College Girl (12 page)

Like me, he came from a well-to-do
family, but I liked to think we took different paths starting ten years ago.
I
knew I wasn’t fucking Peter Pan, and I
hadn’t expected to stay eighteen forever. James had never wanted the party to
end—which made him a pain in the ass and a liability. His level of
disregard for practically everything and everyone made me wince at the thought
of him within close proximity to anything I valued, because just about everything
James did could be categorized under
ill
advised
,
likely to cause bodily harm
,
or
likely to set the place on fire
.

Likewise, he could kiss my fucking
ass if he thought he was going to get anywhere
near
my
shit. I’d meet him in San Francisco, and that way, if he was being a complete
dick, I could walk away. If anything, maybe a night with James in the city
would serve as a cautionary tale. Or maybe I would regret wasting my time in a
tiny college town, fixated on an eighteen-year-old girl. I doubted it, though.

Alex and McDevitt occupying the
same mental space for even a single second made me physically ill. McDevitt
would never shut up if he knew about my pathological obsession with an
inexperienced little college freshman, because to him, devoting more than five
minutes to any particular pussy, as he put it, was an epic waste of resources.
He preferred shady massage parlors to dinner conversations with the fairer sex.
How he got within five feet of any woman without setting off her asshole
detector was an eternal mystery of the universe. Somewhere out there, he must
have been on an asshole registry by now.

Thursday passed by in a blur, and
for a few painful seconds before Robertson’s lecture, I forgot that I wouldn’t
see Alex. Part of me hoped she would show up just to piss me off, and my
optimism caused me to spend the better part of the class time searching for her
row by row. The chubby kid from her floor gave me a strange look as he handed
over his homework at the end of lecture, but I didn’t see any sign of Alex or
her roommate.

I left the lecture hall
immediately after class, and when I got back to the house, there was a
ridiculous Cadillac parked in the driveway. McDevitt was sitting on the steps
with an open six-pack of cheap-ass beer.

“Howdy, shithead,” he called
jovially. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been waiting like ten minutes.”

“Let me guess. I can blame my
mother for giving you my address?” I asked
,
reaching
out and catching the can of beer he had just thrown at my head.

“Kathleen says she wishes you’d
call more often.”

“Fuck you, McDevitt. And you can
keep your shit beer.”

I walked past him and opened the
door. At least Alex hadn’t chosen tonight to show up on my doorstep. That would
have been a fucking disaster. As James followed me inside, I did a quick scan
for things he could fuck up. Not unlike Gretchen when she was wasted out of her
mind, McDevitt had a proclivity for fucking up other people’s shit. But as long
as my work was locked up, I decided there wasn’t too much trouble he could
cause. I walked into the bedroom and changed shirts before letting Finn in and
feeding him. If James fucked with my dog, Finn had my full permission to maul
him within an inch of his life.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked
when Finn trotted into the living room with a tennis ball.

“A dog. You have heard of them,
right?”

“Good for you. I see you’re
settling into rural domesticity quite well, Bennett.”

“You staying at the usual hotel in
the city?”

“It’s barely ten, and you’re
already thinking about sleep? Jesus. Are you fucking ninety?”

“Let me rephrase. Where were you
planning to wake up in your own vomit?”

“You sound like Papa McDevitt,
asshole. I’m sorry. Is Gretchen not giving it up anymore now that you’re
whipped?”

The last time James and I had conferred
over my relationship status, his method of congratulations had come in the form
of a giant dildo that he had sent to my parents’ house. My mother hadn’t opened
the package, which was the only reason I was still talking to him.

“Do you see her here? Presently
Gretchen Mueller is giving it up to pretty much anyone. Didn’t my mother give
you the memo?”

“Oh shit! Nice!
Now
I see what you’re doing in a college
town, my friend.
Horny
sorority chicks
.
Maybe we should stay around here and sample college
life.”

“McDevitt, you never left college.
Now, let’s get out of here before you decide to go back for your Ph.D.”

“Hold up. I’ve gotta take a leak.”

“Straight back,” I said, pointing
toward the guest bath.

