CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
focused on the wine-colored carpet to keep my eyes from tearing up. The bouquet of white roses was fragrant and heavy in my hands and I turned to study the petals as the pastor began talking.
"No matter what family, friends, or life has planned for you, there is nothing like letting love make the decision. It just feels right," he said. "Sure, some people call it spur of the moment and some people say that only fools rush in, but when I see two people as in love as you are, I know there is no room for doubt."
I heard my mother sniffle and I finally looked up. She was stunning in the white satin dress we had found in a small boutique inside the Venetian. My father wore a dove gray suit and a smile so bright he looked like a new man.
"Of course, a few decades of successful marriage and grown children also help to remove doubt," the pastor said. My parents laughed.
Owen laughed too. He stood next to my father as his best man. As my parents began to renew their vows, he winked at me and my heart soared.
Earlier, my father had joked that Owen was funding their second Vegas wedding. It had been two years since my father won a cool three thousand dollars betting on Owen in the Dark Flag tournament. Since then, "bet on family" had become our family motto.
We threw rice as my parents walked arm and arm down the aisle. They disappeared to have their photographs taken outside. I moved to follow, but Owen grabbed my arm.
"I know you have this whole big backyard white wedding plan," Owen said, "and I love it, but we could always just get married now. I mean, you haven't even set a date yet. The way you've been working, I'm going to have to marry you on the side of the road or in the back of an ambulance."
"March," I said. "Just after your birthday. How does that sound?"
Owen kissed me, and I could feel his warm smile against my lips.
"Where are our witnesses?" my father called. He smiled broadly as we jumped apart. "Come on, now, you aren't thinking about following in our footsteps, are you? I thought you were much more independent than that."
"Oh, she is, believe me," Owen said.
We joined my parents outside. Traffic driving by honked congratulations as my parents posed under the sign. Finally, we raised plastic champagne flutes in a toast.
"To family – those lost, found, and forgiven," my father said.
"And to a happy future, together," I said, finally feeling whole and happy in the hot Vegas sunshine.
Slammed Box Set
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Claire Adams
SLAMMED #1
CHAPTER ONE
“Evie, I swear to God, you never have any fun.” I rolled my eyes at Jess as she watched me getting dressed from the door of my room. “You could at least pretend like you’re looking forward to this party instead of dragging your feet and picking out the ugliest thing in your closet.”
I looked down at the jumper and tee shirt I had picked out and made a face in the mirror, turning to look at Jess. “What’s wrong with this?” Jess looked me over from head to toe.
“Nothing, if you want everyone to think you’re a nun.”
I sighed. Glancing at my reflection, I could kind of see her point.
“Well, it’s not even like I wanted to go to the party in the first place,” I said, hearing the whining note in my own voice and not caring. “The only reason I am going is because you want to go and you’re smart enough not to go by yourself.”
Jess shook her head, sighing in exasperation.
“You’ve been here almost half a semester and you haven’t been to a single party! Come on, Evelyn, even bookworms like you deserve some fun every now and then.”
I cringed, giving Jess an unhappy look for the ‘bookworm’ remark. It wasn’t that I loved studying more than I liked socializing; I was paying my own way through college, cobbling together academic scholarships, and applying for all the grant money I could get my hands on. All of that money would disappear in a heartbeat if I didn’t pay attention to my grades. On top of that, working out my own way through college made it important to me to not have to repeat any classes; those extra courses would come straight out of my own savings.
Jess smiled playfully at me, coming into the room and opening up my closet door. “Evie, you know you are capable of being drop dead gorgeous. I can’t be seen with some frumpy librarian!” I shook my head as Jess pulled out the skimpiest skirt I owned—it barely covered my ass—and a low-cut top to go with it.
When I had been a senior in high school, my spot at the college a sure thing, I had sort of dipped my toe into going to parties; I’d gone to a few, when I didn’t have to work at the movie theater and my friends and I had a good enough time, but it always seemed like everyone just got bombed out of their minds and passed out or threw up. I had seen enough people staggering into the dining hall on weekend mornings since I’d started at college to know that campus parties weren’t that different.
But I had agreed to go with Jess, and I told myself as I slithered into the skirt and top that I was going to make the best of it. I’d have a couple of drinks—not enough to get blasted, but enough to enjoy myself—and keep an eye out for Jess. At least it would be a break from constant studying or binge-watching TV shows on my computer.
The party that Jess was taking me to was at a frat house; the Phi Alpha Kappa fraternity had a bad reputation on campus, going by the nickname “bad boy frat.” I knew from what I’d heard that they had nearly gotten their credentials taken away several times in the last ten years, mostly for their over-the-top pranks and the intensity of their parties—and the property damage that came along with them. If I was going to go to my first party as a college student, it was both a good introduction and a scary prospect.
Jess left me to finish getting ready herself and I pulled my long, dark brown hair back and braided it to keep it out of my face. I put on some makeup and stepped into a pair of pumps, making a face at my feet. They’d be killing me by the end of the night, but Jess couldn’t possibly have anything bad to say about them—they were certainly sexy. I grabbed my purse and looked around for my keys.
“Evie, aren’t you ready yet?” Jess called from the common area of our dorm room.
I sighed and spotted a pair of ballet flats I’d thrown across my floor when I came in arguing with Jess about whether or not I would go with her to the party. I slipped the shoes into my big purse, grabbed my keys, and took a deep breath. I told myself that the night couldn’t possibly be as bad as I was thinking it would be. It would just be a few drinks, and a few laughs, and then I would be back in my room. How bad could it possibly be?
We walked across campus to where the party was going on; Jess told me she’d slipped a pair of flats into her own purse as well—and as a ‘just in case,’ she had a spare dress stuffed into her bag. “I am well-versed in avoiding a real walk of shame,” she said to me with a grin. “Change into another dress and a pair of flats and no one really knows you spent the night somewhere.”
I had to admit that she wasn’t entirely wrong; however, people would still see you leaving the frat house the next day. I pointed that out to her.
“Well, you kinda lie low until you get to a more common part of campus and then you walk tall. People think you’re coming from the library or one of the labs.”
She shrugged. “You’re putting way too much thought into something that shouldn’t be that common a situation,” I told Jess with a grin.
“Yeah, well, some of us go to parties more often than once a semester.”
I rolled my eyes. “Some of us are serious about getting a good job after graduation.”
Jess twisted her face into a wry grin. “Evie, you need to lighten up a bit! Jeez, you could still make A’s without using your weekends to study, too. These are supposed to be the best years of your life, and what are you doing with them?”
I shrugged. “Learning. Putting them to good use so that when I’m 50 I’m not still scraping by on the same job I got when I was 30.”
Jess shrugged. “All work and no play makes Evelyn a dull girl. I know you have it in you!”
We got to the enormous building that served as the frat house, and before we’d even gotten to the door, I could already hear the pounding bass of the music. The front lawn was empty of all but a few people, but I knew from what I’d heard that the back yard, with its swimming pool, would be thronged—as would the frat house itself. Jess didn’t bother knocking—it was too loud to hear it anyway. She just opened the door and I caught a whiff of beer, pot, sweat, and a little vomit; the tell-tale signs of a raging party.
There was a guy in a toga hanging out by the door, and he grinned at us as soon as we walked in. “Hey, welcome to Phi Alpha Kappa! You Greek?”
“Nah, we’re just here to use you for free alcohol,” Jess said with a grin. The guy shrugged.
“Hey, no problem there. As a token of our hospitality, allow me to offer you beautiful ladies some initial refreshments.”
The guy produced two red Solo cups of beer and held them out to us. I had never been a big fan of beer—and the kind of beer that showed up at parties like this was even worse than my dad’s treasured Sam Adams. I started to say I’d rather not.
“Evie, take the cup!” Jess grabbed the other one, shooting me a grin. “Come on, you’re here to have fun. Lighten up, will you?”
Jess grabbed the other cup, put it in my hand, and pulled me away from the doorway. I sipped at the beer and made a face as I swallowed. It was watery and bitter—no good flavor at all. Jess took a long drink of her own cup and I wondered how she could gulp down such swill. Maybe if I was lucky the liquor would still be out; I could handle some punch or some vodka and soda.
We turned a corner and all at once I spotted him. He was leaning against a wall, a couple of girls around him, looking just as hot as I could have ever remembered. Zack was tall and lean, not skinny, and he had plenty of muscle to show for years of playing football and training. He was wearing a toga, like all of the members of the frat, but draped around his waist and shoulders the sheet didn’t look ridiculous—it looked, inexplicably, incredibly hot. For a moment I was frozen in my tracks; it had been over a year since I had even seen Zack, and even though I had known he’d gone to the same college, I didn’t really think I’d ever see him. With thousands of students, what were the odds?
I couldn’t help but stare—I knew it was stupid and I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help the rush of feelings that just seeing him gave me. Zack and I had dated in high school; he had been a junior when I was a freshman and my mom had started getting sick about the time that he and I began seeing each other. We were together for two years, until the beginning of my junior year—when Zack had graduated and was planning on going off to college. It had taken me a year and a half to get over him; I mean, it was a good experience all told, and I knew I was stronger for having gotten over it at my own speed, but the sight of him, out of the blue, brought me back to all the feelings I’d had for him. He was my first.
“Hey, Evie, you okay?” Jess’s voice snapped me out of my trance and I smiled, taking a deep breath and looking away from Zack.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Go on and find whoever you were looking to hook up with. I’ll just hang out.”
Jess looked at me for a second longer like she might not quite believe me, but Jess has never been the kind to worry for too long; she downed the rest of her beer and started off through the crowds, looking around her and greeting everyone she ran into that she might actually know.
I tried to move away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was to see Zack again. I sort of stuck around in the middle of the room, not exactly looking at him, but pretending to be part of the group around me, like I was listening to whatever story the guy in the middle of the group was telling; but the whole time I was thinking about how things had been with Zack: how much I had loved him, and how important he’d been to me when my mom had first gotten sick. He had been a really great guy—funny, charming, smart. I couldn’t pretend like we’d had some deep relationship that was more mature than our years, but he’d been around for me when I was more stressed out than I had thought I could ever be in my life. He had hung out with me in the middle of the night, sneaking into my room while my parents slept to comfort me.
In retrospect, he hadn’t been the greatest guy in the world, but I knew well enough by then that no guy really was. He’d been immature and had broken things off with me mostly because he had wanted to be free to date whoever he wanted in college—right when things with my mom were starting to get worse. I couldn’t hold it against him specifically for that reason; it wasn’t his fault that my mom’s cancer treatment was starting to become a steep, uphill climb instead of the easy walk through the woods they had told us it would be. I’d gone out on dates and had a few short relationships after Zack had gone off to college, and I had gotten over him. But part of me had always wondered how different it would be if he had at least given us a chance when he started college.
Of course, I thought to myself wryly, I now knew well enough that even if Zack hadn’t been the partying type, college was a lot more demanding than high school. He would have had a lot less time for me, and the college wasn’t exactly close to our home town. He would have only been able to see me, at most, a couple of times a month and during breaks. Would that have been enough for me, anyway? Would I have just broken up with him eventually as my life became more and more dominated with the need to study to make good grades and spend every moment I could with my mom? It still stung. It had been hard to get over him.
I decided that I wouldn’t even say hello. I wasn’t angry or anything; I just told myself I didn’t need that kind of awkwardness on the one night I’d given myself to have fun. I’d check out what was going on around the frat house, maybe find some people worth talking to, and I’d catch up with Jess later when it was time to go. It didn’t exactly bother me that Zack was there—he clearly belonged to the frat and it wasn’t as though he needed my permission to be at a party I was attending. He had probably gone to Phi Alpha Kappa’s events since he had first started; he had joined up, and he’d be at almost any of the parties the frat threw. I just didn’t particularly want to be seen staring at him, and I knew that if I stuck around I’d do just that.
I glanced in Zack’s direction one last time, telling myself that I was just making sure of where he was so I could avoid him. But luck was not on my side; he happened to look at me the very instant I looked at him. My face burned and I knew I was blushing bright red under my makeup—obviously embarrassed. I took a deep breath, plastered a quick smile on my face. Zack’s eyes widened and I fought back the urge to run away as he said something to the girls who were gathered around him and then moved away from the wall.
He cut through the crowd, dodging the lurching, drunken people and then, as the crowd began to clear, I swear he strutted—there was a definite swagger in his steps—as he came towards me, the last few feet from where he had been standing. “Evie!” he said, smiling down at me. His teeth flashed white in the weirdly dim light of the frat house, and I returned his smile nervously.
“Hey, Zack,” I said, not trusting myself to say anything more. I realized I was staring like an idiot and shook my head. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Zack laughed, pulling me aside to a slightly quieter part of the main room.
“I definitely didn’t expect to see you either—I didn’t even know you were going here.” His dark eyes glinted and he grinned again. “You looked like you’ve seen one of the professors downing a shot just now!”
I laughed, feeling the tension in my stomach starting to ease.
“That would really be something,” I agreed.
Zack reached out and pushed a strand of my hair out of my face and I wondered just how messy it was—if I looked like a total wreck in spite of Jess’s approval when we left the dorms.
“Oh, well, you know, Carmine comes by sometimes and gets into the whiskey, so maybe you’ll see that sight sometime.”
Professor Carmine, one of the math professors, was almost a joke among the students; he had made at least one final in the last year a take-home test at the last moment because he had shown up for the exam with only twenty minutes left, hung over from a night of partying. More than one of the students in my classes had stories about running into Carmine at one bar or another in the area; he lived right across the street from the college, and there were plenty of places to drink within relatively easy walking distance of the campus.
“So—uh, what have you been up to?” I still felt weirdly nervous around Zack, in spite of the fact that I didn’t have any real reason to be. Our relationship had ended over a year before, and I’d moved on. Clearly, Zack had too. What was there for me to feel weird about?
“Oh, well, I’m the second string quarterback; I might get a few chances to play this season, even. Of course, you know, I’m a member of this bunch of happy idiots. I’m doing all right in my classes. What about you?”
I shrugged. “Mostly just trying to keep my grades up, you know?”
I suddenly felt like a complete social loser; I would never admit to Zack that I hadn’t even gone to any of the orientation parties, instead spending my time researching classes and doing the legwork to get more scholarships for next semester or next year. I knew that Jess thought I was kind of lame—and while I told myself I didn’t care what Zack thought, deep down I knew that I didn’t want to come across as a bookworm loser to him.
“I’m glad you were able to come out tonight, then. Have you been able to make many parties since the semester started?”
I shook my head, smiling even as my cheeks burned up with another blush.
“I had it on good authority that this was the party to go to, so I’m glad I held out for a rager.”
Zack grinned again. “We need to get you a drink,” he said, grabbing my hand and steering me through the crowd. “Evan made the punch tonight—he’s got the golden touch with booze.” Zack found a table covered with cups and handed me one. “Better stay close to me; that stuff’s stronger than it tastes. Full of moonshine.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, finally starting to relax as I had my first few sips. Zack pulled me back to the main area, and I saw that everyone around us was dancing—really dancing. The music was good, so I started to move along with it, swaying my hips and sipping my drink.
“That’s the Evie I know!” Zack said, moving a little closer to me.
Zack and I started dancing together, and at first I told myself it was just as friends; I’d seen him chatting up the other girls—I didn’t have any claim on him. As I finished off my drink, I started to sweat, and I realized that we were getting closer and closer together. My heart was beating faster, my head was spinning—the drink must have really been a lot stronger than it seemed while I was drinking it. Zack’s arms were around me and as the music pounded around us; my hips were right up against his. I could feel his cock stirring in his pants; I had to admit, I liked that I could still get a rise out of him even with all the other pretty girls at the party. Someone handed Zack another drink in passing and we split it; I didn’t even realize that I’d already gone over my pre-determined limit of just one or two drinks for the sake of being at a party.
I felt every inch of Zack’s body pressed up against mine as we danced together; it felt right—good in a way that I couldn’t define, even while my brain buzzed with alcohol and the heavy bass of the music. Zack’s face was only inches from mine, and I felt like I was in a trance of a different kind. His hand slipped up along my back, cupping my neck, slipping under my hair. “God, I fucking missed you,” Zack murmured, just loud enough for me to hear, his lips right next to my ear. The next moment, he was kissing me, his hands beginning to wander over my body, teasing me over my clothes. He tasted like punch and beer, and the familiar taste of his lips—I closed my eyes and tried not to let the room’s spinning make me fall over. I wanted that kiss too much; I barely held myself up as we continued to dance, grinding against each other, my hands trailing over his shoulders and along his back. He was bigger than he had been when we’d dated before—his muscles harder, more developed.
I lost all track of time and stopped even being aware of where I was; nothing was as important as the kiss, the feeling of Zack’s body against mine. I arched up against him, standing on the balls of my feet, wanting to feel even more of him, wanting to feel his cock harden in his pants. Zack sucked my bottom lip between his lips, nibbling on it with his teeth, the same way he had used to kiss me before, the way that used to make me weak in the knees. I shivered even though it was easily a hundred degrees in the frat house main room, wondering—in the back of my mind—just what I was doing. “Zack!” the sound of someone’s voice calling out broke through the haze on my mind—it must have broken through Zack’s brain, too. We pulled apart all at once, at the same time. I was panting a little, my heart pounding in my chest, my whole body drenched in sweat.
I swallowed, my lips still tingling, my whole body crackling from how hot the kiss had been. Zack turned his head in the direction of whoever had called to him and raised a hand, acknowledging the shout. The guy walked up—one of the other members of the frat, a grin on his face as he handed something off to Zack. “I see you’ve found your piece of ass tonight,” he said—he couldn’t have thought I’d hear him. The guy was unsteady on his feet, and his eyes were glassy; he was obviously drunk. Or maybe, I thought, the people who usually partied with the ‘bad boy frat’ were jaded enough not to care about being called a piece of ass. But something about it definitely bothered me. It sent a cold jolt through my body and I stepped back from Zack, remembering everything that was going on around me—and everything I had had in mind for the party. I had never had any intention of making out with anyone; my goal had just been to enjoy myself and to watch out for Jess. The last thing on my mind when I’d agreed to come out was that I’d make out with an ex-boyfriend. I swallowed again, taking a deep breath.
“It’s really hot in here,” I said to Zack, struggling to keep a smile on my face. “I need to see if I can find my friend; I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”
Zack’s look of satisfaction fell from his face in an instant.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Zack said, reaching out to grab my hand. “Come on, Evie—if you need to cool off I can get you a water or something.”
I shook my head and snatched my hand free, trying not to make too much of a scene. My heart was pounding for a completely different reason.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll…I’ll check out the back yard and see if she’s there, maybe get some fresh air.”
I smiled again and darted away from Zack before he could say anything else, plunging into the crowd. I closed my eyes for a second, thinking what an idiot I had been. I should have stuck to my plan. I should have just had a drink or two—ones I had mixed myself, not the over-powered punch the frat was serving—and kept in sight of Jess, instead of letting myself get distracted by Zack. The drunken brother’s comment, that I was Zack’s piece of ass for the night, rattled around in my head. He didn’t know what he was talking about, I told myself firmly. Even if we hadn’t been distracted by the guy, I wouldn’t have gone to bed with Zack.
I went outside, but there was no sign of Jess anywhere—and the people hanging around and in the pool were even drunker than those inside. It reeked of pot and vomit, and as the alcohol continued to hit my system I had to hold my breath to keep from puking at the smell. I plunged back inside and breathed in the sweat-and-alcohol smell, surprised to be relieved by it. I shook my head at myself; there was no way I’d be able to find Jess in the crowd that packed the frat house. I pulled my phone out and looked at it, hoping she had texted me. No such luck. I would have to keep looking.
I finally found Jess in one of the smaller public areas of the frat house, sitting on a couch with an African American frat member whose toga was sloppily wrapped around him. I wondered if that was the guy that Jess had come to the party to meet up with or if she had given up on the guy she’d been interested in and had taken the attention of this new guy as a good second option. She looked pretty pleased with herself either way. I hurried into the room, hoping that Zack wouldn’t come into it—that he had already moved on to greener pastures, as much as the thought of him ending up in bed with another girl after making out with me hurt, just a little.
