One week into fall semester at one of the top-rated universities in the nation and I had to admit, father had been right. I capitol L-oved Stanford. It was right up my alley, I guess you could say. A gorgeous campus graced by the California sun everyday, decorated with girls that genetics had looked favorably on, and professors that didn’t take roll call. If ever there was a Utopia on this spherical mass, I’d found it. I’d even added a new piece to my real estate collection, so if I wasn’t enjoying the California girls—that were, by the way, everything they were cracked up to be—I was enjoying the view of the Pacific from my swanky as hell, four thousand square foot bachelor pad.

     College life was the good life.

     Another added bonus to paradise found, Bryn wasn’t at the forefront of my mind and on the tip of my tongue. Whether it was my new surroundings, or the sunshine, or the reinstitution of regular hygiene, I didn’t care because that heart ripped out of my chest feeling was beginning to dull. I could breathe, hypothetically, for the first time in weeks.

     Hello, hello, my non-stop internal monologue interrupted as my baby blues detected the blur of a herd of scantily—more like barely—clad legs passing by. Incoming.

     “Looking good, ladies, looking good,” I said, tilting my aviators down so there’d be no mistake who I was looking at. The leggiest of the leggy, the blonde one that had more than likely driven more than her fair share of men to insanity, noted my unblinking stare and smiled one of my favorite kinds, the anything but innocent one. God I loved that smile. “Keep up the good work. And when you decide that school is for fools, come find me. I’ll be here all year.”

     Blondie tossed a wink my way and the look in those lidded eyes told me the bait I’d tossed out had caught the exact fish I wanted in record time. They didn’t call me the hook, line, and sinker man for no reason.

     As I watched goldilocks and her co-eds hip-sway away, a shadow eclipsed my face. A clearing of the throat followed.

     If I didn’t have justification to be irritated because I’d been interrupted in the middle of my hate to watch you go but love to watch you leave personal experience, I had absolute reason to be ticked my mid-day rays were being temporarily cut off. This is primo California sunshine you can’t put a price on.

     “You know, I’ve passed you at least a dozen times this week, and if it wasn’t for your incessant cat calls that are about as creative as a paint by numbers, I’d have thought you were a statue,” the dark form casting a shadow on my morning said. Female voice, but that was about all I could identify. The way she was directly in front of the sun made her appear as a black paper cutout. “You haven’t moved from this patch of grass once.”

     “Observant,” I muttered under my breath.

 She continued, either not hearing or not caring I was trying to give her the brush off. “Just in case you missed the bulletin, this is a university. A pretty good one actually. Complete with classes, credits, and co-eds.”

     “The co-eds I have most definitely noticed,” I said, shielding my hand over my eyes, trying to get a better look at the blacked-out woman in front of me.

     “Good for you,” she replied, clapping her hands in a patronizing way. “Your parents must be so proud. You know, if you were going to do nothing but play hooky the four years of your one time chance at a college career, why didn’t you go to some state school or, better yet, a community college, and save yourself some money?”

     Given this girl was a stranger and didn’t have a clue about what I’d been through and that I’d all but been forced to attend here because my certifiable genius brothers attended, it seemed she was being a little harsh.

 “Let me save you the suspense, sugar,” I said, slipping my glasses back into place in hopes I’d be able to make out this fiery female wielding insult to add to my injury.

    “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that are the college sort and those that are not. I’d fill you in on where I fit in to those two categories, but given you’ve seen me a dozen times sun tanning during prime class time, I’m guessing you already know.”

     Her head bobbed side to side, causing the sun to shoot like lasers into my eyes with every bob. “And let me save you the suspense,” she repeated. “You’ll never know unless you try.”

     Few things catch me off guard, but I have to admit that kind of did. “You are so very wise, grasshopper,” I said, lowering my voice and making a face. “Any other proverbs for me today?”

     She laughed. It was a small one, barely two notes, but it was there. “Yeah, here’s one,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “Get your suntanned butt to class.”

     And then she was gone, twisting away and cutting into the rest of the college sorts intent upon their next class where their minds would be filled with useless junk and impossible dreams. I didn’t catch a very good look at her, other than average height, average build, and having an impenetrable wall up to my charm, but I didn’t need to see more.

