Cause if he wasn’t…” She points a finger at me and sways on the spot. “If he wasn’t, and you left me for some ugly dude… I’m going to be very, very pissy with you, Celeste!”
She tries to sit down, misses the stool, and falls flat on her ass.
“Shit!” I exclaim. I bend down to help, but she swats me away and just laughs.
Sloppily, she picks herself up.
“Jesus, how much have you had to drink?” I ask. I count the empty glasses on the bar.
“Me?” she points at herself. “Barely anything! It’s how much you had to drink that should be the questions. Or really, how little.” She slaps her hand on the counter, just like a guy, and calls out, “Bartender! More… liquor!”
“No, no, no,” I say, taking her shoulders and turning her away. “You’ve had enough for one night.” I share a sympathetic look with the bartender and assure him, “I’ll take care of her.”
“I can take care of myself!” she protests. She pushes herself off me and takes a few woozy steps ahead. Her heel catches and her ankle twists. She starts to fall. This time, I’m right there to catch her before she does.
“Oh no,” I tell her. “You definitely need me. We’re going home. It’s been a long, long night.”
She mumbles some sort of disagreement under her breath but lets me lead her away without putting up much of a fight.
As we edge our way through the throng of people, I ask Summer, “So, what happened with Mike?”
“A mega asshole,” she enunciates. “He wanted me to go back with him to his place, but I said I had to find you, first. Five minutes later? He gets up and leaves! And I saw him eyeballing this other chick the whole time he was talking to me. Guess what he did after he got up? Went to her and started making out! Just like that—“ she snaps her fingers. “—as if I didn’t even exist, as if he wasn’t locking lips with me five minutes earlier.”
“You wouldn’t want to hook up with a guy like that, anyway,” I say. “He sounds nasty. Who knows how many diseases he’s carrying?”
I cringe at my own hypocrisy. Wasn’t it just a few days ago that I kissed a man after he had his mouth on some other woman’s pussy?
Jesus. I shudder and refuse to think about all the places James’s cock… mouth… hands… have been.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she says. She blows out her cheeks. “Dammit, but he was hot!”
“You’ll be the one laughing in a week or two when his dick falls off after too many careless fucks,” I assure her.
She bursts out laughing.
“Aww, I’ve missed you, honey,” Summer says, and emphasizes the words by throwing her arms around me in a great big hug. I hug her back.
Then, all of a sudden, she pushes off, keels over, and vomits all over the floor.
“Shit,” she mutters. “S—sorry.”
“You okay?”
“Ugh. Um. Yeah.” She wipes her mouth. “Gross. But look!” she points at my heels. “Nothing on your pretty shoes!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, patting her back. “Come on. Now it’s really time to get you home.”
***
Summer spends the whole night barfing. I barely sleep.
Graduate students, we might be… but college freshmen is what we act like.
14.
Sunday morning, nearly thirty-six hours after the party, Summer is still complaining about her hangover.
She doesn’t remember a speck of it after she and I met Mike. I’m glad for that. The less she remembers, the less explaining I have to do.
But as each hour ticks by, I come closer and closer to facing James… in class… again.
“He’s picking students for his TAs this week!” Summer exclaims all of a sudden. I look up, suddenly short on breath, feeling the guilt consume me and—
“Whoa, whoa,” Summer says. “You all right, Celeste? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Just swell.” I glance down at our lunch table. How is it she and I both thought of the same man at exactly the same time?
“Anyway,” she continues, glossing over my discomfort. “
I’m excited. Do you think I can get in? I think I can get in. It’ll mean more one-on-one time with him, y’know?” Her eyes take on a faraway look. “Just one-on-one, me and Professor Landon. I can pick his brain, see where he comes up with all the brilliant things he writes… Maybe see what he thinks of me… Maybe I can get to know him better.” She bites her lip and trails off. Then she looks at me. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, picking at my tuna salad. Summer insists I try her recipe, but I have no appetite for fish. No appetite for anything really, except feeling like a shitty friend for hooking up with Professor Landon twice and not having the balls to tell Summer about it.
