The College Obsession Complete Series (Includes BONUS Sequel Novella)

by Daryl Banner

  “We could’ve gotten a nice hotel room.”

  “Yeah. And, I mean, I used to share a place with the D-man, but still …”

  “It’s been a long while,” she finishes for me.

  “Long while,” I agree.

  “You’re afraid they’ve changed. That you’ll have nothing to talk about.”

  “Except for his porn collection. Which I’m sure Sam has become all the more familiar with over the years.” I laugh at that suddenly, some random memory resurfacing when I teased Dmitri about his jerking addiction and how kinky Sam probably is underneath all the deadpan demeanor. “Maybe I’m just worried for nothing.”

  “You get it from your mother.”

  The loud speaker calls for a flight, announcing that the plane is ready to board. Nell and I glance up, listening, until we realize it’s another flight and not our own that’s ready.

  Nell sighs and puts a hand over mine. “I hate flying. Did I mention that? Hate, hate, hate, hate flying.”

  “Just think of it as a magical chair in the sky encased by a lot of metal and the smiling faces of uniformed flight attendants who ensure that we are comfortable,” I suggest with a flashy grin.

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “I packed crackers.”

  “I know.”

  I glance over at Zara, who has apparently taken to counting the people sitting in the row of chairs across from us. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Zara was two steps away from becoming a math prodigy. I can already picture her talking back to her teacher on the first day of kindergarten and sassily announcing that she already knows her multiplication tables by the first grade.

  That Zara is going places.

  “I can’t wait for Clayton to get stampeded by his most ferocious goddaughter,” I throw back with a chuckle. “And it’s going to be very amusing for me. Maybe for Dessie, too.”

  “Definitely for me,” mutters Nell. Her phone is in her hand in the next instant, typing away one-handed.

  My fingers run up Nell’s long neck, tangling themselves in her dark hair. “I’m the first of the whole gang to knock up my wife. Three times in a row, at that.” Nell swats my arm, but doesn’t pull away from the tease and tickle of my fingers in her hair. I laugh. “Hey, it’s true. Can’t deny the facts.”

  “Can’t blame Dessie, really.” Nell puts away her phone, bored with it already, and turns her head, her dark eyes flashing and her lips pulling up at one corner. “It … can’t be easy for a world-traveling performer and songstress like her to go through a pregnancy, not with all the touring and contracts she has to sign to be cast in her big Broadway shows and what-have-you. She’s got quite the actor’s life, that Desdemona Lebeau-Watts.”

  “Still not used to that hyphenated last name.” I keep dragging my hand through her hair, then find myself pulling her head toward mine. “You look so beautiful, Nell Rudawski.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I gotta say it over and over. It still feels so new to me. You’re mine, Mrs. Rudawski.”

  “Oh, great. I’m like a trophy, now.”

  “Better that than an art exhibit tied to a platform on display for the world to see,” I tease, recalling a particular day where that very thing was done to me—by Nell, no less.

  She smirks, remembering. “You looked sexy in those tiny black briefs.”

  “You look sexy in anything.” My hand still strokes her soft hair. “Just as beautiful as the day I met you.”

  Nell faces me completely, then brings her lips halfway to mine. Before our lips have a chance to meet, she stops and eyes me. “You’re deflecting with sex again.”

  I flinch. “Hmm?”

  “You know you do this, right? When you’re nervous. Or upset. Or bothered … perturbed by a conundrum you can’t quite figure out. Your mind goes straight to sex.” She tilts her head, all her hair swishing to one side. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  The words clog up my throat, none of them spilling out. I catch myself staring at her beautiful face with my lips hanging open, unable to refute her.

  “See?” Then she gives my lips a kiss—more of a peck, really—and draws back. “You just need to relax, Brant. Clayton is going to admire all the hard work you’ve put into this family. Not to mention your photography.”

  “Nell …”

  “You know I’m right. Dmitri is going to be thrilled to see Zara. And Sam … well, Sam’s Sam. Not much to say about that.”

