Sunday was a blur. I couldn’t recall what I’d done other than self-flagellation and internal—and external—Patrick bashing. By Monday afternoon, I was eager and anything-but-eager to walk into Psychology.
Getting curious looks from everyone I passed in the hallway, save for one twelve-year-old looking boy with his nose all but glued to his scientific calculator, I zipped my leather motorcycle jacket up, double-checking my fly to make sure that zipper was all the way north as well. Stupid jeans. I don’t know why I’d let Cora talk me into them when I’d begged her last night to help me come up with some way to apologize to Emma.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in public with anything of a denim nature adorning me. This was a first, but I’d become someone else when I’d said what I had to Emma. Someone who said mean things to nice girls. I didn’t deserve anything better than an eternity of jeans—cheap, department store jeans—for what I’d said, so I suppose this was my way of imposing a smidgen of punishment on myself. Instead of a thousand hail Marys, I wore jeans. I could think of few worse self-inflicted punishments.
I knew before I opened the door she wasn’t there yet, the connection I’d forged with her was that strong, but that didn’t stop me from putting on my best game face. Shuffling down the aisle, I ran through my play-by-play of the apology I was about to deliver. Mainly a lot of groveling for forgiveness, putting myself down, promising to never, ever say something so idiotic again, and the rest was a lot of fill-in-the-blanks as I saw fit. I’d rehearsed it all last night, it was ingrained in my head, so why did my palms feel like they were sweating?
I slid into my seat, wiping the fleshy parts of my hands on my jeans since that’s all they were good for. Why was I so nervous? I knew it didn’t have to do with the apology per se. If I had to interrupt Professor I-hate-the-world’s riveting lecture I didn’t care. I didn’t care if the class, or the entire student body caught it on youtube, and I certainly didn’t care if Ty witnessed it. Hopefully he’d take notes.
No, my nervousness had nothing to do with the environment surrounding the apology or the words weaving it together. My knees were bouncing like a methhead’s because of what I had to lose if it wasn’t accepted. I had, for melodrama’s sake, everything to lose.
This wasn’t a hey, sorry I left the toilet seat up for the millionth time apology to one of my sisters-in-law, this was one of those apologies that could upend my world if it went shunned. So, round of applause, I’d identified the source of the nerves.
It didn’t make me feel better.
“Sit down. Shut up,” our esteemed professor called out, our cue to take his daily greeting as a time to do just that. Bitter as he was, and I was quite certain he wouldn’t let me squeak by with anything better than a D just on principle alone, I kinda liked him.
I sensed the door about to swing open in the back, so my eyes were already trained on the spot before a pair met my gaze, narrowing and darkening. Ty slid into the back row, flipping me off.
Taking the moral high ground—eye for an eye style—I flipped it right back.
Emma wasn’t with him, and it wasn’t like her to be late. Women may be a mystery to men, but they weren’t to me, and Emma was one of the easier ones to translate. Except, of course, for the way she felt about me. If she felt anything at all.
Other than annoyance.
She wasn’t with Ty. She wasn’t here on time. Logical string of thought was to conclude she wouldn’t be in class today. Therefore, neither would I.
No offense to Professor Camp, but the only reason I came to class was to see Emma.
I was out of my chair and down the aisle before I could let the responsible fraction of my consciousness surface. And by fraction, I mean next to non-existent. So fractional it was incalculable.
“Stay,” I instructed the mass of meat in the back row in passing, raising a hand. Steam was all but pluming from his nostrils, but I couldn’t miss the cherry on top. “Good boy,” I said as I shuffled through the door, receiving the second hand gesture that would have earned him a night out in the barn had my mother still been around to see it.
I didn’t possess the dignity left to jog towards Emma’s dorm room. I ran. Ran like it was the only prayer I had left of saving my life. Ran like a wanted man. Ran because I wanted a woman and I wanted her bad.
Earning a gaggle more curious looks by the time I reached the dorm’s front door, I made my best effort to look out of breath. After the look the next girl gave me in passing—something that said, you’re certifiable—I’m sure I looked more like a panting monkey. I cut the act altogether, attacking the three flights of stairs with equal fervor.
