College Girl (10 page)

Alex looked from the bike to the
car but didn’t say anything as I opened the door for her. Neither one of us
spoke on the drive back to her dorm, but in my peripheral vision, I saw her
glance over at me a handful of times. I parked and opened her door before going
back for the garment bag and shoebox.

“What are those?”

“I told you I had something to
give you.”

 
She nodded but didn’t say anything as we
walked toward Mercer. Watching as she slid her card in the reader, I held open
the door for her and then followed her up the stairs to the third floor
landing. When she opened the door and turned on the light, I saw a Pringles
container on the floor, the remnants of chips scattered across the room.

“Your roommate is a fucking slob,”
I said, stating the obvious.

“Oh, so you noticed?” Alex
laughed.

I took out my phone.

“Give me your number.”

She rattled off a number with an
L.A. area code.

“I’ll see you Tuesday,” I said
quietly.

I wanted to bring her back to the
house. I wanted to hear her cry out my name as I watched her come. Which is why
I turned and left without touching her. I needed her to have the weekend to
think about my question, and if she ran away again, then I’d know.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

Alex

I stared at the dress lying on the
bed. It was short, black, and backless. In senior year of high school, I had
gone to prom with Rachel and a couple of other girls, but my dress hadn’t
looked like this.
This
dress looked
like it was straight out of a fashion magazine, not that I spent a lot of time
looking at many. I figured spending a lot of time reading magazines might
actually lower my IQ, which was something I couldn’t afford while I was trying
to pass Calculus.

I checked the tag.
Becca Gray
. I had never heard of the
brand, but even I could tell the dress was expensive. With shaking hands, I
stripped out of my clothes and slipped it over my head, tying it loosely at the
neck. Then I opened up the shoebox and stared down at the spiky black heels.
Holding the side of the bed, I slipped one heel on and then the other. I walked
over to the mirror, feeling like a colt trying to stand up for the first time.
As soon as I saw my reflection, I laughed.

“Holy
shit
.”

The lace at the bottom of the
dress barely covered my mid-thigh, and the dress was low-cut in the front and
the back. I jumped when someone pounded on the door and then hobbled over to
look through the peephole. Relaxing when I saw Julie, I opened the door and
cringed when she shrieked.

“Fuck! Look at you, you badass
ho!”

“Shh!”

I pressed my finger to my lips and
grabbed her hand, dragging her into the room.

“Hot! Are you wearing a bra?”
Julie asked as soon as I shut the door.

I looked down and smirked. The
silicone adhesive bra that I had worn with my prom dress was the one luxury
item I had slipped past my mom, who remained steadfastly convinced that college
kids wore nothing but jeans.

“Yeah, it’s one of those sticky
ones.”

“And? Where’d you get the fucking
dress?

“He … gave it to me.”

“He?
He
? You mean the twenty-eight-year-old TA who wants to fuck my
friend? That
he
?”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Yes, Julie. That he.”

“And
he
just gave you a nine-hundred-fucking-dollar dress?”

I stared at her with my mouth
gaping open.

“What do you mean
nine hundred dollars
?”

“Did you think that dress came
from fucking Ross? That shop is super-fucking expensive.”

“You know it?”

“Yeah, it’s out in wine country
about an hour from my parents’. My mom got a dress from there last year. She
nearly breathed fire when I asked if I could borrow it.”

“Fucking fantastic. I had no idea.
He just dropped me off with it like he had picked it up at Target. Shit. I have
to give it back.”

“Like fuck you do! This guy
clearly wants you as bad as you want him to de-virginize you.”

“Julie!”

“Look at you turning into a total
priss now that some hot guy wants to bang you!”

She was right. Normally I’d be
cracking up and totally out-crassing Julie. Not tonight, though.
Not when I couldn’t even think straight.

“Can you help me?”

She came over and together we
carefully pulled the dress over my head like we were disarming a nuclear
device. I hung it up in the very back of the closet and hoped that Brit would
stay out of my shit for once. Then I put my jeans and sweater back on and
climbed onto the bed next to Julie, who was eyeballing me.

“So? What’s the dress for?” she
asked suspiciously.

“He asked me to go to some event
with him. Weird, huh?”

“No, not weird. He clearly wants
to get it on. Does he know you’ve never actually—”

I nodded, and part of me wanted to
tell her what he had said earlier—what he had asked me. But I couldn’t do
it. Just thinking about it made my entire body go weak.

