Chapter Eight
Needless to say, I had a massive hangover. I suffered through the morning, thankful for not taking an early class this semester. At least I didn’t have Monroe. The swelling in my knee ballooned, but I blamed the alcohol. Chelsea had sent me some water retention pills she took once a month to help. There were things about my little sister I never wanted to know, and that was one of them. I preferred to think of her with pigtails and a gap between her teeth instead of the eighteen-year-old who wanted nothing more than to move to New York.
The pills helped with the swelling. The pain I ignored, something I’d gotten pretty damn good at lately. I’d also doubled up on the prednisone as the doctor ordered.
I entered the student union for lunch and saw Barry sitting with Seth at our usual spot.
“How’d it go last night, Barry?” I asked as I plopped into the booth. Seth grinned before stuffing his face with a chicken leg.
Barry didn’t bother to look up from his notebook. “Be glad you didn’t hit that, Betts.”
I swallowed the laugh that his morose tone solicited and cleared my throat. “Why do you say that?”
“It was like driving a Beetle into the hangar of a seven-forty-seven, dude.”
“That’s harsh,” I said before erupting into laughter. Seth’s cackle joined mine. When I finally got control of myself, Barry glared at me. “What?”
“What was up with you last night? Turning down a chick willing to put out. And you looked like someone maimed your cat.” He tapped his pen on the table.
“Guess I haven’t been single long enough.”
Seth shook a clean chicken bone my way. “Yeah, whatever, dude. I’m not stupid. Trish is a bitch, but you aren’t dead. Get laid.”
“Maybe,” I answered. But I wasn’t looking at him or Barry anymore. Over Barry’s shoulder, Mallory sat with Hipster. That made the previous night’s rejection all the more painful. Why did I even care? I turned back to Seth who was picking through his green beans. “Anything going on tonight?”
He shook his head. “Nah, unless you want to head into town for some shots at O’Malley’s.”
“Sounds like a plan. Come by around six thirty.”
Seth raised his eyebrows. “You serious, dude? ’Cause I’m in, but you don’t normally go for this sort of thing on a school night.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“All right then, son, let’s get stupid tonight. I’ll tag Chuck to DD.” He raised his fist at the same time I did for a bro bump. “’Bout time you came around to the real college experience. You in, Barry?”
Barry nodded, too busy scribbling in his notebook. He kept studying and flipping pages in his textbook. I shook my head and let my gaze fall back toward Mallory.
Two girls, one with long straight hair and the other with too-big glasses, stopped by her table. Mallory’s face lightened, then they all laughed at something. Mallory stood and threw her messenger bag over her left shoulder. Hipster reached out to touch her, but she shrank away from him. The smile stayed on her lips as she stepped back from the dude to add space. Hipster didn’t seem to get it. He made a move toward her, but the glasses girl stepped in between them. Mallory made a hasty getaway. What was up with that?
You know what, I didn’t care. It wasn’t my business.
“Yeah.” I turned my attention back to Seth. “It’s time to get stupid for a change.”
The elevator door dinged and I walked out onto the third floor. Mallory wasn’t there yet. That was surprising.
I sat in the chair opposite of where she normally did. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I barely glanced at it when I saw a familiar number without a name. Trish. I’d deleted her out of my contact list, but I knew her number by heart. I hesitated for only a second before hitting decline, sending her to voicemail.
The little message icon showed two new texts. I clicked open and saw both were from last night. My mind circled before remembering I’d ignored it because I was too busy drinking vodka. I scrolled back to the oldest one I hadn’t read.
Mallory: Who won the presidential election in 1952?
Like I’d know that. Hell, like I cared.
Mallory: Are you okay?
I scrolled through the rest of the messages between us. They looked like two people trying to one up each other. Two people with a constant competitive edge. Shaking my head, I cleared them all, wishing there was a way to get out of this tutoring thing. The mystery of Mallory Fine was one I had no interest in anymore.
“Hey,” she said behind me. I spun in my chair to face her. Her hair was pulled into a massive ponytail and her eyes flashed to my face before darting back to the blue-gray carpeting. “How…”
“We should get started. I’ve got something to do later.” I turned in my chair and opened a book.
“Fine.” As soon as she sat down, Mallory became all business. “Did you find out who won the 1952 presidential election?”