I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d explain to Emma how I knew what dorm room she lived in, she’d never given it to me, but I knew confessing I’d teleported into each room in the middle of the night until I’d landed inches from her smiling-in-her-sleep face wouldn’t be the top runner. Although honesty was my policy, I didn’t think she was ready for that. I’d have to scrub the truth with a little white lie about someone I’d passed on my way up telling me what room she was in.
Walking down the third floor hall, I was again stupefied as to why I was worrying myself about explaining how I’d known which room she was in. She might not care or even remember she’d never given it to me. She might not even be there.
I ran two once again clammy hands through my hair before rapping on her door, not having to guess which side of the door she’d decorated, even if her name hadn’t been put up in cut out pictures of her making funny faces. The other side was black, cryptic, and I felt like I might get cursed if I touched the welcoming, cheery artwork. Instead of Julia’s name, it said, “Death is the best we can expect from life.”
Somebody forgot to tell Julia that she’s no longer a sixteen-year-old drama queen.
The door swung open, well, it banged open, and the spreader of sunshine and cheer straddled the doorway. Her face didn’t give anything away, and that manic look in her eyes that confused the hell out of me was still there, so I didn’t know if she was going to invite me in for hemlock and frogs’ legs or if she was going to tell me to eff off.
“Go away.” The door slammed in my face.
Okay, that was the eff off expression. I’d have to make note of it for future reference.
A whisper so soft if I was a normal boy I wouldn’t have been able to hear it told me all I needed to know. “Who was it?”
Emma was here. Julia’s instructions be damned, I wasn’t going anywhere when two inches of man-made material separated me from her.
“Like you don’t know,” Julia replied in standard volume.
Emma hissed a shush at her.
“Don’t you shush me,” Julia said, hissing her own. “I’ll shush you right back.”
“Why did you tell him to go away?” Emma whispered, completely unaware I was listening to every word.
“Because he’s so good looking he’s got to be trouble. And trouble is something you don’t need,” Julia replied, lowering her voice a decibel. “And there was this other thing he did, what was it?” I didn’t have to see her to know her face was screwed together in a searching expression. “Ah, that’s it,” she said, snapping her fingers. “He said something that made you cry. That’s a death sentence where I come from.”
I didn’t want to know where someone like Julia came from, but a few possibilities jumped to mind, the least bothersome of them being the land of brimstone and Beelzebub.
Emma stayed silent for a second, long enough for Julia to get another word in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you had a thing for assholes. I’ll just invite him in and inform him it’s open season on your heart.” Julia’s boot clomping feet came at the door, but a scuffle ensued before the door opened.
“Wait a minute,” Emma whisper-laughed at Julia. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Do you have a piece of gum or something?”
“Get your nasty breath out of my face,” Julia said, as things toppled and turned over inside the room like an earthquake was taking place. “Here, take this before you decimate our room,”—I was listening so intently I heard every note of the piece of gum sliding from its container—“although I’m now questioning just exactly what kind of tongue thrashing you had in mind for our man behind door number one. Because the kind he deserves doesn’t involve gum, frantic hair brushing, or deodorant.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Jules,” Emma whispered. “Grab the door and stall a minute. I’ve got to put a bra on.”
My brain heard everything she said, but my body only heard the word bra. When the door opened for the second time, I was blushing like a girl.
Julia slid the door open a crack, blocking the space with her black and violet clothing wrapped form that managed to be rather imposing for someone as tall as what I’d been when I was eight.
“Hey,” I offered lamely, my vocal chords playing the puberty trick on me. All thanks to the bra word floating around in my subconscious.
“You hurt my Emma,” Julia greeted, folding her arms one over the other.
“I know.” My voice was back to its manly self.
“Do it again, and I’ll rip each and every appendage from its socket. Starting with your dick.” It wasn’t an empty threat—this was the full meal deal.
Clasping my hands in front of me, down in front of me, I cleared my throat. “It won’t happen again.”
“Of course it won’t,” Julia said, casting a look behind the door. “They’ll promise anything if you threaten their manhood. That’s all they care about.”
