About Forbidden…
Elijah´s the prankster at college. I should have known better, when we were a match on the college dating app, that something had to be wrong.
He’s cocky.
I’m not.
He’s popular.
I’m invisible.
But things quickly go wrong when I discover that the guy I’ve been matched up with ends up being my stepbrother.
Now, there are three problems; he’s forbidden, my one temptation and I’m having his baby.
Forbidden is a standalone romance with enough sexiness for you to enjoy. It’s over 50,000 words and there’s no cheating and an HEA.
Chapter One
Elijah
I left the library the moment I got a text from Logan. Technically, I was supposed to be studying for a test, not to mention all the assignments I still had to do, but I didn’t care. Logan, supposedly, had something important for me. While he wasn’t the most reliable guy out there because he liked to prank me a lot, he was still one of my best friends, and he knew when not to joke with me.
Because of course, I returned every prank twice as hard. He’d come to learn not to mess with me.
Fuck, I was invincible when it came to pranking!
I made my way toward the dorms. Our college was pretty relaxed when it came to student housing, more than most colleges I’d heard of. At least, that was the consensus, since they allowed coed dorms, and plenty of people took advantage of this fact. My friend Logan was one of them, because he loved bunking with the ladies for a night of fun.
So it wasn’t a surprise when he’d texted me to come to the dorm house a block away from the one we lived in. Usually, he just told me he’d be busy nights, so I was curious what he’d called me out for.
Logan hooking me up was one of his worse pranks. He would set me up with the opposite of what I liked in women, and it had led to a few humiliating situations. So much so, that I hated myself for being the center of them all!
I walked into the dorm and found a few people lounging around the common room on the first floor. Logan was nowhere to be found, and I wasn’t about to start knocking on doors to find him. I took my cell out and made a call.
“Seriously Logan, where you at? I was studying, you know.”
He laughed. “Dude, who you trying to kid? Studying. Please. You’re here, aren’t you? That means you’re interested! In fact, you should be thanking me.”
I rolled my eyes, “Fine, whatever. But I swear if this is you trying to trick me again…”
Logan laughed again, though there was an edge of nervousness in it. I hadn't forgotten the last prank, and I’d yet to get him back, so he’d been wary of me lately and trying to get back in my good graces. It was part of the reason I even showed up, knowing he could still try something stupid.
“I’m up in Dana’s dorm, on the third floor.”
Dana was a girl Logan fooled around with, at least one of the latest. Lately, she was all he’d been talking about, so I didn’t think he was seeing anyone else. For now, but knowing him it wouldn’t take long for him to get bored and start seeing another girl.
Sometimes, I envied how carefree he could be. When it all backfired on him, though, I was the first person to point a finger and laugh my ass off.
I headed up the stairs and started the jog up. I got to the room and held my hand up to knock because I didn’t want to walk into anything. When I remembered something that made me pause.
Shit.
I called Logan back. When he answered, I spoke before he had the chance to.
“Is Sophia in there? I almost forgot that they’re roommates.”
Sophia was studying the same major, and we’d even had a few classes together. There wasn’t anything wrong with Sophia. I could even admit that she was pretty, but we just didn’t get along, which was why I tended to avoid her like the plague.
“Don’t worry,” he said dismissively.
“Of course she’s not here. Why on earth would I call you if she was? Would you hurry and get in already? I left the door unlocked.”
He hung up, and I glared at the cell, before sighing and putting it back in my pocket. I could curse him later for hanging up on me. I reached for the doorknob and opened. The room wasn’t so different from mine, fairly spacious with a couple of desks, dressers, and beds pushed to opposite sides of the room. Logan was on one of the beds, with Dana lying on her back and Logan propping himself up on his elbow above her as they kissed.
“Dude,” I complained, closing the door behind me. “I didn’t come here to watch you get it on.”
He gave me the finger, and I had to wait for them to pull out of the kiss. He’d talked to me a second before I walked in on the cell, so I was sure the show was for my benefit. I sighed and looked around the room. I could have gone over there to pull the two of them apart because it was just Logan being Logan and trying to piss me off. I didn’t have anything against Dana.
Since they were on the other side of the room, I focused on the other. I glanced over at the desk, to the laptop. I frowned at it, then moved closer. I thought, at first, it was off because the screen was black. But then I noticed the words bouncing around, and realized the screen saver was on. Out of curiosity, I swiped my finger over the touchpad, and the screen came on.
Just how careless was this chick, to leave her things lying around?
Logan and Dana’s kiss ended with a moan and a smacking sound from behind me, and I turned around with a glare to find my so-called friend grinning up at me.
“Finally done?” I asked, tone heavy with sarcasm.