“Jess,” I said, sitting down in the empty spot next to her. “It’s time to go, girl.”
Jess turned to look at me, at least a little drunk by the glassiness of her eyes, and grinned.
“Oh come on, the party’s just getting good,” she said, reaching down and holding the guy’s hand. “Have one more drink and then we’ll go.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew in her current state of mind, Jess would be impossible to convince. I let the frat guy she was with get one of the pledges to grab me another dose of punch. I wanted to leave; the longer I stayed, the better the chances would be that Zack would find me again, and that was—at that moment at least—the last thing in the world that I wanted. I drank the punch as quickly as I could while Jess continued to talk to the guy she was with, laughing at his jokes and cuddling up to him. I finished off the punch and showed Jess the empty cup.
“I had another drink; I finished it, now can we please go?”
I knew we’d only been there a couple of hours—I’d checked the time when I looked to see if Jess had texted me. But I wanted out of there. The night had been an unmitigated disaster, as far as I was concerned. Jess finally relented and leaned in to give her companion a long, sloppy kiss before she traipsed out of the room with me in tow. The last cup of punch was going straight to my head and I dreaded the next morning, but we managed to make our way out of the frat house without falling, and soon enough, we were on the sidewalk headed back to the dorms, switching out our heels for our flats so we wouldn’t sprain an ankle in the dark.
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning, I woke up feeling as if I had poison in my stomach. I buried my face against my pillow, groaning; my head was pounding, every joint in my body felt like it was packed with broken glass, and I was sure that if I moved too quickly, I’d throw up everywhere. I managed to get out of my bed, crawling on my hands and knees to my desk. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the bottom drawer—it was warm, but it would help—and I rummaged in one of the other drawers until I found the bottle of aspirin I kept for regular headaches. I pulled the shades over my window and crawled back into bed, sipping Gatorade while I waited for the aspirin to kick in. It had been ages since I’d had a hangover, and this one felt like it was worse than the last one I’d ever gotten. That punch had been lethal.
My headache started to wear off, but I still felt aches all over, and my stomach told me in no uncertain terms that if I put anything else into it before the Gatorade was fully in my system, it would punish me. I took a deep breath and told myself that a shower would make it at least a little better. I managed to grab my towel and robe and staggered out of my room; the walls swooped and twisted around me, the floor seemed to be tilted. Somehow, I got into the bathroom and threw my things onto the countertop before I lurched into the shower and sat down on the bench Jess had bought the second week into term. I turned the water on; it was ice-cold and I yelped in shock as it hit my hot skin. Definitely not a great way to improve things.
It began to heat up and I sat underneath the flow, letting it soak me from head to toe. I wondered as my brain started to regain normal functioning if I had remembered to take my makeup off when Jess and I had gotten in; it didn’t seem that important. I stayed on the bench while I scrubbed, washing from head to toe. I still didn’t feel fully human, but by the time I finally turned the water off, I thought I could at least manage to stay upright, and maybe even eat something. I dried myself off and wrapped the robe around myself and padded into the common area, keeping the towel over my head as I sank down onto the couch and grabbed a box of cheese crackers that was on the coffee table—anything in the common area was free game. They were a little stale, but they tasted good; I thought longingly of a nice, big cup of coffee.
Jess bounded out of her room with a smile on her face, throwing herself on the couch next to me. “You should not even be this chipper,” I said. My head still ached—not as much as before, but a dull throbbing at my temples and behind my eyes that the aspirin didn’t seem to touch.
“Ah, hungover are we?” I frowned at Jess and she laughed. “You should have gotten the cure from me before you went to bed.”
I rolled my eyes in spite of the fact that it sent a cold jolt of pain through my skull.
“What’s the cure?”
Jess leaned against me. She was in pajamas, and she had somehow managed to take a shower either right when we’d gotten back, or earlier in the morning than I had.
“Oh, you drink a whole bottle of water and eat a big bowl of ramen before you go to bed. Works every time.”
I shuddered. “I can’t even imagine how that would even do anything about the fact that I feel like someone tried to poison me.”
Jess rumpled my hair with the towel. “We’ll go down to the dining hall and get some pancakes in you and you’ll be good as new.”
On the weekends, the dining hall did brunch through the early afternoon, with pancakes and make-your-own waffles. I’d gone a few times even though I hadn’t been out late the night before, just to keep Jess company and because there were some lunch items I liked.
“These crackers are doing me just fine for right now. But you’re kind of a bitch for insisting I have that last drink—just so you know.”
Jess laughed. “You didn’t have to; you could have totally faked that shit. I was pretty drunk myself.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t worth fighting over then. It is now, though.”
Jess got up and went into her room, coming back with a can of coffee—barely chilled. She put it in my hands and I cracked it; it wasn’t as good as a hot coffee, but it would do the job.
“So tell me about that guy you were talking to last night,” she said, her bright blue eyes dancing.
I shrugged, feeling my face burn. “Eh. He’s not important.”
Jess raised her eyebrows. “Oh come on, you wouldn’t have talked to him if he wasn’t important. I saw him make a beeline to you. You know each other, don’t you?”
I shrugged again, not wanting to admit how turned on—and then how turned off—I had been the night before, all because of Zack.
“Well, he’s… it’s not important, but he and I dated for a couple of years in high school. We broke up when he started college; he’s a couple of years ahead of me.”
Jess’s eyes widened. “Oooh, tell me more!”
I rolled my eyes. The coffee and the cheese crackers were starting to help.
“Not much to tell, really. He saw me, we talked a bit…we danced, we kissed, and that was it.”
Jess looked at me for a long moment, shaking her head. “It’s like every hot guy in the world is totally wasted on you. He’s totally fuckable—why didn’t you stay the night?”
I shook my head at her. “Someone came up and said I was his piece of ass for the night and just…ugh.”
Jess made a face, her lips twisting in a grimace. “Yeah, I can see where that would put you off, especially if you have history with him.” She shrugged. “So tell me about him! Come on, if you dated for two years, it had to have been good.”
I thought about it—about the dates Zack and I had gone on, about the little presents he had given me, about watching him play.
I thought to myself that it wasn’t like Jess would run around telling everyone, so I told her about Zack asking me out in my freshman year, and how he’d been with me when my mom started to get sick. I told her about the stupid little things—the dates, being some kind of hot commodity because I was dating an upperclassman.
“But what was the sex like? I know you aren’t a virgin.”
I blushed. She was right—I had lost my virginity in sophomore year.
“Eh…it wasn’t really anything special. I mean, I think—I’m not sure—but I don’t think I was his first. But he was mine. It was just sort of…sex, you know? I just kind of laid there. The first time I guess it was hot just because, you know, it was the first time. But we only did it a couple of times after that and it didn’t ever really get to be good, exactly. Certainly no screaming orgasms.”
“That’s a damn shame. I would think a guy like that at least would have a nice-sized dick to get things done with.”
I thought about it; it occurred to me that I didn’t really have any way to gauge how big Zack was. I had been with one other guy since him, and while the sex had been better, I hadn’t really paid attention to size.
“I guess he was average? I wasn’t really paying attention to that so much.”
Jess nodded slowly.
“Oh man! I have to tell you about my night.”
I grinned. “Okay, so what was up with the guy you were with?”
I knew that it would be more than I wanted to know—Jess always told more than I wanted to know—but I also knew that Jess would be hurt if I didn’t pretend to be at least a little curious about her night.
“He was hot, right?” Jess raised her eyebrows at me and I nodded; the guy had been good-looking, though since he was tall and skinny he wasn’t really my type. “His name is Nelson. Hoo buddy, he was a good time. I might see him again.”
“So you two were just cuddling on the couch and making out?” That didn’t seem like Jess’s usual MO.
Jess laughed out loud. “Nah, we were in the bathroom before you caught up to me. Nelson’s room was too far away. We danced for a while and then we had a quickie there—he wanted me to stay the night, but I know better.”
It was the second time in two months Jess had mentioned a quickie like that. I didn’t think any the worse of her for it, but I could never have a one-night stand like that.
“Oh man, you should’ve seen his cock, Evie—I don’t know if it’s true of all black guys, but Nelson was definitely packing. Totally lived up to stereotype.” I rolled my eyes. “I swear to god it was like a baseball bat in his pants. It was good though—right up against the sink.”
Jess went on about Nelson for a while and I only partially paid attention, enough for her to think I was listening to every word. He was apparently on a basketball scholarship, top pick for the pros in a year or two. He’d been the top college pick out of high school and the frat had barely even made him work to be a pledge—they’d let him in right away. He definitely fit into the bad boy image that Phi Alpha Kappa had; Jess told me that she’d almost want to date him, if it weren’t for the fact that he was a total hound.
“Man, as good as that quickie was, I wouldn’t mind bringing him back here for the night. But he’s definitely not relationship material. He’d be chasing the next skirt the minute I turned my back.”
I nodded. In spite of the fact that I’d told myself I wouldn’t even think about Zack again, he rose up in my mind, along with the “piece of ass” comment his frat brother had made. When we’d been dating, Zack had been faithful; but it was easy to imagine he’d turned into the kind of guy who just slept with a girl and evicted her from his bed the next morning without batting an eyelash.
I didn’t like to think about Zack being that way. It was his right to sleep around as much as he wanted; I had no hold on him. We’d been broken up for over a year. But it still turned my stomach to think about Zack sleeping around without being attached to anyone. I wondered while I dried my hair if it would make me feel worse to know that Zack was sleeping around or to know that he had started up a new relationship. It wasn’t important, I told myself firmly. I shouldn’t feel bad either way. If Zack had a new girlfriend, that was his business. I wondered how he would react if I had a new boyfriend; but then I took a deep breath and told myself that that didn’t matter either. We were two separate people who happened to run into each other, and because of alcohol and old feelings, we’d ended up making out a little. It was no big deal. I wouldn’t think about it again.
CHAPTER THREE
My journalism class was wrapping up for the day; everyone else was looking at the clock or the door, putting their stuff away even though there was another ten minutes and even though Professor Grant wasn’t done saying the last few things about our reading on style.
“Remember, everyone: it’s important to cultivate your own journalistic voice, but you also have to be mindful of the rules of style—the basic elements that every publication looks for—and the specific style rules that your publication demands.”
I took another look at the diagram on the overhead—it compared AP style to Chicago style. Grant had had us all read Politics and the English Language, along with part of Elements of Style for the class; I’d liked both—especially the bitter, harsh humor in “Politics.” I was really starting to enjoy the course, an introduction to journalism.
The end of class arrived and I joined in with everyone else loading my stuff into my bag, ready to go. I was taking a pretty full course load, but I had a couple of hours free before my next class.
“Evelyn, do you have a minute to talk?” Grant called out as the other students started to file out.
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure, Professor Grant,” I replied, calling out over the murmurs and screech of desks against the linoleum floor. I sat back down, settling my books, my laptop, and my pens in my bag while everyone left.
Professor Grant was gathering up his stuff, and as the last of the other students left the room I got up and approached the front of the room, stopping short of the desk.
“You wanted to talk to me, Professor Grant?” I said, feeling anxious in spite of myself. I knew I was making decent grades in the class.
“Absolutely, Evelyn,” Grant said, looking up from his laptop bag with a grin.
He was in his forties, starting to go gray but with all of his hair still there. Lots of girls at the college had crushes on Grant, I knew; everyone vied to have him as their advisor and I’d seen plenty of my classmates giggling as they left his office during office hours. I could see why they liked him—he was nice, and he looked good—but I wasn’t into older guys.
“Take a chair.”
I shrugged and sat down. It wasn’t likely that Grant was going to chew me out—or at least, I hoped it wasn’t likely.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my nerves from showing. Grant leaned against the desk.
“I wanted to talk to you because I’ve been reading your papers for these past eight weeks and they’re… well, frankly, they’re well above the level you’d need to do well in this class.” I smiled, relieved; even though I knew I had done well, it was good to hear it. “If I graded on a curve, the entire class would hate you.”
“Oh come on,” I said, laughing. “I’m not that good.”
Grant nodded his head slowly. “You are. In fact, you’re so good that I wanted to ask you to consider joining the college newspaper. There’d be a little pay for it—not a lot, but enough to finance the occasional food run—and it would be a good early experience for you.”
My eyes widened at the offer. Grant wasn’t just a professor—he was the Journalism Department head and the faculty member in charge of the campus paper. I hadn’t even been aware that there were any openings.
“There’s an opening?”
Grant nodded. “We can always use news and features material. It would be a staff reporting position—nothing too major, but a way to get your feet wet. Your first few assignments would come from the editorial board, but once we know you can cut it on your own, you’ll be covering your own beat—whatever you want to write about, with editorial discretion.”
It was as good an offer as I could ever get. It wasn’t professional publishing, but if I did good work, I could eventually expect a column, maybe an editorial position to pad my resume with.
But on the other hand, a gig like that—even part time as it was—would take away from my studying. Not all of my classes were as interesting or easy as Intro to Journalism. I was hanging on to a steady high B average in Statistics—but I could slip on that easily. Math had never been my strongest subject. It was a tough choice, because as much as it could advance my career in the future, it could also screw me up—which wouldn’t look good on a resume.
“That’s… I can’t even believe it,” I said, smiling—knowing that Grant expected me to say something. “It’s a pretty big time commitment, isn’t it?”
“At first it shouldn’t take you more than a handful of hours a week. Of course, as time goes on and you prove yourself, that will change. But for right now, consider it maybe five or six hours out of your week, for research and writing.”
I thought about it. The opportunity the offer represented was a lot greater than the risk of losing a few hours per week studying.
“I’d love to,” I said, smiling at Professor Grant. He returned my grin.
“Excellent. The next meeting is in a week,” he told me. “I will add you to the email group list in the meantime, and I’ll send you log-in information for the Blackboard sub-site we use.”
I picked up my bag—now that I had made the decision, I was excited more than I was afraid. I couldn’t wait to get started. First, I had a study session in the library before my next class.
I was thinking about the opportunity, considering buying back-editions of the campus paper to get a feel for the voice—something that Grant had mentioned in passing when he did the first lecture on voice and style—while I walked to the library. All of my homework was done for my next class, but I was still struggling with a couple of things in American History and I wanted to put in an hour or so. I had reserved one of the rooms; really, for the purposes of seriously studying, it was either that or my dorm. The main part of the library was always full of people working on papers or getting tutoring—it was loud, impossible to focus.
I looked up and saw Zack walking into the library a few yards ahead of me and stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn’t so much seeing Zack—though that was plenty strange, to see him twice when I hadn’t caught sight of him at all in my first eight weeks at the college—it was seeing him going into the library that was weird. Zack had always been fairly smart, but he’d barely kept up a high C-average in high school, getting extensions on projects and assignments and taking the test under special circumstances because he was a member of the football team. The idea of him going to the library—studying, or even taking an interest in any of his classes enough to look things up for it—was beyond weird. It was like walking in on your parents having an orgy; not the kind of thing you would ever expect to see, and too shocking to actually process for a moment.
For a moment my plans weren’t changed at all; Zack was probably meeting with a tutor or something. The private study rooms were in a completely different part of the library. But I would have to go through the main areas to get upstairs to the private rooms, and there was the possibility that Zack would spot me. If he spotted me, he might talk to me. I shook my head. I shouldn’t let him break my routine; we were nothing to each other, even if he had kissed me—even if he had said he missed me. He certainly hadn’t missed me enough to put much effort into finding me at the party. I was surprised that had apparently bothered me. It shouldn’t have, and I knew it shouldn’t have. But all the same, I didn’t want to risk running into Zack. Instead of walking to the library, I turned at the fork in the sidewalk and headed back towards the dorms.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Evie, come on,” Jess said at my door, a slight whining edge to her voice. “I need a partner in crime! I need someone to talk to during the game!”
I sighed, rubbing at my face with my hands. I had managed to get my studying done, and technically I didn’t have anything left to do for the evening.
“I don’t care about the game; I don’t care about football.”
Jess rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to care about it. It’s an excuse to hang out and watch hot guys throw themselves at each other and to talk to other hot guys who are all excited by it.”
I laughed. “Put that way it sounds like we’re going to watch a gay orgy and talk to other gay guys.”
“Well, think about it however you want. But I need you to come with me.”
I tilted my head back against the footboard of my bed. “What do I get out of this?”
Jess looked at me shrewdly for a moment. “I’ll get someone to buy you a beer and I’ll help you study for the Stats midterm.”
I pouted. Jess had a natural talent for math—how, I had never been able to understand. It wasn’t that I thought she was stupid; in order to manage good grades with all of her partying, she had to be smart, but I wouldn’t have thought that math, of all subjects, would be her strong suit. She was planning to major in Physics and become either an engineer or a theorist.
“Fine. I will go with you, if you’ll help me ace the Stats midterm.” If I got an A on the midterm, I could almost—not quite, but almost—coast until it came time for finals without having to worry too much about my grades.
“Good girl! Okay, get dressed in something comfortable but cute; you never know who you’ll run into at a game.”
Jess ran off to her room to get ready, and I rummaged through my closet. Comfortable but cute. I frowned at my choices and finally settled on a skirt that came to my mid-thigh and a light sweater in the school colors. I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and changed clothes, putting a little bit of makeup on my face before Jess called to me from the common area of the dorm. “Aren’t you ready yet?”
“Coming!” I shouted back, feeling irritated already.
We walked out to Jess’s car in the student lot next to the dorms; by the time we got to the car, two other girls were waiting for us. My irritation increased. Why did Jess need me to go with her if she had two other friends already going? Admittedly, I didn’t have anything special planned for that night—I was going to hit the dining hall for some take-away dinner, and maybe stream a few episodes of Bones—but the fact that Jess had gotten me to go along with her on a lie bothered me.
Fortunately, since I was her roommate, Jess decreed that I had infinite call on shotgun; the other girls piled into the back seat and we made our way to the game, blasting Beyoncé and Lorde all the way out to the stadium. The campus was huge—almost a town in itself—so with all the people headed to the game, it was slow enough to enjoy the ride. I started to relax; I had watched enough high school games as Zack’s girlfriend to know what was going on around me, and I had heard that we had a decent marching band. It could actually be an interesting evening out. It still bothered me that Jess had convinced me to come even though she didn’t really need my company, but I told myself that it was something at least that she wanted my company with her, even with the other girls she’d invited. It wouldn’t be too bad, all in all, I told myself as we pulled into the parking lot outside of the stadium.
Jess had managed to score surprisingly good tickets, and the four of us found our seats down on the lowest level of the stands, close to the band but with a good view of the game itself, too. The stadium was packed—both the rival school and our own college were out in force. The other team wasn’t from that far away—maybe a few hours—and the game was starting early in the evening, so most of the people from the other school would have plenty of time to get home. Against my better judgment, I looked around on the bench in the sidelines and spotted Zack. He looked good in full gear; but then, he had looked good in his gear in high school, too. It shouldn’t surprise me that he still looked great. I turned my attention to the band, to anything but the guy I had dated in high school, while we waited for the game to get started.
Jess was chatting up everyone around us, especially the guys; the band was playing a set of golden oldies hits, something for the alumni in the crowd to appreciate. I had grown up on the music—my mom had loved the Beatles and Motown—so I sang along under my breath, trying not to laugh at the way Jess was obviously flirting with one of the guys seated near us. Her other friends were chatting people up too, and for a moment I felt like, in spite of the fact that I didn’t really want to, I should be following their lead.
The game started and Jess at least had to pretend to be interested in it. I knew our team was decent, but as I watched, I started to actually get invested in us; I was swept up in the energy of the crowd. Near the end of the first quarter, I heard myself groan along with everyone else at the sight of the harsh tackle our QB took—and then everyone went quiet as he failed to get up right away. We all waited to see what had happened, and I felt my heart pounding. Football was a brutal sport; even in high school, with more safeguards in place than professional ball, I’d known several guys on the JV and Varsity teams alike who went out for a few games at a time due to injuries. Finally the QB got to his feet and limped off of the field, helped by one of the coaches. There was no penalty—technically the tackle had been fully legal—but it was clear from the way the quarterback was limping that he was out of the game. My heart skipped a beat as Zack walked up to the coach, nodding a few times before he put on his helmet and charged out onto the field.
