by Caisey Quinn
We trade under the table kicks and above the table flirty jabs for the next hour while I study. A few times I go to the tables where the tutors are and get help with a few Calc problems. Each time I can feel Skylar’s appreciate eyes on my body. At one point I catch him watching me chewing on my pencil as if I’m purposely seducing him with my nerdy habits.
I ask him for change for the vending machines so I can grab a soda because I need the caffeine boost. With the change comes a slip of paper I recognize as the ticket from dinner. The ticket with the waitress’s phone number on it. So he did take it then.
I avert my eyes quickly before any emotion registers on my face.
I’m not hurt by that. I offered to get him her number myself.
It’s fine. I don’t care.
Keep going, Connelly. Maybe you’ll convince yourself.
Skylar leaves the ticket out and I know he’s testing me. Trying to determine whether or not I give a shit.
I don’t.
Except I kind of do. But I shouldn’t and I know I shouldn’t.
When the tension thickens between us to a point where I can barely sit still, I stand and make my way to the reference stacks in the back of the room.
“Corin,” he says evenly from behind me once I’ve reached a dead end between rows. “Stop, please. I want to talk. Actually talk.”
I turn around and smirk at him. “Funny, I don’t think you’ve stopped talking since we got here.”
He shakes his head and folds his muscular arms across his broad chest. “No. I want to cut the bullshit for one night. You’re agitated and I don’t think it’s about Calculus. Tell me what’s bothering you. Say something real, dammit.”
“Something real, dammit,” I repeat.
His eyes are bright, emergency flares in the darkness aimed at me with a ferocious intensity that presses me further against the wall. His arms uncross and he places his palms on the wall on both sides of my head. He’s caging me in and demanding answers I can’t give him.
“No more games, Corin. Not tonight.”
Realizing I’ve been holding my breath, I exhale and then inhale deeply, causing my chest to graze lightly against his. My nipples practically high-five his. God, he smells so good. I would drink whatever body wash he uses with a straw.
Fine. He wants a real answer. I give him the best one I can manage while drowning in the warm clean scent of him.
“What do you want me to say, Skylar? That I’m attracted to you? That I want you? That every time you open your mouth I wish it was on me? I’m not going to say any of that. Because you already fucking know it.” My teeth are clenched in frustration but voice is so breathy that it’s embarrassing.
“That’s a start. Either you’re in to me or you aren’t, Corin. If you aren’t, say the word and I’ll leave you be. But I’m done playing this mind-fucking game with you.”
“I’m…I’m…”
“You’re what? A virgin? Saving yourself? What?”
I shake my head. He wouldn’t understand. You don’t tell a guy you have a minor flirtation with that you had a miscarriage after your piece of shit boyfriend “accidentally” knocked you down a flight of stairs in your shitty apartment. Or that you ran away at fifteen to escape a mother who treated the living room like a brothel only to end up exactly like her. You sure as hell don’t tell him how the guy who knocked you up pimped you out to his friends for money or that being pregnant at eighteen made you feel like you might actually have one good thing in your life. But you lost that too so you ended up here trying desperately to create some semblance of a future for yourself. No, no way in hell.
“I’m celibate,” is all I give him because it’s all I have to give. “For personal reasons that are none of your business.”
He scoffs, and I’m overcome by the urge to slap his handsome face.
“Don’t scoff at me, Skylar. I’ve had sex. I know what it’s all about. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just not going to do it again until I decide to.”
His brows thread inward. “And what do you think will make you decide to? Tequila?”
Bastard. My hands thrust out and shove against his hard chest. “Move, asshole. Better yet, go to hell.”
“Not until you tell me why—why you’re celibate and why you look at me like you want to eat me alive only to dip out immediately after any conversation or moment that ventures beyond surface level.”
I bite my lip hard because I did not know he’d caught those looks. Or my tendency to duck and hide to avoid intimacy. Turns out you’re not as smooth as you thought, Connelly. He’s been paying closer attention than I realized. But I’m still not ready to cut myself open and let all the ugly fall out.
“I’m not like Layla, Skylar. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, a lifetime’s worth already, ones I’m trying very hard not to repeat. I don’t want to get sidetracked by sex-that’s not what I’m here for.”
“What are you here for, Corin? I’m not trying to be a dick. I genuinely want to know. I feel like we talk around everything but never actually about anything.”
I tilt my chin up because everyone else who knows me would laugh if they knew why I was really here. “I want to go to law school—and before you burst out laughing—yes, I’m serious. I want to be a child advocate. It’s a job I heard of where you’re like a legal voice for kids who need someone to make sure they end up somewhere good and safe. Not all of us had that growing up. So I’m sorry if your precious male pride is wounded because my legs didn’t fall open the second you indicated that you were interested. If that’s what you’re looking for, look elsewhere.”
He gapes at me and I do an internal fist pump at leaving his arrogant ass speechless for once. Taking advantage of his moment of stunned weakness, I move past him but somehow his hand shoots out and catches me. Strong warm fingers encircle my upper arm, gripping tightly enough to dent my flesh but not enough to hurt.