“Sure, sure,” he said, waving lazily at me. “But, I didn’t call you here to be a peeping Tom.”
I glared. “Is it even peeping, if I’m in the room with the two of you and you invited me? Without locking the door?”
Logan just chuckled. “Anyway, I called you over here for that.”
He waved his hand, and I followed the gesture, my eyes returning to the computer behind me. My eyebrows shot up. I turned back to the two on the bed.
“Isn’t that Sophia’s computer?”
Dana hummed, shifting, so she was sitting up with her pillows behind her. Logan pouted then moved to sit up himself, raising one of his knees up and leaning back on his arms.
“It’s hers,” Dana confirmed. “I told her I had someone coming over and she said she’d find somewhere else to be for the time being. She forgot to turn off her laptop.”
Logan laughed. “She practically ran off when I walked into the room. Dude, you should have seen it, you would have gotten a kick out of it.”
“Yeah, I doubt that,” I said dryly.
Sophia, for some reason, hated my guts. She acted like a bitch to me every time our paths crossed. I’d had people openly hate me before, and I didn’t give a fuck about them. But some reason I hated it whenever Sophia cut her eyes at me. I hadn’t even done anything to her, that was the reason it bugged me the most.
“So,” I said, and sighed. “You called me here…because Sophia left her computer on.” I shrugged. “So what?”
Logan grinned. “Well, I was calling you here for a dare.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
He nodded solemnly. “I know you haven’t forgotten the last time I pranked you?”
I scowled. “Of course I haven’t forgotten,” I growled.
Logan gave me a piece of paper at the end of class, telling me it was the class assignment, and he’d forgotten to hand it in. Being the nice guy I was, I took the paper without even glancing at it. The professor was female, in her thirties, and hot for someone her age. If I went for older women, she would definitely be my type.
I should have figured it out, but I was distracted at the time. Because it was Logan, and he always had others that did that type of shit for him. Women were always running around him. Never could figure out why? Sure, he was charming, but man did he love to cheat!
“Do you know how much trouble I got into? The whole assignment was about behavioral research in dating and sexual activity among teens and youths!”
I narrowed my eyes, “And then to include information about lusting after older figures of authority like, say, teachers and professors. And all the fucking details about seduction and all that bullshit. Can you even call that a fucking assignment?”
Logan broke out laughing, feeling no shame or guilt. He didn’t understand how humiliating it was at the time. The professor had glanced through the paper, and I thought it was my cue to walk away. Only, she’d stopped me, and I saw her frowning as she read the paper in more detail. When she blushed, I knew that was something wrong.
She’d proceeded to ask me to follow her to her office, and explained that while it was a good paper, very well researched, a lot of the details were unnecessary. She couldn’t look me in the eye, and I was sure that she’d been keeping her eye on me ever since and avoided me like crazy, because he wrote my name and not his own as being the writer of the paper. He did set me up for the fall, but I still hated him for it. Crap! Who was I kidding, Logan was like the brother I never had, he was crazy and kept me on my toes.
“Don’t sweat it,” Logan was saying through his chuckles. “You should see her. I swear she has a thing for you, with how much she keeps eyeing you.”
I rolled my eyes. “More like she’s worried someone else would read the paper, and she would get into trouble for inappropriate relations with her students that led to a paper like that. It was like fucking porn, only on paper. I didn’t know you were that skilled.”
He shrugged. “I asked some girl to write it for me. She thought she was writing the summary of a steamy romance novel or something. It was good.”
I folded my arms across my chest, feeling impatience building up in my chest.
“What does any of that have with me being here?” I asked.
“Oh, right! The dare. You’re good with computers, right? So, the dare is you get on there and dig around. Maybe, you can find out the secret about why she’s so stuck up all the time.”
His expression soured a little, and I remembered I wasn’t the only one Sophia had shown disdain for.
I frowned, glancing at the computer. A part of me was seriously tempted. This girl had been a thorn in my side for months. She’d humiliated me publically almost every time we were in the vicinity because I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut and she had some good comebacks. I’d realized early on I probably wouldn’t win a verbal war with her, but I’d tried it plenty of times, anyway.
Still, I couldn’t just go through her things…
“Go ahead and do it,” Dana said before I could open my mouth to refuse.
“It’s probably the only chance you’re ever going to get if you want to get back at her. She’s always on that thing... She was careless today because she was caught off guard. It doesn’t happen often.”
I’m glad that Dana’s not my roommate. Damn, I thought girls were supposed to be tight. Or maybe Dana’s a lot more into Logan than he realizes and she’d do anything for him.
“See?” Logan added his own two cents. “This is your chance. How many times has she said something to your face, around a bunch of people, that’s left you a laughing stock, huh? I’ll tell you; it’s way more than me.”