I took Finn out back and threw him
the ball a few times. I had no intention of staying out all fucking night,
regardless of James and his grand plans for mayhem. Walking back inside, I saw
the light in the hall bathroom was off, and the light in my bedroom was on.
Fucking James.

“Get the fuck out of the bedroom,
asshole.”

He walked out and flicked the
photo of Alex that I had left on the nightstand after she took off.

Fuck
.

Alex

Friday morning I woke up to a
bright, gray light filtering through the window, and suddenly I missed Southern
California with a vengeance. This was actually the second time this quarter
that I had thought about just quitting and going back home.

It wasn’t just about Ryan. It was
everything. It was this place. My life.

The first time had been when I had
woken up after Brit had brought some guy back to the room. Opening my eyes, I
had found someone six inches from my face. Brit and the guy had laughed their
asses
off when I screamed and jumped out of bed.

Part of my problem was that I
sucked at getting angry with people I didn’t know—or didn’t like, which
was crazy. But that was also why it was so easy to get angry with Ryan. I liked
him.
Too much.
Brit? Not so much. I didn’t care enough
about her to get angry with her; I just wanted to get away from her.

Right now, the thing that stopped
me from calling Mom and begging to come home was simple. Would I be any better
off if I went back to Irvine? No.
Absolutely not.
I’d
be a college dropout. What was I going to do? Give up my free ride? Go back to
working at the video store—which wasn’t even possible. It had been the
last one for twenty miles, and it had shut down a month after I left.

Besides, was I going to let my
bitch of a roommate and my broken heart fuck with my college education? No.
Slipping out of bed, I went over to the desk and pressed play on my iPod. I
smiled when I heard a groan from the other side of the room. Then I turned up
the volume.

“Morning, Brit.”

Putting on my running clothes, I
grabbed the iPod off the dock and walked out into the hall. I told myself that
a run would feel good, but my body didn’t agree, and by the time I stepped
outside, I was regretting my choice. It wasn’t raining, but it
was
fucking freezing. I started
moving,
trying not to think about how wrong things had gone
in the past few days.

I jogged slowly toward
town—and Ryan’s place—but stopped way before I got to his street.
On the way back, I slowed to a walk, sucking in air and trying to get rid of
the horrible stitch in my side. When I got back to the room, I collected a
change of clothes and my stuff for the showers. The bathroom was empty, which
was good, because it meant hot water. I stayed in the shower for longer than
usual, letting the spray come down on my face, feeling hot tears mix with the
water.

By the time I got back to the
room, Brit had fallen back into her hangover-induced coma, so I picked up my
phone and turned the volume back on, checking to see if Mom had called back.
Nope. But I did have a couple of texts that had come in overnight. I looked
down at the first, and my heart raced when I saw the name.
Ryan
. Shit.

Your boyfriend misses u

I stared at the text. What the
hell? Was this his idea of a
sick fucking
joke?
Your boyfriend
?
I
frowned and shook my head. Wait. Unless Ryan had started speaking in the third
person, then
he
hadn’t sent this. But
someone who had access to his phone had.
The blonde from his
house?
My stomach lurched. Was
that
what—or more accurately
whom
—he
had done after I had left Wednesday? I winced. Wow. I squeezed my eyes shut and
put in my earbuds, turning up the music.

On my way down to breakfast, I
went over to Julie’s room to see if she wanted to have come with. Her roommate
opened the door and said, “She’s not here,” before closing it again. Nice.

I walked down to the DC alone,
thinking about the different sides of Ryan Bennett that I had seen since that
first night in Professor Robertson’s class. Charming. Hot. Sweet. Funny.
Thoughtful. Careful. Then, when I had showed up at his place on Wednesday, I
had seen another side of him. I shivered remembering what he had said—and
how he had said it.

Because I’m a selfish prick.
Because I want to kiss
you.
And touch you. I want to watch you coming in my arms. Why else?

I had never been afraid of him
before, but for that small sliver of time he had seemed like another person. It
made me wonder: if I hadn’t told him to stop, if I hadn’t essentially told
him—again—that I was completely fucking in love with him,
would
he have stopped? Even worse, would
I
have wanted him to stop?