  That gets a genuine smile from me. “Sam’s Sam,” I agree. “She’ll probably comment on my hair. It’s a lot shaggier than the last time they’ve all seen me.”

  Now it’s Nell’s turn to bring a hand up to my head, threading her fingers in my medium-length tangles of brown knots and wavy strands. “You’ve skipped a haircut or two or seven, that’s for sure.”

  “Blame my shaggy mess on the twins.” I eye Nell. “Can we please pray for a boy? That’s all I ask. Just one son. Please.”

  “So we can have your player genes pass on to a poor, unsuspecting and oddly overconfident boy who is way too good-looking, drives all the girls wild, and gets into constant trouble?”

  I smirk cockily. “So you’re saying I’m way too good-looking and drive you wild?”

  Nell pinches my nose, inspiring a scoff and a chortle from me. “And get into constant trouble. Face it: a son would destroy this family. Let’s be real, Brant. You and I are best at raising an army of strong-willed young women.”

  “Like you.”

  She shrugs and tosses her hair. “Better than me. Much, much better than me.”

  I put a kiss right on her soft, plush lips. “I love you so damned much, babe.”

  “Right back at you.” Then she returns the kiss, and our lips don’t separate. The loud speaker throws words over our heads, and it isn’t until the second time they’re called out that we realize they’re meant for us. Our flight is boarding.

  It’s time.

  Chapter 2

  Dessie

  I take a deep, deep breath. It’s the kind of breath where I can feel every inch of my lungs expand, almost to the point of bursting. Then when I let it all out, it’s like I’m weightless and nothing exists at all in the world but my skeleton and my skin.

  And my makeup sponges. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” I mumble into the blindingly-lit mirror.

  Victoria, who’s been my rock since the day we lived in dorms across the hall from one another so many years ago, looks at me through the reflection in the mirror. “You got this, girl.”

  “Do I?” I shake my head. “I can’t help but constantly fight the feeling that I only have this show and this … this opportunity because of my family’s prestige. It feels unearned. I’m opening a show on Broadway. Broadway for fuck’s sake.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Victoria leans toward the mirror, preferring to speak to my reflection instead of me directly. Oddly, it’s far more effective, as it freezes my act of applying makeup to my face. “You totally deserve this, Desdemona. Don’t you dare discount how many hours, days, months, and years of sweat it’s taken to get to this point.”

  “Uh-oh. You’re using my full name,” I note with mock wariness. “You mean business.”

  Victoria narrows her eyes. “You have worked your skinny little tushie off since the day I met you. You have more talent in your thumb than I have in my whole body.”

  I eye her hard. “Okay, that’s not true, miss award-winning costume designer.”

  She breaks her stern character for a second to put a hand to her chest and bat her eyelashes. “Now, now. Tonight is your night to shine the spotlight on sharp writing, witty lyrics, and music that is as viscerally cutting as it is soulful. Not my night to shine with my whimsical-yet-totally-relatable costume design.”

  “You know I love you, right?”

  “My point is that this is not a fluke, or an act of a string-pulling, or an undeserved thing.” Victoria turns away from the mirror and faces me head-on now, pulli
ng my face toward hers. “And when that audience out there hears your music …”

  “And sees your amazing costumes.”

  “And sees it all lit up beautifully and cleverly by your brooding block of meat that is Clayton,” she adds, inspiring a short and teary laugh from me, “they will know that they are seeing real art, and they will be moved.”

  “The day I first saw Clayton is the same day you and I met,” I note, feeling oddly nostalgic.

  “And Eric. And Chloe. What’s your point? Listen.” She leans in closer. “Those people out there in the audience, they are thrilled to see your work. I promise you, they will be talking about your show all the way to dinner, discussing the nuances of your plot and your characters, and humming the tunes over caviar and buttered lobster tails.”

  I bite my lip. “Did you have to say that? I haven’t eaten as much as a block of cheese since noon.”

  Victoria laughs, then picks up a brush and starts to work out the last remaining knots in my annoyingly long hair. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of delicacies and then some to gobble down at the after party.”

