by Jay McLean
“Excuse me.” Someone said close to my ear.
I stepped to the side to allow three tall and handsome guys brush past. They looked almost interchangeable—too long brown hair cut in the hipster style, tanned skin; two of them had brown eyes, the other one had blue. They were wearing fraternity polo shirts and all three slowed, their eyes moving over Sam and me with plain interest.
The last of the guys stopped; he grabbed my hips, issued me very cute and flirty grin before semi-shouting over the music, “Hey, who are you?”
I opened my mouth to respond that I was nobody and that he shouldn’t go around touching people without their permission, but Sam tugged on my hand and inserted herself into the conversation. She had to semi-yell in order to be heard over the surrounding music and voices. “We’re looking for Martin Sandeke. Is he here?”
The blue-eyed one of the trio huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Get in line, sweetheart.”
Sam tipped her head to the side, narrowed her eyes at him. “Listen, we’re not staying. This is his lab partner, she needs to speak with him about the class. Do you know where he is?”
The three boys exchanged confused looks; the one with his hands on my hips leaned forward to my ear. “You’re Marty’s lab partner?”
I nodded, finally finding my voice. “Yes. Both semesters. It’s really important that I speak to him about, um… a project we’re supposed to be doing over the break. Also, I’d really appreciate it if you would remove your hands.”
He blinked at me, frowned, then removed his hands and took a step back—or as much of a step back as he could manage in the crush. “You really are his lab partner.”
His eyes searched my face with interest. In fact, all three of them seemed to be looking at me a little funny. I smoothed my hand down my skirt, again, and was thankful for the dim lights. Under their triple-handsome-perusal, I knew I was blushing uncontrollably.
“She is, she’s the astronaut’s daughter,” the one with blue eyes finally said, as though he’d just realized it, recognized me. He said it as though I was a celebrity.
This was aggravating.
I pressed my lips together before muttering. “He’s my grandfather.”
“I’m in Professor Gentry’s class too.” Blue-eyes extended his hand, captured mine; his expression was probing and tinged with respect as it moved over my face. “You look really different outside of class. Did you do something to… your face?”
My face?
I didn’t get a chance to respond to this startling and insulting question, because Sam stepped forward.
“So can you three amigos take us to Martin? We don’t have a lot of time.”
This was a true statement. It was already 10:10 p.m. and I knew, based on my eavesdropping, that the drugging would occur sometime around 10:30 p.m.
Blue-eyes nodded, still holding my hand. “Sure, sure. Follow me.” and he tugged me forward.
Brown-eyes, the one who felt comfortable putting his hands on my body, winked at me as I passed. “Find me later, we’ll have some fun.”
His companion hit him on the back of the head. As we left I heard him say, “Not likely, dumbass.”
“I’m Eric.” Blue-eyes tossed at us over his shoulder. “Stroke is this way.”
“Stroke?”
“Martin is Stroke.” Eric turned briefly to explain. We made a chain, the three of us, as we wove through bodies of scantily dressed females and grabby frat boys. “He’s eight-seat in the boat, it’s called the stroke seat because it sets the stroke rhythm for the rest of the boat. So we call him Stroke.”
I gritted my teeth through the jostling, ignored the body parts that pressed against me—or outright palmed my anatomy.
Martin was called Stroke. Somehow, the nickname fit.
Eric led us to a staircase where another bouncer dude stood. He nodded once to Eric and smirked at Sam and me. I deduced he thought we were on our way to engage in a throupling (a threesome coupling). This, of course, caused my blush to intensify.
Jerk conscience.
I struggled to climb the stairs in the heels, almost asking Eric to stop so I could remove them. The music wasn’t nearly as loud at the next landing. I was so busy debating whether or not to take off my shoes that I almost collided with Eric’s back when he stopped in front of a pair of overly large double doors.
“He’s in here.” Eric turned, tilted his head, he let go of my hand to push open the door.