I push my plate away. “I’m going to go for a run, k?” I tell her.
“But you just ate! Don’t you know you have to wait at least two hours after eating before running?”
“I think that’s swimming,” I say. “Besides, look at my plate. I barely had a bite.”
“And weren’t you just last week sitting over there with me,” she points to our living room couch, “complaining about having to walk everywhere? And now you want to run?”
“It’s a good workout,” I shrug. “And it’s bright and sunny out. I figure, why not?”
“Okaaaay,” she says, giving me a strange look.
I blow her a kiss. “I’ll see you later, all right? I might stop by the library, as well, and get started on that paper.”
“Shit! Summer jumps up. “The paper! Holy crap, I forgot all about it. When’s it due?”
“Next Wednesday,” I say.
She groans.
“What’s wrong? You still have time.”
“Yeah, if I had done the reading.”
I fix her with an incredulous look. “Have you read anything?”
She looks around the kitchen and shakes her head, just a little. “No. Not really. I’ve been…” she clears her throat, “…busy.”
“Doing what?” I ask. “Fantasizing about James?”
I gasp and clamp a hand over my lips. I can’t believe I just said that!
She narrows her eyes at me. “James?” she asks. “Who’s James? Wait a minute…” her eyes widen in understanding. “You mean Professor Landon, don’t you? James Landon?”
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“So you do know him,” she exclaims, jumping up and stabbing a finger at me. “You know him and you think of him by his first name!”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, no…”
“Oh, don’t deny it, Celeste. Come on, I’m not daft. There had to be a reason he singled you out during office hours. You still didn’t tell me what he wanted.”
“Nothing,” I say softly. “He wanted nothing.”
Guilt about looking my friend in the face and lying to her straight up is eating me up inside.
She scoffs. “That’s a fucking lie, and you know it. If you’re hiding something, Celeste, you better come out and say it.”
“I’m not hiding anything!” I explode. “Dammit, Summer! Why can’t you just trust me? I told you there’s nothing going on between me and him. Why can’t you just leave it at that? Why are you accusing me of sneaking around behind your back? Just because you want to get in his pants doesn’t mean every other woman with a vagina wants to! I told you, dammit, I just met him at a bar. I had no idea who he was. Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.” My voice is growing stronger, louder, angrier. “Oh, and guess what? Surprise, surprise! He’s not that interesting! I got bored and left, and anything he wanted out of me –if he wanted anything, Summer, if –he didn’t get. I shut him down, and that’s it! All there is to it! Nothing fucking more!”
I’m breathing hard, almost panting, by the time my tirade is over. My reaction is way, way, way out of proportion to anything that’s been said.
If anything, it just makes my guilt all the more obvious.
Summer looks at me. She considers it all for a long, solemn moment. Then, softly, she says, “Sneaking? I never accused you of sneaking.”
“Oh, whatever!” I grab my Beats from the table, put them over my ears, and storm out the apartment for my “run.”
***
I find a private study desk at the library and sit down.
I know I overreacted, but I’m fucking pissed. Pissed at myself for getting tangled in this. Pissed at Summer for spurring me on. Pissed at my own inability to deal. Pissed at myself for being too scared to tell Summer the truth.
Most of all, however, I’m pissed for just getting myself into this situation. How many of my rules am I breaking? Two, so far. The first and the fourth. And shit, I guess the second, because the first time I did spend the night.
Christ. This is a disaster in the making. Not even a month into term, and I’m already dealing with unnecessary internal turmoil.
Dammit, but I thought I was smarter than that! I thought I’d learned after Brad, learned from all the mistakes I made in college.
Maybe some lessons just take longer to sink in.
I know what I need to do. I need to either cut things off with James, completely… or fess up and tell Summer what’s going on.
That’s what pisses me off most. Both those options suck. I’ve never met a man who can make my body open up to his like James. I should be disgusted that I’m merely one in a long line of women he’s been with. That’s why he’s so good, no doubt.