I pursed my lips, remembering. The last time, we’d been with a bunch of other guys, and I’d been getting shit from them ever since. They weren’t guys I would ignore, and I’d locked myself in my room, or hidden in the library, for the past couple weeks while I waited for the hype to die down.
“You must be curious,” Dana said, her eyes drifting to the computer. “Even I want to know what she’s been up to, especially recently, because she’s been acting so weird. I could swear there’s something big going on and she’s keeping it a secret from me.”
Something big…
Big enough that I could use it against her?
Fuck, this was too damn tempting. In a moment of impulse, because my curiosity had gotten the better of me, I grabbed the chair and pulled it out from under the desk, taking a seat.
“You know what? You guys are right, so why not? It could be nothing, but if there’s something useful…”
There was a cheer from Logan behind me, but I ignored him. Now that I’d decided to do this, I focused on the task.
Her computer was password protected, so she wasn’t too careless. It would take more than a password to stop me, though. I rifled through my backpack and pulled out my cell and a cable to connect it to the computer. I had a program in it that was good at cracking passwords, and I ran it. Soon I had it unlocked. Next, I opened a different program and ran it, and copied whatever was on it.
I looked through what I was copying as I waited. A lot of it wasn’t anything useful. There were plenty of assignments and practice tests, as well as some document that had nothing to do with school. There was a folder that held pictures; another one held music.
I sighed, already thinking it was a bust. There was absolutely nothing of interest; even her music choices seemed mediocre.
Then, I came across something that made my eyebrows shoot up. A moment later, my jaw dropped, and my eyes blew wide. I grinned, because I had found just the thing I needed.
I fucking got you, Sophia!
Now, let’s see who’s the last man laughing.
Chapter Two
Sophia
“Why are you out here this late?”
I hummed and looked up distractedly. Jennifer, who was in the same class as I, had walked up to me without me noticing, but I was a bit preoccupied at the moment. I smiled at Jennifer, pretending like nothing was wrong.
“Oh, I just felt like stepping out of the room to catch some fresh air, you know? It’s not good to stay cooped up all the time. Besides, we just finished exams, so there’s no need for me to be studying right now.”
I would rather be in my room by myself than be out in a crowd. Even if it wasn’t studying—which I did plenty of, to begin with—I wanted to be in my room. But I just had to have a roommate, and it just had to be Dana.
Dana and I were best friends. We met in our first year at college, and we got along. First, we lived in separate dorms, but we shared the same major, and during one group assignment, we got to know each other. For the assignment, we depended mostly on each other, and that’s how we became close. She was smart and serious about her studies, exactly my kind of girl. In the end, we requested to be put in the same room together. We had been happy together, more than most campus couples, and I thought it would never change.
So where did it all go wrong?
Ah, that’s right. Logan.
I could feel my face tighten as I thought about Logan.
At some point at the beginning of the semester, Logan had started showing interest in Dana. He showed interest in a lot of women, so it wasn’t any surprise. Even more annoying, was how Dana didn’t seem to want to resist his advances. I tried my best to keep them apart, because Logan’s reputation is far from good, but she didn’t care.
Then she started to change, acting as if I was all jealous about her hooking up with man that couldn’t keep his cock in his pants. That’s the word around campus. I stopped talking about it and since then, I just keep out of their way.
“Sophia.”
I looked up, startled, only to realize I was still talking to Jennifer. I gave her an apologetic smile.
“Sorry. I’m just a little preoccupied.”
“With Dana?” she said with a knowing looking, cocking up an eyebrow.
I winced. Everyone in our dorm knew about our declining relationship. It was a little embarrassing when everyone tried to talk to me about it.
“Um, she’s in the room right now,” I said with an awkward smile. “She’s busy with her own thing.”
“Is it that same guy?” she said.
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders helplessly. I wasn’t the kind of girl to go around gossiping, and while Dana and I weren’t at our best at the moment, I didn’t feel comfortable talking about her behind her back, either.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jennifer said reassuringly. “It’s all new to her right now, but eventually things will work out. She’s putting him ahead of you right now, but it won't be that way for forever.”
I pursed my lips, looking up at her hopefully. “You think so?”
“Definitely. It happens to some people when they start dating. Like, my sister used to be like that. When she got her first boyfriend, I couldn’t stand being around the two of them, even though I didn’t hate the guy. They’d be sneaking into the house when our parents didn’t know or were out. What was worse was that we shared a room. I got fed up of it, so I spent too much time in the living room. I even slept there at times…”
“And things changed?” I asked, thinking about how similar it was to my current situation.
“They mellowed out. I can even talk to the guy now without feeling awkward. Even when I go home, I still see him and well, he’s a nice guy.”
