“Hey, baby, you’re looking real good today. When are you coming by my dorm?”
Valerie Waters gritted her teeth and pushed through the crowd of shifter boys blocking her way in the halls of Stonybrooke University.
“Oh, come on! You’d change your tune if you knew how powerful we are.”
“I highly doubt that,” Val mumbled.
She was getting sick of these jokers. They had been giving her shit for the past three semesters; they had first noticed her in their philosophy class, when she had been stupid enough to speak up in class and gain the praise of their professor.
Ever since then, they had been hounding her about the same time every day, waiting outside the classes they knew she had in the Stevenson Hall. It was really getting old, but there was nothing she could do about it. They hadn’t done anything really serious. They were just an obnoxious group of guys who didn’t seem to want to rest until she agreed to sleep with one of them. And that was never going to happen.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going? Ren, here, wanted to ask you out on a date!”
“Ren’s not going to ask me anything!”
She ignored their cries of protest when she walked past and refused to look at them, making her way into the lecture room and finding a seat as far away from the door as possible. They lingered there until the professor arrived, then went on their way. It was stressful having to avoid them, and truthfully, she didn’t have any clue what their fixation with her was. She probably looked like an easy victim.
And truth was, she had a hard time feeling very confident. She had run away from the foster care system when she was about sixteen years old. Fortunately, Val was intelligent enough that she received the credits she needed for her diploma early. From there, she had gone to college, paying her own way and working her ass off at three jobs to be able to do it.
But that had gotten too overwhelming for her, so now, at twenty-three years old, she was going back to school to finish her degree.
Thing was, she had fled her home state and headed out west, until she found herself in Stonybrooke. She didn’t have a lot of money, and had just barely managed to get an apartment in a rundown complex that most people made fun of. The owner was one step above being a slum lord, but only because when she had complained about there being no heat that winter, he had dropped off a space heater for her. Not only that but the place was infested with pests; rats and roaches and every once in a while, she was pretty sure she had seen a bedbug. But she invested all her money into keeping the place as clean as she could keep it, and she had faith that once she finished her degree, she would find something better.
She was embarrassed to admit where she lived, but it was what she had to do to make it on her own. She had never had anybody to rely on, and being in Stonybrooke’s worst part of town was still better than being out on the streets. She had to work harder than most other people to achieve the same things, but she had managed to do it and she would continue to work her ass off until she achieved her goals, whether groups of stupid shifter boys wanted to harass her or not.
When class was over on time that day, Valerie felt relieved. Usually, if it ran late, she would have to literally run to the bus station to get over to the little record store she worked at so she wasn’t late. It was the best of her three jobs, and if she was late one more time, she would be fired.
“Hi, Randall.”
Randall nodded at her from the cash register and Val hurried to the back, eager to clock in and get to work. There was a new shipment of records for her to stock and alphabetize, so she was soon swamped with work and all thoughts of her day were pushed out of her head.
“Check it out,” Randall said, nodding his head toward the window when Val came out from stocking the shelves.
Standing across the street was the tall shifter man who ran the Shifter Fit store. He was standing behind a supply truck, lifting huge boxes and walking them into the store; his broad muscles rippling and shining in the sunlight.
“You’re shameless, Randall,” Val said, shaking her head at him.
Randall grinned and shrugged. “There’s a reason I work here.”
“Awful,” Val laughed. Still, she couldn’t help but allow her eyes to linger a few moments longer on the man’s flawless form as he moved tirelessly to unload the truck single-handedly, carrying box after box of material from the truck and into the store.
“I know I wouldn’t have a chance anyway. He’s still totally in love with his dead wife.”
“How do you know these things?” Val asked, finally tearing her eyes from the scene and studying Randall in disbelief.
“I pay attention,” Randall said with a wink.
Val rolled her eyes and went back to work. It must be awful to live your life too consumed by a lost love to have any interest in anyone else. She couldn’t help but feel horrible for the man, whether he was the owner of a semi-successful business or not. He had to feel so lonely. Maybe she would make him a batch of cookies or something sometime, just to give him something good to think about.
But soon, Valerie was consumed, once again, by her work and thoughts of the handsome, lonely man were gone from her mind. She had to do what she could to survive, even if that meant filing records as quickly as she could so she could get to her job at the gas station in time. She had been on her feet since five o’clock that morning, and she was really looking forward to being able to lay down.
She had quite a while before that could happen though, so she busied herself, hoping that if she finished early, she could sit in the back and get a head start on her homework. She was going to make something of herself, no matter what anybody else said about her. Valerie would do whatever it took to succeed.