“I promised that because I care about Emma.” It slipped out before I recalled the girl in question was hiding behind the door working her way into a . . .
Dammit. Red face alert. Again.
Of course the door thought this would be the ideal time to open all the way, revealing the lovely, bra-ified Emma.
“Hey,” she said, a small smile capping her greeting.
“Hey,” I answered back all witty-like.
I felt Julia’s eyes rolling in a big way. Before I could mess this up with any more comments of the “witty” variety, I unzipped my jacket, revealing the t-shirt underneath.
Emma gave me a look, waiting for me to say something, but that took away the whole point of the t-shirt. Taking an exaggerated look at my chest, I knew she’d taken the hint when she choked on a laugh.
“’I’m an idiot,’” she read, making a concerted effort to keep a flat expression.
“Obviously,” Julia mumbled.
Keeping my lips zipped, I raised my index finger, hoping the peanut gallery would repress further comments until my message had been delivered in its entirety.
“Although idiot’s a bit of an understatement,” Julia continued, establishing that, like her roommate, neither of them did what I hoped they would.
Sliding out of my leather jacket, I spun around and shoved my hands in my pockets to flatten out the second half of my message.
“’Forgive me,’” Emma finished, although I’d posed it as a question, not as a demand. Actually, if you read between the lines, I was more like begging than asking.
“Nice view,” Julia said. “And I dig the t-shirt, too. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that’s your slogan.”
“Jules,” Emma said, her tone of reprimand quite possibly the least reprimanding I’d heard. Pulling me into the room and closing the door, she said, “You’re forgiven. And you’re not an idiot.”
My jaw was hanging open, I knew this, but what other response could a man give when a woman forgave him after the first attempt?
“One more thing,” I said through the awe. I gathered her hands in mine, not caring that the man-eater in black was a witness to my male vulnerability. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry,” I said. “More sorry than anyone in the history of screw-ups. And I promise I’ll do everything in my power to never hurt you again.”
Emma appraised me and, from the look of her face, my apology plan had worked. “I like that,” she said. “When Ty does something stupid—”
“Hourly.” Julia continued to add her one word interludes.
Ignoring glum motif girl, Emma continued, “He always promises to never do it again. But how can you promise with absolute certainty something like that?”
It didn’t look like she expected an answer, but I gave her one. “You can’t.”
“Exactly,” she said at the floor. “Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.”
“I won’t,” I vowed. Now that was a promise I could keep.
Something of a moment was being shared between Emma and me, I knew it from the way the world around us blurred and slowed just enough to make me take note. The slamming of a coffin-shaped clothes chest made sure to cut us off.
Glancing over at Julia, I made an effort not to glare.
“So the flowers are impressive, I’ll give you that,” Julia began, stalling her nail-polish chipping to take a quick inventory of the room that had been transformed into a greenhouse thanks to the no-limit account I’d opened at the local florist. “Acknowledging his wrongness—has to be a first in man history,” she continued, peeking up at Emma to make sure she was paying attention. “And he apologizes. Which may be only the second time in man history.” As she peeled off a chunk of witchy purple polish, I waited for her to exaggerate.
Most people, after noting a laundry list of personality traits, drew a conclusion. Julia wasn’t most people.
Breaking the bloated silence, I said, “When was the first time?” I didn’t know how else to reply, and I was intrigued.
Shrugging, she said, “The time I kicked my ex in the balls for cheating on me. I threatened if he didn’t apologize, I’d strap on my steel toes and have another go at them.”
That would have been funny if I didn’t have balls and knew what it felt like to be kicked in them. I withheld the wince at the memory.
“Weren’t you just heading to the library to study, Jules?” Emma broke in, subtle hinting obviously not one of her strengths.
Ceasing the nail polish massacre, Julia grabbed a ruck sack in her very favorite color and shouldered it. “If by the ‘library,’ you mean the graveyard,” she said, plugging ear buds into place, “then yes, I’m going to the library.”
In any other company, I would have laughed, but with the steel-toe-ball-kicking image fresh in my mind, I vowed to never piss Julia off in person. “You study at a graveyard?” I asked, genuinely curious because I’d seen a lot of things in my days, but this was a first.