I snorted. “Ah, so that was homework?” Shaking my head, I fought the childish and girly eyeroll. “No, I was busy last night.”
She eyed me for several seconds. “Then we’ll start there.”
An hour later I still had no idea what we’d been talking about. She slammed the book closed, bringing me out of my stupidity.
“What?” I asked, stunned by the anger radiating off her.
“You’re not concentrating. I can’t do this without you, Aaron. You need to focus.” She shoved the books into her bag and stood so fast her chair tottered behind her before resting back on its legs. “Let’s pick this up tomorrow. And bring your brain next time.”
Anger welled inside me, waiting to spring on her. I grabbed my stuff and scurried to catch her at the elevator. By the time I got near her, I felt like a limping zombie, but damned if I was going to let a little agony stop me. She pushed the call button five times before crossing her arms over her chest. Her breasts heaved beneath the shirt, and the silver locket around her neck rose and fell with each breath. She tapped her foot against the padded carpet until the door dinged.
After hurrying into the tiny space, she held out her arm so I couldn’t get in. “Take the stairs, Aaron.”
“Like hell I will.” I pushed inside, pressing her against the wall. When the doors closed, I stepped back. My breathing huffed like I’d just run a marathon. “Like I can.”
The elevator creaked before stopping somewhere between the second and third floors. Not an uncommon occurrence, but it would more than likely jumpstart in a minute or so. The football field had new sod, but the library couldn’t get an elevator fixed. Priorities.
Mallory reached for the red emergency button. Her hand hung for a moment before falling back to her side.
“Look, I’m sorry about yesterday, okay? I really did have plans that I couldn’t get out of and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to get out of.” She let her bag drop to the floor as she paced in circles around me. “You can’t let that get in the way of the tutoring session.”
I put my arm out to stop her. She stared up at me, a question in her eyes. It was probably “what the fuck” because that was going through my head. As in “what the fuck am I doing?”
She pressed her hands against my chest. My body went on autopilot. I wasn’t thinking, only acting and reacting. My hand moved to her face, my fingertips gliding down her cheek until my thumb slipped over her lower lip. Her hands slid up to my neck. Her lips quivered under my touch. I leaned in and brushed my mouth against hers. Every cell in my body lit up at the contact. I moved my lips gently, more so than I wanted to, and Mallory responded by kissing me back.
The elevator lurched to a start, sending us to opposite sides. I slammed into the wall, knocking the wind out of my chest and sense back into my head. God, what in the hell was wrong with me?
Mallory righted herself, smoothing down her shirt before lifting her bag back over her shoulder. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, her fingers on her lips. In that moment, I knew she was as confused as I was.
“Aaron, we can’t do this,” she said, tearing her gaze from me. Her voice trembled. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this with you. I don’t…I won’t date a baseball player.”
If I was confused before, this only made things worse. “Just baseball players? But wannabe hipsters with faux hawks are okay?”
“What’re you talking about?” She shook her head, still facing the elevator doors. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just…this won’t happen, okay?”
I nodded, still sorting through everything that just occurred. Did I even want to date her? Hell, I didn’t know I was going to kiss her until I did it. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it…”
“That’s the way it has to be,” she said.
“This is…this is stupid.” I stretched my arm above my head, pressing it against the wall. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I… I’m not looking for anything here. I just got out of a relationship and I’m not interested in starting another one, okay? That…that kiss was a mistake. I won’t let it happen again.”
Mallory nodded once as the doors opened to the first floor. Without glancing back, she rushed from the elevator and around the corner toward the exit.
Her lips still burned on mine, and they’d barely touched. I replayed her words as I finally exited the elevator. She didn’t date baseball players. On purpose. There was so much more to this girl than I imagined. She knew more about baseball than most of the guys I played with, but she claimed she didn’t watch the game. Whenever I saw her on campus, she was with that Hipster most of the time. What was it about him?
My phone buzzed a text message. Hoping it was from Mallory, I pulled it from my pocket.
Seth: You ready to get stupid tonight, bro?
A smile spread over my face. Seth was right earlier. It was time I started living a little, started having some fun. In all my years with Trish, I’d been the good boy to her good girl. If she was going to go bad, why couldn’t I?
Me: Yeah. Let’s get stupid.