The Anti-Relationship Year

by Katie Wismer

  “Jo. Jo, you’re scaring me.”

  She sucked in a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, letting her eyes close as the back of her head hit the leather. “I’m fine,” she said. “It just…threw me off, I guess.”

  “Understandably. You’re really okay?”

  She nodded and opened her eyes again, the word okay bouncing around in her head. It felt like the right word. She was okay. Happy? No. But okay? She’d just been given the one opportunity she wanted most. Grey had already taken too many things away from her. She wasn’t going to let him take this way too, no matter his relation to Sandra.

  “You want to stop and get fries on the way back?” Miller offered.

  Jo smiled. There were few problems in this life potatoes couldn’t solve. As she opened her mouth to respond, the car swerved, and the driver on their right blared their horn. Jo jerked to the side, and her shoulder slammed into the door. Miller frantically turned the wheel as the car fishtailed back and forth. Car horns surrounded them as water splashed up from the road, coating the windshield.

  Miller cursed under his breath and yanked the car onto the shoulder of the highway, jostling them violently as the car transitioned onto the dirt. Something thudded against the bottom of the car as Miller turned the hazard lights on and eased the car as far away from the road as he could manage.

  “What’s wrong?” Jo gasped, her heart still stuck somewhere in her throat.

  “I think it’s a flat.”

  Of course. Of course that would happen today. Miller shut off the car, making the wipers freeze halfway across the windshield, and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel.

  “You don’t have a spare, do you?” Jo asked quietly.

  He gave the smallest shake of his head as the noise from the rain pounding on the car’s roof filled the space between them. Cars roared past them on the road, fast enough to shake the car. Jo sucked in a shallow breath, but it did nothing to calm her nerves. She needed air. Jo threw her door open, and the rain immediately assaulted her.

  “Jo, what are you doing?” Miller called. “Get back in the car! It’s not safe!”

  But she’d already slammed the door shut and circled to the back, the rain immediately soaking through her clothes and plastering her hair to her neck. She glanced down the small hill that ended in a patch of trees below them. The ground was slick beneath her feet, the dirt already turning to mud.

  Suddenly, it was all too much. This day, this place, this—everything. She just needed some air. She just needed to breathe, but nothing she inhaled seemed to quite reach her lungs.

  She heard a car door open behind her and realized she’d ventured farther down the shoulder, her shoes brushing the edge of the drop-off, the incline steeper than she’d first realized.

  Miller called out to her, but his words were lost to the rain and speeding cars. Jo ducked away as one hit a nearby puddle and sent the water flying toward her.

  “I just need a minute!” she yelled, her voice immediately swept away by the storm. She wrapped her arms around herself and tilted her head back to feel the rain on her face.

  “It’s not safe out here.” Red reflected off Miller’s face with each flash of the hazard lights as he walked toward her. “I called for a tow.”

  He reached for her, but she took another step back and shook her head.

  “I just need a minute,” she insisted.

  Something like frustration flashed across his face. “Jo, get in the car.”

  He reached for her again, and this time when she went to step away, she felt the mud slip out from under her foot. Her ankle twisted to the side, pitching her body backwards. Her arms flailed around her, and she felt Miller’s hand slide against hers, but still, she fell.

  Her hip connected with the ground first, sending shockwaves of pain through her bones. She rolled, her body picking up speed as she went, and reached out desperately for something to stop herself as mud and water flew up around her. She landed on her back at the bottom of the hill, the breath momentarily knocked clear from her lungs.

  “Jo!”

  She blinked up, vision blurry from the fall or the rain, she wasn’t sure. A tall figure slid down the muddy embankment and landed on his knees beside her.

  A dull ache radiated through her body, numbed by the cold. Miller’s hands found each side of her head. Rain dripped from his face as he leaned forward. “Are you hurt?”

  She turned her head to the side to spit the mud out of her mouth. “Shit,” she groaned.

  “Can you stand?”

  Holding on to his arms, Jo pulled herself into a seated position, then pulled her legs up to stand. The moment she put pressure on her ankle, a new wave of pain tore through her, and she collapsed. Miller caught her before she could fall and murmured something unintelligible before sweeping her into his arms. She hissed in pain and hooked her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his cold, wet skin as he paused and looked up the muddy slope. Headlights continued to flash by as Miller’s hazard lights blinked on, off, on, off, on, off.

  He started up the hill, sliding back in the mud with each step, the rain angled directly into their faces.

  With a grunt, he lunged up the last few feet and crested the hill, landing beside the car on his knees. By the time he managed to wrestle Jo into the SUV’s back seat, they were both soaked, covered in mud, and slightly out of breath. He climbed in after her and shut the door, enclosing them into a muffled sort of quiet. Jo’s ears rang.

  Miller pulled out an old sweatshirt to wipe the mud from his face as best he could, then handed it to her. “Let me see it.” He pulled her leg onto his lap as she dabbed the sleeve against her neck. He glanced toward the trunk. “I think I have a first aid kit in here somewhere.”

  “I think it’s just twisted,” she said, but gritted her teeth as he moved her foot to inspect the damage.