“Man, that’s some bad luck,” the guy Jess was talking to said, shaking his head. “They better rally fast.”
I looked over, wondering at the comment. Jess caught me looking and shrugged.
“We have the best quarterback in the nation,” she explained to me. She turned to the guy she’d been flirting with. “It is going to be a tough climb—we’re still a few games away. We have to win this game and the next one to get to the playoffs, and that didn’t look like a minor injury.”
I nodded; I had heard that we had a great team—and that the starting QB had held the title of number one in the nation the previous two years. It was bad luck for him that he’d fallen the wrong way.
Zack huddled and the rest of the team and the crowd—me included—watched with bated breath. What was he going to do? Would he be able to take over from Saunders? I knew that Zack was a good QB; he had gotten into the school on a scholarship, and though he wasn’t a top-line pick, he was at the top of the second tier of recruits that the colleges had all looked at. It was just his bad luck that the starting QB was too valuable to sit out many games. But I knew that Zack was feeling the pressure. For a moment, I felt sympathetic towards him.
But from the first play after Zack took over—a long pass that he handled like a pro—it was clear that Zack would be just fine. He played every bit as well as the original quarterback, and I was cheering as loud, or maybe even louder, than the people around me as he went through play after play. In high school Zack had been more of a passing QB; he had a great arm, and could throw not only far but accurately. It looked like he had improved his running game since I’d last seen him on the field. I could barely pay attention to the half time show, thinking about Zack in the locker room, how psyched he must have been for the chance to prove himself. He hit the field just as hard in the second half, and I cheered as wildly as before. I had no reason to be personally gratified by the fact that Zack was doing so well, but a little part of me was warmed by the fact that the guy I had dated in high school was kicking ass on the field.
In the end, we won by a wide margin, and I almost had to sit down as everyone started to straggle and file out of the stadium seats. It had been such an exciting game, my heart had been pounding and I had cheered until I was nearly hoarse. I told Jess that I needed to use the restroom, and that I’d meet her at the gate; she nodded, barely hearing me. I went to the restroom, shaking my head at my roommate. I was glad, deep down, that she had convinced me to come to the game. I wasn’t a huge football fan, but it had been fun, and it may have been one of only a few opportunities I would have gotten to see Zack playing as a college QB; I had no doubt that the coaches and staff would work hard to get the starting QB back on the field as quickly as possible. I washed my hands and smoothed my hair before I left the restroom, making a beeline for the gate where we’d come in.
Jess wasn’t there, and neither were the other two girls who had come with us. I stood and waited; Jess was probably flirting with that guy and she’d be out soon enough once she’d made a date with him. There were some already-drunk students straggling out of the stadium, headed to parties around the campus, I was sure—probably at least one on frat row. It wasn’t that late, but I wanted nothing more than to go back to the dorms and get a shower, maybe catch an episode of one of my favorite shows on TV, and go to bed. I was tired.
While I waited for Jess to show up, the team started to come out of the stadium one by one or in pairs. They paid me no mind, talking amongst themselves and heading to the frats or their own parties. After winning such a big game, they’d all be partying it up, and I couldn’t really blame them. I called out “Good game!” to a few people, just to not look like too much of an idiot.
Zack came out of the stadium and started to walk past me, headed to the parking lot; I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to call any attention to myself, in spite of the warm fuzzy feeling I had from his success. But just like before, it didn’t matter; Zack spotted me and stopped in his tracks, smiling slowly. “I didn’t know you came to any of our games,” he said, grinning more broadly.
“First game I’ve been to,” I said, shrugging. “Jess made me come out and just my luck—you get to show off for me.” My heart was beating faster.
“Are you waiting for a ride, then?”
I shrugged. I wondered what was taking Jess so long. Normally when she flirted with a guy like the one in the stadium, she made a quick date and then was on her way. I wondered if she was making out with him in the nearly-empty seats.
“Kind of,” I said with a little smile. While it had given me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see Zack doing well, I was still uncomfortable around him.
Before I could make an excuse to go after her, or something that would help me get away from Zack, Jess came strutting out of the stadium with the guy she’d been talking to all night. Neither of the other two girls was around, and I wondered just what had happened to them.
“There you are, Evie!” The guy’s arm was around her waist. “Derek has this great party he wants to take me to. Can you grab a ride home? Unless you want to come with us.”
I considered going with them, but it was easy to see that it would be a party where I knew no one; Jess would go off with Derek somewhere and I’d be the sad sack in a corner nursing crappy beer and waiting for the chance to go home. Zack was still right there next to me.
“I can get you home,” he said cheerfully. Jess glanced from Zack to me and she grinned.
“A ride home from the winning QB? I’m a little jelly,” she quipped.
I bit back a retort; the last thing I wanted—or so I thought—was a lot of time alone with Zack. But for the moment, at least, it seemed like that would be a slightly better option than a strange party by myself waiting for Jess to finish hooking up with a new guy.
“Have a good time,” I said to Jess. She walked away quickly with the guy she’d taken up with for the night, headed to the parking lot and off to a party. I looked at Zack. “So, where are you parked?” Zack smiled slowly—a rueful, slightly guilty-looking smile.
“It’s… actually back at the frat,” he said.
I sighed. “Seriously? You offer a ride when your car isn’t even here?”
“Would you have hung around if I’d said my car was back at the frat?” I shook my head. “Besides, it’s not as far away as the dorms are. It’s only ten blocks.”
I looked down at my shoes. They were comfortable at least—much more so than the heels I had worn to the party the other night. I sighed. Ten blocks to the frat. It could be worse, but not much. I looked up at the sky and told myself that at least it wasn’t about to rain.
We walked back to the frat house together, and my irritation started to fade as Zack jollied me along. He hadn’t wanted to take his car to the stadium; it wasn’t that long of a walk, as he pointed out, and parking was always a nightmare. I could see his point. He was used to running several miles regularly as part of his practice and training; ten blocks was nothing to him. It was a little more than nothing to me, and by the time we arrived at the frat house, I was ready to take a break and sit down for a little bit.
It shocked me to see the house totally empty. “Everyone’s out at parties,” Zack explained. “Our sister sorority is throwing a victory party—if we’d lost, they’d have changed it to a condolence party.”
He grinned at me as he led me through the door. Without droves of people in the place it was easier to see that at one point it had been a really impressive house—huge, with wood floors and strong walls. There were scuffs and the monkey-house smell of a bunch of guys all living in one place, some of whom didn’t take as much trouble to stay clean as they should, but it wasn’t positively gross.
“I’m kind of surprised this place isn’t dirtier,” I said, sitting down tentatively on one of the couches in the main common area.
Zack laughed. “We make all the pledges keep everything tidy. It’s part of their job as the newest members; instills a sense of pride in the frat.”
I chuckled. “That’ll do it, I guess.”
Zack grinned. “Yeah, some of the guys get a little too into it; one of them cleans the baseboards with his toothbrush.” I shook my head at that. “Hey, hang out here for a second; I need to find my keys.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t exactly spick-and-span in the common area, but I had come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t contract an STD from the leather couch, and I was happy enough to stay seated for a few more minutes.
“I’ll be here.”
Zack went off to his room and I looked around. The frat house was enormous, and it was almost a little creepy to be in it while it was so empty. I had managed to avoid all of the frats and sororities since I’d started the semester, at least until the party that Jess had dragged me to. If I hadn’t known that this was the ‘bad boy’ frat on campus, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it from what good shape the whole place was in. It had the guy-reek, but the floors were clean and free of vomit, and the furniture was in good shape. I didn’t want to necessarily think of what all had gone on in the common area over the years, and I was sure that if I took out a black light, there would be more stuff on the walls than I would be comfortable knowing about, but for the moment it was decent.
Zack appeared once more a few moments after he had left, jiggling his keys to show he’d found them. He leaped over the back of the couch and came down next to me grinning.
“Why didn’t you join any sororities when you started?” he asked me curiously. “I mean, I know you’ve got your grades and all that, but the sororities are good for connections—good for networking.”
“It just didn’t really seem like my scene—throwing parties and stuff like that.”
I knew for a fact that some of the sorority sisters were pretty smart; that their giggling, wet t-shirt antics were only a counterpoint to sharp minds. But I couldn’t see myself fawning over some guy in a toga, or spending my time in a house with dozens of other girls. It was more than enough to hang out with Jess and hear about her conquests. Zack leaned against me slightly.
“Hey, I remember you gave great shoulder rubs back when we were in high school,” he said, giving me a suggestive look. I rolled my eyes. “No really, you were great at it—better than the physical therapists here. Can I get one from you now?”
I sighed. I shouldn’t—it was stupid—but I couldn’t completely deny him, not after he had won the game and not when he was going to drive me home.
“Turn around,” I said, stretching my hands and warming them up.
Zack turned his back to me and I reached up, running my fingers along the velvet-soft skin of his neck. He was a little sunburned in the gap between the helmet and his pads and jersey, the skin darker there than it was anywhere else. I started kneading away at the knots of tension I found along the back of his neck, working my way down to his shoulders. Up close, I could tell that Zack had managed to find time for a good shower after the game, before he’d shown up at the gate where I was waiting for Jess; he smelled clean and fresh and he still wore the same cologne he had when we were in high school together. I smiled to myself at that fact, shaking my head where he couldn’t see, paying attention to giving him a good, thorough shoulder rub. I worked my way down along his upper arms and then back up, knowing where the muscles would be the tightest from playing.
Zack groaned in pleasure, rolling his head around and turning into my touches, and I felt myself tingling all over. I smiled to myself again, my heart starting to beat a little faster. I shook my head at myself. I was being ridiculous. It didn’t mean anything to Zack; I was just convenient. He wanted a shoulder rub, and I was there and capable. Zack leaned back against me and my hands came to a stop, resting on his shoulders instead of kneading them.
“It’s just like back in the day,” Zack said, turning around and looking at me. “It’s like when I’d have a game in high school, and we’d hang out afterwards before the parties.”
I smiled. “Yeah, it is kind of like that. Down to the shoulder rub.”
Zack raised an eyebrow. “We’d fool around, too,” he pointed out, his hands going to my waist.
I thought about it for a second; he was right—normally as soon as he was out of the locker room, we’d make out, sometimes not even waiting until we left campus to do it. Zack had taken me under the bleachers more than once to fool around when we’d been together, and I’d tingled just like I was tingling now. When we started having sex, it wasn’t that exciting, but the making out had been thrilling.
“We shouldn’t,” I said, pulling back slightly.
Zack shrugged, pulling back a little bit as well. “You used to be a lot of fun, you know,” he said with a little grin. “I think you could be fun right now if you’d let go a little bit.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were a bad influence. You were the person who gave me my first drink.”
Zack laughed. “I was, wasn’t I? What was it—your parents’ New Years’ party, right?” I nodded, unable to keep myself from smiling a little bit.
“Yes and my parents gave me so much shit over how hungover I was the next day.”
“Yeah, well, I did tell you to hold off on that third drink.”
I pinned him down with a stare. “You poured it for me,” I pointed out.
Zack grinned slowly. “Yeah, I did. Fair enough, it was all my fault. I think you refused to talk to me for a week after.”
I shook my head. “Small difference: I was grounded for a week, I couldn’t talk to you.”
Zack laughed again. “Well, you were the only reason that I managed to get through twelfth grade literature.”
“You were pretty hopeless,” I told him with a grin. I thought about the fact that I’d seen him going into the library; part of me wanted to ask him about it, but then I thought of how creepy it would sound for me to admit to seeing him go in somewhere. “Are you a better student these days?”
“They help us along, but the frat—though we’ve got a reputation as a bunch of partiers—has pretty high standards for grades to stay in. If I slacked off too much I’d get kicked out.” Somehow, oddly, that pleased me. “You know, I know you said we shouldn’t,” Zack said, licking his lips. “But kissing you the other night… it made me remember all the times we made out in high school and how hot it was.”
I bit my bottom lip. It was a bad idea; I knew it was. But I was tingling all over, hot and cold rushes flashing through my body from how close Zack was, remembering what it was like to kiss him—both when we’d been dating and the night before.
Zack leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, and before I knew it I was kissing him back, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, pressing my body up against his. It was eerily quiet in the frat house, but I didn’t care about it anymore. Zack tasted like chewing gum and the flavor I had always associated with him—kind of bittersweet, like good chocolate. His tongue swiped against my lips and I opened my mouth, closing my eyes and melting into the kiss. It was just like it had been before, my body heating up, my breasts tingling. Even my pussy tightened, and I could feel myself getting wet. Zack began to press me down against the couch, covering my body with his own; his weight settled against me and it was both like and unlike how it had been when we were teenagers.
The kiss deepened, and Zack’s hands began to move over my body, sliding over my curves. He lingered at my breasts and hips, touching and teasing. His body was hot against mine—tight and tense, getting more and more tense as every moment passed.
“Fuck, Evie,” Zack murmured, his lips barely parted from mine. “When I saw you the other night, I wanted you so fucking bad.”
He rocked his hips against mine, and I moaned against his lips, threading my fingers in his hair. It was just as soft as I remembered, silky against my fingers. Zack nibbled on my bottom lip, lapping at my sensitive skin with his tongue while he rubbed and grinded against me. His arms around me were so strong—stronger than they’d been in my memories.
Zack reached up and cupped my breasts in his hands, giving them a long, satisfying squeeze through my clothes. “Fuck,” I said, breaking away from his lips and panting.
I was trembling—it had been ages since I’d gotten this hot and heavy with anyone. Zack ducked his head down and began kissing and nibbling at my neck, finding the sensitive spot just below my ear, licking and sucking until I moaned out. It was so hot—I couldn’t think anymore. When Zack’s hands slipped up underneath my shirt, I didn’t stop him; I couldn’t make myself stop him. Instead, I found the buttons at the front of his shirt and started to unbutton them, my hands and fingers fumbling while Zack distracted me with more attention to my neck, my throat, along my jaw, back up to my lips. I arched into his touches, struggling to get him out of his shirt. I wanted to see what his body looked like now—I wanted to feel it pressed against me. Our sex together hadn’t been particularly hot—at least not for me—but there was something different now.
Zack pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it aside, flashing a smile at me before he buried his face against the tops of my breasts. The rough stubble on his cheeks rasped against my sensitive skin, contrasting with the softness of his lips; I hadn’t even noticed it that much against my face, but as Zack tugged at the cups of my bra, trying to expose me, I could feel it against the tender skin there. It turned me on even more—Zack had barely been able to grow facial hair when we’d been together, and had been able to go days at a time not shaving without me noticing. Zack pulled my bra down and I gasped as he found one of my nipples with his mouth, sucking it between his lips and flicking his tongue against it until it hardened into a little nub. I moaned, my hands stopping in their progress, my whole body tensing up as my pussy flooded at the tingling, electric sensations that his mouth inspired in me.
Zack switched from one breast to the other, sucking and licking, while I struggled to get his shirt off. I tossed it aside and trailed my hands over his broad back, my nails digging in slightly as he carefully grazed my sensitive nipples with his teeth. He pulled back with a chuckle, bringing his mouth back up to mine and kissing me hungrily—as if he wanted to devour me. I pushed my hips down against his, holding his body tight against mine, loving the feeling of him pressed against me, the weight of him and how velvety his skin was. He still hadn’t grown hair on his chest—that amused me and turned me on all at once as I noticed it almost absently, squirming and writhing against him.
“You’re really into this, aren’t you, Evie?” Zack asked me, looking down. His dark eyes were glinting, his lips twitching with a little smile.
“You’re damn right I am,” I replied, not caring about the words that came out of my mouth.
All I could think of was getting him naked and feeling him inside of me. Jess’s questions from the other day filled my head—I could sort of remember what it had been like to have sex with Zack, but not really, and suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to experience it again. It seemed so much hotter than it had been before, and I didn’t know if that was because my attitude towards sex had changed, or if Zack had gotten better with practice. I put the thought aside—I didn’t want to think about Zack practicing with other girls, not when I was pressed up against him, half naked and ready to screw his brains out. I pulled his face up to mine again and kissed him, reaching down to the waistband of his jeans. I could feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing at the front of his pants, rubbing up against me as we moved together. I was actually glad I had worn a skirt to the game—it would make it so much easier.
Zack pushed my skirt up to my waist and slipped his hand between my legs, caressing my inner thighs and making me shiver. He moved his hand upward slowly, making me squirm with anticipation, ready—more than ready—to feel him touching me. I grumbled slightly with impatience as he lingered just a few inches away from my soaking wet pussy, teasing me with the delay.
“God, you’re such a jerk,” I said, barely pulling back from his lips.
Zack chuckled and brought his fingertips up against my panties, barely touching me, the caress along my slick folds feather-light.
“Ooh, you’re soaking wet, Evie,” Zack said, his voice low with arousal. I blushed, feeling the heat spread from my face down to my chest. “God that’s fucking hot.”
Zack shook his head and my moment of near-humiliation passed; I had never managed to get very wet when we’d had sex—I had been too nervous to get fully aroused. Another guy I’d been with since breaking up with Zack had actually thought it was bad that I got soaking wet when I was turned on. Zack’s fingers pressed against me more firmly and I writhed against his touch, pushing my hips down, more than ready for more. Zack’s lips left mine and I almost protested—wanting everything all at once, wanting to feel him kissing me and touching me at the same time. But his lips began to move in a trail down from my mouth to my neck to my breasts. Zack pulled me up off of the couch and unhooked my bra in a quick movement, guiding it down off of my shoulders and over my arms before tossing it aside. He lingered at my breasts for a moment again, switching between my nipples, sucking and licking while he stroked me through the thin fabric of my panties.
Zack’s lips traveled down over the length of my body, his hot breath tickling my stomach as he worked his way towards his hand. He nuzzled the curve of my hip, looking up at me with his dark eyes almost black from lust. I squirmed with impatience when he withdrew his fingers, finding the zipper on my skirt by touch and tugging it down, loosening the fabric around my waist. He pulled it down over my hips and along my legs, letting it fall onto the floor as he rubbed his face against the front of my panties, teasing me with the heat of his body, the hot stickiness of his breath through the thin fabric. I bit my lip, throwing my head back against the couch cushions, trying to keep from being too loud—although I couldn’t say why; it wasn’t like there was anyone but Zack to hear me. Zack hooked his fingers in the waistband of my panties and tugged them down over my hips. He kissed the space between my navel and my pussy, nibbling lightly.
The next moment, he had my panties off completely, and I cried out as Zack rubbed his face against my pussy, his rough stubble rasping against my sensitive skin. I whimpered as he parted my slick folds, lapping against my inner labia while I squirmed underneath him. Zack had never gone down on me before—he’d gotten me off with his fingers in high school, and I’d sucked him off on more than one occasion, but he had never been interested in going down. His tongue moved up and down along my soaking wet folds, lapping up my fluids, sending a jolt of pleasure through me every time he came close to my clit. I threaded my fingers in his hair, pressing my lips together as moans pushed up through my throat.
Zack worked me over with his mouth slowly, moving from the well of my pussy up closer to my clit, nuzzling against me, making me writhe from the sensations he brought me. “Fuck—fuck, Zack—god, so good,” I was saying, words tumbling out of my mouth without any thought behind them.
He found my clit with his tongue and began to lick me, flicking against my pleasure center and sending crackling electric sensation through every nerve in my body. He moved down to the well of my pussy once more and I groaned in impatience, pushing my hips down to try and get better contact. I pulled and tugged at his hair, grabbing at his shoulders, moving mindlessly underneath him. Zack moved his tongue up to my clit once more and I gasped and shivered, thrashing underneath him and twisting as he brought me closer and closer to orgasm.
Zack sucked my clit between his lips, his mouth pulsing around the cluster of nerves, and the next moment I felt his fingertips playing against my soaking labia, slipping against my skin, finding their way to my entrance. He plunged a finger into me slowly, pushing past the resistance of my body. I felt my muscles tightening around him, as if my body wanted to take him in deeper. Zack plunged it into me gradually, curling it inside of me, his fingertip brushing against my inner walls. He added a second finger, making me moan out again while I twisted my hips, for the moment unaware of anything but how good it felt, how close I was.
