College Girl (3 page)

“
Again
? You’ve slept there before?”

“Where else? Julie’s roommate
won’t be okay with me crashing there, and I’m sure Rachel’s gone for the night
… so what am I going to do? Wake up the freaking RA and tell her to interrupt
Brit mid-coitus? Like Brit doesn’t already hate her goody-goody
roommate—”

Grabbing her arm, I began
propelling her toward the stairs.

“Hey!” she yelped. “Where are we
going?”

“My place.”

She stopped walking, her eyes
widening.

“I can’t go to your apartment!”

“Well, I can’t leave you to sleep
on a couch in a public lounge with those jackals downstairs.”

“Jackals?”

“Your buddies from the second
floor? Remember?”

She blinked in fear and started
walking again.

“What? Did you forget about them?”

“I-I
don’t
know.”

When we got to the ground floor, I
reached over and put my arm around her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” she hissed
in a panic.

“I’m making the jackass brigade
think twice about fucking with you.”

When we reached the glass doors, I
turned back and gave them my best don’t-fuck-with-me look, developed from years
of working beside the man who had proudly managed my parents’ vineyard for the
past two decades.
He
was the one you
really didn’t want to fuck with, and he had taught me never to back down and to
always look like I was ready to bring it.

If these punks wanted to try
something, they’d be the ones in for a fucking surprise. Years spent lifting
barrels and crates of wine meant I could knock their baby-fat asses back to
grade school if they wanted to start shit. None of them moved.

By the time we reached my bike,
Alex Reed was chewing her lip in a way that made me think of our kiss from
earlier. Envisioning the shocked look on her face, I laughed.

“What?” she asked as I reached
forward to pull the helmet over her head.

“I was just thinking about the
look on your face when I kissed you.”

Alex

I opened my mouth to say
something, but he was already slipping the helmet over my head. Besides, I
couldn’t think of anything non-stupid to say. He wasn’t wrong. I had almost
died when he leaned down and kissed me. The fact that my first kiss had been
with the TA of the Calculus class that I was failing miserably was … weird.
Fucking weird. And earth shattering. And something I totally shouldn’t have
been thinking about.

When he got on the bike and
offered his hand, I reached out and let him pull me on behind him. What other
choice did I have? My roommate was fucking someone in our room—probably
in my bed. Shudder. Julie would have let me stay over—if her roommate
wasn’t such an icy bitch. And Rachel was—I was sure—drunk off her
ass by now. Rachel was my former best friend from high school. She had come
here in the fall, too, but unlike me, she had been crushed to have to go to a
public school when she had really wanted to go to some East Coast private
school that she hadn’t gotten into. I was fine with a public school. Plus, it
was paid for. Mom’s stipulations had been: get into a public school, we’ll pay,
and then say thank-you to your stepfather every fucking chance you get.

Okay, so Mom hadn’t said
fucking
, but the message was still the
same. And hell, I was thrilled for the free ride. Of course, I was going to
work my ass off during summers to pay for all the extras. I just hadn’t thought
about needing cash for a motel in case my new roommate decided to lock me out
of our room on a regular basis.

I couldn’t tell where Ryan was
taking me, mostly because I was afraid to even move my head as the bike weaved
around corners. Mom
would
fucking
kill me if she knew I was on a bike. Being within ten feet of a motorcycle was,
in her words, a cardinal sin. The bike slowed, and I turned and saw a street
sign.
C Street
. We were in the
residential area not far from campus. I had passed it a couple of times on the
bus going into town with Rachel last quarter. When Ryan pulled into a driveway
and got off the bike, I took his hand again and stepped unsteadily off the
bike.

Looking up at the building, I did
a double take. When he had said he was taking me to his place, I had been
expecting a grungy little apartment building like the ones that littered the
periphery of campus. Instead, the blue and white house we were standing in
front of was small, but charming and well taken care of. I handed him the
helmet and continued to stare.

“Is this … your place?”

He nodded.

“I thought grad students were
supposed to live in cramped little apartments and eat Ramen for every meal,” I
said, following him up the front stairs.

“How do you know my kitchen isn’t
packed with Ramen noodles?”

He unlocked the front door, and a
large German
Shepherd
bounded out and stuck its nose
between my legs.

“Finn, sit.”

“Pretty dog, for a crotch
sniffer,” I laughed.

Ryan Matthews suddenly got the
oddest expression on his face, and I blushed.

“Sorry!” I squeaked. “I can’t be
held responsible for what comes out of my mouth when I haven’t eaten. It’s like
my circuitry comes unwired.”