  “Can we cancel that?”

  “Oh, and send all eighty of your high-profile guests and their plus-ones off to figure out new plans for tonight? Good idea. They didn’t already reconfigure their schedules to allot for their family seeing the premiere of a brand new dramedy musical about life and death. They didn’t already tell their kids to fuck off and sleep well with the overpriced nanny looking over their big, tall townhouses.”

  I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the perspective.”

  “Hey. People need something to do. Your audience will be packed from one end to the other no matter when you chose to debut. And with the subject matter, I think it’s perfect. Broadway never sleeps anyway.”

  “Broadway never sleeps,” I agree, suddenly thinking about how little I slept last night. I’ve never been this anxious about a show opening. Or maybe late night’s lack of sleep was due to Clayton’s beastly snoring. Seriously, he vibrated the whole bed and stayed pressed up against me the entire night with me trapped in his arms. I couldn’t get away if I tried.

  And under normal circumstances, that’s basically the definition of my happily-ever after: getting the pleasure of being trapped in my man’s muscular, tatted arms every night, safe as an oatmeal raisin cookie on a plate of chocolate chip cookies. (Seriously, who goes for the oatmeal raisin cookies when you have the choice of classic-and-delectable chocolate chip?)

  There is, however, nothing normal about Clayton’s snoring.

  Now, I have no more than an hour—maybe two—of sleep to run on. My show is debuting. Then I have a ritzy, upscale after party to contend with. All of Broadway’s biggest stars, directors, and their spouses (or boy toys) will be there. Why can’t I just have a little intimate gathering with my modest handful of best friends? Give me Sam, Victoria, and my husband Clayton, then cast away the rest of the world.

  Well, I guess we’d need Dmitri in there, since he’s besties with Clayton and is sorta Sam’s love bird and lifetime companion, even if they still boldly reject the institution of marriage outright.

  Oh, and Victoria’s guy Dirk, who is basically a rocker and a sonic poet and will probably propose to her any day now.

  Oh, and Eric, who is tragically dependent on Dmitri’s artistic opinion on everything, even though we constantly tell him how brilliant his script-writing skills are. Also, he always brings a bottle of wine or champagne no matter what the occasion is. (Thank God he gave up his illegal homebrewed cat pee side business.)

  And I guess that means we need to add Bailey to my hypothetical party too, Eric’s boyfriend who finally made the move to New York last year after four years of tortured commuting and long distance Skyping—though he’s also since become surprisingly possessive and never lets Eric do anything on his own anymore, let alone come to the opening of my show.

  And maybe we’ll have to pull Chloe into our gathering too, if it’s one of her weekends where she’s actually here working in New York instead of Los Angeles.

  Yikes. I guess my tiny circle of friends has grown considerably since the Klangburg days.

  But what about Brant and Nell …?

  “Aces Play is going to be here before we know it,” Victoria warns me, stirring me from my thoughts.

  Places is what’s typically called out when it’s time for the actors to get in place for the start of a show. Ever since a few years after college, Victoria and I have taken up to saying it in Pig Latin—acesplay. It’s kind of our thing.

  “I was just thinking about Brant and Nell,” I confess as I resume putting on my makeup. “Clayton hasn’t seen them in a long time. I know they’re busy with all their little ones, but—”

  “Oh, I’m sure you all will crash back together eventually. You can pull the Clayton out of Texas, but you can’t pull the … the Brant out of … the …” Victoria shakes her head. “I couldn’t make the saying work. Ignore me. I’m drunk.”

  “Dang it, Victoria. You weren’t allowed to drink before act two!” I tease, swatting her with my makeup brush. “Now I feel left out!”

  “I’ll get you liquored up for tonight. No worries.”

  I laugh at that, then resume putting on my makeup. My mind goes right back to Clayton and his estranged best friend. Something about it is bothering me. “Do you think—?”

  “What?”

  The last swab of foundation is pressed onto my forehead, then I set the sponge down and stare at my array of rouges and highlights and lowlights as if I don’t recognize them. “Do you think … Clayton resents me?”