  His hands paused on her calf as he looked up at her, and she braced herself. But instead of the what the hell were you thinking, or I told you so, she was expecting, he said, “Are you all right? Does anything else hurt?”

  Headlights flashed across the car, momentarily illuminating his profile. She shook her head. “I’m fine, Mill,” she said quietly.

  A corner of his lips curved. “Is now a bad time to tell you that you look like hell?”

  She kicked him lightly in the chest with her good foot. “You don’t look much better.”

  He grabbed her good ankle before she could pull her leg back and pulled her toward him. “Don’t think just because you’re injured, I won’t retaliate.” She landed beside him on the center seat, both legs on his lap. He reached forward and took a piece of her blouse with two fingers. The tie had come loose, and there was now a long rip in the neckline. “Sorry about your fancy outfit.”

  She met his gaze, the blue of his eyes stark in contrast to the smear of mud from his temple to the opposite cheekbone. His lips parted, and she felt herself drawing closer without making the conscious choice to. And then there was no distance left between them at all, and he exhaled against her lips as she brought her mouth to his.

  He froze, his entire body going rigid beneath her, and she immediately pulled back. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I—”

  He grabbed her face with both hands and crushed his lips to hers. At first, it was overwhelming. All-consuming. The heat of his skin and his breath. The hurried desperation as they crashed together. She immediately opened her mouth to him, his scent wrapping around her as his hands slid up her back, and she leaned into his chest. She’d been kissed a million times before, but not like this. His mouth devoured hers as if he were starving for her. She fisted her hands in his hair, pulling herself as close to his body as she could manage as his tongue swept into her mouth.

  The car jostled around them as other drivers roared past, and the rain hammered on the roof overhead. But the more she breathed Miller in, the more she tasted him and felt his han
ds explore her skin, the more everything around them dimmed to a low hum.

  His teeth sank into her lower lip with enough intensity to make her gasp, then his lips trailed to her jaw, her neck, his fingers pulling at the tie in her hair until it came free. She drew herself up, pulling one leg over to straddle his lap. She paused, her lips barely an inch from his, and he blinked up at her with hooded eyes, his chest rising and falling with each breath.

  She’d never known him like this, seen him like this. And a part of her felt like maybe she was intruding somewhere she didn’t belong.

  He spoke a single word, the sound barely audible over the rain. A breathy, desperate thing, as he felt her about to pull away.

  “Don’t.”

  She ran the tips of her fingers along his face—his eyebrows, his cheekbones, his lips, laughing softly as she brushed away the leftover mud—a face that had grown nearly as familiar to her as her own these past few years. And the way he was looking at her, the openness in his eyes, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think, except to wonder if he’d looked at her like this all along, and she’d just never noticed.

  “Miller,” she whispered.

  His eyes fell closed. “Don’t.”

  His mouth collided with hers again, and she let herself fall into it. One of his hands cupped the back of her neck, and the other slid around her ribs. Then she was on her back, his weight pressing into her as his mouth glided across her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, her lips.

  She tugged on the back of his shirt, and he pulled back just enough for her to yank it over his head. She gasped as their movements turned into a frantic dance, his hands desperately searching for every inch of her skin as she pulled her blouse over her head. He buried his face in the crook of her neck for a moment as his hand drifted down her arm until he reached her wrist, then slid his fingers through hers. Everywhere he touched, he left her skin on fire and desperate for more.

  “Jo,” he whispered.

  The fire spread, pulsing, aching, until she arched against him like she’d already grown addicted to the feel of his body on hers. She could feel his heart pounding against his chest, his breaths coming in short gasps against her skin.

  She reached for the clasp on his jeans, and he kissed her harder, deeper.

  A knock on the window echoed through the car.

  Jo’s breath caught in her throat as Miller lurched off her and steadied himself against the front seats. Jo’s arms flew up to cover herself as she shielded her eyes from the flashlight pointed directly at them. Miller leaned to the side, blocking Jo from view as a man in a red hat squinted in.

  “Did one of you call for a tow?”

  13

  Freshman Year - December

  Jo vaguely wondered if the sink would break out from under her. Frat bathrooms were never in the best shape, but this one was even rougher than usual. One of the stalls had a door hanging from a single hinge, the walls clearly had water damage, and thank God it was too dark to see the floor clearly. Unfortunately, the guy fingering her clearly had no idea what the fuck he was doing, so she had little else to do than look around.

  “All right,” she finally said, pushed him away by the chest, and readjusted her clothes. The door opened as another couple stumbled inside, and pulsing music from the party poured into the room.

  “What?” The guy stumbled back—Jo had no idea what his name was. He was so drunk that when he reached for the wall, he missed by at least two feet, and stumbled back against the bathroom stalls.

  “I’m going to get another shot!” Jo called and jabbed her thumb toward the door.

  The guy nodded like he wanted to come with her, but she slipped out of the bathroom and plunged into the crowd of sweaty, drunken college students before he could catch up.