I bent over and petted Finn. Our
dog Marty had died a month after I left for school. But Mom and Stephen had waited
until Thanksgiving to break the news. I was livid they hadn’t told me, but deep
down I knew I would have been wrecked all fall quarter if I had found out
sooner. Poor Marty. They said it had probably been a brain tumor, and the damn
dog had been a little funny in the head.

“You want something to eat?” Ryan
asked, taking my backpack from me as I followed him from the front of the house
into the kitchen.

“It’s really late,” I said lamely.

“And you’re hungry, right?”

I had missed the dinner hour at
the dining commons before leaving for Calculus, and I
had
been planning to go back to the dorm to heat up some Cup
Noodles, the evil cousin of Ramen.

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted.

I looked around. His kitchen was
very adult. The whole house was. Pristine hardwood floors, stainless steel
appliances, nice furniture,
artwork
on the walls. Then
it hit me again. This guy was a lot older than me.
A lot
older.
I watched as he
moved confidently around the kitchen, taking items out of the refrigerator and
pantry, assembling olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce, herbs and spices, fresh
pasta.

He turned and smiled at me, his
blue eyes darker than they had seemed in class. My stomach swirled and jumped
in the same way it had when his tongue had skimmed along my lip. And suddenly,
more than anything, I wanted him to do it again. I blushed and looked away from
him.

“Do you need help with anything?”
I asked.

He shook his head.

“Sit down. Relax. Do you want some
wine?” he mumbled, engrossed in the items on the chopping block.

A second later, he looked up with
a shocked expression, like he had just realized what he said. I sat down at the
island in the middle of the kitchen and smiled at him.

“Wine would be nice.”

I said it casually, when in reality
I hadn’t had more than a sip of any alcohol in my life. Rachel was always
trying to get me to drink up when I went over to her dorm, but she was fucking
smashed every time I went over there—and her constant state of
drunkenness had taken its toll on our friendship. At this point, I didn’t see
her more than every couple of weeks, and it was always a little awkward. Her suitemates
loved—
loved
—to party, and
I always felt a little out of place hanging out on the couch while they went
crazy with the drinking games.

It wasn’t that I was a
prude—all right, maybe a little—but my “real” dad had been a major
drunk. AA hadn’t worked. Instead, he had just found other stuff to get addicted
to. Like gambling. It kind of made me scared to touch the stuff. Like Mom was
always saying:
slippery slope
. But I
figured a little glass of wine right now might not be a bad idea. It might even
take the edge off of sitting in my way-older TA’s house and wanting him to kiss
me again. He returned from the refrigerator with a bottle of sparkling water.

“I just came back from the cop
shop,” he smiled. “I’m not about to get arrested for contributing to the
delinquency of a minor.”

“I’m not a minor!”

“You’re not twenty-one, and you’re
in my advisor’s class.”

Frowning, I accepted the glass of
sparkling water and took a sip, watching as he took out a bottle of wine from
an insanely well-stocked, high-end wine chiller. I read the label as he poured
himself a glass. It looked expensive.

He had papers everywhere on the
island. They looked like math theorems—way out of my league. Well,
anything math-related was way out of my league, but still. Setting down my
glass, I knocked over a stack of mail.

“Shit,” I mumbled.

I got up and bent over to pick up
the envelopes. Looking down at them, I blinked.
Ryan Bennett
. Everything here was addressed to Ryan
Bennett
, not Ryan Matthews. I looked
over at him as he sautéed the garlic. God, he had a great ass. Finally I snapped
out of it.

“Who the hell are you?”

He turned from the stove and
looked at me blankly. I picked up one of the envelopes and waved it in the air.

“Professor Robertson introduced
you as Ryan
Matthews
. So, who the
hell is Ryan Bennett?”

He poured the sauce into the sauté
pan and then ran a large hand through his golden hair. Suddenly, I froze. The
label on the fucking wine! How could I have been so dense?
Bennett
Family Cellars.

“Oh, fuck. You’re like the heir to
a fucking winery, aren’t you?”

He laughed.

“You make it sound like I rob
banks.”

“What are you doing here studying
math when you could be sitting on a veranda swirling wine around in a glass?”

“This is my vacation from the
family business.”

“Studying
math
? Are you insane?”

“My father thinks so.”

His face changed when he said
this, his brow furrowing and the corners of his mouth turning down.

“All right. Then what’s with the
fake name?”

“It’s my mother’s maiden name.”

“Oh.” I sighed. “Shit. Sorry I
keep flipping out. I guess I’m a little on edge.”

