College Girl (7 page)

It took me damn near half the
class time to find her at the very top of the lecture hall by the exit. Fuck.
She’d be out and gone before I got anywhere near her. I looked down at my
phone. Jess had just gotten out of Kwan’s Advanced Analysis. If I caught him
before he went back to the department, I could get him to collect this week’s
assignments and hand back last week’s. I texted him and told him I would owe
him another reserve case of wine if he’d swing by and cover for me. Then I
waited, tapping out a rhythm on the wall behind me until Robertson turned and
gave me a quizzical look. With five minutes left before lecture ended, Jess
showed up at the door and took the stack of papers from me. I could still see
Alex in the top row.

“I’ll drop off the case tomorrow,”
I whispered as I passed him.

I took off around the building to
the back exit. I had just reached the opposite end of the courtyard when the
door swung open and I saw Alex, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. It
was dark, but even in the pale light under the doorway I could tell she had
been getting less sleep than I had. I was about to call her name when I
realized that someone watching her in the dark would only scare the shit out of
her. I cut across the breezeway, and seconds later she turned the corner and
ran right into me.

Alex

I took a step back and looked
up—and up—right into Ryan Bennett’s face.

Fuck
! Before coming to class, I had had it all planned out. I had
sat in the very back, right by the exit, and I had even left before the end of
class. I was failing miserably anyway, so I didn’t even know why I bothered
showing up.

I glared up at him, wondering why
he couldn’t just leave me alone to wallow in rejection. Because that was what
Friday morning had been.
One big fucking rejection.
The
you
’re too young
line had been bullshit.
And I had been telling myself ever since to forget about Ryan Bennett. But what
had I done instead? Every night I had fucking dreamed about his hands on me,
his lips on mine, the rough sound of his voice in my ear.

“What do you want?” I asked as
coolly as possible.

“To see you.”

I melted a little and then
straightened up.

“Why?”

He frowned and then started
laughing.

“What?” I demanded.

“Nothing. I’m just surprised you
didn’t have that prick from the library in a headlock.”

My stomach dropped—for two
reasons. First was the memory of the psycho stalker from Creative Writing.
Second was the fact that Ryan Bennett was only here checking up on me
because
of that psycho. I looked down,
annoyed that my eyes were beginning to burn. Stepping away from him, I sniffed
derisively.

“Yeah? Well, then you don’t need
to be here checking up on me, do you?”

 
“Apparently, I do,” he snapped. “Were you
going to walk to the library by yourself again?”

I looked up and glared at him.

“First off, that guy didn’t show
up in class yesterday, so I figured the cops picked him up—”

“More like I broke his nose over
the weekend,” Ryan muttered.

“
What
?” I yelped. “You didn’t!”

Ryan smirked.

“I don’t think he’ll be bothering
you again.”

“Seriously?”

I didn’t know whether to be
relieved or seriously disturbed by this piece of information.

“Seriously.”

“How the hell did you do that?” I
demanded.

“Well, I went to his apartment,
and I told him if he even thinks about attacking another girl that he will find
himself buried neck-deep in pig shit.”

I shook my head.

“Wait. … How’d you know where he
lived? I didn’t even know his full name.”

“I have friends in administrative
places.”

“And you went to his apartment and
beat him up?”

“No. I went to his apartment and
very politely asked him to stop being a sex offender. He didn’t like that.”

I stopped, feeling less defensive.

“Thank you,” I smiled crookedly.
“And, by the way, I’m going back to the dorms, not the library. So you don’t
have to worry about me.”

Not knowing what else to say, I
hitched the straps of my backpack higher and turned to start walking toward the
dorm. If I got lucky, I could beat Brit back to the room and lock
her
out. Ryan reached out and grabbed my
hand, making my skin tingle.

“Do you think that guy is the only
degenerate asshole on this campus?” he asked incredulously.

“No, but I’ve got night classes,
and I can’t just teleport to my dorm.”

“What about calling campus
security?”

I rolled my eyes at this lame
suggestion.

“Really? You sound like my mother.
It’ll only take fifteen minutes to get back to my dorm.”

“It will take two minutes on the
bike,” he smiled.

I swallowed and shook my head.

“No way. Last time was an
emergency.”

“Fine. Then we’ll walk.”