“It’s quiet,” she answered simply, pulling a hoodie that was five times too big over her head.
There were about a dozen follow up questions to this, but I knew I didn’t want to unravel the reasoning of a madwoman. Julia studied at the graveyard. Good enough for me—case closed.
“Oh, real quick,” Julia said suddenly, snapping her fingers. “Could you turn around for a moment? While you’re still feeling generous?”
Going with my two prior mental notes regarding Julia, I did as commanded, not having a clue as to why. “This what you had in mind?” I asked, spreading my hands to the side like I was about to be frisked. For all Hades knew, I could have been.
“Damn,” Julia said finally, sounding like she’d just run a few miles. “You should wear jeans of the butt hugging variety more often.” I’d never enjoyed being objectified less. “I feel a bout of inspiration. Should make for some particularly dark poetry.”
“Dark poetry and a graveyard?” Emma said, clucking her tongue. “Jules, you’re too predictable.”
I caught Julia flick a wink back at Emma right before she grabbed a handful of my right buttock. “Bon Appetit.”
Julia’s goodbyes were just as warm and conventional as her greetings. The door slammed shut—one befuddling woman down, one more to go.
“Sorry about that. She can be a little rough around the edges, but she’s got a heart the size of Africa,” Emma said, tucking a leg underneath her as she plopped down on her bed.
“Sandpaper’s rough around the edges. That girl’s a frickin’ Sherman tank plowing you over. And then she puts it in reverse just to make sure she got you good and flat,” I said, looking for a place to sit. I wanted to sit next to her on the bed, but knew this would make her uncomfortable, and I most definitely did not what to sit on whatever voodoo witch magic was infecting Julia’s bed, so I did what I rarely do and took the middle ground.
I hooked the computer chair with my leg and scooted it towards Emma. “You weren’t in class today,” I stated, the fact that she was wearing a pair of boxers that were made for someone twice her size, coupled with a Stanford Football sweatshirt, hitting me. It was a mix of emotions, seeing what she wore to bed at night, but realizing these were Ty’s.
“You noticed,” she said, fidgeting with the hem of the tent sized sweatshirt.
“It’s my job to notice,” I said. Her eyes flashed to mine, something unreadable in them. “As your Love Project partner, that is.”
The warmth flooded over the unreadable in her eyes. Crash landing averted. “Thanks for checking on me. I just wasn’t feeling well enough to go to class today.”
“And you’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t skip a class even if she woke up and discovered her arms had been sewn to the carpet,” I said, scooting a couple inches closer because I couldn’t help it. I was magnetic and she was metal, or maybe she was the magnet and I was metal. Whatever I was, I was drawn to her on a subconscious level. “So I’m not buying you woke up this morning and had a scratchy throat so you decided to skip a Monday’s worth of classes. Spill your guts.”
“Not feeling well doesn’t only relate to the physical you know,” she said, grabbing her pillow and folding it into her stomach.
I was thrown by her sudden flash of vulnerability. Emma showed the least vulnerability of anyone, man or woman, I’d ever known. So of course that meant she was likely the most vulnerable.
“Don’t I know it,” I said, following her lead down vulnerability lane. “I’m so mental I was the test subject for half the psychology books on the market. My ‘sick days’ are what my brothers like to call mental health days.” Actually, they called every day a mental health day when it came to my life, but I didn’t feel the need to elaborate on that.
She threw me a sympathetic smile, but even that was rimmed in sadness. There was a story, a long, detailed one, behind why the never-seen-a-B-on-a-report-card girl was hiding in her dorm room on a glorious California fall day. However, I was smart enough to know if she wasn’t going to elaborate, I wasn’t going to push it.
“Thanks for everything,” she said finally. “The flowers, the shirt, the apology. You’re kind of special, you know that?” she said, unable to meet my eyes.
“Special ed, right?” I said, beating her to the punch.
“No,” she said, “special, special.” She continued, clarifying everything, “you have a gift for drawing people to you—it’s like everyone you pass has to look.”
