Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (171 page)

Chapter
Three

  
I
was sad that Ty was off campus for the day; in spite of the good news I had
gotten on my American History essay, I was still stressing out over my classes.
Ashley was on a date with someone, and I was sitting in the dorm room alone,
feeling a little sorry for myself. I had decided to go over my Introduction to
Psychology chapters again, just on the hope that I might actually be able to
get a high enough score on the final to pass the class. I switched the TV over
to Ashley’s Apple TV controller and set it to play the first season of
Supernatural
just to have something on
in the background, and settled in to get some studying done.

  
I
opened by textbook and my binder full of notes and flash cards and took a sip
of the coffee I’d gotten from the dining hall at dinner. I checked my phone,
more out of a desperate sense of not wanting to have to study than any real
expectation that anyone would have texted me; but Ty had. I smiled to myself,
reading his message.
I wish I was with
you right now.
I thought about him, out running errands for his parents, or
maybe having dinner with them. I wished he were in the room with me, even if I
knew that would mean that I wouldn’t get any actual studying done.

  
Me too,
I wrote back.
I’m trying to get through Psych studying. So
far it’s just as annoyingly difficult to understand as ever.
I thought
about my classes and cringed. It seemed absolutely impossible that I would
manage to pull through at the end of the semester with anything better than a
low C average—and that was assuming that I could manage to pull off good scores
on my final exams and essays. I had next to no room for any lower grades on
anything for the rest of the semester.

  
You’re doing okay overall,
Ty messaged back.
And as long as you
don’t land yourself on academic probation, you still have plenty of time to get
your GPA up. You’re a freshman!
I smiled glumly at my phone, thinking about
what Ty had written to me—what he had told me every time I had worried about my
grades. I reminded myself that at least in the mandatory freshman
classes—Introduction to Academic Life and Freshman Seminar—I was getting a
solid pass, on a pass-fail grading scale. It wasn’t much, but it might bolster
my GPA. From what I understood, a “Pass” counted as a solid B.

  
But
I was barely making a C in Psychology. I might make a C in American History if
I managed to do well on the final paper and final exam. Literature I would have
a C+ or a B in. Statistics I was going to be lucky to get a C- or more likely a
D in. Part of me wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair—all of my professors
seemed to assume that I had come to college knowing a lot more than I had. But
considering how many of my classmates just nodded along, looking confident and
as if they understood everything just fine, I felt like I was the slow person
in the gifted class.

  
I hope you can be back on campus tomorrow
morning. I really want to see you again!
I remembered the fact
that Ty had had to cancel a couple of our dates recently; I understood that he
was busy, that he was studying hard to pass the CPA exam. He kept telling me
how boring it all was for anyone but an accountant, and while I’d looked at his
textbooks and not been able to understand anything, I didn’t think it was
actually boring. I wanted him to succeed—I wanted him to get what he wanted out
of life.

  
I
just hoped that there would be some way for him to get what he wanted and for me
to be part of his life. I almost thought that if I didn’t somehow manage to
find a major, that if I dropped out—though I was determined not to—that Ty
would be within his rights to find someone else to be with, someone who would
be a credit to him.

  
I will definitely be on campus in the
morning. If I find you on the way to class tomorrow I will give you the biggest
kiss ever.

  
I
grinned to myself in spite of how stressed I felt, looking forward to the
moment when I would see Ty again. I almost thought that I should be working
harder to get my grades up—but then I worked as hard as I possibly could, and
even before I’d met Ty I’d been floundering. If anything, Ty had helped me to
improve my grades, even though he distracted me regularly.

  
I
went over my notes while I texted back and forth with Ty, asking him about his
day away from campus without—I hoped—getting too interested, or seeming like I
was trying to pry. I hoped he was having a better time than I was, sitting in
my dorm room while half the campus was out doing other things: going to
parties, hanging out in the Student Union, taking over the multipurpose rooms
in the dorms to play games or watch movies together.

  
Do you think we can maybe get a quickie in
between two and three tomorrow? I miss you so much…
I blushed even as I
sent the message to Ty. I wasn’t used to being quite so open about sex—even
with Dillon, I’d felt weird about being too forward.

  
Two and three? I think I can manage that. For
you I will make it happen.
I laughed, shaking my head at Ty’s
response. I had never enjoyed sex with Dillon as much as I had with Ty. Just
the thought of being alone with him, just the thought of curling up in his bed,
was enough to make me hot all over. He was so good—it was hard to believe that
sex could possibly even
be
that good.
Every time we went to bed together I came harder than I had before, or I
learned something new about what I liked and wanted to try or about Ty’s body.
I actually felt like I could tell Ty about things I wanted to try without being
laughed at or told I was some kind of freak.

  
How many times do you think we can manage in
an hour?
I bit my bottom lip as I sent the text.

  
Us? Three times, probably. If we’re doing
quickies, that is.
The words sent a jolt of electric heat through
my spine, straight to my pussy, making me hot and wet all at once. I thought
about going into my room and maybe calling Ty, seeing if he was somewhere he
could be private, and having a little over-the-phone quickie to help myself
focus. But if he weren’t somewhere private—if he was with his parents, or out
doing something—it would just be mean to call him while I was all turned on. It
was one thing to text back and forth, another to let him hear me moaning while
I touched myself, especially if he was with his parents.