“Fuck, Zack—I’m so close. Jesus—so close—please, please,” I was ready to beg him to get me to the edge, arching up off of the leather couch, drenched in sweat, my muscles tightening around him erratically as I got closer and closer. I was moaning and whimpering uncontrollably, more turned on than I had ever been in my life, my whole body tingling.
I tumbled over the edge, hitting my climax with a shriek that filled my ears, grabbing at Zack helplessly as he continued to plunge his fingers deeper and deeper inside of me. His fingertips rubbed up against my g-spot and my climax intensified, shooting hot and cold crackling fire through my body, all through my veins. Zack didn’t let up for a second, sucking and licking, devouring me as I gushed around his fingers, writhing and panting and gasping for breath. It was almost too much for me to take—I felt so good I thought it might become pain instead. As the last of the spasms began to slack off, Zack backed away, pulling back from my body as he licked the last traces of my orgasm clinging to my skin. He slipped his fingers out of me and brought them to his lips—I only barely, vaguely saw him licking them, grinning to himself full of satisfaction as aftershocks of pleasure washed through my body.
Zack slithered up against me, kissing me on the lips desperately. I could still feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing against me and realized that I had let myself get completely distracted; but I was still recovering from my orgasm—I wasn’t ready for more, not just yet. I kissed him back, touching him all over, reaching down to the front of his jeans to finish the job of unzipping him and getting him naked. I was still tingling, still feeling hot and cold flashes; fortunately, I realized that Zack didn’t seem to be in a major hurry to get to the main event. His hands trailed over my body, oddly soothing, stroking and rubbing in a way that made me finally stop shaking against him.
“There’s something different from high school, huh?” he asked.
I laughed and looked up at his face, shaking my head. “Yeah, I can definitely say with authority that you did not do that when we were dating.”
Zack shrugged, kissing me on the lips again briefly. “What can I say? I wasn’t that great a lay back then. Though I do remember I was able to get you off with my fingers pretty well more than once…”
His hand slipped up between my legs and he began stroking and rubbing me, his fingers playing against my still-slick labia, finding my clit by touch. I was still sensitive—almost too sensitive, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to have him touching me, I wouldn’t have stopped him even if I wasn’t entire sure we were all alone. I moaned out, already starting to get turned on again.
“God, you’re even hotter than you were back then,” Zack told me, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t remember you ever being this down—this turned on.”
He rubbed my clit in tight little circular movements of his fingers, pinching it lightly and sending a shiver of sensation right up my spine.
“Well then get naked, stupid,” I said impatiently. Zack laughed and climbed off of me, slipping out of his jeans and taking his boxer-briefs off with them.
“You want this?” he asked me, wrapping his hand around his cock and giving it a quick stroke. He wasn’t huge—I wouldn’t compare him to a baseball bat—but he was certainly large enough, and I saw the shine of precum on the tip. I nodded eagerly; I did want it. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more in my life than to feel him inside of me. Zack climbed on top of me once more and slipped down between my legs, his hips pressed up against mine. He was rock hard and hot against me; rubbing along my labia as he rocked his hips slowly, teasing me. “Tell me how much you want it,” Zack murmured, kissing along the column of my throat up to my ear.
I shook my head, rolling my eyes. “Stop fooling around and fuck me already,” I told him, wrapping my legs around his waist firmly.
Zack chuckled lowly in my ear and bit my earlobe, making me gasp. “Say please,” he admonished, his voice full of amusement. The tip of his cock rubbed up against my clit and I gasped. I set my jaw; I didn’t want to give in, but my body was full of fire. I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Please?” I said sweetly, pressing my body against his. He had to want me every bit as much as I wanted him—he was hard as a rock. Zack shifted his hips against me and reached down, guiding his cock up against me. He thrust into me slowly, letting me feel every inch of him as he filled me up, pushing past the tightness of my body. “Fuck,” I said, shuddering against him.
He wasn’t huge, but he was definitely big enough to make me feel almost uncomfortable full for a moment as he pushed in until our hips were flush. He stopped for a moment to kiss me on the lips before he began to rock his hips once more, sliding out and pushing back in in a steady rhythm that I fell into immediately. This wasn’t like any of our times before—even though I knew that Zack had loved me when we were dating in high school, he hadn’t had any technique, no way to know how to hold back and savor the feeling.
I pushed my hips down to meet his thrusts, touching him everywhere I could reach, kissing him everywhere I could, dragging my lips against the skin of his neck, along his shoulders, back up to his mouth. I felt his muscles flexing under his hot skin as he began to pick up his pace gradually, thrusting harder and just a little faster into me. He shifted, and his cock rubbed along my inner walls, seeking my g-spot, his pelvis rubbing right up against my clit with every movement of his body. This was way better than I could have imagined—it was hot, both of us dripping with sweat as we moved together; it felt so much better than any of the sex we’d ever had before. I wrapped my legs around him tighter, rubbing my body against his, pushing my hips down in counterpoint to his thrusts.
Zack began to move faster and faster, almost pounding into me, and to my shock I felt the pleasure mounting faster and faster, like a knot deep down between my hips, tightening with every thrust of his cock deeper into my body. Zack brushed up against my g-spot and I cried out helplessly, my nails digging into his shoulders, my whole body tensing for a moment before I melted into the pleasure. I was panting, struggling to take deeper breaths to try and hold back my own orgasm—I wanted to feel Zack come inside of me, I wanted to feel that moment when he reached his climax and emptied into me. In the back of my mind I realized that I should have insisted on a condom, but it was already too late—I couldn’t make myself break the mood by stopping him, and anyway, he was already deep inside of me. Get tested later, I reminded myself while I still had the ability to think. But as the sensations got more and more intense, I lost all ability to think or even worry about it, moving with Zack on instinct, falling into his rhythm. I could feel his cock twitching inside of me, feel him getting tenser as we both got closer and closer.
Just when I thought I would get my wish—that Zack would hit his climax and come, filling me up with his heat—he stopped, resting his head against my shoulder and shuddering. “Fuck, Evie,” he said lowly, his whole body tight with tension.
“Is something wrong?” I tried to pull his face around to look into his eyes. He shook his head, chuckling.
“Nothing is wrong except that I can usually last for hours and you’re about to get me off in minutes,” he said, pulling himself up and kissing me hungrily. He slipped out of me and I tried not to feel disappointed.
The next moment he twisted and shifted on top of me, moving around and falling onto the couch. He maneuvered me on top of him, holding me by the hips, pulling me up against him.
“Ride me, Evie—I want to watch you.”
I blushed; I had experimented a little bit since Zack and I had broken up, but I wasn’t entirely expecting that shift. I swallowed, feeling nervous without knowing why. I could still feel his cock, hard as a rock, pressing against me. I straddled his hips, sitting up on top of him and looking down into his pleasure-hazed eyes as I reached between our bodies. I wrapped my hand around his cock and, as payback for how he had teased me before, I stroked him a few quick times. He felt good in my hand, hot and thick and full, and I knew I wouldn’t last much longer—I was right on the edge. I guided him up against me and sank down onto the length of his cock slowly, throwing my head back with a moan as he filled me up.
I began to move my hips slowly, rocking and twisting them, balancing on my knees with my hands on Zack’s shoulders. He was watching me—I felt his eyes on my body and wondered just what he was seeing. I felt my breasts shaking as I picked up the pace, unable to help myself, pivoting and shifting my hips as I rose and fell on him. He felt so good—I couldn’t hold back the moans that left me, and in a matter of moments Zack was moving too, thrusting up into me, his hips colliding with mine, his cock driving deeper and deeper inside of me.
“Fuck—yes—god—Zack!”
His hand moved down from my hip and slipped between our bodies. He found my clit with his fingertips and began stroking and rubbing me with every movement between us, sending shivering hot and cold tingles of pleasure through me that made it impossible for me to do anything other than speed up, throw myself down on him, faster and faster.
In a matter of moments, I felt my pleasure cresting, and barely held back long enough to feel the first spasm of Zack coming inside of me. His cock twitched inside of me erratically and I felt a flood of sticky-slick heat filling me up, followed by another. I was gushing around him, my muscles all tensing and relaxing without any control. I moaned out over and over again, riding him through my own climax, rubbing against the persistent touch of his fingers against my clit, pushing myself down onto his cock until the waves of pleasure stopped rushing through me. Every thought in my head blotted out and I collapsed against him, burying my face against his shoulder as I panted for breath.
Zack’s heart was pounding wildly, his breathing fast, as I came back to myself slowly. His arms were around me, and he was stroking my back slowly, soothingly, just as he had brought me back to myself before.
“Fuck, Evie, you’re amazing,” Zack murmured, pulling my face up and around to kiss me on the lips. I smiled into the kiss, shifting on top of him. He was still inside of me, not fully hard anymore, but I liked the sensation, the closeness of our bodies.
“Yes, I am,” I said with a grin, nuzzling against his neck.
Zack laughed. “I mean it. You were so hot, riding me like that. It was so great looking up at you and watching you get more and more turned on and seeing you come like that.”
I blushed; I’d been on top before—not with Zack, but with another guy I’d been with. But the other guy had never told me I was hot like that. I felt a tingle of something deep inside of me at the compliment.
“That was definitely better than anything in high school,” I admitted, pulling back to look down at him.
Zack was grinning. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of my face before bringing me back down for another long, probing kiss, his tongue batting against mine as he squeezed my body against his. He shifted us on the couch and I found myself pressed against him, lying on my side, and his arms around me tightly.
“I’ve picked up some skills since then,” Zack said, brushing his lips against my forehead. “You’re kind of different too… more into it. I like the new Evie.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m no different from the old Evie,” I said, even though I knew it was a lie. I was different in a lot of ways—but that didn’t mean that I had necessarily been the reason our sex as teenagers hadn’t been hotter. “Okay, maybe I am, but I’m not that different.”
Zack laughed, pulling me close to him and kissing me on the lips once more. His hands began to wander over my body, starting to turn me on all over again, and I leaned into Zack’s caresses, thinking that maybe—just maybe—there would be time for us to have another quick go at it before I needed to get back to my own dorm. This new Zack—this guy who was actually pretty phenomenal in bed—was well worth exploring a bit more. I could feel him pressed against me, starting to get hard again. It would feel so good, and it had been such a long time.
I was almost completely distracted—almost ready to get down to it once more—when I heard something outside. There were voices; there was someone close by. The sound snapped me out of the hot haze of lust that was starting up in my body and brain again. There was the sound of glass hitting the wooden porch and I sat up.
“What’s that?” I said, even though I could figure out very well for myself what it was—some people on the front porch of the frat house. They might be just random students headed to another party taking a break on the porch, or they might be members of the frat. Either way, they were way too close.
“Ah, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Zack said, trying to pull me back down.
I shook my head. “There are people outside,” I said, feeling my heart starting to pound. I wasn’t exactly ashamed of having sex with Zack, but I definitely didn’t want to get caught on a frat house couch, naked and right after sex. I slipped out of his arms and looked around for my clothes.
“We can go to my room if you want,” Zack suggested. “No one will bother us there. If the door’s closed it’s understood that you want privacy—whether because you’re studying or whatever.”
I shook my head again. I had to get out of there. This had all been a mistake. I shouldn’t have let Zack get me naked. Even if it had been the hottest sex I’d ever had in my life, I was not the kind of girl to be discovered having sex with a frat guy, much less in the middle of a public area, even if it had been empty when we started. I found the pieces of my outfit one by one and pulled them on as quickly as possible. I could feel the slick, slithery feeling between my legs and my cheeks burned with embarrassment. I thought to myself that everyone would know. I felt a lump growing in my throat. I pulled on my panties and slipped on my skirt and tried to smooth my hair.
“Hey, what’s bugging you?” Zack asked, pulling his pants on and looking at me in bewilderment.
I shrugged. “I just need to get out of here,” I said. “I have—I have things I need to do. I need to get back to the dorm.” Zack’s eyebrows raised and I shrugged again. “Look, just…get me home, please?” Zack hesitated for a moment and I rolled my eyes, groaning in frustration. “You know what? It’s fine. I’ve walked home from here before.”
I stepped into my shoes and walked out of the door as quickly as I could, barely looking at the two guys who were sitting on the porch. I nearly ran away—not wanting to hear their reaction, whether it was positive or negative. I didn’t want to even think about the fact that they would probably put two and two together the moment they saw Zack and figure out exactly what had happened; I didn’t want to think that they probably had already figured it out. If they laughed at me, I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear anyone referring to me as a piece of ass.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three days later I made my way into the dining hall, not even bothering to drop my text books back at the room after my class. I was starving—I had overslept and had only had time to grab a banana on my way to class that morning.
When Jess had found me the morning after the football game, she had looked me up and down sharply. “You’ve had sex,” she said, crossing her arms and staring me up and down again.
“You can’t know that.” I sat down on the couch, trying not to feel embarrassed.
Jess laughed. “Well, now I do for sure. But no, you’re totally walking like a girl who’s just gotten laid for the first time in a long time.”
I told her I didn’t want to talk about it—I was still feeling a little weird about the whole thing—but she managed to get me to admit that it was Zack I’d screwed.
“Hey, not a bad choice, the winning QB. Certainly more prestige in that than my for last night.”
I finally turned the topic by getting her to talk about the guy she had left the stadium with. Jess thought he might be worth a date or two, though she didn’t want to commit herself to anyone just yet.
Jess worried me a little bit—she seemed to be getting wilder and wilder as the semester wore on, and I could only imagine how she would be by the time finals came around. But I told myself she was an adult, and that she seemed to at least mostly have a good self-preserving streak in her. She never left her drink alone, she tried to make sure she had at least one friend with her when she went to a party, and she almost always ended the night in her own dorm room—or in the room of one of her friends, if she got too drunk. True to her word, the next day she and I worked on my Stats class together; it always amazed me that she seemed to instinctively get concepts that I had to have explained over and over again before I could finally understand them—at least when it came to math. I knew she dreaded having to take English in the spring, and I’d promised that I would help her when that time came.
I waited in line; my class wasn’t the only one that had gotten out, and there were plenty of people in the dining hall still in their pajamas whose classes didn’t start until the afternoon. I’d never been a big morning person, but the classes I needed to take were offered at set times, and it wasn’t worth the extra few hours of sleep to me to wait to take them when they might be at a different hour. Since my social life was mostly limited to Jess, I wasn’t up late most nights anyway. Eventually, the kinds of classes I wanted to take and needed to have to finish my degree would be afternoon classes, and I’d get to lounge around all morning too.
I scanned my card and ducked into the serving area; the food wasn’t great, but it was all-you-can-eat, a privilege that seemed mostly geared towards the football team. The soup was dependably decent, and I helped myself to a bowl of that, grabbing a sandwich off of a tray and moving over to the salad bar. I was not going to put on the freshman fifteen, I told myself over and over again. It was too easy between the junk food in the dorms and the unlimited desserts and ice cream that the dining hall offered. I had seen a few girls who had already put on five pounds and the first semester was only about halfway over; I had no desire to be like them—crying over the scale, panicked that my clothes didn’t fit anymore, and struggling to diet with temptation all around me.
I got my food and sat down at a table by the windows; Jess would be in soon enough, and she’d probably make a beeline to me. In spite of the fact that Jess had a plenty-active social life, she had gotten attached to me in our first week and we tried to catch meals together as much as we possibly could. Her classes were spread out over different hours on different days—she only had the two required classes on Fridays, the freshman introductory classes that we all had to take: Introduction to Academic Life and Freshman Seminar, which took place in the biggest auditorium on campus and featured a different guest speaker every week. Some of them were interesting and some of them were so boring I had to wonder if it was some sort of hazing procedure that wasn’t outlawed simply because they could argue it was academic.
I started in on my salad first, eating it as fast as I could to stop the gnawing hunger in my stomach. I wasn’t model-thin, but I was fit, and when I had asked my doctor how to keep from gaining weight, she had offered me the practical advice that if I ate a fairly lean salad before I started in on my entrée, I’d fill my stomach up faster and take in fewer calories. It had worked so far, and at least I liked salads. While I ate, I thought about the class I had just left, and the one I had later in the day. Grant had signed me up for all of the access I needed as a new member of the campus newspaper, and I had started poring through the message board threads. I had needed something to throw myself into after the debacle with Zack, while I was trying to figure out just how I felt about it. Researching and getting to understand the way the newspaper worked was a good distraction from the troubling feelings I was trying to avoid thinking about.
I was still doing well in all of my classes, and I had managed to keep my head on straight for the American History essay test that I had just taken, in spite of the fact that my stomach had started to rumble about halfway through. I had Stats later in the day, and despite Jess’s tutoring, I wasn’t sure I’d entirely be able to keep up with the material. But I would have to do my best. We were starting to get into deeper topics in Statistics, and I felt like I was swimming out of my depth until Jess explained things to me in terms so simple anyone could understand them. I knew that after midterms we would get into the part of things that I was actually good at: interpreting information, instead of compiling it. Drawing conclusions from data was something I was halfway capable of, even if I didn’t entirely know how to explain how I’d come to the conclusion. If I could ace the midterm, I would be set.
I finished my salad and set the plate aside, moving to start in on the minestrone soup I’d gotten next. I realized that I had forgotten to grab a spoon and groaned at my stupidity. Well, I’d had a lot on my mind, I thought, trying not to be angry at myself. Ever since I’d had sex with Zack, I’d been a jumble of different emotions, and every little thing I did wrong seemed to be huge instead of tiny. I had gotten frustrated at myself for marking something in my journalism text book with a green instead of a pink highlighter—it didn’t even entirely matter, once I reviewed the material later I would know that it was a quote instead of a citation—but in the moment it had seemed so incredibly stupid and amateur.
I knew the reason I’d been so hard on myself was that I hadn’t done anything about the situation with Zack. After I’d run away from the frat house that night, I’d gone back to my dorm and tried to bury myself in an episode of Bones. I’d been thinking about him the whole time; I couldn’t even remember the story to save my life. At least, I thought ruefully, that would make it more fun to re-watch later. But I had wondered about the fact that he had sought me out, the fact that we’d gone from zero to a hundred miles an hour in a matter of maybe thirty minutes; he had offered me a ride home, and then I was at the frat house, and then we were kissing, and then we were having sex, right there where anyone could have walked in on us. I didn’t like the idea that Zack’s mere presence could take me so far away from my usual habits. It made me uncomfortable.
Zack and I had broken up just when my mom had started getting sicker. She had passed away from the cancer she had been fighting throughout our relationship a couple of months before I started college, only a few weeks after watching me graduate. I’d thrown myself into work, taking extra shifts and saving up my money as much as possible. With her death, it was even harder for dad to afford my college—there were all the bills, and even though they’d had a life insurance policy starting from before she’d been diagnosed with cancer, everything had been so expensive that there just wasn’t anything much to spare for my education.
I couldn’t blame Zack for breaking up with me when he had; he had his own life to lead, and I had told myself more than once that I would rather deal with the heartache of a breakup than to find out that he had given into temptation at college and cheated on me. One of my other friends in high school had gone through that, and that would have hurt much more than just him breaking up with me. But it would have been nice to have even a few more months of emotional support to deal with the fact that we all knew my mom only had a little while longer—that in spite of the fact that she was fighting tooth and nail to outlive her cancer, there was only so much that medicine could do for her.
I stood up, leaving my books and tray behind at the table I had taken. When I went back to the entrance of the dining hall to get into the serving area, where the silverware was, I looked around to see if Jess had come in yet. I flashed my ID card—I didn’t have to scan it, not when I’d already done that. The person at the entry had seen me go through before and waved me into the line. It annoyed me, a little, that I had to get back in line even though I didn’t want to get more food; but it was fair, I supposed. I considered grabbing a small dessert—maybe a brownie or a cookie—while I was up anyway. Even if the soup and sandwich filled me up, it would be a good snack later while I was studying. They didn’t restrict what you could take out of the dining hall very much—we weren’t supposed to take any plates, cups, or silverware, but I knew that several people in the dorms had quite the collection of dining hall crockery that they slipped back into circulation rather than washing themselves, putting it on their trays and pushing it into the dish chute on the other end of the hall.