“It’s my mad fashion sense,” I said, never one for deflecting a compliment, but the sincerity of Emma’s words and the tilt of her brow as she struggled to get it out had me squirming in my chair.
“I can see that,” she said, staring at my present attire. “But I think I understand it now. Why people are drawn to you without even knowing why.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“It’s because you’re this giant, warm fuzzy,” she said, grinning at my expression of disbelief. “It’s impossible to not feel better when you’re around. Positively hopeless. I mean, I was feeling crappy. Like, crappy day of the decade award glum. And then in you stroll, smiling that one you’re sending my way now”—she thrust her hands at me in accusation—“and you’re acting all sympathetic, and understanding, and apologetic, and, well . . . perfect.”
“I’m not perfect,” I emphasized, raising my hand. “A far cry from it, in fact. A perfect guy wouldn’t have made you cry.”
“I made myself cry,” she replied. “You didn’t say anything that was untrue or overly harsh. I cried because I made myself cry.”
I couldn’t take the martyr thing any longer. I’d never been a fan of the whole taking-the-weight-of-the-world on my shoulders thing.
“You cried because I acted like a dickhead. I wish I could say that my actions and words Saturday night were selfless, only brought to the surface because I had your best interests in mind, but that would be a lie,” I began, wondering why, after a lifetime of striving to tell the truth, it was so darn hard right now. “When I lost it on Ty, and then lost it on you, I was focusing on my anger, my frustration, what I wanted. I wanted to believe I was doing what I was to help you, but I was only helping myself. And when he put his hands on you and threw you down, I saw red. I wanted to kill him right there, and I could have,” I continued, despite her eyes widening with each sentence. “But you know what was the number one reason I wanted to cease his existence?”
I didn’t expect her to answer, but she did. “Because you thought he hurt me?” Her voice sounded small, fragile. Like I could break it if I touched it with my pinky.
“No,” I admitted, shame slumping my head down. “If I was this special, perfect guy, that’s what it would have been. That’s what it should have been, but at the forefront of my mind, my primary justification for wanting to kill him was because I didn’t have a rat’s right to order him to never put his hands on you in that way again. That right belongs to a boyfriend, or a brother, or something else that I’m not.”
I didn’t want to look up. I was sure I’d perform hari kari on myself with the scissors sitting on her desk if I found her looking down on me with pity, or disappointment, or disgust. Although I knew I deserved it all. “So that’s why I lost it. There’s the boiled down truth. I saw the red door and wanted to paint it black because I had no rights to demand you be treated with respect, no rights to protect you.”
Her hand found mine, weaving its fingers through mine. Warmth flooded me, the kind that made it impossible to remember what cold felt like. “You’re my friend, Patrick,” she said, squeezing my hand. “That gives you every right.”
This whole conversation was beautiful, as intimate as I’d ever had with a woman, and, despite her assurances threatening to make a joke of my real-men-don’t-cry policy, I realized I’d skirted the real issue by not admitting that I didn’t only want the right to stand up for her, I wanted all of her.
These were two somewhat similar and very different things.
“I’ll remember that the next time Ty tries to throw you on your derriere again,” I said, reverting to lightheartedness when I felt anything but. “Wait, what am I talking about? There better not ever be a next time,” I growled, trying to block the image of Emma falling shock faced to the ground.
“There won’t be,” she whispered to herself.
“Wait,” I said, too good at interpreting the unsaid for my proverbial blood pressure’s sake. “He hasn’t done this before has he? Pushed you around?” I didn’t want to ask it because I knew if she confirmed he had, I’d be facing murder charges in about half an hour, but that was a secondary concern.
When she didn’t give me an immediate answer, I tilted her chin up with my hand until she was forced to look at me. “Emma?”
“No, never,” she answered. Her eyes didn’t dart to the side, she didn’t bite her lip, she didn’t run her fingers through her hair; nothing said she wasn’t telling the truth, and I would know. Being a strength instructor the better part of forever, I’d taught “Truth Detection and Lie Evasion” only about one thousand times to about ten thousand students. It was ingrained. “He was just so drunk Saturday night, drunker than I’ve ever seen him. He wasn’t acting like himself.”