“Thanks.” I nodded once and gripped Sam’s hand tighter as I moved to enter.
“No-no. She stays out here.” Eric shook his head and motioned to Sam.
“What? Why?”
“Only one girl at a time, unless both are invited.”
I glanced at Sam and imagined I wore a similarly stunned expression.
“Excuse me?” Sam said. “What is he? A sultan? Does he have a harem?”
Eric smirked, his eyes moved over Sam with simmering appraisal. “I’ll keep you company, cupcake.”
“No thanks, dildo,” was her response.
This only made his grin widen, though he said; “You’re safe with me. I promise the only thing I’ll do to you is stare at you.”
She glowered. He narrowed his eyes mockingly, though his amusement and enjoyment at the exchange was obvious.
“I’m not worried about me,” Sam explained. “I don’t trust your boy around my girl, not in this house.”
Eric’s gaze moved over my dress; his grin waned, softened, like he knew a secret about me.
“I promise, if she’s not out in fifteen minutes we’ll go rescue her together.”
I addressed Sam, my voice lowered. “I’ll be fine. Martin’s not going to do anything. I’ll just tell him about the, um, the assignment and then I’ll leave.”
Sam was teetering, still undecided. After a prolonged moment she blurted, “Oh, all right.” Then she shifted her gaze to Eric. “But I’m timing this. I have a watch.” She held up her wrist so that he could see the evidence of her timepiece.
“Noted.” He said with a large smile, held his hands up as though he surrendered.
Before I lost my nerve, I turned the handle to the door and opened it—only glancing back at Sam once before I stepped in and shut it behind me.
PART 3: CONFESSIONS ON A POOL TABLE
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t a pool table.
I hovered at the entrance to the room, just inside the small alcove, and watched as Martin and three other guys good-naturedly knocked the cue ball around with their pool sticks.
No one noticed me at first and this allowed me time to chant my synonyms silently to myself.
Unsteady, uncertain, nervous, anxious, worried, panicked…
I wasn’t concerned for my safety, but I was concerned. I’d gone through life hiding in cabinets, and was perfectly happy to continue this practice once this task was over. I just had to get this over with first.
Propelled by this desire—to cross this task off my conscience’s list and go find a nice, safe cabinet to hide in—I took a step forward and cleared my throat.
One of the guys was mid-laugh, and I wondered at first if they’d heard me. But, eventually, four sets of eyes swung to my position, though I tried to focus only on Martin.
“Uh, hi. Hello.” I gave the room a little wave.
Martin, like the rest, was looking at me like I was a stranger. However, I felt all pairs of eyes sweep me up and down in a way that made me feel like I was a car, or a horse—one they were thinking about riding.
Heated anxiety seized my chest, tightness spreading into my stomach. I balled my hands into fists and took another step into the room, further into the light.
“I’m looking for Martin.” I kept my eyes on him; at six feet away, he was the closest to my position.
Recognition had not yet registered when he replied, “What do you want?”
“It’s me. Um, it’s Parker. Kaitlyn Parker. I was hoping I could speak with you for… a… mi
nute… about chemistry?” I bit my lip, waited for his reaction.
Martin visibly stiffened, blinked, and flinched when I said my name. His eyes—now focused and narrowed—moved over me once more, this time with obvious and renewed interest.
“Parker?” He took a step forward and laid his cue stick on the table; he sounded and looked baffled.
I licked my lips and nodded, hazarded a glance at the others. They were alternately watching me and turning their heads to watch Martin’s reaction.
“Yep. I promise I’ll just be a minute, it won’t take-”
“Everyone out.” Martin interrupted me, his voice a bit too loud for the space; it was a command.
To my surprise, his three companions set down their pool cues on the table and shuffled out, as instructed and without delay.
One or two of them caught my eye as they left, walking past; their expressions were plainly curious but none of them spoke. Martin’s gaze never left my face; he seemed to recover quickly from the surprise of my arrival. His face grew hard, his square jaw ticking at his temple.