But I’m not. And I’m not exactly innocent of whoring it up myself, in years past, either.
Maybe I’m just pissy because of all the promises I’ve made to myself that I haven’t kept. Enter grad school reformed? Hah, I scoff. As if. Don’t get tied up with a man a friend has eyes for? Yeah, that one too. Now all I need to do is fall in love, and I’ll complete the trifecta of sins.
I smirk to myself at the thought. That last one will never happen. I’m in no danger of developing feelings. I know myself well enough to know that.
Besides, do I even want to go through what I did with Brad again? No? No. Definitely not. So love is an impossibility.
That, at least, gives me some comfort.
It shouldn’t be a choice between the two. It shouldn’t be James versus Summer. I should be able to have both, if that’s what I want.
What I really want, though, is to feel like I’m not at fault. I know, I know! That’s childish of me. But really, Summer is the one who established that she’s got dibs on Professor Landon. And James is the one who seduced me. Not the other way around!
Dammit, it’s almost like I’m a passive victim here.
Again: yeah right. I know full well what I’m doing. I know what’s going on. I know where I stand. I’m a big girl. I can handle making the hard decision.
Or can I? James promised he would continue to pursue me. Even if I tell him no, would that be enough to deter him?
I think it won’t.
That leaves me with the option of telling Summer. I have no idea how she’ll react… but I suspect not well. She’s staked her claim on him. Whether that stake be based more on fantasy than reality doesn’t really matter. Do I really want to blow things up with her so early in the semester?
Hell no. I’ve waited five years to be reunited with my bestie. Why ruin that over some random man?
…No matter how sexy or alluring he may be.
So I guess that neutralizes my options. I’ll have to say no to James and remain firm in that conviction in the aftermath. No matter how he tries to push things.
Besides, I have a reasonable out. He’s my professor! Like I told him (weakly) that one time, there are university sanctions against this sort of thing.
I finally flip open my computer and get to work.
15.
Two hours of staring at the blank Word document later, I finally give up. I close my laptop with a grunt of disgust.
I’ve managed to write one sentence for this paper. Which I then hated and subsequently erased.
Damn I need a release. Something to rid me of all this pent-up frustration
and guilt.
Whatever. I look around the barren study room. It’s not like I’m going to find anyone capable of giving me that here.
I pack up my stuff and push my chair in. Maybe part of the reason I dawdled for so long was that I wanted to avoid the inevitable confrontation back at the apartment. I don’t mean telling Summer about James—I just mean apologizing for acting like a complete bitch earlier.
The sun is still shining when I get outside. I glance at my phone. It’s only seven p. m. Plenty of time for me to get back, clear the air with Summer, and maybe, finally, get a couple of pages done of this paper.
I start down the path to my apartment. It goes by an enormous lecture hall. Just as I walk past the front doors… James Landon steps out.
I only see him from the corner of my eye. I pretend not to and keep walking straight. But he calls my name.
“Celeste.”
I stop and close my eyes. I take a deep, steadying breath before turning to face him.
“Hello, professor,” I say, plastering an obnoxiously fake smile on my face.
“Professor?” He smirks, and walks down the steps with that easy gait of his. “I didn’t know we were on such formal terms.” He stops beside me, a tad too close, his stance a touch too suggestive. He smiles in a sly, knowing way. “You didn’t seem to mind calling me James two nights ago.”
I give him an impatient look. “Yeah, about that,” I begin. “Friday night? It was the last time. This…whatever this is…” I motion at the space between us. “…isn’t happening anymore. You can go and fuck any of your other students. I don’t care, but I’m no longer an active participant. We’re done.”
“So you admit there’s a ‘we,’” he says, twisting my words in that infuriating way of his. He licks his lips once. “Good.” He reaches out and brushes one finger against my cheek. “I like it when we’re in agreement.”
I take a hard step back. “We are not in agreement,” I retort. “There is no we, not anymore, nor should there have ever been.”
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 126