Sliding my ID card through the
reader, I walked into the DC and looked over at the waffle iron. It was already
destroyed as usual, so I opted for cold cereal and a glass of overly sweet
orange juice before finding a table in the corner. Apart from Tony and a couple
of girls at the end of the hall, I didn’t talk to many people from my floor.
Half of the girls on the third floor were on the crew team, and they were
almost as bad as the guys on the second floor.
Loud, mean,
bitchy.

Hearing laughter from the other
end of the DC, I looked up and saw three second-floor knuckle-draggers walk in.
They were dressed in meathead workout clothes, no doubt on their way over to
the Rec Center to grunt and watch themselves in the mirror. I took out a
dog-eared copy of a book I had already read three times. It had a fucked up
ending that made me cry every time, which meant that I couldn’t help re-reading
it. It had become a compulsion of mine. Somewhere in the back of my head I
thought that it would eventually end differently if I read it enough times.
That, or I just enjoyed suffering.

“
Woof
.”

I looked up automatically and then
forced my features to remain impassive before looking down again. This was
turning out to be a
seriously
fucked
up week. Putting down the book, I hurried to finish my cereal and get the hell
out of the DC. By the time I got to the third floor landing, I knew Brit was
awake, because I could hear her music through the door. I just wanted to get
in, get my laptop and backpack, and get out. Opening the door, I walked over to
the desk, and that was when I saw my closet door open wider than I had left it.

Brit turned and gave me a sly
look.
Fuck
! The dress. I had
forgotten all about it. How the hell was I supposed to get the dress and shoes
back to Ryan’s place? Walk with them across town? Take the bus? Shit, I just
wanted this to be over. Grabbing my backpack, and computer, I walked over to
the door and unlocked it knowing that Brit wouldn’t bother locking up when she
left—she never did.

Now that I had pretty much everything
of value with me, I could text Ryan and tell him to pick up the dress … while I
was out of the room. Lost in thought, I walked slowly, and it took me a little
more than twenty minutes to walk over to the library. As soon as I settled at a
desk—on the first floor—I typed out the text and studied it.

I’m at the library til afternoon. Door to my room should be unlocked.
Please pick up the dress & shoes before I get back. Alex

It was kind of bitchy, but it
wasn’t like I was going to write him a love poem. Looking up, I saw a girl
walking by with a heart-shaped balloon and a teddy bear. I stared at her for
several seconds before looking back down at my phone.
February 14
.
Valentine’s Day.

My stomach tightened like someone
had just kicked me in the gut. I had totally forgotten to send Stephie a card
this year, and, stupid or not, I had always gotten my little sister a card for
Valentine’s Day. This year my lame ass had forgotten all about it. I checked
the time. She’d be in school, so I’d have to wait until later to call. Sucking
in a breath, I realized that I had never felt more alone in my life than I did
in this moment.

I pulled out my French textbook
and wished that I had had the sense to take Intro to Psychology instead of
Calculus. Because really—had it made any sense at all to take Chemistry
an
d Calculus, two classes I was one
hundred percent sure to hate? Nope. Not one bit. I scrunched my legs up between
the chair and the desk, and before Mom could call and get me in trouble with
the library staff, I turned off my phone volume again.

Putting in my earbuds, I pressed
play on my phone. The problem was that most of the songs on my phone were ones
that could be categorized under
depressing-as-hell
.
Happy music made me want to scream most of the time, which had made the trip at
the beginning of fall term a nightmare. Mom was big into happy music.

An hour passed, and I was still
struggling with my Chemistry assignment when a shadow loomed over me. Looking
up at the guy in front of me, I frowned. He was wearing a gray suit and black
shirt. He was tall, but not as tall as Ryan, and he was older—and
good-looking. Like really good-looking. With short, dark brown hair and dark
eyes. My heart rate jumped. He smiled, which made the skin around his eyes
crinkle like he had just seen something really amusing—and he
was
staring right at me. When he said
something, I tentatively took out an earbud.

“Are you looking for something?” I
asked, glancing at the help desk, which was about twenty feet away.

“Are you Alex?”

I blinked and felt a prickle of
fear. It was daytime, and
I was surrounded by people
,
but still … how the hell did this guy know my name?