     From that alone, I already knew she wasn’t my type.

 

Another full day passed in exactly the same way, lounging in the grass, only diverting my attention from the sun to admire the stream of sorority sisters swaying by. Although, come the same time every day, the female droves thinned out to alarmingly low level. Darn those early afternoon classes, preferred by ten out of ten college students near and far.

     I felt like I was betraying my rebel stance, but a man’s got to take matters into his own hands at times in life. If the eye candy wouldn’t come to me, I’d have to go to it.

I popped up, shuffling through my backpack that had served as nothing more than an outdoor pillow during my tour of college life. I knew I’d stuffed that course schedule somewhere in one of these pockets.

     Fingers scurrying over the bottom, I felt a wadded up piece of paper and pulled it out. Just the way I’d left it. Smoothing it open, I searched over the classes. Whoever had selected my classes for me thought I was a genius or was messing with me. Since I was all but certain Joseph had taken on Patrick Does Stanford enrollment duties, I had my answer.

     There it was, my early afternoon class, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Intro to Psychology, complete with a hand penned note from the little brother peanut gallery: Appropriate for a head case like you. Enjoy!

     I growled, contemplating teleporting my California suntanned self back to Montana to unleash a nasty noogie on the wiseass. See if he was still laughing then.

“Excuse me,” someone apologized, dodging me where I straddled the sidewalk contemplating. A girl with legs that could turn a man cross-eyed if he stared too long jogged by, tripping my thoughts of revenge. Payback could wait, those legs couldn’t.

     Like a magnet, I was pulled after her, not sure if I was heading anywhere close to the right direction the building Intro to Psych, AKA Intro to Pseudo-Science, was held, but I didn’t care.

     I had to lengthen my stride to keep up with her, holding myself back from breaking into a gallop after her. I wasn’t used to chasing after a woman, literally or figuratively, and if I was going to break tradition, I wanted to do it right.

     She shoved through the door leading into a brick building, and it was all I could do to hang onto whatever dignity I still had and not break into a run after her. I flung the same door open she’d gone through, not even ten seconds behind her, and scanned up and down the halls, keeping my gaze low because I couldn’t tell you the shade of her hair, but I could draw an exact likeness of those legs.

     Nothing, nowhere, and nada. Disappearing as instantly as she’d appeared. Who knows? Maybe I’d made the whole thing up in my deranged, sick, screw-loose mind. I was positively mental.

     Intro to Psych, here I come.

     “Hey, man.” I grabbed the shirt sleeve of the closest passerby. “Can you point me in the direction of . . .”—I flashed my schedule in front of him, pointing at the location because it was three seconds faster than saying the dastardly long name—“the place where they teach you about the id and the ego, killing your mother and macking on your father thing.”

     The boy who looked like he’d graduated primary school a year and a half ago looked at me like I was a whack-job. Intuition was right on par. The kid was going to make it far.

     “You’re here,” he answered, steering away from me like crazy was contagious.

     “Ah, groovy,” I said. “Any idea where Room”—I glanced down at my schedule—“120 is?”

     “Down that way,” the retreating boy said, pointing down the hall to the right. “Last room on the left.”

     “Thanks, man,” I said, taking a breath of resolution. Time to go get responsible and learn-ed. “Hey,” I hollered after the boy. He turned, half of his face formed into a wince. “You haven’t seen a hot little minx running through here with killer legs, would you?”

     The boy took a circumnavigation of the student filled hall. Shrugging, he said, “Take your pick.”

     I could have gone into an argument that all female legs are not created equal, but I remembered what it had been like to be a twenty year old boy, an actual twenty year old boy, and women’s legs were women’s legs. As holy and sought after as the fountain of youth. “Thanks again,” I said, loping down the hall and doing my best to extinguish the woman and her legs from my mind.

     Other fish in the sea, other fish in the sea, I repeated to myself as I journeyed to the end of the hall. I glided into the auditorium style classroom, and I must have been early because it was only about half way full. My brothers would be so proud. The last time I’d been on time for class had been my first day of grammar school.