  Victoria’s eyes flash in the mirror. “Why the heck would you ask something ridiculous like that?”

  “For taking him away from his best friend,” I clarify. “For making him move all the way up here to New York with me, transplanting his whole life. For …” I sigh, my hand suddenly finding itself on my belly, as if my body has teamed up with my subconscious, directing my mind right to my deepest fear. “For denying him … a family.”

  “Dessie.”

  I keep going. “I think about Brant and Nell and how they have all these children …”

  “Have you met Brant and Nell?” she fires back, quirking an eyebrow. “They’re, like, sex monster one and sex monster two. They’re going to have fifteen children before we get another president.”

  “And then I look at us, and … well, let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger.”

  “Unlike any of the rest of us, you have a career that literally requires your body. You don’t have the same liberties to do as you please like the others have. Clayton is behind you one hundred percent. Think about it. If you two want to start a family, you’ll do it when it’s the right time.”

  I let out a sigh, then choose a lowlight and dab a brush into it. I stare at my face, deciding where to apply it. “What if it’s never right?”

  Victoria shrugs. “Then it’s never right. There are tons of couples out there who don’t have children.”

  “Clayton would make such a great father.”

  “I doubt Dirk and I would ever consider kids, to be honest. He’s got a life on the road with his two-man band. I’ve got my fabrics and questionable design choices.”

  I chuckle dryly at that, shadowing the hollows of my cheeks. “I like your design choices.” I freeze suddenly. “Wait. That’s Sam’s story.”

  “Come again?”

  “Her dad’s a traveling musician. Her mom travels with him. If they had hit the road way back when and never settled to have a kid … Sam wouldn’t exist. Our Sam.”

  “You’re overthinking this. Stop.”

  “What if my selfishness is preventing my own Sam from existing?” I gape and turn to my friend. “I could have a little Sam in this world.”

  Victoria grabs my hands and gives them a gentle shake. “You’re swimming in your own head now, girl. And it’s all because of your show. You’re nervous, but there’s no reason to be, bec
ause they are going to love your show. You’re just channeling your character. Life … Death … a baby …”

  “You think this is just stage fright?”

  “No.” She winks. “You’re just getting into character.”

  After a moment, I let myself smile and try to let in whatever little bit of relief I can. Or maybe it’s more of a letting out that I’m trying to accomplish. I have so many worries playing tennis in my head, but I don’t know which one to track with my eyes and which one to put into words. Should I just let them bounce around until they shrink down to nothing? Should I let them all out on stage in subliminal bursts of emotion?

  Is Clayton truly happy with this life we’ve built here together? Or is there something missing …?

  Chapter 3

  Dmitri

  Brant and Nell arrived at our place half an hour ago, and already Sam and Nell are lost in conversation about some TV show they both watch about unsolved murders, analyzing a recent episode piece by piece, scene by scene, character by mysterious character.

  And I’m trapped in a prison of my own “mysterious” characters. I’m stuck—creatively, literarily, emotionally—and I can’t seem to find a way out. It’s like a maze in my mind that is equal parts bursting inspiration as well as deflating, crippling self-doubt.

  “Dude. You haven’t aged a day.”

  I flinch and turn to Brant, who’s helped himself to a beer from my fridge. “You look like you’ve aged approximately five years,” I shoot right back, feeling sassy.

  Brant finds that way too funny, snorting over the mouth of his beer bottle and cackling with his eyes squeezed shut. For a second, it’s just like the old days when we’d kick back on the couch of our old apartment—Eric or Clayton there with us—and we’re laughing away the hours over bottles or cans of beer and a video game.

  “Careful,” I add with a nod at the bottle. “Drink too many of those, you’ll exchange that six-pack you have for the one in my fridge.”

  “The only ones that matter come in twelve-packs, my friend.” Brant winks, then punches me in the shoulder as he comes to lean on the kitchen counter next to me. “It’s the kids, man. They got me whipped. Ain’t easy raising three girls.”