I thought that there was some hope, until I heard the last part. Logan and I would never get on. Before he started seeing Dana, if I saw him, I would insult him because he’s a jerk who treats women like shit. Fucks them and the leaves them, if they’re lucky or they just find out from the next victim that he just happens to be fucking at the same time. Why should I respect him? When the only person he cares about is himself.
“Anyway, you shouldn’t stress so much about it now. If you’re that worried about Dana, I could try talking to her for you?”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “You don’t need to do that.”
I tried talking to her myself, and it led to disaster. If someone else went to talk to her, and she thought I sent them, then that would make things even worse. She would get mad thinking that I’m gossiping about her.
“I should go,” I said, moving to get up. “I’d like to go have something to eat. Were you going somewhere? Or do you want to join me?”
“Sorry, I need to go. I forgot where I was going before when I saw you,” she laughed, tapping her forehead with the heel of her palm. “Let me go ahead; I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay,” I said lightly, waving back at her.
The moment her back was turned to me, I lost the smile. Jennifer and I weren’t close. Besides Dana, I wasn’t close with anyone else in the dorms, or I would have been going to someone else’s place to spend time when Dana was busy with Logan because I hated sitting in the dorm’s lounge room. It was always full of people. I wasn’t all that great at keeping up small talk and felt awkward in social interactions.
There was one hockey player, Elijah, a close friend of Logan’s and a total bastard. I’d come across him a few times, and that was one too many times.
He was the kind of guy that most innocent girls fell for. Tall, blond, blue-eyed and good-looking. Just because of that, he was so fucking full of himself it made me sick. Even if I could sort of agree that he was attractive, the fact that he was all up in himself made him appear unattractive to me.
Lately, it seemed everything that went wrong with my life was somehow attached to him.
I remembered running out of the room the moment Logan walked in. They hadn't even waited for me to be outside before he fell on Dana’s bed, and I could hear ambiguous sounds from behind my back that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
My face and neck warmed up in a blush. I knew the kinds of things men and women got up to when they locked themselves up in a room together, I wasn’t exactly innocent. I didn’t get too close to guys, but after the mistake I’d done in high school that included a certain sports player and me losing my virginity in a very painful, very humiliating way, I was way smarter.
What the hell do I do now? I wondered to myself, looking around.
I lied to Jennifer about getting something to eat, I just wanted her to go. I didn’t want her to talk to Dana and talking wasn’t exactly my forte. There was no reason for me to stay in the lounge. I felt my jeans pockets and pulled out my meal card, feeling relieved when my stomach growled at the same time.
“Might as well go and eat,” I muttered and headed for the cafeteria.
There were a few people with the same mind as me that were already getting their food, so there was a bit of a wait, and I used it to look over the menu. I couldn’t remember how much I had left on my meal card. I did everything on a budget, and I could access all this information on my computer, or on my cell. Sadly, I’d left both in the room, which just left me with more reasons to curse Logan. I figured I could treat myself just this one time, though, what with my bad mood and all, so I picked a few dishes that were priced a bit high, and went to look for a place to sit down. I found a table that was empty, with its surrounding tables also empty, and it was perfect.
I sat down and ate with my head down. I ate slowly, and I was still done in about half an hour.
Are they don’t yet?
I was getting impatient, but I knew better than to go up there so soon. It could take hours before those two were done. The last time they did this to me, I’d gone to the library until closing time, and when I got back, they were still at it in Dana’s bed. They left the fucking door unlocked, so I saw something I never wanted to see, at least they’d been under the covers. I couldn’t bare looking at Dana in the face after that incident.
What else was there to do to kill time in the cafeteria?
Besides eating, or watching people eat, there wasn’t anything. I picked up my tray, grumbling to myself, as I went to dump it in the trash, then went back to my seat. I folded my arms and laid my chin on top of them, looking around the room. It was still less than half full, but it should be around the time people started coming for dinner, so I didn’t doubt it would get full soon.
I could see people I knew, but as I wasn’t close to them, I just watched. It made me sigh, feeling a little wistful, seeing how everyone seemed to have someone they were close with, when I didn’t have that. I caught sight of a clock on the wall and tried to figure out what time I’d left my room, and how long it would take for Logan and Dana to be done, then for Logan to leave our room.
Those two idiots better not do anything on my side of the room, I thought, feeling a bit queasy just imagining it. I wasn’t there so I couldn’t tell what they were doing. Then I frowned, thinking back.
My computer was on my desk. I didn’t shut it down before running out of the room; I didn’t even close the lid down. I sat up slowly, wondering if it was going to bring me trouble later on. But then I shrugged it off.