He held his hand out in front of
him.

“You know, if you want to adopt a
youngster, there are plenty of organizations for that,” I mumbled as I walked
ahead of him.

On the other hand, campus was
already eerily empty, and the thought of walking alone
was
creeping me out. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. Suddenly
he grabbed my backpack and slid it off my shoulders, pulling me into one of
1500’s dark corners.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I
yelped.

He lifted me easily onto the low
concrete wall.

“I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do
since Friday morning,” he murmured.

He reached back and pulled my hair
out of the ponytail before taking my face between his large, warm hands. I
looked up at him, shaking, and when his lips touched mine, I almost died. Every
part of me felt electrified. Sensations I remembered so vividly from the night
at his house resurfaced in an instant. Then he nipped my lower lip, and I
couldn’t help gripping the front of his shirt, amazed by the contours of his
muscles. Without thinking, I wrapped my legs around him, and his tongue pushed
past my lips. When I moaned, he pulled away and lifted me off the wall. Without
a word, he picked up my backpack and starting to walk in the direction of the
dorms. I chased after him, still dizzy.

“Are you
trying
to confuse me?” I demanded.

“I am trying to keep my hands off
of you. And it’s proving to be incredibly difficult.”

I was glad it was dark—so he
couldn’t see how red my cheeks were. I was having a hard time keeping up with
him since his legs were so much longer than mine, but it was good to walk fast.
It kept me warm and distracted. We walked the entire way in silence, and by the
time we reached Mercer, I already had my ID card in my hand, thankful that at
least I had remembered this time to eat dinner before leaving for Calculus.

“Thanks for walking with me. … You
didn’t have to, but … I mean, I appreciate it …”

I couldn’t help going back to
being stiff and formal, because I couldn’t figure out how to be around this
guy. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to feel
his hands on my body. And it wasn’t helping anything that he was staring down
at me like he wanted the exact same things.

When he didn’t say anything, I
finally turned to slide my card in the reader. As I opened the door, I reached
for my backpack, but Ryan shook his head and followed me inside. I let out a
sigh of relief. The lounge was empty—no jerks from the second floor.
Instead of taking the stairs and having to pass the dickhead landing, I pressed
the button for the elevator and felt my heartbeat jump as Ryan got on with me.
The elevator rattled its way to the third floor, and when the doors opened
again, I practically sprinted to my room, grinning like an idiot when I got
there.

There was no sock on the door,
which meant that I had made it back before Brit. Unlocking the door, I looked
back at Ryan. When I stepped inside, I felt super relieved that I had made the
bed and Brit hadn’t managed too much carnage over the course of the day. Ryan
looked around and smirked as I put my backpack down in the corner.

“Do you chain-smoke?”

“
That
would be Brit.”

He walked over and easily reached
past my lofted bed to open the window.

“I had forgotten how depressing
these freshman dorms were,” he grunted.

“Thanks, but some of us can’t
afford a quaint two-bedroom house with no roommate.”

I watched as he grabbed an errant
sock from Brit’s side of the room put the sock on the door handle. Next, he
took the wooden chair out from under my desk and shoved it under the doorknob.

“The next time you want privacy,”
he said.

“Right. Like I bring guys back to
the room …”

I blushed. Of course, that’s
exactly what I had done tonight, even if the guy was my TA.

“So, does that chair thing
actually work?” I asked curiously.

I had only ever seen anyone do
that in the movies. Ryan nodded and started walking back over to me, stopping
to look at my iPod, which I had left hooked up to the speakers. A minute later,
the same album I played at his house came on. When he reached me, his arm slipped
around my waist and he lifted me onto the edge of the bed. Closing my eyes, I
felt his warm breath on the side of my neck. The smell of his aftershave made
my mouth water. Then his lips grazed my skin, and I shivered. A second later,
his lips brushed mine. When he stopped, I opened my eyes and found Ryan staring
down at me very seriously. He skated his thumb across my lower lip.

“It’s wrong to want you the way I
do,” he said softly.

I wanted him to kiss me again. The
problem was I wasn’t sure
how
much
more I was ready for. A week ago I had never even kissed anyone. And from the
way he had touched me last week, it was easy to tell that we were eons apart as
far as experience went. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Make some
twenty-eight-year-old guy wait around until I figured it out?