     My eyes floated through the chairs, row for row, until I made it to the front. No targets of particular interest, so this whole going to class thing was an utter waste. Oh well, I was here now, and I was always willing to try anything once.

     I prowled down the stairs, my eyes doing the same, figuring I might as well do the first college class thing all the way. I walked down the front row, taking a seat dead center. Sliding my backpack from my shoulder, I glanced down the row on either side of me. Laptops at the ready, fingers cocked over the keys, eyes forward, backs straight. They looked like German Shepherds ready to pounce on the first word out of the professor’s mouth.

Overachiever was the first word that came to mind.

     I didn’t have a laptop, nor did I have a notebook to take notes in. Not that I needed either. I had a memory like a trap. Literally. Whatever went in that I made a conscious effort to retain, stayed right there. So you’d think school would come easy for me, right? It could have if I could have kept my mind focused on school. Instead I found myself focusing on the perks of school. Namely, the women. I had the Immortal equivalent of ADD.

     “I don’t know whether to be flattered you listened to me or insulted it took you so long,” someone said as they slid into the seat next to me.

     My eyes were already angled down, so when those legs of divine origin settled into place beside me, I almost gave my arm a pinch to make sure I was awake. I was staring, I knew, and I also knew after a few seconds had ticked off without a reply or a turning of my stare somewhere else, the owner of those legs knew what I was doing. But this wasn’t one of those times where I cared about being gentlemen-like.

     “Hello, hello,” I said, twisting my smile into just the right place I’d found drove women nuts. Not too high, one side pulled up more than the other, and topped off with a sideways glance with an unmistakable glint in the eyes. Drove them wild.

     “Looking good, lady?” she said, pulling the words from my mouth and not in a particularly amused tone. “Yeah, I caught that the first million times you hollered it out on the quad.”

     The wince that pulled my face together was as painful as a palm slap to the forehead would have been. “Blacked out by the sun girl calling me out yesterday?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I squinted my eyes open to look into her face for the first time.

     When I saw it, I don’t know what had taken me so long to get there. Her legs had nothing on that face. A face that wasn’t perfect, but a face that was compelling—compelling in a way that drew me in and kept me there.

     She smiled, not demurely or coyly, a real one. An honest-to-goodness, genuine smile, the rare kind humanity had somewhere along the butt-kissing, brown-nosing, sucking-up way forgotten how to form. “That’s me,” she said, twisting a little towards me. “But my friends call me Emma.” Her smile peaked higher as she extended her hand towards me.

     I didn’t know why the burst of perspiration had surfaced, but I made sure to wipe my palm on my slacks before sliding my hand around hers. My hand wrapped around the entirety of hers, and that feeling that runs all the way down to your toes and turns your stomach to mush hit me hard. So hard, it knocked my purchase of the English language off the tip of my tongue.

     “And you must be suntanned, cat-calling, god’s gift to not only the world, but the entire universe, boy who likes to play hooky,” she said, filling in the conversation since I’d been rendered speechless. First time in a long time that had happened, but I was almost as talkative as I was charming, so it came back to me quickly.

     Nodding, I met her eyes. “But my friends call me Patrick,” I said, clearing my throat, hoping I didn’t sound like a guy that had just been kicked in the crotch.

     “You look like a Patrick,” she said, shuffling a notebook from her backpack that had either been run over by a steam roller several hundred times or was as old as I was.

     “Thanks. I think,” I said, not sure if the reason I wouldn’t look away from her green colored eyes was because I couldn’t or didn’t want to. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday for verbally humiliating me in public, but thank you. I’ve never been the kind of guy that gets the message unless someone takes me by the proverbial head and smashes it through a brick wall.”

     “Yeah, about that . . .”—she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear—“I’m really sorry. I was having a bad day and used you as my personal frustration outlet. I’ve never even talked to my obnoxious brothers like that, let alone a total stranger.”

     I felt my smile dropping. The only reason she’d sat next to me was so she could apologize.

     “If I offered a heartfelt apology, would you accept it?” she asked, dead serious, like she’d been agonizing over the stranger she’d given a hard time to yesterday and wouldn’t rest until she’d extended an apology. Incredible. I’d managed to irritate the Mother Teresa of college girls. I had a gift.