So what if I left my computer on? The screen would go black after a while of no one using it. I had a screen saver on, but as long as they didn’t look too closely it would look like it was off, right? I had some important shit on my computer, so if they did touch it, I would be screwed, and I would kill the both of them. All my notes and assignments were in there, after all.
I didn’t think Dana would be malicious that she would try to attack me that way, though.
It didn’t matter, I thought to myself, laying my head back down. They’ll be too busy getting it on, and it’ll go to sleep on its own a while afterward.
Chapter Three
Elijah
“Did you find anything yet?” Logan asked.
I could tell by his snappy tone that he was starting to grow impatient. He probably wanted me to leave so he could get on with what had initially brought him over here. I had my back to them, and I could occasionally hear their muffled breaths and the sheets rustling as the two of them made out on the bed, probably wanting to do more. I’d here a breathy moan and a hissed curse; then Logan would ask if I was done.
We’d been like this for half an hour already, and even I was getting tired of it.
“Do you think it’s easy to find anything in here?” I complained. “This girl is too fucking clean, okay? There are no strange files on her computer. It’s all movies, music and school work, and not even any good movies. What the fuck is X-Men?”
“You don’t know X-Men?” Logan said from behind me, sounding shocked. “Dude, how could you not! I’ve loved that shit since I was a kid. It’s a big franchise with a bunch of comics, cartoons, and movies.”
“You know I only watch suspense thrillers and action movies.”
“Well, it is an action movie, duh,” he snorted.
I frowned at him over my shoulder. “I mean, action movies, as in normal people engaging in fights with guns and cars and explosions.”
“This movie has all of that,” he pointed out.
I paused for a moment, then turned around, muttering, “That’s not the point.”
None of what was in Sophia’s computer was anything I would even bother to look at because it would bore me to tears. Actually, besides hockey, there wasn’t much that interested me, but back home Dad and I used to have a movie night. He only watched action movies and sometimes suspense thrillers, so that was what I was used to watching. Anything else, and I hated it.
This made dating a pain since most dates wanted to watch some romance story or a bad horror for the sake of cuddling. The latter was okay, but I couldn’t stand romance movies. At least Sophia didn’t have those on her computer, which kinda surprised me.
Next, her music. Nothing to write home about. I recognized some rock songs that I only knew vaguely, but there were plenty of other genres, some music I figured were old if their album covers were anything to go by.
Her tastes were deplorable, and somehow completely fitting.
I even looked through some of her assignments. We were together in one class this semester, but because it was such a big room and she usually showed up early while I ended up arriving late, we hardly met in or out of the lecture room. I hadn't done some of the assignments, but she’d done about half the work we needed to do for the whole semester already, and I didn’t know whether to be impressed or not. I thought for a moment about copying her assignments, then decided it wasn’t worth it. I could do my own after all, and my grades were good. I was just being lazy.
“Have you checked her browsing history?” Logan asked, his voice coming out muffled.
I could hear some kissing noises coming from behind me, so I didn’t bother to look around again.
“There isn’t anything that important looking there, either. I found a bunch of websites that looked like research for her classes, and that’s it.”
“Seriously?” Logan asked, and the noises thankfully stopped.
“Yeah. I don’t think this girl does anything besides study, watch movies and listen to music.”
“Sophia’s always been like that,” Dana said, sounding a little breathless. “She doesn’t do much besides studying; she rarely goes out. When she’s not in classes, she’s walking around campus, in the library, or she’s here.”
I frowned. What about dating though? I refused to think a girl like Sophia had never dated before. I may not like her, but I saw how attractive she was, and if she could keep her mouth shut or change her attitude, I wouldn’t mind dating her myself. So how could it be possible, that in the two years we’d been in this college, she hadn't changed her routine at all?
There was a strangled moaning sound, and I scowled at the computer screen, my hands freezing.
“Logan,” I growled. “I swear if you start fucking behind my back I will kick you out of this room.”
“What! That’s not fucking fair! I didn’t come here to watch you fail at being a hacker! You’re supposed to be good at this shit with all those action movies you watch, aren’t you? There’s hacking in the action movies you like, right?”
I flattened my lips, unable to say anything. I stubbornly went on searching, because I didn’t want to lose this chance, and if I got to annoy Logan in the bargain, then all the better. I’d gotten up to lock the door so no one would be walking in on us, just in case. I did wonder what Sophia did when she was kicked out of the room by the horny couple. I pushed the thought out of my mind in the next moment.
There has got to be something, I thought fiercely to myself. No one could be that boring. She had to be hiding something in her computer.
“What about her emails?” Logan suggested. “Or social media. I still think you’d have better luck going through the browsing history.”
I frowned. “I’m not going to go through her emails.”
“Why not? If you’re worried about her privacy, isn’t it a little late for that now?”