I didn’t know what to make of the gathering storm in his eyes so I ignored it and attempted to think of a word to use in my synonym game. I also tried not to look at his lips.
I tried and I failed.
I couldn’t help it; the memory of his kiss—our kiss—arrived like a tsunami, flooding my body with something heated and tight. I felt abruptly overwhelmed by it, surrounded on all sides. I knew what he tasted like, how he sounded when he growled, what his hands felt like on my bare skin.
I tried not to shiver and failed at that too.
The door clicked behind me; but, to me, it sounded like a gunshot—because it signaled that we were alone. I gathered a breath and tucked my hair behind my ears. I needed to focus on reciting the speech I’d practiced in my head for the last five hours.
Then I could leave, my conscience could piss off, and this would all be over.
Ignoring the goosebumps that he’d ignited with his scorching glare, I did my best impression of calm as I said, “So, the reason I’m here-”
“Let me guess.” He crossed his broad arms over his broad chest, his broad shoulders stiff and straight, and leaned his hips, which were narrow and not broad, against the pool table. “Your level of interested has… changed.”
I squinted at him, wrinkling my nose. “What?”
“You’ve changed your mind, about me.” The way he said the words, deadpan and sarcastic, led me to the conclusion that he thought I was there to beg for more kisses, to entrap him with my feminine wiles.
Little did he know, I possessed no feminine wiles. Only the willies and the heeby-jeebies.
My nose wrinkled further, I was feeling flustered. He wasn’t supposed to talk. He was supposed to listen.
“No. It’s not that at all. It’s about the cabinet.”
He scoffed, like he didn’t believe me. “Nice dress.”
I glanced down at myself, my hand automatically lifting to my abdomen. “Uh, thanks. It’s borrowed.”
“Really.” He said really like he didn’t really believe me.
“Yes. It’s a little too short, I think.” I tugged at the hem, wishing it longer. “I was told I wouldn’t be allowed in without a skirt.”
His attention moved to where my hands were fiddling with the edge of the dress, lingered there. Martin straightened from the pool table and crossed to where I stood—his steps unhurried, his gaze leisurely as it skated up my body. Again, I felt like a horse being perused for a ride.
“You could always take it off, the dress, if it makes you feel uncomfortable.”
A full-on, five-alarm, embarrassed flush rose to my cheeks and he stopped just in front of me. His eyes were shamelessly resting on the swell of my breasts with a suggestiveness that completely crossed the appropriate line.
It was so beyond appropriate it was…
It was…
It was inappropriate.
I gathered a slow breath, hoping to steady myself, and stomped down the rising wave of indescribable sensations plaguing my sensibilities—some pleasant, some not so pleasant.
“Listen,” I said through a jaw mostly clenched. “I overheard something when I was in the cabinet, before you arrived, and I thought you should know. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
His eyes flickered to mine, still hard, disbelieving. He was standing just a foot or so away. I’d tilted my chin upward to meet his glare.
After a pause, during which he studied my face, Martin said, “Go ahead, gorgeous. Enlighten me.”
I stomped down my brain’s frenzied insta-reaction to the word gorgeous coming from Martin’s mouth, successfully maintaining my focus. However, in the split second I hesitated, I promised myself I’d take that word out later and examine from all angles.
Maybe even when I was alone… in bed.
“I heard two people walk into the room. So, I panicked and, yes, I hid in the cabinet. But, in my defense, I was already in there pulling out the reticulation equipment. Anyway, two voices—one female, one male—came into the lab together. Whoever the guy was when you walked into the lab, that was the same guy I overheard. The girl wanted the guy to drug you.”
Martin’s eyebrows bounced upward, then pulled low, when I said the word drug. I didn’t want him to interrupt me again, so I spoke faster.