As I looked around, hoping I would see Jess, I instead spotted Zack. My heart pounded in my chest. I hadn’t been avoiding him precisely, but the school was big enough that I didn’t really have to try not to run into him. The next moment my stomach gave a lurch; he had his arm around a girl. I didn’t know her, and I didn’t need to. It had only been three days—he was already moving on? My stomach twisted itself in knots and then I felt a hot rush of anger. I hadn’t spoken to him, but it wasn’t like I’d told him I never wanted to see him again. It also wasn’t as though he had no idea how to get in touch with me if he had wanted to. I pressed my lips together, feeling my face burn, feeling the fire working its way through my bones. I grabbed a spoon and took deep breaths, trying to decide how to deal with the situation. I didn’t want to cut in line; I didn’t want to cause a huge scene. I moved along with the line, keeping an eye on Zack a few people ahead of me, talking to and laughing with the girl his arm was wrapped around. They certainly looked chummy.
The girl grabbed the food she wanted and broke away from Zack, and I spotted my chance. He was getting out of the line too, moving to grab a drink before he went into the dining area proper. His tray was loaded down and he had to set it on the ledge to fill his cup. No one could accuse me of cutting the line with nothing but a spoon in my hands. I walked over to Zack and called out his name, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible. Zack looked up and his eyes widened in recognition—but no sign of guilt or shame.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked him. I couldn’t keep my anger out of my voice and I knew it; I was feeling it too strongly.
“What do you mean, what’s up?” Zack filled his cup and put it on his tray. I took a deep breath as quietly as possible.
“I mean, who’s that? And why was your arm all around her like that?”
Zack shrugged, looking at me as if I was crazy. “It’s just a friend of mine,” he said, starting to look around. I knew we were on the edge of creating a scene, but I didn’t care in the moment.
“Just a friend? Come on, Zack, I’m not an idiot.” I crossed my arms over my chest, gripping the spoon tightly. I swallowed against the lump that was forming in my throat, glancing around quickly. The people closest to us were watching avidly. I heard someone say to a friend that it was another blow up with Zack, and my face burned.
“She’s just a friend, Evie—come on! We have a philosophy class together.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t see why you’re acting like some kind of jealous bitch.”
I inhaled sharply. “Jealous bitch?”
“Jealous girlfriend, do you like that better?”
I clenched my teeth. “What do you mean, you can’t see why I’m acting jealous?”
Zack looked around and a haughty look came over his face.
“I mean, it’s not like there’s anything between us. It was just sex, Evie—no big deal.” The words hit me like ice water. In my mind I heard Zack’s drunken frat brother saying he’d found his piece of ass. I hadn’t exactly sought him out to talk to him about what had happened, but Zack and I had history; it wasn’t like we were strangers who had hooked up. I had dated him for two years before he had gone off to college—I had lost my virginity to him.
“Just sex? Just sex?” I shook my head. My anger was mounting, I felt it getting hotter and hotter inside of me. In spite of how hungry I had been when I first came into the dining hall, my stomach was roiling now—the smell of food all around me made me feel a little nauseated. Zack shrugged. I looked around; we were the subject of intense interest in the serving area, and I caught a few people laughing, some others smiling at the spectacle. My face burned hotter. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed the cup off of Zack’s tray. I threw the contents into his face and let the cup drop back onto the tray before I snatched up a piece of cake he had grabbed from the dessert station, dripping with icing. I threw that in his face too, wanting to scream. Instead I turned on my heel and charged through the entryway into the dining area as everyone in the serving area started to laugh at Zack. I grabbed up my books and didn’t even bother with my tray; I normally tried to be considerate of the people who worked in the dining hall, but I was so angry—so humiliated—that I didn’t care. I got out of the dining hall quickly as I could and didn’t even look back as I walked as fast as my legs would move back to the dorms.
SLAMMED #2
CHAPTER ONE
I told myself that I shouldn’t be surprised. Just because Zack had been my first, real boyfriend, and I had lost my virginity to him, didn’t make him any different from any other guy. I curled up on the dorm room couch, watching TV instead of studying, alternating between wanting to cry and wanting to track Zack down again and scream in his face. I wished—useless as it was—that my mom was around, that I could call her and tell her how awful I felt. The thought of my mom plunged me into a deeper sadness; I missed her. I had thought I was finished grieving for her loss after a year, but every time something big happened in my life—when I graduated, when I moved into the dorms, and now, the situation with Zack—I thought about her, and wondered what she would say.
“Sweetie, some guys are just jerks.”
Mom had told me that more than once when I’d come to her—after Zack and I had broken up and I had started dating other guys; guys who hadn’t been as loveable as Zack had been when we were both in high school. I could hear her voice in my head telling me that; I could feel her weak hand stroking my hair.
“You shouldn’t take any guy too seriously until he’s proven he’s worth your time.”
My eyes stung and burned and I buried my face against a throw pillow, sniffling. I had thought that Zack had proven he was worth my time in high school; I had never thought he’d turn out to be like the other guys I had dated. I tried to think back to what he had been like. When mom had first started getting sick, he’d seemed so supportive—showing up in the middle of the night to comfort me, or grabbing my lunch from the cafeteria so I could spend the whole break studying to make up for what I hadn’t been able to do during mom’s appointments.
It was hard not to think about the last, bad months of my mom’s fight with cancer whenever I tried to think of her advice. It had been horrifying for her, I knew; she had lost her hair and she thought she was hideous. As she wasted away, I had frantically tried to tear myself in two, to do twice the living—rushing through my assignments so I could spend just a few more minutes with her. She had been so strong right up until the end, she had kept giving me advice and love, and I had felt so incredibly helpless as Dad and I watched her not get better but instead get worse. I had missed Zack, but in the face of my mom’s declining health and long descent into death, it seemed not to matter at all. My mom had always been my biggest cheerleader, the person I could turn to with anything—and the biggest problem in my life, that she was dying, gave me no one to talk to about it. I couldn’t tell her how horrible I felt, how much pain it gave me to see her hurting, fighting and struggling against the disease that would claim her life—it wouldn’t be fair to her. She was dealing with so much already.
I knew that she was worried about how I was taking the breakup with Zack, but I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to her about that—it seemed so trivial in comparison. I put a cheerful face on and tried to stay as positive as possible whenever I was in the room with her, telling her about how my English teacher wanted me to try publishing some of the stories I’d written, and how the high school newspaper had featured me in the Superlatives section as Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer. I sneaked her favorite foods into the hospital in spite of the rules against it, even though she had almost no appetite. She managed to eat a few bites here and there, and I would devour the snacks with her more to keep her from feeling guilty for not being able to eat than because I wanted them.
“Sweetheart, you have a kind and loving heart,” she told me once, close to the end. “It’s a good companion for your active brain. Let them work together—don’t ever let one take over completely. Use your sense and use your compassion. I know you’re going to have a good life, and I’ll be watching you always.”
Normally the show on the TV would have completely taken up my attention, but as I lay there on the couch, I found myself thinking more and more about Zack. Had he really changed, or had he always been a jerk? It was hard for me to say. The guys I had dated after Zack and I broke up had made me start to largely distrust men in general; Mom’s advice to me whenever I would come to her depressed or frustrated with someone I was dating had made me think that I just shouldn’t trust any guy I hadn’t already vetted, who I didn’t already have experience with. But I had experience with Zack. He was nothing like Braden, the guy I’d dated a couple of weeks after Zack and I had broken up, who had just been using me to get to my friend Lisa—and who had called me a frigid bitch when I wouldn’t “put out.” He wasn’t anything like Tony either; Tony had been dating a girl at another school the entire time we saw each other, and I didn’t find out until someone told me they had seen him at the other school’s dance.
Zack had been so sweet when we had been together in high school. Even the first time we had had sex, he had been so careful, so gentle, making sure that I was ready for it, making sure that there wasn’t too much pain. I didn’t even bleed—we’d made out and teased each other until I was soaking wet. The fact that the sex itself had been a little disappointing had nothing to do with Zack being a bad guy; I’d kept having sex with him after that not because of any pressure from him, but because I kept hoping that we’d have that magic moment when everything came together and it felt amazing, the way I’d read about in books that I kept hidden from my parents. It didn’t become that way, but at least Zack had never tried to force me; and to the best of my knowledge, he’d never cheated on me.
The sex I’d had with him the other night was totally different. I felt myself burning up from the inside as I remembered it—how good Zack had been at touching me, at getting me off. How good he had felt inside of me. It had been like night and day compared to our high school years, and I had to assume that the reason why he was so much better at sex was that he had been with other women in between. Had he broken up with me purely so he’d be free to sleep around? I wanted to know and dreaded the possibility at the same time. I wavered between wanting to be mad at him again for possibly breaking up with me right before I would have to deal with the most difficult thing in my life—losing my mom—and thinking about how incredibly hot our tryst together had been.
“It was just sex,” I heard him saying in my mind, blowing me off as if we had no history, as if I was just another freshman girl who’d gone to a party and ended up with him in bed. I heard his frat brother in my mind referring to me as Zack’s “piece of ass” for the night.
I writhed and squirmed on the couch, thinking that my reaction had painted me firmly as the naïve freshman girl who thought that sleeping with someone meant something—the insecure, hyper-sensitive girl who was probably a virgin. I wanted to go back to the dining hall and tell everyone who had seen me dumping Zack’s food on him that I wasn’t a virgin—that I wasn’t naïve, or a dumb, freshman girl. That the reason I had thought it meant something was that Zack and I had a history. But that would only make it worse. I buried my face in the throw pillow and groaned, picking my head up and letting it fall over and over again. It was so stupid to think about Zack. I should have just let it go and never thought of him again.
I had no idea if the girl Zack had been talking to was his girlfriend, or some other girl he was sleeping with, or even just a friend as he claimed. He had seemed pretty close to her; he had seemed comfortable with her. It grated on my nerves that Zack could have had sex with me for the first time since we’d broken up and just consider it regular sex while I was completely and totally hung up on him without even knowing if he was really single.
I heard the dorm room door open and close and looked up to see Jess, her face dancing with amusement, her eyes practically sparkling. “Evie! Baby girl! Is it true what I heard?”
I groaned and sat up. “That depends,” I replied, rubbing at my face to get rid of the last traces of tears I had shed over my own stupidity. “What did you hear?”
Jess laughed and sat down. “I heard you humiliated Zack in the dining hall. Someone said you dumped his lunch over his head.”
My cheeks burned and I buried my face in my hands. “Ugh, please tell me that only a handful of people saw that. I feel like such an idiot for doing it.”
Jess shook her head when I looked up. “It’s all over campus. Trust me, no one thinks you were an idiot—there are some girls who want to elect you class president for it!”
I smiled slightly. So it was true then: Zack had been sleeping around since we broke up, as soon as he got to college.
“Yeah, but I’m sure plenty of people are calling me a naïve freshie who thought a one-night stand actually meant something.”
Jess shrugged. “If there are, who cares about them? I’ve told a few people you and Zack had a history, so it’s going around that he’s the kind of stupid asshole who sleeps with an ex and expects it to mean nothing.”
I chuckled. “As long as he’s the one who’s being called an idiot, I guess that’s okay.” I sighed. I wanted a shower—in spite of the fact that I’d already had one that morning. “I thought I had zero feelings for him. Like—I thought I was completely over the breakup, Jess. I didn’t expect to see him at that party, and I didn’t even think of him when we went to that game.”
Jess shrugged, shaking her head. “That’s the thing with exes. You think you’re over them and then boom! You get blindsided by feelings the next time you see them.” She shook her head again. “But I do have to say, if you had to get involved with an ex, Zack isn’t hard on the eyes. And you said you had a good time.”
I blushed. “He was…much better in bed than I remembered. I guess that’s part of why I sort of…let myself think that there was more to it than just sex.”
“Girlie, there is more to it than just sex, even if Zack doesn’t think so. He had to know it when he got you back to his place. I never saw a guy work harder to convince a girl to take a walk with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “That might be because you never make them work very hard if you’re interested in them, and if you’re not interested, you shut them down early.”
Jess laughed. “It works for me. Look, Evie: don’t think about it too much. You ran into an ex, you screwed him; he turned out to be an ass. It happens. Just take delight in the fact that there are plenty of girls who won’t screw him now.”
I chuckled, but in spite of the fact that I was feeling—at least a little bit—better, I couldn’t quite make myself stop thinking about Zack. Had I been totally wrong about him when we’d been dating as teenagers? And why couldn’t I get him out of my mind now?
CHAPTER TWO
A few days later, after I had gotten over my humiliation, I decided that I was being stupid. I would just put Zack out of my mind completely and plunge back into my studies. I’d get a fresh start and forget that anything had ever happened between us. It was a big enough campus; as long as I didn’t go to any more frat parties, my chances of running into him were not that great. I put him out of my mind completely and told myself that there were plenty of other things that I could fill my time with and enjoy more. The biggest thing on my mind was the first meeting of the campus newspaper; I had read up on all of the threads in the group forum the newspaper used, and familiarized myself with the style guide, just like Professor Grant suggested in class. I expected my first assignment would be a softball—something hard to screw up, that would give them a chance to evaluate my ability to do the work. But that didn’t mean I could slack off on it; I should turn in the absolute best work that I could.
I grabbed a coffee before the meeting and hurried down to the student union so I wouldn’t be late. I’d been to the student U a few times in the weeks I’d been at the college so far but never really paid the building that much attention; there were banners for our football team, of course, and all kinds of things covered in the school colors. Just inside the entrance there were benches and couches scattered around for chatting and relaxing, and artwork by students was on display. I could smell coffee—clearly I wasn’t the only one who needed a lift—and the lingering smells of a party given by the Latin American Club a little earlier in the afternoon. It felt homey and comforting, and I started to relax.
I went into the room that the campus newspaper had taken for its own and sat down; there were the same beat-up couches as in the big room, a couple of desks, a projection screen, and a podium. Professor Grant was already there, as were a few of the members of the editorial board. “Ahh, Evelyn, thanks for getting here early.” Dr. Grant said, looking up from his laptop. “Michelle, Lisa, Alex, Nathan, this is Evelyn. She’s one of my most promising freshmen and I thought you’d like to give her a shot.”
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Lisa, came over and shook my hand. “Good idea to bring coffee,” she said with a grin. She was a bit shorter than me, with auburn hair and creamy skin, dressed in a kind of fashionable-librarian look that I had to kind of admire. “These meetings end up going on for hours sometimes, people arguing about pitches, trying to campaign to keep a piece in contention.”
“Not that different from a regular newspaper then, I guess,” I said, feeling a little nervous. I had no idea of any ideas to pitch.
“Of course, since you’re new, you won’t be pitching for a few weeks. We’ll give you a few assignments to sort of feel out your aptitude. Every newbie gets to do a rotation of the different areas—so even if you start out in say, politics, you probably won’t be there permanently unless you decide you want to be.”
I nodded. Other members of the newspaper started to file in and I took my seat at the back of the room, wanting to just observe. Since I had no articles to pitch, I didn’t really have a dog in the fight. I opened up my laptop and got ready to take notes, just in case there was anything I needed to remember later.
I quickly got to see what Lisa meant; as the meeting came to order, everyone started putting their ideas forward, arguing for their pitches, for a better position in the finished paper—anything and everything a group of journalists could possibly argue about. I drank down my coffee and listened, taking occasional notes about what people were saying about the paper’s layout and other details. I lost track of time, but it had to be a couple of hours—I was glad that the meeting was after all my classes, and that they’d ordered in pizza, because the dining hall would almost definitely be closed by the time it was over.
“Okay!” Lisa said, taking a deep breath as the arguments came to a close. “Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, it’s time for assignments. There’s a fencing tournament that needs at least a little coverage—Simon, you can take that one since you’re friends with someone on the fencing club. There’s also a big event by the Feminist Club; Elizabeth, that one’s all you.” Lisa went through a list and I waited my turn, knowing that I would probably not get a very plum assignment. Finally, Lisa came to the last item. “The football season is coming to a close, so we need to cover the last game. Evelyn, it’s kind of a big one—but I think from what Professor Grant said about your writing that you can cover it. I’ll also need you to get an interview with the QB; everyone’s talking about him. Zack’s his name I think? Have you met him?”
I fought back the deep, hot blush I felt starting across my cheeks. “He and I went to the same high school,” I said, struggling to keep my voice neutral. I swallowed the lump I could feel forming in my throat, wondering if the people looking at me had been in the dining hall when I’d had my scuffle with Zack.
“Awesome—then it should be easy to get him to give us some good snippets. Deadline is Sunday night—we’re publishing Monday.”
I was glad I wasn’t on the editorial board; there’d be a lot of last-minute editing and proofing. The game would be Saturday—I had a few days to prepare myself for it. I smiled as graciously as I could as everyone started to clear out of the room, talking about their assignments and the deadline. I went back to my dorm full of pizza and coffee, telling myself I would get back to work right away—get some homework done, maybe do some studying. But as soon as I was in my room, I sank down onto the bed and groaned, covering my face with my hands. It wasn’t fair. I had wanted to make a clean break and get a fresh start, and here it was: I had to interview Zack for the newspaper. It was as if the Universe was forcing me to deal with that jerk. I shook my head and buried my face in my pillows, wishing that there was some way that I could turn down the assignment without making myself look like an idiot or making Professor Grant doubt me.
Suck it up, Evelyn, I told myself firmly, giving myself a shake and sitting up. This isn’t the last time you’re going to have to deal with awkwardness. Do the interview, write the article, and be done with it.
CHAPTER THREE
I was still trying to figure out what exactly I was going to do about the situation with Zack when I got out of my classes the next day —it would be awkward no matter what. I walked across the campus wishing I’d grabbed a thicker sweater; it was starting to get cold. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself I was headed to the library, where it was always warm. It would be colder once it got out closer to sunset, but the dorms weren’t that far. I could grab a heavier sweater before I went to the dining hall for dinner.
I had been consciously avoiding Zack ever since I’d made my decision to get a fresh start. That wouldn’t work, of course, with the interview I had to get with him. But at least the library was somewhere I wouldn’t have to think about him. I could just get some studying done and pretend like he didn’t exist for a couple of hours. It was a relief.
I went into the library and found myself instantly relaxing, muscles I hadn’t even known were tense beginning to uncoil along my back and shoulders. I took a deep breath—the library smelled like books, a faint trace of ozone from the copiers and computers, and something clean and lemony. I’d come to the library almost every day since classes officially started—though I’d changed up my time slightly in recent weeks. It was comfortable and homey to me. I made my way past the circulation and services desk and into the library proper, taking off my sweater; the classrooms were all pretty chilly, but the library always seemed to be a little warmer than any other building on campus except the student union.
I found a seat in the quiet section, sitting down next to a girl I didn’t know; it was oddly busy—sometimes I’d go into the library and there would be no one but me and the staff. I didn’t think anything of it; after all, midterms were coming up, and people were probably cramming and making up for last time. I got out my American History textbook and my notebook, and started to flip through for the section we were currently covering. In the thick silence of the quiet section, I heard the library entrance doors squeak open and looked up in spite of my determination to plunge into my studying.
Of all of the people to come walking into the library, it had to be him. I almost groaned as I caught sight of Zack walking past the circulation desk and heading to a different section of the library, not even looking around as he made his way past the section I was in. In a million years, I would never have guessed I would see Zack in the library looking as if he knew exactly where he was going, looking focused. I knew I was staring. I couldn’t believe my eyes; Zack, who had barely kept up his grades enough to get through high school, who had always joked about my bookworm habits, was in the campus library, textbooks in hand, looking as if he was going in for a prolonged jam session of studying.
The girl I’d sat down next to must have noticed my staring; I nearly jumped out of my chair when she spoke. “He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?” I tore my gaze away from Zack. The girl—with short-cropped blonde hair and gray-green eyes—was looking in Zack’s direction and then grinned at me.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my heart pounding. I had to stop thinking about him—but it was impossible when he kept showing up like this; first the interview I had to do with him and now him being in the library while I was. If I were paranoid, I would say that there had to be some way he was manipulating things—it couldn’t be a coincidence that he kept getting thrown in my way.