My fingers froze on the keyboard, and I winced. He was right; I had already violated her privacy, but still. What good would I find in her emails? There probably wouldn’t be anything important there…right? I ignored Logan’s last statement and continued.
After another ten minutes of searching, my effort bore fruit. I found it in her browser history, as Logan had said.
“I think I got something,” I said out loud, the excitement obvious in my voice.
“Really? What is it?”
“It’s a dating site. And…it’s exclusive to our campus. How comes I never knew something like this existed?”
“Oh, I think I know a bit about it,” Dana spoke up. “I don’t know who told us about it, but I never bothered to look it up. She asked my opinion about it, and I told her it would be a waste of time. I’ve dated on campus before…”
“Wait, who did you date before?” Logan cut in.
I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever, you two. I’m going to get the info I need and leave you two to your business. Aren’t you happy?”
“Extremely,” Logan said sarcastically.
She didn’t have her password saved to the browser, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was cautious. Or maybe the website didn’t have that feature. It took a while for me to get the password, then I had everything I needed from her profile. I sent a copy of the page to my cell, then closed out of everything I’d opened. I didn’t shut the computer down, in case she remembered leaving it on, but I did close the top down.
“You guys go ahead and do whatever,” I told the two behind me, waving a hand over my shoulder at them. “Logan, I’ll be back in my room. Feel free to come any time.”
“Does this mean you forgive me for the prank?”
I didn’t answer him, unlocking the door and pulling it open. He’d done something good, and it was lucky for him that I found something that put me in a good mood. But I still had to keep seeing that professor, and things were still going to be awkward for me because of him, so it would take a lot more than just this to get me to forgive and forget.
“Lock the door once I’m gone,” I threw over my shoulder, then closed the door behind me.
I heard Logan curse but just chuckled as I sauntered down the hall, shoving my hands in my pockets. I was even tempted to whistle a tune as I went happily down the stairs. I looked around and thankfully didn’t see Sophia around. She’d be suspicious about why I was in her dorm, and I didn’t want her to know about this little trick.
Not yet, anyway.
I didn’t have a concrete plan yet, but if Sophia was interested in online dating, then I didn’t mind playing with her for a bit.
I hurried back to my dorm. With Logan out of the way it was quiet, and I had enough space to work. If he’d been here, I wouldn’t doubt he’d be looking over my shoulder to see what I was up to, so I could leave that as a surprise for later.
First, I unlocked my cell’s screen and used the info I’d copied from Sophia’s computer to open up the dating site. I read over the rules for the site, then opened up a new profile for myself. I set up the basics, like my name and birthdate, by myself. Then I came up with a simple profile name and picked up the info on my cell again.
“You’re about to meet someone that’s exactly perfect for you, Sophia,” I muttered to myself.
This was the perfect way to get back at her, never mind how simple it was. All I had to do was get her to fall for me online. I wasn’t sure she would be this naïve, but there was no time to find out like the present. She didn’t seem to talk to guys that often, at least I hadn't heard anything on campus, so getting her hooked shouldn’t be that difficult.
Then, after she was hooked, I’d ask for a meeting and watch the look on her face when she realized her online sweetheart was the same guy she hated.
I grinned to myself just imagining what a beautiful look it would be.
“Now, about the profile,” I murmured in satisfaction.
I took facts about her and turned my online persona into her perfect other half. She wouldn’t think anything was strange at all, would probably just find it a nice coincidence, and I had every intention of using that edge. I picked the music she liked, a few bands that I’d only ever heard of in passing before. I didn’t read books, but I added some of the ones she added as well. I also added her big interests, like my online persona was a big X-Men fan.
Ten minutes later, I had everything filled up. I cross checked the info to be sure they weren’t the same thing. Even if I thought she was naïve, I didn’t think Sophia was particularly stupid. If everything between our profiles were exact, she might start to wonder if I copied off her instead of thinking the profile was her best match. I changed a few of the books around and didn’t put all the ones that were on her profile. I did the same with the music, but didn’t do much about the interests. The only interest I had was hockey, and as far as I knew, Sophia detested all sports players.
After a careful check to make sure everything was perfect I nodded to myself and finished setting up my profile.
The way the dating site worked, a profile would be matched to the closest ranking profile. There was a recommendation list with other profiles that had the most matches with your profiles interests, and sure enough, once I set my own up and a quick match-making session later that took less than a minute, I had a list of profile names to pick from.
Sophia’s was right at the top, and with a grin, I clicked on her profile to send her an invite to chat and get to know each other better.
Wait, Sophia. You’re not going to be so stuck up for long, because you and I are going on a date, whether you like it or not!
Chapter Four
Sophia
I woke up feeling groggy the next morning, and cursed both Logan and Dana out, but only in my mind.