     “I don’t know about that,” I said, rubbing my chin, noting the perfect amount of stubble I had on display. “It was a grievous offense that has permanently scarred me. I think I can one day forgive you, but I’m afraid I’ll never be able to forget.”

     Her expression fell flat and color actually drained from her face. She swallowed. “I am so, so—”

     I would normally ride this kind of reaction to its end, but I couldn’t with her for some reason. Something about knowing she was tortured, mild as it was, went against everything I’d ever known before. “Emma,” I said, gripping her arm, looking for any reason to touch her again. “I’m giving you a hard time. No worries, you’re forgiven.”

     Her expression said phew before she forced her forehead to line. “So you not only delight in skipping classes that, if you were to calculate based on the exorbitant annual tuition we pay in exchange for a piece of paper at four years end, cost nearly two hundred dollars per class,”—the number didn’t hit me like it hit her. I had a dresser drawer full of boxer briefs that cost that much apiece and they were far sexier and more practical than a college education. Obviously—“you also have a sick addiction to driving the dagger of guilt deeper in a girl’s back when she feels absolutely awful already?”

     “Wow,” I said, keeping my hand planted over her arm. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with it, although I was as uncomfortable as I’d been in awhile.

     This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the guy that went all googly-eyes over a girl. I’d always thought head over heels was for chumps, but here I was . . . the newest member of the chump club. “Either you’re a psychic or my reputation precedes me.”

     She laughed again, pulling the pencil holding her hair into a bun free. An avalanche of more brown than red auburn hair tumbled midway down her back. As she wrote down the date on the right margin of her notebook, I noticed that, other than me, she was the only student who didn’t have a shiny new laptop. Old school—I liked it.

     “But since you already have me pegged, you better be careful. Daddy will take away your black credit card and enroll you in an all girls’ school if you fraternize with bad influences like me,” I said, nudging my shoulder into hers, purposefully jolting her arm and, along with it, her pencil.

     She shot me the sweetest scowl I’d ever seen as she scribbled her eraser over the pencil mark streaking across the page.

     “Emma’s dad bailed on them when she was five,” a male voice that was three shades of pissed announced, taking the seat on the other side of her. I didn’t know his name, didn’t care if he’d won a Nobel Prize, didn’t care if he was going to find a cure for cancer. I didn’t like him. “I’ve filled the role of douchebag and jackass detection for the past six years. Along with her four brothers.” I knew he was eyeing me with that male testosterone kind of intensity, but I wasn’t interested in him and his bloated ego. This room wasn’t large enough to hold two male egos the size of ours. “Her four older brothers who could squash a little pissant like you with their thumbs.”

     Okay, frat boy on a head trip was starting to irritate me. Especially since Emma had pulled her arm away from my hand the moment he’d arrived like I was electrocuting her.

     “That’s beautiful,” I said, looking at him for the first time. Looked just like he sounded. A bulky meathead with a buzz cut and a cleft chin who thought fitted tees and loose-fit jeans were the height of fashion. “Shakespeare, is it?”

     “Excuse me?” he sneered, his face wrinkling.

     “You’re excused.” I waved my hand in the direction of the door, looking back at Emma.

     But she wasn’t the same Emma I’d met two minutes ago. The smile had vanished from her face, her eyes were forward, the irises bouncing from side to side, and she was so tense I could have broken her if I grazed her with my hand.

     “Is this your personal body guard or something?” I asked her, trying to lighten the mood because that’s one of the few things I did best.

     When she stiffened further, her eyes growing wider, I knew I’d only done the opposite of lightening.

     “Try her boyfriend, metro,” he said, and while I guessed he meant the name-calling to be an insult, I took it as a compliment coming from someone like him. Whatever he was, I wanted to be the opposite. “Also known as Ty Steel. Ask around. You don’t want to mess with me.”

     I gave him a salute and would have given him much more had the professor not decided to get class rolling. “Eager young minds, time to end your captivating conversations and open your gray matter to something even more captivating,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Pavlov’s Law.”