I want you to tell me if you’re ready
.

The memory of his voice made me
shiver as I put the shoes back in the box. Julie hopped down from the bed and
sat at my desk where she opened my laptop.

“What’s Professor Hot’s name?”

I bit my lip.

“Why?” I asked nervously.

“Because I’m looking him up on the
math department’s page.”

“Ryan Ben—I mean, Ryan
Matthews.”

She clicked on the page with
pictures of the math department’s faculty and staff.

“Oh,
Alex
. You are so out of your league,” she mumbled without a trace
of humor.

Looking over her shoulder at
Ryan’s headshot, I felt my stomach tighten. Goddamn he was hot.

“Yeah, I know.”

“So?” Julie said. “Fuck it. I say
go for it. Does he seem like he’d be good in bed?”

“How would I know?” I laughed.

My cheeks were burning, partly out
of embarrassment, but also because I had just lied to my friend. I was
absolutely positive that Ryan Bennett was good in bed, which only reminded me
that I knew nothing about sex.

I can be a very patient teacher
.

I swallowed and poked Julie in the
side.

“Was Chris at the frat party?”

“For like two seconds,” she
moaned.

“And did you tell him you wanted
to fuck him?” I laughed, enjoying the chance to get back at her.

“Well, unfortunately he’s not
trying to hump my leg, unlike like your TA, who apparently has a hard-on the
size of California for you …”

She got up, leaving the staff page
for the mathematics department open on my computer. I couldn’t help staring at
Ryan’s picture. I hadn’t even thought to look online for it. Less than an hour
ago, I had been sitting in his lap wishing he wouldn’t stop touching me. I
shook my head and turned back to Julie.

“You think your roommate would
mind if we moved Brit’s stuff into your room tonight, and you came to live with
me?”

“I actually kind of asked her
about it already.”

“You
did
? Then how come you’re not fucking living here already?”

Julie raised an eyebrow.

“Get this. I don’t think Miranda
likes Brit so much.”

“What? Aren’t they, like,
sorority sisters forever
?”

Julie made a gagging noise, and I
sighed.

“I guess I’m stuck then.”

“Or you could call Teacher Man
back over here and have him carry you back to his castle on a white horse.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“Black Audi, actually.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“
And
a motorcycle.”

“And you’re sure he’s a TA and not
James Bond?”

I shrugged, not wanting to expose
his double identity as the heir to some wine fortune.

“Well, personally I think you
should have spent the night at his place instead of coming back here,” Julie
added.

“No way. Tonight I’m putting a
sock on the door and locking Brit out. Maybe she’ll think twice about keeping
some asshole in here all night next time.”

Julie got off the bed, and I
followed her to the door.

“What do you have going on
tomorrow?” I asked.

She frowned.

“Work. And what—or
whom—are
you
doing tomorrow?”
she asked suggestively.

“I’m going to go back over to the
paper to see if I can get another assignment.”

“You got the job?”

“Yeah. I don’t think they were
being too picky.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Doesn’t pay as much as your job,
but it might be good experience.”

Julie worked a couple of shifts a
week at a bed and breakfast just off campus. A lot of parents stayed there when
they visited, but so far mine hadn’t. Mom said she couldn’t afford to leave my
little sister Stephie alone for a weekend—like Stephen wasn’t capable of
shuttling Stephie over to friends’ houses for a couple of days with Mom gone.
Stephie was like Mom—a social butterfly. She always had somewhere to be.
I figured maybe I had gotten my father’s genes, including introversion and a
penchant for drinking. I was hoping to skip the second part.

“Well, why do you need money when
you could be a kept woman?” Julie asked opening the door.

“Don’t joke.”

She shrugged.

“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try
it.”

I rolled my eyes and closed the
door after she walked out. Changing into a T-shirt and shorts, I went down the
hall to brush my teeth, and when I got back to the room, I made sure the door
was locked before climbing into bed. I closed my eyes, but sleep was
impossible. Over and over, I kept replaying the time at Ryan’s house in my
head—and not just the part where we were making out.

It was weird. I was insanely
attracted to him, but he was also the first person—other than
Julie—to ask anything about my life. He had listened to me, and I liked
talking to him.

I can be a very patient teacher
.

I shivered thinking of the way he
had said it. There was just one problem: I didn’t know if I was ready.