Why did they have to do it here? Couldn’t they just go back to Logan’s dorm instead?
I felt lucky that it was the weekend already. The last time they did something like this had been the evening before I needed to be up ridiculously early to attend an early morning class, and I’d dozed throughout the whole class and even got in trouble with the lecturer over it.
I stretched out under my covers then rolled around, blinking my eyes open. I was facing the other side of the room, and I was surprised to find Dana’s bed empty. I searched under my pillow for my cell and squinted at the screen, surprised to note the time.
Shit. It was a few minutes to eleven in the morning. I rarely ever slept in this late.
This is all their fault, I thought with resentment.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d lazed around outside of the room before I thought it was safe to go back, but I did know it was quite late. Then I’d spent some time just pacing in front of my door, trying to work up the courage to even knock. After about twenty minutes, I managed. I knocked, then waited for a long moment. I’d been about to knock again, when the door opened, and I jumped back as if something frightful was in there.
Logan walked out of the room with a satisfied grin on his face, doing up his belt. I’d looked at him in horror, and he’d winked, then smirked at me and sauntered away. When I walked inside, Dana was lying on her bed with a dress slipped on, but it was so thin that it showed off her hardened nipples. She didn’t have anything on underneath the dress.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what those two had been doing in there, and it brought back the trauma from the time I caught them fucking. I’d been hesitant to get inside the room, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go, anyway, so I went in. My computer had been closed down, but I couldn’t bother about it. I kept my back to Dana the entire time, and got in my bed, under the covers to get away from the musky smell in the room, with my cell and power banks, and didn’t come out. I didn’t fall asleep for a long time, so I ended up reading books online until about five a.m. in the morning when I finally felt tired enough to sleep. Even then I had sexual thoughts and I knew it was because of the smell that was lingering in the room. I should have just got up and opened the window, but I was too lazy to do that.
“The next time they try and do that shit here, I’ll kick them both out,” I promised myself with a shudder.
I hoped Dana would be out for a while, and I slid out of bed to go to the bathroom. Every floor in the dorm had shared bathrooms, in opposite directions for the different genders so people wouldn’t be sneaking in where they weren’t allowed. It was left to everyone’s discretion, so I didn’t know how useful a measure that was. Everyone had to watch themselves.
After a quick shower, I wiped myself down and hurried back to my room, happy to find I was still alone. I locked the door, so I could get dressed, then hesitated before unlocking it again. Dana was still my roommate, even if she hadn’t been the most thoughtful lately, and locking her out of the room wasn’t right. Technically, she had her key so it wasn’t like it would be locking her out, but she rarely ever carried her keys, because I was almost always in the room. Hence, why the door stayed open.
Not that long ago, we used to hang out in the room, but thanks to Logan’s influence, she was going out a lot more recently. It meant I got to keep the room to myself, but I was a little lonely, too.
Anyway, it’s good she’s out. Let me see if I got a few more hits.
A while back, one of the girls in the dorm had told me about this campus dating site. I didn’t remember how we got onto the topic, there was a group of us in the lounge, and Dana had been there which was why I was sitting in the lounge, to begin with. I’d never really tried dating sites before, but I was curious about it.
Besides, this one was restricted to our campus, so it should be somewhat safe if only to experiment. I hadn't tried dating since the disastrous incident in high school, and now that Dana was busy with her dating life again. I didn’t need to be dating to be happy—I was perfectly fine the way I was—but I was interested in trying again.
After I wiped my hair, I sat down at my desk. My laptop was where I’d left it, and I turned it on, setting my cell close by in case I got a call or notification. I bit my lip, feeling anxious butterflies fluttering in my stomach as I waited for it to start.
The screen had just come on when I heard the door opening behind me. I grimaced and looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, it was Dana coming back, and I quickly sent her a smile before turning my back to her.
“I was surprised to find you gone this morning when I woke up.”
“Yeah. I took a shower and went to see Logan afterward.”
“Okay,” I murmured. “Cool.”
She closed the door and moved to her bed to sit down, and I could already feel how awkward it was going to be in the room. I heard her moving around on her side of the room, and I was surprised when she spoke up again.
“Hey, did you finish the assignment for Wednesday’s class?”
I looked around at her. “Um, I did. I already sent it in already, though. Do you still want it?”
Our school had an online portal where we could submit some assignments, though others had to be handed in during class. Once the assignment was in the system, it would be easy to tell if someone copied off someone else’s work instead of working on their own, so it was easier to do your work instead of losing points for trying to cheat. I’d heard there were people still dumb enough to try, and everyone involved had their marks cut off besides just getting a zero.
“It’s fine,” Dana said with a sigh. “I’ll do it myself right now.”