“Corin. Stop. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
My skin tingles to the point of searing where his fingers are. I glance down and stare at our joined flesh.
“You listening, sweetheart?”
Swallowing hard, I nod.
“I am not every other guy you’ve been with. Yes, I am attracted to you. Yes, I would like to fuck your sweet body into submission because you are always fighting me and what you feel for me. But rest assured, I do not put this much effort into anything or anyone that I don’t care about. I like you. I want to continue getting to know you. And maybe I’ve done a shit job of showing it with the innuendos and teasing, but I respect the hell out of you.”
His words have a direct line to whatever body part controls my heart rate. I make a mental note to ask in anatomy class.
“You do?”
He smirks as if I’m ridiculous not to realize this and releases my arm. I breathe a little easier though I kind of miss the contact.
“Of course I do. You’re smart, and funny, and beautiful. You’re a loyal friend to your roommate from what I’ve seen and even though I’ve never heard of what you want to be when you grow up, I know it’s a hell of a lot nobler than my career choice. So yes, baby. I respect you very much. I just wish you weren’t so closed off sometimes.”
I’m closed off because you wouldn’t respect me if you really knew me.
The words “I would like to fuck your sweet body into submission” just keep circling my brain on a constant loop. How easy it would be to let him. To give up control and just let go and let him give me what we both know I need. But I know how that vicious cycle plays out. Soon I’d be using sex to validate our relationship and then I’d be using it to gage my own self-worth.
I will not be that girl again, not even for this beautiful man who swears he respects me.
“I’ll work on that,” I finally say, easing the tension just a fraction. “I’ll try to at least.”
His eyes cloud over, his gaze growing darker by the minute.
“Do you want me to leave
you alone, Corin? Because I’m tough enough to take it if that’s what you want.”
I can’t help but think of the accident, the way he had Landen’s back without hesitation, and how much fun we had later that night, just hanging out. As much as I’ve prided myself on not needing anyone, on not needing a man in my life period, and is certifiably crazy as this particular man makes me, the thought of him leaving me alone as he put it is painful.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t want that. I just want…”
What the fuck do I want?
Apparently Skylar wants to know the same thing.
“Well…what the hell do you want?”
My mouth tugs upward at our similar line of thinking. I keep picturing Ryan Gosling screaming a similar question at Rachel McAdams.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes briefly. “I want…I want to know where we stand at all times. I need boundaries. I want to know that you aren’t going to hook up with the next thing that walks by just because I’m not giving it up. I want us to draw a line, I guess.”
“A line?” He arches a brow and folds his arms over his chest. “What kind of line?”
“A friendship line,” I say, formulating my theory as I’m speaking it. “I want us to be friends who are getting to know each other like you said. And I want to keep it at that until we reach a mutual decision about whether or not we want to be more. And until we decide about being more, I’m not going to be ready for any type of sexual relationship. Do you think you can handle that?”
It’s a lot to ask of a red-blooded American nineteen year-old male. I know this. I just need a little more effort. And some patience.
Skylar strokes his chin thoughtfully. He’s making me sweat—dragging it out the same way I’ve done to him. I examine my Lincoln Park After Dark manicure as if I couldn’t care less what his answer is.
But I care, God do I care. And he apparently has more patience than I do.
“For God sake’s Martin, say something.”
His lips twitch. “I’m thinking it over. For the most part it’s a reasonable enough offer, but my dick thinks you’re a mean, mean, girl.”
My eyebrows lift and I flash him an amused smile. “Well my body thinks you’re overestimating your ability to fuck it into submission.”
I win. Skylar looks like I just hit him with a flying throat punch.
Tension ripples his angular jaw line and I have the strangest urge to lick it. Damn hormones. They are not cooperating at all.
“Corin…I’m going to back down on the inappropriate comments the best that I can.” He leans into my space but I refuse to budge. I remain statue still as he moves my hair off my left shoulder. “But trust me when I tell you, I could do things to your body that you don’t even have names for. And I feel it, the way you tremble when I touch you unexpectedly, the way you clench your delectable thighs together when I say those dirty things in your ear. So please, inform any parts of your anatomy that doubt me that I will be proving them all kinds of wrong as soon as you give me permission to do so.”
His erotic promise lingers in the air between us. It wraps around me like a boa constrictor, starting at my throat and squeezing hardest low in my stomach.
“So the line,” I choke out.
“Yes, Red. You can have your line.” He winks, gracing me with a wicked grin. “For now.”
We walk slowly back to the table to gather our things. “Sky?”
He turns around and waits for me at the door. “Yeah?”
“Don’t call the waitress.”
He grins, tossing the crumpled ticket in the trashcan on the way out. “I was never going to, sweetheart.”
She’s afraid of sex.
I don’t know why exactly, but worrying about has kept me up half the night.
Someone had to have done something to make her afraid of it. Apparently I care about her even more than I realize because the caveman urge to find whoever hurt her and break his goddamn neck is overwhelming.