“I wonder why …” he said, picking
up the bottle of wine. “I’m having second thoughts about contributing to the
delinquency of a minor. You want that glass of wine?”

I nodded, watching as he poured
the tiniest amount possible into an expensive looking glass and swirled it
around. When he held it out to me, I hesitated before taking it and lifting the
glass to my lips. It smelled spicy. I took a quick sip, not knowing what to
expect.

“Mmm. Blackberries … and vanilla.”

He laughed again.

“Do you drink a lot of wine?”

I shook my head.

“Then I’m impressed.”

He walked over to the boiling
water and poured in the pasta. I watched in awe as he moved fluidly around the
kitchen assembling the meal.

“Well, I’m impressed, too,” I
smiled.

“Wait ’til you taste it,” he
grinned.

A few minutes later, we were
sitting at the small dining room table with Finn the dog planted squarely at my
feet. Ryan poured me a little bit more wine, and I picked up my fork and wound
some noodles onto it. Taking a bite, I gasped and closed my eyes. When I opened
them, my TA was staring at me in a way that made my stomach tingle.

“
That
is the best thing I’ve ever tasted!”

“I suppose that’s what three
months of dining common food and Ramen will do to a girl.”

“Where’d you learn to cook like
this?”

“There’s a restaurant at my
parent’s winery. The chef’s a genius. He taught me a thing or two.”

I took another sip of wine.

“This is really good, too.”

He nodded and smiled again.

“It’s the vintage I use to impress
the ladies.”

Ryan blinked again like he hadn’t
meant to say that, either, and I quirked an eyebrow.

“Am I a lady?” I laughed.

“You … are a student of my
advisor.”

I really wished he would stop
saying that, and for a second he looked as frustrated as I felt. Without
another word, both of us went back to concentrating on our food. By the time I
stood up to help clear the dishes, my head was swimming even though I hadn’t
even finished the half a glass of wine. I teetered a little carrying my plate
to the sink, and Ryan took it from me.

“Why don’t you sit down on the
couch?”

I hiccupped. It was loud and
embarrassing, and I nodded. Before reaching the couch, I stopped at the iPod
dock and pressed play out of curiosity before sprawling out a little dizzily.
It took a little while for the music to kick in.

“I love this album!” I squawked
before clapping my hand over my mouth.

I hadn’t meant to be so loud.
Reaching forward, I put my wine on the coffee table just as Ryan came walking
out of the kitchen with a dishtowel.

“This is a little before your
time,” he said wryly.

“I like good music. So sue me.”

He walked over and sat down next
to me, close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin through his jeans
and shirt. I shivered.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been cold
ever since I moved to Northern California!”

I watched as he pulled a fleece
blanket from the back of the couch and offered it to me. Taking it, I wrapped
it around my shoulders and tried not to think about the fact that I’d be a lot
warmer if I were wrapped in his arms.

“You’re from SoCal?” he asked.

“Irvine,” I cringed.

“The best-planned community on the
planet.”

“You know it?”

“Yeah, why didn’t you go to UCI?”

I made a face.

“Are you serious? And live with my
mom and stepdad for another four years? It would have felt like another four
years of high school.”

He smiled.

“That’s all college is really.”

“Yeah, right! There is no way in
hell I’d be sitting on a couch discussing my life with a hot guy …”

I trailed off. Leaning forward to
grab the glass of wine, I drained it before he could say anything. When I sat
back, he reached over and moved a piece of hair out of my eyes. I sucked in a
quick breath. For a second, I had thought he was going to kiss me again, but he
just leaned away and smiled.

“You never told me why you’re
taking Calculus.”

I swallowed my disappointment and
shook my head.

“I told you. It’s a long,
embarrassing, stupid story.”

“Humor me,” he smiled.

I exhaled and started from the
beginning. About how my health teacher in high school had convinced me that I
was “smart enough to be a doctor.” And then the whole part about watching
L.A. Medical
reruns for two straight
weeks before coming to school.
And finally my mom’s closet
obsession with having a doctor for a kid.

“Then what do you really want to
be when you grow up, Alex Reed?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Not a doctor, but
now I’m stuck in my second quarter of Calculus, and I’m failing miserably.”

“If it makes you feel any better,
I spent four years doing something I didn’t want to do after college before
deciding to follow my dream.”

“Of being the hot professor?” I
laughed.

Shut up, Alex
! I snapped in my head. Ryan Bennett’s blue eyes turned
serious as he stared at me.

“That’s the second time you’ve
called me hot … and I think you’re a little drunk.”