I nodded and turned back around to face my computer, the room delving into silence once more. On my computer, I typed in my password, and the page opened up to my home screen. There didn’t seem to be anything out of place from how I’d left it yesterday, and I nodded in satisfaction as I pulled up my browser.
“Hey, thanks for closing my computer for me yesterday,” I called back to Dana.
There was a long pause, then she hummed. I didn’t think anything of it, assuming when she started typing again that she was just preoccupied with her homework.
I opened the dating site and logged into my account, tapping my fingers on the desk as it loaded. The site showed my home page, and before I could look over the recommendation list, or see if I’d gotten any replies from the messages I’d already sent, I noticed the notification icon was lit up. My breath caught in my chest before I grinned.
Joining a dating site was a bit of a gamble for me. But I wasn’t good at going up to people and talking to them. It wasn’t like guys didn’t want to talk to me, either, but I usually made excuses to walk away quickly and avoided them when I saw them again. I didn’t know how to go up to someone and talk. I was sure it wasn’t socially acceptable to stop someone just to ask them what their likes and dislikes were to see whether we matched.
In that aspect, online dating was perfect. Since everyone already had their interests listed out, all I had to do was find whoever had the same interests I did.
Only so far, I hadn't been so successful.
Yeah, I’d seen a few hopefuls. But it was hard, even online, to find someone that liked most of the same stuff I did. The closest I got were profiles that liked the same books and music, but most of the ones under that were female profiles, and once I locked them out of the search, there were only a few guys.
Dating should be a lot simpler than this, shouldn’t it?
I knew people didn’t have to have the same interests to date. My mom, for example, had dated plenty, before and after my dad, and she’d told me that few of the guys she dated had things in common with her, besides that they liked being around each other.
That piece of advice wasn’t really useful to me, though, because I didn’t usually stick around people long enough to tell whether I liked being around them or not.
I already knew that anyone I could find on the site was a long shot from being my perfect match, but a girl had to start somewhere. Even just talking to someone online might motivate me to try and talk to someone in real life later on.
So, I clicked on the lit up icon, biting down on my lip. I’d sent an invite to a few profiles already, but none of them had replied. Maybe my profile put them off? But then I checked my message and felt my breath stutter in my chest. I slammed a hand over my mouth to hold back a giggle.
Someone sent me an invite!
I had been on the site for a couple of weeks already, and this was the first time it happened! I couldn’t believe someone wanted to know me better. I’d been thinking recently that my profile was a bit geek-ish. Being an X-Men fan, I might have written a little too much on it, but it wasn’t just the recent movies that I was into but the whole franchise.
Replying to the invite, I checked out the guy’s profile. He was another X-Men fan, and he liked one of the books that I did, Game of Thrones. Under favorite music and bands, there were some I didn’t know, but I did see my all-time favorite, Coldplay.
He seemed perfect. Almost too good to be true. Even better, under hobbies, there weren’t any sports listed. That might not mean anything in the long run, but as long as we had so many other interests in common, I could put up with the one flaw. He was already several times better than my ex-boyfriend, who only ever had three things on his mind. Sports, his friends, and sex.
“What are you doing?”
I looked over my shoulder, surprised to see Dana standing behind me, looking at my computer. Immediately, I wanted to hide the screen, but she probably already saw what was on it, and besides, it would be too suspicious.
“Uh, nothing really,” I said slowly. “I thought you were doing the assignment?”
“Yeah, I figured I would go to the library and do it there. Logan’s busy, but if he has time, he’ll be meeting me there.” Then she narrowed her eyes on my screen. “Now, seriously. What are you up to?”
I pursed my lips, wondering if she was trying to shove her relationship in my face because she caught me on a dating site.
“I’m looking for love,” I said with a challenging look. “Not lust.”
She arched an eyebrow at me, then rolled her eyes and turned toward the door with her laptop and notes in her arms. “Freak,” she muttered on her way out.
I heard her clearly, and it made me pause for a minute. But then I decided not to let it bother me and excitedly sent a message to the guy’s profile. I wasn’t sure how long it took me to think of what to say. The message I got from him was a prompt by the system, something along the lines of, ‘hi this is my username and my profile, I saw that we matched, would you like to chat sometime?’ I couldn’t just answer to the prompt.
After a long moment, all I could come up with was ‘hi, nice talking to you,’ and a smiley face. I sent the message before I could change my mind, then put my computer to sleep, and buried my head in my arms on the table, calling myself all sorts of names in my head for the weak message.
It didn’t matter or it did? I thought after a while. I was cautiously hopeful this would go well. After another long moment of worrying about the message, I raised my head and turned on my computer again. I checked the site, before opening the school’s portal to start on the next assignment.