White van syndrome, I told myself. Since I had noticed Zack at the party and had ended up having sex with him—putting him at the forefront of my mind in spite of all my attempts to stop thinking about him—I was apt to notice anything having to do with him. I might have even ended up going to the game even if I didn’t have to cover it for the newspaper.
I was being ridiculous, I thought. Zack was just another person. He didn’t keep showing up in my life for any particular reason; there were lots of people at the college with us, but there weren’t so many people that it was impossible for us to run into each other—we had gone eight weeks without seeing each other, but that was just a coincidence, and just because I tended to keep strictly to my dorm, the dining hall, my classes, and the library. I had to get used to seeing him occasionally or I’d never get over him.
“He’s in here every day,” the girl was saying. I shrugged, although that piece of information surprised me more than seeing Zack in the first place. “Always comes out this time of the afternoon.”
That at least explained why I hadn’t seen him. Normally I would have gone to the Library in the morning—but after the late meeting with the campus newspaper, I had slept in a bit. Normally I reserved a private study cubicle, too; but when I’d come in to reserve after breakfast, they were taken for the rest of the day until the library closed at midnight.
I pretended to turn my attention back onto my book as if Zack’s appearance had nothing to do with me—and I was sure it didn’t. But if I took too much notice of him being in the library, the girl might ask if I knew him. It was bad enough to have made a public spectacle of myself in the dining hall, even if no one had really mentioned it to me in the days since. If she started asking questions, the whole sordid thing might come tumbling out of me, and the last thing I wanted or needed was to be the subject of gossip. I didn’t want to be Zack’s pining ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to get my work done, make my grades, and move on with my life.
It was strange, though; I thought back to high school, and I tried to remember if I had ever seen Zack set foot in the school media center. He must have had to go with his English class when they were learning how to write a research paper, but I couldn’t think of any point in time when he had gone of his own volition to study. I think he even managed to skip study hall. He had never been a dedicated student or even a particularly good student—so what was he doing in the library now? I couldn’t imagine anything that would make him decide to do better in his classes. After all, there was a common piece of gossip that most of the football team was given a certain amount of leniency in getting their work done, turning it in on time, and even the quality of their work. The college wanted to make sure to toe the line between making sure they got an education and making sure they were still able to qualify to play. No one was blatantly passed if they didn’t do any work, but Zack was smart enough to manage a C without much effort; why would he put in extra work if he didn’t have to?
I had to work hard to make myself focus on the task at hand. It was like an itch in my eyes—the urge to look up and see if Zack was still in the library, if he was actually studying or just goofing off. I didn’t care, I told myself. If he had somehow become a better student because the standards were higher in college, then that was good for him; but I still couldn’t quite credit the possibility of a guy who belonged to the most notorious frat on campus being a good student. It just didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care. I was just there to study. But the question still purred away at the back of my mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
On Saturday, I told Jess that I had to go to the game; she was immediately interested. “Oh man, that’s right; you have to talk to douchebag afterwards!” She looked me over from head to toe and shook her head. “Oh, Evie, this is a mess. You’re not wearing this to the game are you?”
I looked down at my outfit: a long-sleeved button-down shirt with a cardigan over it for warmth, a pair of jeans, and some sneakers.
“What’s wrong with this?” I asked. It wasn’t as cute as what I had been wearing the previous game, but then, I wasn’t there to pick up a guy. I was there to watch the game, take notes, and interview Zack. The last thing I was interested in was looking cute.
“Evie, you need to be looking your absolute best if you’re going to have to deal with him. Makeup, hair, the whole nine. But not too obvious, of course. Come on.” She dragged me into my room and started going through my closet. “It’s too cold to wear a skirt this short by itself, but these tights should be warm enough…ooh, this sweater is perfect. Just enough cleavage. You’ll be a little chilly but not too bad.”
I tried to argue—I didn’t want to send any messages that I had no intention of following up on; not to Zack and certainly not to whoever we were sitting near in the section I had tickets for. Lisa had given me the newspaper’s standing tickets—close to the field, so that I had an excellent view and could keep up with everything.
Jess kept repeating to me that if I was going to have to talk to Zack, I needed to look my absolute best. “You need to make sure he knows you’re not even thinking about him,” she told me firmly, coaching me through my makeup. I had relented on the outfit; it wasn’t worth wasting time arguing with her on the subject.
“But I am thinking about him. I mean, I have to interview him. Of course I’m thinking about him.”
Jess groaned in frustration. “Evelyn. You need to show him that you don’t give a good Goddamn about the fact that he just had sex with you and then pretended like you were nothing. You need to look like you might have already decided to go home with someone else after the game. He needs to look at you and think: oh God, what have I done?”
I laughed and finally relented with my whole heart. I could see Jess’ point. If I was going to have to interact with Zack, I might as well go into it feeling confident and looking my best.
I looked at myself in the mirror when Jess was finished with me; I was in our school’s colors, but it wasn’t a super-obvious, school spirit outfit. Everything seemed to go together, and I looked as good as I could without being incredibly dressed up. Jess had managed to do my hair in such a way that it looked great—but it didn’t look as if I had slaved over it for an hour. My makeup was just enough to highlight my best features without being obvious—unless I was going to a club or something, I didn’t like to look like I was wearing a mask of makeup. Jess was excited at the thought of me getting some kind of comeuppance—and the idea of going to such an important game without even having to badger me to go with her. I shook her off and sent her to her own room to get ready; we were going to have prime seats, and I pointed out that there could be some cute guys where we were sitting—she might as well be prepared to flirt. That sent her to her room and I spent the next thirty minutes fidgeting, trying to compose the notes I had put together about the game and the stakes. I knew more than a little bit about football from dating Zack in high school, but I wanted the article to be as good as possible.
We went to the stadium and I showed our tickets to the person at the entrance. Unlike the last time, Jess hadn’t tried to bring anyone with us; I only had two tickets, so it wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. The seats were excellent—and if I were seriously interested in football they would have been a lot more thrilling. As the stadium filled up with people, I called all the details to my mind. It was the second to last game of the regular season and a qualifying game for the bowls. Our team was number one in our conference and the college we were up against was number two; they’d only lost one game that season. It was a tense game—the school we were up against wasn’t our traditional rivals, but they were a good team, with a solid lineup.
A lot of people on campus were speculating since the first string quarterback was still out of commission. He’d been injured badly in the game that Zack had taken over and was still recuperating, in no shape to play. Zack, I knew, was a good quarterback. I’d watched him play plenty of times in high school as his girlfriend, and the previous game he had taken the challenge of leading our team to victory after the shakeup without hesitating. But some people were saying it was bad luck, no matter what Zack’s skill level was. They had been saying amongst themselves that it was almost certain that Zack would end up injured this game—that we’d be doomed. It was the kind of talk that people use to hype themselves up, to raise the stakes for the game itself, and I knew it. But in spite of how angry I still was at Zack for using me the way he had, I couldn’t deny that the thought of him getting seriously injured worried me at least a little bit.
It was cold out, and I tried not to fidget in my seat as I waited for the game to start. In spite of myself, I found I was looking out over the field to try and see if I could see Zack on the sidelines. Of course, until the team made their big entrance, I wouldn’t see anything at all. It was stupid, but I was anxious about the situation. I just wanted to get it over with.
“Stop staring, Evie,” Jess said, elbowing me in the ribs. “Talk to some people, take a few notes.”
I took her advice and asked people around me what they thought about the game. The band was playing, readying for the big event, and I occasionally had to shout to be heard over them; I didn’t want to feel excited but it was impossible as more and more people got to their seats and started to cheer our school and exchange insults with the other team’s fans. I took a few different quotes and wrote a few notes about what the band was playing for the sake of color in the article; and then there was nothing to do but wait.
Fortunately, Jess’ suggestion had eaten up a good bit of time and I wasn’t left waiting for very long. The opposing team took the field first, making a splashy but not over-the-top entrance and basking in their fans’ cheers. It was an important game—the other side of the stands was totally full. Then, after they finished warming up and went to their sidelines, our marching band started up with our school’s fight song. They played the big cheer part and then started in at the beginning, and everyone—including me—was singing along as our team came out on the field. I was cheering with everyone else, swept up in the fervor of the crowd. I wanted to just be excited about the team as a whole, but I found myself looking for Zack amongst his team, finding his jersey and staring intently. If he was nervous, there was not a single sign of it in his body language or on his face. The whole team looked confident—but then, I thought, they should. We were number one in our division. This game would be tough, but I knew Zack was a capable quarterback.
The game finally began and I started taking notes in earnest. I listened carefully to the play-by-play through an earbud in my right ear, not quite blocking out the crowd around me in my interest in getting as much detail as possible. From the first snap, it was clear that the stakes were high for both teams. It was a brutal game right away, both sides pumped up and looking for a prime spot in the bowl games. My heart was pounding as I watched one play after the other. In the first half, the teams were almost even—we would score only for the other school to battle back to a tie. We would try to get our lead back and spend several plays struggling; and then the situation would be reversed. There were interceptions, sacks—once, Zack was down on the ground for longer than he should be and everyone held their breath. When he got up without limping and went back to the huddle, everyone exhaled in relief.
The halftime show was amazing—all that tension built up between our school and the other college made for a spectacular competition between the two bands. I wrote down all of the songs that were played, took notes on the different formations, and even snapped pictures. I took pictures all through the first half as well, trying to keep them evenly distributed between pictures of Zack and pictures of the team as a whole and pictures of the other team. Even though I knew I’d only get a couple of shots in the final article, I didn’t want to turn in a dozen pictures and have eight of them be of Zack.
Then it was the second half of the game. Both teams came back out looking almost as pumped as they had been to start with—which, considering how tense and brutal the first half had been was really saying something. Everyone was full of energy, and I was almost worried that I would end up going deaf from all of the screaming. Once more in the third quarter, it was a hotly contested game; both teams threw out their most challenging plays and both teams worked hard to try and find the weakness in the other, the one vulnerability that would let them get far enough ahead that the game would be conclusive before the final quarter. We hadn’t used our time outs that much in the first half, but the coaches seemed determined to use all of their allotted time in the second.
The score ebbed and flowed, the two teams moving back and forth across the field. It was—even without my personal interest—a thrilling game. I could only imagine how much more exciting and stressful it was for the people who were actually invested in our team and with going to the bowl games in a few weeks. I told myself over and over again that from my perspective it didn’t matter whether we won or not, it would be just as newsworthy and I had lots of ways to cover it for the paper. In fact, a loss might be an interesting thing to interview Zack about afterward. But deep down, I knew that I would feel bad for Zack if the team lost the game; he’d catch all the blame for it if they did, and even if he’d been a jerk to me, he didn’t deserve the whole school’s hate.
At one point the other team was ahead—heading into the final quarter, everyone was tightening down, alternating between tense quiet and uproarious cheers. We could still make a comeback. We could still scrape up a win. My heart was pounding in my chest as I watched, both spectator and reporter. If Zack lost, he would be crushed and no one would let him live it down; even though we would still qualify for a bowl game, it wouldn’t be the most prestigious one. I was wringing my hands as I watched us even the score, and then everyone in the stands—on both sides—was quiet for the last play. I made myself remember to breathe as I watched, my stomach churning.
In the end we managed—in a Hail Mary—to get the last score in right as the clock was ticking down to zero. Our side of the stadium erupted in cheers so loud I had to cover my ears and crouch down in my seat to try and avoid being completely deafened by them. I watched as the other side of the stadium seemed to deflate, everyone sort of crumbling in on themselves. Since they were still the number two team, they would get to go to a bowl game—but we were on our way to the most prestigious one. We had one final game in the season, but we’d secured our position as the number one team in our division.
At first, it seemed like no one in our side of the stadium wanted to leave; the band was playing their hearts out, everyone was singing and cheering. Then, all at once, the crowd started to dissipate. After all, there would be a raging party to celebrate such a huge win—nobody wanted to miss out on what the frats and sororities would put up for the occasion. I told Jess I would meet her back at the dorm; she wanted to go out, but I knew the parties would last until almost dawn, that she’d have plenty of people to choose from once she arrived. I didn’t intend to stay at the stadium for very long. I would ask Zack the questions I’d written out and get his answers recorded and then I would go home and relax for the rest of the night.
The team was still on the field, still shouting and cheering, as I made my way down from the stands. Professor Grant had given me an ID and Press pass for the campus newspaper, so no one blocked me on my way to the sidelines where everyone was milling around, clapping Zack on the back. One of the defensive linemen grabbed him by one leg and another took him by the other and they lifted him up in the air on their shoulders.
“We good….We good…” the team was chanting, jumping up and down.
I approached the coach, who was off to the side, watching the antics of the players. “Hi,” I said, waving my hand slightly to catch his eye. He turned and looked at me, for a moment scowling—until he saw my press pass. “I’m from the campus newspaper; I am supposed to be interviewing Zack about the game.” I tried to keep my voice level—even as I had to shout—in spite of how anxious I felt.
“Zack! Get over here. Interview time.” The linemen put Zack back onto the ground and he loped over, grinning until he caught sight of me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, his voice barely below a shout.
“I’m not happy about it either, but I was assigned to interview you, so here I am.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “Look,” he said, raising his voice so the whole team could hear him, “Just because we had sex a while back doesn’t mean you can stalk me.”
“I’m not stalking you,” I said firmly, even as my cheeks burned with a blush. “I told you why I’m here. If it weren’t for the stupid newspaper assignment I wouldn’t have watched the game at all. I don’t give a good Goddamn about you.”
“Oh, is that why you dumped a tray of food over my head?” He didn’t shout that part—and in his deep scowl I could see he was still angry about it; almost as angry as I had been when I’d done it.
“I dumped a tray of food over your head because you were being an asshole.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Look. Just answer the questions and let’s get this over with.”
The coach let out a sharp whistle. “Everyone but Zack—hit the showers!”
The team started to file towards the entrance into the lockers, and I waited until they passed. Zack was obviously irritated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking around with a hardness in his eyes in spite of the ready grin on his lips at the praise from his passing teammates.
I took my recorder out of my purse. I was going to get this over with. “I want to record this so that I can make sure that I quote you accurately, is that okay?”
Zack sneered. “Are you sure you don’t want to record it so you can do something weird with it? Let me see your press pass. Is it even real?”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t about to let him get me angry.
“Here’s my press pass. Look, Zack, let’s just get this over with, please? I don’t want to deal with this any more than you do.”
“Let me see your questions.” I begrudgingly handed him my notebook with the questions I had already thought up. “Nope, not answering that one. Not answering that one. This one’s good, but not answering it either.”
I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “Zack, you’re acting like a child.”
“Zack, you’re acting like a child,” he parroted back, pitching his voice high. “Jesus, Evie, you’re always so serious.”
“You’re the one who was just yelling at me in front of your teammates over something that happened days ago!”
I nearly threw my press pass on the ground, my frustration mounting every moment. Zack’s dark eyes glinted with amusement and I got hold of myself, clenching my teeth and taking a deep breath until I could calm down.
“You’re kind of cute when you get angry, you know,” Zack said, grinning at me unabashedly. “Of course, it’s less cute when you ruin a perfectly good meal and a perfectly good outfit.”
I took another deep breath and snatched my notebook from his hands. “Okay.” I smacked the notebook against my leg a few times, speaking slowly and carefully, barely keeping my frustration under control. “What is it going to take for you to answer the freaking questions?”
Zack looked at me for a long moment and I thought—for a heartbeat or two—that he might actually relent and treat me like a regular person.
“I will answer your questions and give you a great interview on one condition.”
I pressed my lips together. If he demanded that I have sex with him again I was going to refuse, and I would find some way to make it okay that I didn’t get the interview. Or maybe, if he demanded it crudely enough, I would find whatever gaps I could in his pads and hammer at them with my fists until he relented.
“What condition is that?” Zack’s eyes were glittering in the stadium lights as he smiled.
“You have to let me take you on one date.”
The demand startled me. I had expected that he’d ask me to have sex with him, or tell me I had to do something humiliating, or something like that. Even that he’d ask about Jess and hook him up with her. I hadn’t expected anything like a date. I didn’t want to go on a date with Zack; if there was anything I could possibly want less than to have sex with him again, it was the idea of going on an actual date with him. I’d been angry at him in the back of my mind ever since I’d stormed out of the dining hall.
Still, I knew that I absolutely had to get the interview. I needed to turn in the best possible article for my first assignment, and even as angry as I had been before, I knew there was no option if I couldn’t somehow manage to get Zack to talk. If I turned in an article about the game that included “Quarterback Zack was unavailable for comment,” I would be tossed from the newspaper before the edition even came out.
“Fine,” I said, holding out my hand to shake his. Zack was still grinning as he shook my hand to seal the deal.
I half-expected him to continue messing with me throughout the interview; certainly, his idea of an effective way to get a girl to go on a date with him left a lot to be desired. How could I have ever liked him, I wondered? But instead of continuing to make my life miserable, Zack led me over to the bench and told me to sit down. He recorded his acceptance of the fact that I was recording his answers, and we got into the interview immediately. He answered completely, giving me details and insight into the team that I wouldn’t have even imagined I could get. He told me about the fact that they’d been practicing with this game in mind most of the season, that they knew that the other team was their steepest competition within the conference, and that they knew that even with all their planning it was good odds that that might not win.
“We want to finish the season undefeated. I mean, all teams do, but we’ve only got one more game in the season left. So we’re going to be working hard to make that happen. An undefeated season…kind of a big deal.”
By the time Zack was called back to the lockers to clean up and head out, I had finally regained some of my composure. I managed to thank him, and shook his hand again. “Remember,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
I nodded. I hated the idea of going on a date with him, but I would keep my word.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day I sat at my desk in my room, trying to listen to the recording of the interview I’d done with Zack without paying any attention to the fact that it was him. I wanted to transcribe the contents of the digital tape and then insert the quotes I needed into the article I was already writing. My email pinged, and I switched out of my word processor. It was from Lisa.
As I’m sure some of you are feverishly working on your articles last minute, the email read, I’m sure you’ll all be very glad to know that due to some issues at the printer, we won’t be able to send the paper to the presses until Tuesday, so you all have until Monday evening at 6 to get your articles in.
It was a relief to know that if I got too tired working on it, I could just go to bed and finish before my morning classes; but I was determined to at least get the interview transcribed.
Just when I was getting into my groove again, my phone buzzed. “Oh God, what now?”
I looked at the screen as it lit up—it as a text message from Zack. Maybe, I thought with a little bit of hope, he was texting me to cancel. The date had seemed like a silly idea anyway; it was just sex, there was no reason for him to ask me out—or to demand I go out with him as the price of giving me the interview I needed. I opened up the message.
Hey…get ready to come downstairs. I’m on my way. You promised me a date.
I was nearly done with the article; I had gotten all but the last few quotes transcribed.
Where are we going?
I looked in dismay at my outfit. I knew that Jess would tell me it was the exact wrong thing to wear in a situation like this—but she was off somewhere on her own date. I hadn’t expected that Zack would claim his date so soon. I couldn’t imagine Zack would take me anywhere fancy without giving me at least a little bit of notice. My phone vibrated again.
It’s a secret. Be downstairs in 15.
I stood up quickly and dashed to my closet. I changed out of the comfortable, broken-down jeans and tee shirt I had been wearing and into a skirt and leggings. I kept the shirt—it was one that I’d had since I’d been in high school, and I thought that it might make it a bit easier for Zack; that is, if he remembered it. I realized that I really had no idea of the ways in which Zack had changed since we’d been apart—except for the fact that he was apparently a much better lay than he had been when we’d been together.
****
When Zack pulled into the putt-putt golf course fifteen minutes away from campus, I almost laughed; not because it was silly—although it was—but because it surprised me that he had even remembered it. We used to go to one of the other locations for that franchise when we had been dating in high school.
“Okay,” I said as he chose a parking spot and switched off the ignition. “I am at least a little bit impressed that you took the time to remember this.”
“Do you remember how often I beat you?”