“She said she wanted him to drug you. They scheduled it for ten thirty tonight. He is supposed to make sure you stick around the party. She said she would arrive at eleven, then take you, drugged, up to your room and video tape the two of you. Then she said something truly disturbing—not that the rest of it isn’t already disturbing—but what she said next kind of blew me away, because I didn’t know people could be that cold and calculating with no regard for basic decency.”
“What did she say?” He asked, his tone impatient. His eyes were still hard, angry; but the severity wasn’t focused on me, I didn’t appear to be the target—praise Bunsen and his burner!
“She said that if she got pregnant then it would be ‘a bonus.’”
Martin’s mouth opened, then closed, and his glare moved from me to the floor. He was visibly stunned. I watched his beautiful face as he processed the information, took the opportunity to examine him in a way I’d never allowed myself to do before.
He was painfully handsome. I kind of knew that before, but I really saw it now.
My chest hurt a little as I studied his features—square jaw; strong nose, perfect shape and size for his face; high cheekbones, like he had Cherokee or Navajo ancestry. Paired with his blue eyes, he was striking. I understood my previous reluctance to gaze at him directly in the past. It was called self-preservation.
I tore my eyes from him and his exceptional form. I tried not to notice his decidedly swoony body—the way his jeans hung on his hips, the way his thighs filled out the jeans—and glanced over his shoulder.
“Well. That was what I needed to tell you so, I guess I’ll be—”
“Why should I trust you?”
My eyes moved back to his, and I blinked at this question, because the answer was obvious. “Uh, what?”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Why would I lie?”
“What do you expect in exchange?”
“Exchange for what?”
He shifted on his feet just a fraction of an inch closer. Somehow, however, that fraction brought with it a menacing cloud of suspicion and unpleasantness.
For someone so beautiful, his expression was surprisingly ugly.
“What is it that you want? What are you hoping to gain? Is it money?”
My mouth fell open and my nose wrinkled again, this time in outrage. I looked at him, really looked at him—and this time it wasn’t just the outer façade of blinding beauty. What I saw was a guy who was bitter, jaded, and maybe a little desperate—for what, I had no idea.
Finally I said, “What is wrong with you?”
His eyebrow
s shot up. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Yes.” I countered, my hands coming to my hips. “What is wrong with you? I came here to help you, the least you could do is not act like a jerk-face.”
“Jerk-face?” He shot back, his eyes growing both hot and cold. “You show up here, looking like that, and you expect me to believe you’re not after something?”
“I already told you, jerk-face, it’s a skirt party! I wouldn’t have made it through the door if I hadn’t been wearing this stupid dress, jerk-face. If you don’t like how I look, jerk-face, then you can go yell at your stupid sorority brothers.”
“You mean fraternity brothers.”
“Sorority, sorostitute, fraternity, fratigalo—whatever! It’s all the same to me.”
“So I’m supposed to believe that you have no ulterior motive? If this is true then why didn’t you tell me all of this at the lab?” He gained another half step forward and, since I refused to back down, only inches separated us.
“Because you scratched my itch and then you kissed me—both of which freaked me out because neither of which are in the course syllabus for laboratory experiments this semester. And, furthermore-”
I didn’t get to finish because the door opened behind me. A voice I recognized called into the room, “Hey Marty—dude, why are you up here? I brought you a drink. Some of my special hunch punch.”
I’d turned toward the sound of the voice and stumbled a step back. Martin’s arm wrapped around my shoulders, brought my back to his chest as the owner of the voice walked in, red Solo cups extended.
The guy, about two inches taller than Martin—therefore, very tall—peeked his head in the door. Behind him I could see Eric standing with Sam. They both peered into the room, and I noted that Eric’s face was apologetic as he glanced Martin.
I tried to step forward but Martin’s arm tightened, holding me still.
The stranger’s clear blue eyes moved from me to Martin, then back again. “Hey Stroke—Eric said you had company, so I brought one for both of you.”
I knew this voice because it was him—the cuss monster from the lab.