“All due respect, Em,” I said, moving my hand from her chin because it was what I was supposed to do, not what I wanted to do. “But in my experience, alcohol doesn’t create a monster out of nothing. It only lets it off the chain.”
She sighed, folding herself around the pillow deeper. “Listen, could we not talk about Ty anymore? And by anymore, I mean never again. He’s my boyfriend and you’re my friend, but the two of you can’t tolerate each other, even in conversation, so I’m officially invoking my right to not discuss either of you in the other’s company because I refuse to forfeit either of you.”
The cell phone on her nightstand vibrated, earning a nervous glance from her before she turned it off without sparing a closer look at the caller ID. Chances are she already knew who it was and chances were the same I did too, but only seconds following her Ty-talk-off-limits ultimatum, I wasn’t going to say anything. “I want to keep you both,” she finished, a corner of her mouth lifting like she was guilty for wanting this.
I was nothing short of elated that she wanted to keep me in any way, so I tried not to agonize over her wanting to keep Ty too. A loser like that would dig his own grave eventually—he didn’t need any help from me. And from the look of his girlfriend’s face, he was one misstep away from hanging himself. And guess where I’d be? Right here, waiting for her. For as long as it took because, as hard as Emma tried to front that she didn’t feel it, the link tying us together was as undeniable as it was inescapable.
That might have been a cocky thing to assume, that this supreme specimen of a woman who was “officially” off the market had a gravitational pull towards me, but I knew few things better than women, and moments like this, when her eyes flitted away from me as quickly as they flickered to me, like she didn’t know where to look without giving herself away, told me what I needed to know.
Friends didn’t have a problem looking into each other’s eyes.
“Em, I’m yours to keep. I’m not going anywhere,” I said, contemplating rolling the last few inches to her bed. “So this is the last I’ll say about your soon-to-be ex,”—her eyes did a half roll—“I was in the wrong Saturday night, but so was he. One of the gazillion lessons my mother pounded into my brain was that it’s never okay to lay your hands on a woman in an angry way, so I’ll do my darndest not to badmouth him in front of you anymore, but fair warning that I won’t be able to control myself if he lays his hands on you again. I don’t care if it’s a rumor I hear in passing, I’ll throttle him.” I was giving the fanatic a little too much leash, so I reined him in, softening my threat with a smile. “Those are my terms. If those are acceptable, please make your mark here,” I said, tapping my cheek while flashing her a wicked grin. “With your lips.”
“My lips are off duty,” she said, wielding her pillow as a weapon. “This will just have to do.” The pillow grazed my face like she could hurt me with a feather stuffed rectangle of fabric. She could have cold-cocked me over the head with a duffel bag full of bricks and I wouldn’t have been phased.
“Did you just throw the opening swing in what is surely to become a world war of pillow fights?” I challenged, playfully grinding my fist into my other hand. “I’m not the kind of man to retreat from an attack, you know.” Shoving the chair back towards the desk, I grabbed the black satin pillow off Julia’s bed.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” Emma warned, pushing back into the corner of her bed.
“Nothing can save you now,” I said, wielding the pillow like it was Excalibur. “Any last words?” I asked, already mid-swing.
“Yeah,” she said as I suddenly found myself half-spread over her bed with her straddling me in the most chaste way I’d ever been straddled. Emma was wicked fast. And strong. “You shouldn’t mess with girls who grew up with four older brothers who served wet willies for breakfast.” Her brows popped twice as she grazed me again over the face with her pillow. I didn’t even make an attempt to stop her. Immortal instincts aside, I don’t think I could have.
Having her hovering above me, smiling the one only Emma could, pinned to the bed by her knees, the scent of her sheets—and these were only a few of the sensations that were intoxicating me—I laid beneath her like an old man on his death bed, happy to go out with his boots on.
But as soon as Emma moved to position herself off of me, my state of frozen drunkenness evaporated. Before she could right herself, I had her pinned back to the bed, although I took the chaste high road and only trapped her with my hands over her shoulders, despite my chest aching to pin her a few other ways too. She looked as surprised as I had moments ago, but managed to laugh through it, rolling side to side, trying to free herself.