I rolled my eyes, smiling in spite of myself. “You cheated. And when you didn’t cheat, I beat you.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Zack said, getting out and shooting me another grin.
I shook my head and slipped out of the passenger seat, taking a deep breath. I had to admit that the choice of a date that harkened back to our relationship rattled me a bit. What was he up to? I couldn’t think that Zack didn’t have some kind of bigger game in mind. But if he had just wanted to get back at me for dumping food on him, why would he pick somewhere pleasant?
I was fully prepared for Zack to try and ruin the memories I’d had of our relationship dating each other in high school. Instead, he insisted on paying the fees—even buying us each a beer to take out onto the path. I started to relax but never fully let down my guard; it was hard, because Zack seemed to be determined to be as charming as humanly possible. He joked and smiled, and I couldn’t quite keep myself from feeling the little frisson that went through me when he touched my arm, or brushed against me moving to the tee. I reminded myself that it had just been sex for him—that there was nothing between us. I also reminded myself to be on the lookout for any sign that Zack was going to try and get his revenge on me for dumping food on him.
“You know,” he said, lining up his shot at the fifth hole, “I have to admit that I was kind of a jerk to you the other day.”
“You mean yelling at me in front of your team?” I didn’t bother clarifying that it was only yesterday; there was no point in it.
“No—although that was kind of an asshole thing to do, too. I mean, not talking to you after we had sex. It was just a one-off thing but I shouldn’t have just totally gone off the radar.”
“Well I didn’t really call you either,” I admitted, watching his golf ball hit the bumpers and end up a few feet away from the hole.
“Yeah, but I should have at least checked to make sure that we were okay—like, we have history.”
“Oh, is this suddenly the kinder, gentler Zack?” I rolled my eyes and watched him sink the putt.
Zack grinned. “You used to think I was charming.”
“You used to be charming.”
Zack laughed and gestured for me to take my turn. I looked over the course. If I could hit the bumper just right, I could sink the ball in one—putting me just slightly ahead of Zack. I lined up my shot and got into position, looking from the ball to the part of the bumper I wanted to hit. It wasn’t impossible. I went to hit the ball, bringing the club back carefully.
“You know, you were actually kind of hot when you were angry that day.” Zack’s comment interrupted my putt and my ball bounced, not rolling into the hole but instead veering just beyond it.
“You’re cheating!” Zack grinned and followed me to where my ball came to rest. “Jerk.” I was trying not to smile—it was difficult to really be angry at someone for a no-stakes putt-putt game, even if they were cheating.
“You used to cheat all the time back in the day. You tickled me once!”
I sank my putt and shook my head at Zack with a grin, reaching in and taking out my ball. “I never had a need to cheat. I have always been the better putt-putt player.”
Zack snorted. “So then why do I have a ribbon that you made proclaiming me the putt-putt champion of the world?”
I laughed. “Because you insisted I make it the one time you beat me fair and square—and even then I’m not sure you didn’t find some way to cheat.”
“Aw come on, Evie. You and I both know that if I had cheated you’d have figured it out. You’re the smarter one of the two of us.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little warmer at the compliment—even if it was nothing but the truth. Zack wasn’t stupid; he was smart himself, but even in high school he’d gotten himself into scrapes that I’d predicted long before would get him into trouble.
“You’re right about that,” I said, letting myself get a little cocky.
I went first at the next hole and managed to get it in two—but I was still one point away from Zack. It was strange how easily we’d fallen into old habits, and how easy it was to imagine it was just like high school again; I was almost tempted to ask Zack if he was planning to take me out to Dairy Queen after—but there was no DQ nearby.
We kept up our good-natured argument about which of us cheated more in our previous rounds of putt-putt, and which of us was actually the better player naturally; eventually, Zack stopped me at the 10th hole. “I have an idea.”
“That’s the signal of a disaster coming,” I joked.
Zack grinned and tousled my hair playfully. “You say you’re naturally better than me at putt-putt. Well, prove it. If you win this game, I won’t make you go out on another date with me—I won’t have anything to do with you anymore.”
I smiled. “I kind of like the sound of that.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about it in truth; part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with the jumble of my feelings—but part of me had actually liked spending time with Zack. Then I remembered the altercation in the dining hall and then the more recent embarrassment of his yelling at me in front of his teammates. Even if he had apologized for both, they didn’t point to a guy I wanted to spend a lot of time with.
“But if I win, you let me come back to your place after.” I considered it. Even if my feelings toward him had warmed a little bit, I had no intention of sleeping with Zack again any time soon, especially after hearing around campus—discreetly—that he was a player. It was clear to me that he didn’t take any of it seriously, and I had to wonder why he’d even bothered with the date at all. I knew I was better at the game than he was. I could win. I was only one point behind—and we had another 8 holes to go.
“Okay. Deal.” I extended my hand and he shook it. “You agree, though: no cheating. If you cheat, the deal goes out the window.”
“No cheating, just pure athletic skill.”
I nodded again. We played in earnest, still talking and chatting, but seriously competing at the same time. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to never have Zack see me again, but I certainly wanted to prove myself against him, I wanted the advantage. And it was clear that all he was interested in was another easy lay; why else would he have made the conditions for his win that he could come back to my dorm? I was going to show him that I was no easy lay—he’d already burned that bridge. Even though I was good, Zack was legitimately good as well, and each of us got ahead and then behind through the next eight holes, until we came to the last one—where we were tied.
“Feeling the pressure, Evie?” Zack asked me.
“Nope, I’m just trying to decide if I should delete your number from my phone completely since you won’t be calling me anymore.” I grinned as I said it; if I hadn’t deleted his phone number when we broke up in high school, or after the spectacle in the dining hall, I certainly wasn’t going to delete it now.
“Big talk from someone who’s destined to lose.”
Zack lined up his putt. It was a windmill obstacle—the most difficult kind. Zack had never managed to get the ball through the windmill in the first attempt when we’d been dating before, so I had a certain amount of freedom, I thought. Normally I could get through the windmill, but it took me a stroke or two to get the actual putt sunk.
“What happens if we tie?”
Zack shrugged. “We go back to your place, and after that you never have to speak to me again.”
I laughed and shook my head. Zack took his shot; somehow, and I will never know how, he managed to get it through the hole in the windmill just short of being knocked aside. I groaned.
“Oh come on, if you’re going to lose, lose gracefully,” Zack said, leaning in and giving me a quick kiss on the lips. I tingled all over and told myself firmly that it was not the time to get all distracted by Zack’s charms. It was time to hope against hope that he would flub the shot into the hole and that I might have some chance at winning the game yet.
Of course, he shot from the other side of the windmill and managed to get his shot in two strokes. I took a deep breath. If I timed it just right, and got just the right speed, I could possibly—maybe—manage to get a hole in one. I put my ball on the tee and watched the windmill for a moment. The windmill holes were always tricky; the speed of the windmill’s arms was just slow enough to be deceptive, and just fast enough to swoop down on a ball right as it got to the hole in the windmill itself. Zack was standing behind me and I could feel his presence, feel him watching me intently to see if I would actually make it. I took another deep breath and swung.
The ball canted on its way towards the windmill, and it hit the corner of the hole—to be knocked aside by one of the arms. “Son of a bitch!” I gripped the club hard and wanted to throw it down, not because I wanted to cut Zack out of my life, but because I hated to lose. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t win, but I could, at least—as Zack said—lose gracefully. I took two more strokes to get the ball through the windmill, and then another stroke to get it into the final hole. Zack somehow managed not to gloat; I could see it hovering in the back of his eyes, the urge to flaunt his victory over me.
“Want to grab another beer and watch the batting cages before we go back?” he asked.
It would give me a little bit of time to get over it, at least. I agreed.
CHAPTER SIX
“So, this is the living room,” I said, throwing myself onto the comfortable old couch as we came into the dorm room.
Zack looked around and smiled faintly at the pictures that Jess and I had plastered on the walls. We technically had two other roommates, but they were never around; they practically lived with their boyfriends off campus.
“Did you bring in your own furniture?”
I shook my head. Jess and I had agreed in the first week that while the couch was comfortable, it was hideous; we spent the first weekend of classes shopping around for a good cover. Zack threw himself down next to me and put his arm over the back of the couch, dropping his hand on my shoulder casually. I started to move away, but made myself stay; he wasn’t trying anything too aggressive.
We started talking; it felt awkward—I didn’t know what to talk to Zack about that wouldn’t steer us in the direction of the drama surrounding our reunion. He asked about the newspaper, and how I’d managed to get signed on and I told him about Professor Grant and the assignment. He laughed as I rehashed the first meeting I’d been to, mimicking some of the more contentious people on the newspaper staff. I asked him tentatively about the frat—what they did when they weren’t partying, trying to figure out just what kind of person Zack had become as a college student. He seemed the same as I remembered him in high school, but different at the same time, and it was impossible for me to figure out whether or not I actually liked him.
“Hey! Can you guys be quiet out here? Alex has an early class.” Jess’ voice came from the direction of her room and I shook my head. Another guy? I wondered if Jess had some kind of secret pact with herself to sleep with someone in every major the college offered. Zack raised an eyebrow.
“I have no idea who that is,” I whispered. “But I assume he was decent if she’s letting him sleep here.”
Zack grinned. “You ever bring a guy up to your room before?” he whispered back.
I shook my head. “You’re…you’re my first in that, too.” My cheeks burned with a blush and I looked down at my lap as I started picking at imaginary lint on my skirt.
“That’s definitely an honor—though I don’t think I’ll share it with anyone.”
I looked up, confused; why would he share it with anyone, anyway? Zack took advantage of my shock to lean in. He brushed his lips against mine lightly—feather-soft at first. I was too shocked to react, though I shouldn’t have been; I found myself kissing back for a moment, letting Zack press up against me, allowing him to start to guide me onto my back on the couch. It was when his hand started to trail up from my knee that I came to my senses. I pulled back and broke the kiss, sitting up quickly and then standing.
“What’s wrong?” Zack barely kept his voice to a whisper and I looked anxiously in the direction of Jess’ room.
“I didn’t agree to that.”
Zack’s look of concern dissolved into confusion and he stared at me. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head, smoothing my skirt against my legs. My heart was pounding, my body was tingling all over from nothing more than the kiss. I was already starting to get turned on, and my cheeks were burning. I couldn’t let him stay. I couldn’t be in the same room as him for any longer. I’d give in and then it would be the same mess all over again.
“I’m not interested in being your fuck buddy,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I swallowed, realizing that I had broken a whisper. “I’m not…that’s not the kind of person I am.” I managed to keep my voice low.
“You agreed. You said I could come back to your place if I won, and I won.” Zack’s confusion was turning into frustration, his brow wrinkling as he looked at me—almost looking hurt. I set my jaw.
“I agreed to let you come back to my place. I never agreed to have sex with you. You’re right here. You’re in my dorm. That’s the letter of the agreement.” Zack frowned and started to stand up, before settling back on the couch.
“That’s kind of mean, Evie,” he said. “You know what it means to go back to someone’s place.”
I shook my head. “No. I said you could come back to my place. I didn’t say anything about kissing or sex or anything else.”
Zack pressed his lips together and I could see he was getting frustrated. If he started yelling at me, it would wake Jess up for sure, and I at least could count on her—and maybe Alex, whoever he was—to get rid of Zack. I almost wanted Zack to act like an asshole; it would make it easier to get over him.
Instead, he took a deep breath and stood. He started towards the door to the room and stopped as he would have passed me. He leaned in and I thought he was going to try and convince me; instead he kissed me on the cheek quickly and then left. I sighed, leaning against the wall and closing my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I was more relieved or frustrated. I took a deep breath and locked the dorm room door, going to my bedroom and throwing myself in bed without even bothering to take off my clothes. I’d figure out what I thought about it in the morning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next day, I finished off my article for the newspaper as soon as I got up; it didn’t help my jumbled-up feelings about Zack that I had to finish transcribing the interview with him. I listened to the tape again to make sure I hadn’t made any errors and the sound of his voice sent hot and cold tingles through me. It was nothing, I told myself. Zack just wanted to make me go on a date with him so he could get in my pants again, though why he was so determined when there were plenty of girls on campus who would be happy to oblige, I had no idea. I proofread my article twice and saved it on a jump drive along with printing it out; that was the standard practice with the newspaper and I could understand why; they wanted to make sure they had a hard copy in case something happened to the digital version. It was easier to re-type something than it was to totally re-compose it.
Before I went to my first class, I went into the student union and found Lisa’s office on the other side of the meeting room for the campus newspaper.
“You’re the first in!” she told me cheerfully, taking the jump drive and the paper from me. She skimmed the printed copy, nodding a few times. “I’ll read it in detail later, but it looks like you hit all the high points.”
Before I could go, someone else rushed in through the door to turn in their assignment, on their way to class. I grinned to myself; even if it wasn’t perfect—I had no delusions that I would get it exactly right the first time out—there was some accomplishment in being the first person to turn in a piece for the edition.
I went to the dining hall and grabbed a quick breakfast—cereal and juice—and managed to make myself a smoothie to take with me to class. I had a long stretch from the morning to lunch; the first week of classes I’d had to deal with a rumbling, roiling stomach halfway through my second class of the day because I couldn’t eat much early in the morning, but right around 10 I was starving. I managed to take notes, but the entire time I was in class I kept getting distracted by thoughts of Zack. The date had been genuinely fun; while I kind of hated the way he’d gone about convincing me to go out with him, it had been nice—if a little weird—to relive our high school relationship that way.
If he had just wanted to get into my pants, why would he have gone to so much trouble? But he had clearly been interested in getting me in bed; he’d convinced me to make the wager and had almost insisted on it when I reneged on the spirit of the agreement. I was conflicted. I still hadn’t gotten down to the decision of whether Zack was the same he’d always been or if he’d changed into some gross type of guy who just slept around and didn’t care about anyone since becoming a frat boy. I had to clear my head. I’d just have to tell Zack no the next time he asked me out. I couldn’t afford to get distracted with midterms coming and the need to keep my grades up to make my scholarships—with the added work of writing for the campus newspaper. I had to keep myself free of all distractions.
Despite the smoothie, my stomach was rumbling when I went to the dining hall for lunch. I got in line and tried to decide which of the slightly unappealing lunch selections was the least unappealing. I knew from experience that the least visually-appealing selections tended to taste better, but the ugliness of some of the entrees made it hard to believe. I decided on the eggplant parmesan, a salad, and some fruit, reasoning that if I needed to I could get back in line. I tried to steer my thoughts towards the rest of the classes I had for the day; I really had to pay attention in math and American History. Stats was kicking my ass in spite of Jess’ tutoring, and I had to keep up or I’d be hopeless.
I went through the entryway and into the seating area; the first thing my gaze fell on was Zack, sitting with some of his teammates—most of them members of his same frat—and a bunch of girls. I only had to look for a moment to realize the girls were all flirting with him, trying to get his attention. I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want anything to do with Zack. He could flirt with as many girls as he wanted to. I certainly wasn’t going to stand around long enough for him to possibly see me. I quickly turned away and went blindly into the tangled mass of people at tables. I spotted Jess with some of our friends from another class and sat down, trying my best to be as unobtrusive as possible.
In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t help but notice that the girls at Zack’s table had spotted me. One of them asked something I couldn’t quite hear—but the tone of her voice made it clear she was laughing. They all started looking at me and laughing, and I felt my cheeks getting hotter and hotter.
“Just ignore them,” Jess suggested, seeing what I was seeing. “They’re stupid bitches, anyway. Ignore it.”
I couldn’t. They were clearly talking about me—what they were saying I couldn’t tell, but it had to be hilarious to them. I could only assume it was either to do with the spectacle I’d made of myself before in the dining hall, or maybe they had heard something about the situation before the interview. I tried to eat and not pay attention to it, but it was impossible.
After a few moments, Zack turned in the direction they were pointing, and I looked away quickly—but not too soon to avoid seeing his eyes widen. Oh God, I thought, now I looked like some kind of weird hung-up freshman. I looked straight down at my plate and tried to calm myself down. I didn’t care about Zack. I would eat my lunch and go to the library, or back to my room. If Zack called me, I would ignore it. If he tried to talk to me, I’d keep walking or leave the room. I fidgeted in my seat. I finally got the nerve to look up again after a moment; just in time to see Zack stand up from the table he was sitting at. My heart was pounding in my chest. No, I thought. Don’t let him come over here. Don’t let him do that. I chewed on my bottom lip.
The rest of his friends were still laughing and joking, and I swallowed down the lump of humiliation that was growing in my throat. I’d just leave, I thought. If I wasn’t there to be made fun of, they’d have to stop. But then if I ran away, they’d just keep doing it. I knew from first-hand experience that bullies would keep picking on you if you gave them what they wanted, and what the girls at Zack’s table wanted was clearly to make me uncomfortable. I thought of my mom—what she would say.
“Sweetie, if ignoring them won’t work, you might as well make them realize that if they mess with you they’ll pay a price for it.”
I thought about it. Should I go over there and confront the girls?
Before I could make up my mind, Zack climbed onto the chair he had been sitting in, and then onto the table. The girls—and even his teammates—were just as surprised as I was. Jess gasped and asked me in a whisper what the hell was going on. I had no idea at all; I shook my head numbly. Zack looked around the room as everyone went quiet, stunned at the spectacle of the star quarterback standing on top of a table in the middle of the dining hall. Zack looked down at his team mates, and then at the girls. He glanced at me again and grinned slightly.
“Attention everybody!” he called out—not quite shouting, but definitely making himself heard throughout the dining area. “Can I have everyone’s attention?” I didn’t know how he could possibly have more attention—everyone was looking at him, including the staff. Zack grinned again. “I want everyone here to know something very important.” I shook my head, shocked beyond anything I could ever imagine. What was he doing? “I want everyone to know that I am stupidly, head-over-heels hung up on Evelyn Jackson. She’s the only girl for me. No one else could ever compare with her.”
Blood flooded into my face. I heard a clattering noise and looked down to see my fork tumbled onto the table. I felt hot and cold all at once as Zack pointed to me; every eye in the dining hall was turned on me. I swallowed, my heart pounding in my chest, my stomach feeling like it was shooting up into my throat.
It was a joke. It had to be. Zack was getting his revenge on me for dumping the plate of food on him. I was seething. After a moment of stunned silence everyone in the dining hall began to laugh—a few people at first, and then everyone. I stood up without knowing what I was doing. Jess grabbed at my arm to try and stop me but I pulled away, grabbing my tray and running away from the table as fast as I could. I don’t know how I managed to keep everything on the tray, but I was moving through the dining hall, everything around me a blur, and I slammed my tray into the dish chute. I didn’t even go around to the main entrance; the thought of everyone still laughing, still thinking how ridiculous I was, sent me to the back door. I slammed it open and dashed through it, finding the cement path and running around the circumference of the dining hall until I got to the main route. My eyes were stinging, my cheeks were burning. I kept my gaze on the ground at my feet as I found my way back to the dorms by memory. I swiped my ID card once, twice, three times. Finally it pinged and the green light on the reader came on and the door unlocked. I snatched the door open.
I didn’t even bother with waiting for the ancient elevator to get to the ground floor. I ran through the hall to the stairs and yanked the door open. I ran up the stairs, ignoring the stitch in my side and the ache in my legs as I went past the second floor, third, fourth, all the way to the fifth. The stairs were on the opposite side of the hall from my room. I walked through the hallway, barely holding myself together; someone might see me. They might not already know about what happened in the dining hall. The last thing I was willing to do was to give people another reason to find out about what Zack had done. I dug my keys out of my pocket and fumbled with them, dropping them before I managed to unlock the door.
I let the door slam behind me and it wasn’t until I’d thrown myself onto the couch, face buried in the cushions, that I realized that I had left my backpack at the dining hall. I hadn’t even thought about it while I was making my retreat. I had had to get out of there—nothing was going to stop me. I groaned. Not only had Zack humiliated me in front of everyone, but now I had to figure out how I was going to get my textbooks back.