“I didn’t realize it was such a
complicated question,” he smirked.

My eyes narrowed.

“Sorry. It’s just my mom told me never
to talk to strange men.”

Well, that settled it. This guy
was an asshole.
A hot, overly confident asshole.
I may
have been wrong about Ryan the first night I saw him, but not this guy. This
guy virtually oozed the asshole vibe. Suddenly I felt another spike of fear.
Could he be from that frat that Ryan carried me out of? He looked too old,
though.

“It’s nice to meet you, girl with
no name.”

I pressed my lips together and
gave him a look.

“Are you going to tell me who
you
are first?” I whispered.

He gestured toward the library
exit like he expected me to get up and follow him. I shook my head, and with a
sigh, he held out his hand.

“James McDevitt.”

I shook his hand and then pulled
away when he held mine for several seconds too long. A second later, he produced
a long-stemmed red rose from his other hand like one of those cheesy Date a
Billionaire shows. I stared at him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

I laughed and looked around for
sign of a camera crew and a washed-up celebrity host.

“Seriously? Is this one of those
fucked up shows?”

“Bennett didn’t happen to mention
that you were so suspicious.”

Oh …
fuck
. He was a friend of Ryan’s? And Ryan had
mentioned
me? Great. I shook my head in disbelief. Somehow, in my
imagination, Ryan didn’t have friends like this guy. Then something clicked in
my head, and I glared at him.

“
You’re
the one who sent the text last night … from Ryan’s phone.”

“I am,” he smiled.

“Yeah, well he’s
not
my
boyfriend
… and does your buddy know that you were drunk dialing
girls in his contacts last night?”

When a cell phone rang, I reached
out and checked mine compulsively. The woman at the help desk looked angrily in
our direction as the guy standing in front of me smiled and took a phone from
his pocket.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I must
have mixed up our phones again,” he said into the phone before winking at me.
“No … actually I’m over at the library with the lovely young woman you showed
me the picture of.”

I froze. What … the … fuck?
Suddenly I heard Ryan’s voice, and I was pretty sure he had just said:
You fucking prick
. When the woman at the
help desk got up, I looked down at my book and tried to pretend that I had
nothing to do with the jackass talking on the phone in the middle of the
fucking library. Then he tapped me on the shoulder. Looking up, I shook my head
when he gestured for me to follow him outside.

“Please?” he grinned.

I shoved my book into my bag and
jumped up before hurrying toward the exit with Ryan’s
friend
trailing me. When we reached the front steps of
Shorenberger, I stopped.

“Thanks for almost getting me
kicked out of the library.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“James?”

“Yes, my love?”

I looked at his suit again. This
guy was
such
a sleaze ball.
A sleaze with a lot of money, but still a sleaze.

“Do you sell cars for a living?” I
asked.

He smiled. He was shady, not
stupid, and I could tell he had gotten my
joke
.
He shook his head.

“But you are in sales, right?” I
pressed.

“Client management.”

I raised a hand to my ear.

“Sorry? Did you say manipulation?”

He smiled again.

“Would you like to get a coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee. Caffeine
makes me do stupid things,” I admitted.

I bit my lip. Why the fuck had I
said that? I could tell that anything I said would be used against me. That’s
what guys like him did—they looked for weak spots. It occurred to me that
James McDevitt would have fit in really well on the second floor of my dorm, if
he hadn’t been a decade too old.

“I’ll have to order you a double
espresso, then.”

“Of course,” I said dryly.

“Come on. I won’t bite.”

I shrugged and started walking.
I’d play along long enough to find out why this guy had shown up at the library
looking for me in the first place. When he took my backpack, I rolled my eyes.
Walking off campus, we crossed Third Street, and he held open the door to the
coffee shop. I looked around at all the people camped out with laptops and
tablets. I was
not
one of those
people who could study in a coffee shop. I couldn’t even read a magazine ad in
a place like this without getting distracted by literally everything—the
hiss of the espresso machines, the people calling the orders, the assholes
yelling at the baristas because they got full-fat rather than nonfat soy.
Besides, watching people peck at their tablets with super-serious expressions
just cracked me up.