In the morning, I got up and saw
that Brit’s bed was still empty. Changing into workout pants and a long-sleeved
shirt, I decided a run around the dorms might clear my head. Unfortunately, by
the time I stepped outside into the cold rain and started jogging, I sort of
wished that I had applied to colleges back home where there was, gasp,
sunshine.

On the other hand, I had bigger,
broader shouldered problems to worry about than Northern California’s weather.
Sucking in a ragged breath, I tried to think things over rationally. I knew I
should run like hell from Ryan Bennett, mostly because I was going to get hurt.
Really there was no way around it. He was ten
years
older, and—like Julie had said—way,
way
out of my league. Eventually, he
would get bored of me. Or finish his graduate program and move to
who-knows-where. Or get together with someone like the blonde-highlights chick
I saw at his house. Or … the list just went on and on. Still, knowing this in
advance didn’t make the reality of it hurt any less.

I really liked him. And I knew I
shouldn’t.

I finished my run and stretched
out in the room before collecting my stuff to shower. Then I went down the
hall—in my flip-flops—and prayed fervently that the bathroom would
be halfway decent, unlike the time a few weeks ago when some asshole from the
second floor had gone into the girls’ bathroom and taken a shit in one of the
shower stalls and then bragged about it in the DC. Of course, no one had reported
him. I felt a sudden longing for Ryan’s shower … and Ryan. I had dreamed about
him all night long, which was kind of embarrassing, even if I was the only one
who knew about it.

After getting dressed, I walked
across campus to the paper, but the only article my editor had was one that
nobody else wanted.
Something about the POS system in the
Student Union.
I took it anyway and spent the rest of the weekend doing
homework and looking up stuff on the Internet about point of sale systems,
which was enough to put me in a coma.

Monday was Creative
Writing—still no stalker—and French. It also was my unofficial day
to call home. Fall quarter I had called Mom every day. Then, after a while, it
had gotten kind of depressing to see how easily I had been sectioned out of my
family’s life. Mom mostly talked about Stephie’s latest achievements, and then
Stephen would ask a few questions before passing the phone back to Mom, who
would end the conversation by asking how I was doing “on the road to becoming
Dr. Reed
.” I had already decided that I
would have that conversation with Mom when I officially flunked Calculus.

Scrolling to Mom’s number, I got
her voicemail. I left a short, cheerful message that said I was studying hard.
I didn’t mentioned getting stalked or being carried out of frat parties by hot
TAs.

By Tuesday afternoon, the only
thing keeping me awake in Chemistry was the fact that in a few short hours I
would be sitting in Calculus trying to work up the nerve to tell Ryan Bennett
that I couldn’t see him anymore. The only thing complicating my plan was that I
couldn’t figure out how to return the dress and shoes without it turning into
an epic fucking disaster.

My plan for the moment was to just
come right out and say it after class:
I
can’t do this
. Then, for the rest of the quarter, I would walk back to the
dorm with Tony. Yeah, it had been a little awkward walking with Tony after
class last time. Tony was one of those people who acted friendly, but then
there was this weird undercurrent of desperation anytime he would put his head
on my shoulder. The good thing was that he did this to all the girls in the
dorm who would let him, so I wasn’t worried about it. It was just … awkward.

Tonight, though, I would just
pretend I had an escort back to Mercer. Besides, what was Ryan going to do,
anyway? Follow me? Just to be on the safe side, though, I got to class at the
last possible second and slid into the seat that Tony had saved for me. Part of
me felt a little bad, but it wasn’t like I was leading Tony on. Please. I had
watched him mentally strip-searching the entire female half of our floor, and I
could say confidently that I barely registered on his radar. Because apparently
the only male radars I did register on were those of sociopaths and hot, way
age-inappropriate TAs.

Halfway through lecture, I was
aching, my entire body tense from actively avoiding looking at Ryan. Despite
watching Professor Robertson like my life depended on it, all of my attention
was focused on Ryan—and not looking at him. As the seconds ticked by, I
could feel his eyes burning into me, and I knew if I looked at him, I would
lose my nerve.

Stop fucking staring at me
! I thought desperately.

I told myself over and over that I
was preventing a disaster by avoiding him, but by the time Professor Robertson
finished pontificating, it took all my willpower not to hand my homework
assignment over to Tony so that I could run for the back exit. I didn’t,
though. I told Tony I was going to the library, and then got in line to turn in
my homework and tell Ryan that I wasn’t ready … for anything.