Then I froze. Maybe I was just one
of many girls to him. The thought was like a splash of cold water. I had no
right to think of this guy as my boyfriend—we barely knew each other.
Still, the thought of him kissing someone else made my stomach plummet. I
pulled back before he could kiss me.
Because if he kissed me
again, then I wouldn’t care—about anything except feeling his lips on
mine.

“You should go,” I said quietly
before adding, “because I really want you to stay.”

He nodded.

“One thing, first. Will you please
stop hiding from me in Robertson’s lecture?”

“I wasn’t hiding!”

“You were,” he laughed.

I smiled sheepishly.

“Maybe a little.”

He stopped and seemed to be
thinking something over.

“Would you go somewhere with me
next week?”

“A math symposium?”

He smirked.

“My parents are having an event at
the winery.”

“And you want
me
to go with you?”

He pushed my hair out of my eyes.

“Yes.”

Reality hit me, and I shook my
head.

“No. I can’t. I don’t have
anything to wear. My mom didn’t think I would need anything but jeans for
school, so I’ve got …” I shook my head. “Never mind. I can’t show up at some
fancy wine event in boots and jeans. Am I even old enough for a winery event?”

“You worry too much,” he smiled.

Someone rattled the door handle,
causing me to jump. Unfazed, Ryan turned and walked over to the door, pulling
the chair out from under the knob and swinging it open. One of the assholes
from downstairs—Adam something—stepped
back
and stared up at Ryan, who had leaned his arms across the top of the door.

“Need something?” he asked the
jerk in front of him.

I almost clapped when the
second-floor creep retreated into the stairwell without a fucking word, the
door slamming behind him. I hopped off the bed, and Ryan turned toward me.

“Your phone.”

I nodded and went over to my
backpack, took out my phone, and unlocked it before handing it to him.

“I’m putting in my number. Call me
if that jackass comes back.”

“Are you going by Matthews or
Bennett?” I ask innocently.

“Bennett, smartass. I’ll see you
in class on Thursday … in the front row.”

As he walked out, I realized that
Thursday night felt a long time away. And had I just agreed to go with my TA to
his parents’ fancy wine party? Shit!

###

The next morning, I went over to
the university’s undergrad newspaper. I had applied for a column last quarter
and gotten turned down, but they were always advertising for freelance
reporters. The pay for articles was miniscule, but I figured I could use what I
made over the rest of the quarter to subsidize whatever I was going to have to
pay to get a dress and decent shoes. The news editor who interviewed
me—Jenny Tran—was nice. She looked over my samples from high school
for a few minutes before rifling around on her desk for a sheet of paper.

“Your first assignment. You can
turn it in next week. Aim for fifteen inches. Welcome to The Sentinel, Alexis.”

“Alex,” I smiled.

I looked down at the paper and
tried not to squeak with joy. I was thrilled out of my mind to be getting an
assignment that might pay me enough for a small pizza. Still, I figured working
for the paper, even doing just an article a week, would be better experience
than the minimum-wage job I had worked before leaving for school.

By the time I got back to the
dorm, Brit was gone, but just to be on the safe side, I slid her chair under
the door. Then I traded off working on the article for the newspaper and my
final story for Creative Writing, which was due at the end of the quarter. I
had deleted the original story and started a new one called
What If
. It was basically a fictional
account of meeting Ryan that had a happy ending. Lame and desperate, but it
made me feel better.

A couple of hours later someone
knocked on the door. Looking through the peephole, I smiled when I saw Julie.
Sliding the chair out from under the door, I opened it.

“Hey, what’s up?” I smiled at her.

“That fucking hunch-backed dick
from downstairs is in the DC calling you a whore.”

My mouth fell open, and when I
recovered, I started laughing.

“Come on in.”

I closed the door behind her.

“No, wait. There’s more,” she
huffed. “You’re going to love this. He’s calling you
Alicia
.”

“It’s kinda nice when they don’t
bother learning your name before insulting you, isn’t it?” I smirked.

“So, Alex. How the fuck did you of
all people earn the title of
whore
?”

I blushed, remembering Ryan
opening the door last night.

“Okay, so remember the TA I told
you about?”

“The twenty-eight-year-old who
almost deflowered my fellow virgin? Uh, fuck yeah.”