“And you shouldn’t mess with the boy who weighed twenty pounds less than his three brothers who liked to use whatever limb they could to take out their internalized jealousy at me for being the good looking one in the family,” I said as sternly as a man could as he was being prodded in the sides. My laughter mixed with hers, until I was certain nothing could ruin this moment.
That was, until a thunderous rapping sounded at the door. “Emma!” an equally loud voice shouted through it. “Let me in! If that little girl who’s got a hard on for you is in there, he’s going to catch a beating.”
Emma went stone stiff, her face blanching. I wasn’t sure what she was so terrified of, but it seemed her boyfriend almost catching her playing around with her, eh-hmm, friend didn’t warrant a quarter of the emotion flashing over her face.
“What do you want me to do?” I whispered, hoping she’d tell me to open the door, deck the loser in his face, and then get back to what we were doing.
“Just pretend we’re not here,” she whispered back, her eyes darting back at the door.
“Emma, dammit. Open the door. I know you’re in there.” Ty was in the boiling over stage—I didn’t need to see his red face to ascertain this. The door took another beating as he attacked it with both fists. “You’ve got ten seconds to open this door or else I’m taking it down.”
“Like hell he is,” I said, shoving to a stand, my fists balled as I headed towards the door, ready to show this redneck how to show a woman some respect.
“No,” Emma hissed, grabbing me by the hand and whipping me around. “Please, you promised you’d behave.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on unclenching my jaw. “I promised I’d try to behave myself. This”—I tilted my head back at the door where Ty continued his assault on it—“is making good behavior impossible.”
Making another attempt at the door, she stalled me again, coming into the area that was all personal space. Her warmth crept across the sheet of air separating us, making its way against my skin. Looking up at me, she rested a trembling hand on my cheek.
“Be the man I know you are,” she whispered, her eyes begging me to find whatever restraint she was sure I had, although I was anything but. Restraint wouldn’t be something I’d say I had in vast amounts, or any amounts for that matter.
Feeling like it was going against every natural fiber in my body, I sighed. “Does that window open?” I glanced at the window above the desk.
She nodded her head, giving me a look like she couldn’t understand what that had to do with anything.
Rushing in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go, I lifted the lock and whooshed the window open.
“We’re three floors up!” Emma whisper shouted. “Don’t you dare.”
Crouching over her desk, I sent a playful smile her way before launching myself out the window.
At least most of the way. My fingers still curled over the sill, not able to resist the expression on her face when she rushed to the window. Raw terror was probably the best way to describe the flattened planes of her face.
“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” she gasped, glancing from the hard ground below us back to me.
Managing to shrug in my hanging position, I answered her, “Being the man you believe I am.”
Shaking her head, a tiny smile formed. “Of course. You’ve finally become him two seconds before you break your neck.”
“Three floors? I got this,” I assured her, the entire world gone again when she looked at me the way she was now. “I’ve leapt out of many a maiden’s chambers floors higher I’ll have you know.”
She shook her head like she couldn’t believe I was making jokes at a time like this. “I do have to say, if it wasn’t for the extenuating circumstances,” she said, her head tilting back at the door, “I’d probably find this whole hanging out of my window, making sweet little looks at me thing rather romantic.” She ran her fingers over mine. “It’s got Shakespeare written all over it.” Taking another look at the ground, she cast an anxious look my way. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? That’s a long ways down.”
“I promise.”
She gave me a look I didn’t need clarified.
“That’s a promise I can keep,” I said, answering her silent question. “See you in class Wednesday?”
She nodded, looking like she wanted to say something more, but she leaned back, already resolved to moving on from us to soothe Ty’s delicate sensibilities.
“Hey, Em,” I called out right before dropping. “He hurts you, I’ll kill him. Maybe those should be the first words out of your mouth when you open what’s left of your door.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she said, looking away before I jumped. Like she couldn’t stand by helpless while I fell.
I got it, though. I’d never been one to be able to stand by and watch someone else crash to the ground without a net in place.