     There was a communal groan, giving me my window. “Boyfriend?” I whispered over at her, scanning Ty head to toe as he logged onto his laptop. “Desperate much?”

     She choked back the snicker surfacing, covering her mouth with both hands. I swear I would have cut off my right arm to watch her eclipse from the dark to light in the frame of a few seconds, but her face gained all its former composure back when Ty glanced over at her. This guy had territorial boyfriend written all over his unibrow topped forehead.

     The moment the professor started going off, something about a bell and dogs salivating, she began scribbling down notes furiously. Like she was writing down every last word of his bore-fest. She was a lefty, and I took full advantage of her recessive gene trait.

     I folded my arms over my desk area, scooting them over far enough so her elbow was continually rubbing against mine as she continued on her note taking warpath. I’d never enjoyed being elbowed by someone more.

     “Do you mind, lefty?” I whispered, grinning at her from the side when Ty was distracted by his malfunctioning computer. He looked like a caveman trying to beat it into submission. I didn’t care if he caught me conversing with his girlfriend, but it obviously made her uncomfortable. “I’d appreciate it if you’d respect my personal bubble and keep your elbows to yourself”—one of the biggest lies I’d told to date—“I’m not that kind of guy.”

     Her eyes rolled to the sky and, taking a sideways glance at the caveman beating his laptop and scratching his head, scribbled something down in the margin of her notebook. Moving her arm aside, I read, That’s not what I hear. Every word was underlined.

     So Emma had a sense of humor. I felt the smitten setting in so deep it would take some serious digging to weed it out. So I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. Flirting was like white blood cells—I couldn’t survive without it.

     Since I didn’t have a notebook to scroll flirty little notes in, I leaned in closer, having to restrain myself from brushing the hair covering her ear to the side. “Would you like to find out for yourself?” I whispered in my lady killer voice.

     Before I could gauge her response, a crumpled piece of paper hit me dead in the nose, bouncing onto my desktop. I didn’t need twenty guesses to know who it’d come from. I flicked it off my desk, plastering on my most unimpressed face. If the best effort Ty could muster up was rebounding paper off my face, he was a more immature boy than I’d taken him for.

     Another forty-five minutes, or hour, or something must have passed because before I’d nearly gotten enough of watching Emma absorbed in her note-taking, the professor was excusing us. Unlike everyone else, I wasn’t in a hurry to get up and out the door.

     It felt like Emma was stalling as she concentrated on putting her notebook away and twisting her pencil back in her hair. I was definitely stalling, and Ty was glowering.

     “I’m on the volleyball team and we’re playing a big game tonight,” Emma announced suddenly, looking at me. “You should come. I’m sure you’re the kind of guy that loves a girls’ volleyball game.”

     I grinned, not able to keep it in check or adjust it. She was going out of her way to invite me to something with her boyfriend sitting a seat away.

     “Emma,” Ty hissed his warning, throwing me a look of challenge.

     Too bad the boy didn’t know I never backed down from a challenge. “Now that sounds like my kind of Friday night. What time?”

     “Seven,” she answered, crossing her arms nonchalantly when Ty reached out for her elbow. The movement inched her sleeves up, revealing a smattering of bruises on one of her arms.

     “Whoa there, killer,” I said, letting out a low whistle. “You moonlight as a mixed martial arts fighter or something?” I trailed my fingers over her forearm, ignoring the further clenching of Ty’s jaw.

     Tugging at her sleeves, she pulled them back into place and laughed a few notes. “Volleyball isn’t exactly a sissy sport,” she said, shouldering her bag. “It keeps me freshly bruised the majority of the year. I look like a purple spotted Dalmatian whenever I go to the beach.”

     A flash of heat ran through me when my mind went there. “Now that’s a sight I wouldn’t mind beholding.”

     “All right, if you’re done shamelessly hitting on my girlfriend, I’ve got to get Emma to her next class,” Ty said, pulling on her elbow.

     “I wasn’t, but I guess I’ll be able to pick up where I left off tonight,” I replied, grinning like the smitten fool I’d become as I watched Emma and her soon to be ex climbing the stairs out of the auditorium.