I had to assume that Jess would bring them back to the dorm. She was flighty but she would definitely have noticed that I’d left empty-handed. I screamed into the cushions until my throat felt raw and I started coughing, hot tears flowing from my eyes as I thought of how much I had been humiliated. I lifted my head from the couch and slammed it back down, grateful that it was well-padded. I did it again and again. I was so stupid. I had let Zack mix me up; I had let him get in my head. I should have never gone to the stupid party with Jess, I should never have let Zack kiss me, I should have never let him take me back to the frat house. I should have known better. Zack was no better than any other guy on the planet, even if he had been there for me when my mom first got sick. He was just another asshole who would take advantage of me and then embarrass me for my troubles.
I sat up on the couch after a while and started to calm down. Jess would grab my backpack; I didn’t have to go back for it and face the prying eyes and smirks of my classmates. I could live down the humiliation. I’d lived through far worse than humiliation and come out of it okay. I could get through it. I would bury myself in my work and I wouldn’t even give anyone the satisfaction of remotely showing I’d ever cared about Zack. I’d just pretend like it was some stupid thing that didn’t matter at all. I took deep breaths and decided to wash my face.
Thirty minutes after I had stormed out of the dining hall, I heard a knock at the main room door. I was confused—and more than a little alarmed. If it was Jess, I’d have to apologize if I had accidentally locked her out. Sometimes she forgot her keys, which was understandable—and usually neither of us was very far away. I’d also have to apologize for making her haul my books back up to my room, and for running away the way I had. If it was someone we knew, I didn’t know whether or not I should answer it. It could be someone who wanted to rub salt in my wounds and tease me some more about Zack’s display. It could be someone who somehow had managed not to even hear about it, or someone who had but wanted to comfort me. I stood in the common area for a long moment staring at the door, hoping that whoever was on the other side of it would just go away and leave me in peace.
But if it was Jess, and she had brought my books up, I couldn’t just leave her hanging outside. There was another knock. Either way, I thought, I would have to face the situation eventually. I took a deep breath. When I went to turn the knob on the door, it wasn’t locked; I set my spine—clearly it wasn’t Jess, then. If she had come up, she would have tried the door before assuming she was locked out. And she would have known for sure that I’d come straight to the dorm instead of going to the Library after that mess. It had to be someone else.
I opened the door. If I could have formed any expectation of who was on the other side of it specifically, other than Jess, I would never in a million years have guessed that it would be Zack. He stood there, looking both mischievously amused and concerned, his dark eyes glinting and widening at the sight of me.
“Whoa,” he said, stopping just short of coming into the room. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
My anger—which had started to subside—exploded in me like coals on a low fire.
“What the hell do you mean, what’s wrong? You humiliated me in front of the entire dining hall! Why? What the hell, Zack?” Words tumbled out of me—I asked him if it was because of the stunt I’d pulled, asked him if he’d demanded the date just so he could set up the stupid thing in the dining hall; I kept talking until I couldn’t think of anything else to say and just stood there and sighed. “Well?”
Zack was shaking his head, a smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. “Evie,” he said gently, coming closer to me—coming into the room and closing the door behind him, reaching out to put his hands on my shoulders. I sidestepped, still feeling hurt and betrayed. “Evie, no one was laughing at you. Everyone was laughing at me.”
“Those girls you were sitting with were definitely laughing at me. They pointed. I saw it.”
Zack smiled. “Yeah, well, they’re jealous, that’s all. They were laughing at you to make you feel bad because they’re jealous of the fact that it’s true: I’m still stupidly, crazy hung-up on you.”
I staggered backward until the corner of the wall caught me between my shoulder blades. “What?”
Zack smiled wider. “I’m in love with you, you stupid girl. What did you think?” I shook my head slowly, feeling shock as deep as I had when he had jumped onto the table. “I never said I’m not an idiot.”
I laughed in spite of myself. Zack moved closer to me again, licking his lips nervously.
“I’m sorry if you felt humiliated. I didn’t mean to humiliate you. I meant to…I don’t know…make those stupid girls feel like idiots. And put the attention back on me. I could tell you’d noticed what was happening.” Zack was maybe two inches away from me. He brushed his lips against my temple. “Look, I’m an idiot, but I’m an idiot in love.”
“Just…no more public spectacles, please?”
Zack chuckled lowly. “I will try my hardest. But you’ve got to live up to that too.”
He brought his lips down along the side of my face, to my cheek, down to my jaw, and then around to my lips. Before I could even think of the reasons why I should stop him, he had me pressed against the wall, my mouth sealed, his hands on my waist, holding me frozen. Zack’s tongue swiped across my lips and I opened my mouth without thinking, immediately and completely enthralled and stunned by the kiss. I should have expected it; when his lips had moved down along my jaw, I should have known that he was going to kiss me—but I had been so wrapped up in the moment that I hadn’t been thinking at all. I came out of my shock but the feeling of Zack’s hard, muscled body against mine, and the emotional high I was on, made it completely impossible for me to pull back and tell him to stop. I couldn’t think of anything rationally; all I knew was that I wanted that kiss, that I wanted it to keep going and maybe even never stop.
Zack’s hands fell to my hips, and I moaned against his lips as he gave me a careful squeeze; I could feel the heat of him through my clothes, the tension in his body. Zack deepened the kiss more, his tongue probing my mouth, his head tilting to give him complete control, lips moving against mine. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and nibbled on it playfully, making me half-gasp at the tingling jolt of sensation the tactic sent shooting through me. I was hot and cold all over, trembling from the dizzying upset and the sudden onslaught of lust I was feeling. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening; it was like my brain was five minutes behind the rest of the world, and that I just couldn’t seem to manage to catch up.
Zack’s hands began to move all over my body, tickling my waist and then grazing my breasts, moving back down to my hips. I snaked my arms around his broad shoulders and pressed myself against him. Moments before, I would have said that the last thing I would ever do would be to kiss Zack. I would have told you—after the situation in the dining hall—that Zack was dead to me and that any feelings that I had for him were completely finished. But between his apology and explanation, and the way he was kissing me, I couldn’t even remember how I had felt moments before. All I knew was that I absolutely needed him and couldn’t stop touching him. If I stopped touching him, stopped kissing him, I might tremble and shake so hard that I would fall apart.
I didn’t break away from the kiss, but I groped behind me blindly, fumbling around with my eyes closed and my face occupied to try and find the door to my bedroom. I reached out and knocked my hand against the door hard enough for it to briefly hurt—and then found the lever-handle. Zack, hearing the noise, pulled back and I almost groaned in sudden frustration. “My room. Now.” My voice was breathless and tight to my own ears.
“Good idea,” Zack said—in a voice as breathless and tense as my own.
We tumbled into the room together and I barely remembered to close the door behind us. In the moment I was out of Zack’s arms I realized—barely—that if anyone came in they’d know what we were up to immediately. I lurched toward my computer and turned on my music, not even bothering to pay attention to what playlist I had selected.
Zack wrapped his arms around me and then his lips were on mine once more and I pressed against every inch of him, reeling, and my mind spinning. I could feel the hard ridge of his cock straining at his jeans, digging into my hip. I was trembling again, my heart pounding in my chest, my hands shaking as they trailed along his back and shoulders, over the tee shirt he wore. I barely noticed the wail of electric guitars, the shrieking of a female voice launching into a fast-paced song—in the back of my mind I recognized it as Yeah Yeah Yeahs; I couldn’t focus enough to think of the song itself. Zack pulled and tugged at the hem of my shirt, working it up over my breasts while I squirmed. I threw my arms over my head and we broke away from the kiss at the same moment, just long enough for him to pull the shirt over my head and throw it across the room.
My hands slid along the lines and planes of his back; I could feel the rippling muscle down along his spine, the heat of him through the fabric of his tee shirt—I was moving instinctively as Zack caressed me almost everywhere all at once, cupping my breasts through my bra, tickling my ribs, gripping my hips, trailing across the small of my back as he pulled me close to him. I brought my hands around and found the hem of his shirt and started pulling it up. I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted more than to see him naked—I absolutely had to see him again. The sight of him, the taste of him, the feeling of him, had haunted me from the time we’d had sex on the couch at his frat—no matter how angry I’d been or how depressed, I’d remembered how incredibly hot it had been, how much better than anything I’d done since I’d lost my virginity to him a few years before.
Somehow Zack’s shirt was over his head, and Zack’s lips shifted along my jawline, brushing and leaving a tingling trail in their wake as he brought them down to my neck. He kissed along the column of my throat, moving down one side and up the other until he came to my ear. I moaned as he slipped my earlobe between his lips, sucking it and then nibbling it playfully, worrying it with his teeth and tongue—it was more erotic than I would have ever thought it could be, sending hot and cold electric jolts through my body. Zack’s hands slid against my skin, trailing around to my back, and I felt his deft fingers touching and feeling for the clasp of my bra, finding the hook-and-eye in a moment. He unhooked it and shifted back from me just slightly—I could still feel the brush of his skin against mine—and guided it away from my body. It seemed like it almost evaporated, disappearing off somewhere—I didn’t care where. He lifted me up onto the bed and slipped between my splayed legs, bringing his mouth back up to mine and once more kissing me hungrily.
Before I could make my brain work to figure out what was going on, Zack pulled away from my lips and dropped his mouth to my breasts, kissing along the tops of them, working his way slowly to my right nipple. He cupped the underside of my breast and took my nipple between his lips, sucking and licking. I cried out—a flood of pleasure gushed through me, and I felt my pussy getting wetter and wetter as his tongue lapped at the sensitive bud. He teased me for what seemed like an hour—even grazing my sensitive flesh with his teeth sharply enough to send a jolt through me that might have either been pain or pleasure—before he switched to the other nipple. I threaded my fingers in his hair, writhing and twisting, pushing my hips down against his. Through the fabric of my clothes, I could feel the hard ridge of Zack’s cock pressing right up against my soaking wet pussy and I rubbed myself against him, wrapping my legs around him as tightly as I could and rocking my hips.
Zack groaned with my nipple between his lips, his hands on my waist tightening convulsively. “Fuck,” he said, panting, breaking away from my breasts for an instant before he buried his face against them, and nuzzling me. “Evie you’re driving me insane.”
“All your fault,” I managed to say.
Zack sealed my lips with his own before I could elaborate, kissing me so hungrily, so thoroughly that for a moment I thought I might have forgotten how to breathe. He found the zipper on my skirt and tugged at it blindly, not fumbling but somehow not managing to catch it in the right direction for a few moments; I almost laughed—he was just as mindless in his desire as I was. Finally he caught the zipper the right way and tugged it down, loosening the skirt at my waist. He lifted me up from the bed with one arm and pulled the skirt over my hips with the other. I uncoiled my legs from his waist and the fabric fell to the ground, neither of us caring what happened to it. Zack tugged away my panties, almost ripping them in his urgency, throwing them across the room without a look before he kissed me again.
Moments later, he was shifting down onto his knees, his hands rubbing and massaging along my thighs, up to my hips. He spread my legs wider, and sank down in front of me, looking up with eyes almost black with desire.
“You always tasted so good, Evie,” he told me, dragging a finger along my slick labia and bringing it to his lips. He smiled as he sucked it clean. “You still do.”
He buried his face against my pussy and I cried out—not even sure if the sound of my pleasure was drowned out by the music playing over my computer, but not caring one iota as Zack began to suck and lick. He went to work as if he were starving—as if he was dying of thirst and I was a river, the slurping sounds barely reaching my ears. Zack’s tongue played along my inner labia, darting against me to slide into me for just a moment before dancing away, teasingly sliding and slipping right around my clit but never exactly on it. I writhed and moaned out, tangling my fingers in his hair and pushing my hips down against his face, struggling for better contact than his teasing mouth would give me. Zack rubbed up against my clit with his nose even as he sucked my inner labia between his lips, his tongue gliding up and down in a quick fire movement that made me gasp.
Finally, finally, when I was certain I couldn’t possibly take any more teasing, Zack brought his tongue up to my clit and began to lap at it—gently, carefully at first, pausing to gauge my response. I moaned. It felt so good—I had to have more. In moments he was alternating between teasing my clit with his flickering tongue, batting at the bead of nerves so fast I couldn’t even imagine it was possible, and then shifting down to lap up the fluids from my labia, and then back up again. I fell back onto the bed, one hand still tangled in his hair, the other gripping the sheets as tightly as I could as my hips bucked and flexed, my body not under my mind’s control but moving like an animal out of pure instinct. I felt my pussy gushing, my inner walls flexing and fluttering erratically, a sensation like a knot deep down between my hips tightening every moment the sweet torture continued.
In my ears another song roared—but I barely heard it; the pounding of my heart, the sounds of my panting and my moans, my cries of pleasure, were so loud that everything else went away. I lost all ability to judge time—it could have been minutes or hours as my pleasure mounted and mounted and I thought that it was going to drive me insane. When I least expected it, every muscle in my body tensed and I almost shrieked with pleasure, arching up off of the bed, tugging at Zack’s hair without concern and twisting the sheet until it nearly ripped in my hand. Wave after wave of pleasure washed through me, hot and cold flashes of sensation working out from my pussy up to my brain, out to my hands and feet, until I was nothing more than a collection of tingling, firing nerves, my whole body so overwhelmed that it might have been pain instead of pleasure that I was feeling. I pushed my hips down against Zack’s face, and he continued his oral assault, lapping up the fluids that gushed out of me, not even slowing down with his tongue against my clit and then between my labia, moving between the two so steadily that I thought it would never end. Just when I was starting to be slightly afraid of that—when I started to wonder if a person could actually come forever—the spasms started to abate, and Zack began to slowly pull back, slowing down and gradually breaking away from my pussy.
I lay panting and shivering, trembling from head to toe, in my bed, naked for Zack to see, wracked with aftershocks of an orgasm so potent I couldn’t even think. I half-heard metallic clattering and the rustle of clothes in a break between songs, and then Zack was climbing into the bed with me, wrapping his arms around me tightly and dragging his lips along my neck, along the line of my jaw until he came to my mouth. He caressed me all over, soothing me instead of teasing me, and I slowly came back to myself by inches, my breath slowing down and my heart finding its usual rhythm once more. Tremors of muscle spasms danced up and down along my arms and legs, and everything below my hips felt unreal as I curled up to Zack’s naked body and buried my face against his chest. That had been more intense than any orgasm I had ever experienced in my life—and I had no idea why. Zack was amazing, but some combination of the emotional high and his newfound skill had culminated in pleasure so intense that I was almost scared to try it again.
After a few moments, I tilted my head back, looking up at him. “That is just not fair,” I told him, smiling slightly.
“What’s not fair?” Zack grinned.
“The fact that you can do that to me. I mean—how long have I been lying here brainless?”
Zack shrugged. “I don’t know—a few minutes maybe.”
I rolled my eyes. I realized with a shock that I could remember feeling Zack’s hard cock pressing against me—and clearly he’d gotten no benefit from going down on me, not like the shattering orgasm I’d been through. I reached down and wrapped my hand around his cock; sure enough he was still as hard as a rock.
“Yeah, well, be prepared—you’re about to get the same treatment.” I took advantage of his surprise and the fact that his guard was down to knock him onto his back and climbed on top of him, pinning him down against my bed and straddling his hips. Zack smirked up at me, shaking his head.
“I’m willing to concede that you’re good—but you’re not that good. I could hold back if I really wanted to.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Pretty big talk there, son,” I said. “Care to make a wager on that?”
Zack considered it even as he rocked his hips up against mine, letting me feel the heat and hardness of his cock rubbing against my slick folds.
“Okay. If you make me come in—two songs, that’s about ten minutes—then you can call the pace and the position after.”
“And if you don’t come in two songs?”
“I get to take you however I want.” I thought about it. Zack was good—but he couldn’t know how much better I’d gotten at oral since we’d dated in high school.
“Okay.”
I slithered down along his body, dropping to the floor and steadying myself on my knees. I rubbed and massaged up along the corded muscle of Zack’s thighs, as much because I loved the way he felt as to get any effect on him. I kept my gaze on his face as I slowly lowered my mouth, opening it just slightly. When the next song came on, I wrapped my hand around the base of his thick, hard cock, and brought the tip to my open mouth, sliding my tongue along the milky precum that had already started to form there. I closed my lips around him and began to suck lightly, teasing the head with the tip of my tongue, rubbing my finger long the length of the underside of his cock. Zack groaned, barely keeping his eyes open, tensing underneath me almost immediately. I fell into pace with the song, moving my mouth down along his length inch by inch, taking more and more of him in. I pulled back, swirling my tongue around the tip and descending once more.
Zack’s hips began to move automatically, thrusting up to meet my mouth, but I kept him exactly where I wanted him, bringing my tongue under and running the tip along the vein I knew followed the length of his cock. I closed my eyes and began to pick up my pace gradually, sucking and licking, my hand working the part closer to the base where my mouth simply couldn’t reach. I had one part of my mind on the progress of the song playing over my stereo and the rest on what I was doing, thinking of what I knew he liked, what I knew all men liked. Zack’s cock twitched as it met the back of my throat, and I swallowed, breathing carefully until the gag reflex passed before I began bobbing my head once more. He groaned and gasped, his fingers threading in my hair, tugging lightly—carefully—as I worked him, as I worshipped him with my lips and tongue. I barely—barely—grazed the skin near the head with my teeth, and Zack’s back arched on my bed, his eyes squeezing shut and a long, load moan leaving him all at once. The next song came on, and I began moving faster, pumping him with one hand while I bobbed my head, tightening my lips around him and sucking him—I thought of it like trying to suck a thick milkshake through a straw.
My other hand trailed along his inner thigh, and I carefully—carefully—cupped his balls, giving him the lightest squeeze to test his reaction. Zack let out something between a cry and a shout, and his precum began to flow more freely, his cock twitching and jerking erratically between my lips. I relaxed my mouth and then tightened it again, fluttering my lips around him, sucking harder and then softer, letting my tongue wander and squirm against him. I was listening to the song playing, keeping pace with it, and remembering in the back of my mind when the crescendo would happen. As the song built up I split my attention between it and Zack; just the act of doing this, of having him in my mouth, was turning me on all over again, building up the fire I had felt when he’d started to touch me. I worked him as hard as I could, hearing the shrieking, churning climax of the song.
Right before the end, right when it was starting to die off, Zack let out a long, low groan and I felt his balls in my hand tighten up, pull up towards his body. The first spurt of hot, salty-bitter cum shot into my mouth, sticky slick and coating my tongue. I continued sucking and licking, swallowing automatically, as wave after wave filled my mouth, almost but not quite triggering my gag reflex once more. The next song started while he was still finishing, the last few spurts of his come hitting my tongue, and I pulled back, looking down on him with a self-satisfied smirk as Zack, eyes still closed, sagged against my bed. He was panting, not quite trembling from the force of his orgasm, and I could see the rapid flutter of his pulse at his throat.
I climbed back into the bed and his arms, and for a long moment there was nothing but the music swirling around us, punctuated by Zack’s gasping breaths. Then his hands came to life, reaching out and grabbing me, pulling me close to him.
“Fuck, Evie,” he murmured, still panting slightly. “You are amazing at that. I want to say you cheated, but it’s just because I didn’t know you were that good.”
I preened, smoothing my hair and grinning into his face. “You know I’m not some prude. I’ve been with other guys since you.”
There was a flicker of something in Zack’s dark eyes but he grinned. “Yeah, I’d have to assume so. There’s no way you could study yourself into being that good.”
I rolled my eyes. “I did that too, you know. I like knowing how to do things better. So it’s official that I won, right?”
Zack groaned, letting his head fall to the mattress. “I should argue that since I finished coming after the song ended it doesn’t count, but I don’t have the will to fight it. Yes, you won. You get to call the shots in a few minutes when we finally fuck again.”
I laughed. “If you’re going to lose you should lose gracefully,” I reminded him, poking him playfully in the chest. Zack grabbed up my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing my palm lazily.
“I seem to have heard that somewhere before.” He pulled my body close to his, and I felt him already starting to get hard again. I laughed.
“Seriously? You’re already ready to go again?”
Zack chuckled, taking a few deep breaths. “Well, you’re the only one that can get a rise out of me like that, so soon. So consider yourself privileged.”