  She’d lost the girls she’d come here with tonight—Lacy and Tracy, the twins who ran the photograph club—but she hadn’t found their company particularly enjoyable anyway. The pledge behind the bar grinned at her as she approached. The brothers had him wearing a bikini top and a sombrero, even though Jo was pretty sure the theme for tonight was James Bond.

  “Another shot?” he asked.

  “Tequila!” Jo yelled over the music as she gathered her hair behind her neck and yanked it into a ponytail. A sheen of sweat had broken out across her skin.

  The pledge poured two shots—one for her, and one for himself, apparently. He was cute, she supposed, but the bikini top was hard to look past. He raised the shot glass, clanked it against hers, and she threw it back, not even tasting it. She locked eyes with a guy down the bar, who nodded at her. She quickly turned away and scanned the crowd. No sign of Lacy or Tracy. Maybe they left. And now that the E she’d taken earlier was wearing off, this party was suddenly a lot less fun.

  Hands grabbed her hips and pulled her back against a body. “You wanna dance?” an unfamiliar voice murmured in her ear.

  “Nope.” She shook off the stranger’s hands and pushed back into the crowd, the room a little blurrier than it had been before. Two girls who looked a lot like Addie and Liv were dancing on some guys in the corner, and Jo quickly pivoted away, not wanting to deal with them tonight either. The song shifted as she reached the center of the dance floor, and she froze, the alcohol that had been burning in her chest a moment ago instantly turning to ice.

  She wants to get a taste, oh yeah she wants it, we all know.

  She’s got that pretty face, I shouldn’t go there, no, no, no—

  The room blurred around her, darkening around the edges. She shoved her way through the crowd toward the exit, her heartbeat hammering in her ears.

  Red hair, leather jacket.

  Maybe I should let her have it.

  She sucked in a lungful of air as she plunged out the side door. The night was cold, but every inch of her skin felt like it was on fire. She scowled at the line of people waiting on the driveway—it would take forever to get a DD. The music pulsed out onto the lawn, and she covered her ears, trying to block out the words.

  When that didn’t work, she started walking.

  “Where are you going?” someone yelled after her, but she ignored them and headed across the backyard while simultaneously trying to get her phone out of her bra. She squinted at the screen, trying to force her vision to focus, and jabbed the call button, hoping she’d found the right contact.

  “Hello?” Miller’s voice was rough, like she’d just woken him up. She squinted again at the screen, trying to see the time.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—have called. It’s late.”

  “Jo?” There was rustling in the background. “Where are you?”

  “I’m f-fine. I’m just gonna walk home.”

  “Walk home?” Miller’s voice was clearer now, louder. “Jo, it’s like ten degrees outside. Where are you?”

  “It’s only like a block from the frat houses. I’ll be finnnne.”

  “Jo, that’s like three miles. I’m coming to get you.”

  Jo paused on the sidewalk and glanced both ways. The street was utterly empty, and her vision was too blurry to see the signs. “Which way do I go again?”

  “Jo,” Miller snapped, his voice suddenly hard. “Stop walking. Go inside somewhere. I’m leaving the dorm now.”

  “It’s a little cold out here,” she mumbled.

  “You think?”

  “Miller.” She sighed, paced back over to the grass, and laid down. The entire world wobbled around her, the ground bobbing up and down like she was on a boat. “I’m a liiiiittle drunk.”

  “I can tell.”

  She pushed her bottom lip out. “Are you mad?”

  “No, Jo, I’m not mad.” She heard a car engine roar to life on the other end of the phone. “Are you inside?”

  “I’m in some grass.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “Okay, I’m using Find My Friends. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Can people freeze to death in five minutes?”

  “Not people who go
inside. What are you wearing out there anyway?”

  “Ooooh, what are you wearing?”

  “Jo.”

  She sighed, put the phone on speaker, and tossed it aside so she could run her hands through the grass. It was hard and crunchy, like it had frosted over, and she realized her teeth were chattering. Maybe a tube top hadn’t been the right call. But it had been so hot inside the party.

  “You have a hot over-the-phone voice, Miller,” Jo murmured. “You should be a phone sex operator.”

  He made a choking sound.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed before headlights appeared on her right, and Jo sat up, squinting against them. If it wasn’t Miller, whoever was behind the wheel was probably going to think she was dead lying there. She climbed to her feet, then doubled back for her phone. When she turned around again, the car was stopped in the middle of the street, and the driver’s side door flew open. Miller appeared in pajama pants, bare feet, and a hoodie. He hurried toward the sidewalk, yanking his hoodie off as he went, even though he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Before Jo could react, he tugged the sweatshirt over her head.

  She blinked at him—or the two versions of him—standing in front of her. He had abs? Since when did Miller have abs?

  “Come on.” He led her toward the passenger side, and she immediately moaned as she slid into the seat. The heat was cranked all the way up, and he already had her seat warmer on. She curled into a ball and snuggled into his sweatshirt as he climbed back into the car. Did all boys’ sweatshirts smell this good, or was it just Miller’s?

  He didn’t say anything as he drove them back to campus, and she studied his profile, searching for hints of anger.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “It’s fine, Jo. I’m just glad you’re okay.”