Jesus. I’ve been hanging around O’Brien too long.
But for all her smart-mouthed strength and determination, the look she gets every time we move past her imaginary fucking friendship line is laced with desire and unadulterated fear. And I’m not a particularly scary guy.
Girls usually look at me like a prime cut of beef that’s fallen from the sky after they’ve been starved on an island adhering to a strictly vegan diet. I’m used to flashing eyes, sultry stares, and tongues rolling over lips before teeth sink into them.
Corin gives me a tiny hint of that, quick flickers of want that are almost immediately replaced with a wide-eyed fear that’s so uncharacteristic of her that it makes my chest ache. She stands up to O’Brien like it’s nothing. I’ve heard her make multiple threats involving his balls. And dude is not one hundred percent stable. But I mention tasting her sweet lips—yes, both sets, because honestly, I want to taste them both pretty badly—and she looks like I’ve threatened to throw her in a pit of vipers.
My ego has developed a slight complex from the constant rebuffing. My dick is not even on speaking terms with me at the moment. Strangely, it’s not either of them currently making my decisions for a change. I’m actually thinking with the right head for once. Girls like Corin Connelly do not come along every day. She’s strong and confident, witty, and frankly, more fun to be around than well…anyone. But Christ Almighty I just want to understand what her damn deal is.
I’m contemplating the dynamic of our relationship—mostly the way that we seem to disagree on pretty much everything—when the idea begins to form in my head.
Sometimes Corin and I listen to each other, and on a few rare occasions we’ve even compromised, accepting each others opposing viewpoints as not complete nonsense. But there’s one thing, one solid thing between us that we consistently disagree on.
Our roommates.
I’ve seen O’Brien’s rage and I’ve seen him up close on the soccer field. Dude is as intense at they come. None of that is shit compared to the way he feels about Layla Flaherty. So my position on them is that they’re in it for the long haul. Ten, twenty, hell, fifty years from now, they will be attached at the hip replacements.
But Corin disagrees. Corin thinks they’re too young to have met the one and that when we graduate they’ll part ways. We discuss it over lunch in the Student Union between classes.
“It’s a phase, Skylar. We all go through it,” she tells me while dipping her fries into mustard, because of course she can’t just eat ketchup like a normal person. “Layla’s just temporarily in love with the bad boy. But it’s not a forever thing. His anger and his inability to control it will end them eventually.”
She reiterated that when that happened, she’d be there for Layla. And since I’ve been deemed O’Brien’s best, well, technically, only friend, she told me I’d have to be there for him. But she’s wrong. Little miss sophisticated seen-it-all New Yorker doesn’t seem to know jack when it comes to relationships.
I can see how it looks that way, like Landen and Layla are burning so hot they’re bound to burn out, but I also know how I felt about my first car. It was a vintage Aston Martin, something I bought myself for cheap and fixed up. She’d been nearly totaled and was minus an engine but I named her Marty and I straight up loved that thing. Deep, intense, all-consuming love. I washed and waxed her regularly with my own two hands. No one and I mean NO ONE touched her. I was very particular about who got to actually ride in her. I even turned down pussy on occasion to be with her.
I was going to be buried in that car.
So I know about love, and I know that the way I felt when my parents traded Marty for a top of the line Audi without telling me. I was fucking livid. I wouldn’t touch that damn Audi, and call me spoiled, I didn’t talked to my parents for a month—not that they necessarily noticed. Marty was mine. Marty mattered to me. I paid for her with money I’d made working summers at the country club and I kept up the insurance and maintenance my damn self. They had no rig
ht and frankly, I’m still pissed that they didn’t get that I’d rather have something of mine that I worked for than something they decided to bestow upon me.
Assholes.
But I remember the way I felt about Marty, the way I looked forward to seeing her, the way I made sure she didn’t get dinged or scratched or dented by some careless dickhead not paying attention. I would’ve put that car in fucking bubble wrap if I could have. And still, all that, and it’s nothing compared to O’Brien and the twisted way his heart has melded itself to Layla’s.
He will never let her go. That’s what Corin doesn’t see. That he is in this for life and judging from the way Layla shattered in his arms the night he wrecked his truck, the feeling is mutual.
I want to know what makes Corin so damn jaded and cynical. Mostly I want to know what makes her immune to my charms, the ones that have worked impeccably for me all these years and seem to have very little affect on her. So the next night after our enlightening lunchtime conversation, I’m laying it my bed in the middle of the night when the idea comes to me.
She’ll never compromise on her stance on Landen and Layla, never admit that they’re it for each other. It’s going to take a good night’s sleep for me to work out the logistics, but the basic plan is already forming.
If I can get her to bet me that they’ll do anything for each other, I will win. And when I’m proven right, she’ll have to take me to the one place where she can’t hide whatever it is she’s hiding.
Here I come New York.
Since we came to our little agreement, Skylar and I have been spending a lot of time together. Either at the library during his study hours or at Jax’s place playing video games. We even took a semi-date-like trip to the movies and the nearby mall.