  
He’d
mentioned taking me to meet them once or twice in passing, but I wasn’t sure
how I felt about the idea. We’d only been dating a month or two—which in
college time was practically a year—but I still didn’t know how long things
would last between us. After all: Ty was going to be graduating in a matter of
months, and I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to even find something
to study, even if I managed to keep my grades high enough to avoid academic
probation.

  
How does the rest of your week look?
I knew that Ty was busy a lot more often than he had been when we’d started
dating a few weeks before; but I’d hoped that maybe things were starting to
calm down, especially with finals around the corner. We weren’t going to have
much chance to spend time together over winter break, since we didn’t live
close to each other.

  
The week itself is pretty jam-packed, babe.
Do you want to do something this weekend?
I thought about
it. I probably should stay in for the weekend, and get as much studying done as
possible. But Ashley constantly told me that all work and no play would drive
me out of my mind—and if I was only going to get an hour here and there with Ty
through the week of classes, I would definitely want to spend time with him on
the weekend.

  
What do you have in mind?
I hoped that it might be a plan for dinner and then spending all night in bed
together, or maybe that we’d go to the ice rink, or something like that—but I’d
be happy with just about anything.

  
There’s a house party going on that Alex
wants to go to. You game for that?
I thought about the
couple of house parties I’d been to since coming to college; they were usually
pretty fun, though I felt kind of bad about drinking much, since I was
underage. Nobody cared, but I was always paranoid that the cops would bust the
party, and then not only would I get in trouble for drinking underage, but
whoever was throwing the party would go to jail for providing alcohol to
someone under 21.

  
There
was also the fact that I’d gone to all my previous parties as a single woman,
and I’d had to fend off drunk guys who didn’t take “no” for an answer the first
three times I said it when they asked me to dance with them or to go somewhere
else.

It would be different with Ty. I could
maybe have a couple of drinks, and have a good time, and I knew I could dance
with Ty. I texted Ashley to ask if she wanted to go to a party on the weekend,
thinking that if nothing else, she and Alex could chat with each other and make
up for the fact that Ty and I would be having our own fun together. She said
that she was game, and I texted Ty back.
Let’s
consider it done! As long as we both get through the week.

  
Ty
texted back a thumbs-up and I tried to focus on studying again. I was hot and
tingly all over, thinking about our quickie the next day, about the party on
the weekend and the fact that I would almost definitely be able to get Ty all
to myself after the party. We could go back to his dorm when the party was over
and spend the rest of the night making love, and the rest of the weekend
studying together.

  
I
looked over my notes until I was so distracted by the prospect of being with Ty
again that I had to take a quick, cold shower to cool myself off. I was feeling
at least a little more optimistic about my life in general, even if I wasn’t
sure that I’d be able to manage to make it through another semester as
difficult as my first one in college was proving to be.

  
At
least for the rest of the year I would have Ty, and I would definitely have
Ashley’s help—I had done such a good job on her hair that she had said that she
owed me at least three papers’ worth of assistance in keeping my grades above
average. Not only that, but she’d told everyone who’d asked her who had done
her hair—so I had offers of more help in exchange for my services. I might—I
hoped—get through at least my first year of college.

Chapter
Four

  
I
took the stairs up to Nicole’s dorm room, excited about the fact that it was
the weekend and the fact that I’d have the whole weekend with her. I smiled to
myself, saying hello to one of the other people from the dorm, heading
downstairs.
If the party is lame we can
just head home early…maybe snatch a few beers to sneak into the dorms and put
on a movie and just enjoy ourselves in.

  
I
pushed through the door on Nicole’s floor and made a beeline for her room. I
knocked on the door and then tested the knob—it wasn’t locked. “Boy coming in,”
I called out as I opened the door and stepped into the common area of the dorm
room.

  
“It’s
okay, no one is naked,” Nicole called back from her end of the dorm.

  
“Aw,
damn—I was hoping we could get in a quick fifteen minutes before we had to go,”
I said, grinning.

  
“No
wonder you’re struggling so much in your classes, Nic—if I was getting laid all
the time I wouldn’t even have the energy to study,” Ashley called from her end
of the dorm. I laughed, but I knew how much it stressed Nicole out that she
couldn’t seem to get ahead in any of her classes—even the ones she was doing
the best in. I hoped that once she got the hang of college, everything would
start coming more easily to her; I didn’t want to see Nicole stressed out so
much.

  
“Tell
me what you think,” Nicole said, and then the door to her part of the room
opened and she stepped out of it. She was absolutely stunning, as always: she’d
done her hair in some kind of complicated web of braids, and while I had no
real idea how she had done her makeup, it made her big, dark eyes look huge and
glowing, her lips so full and sweet that I almost couldn’t bear not to kiss
them.

  
She
was wearing a dress that fit her absolutely perfectly, with cut out pieces
along her sides and her cleavage showing. Her legs looked amazing, and all I
could think about was wrapping them around my waist.

  
“I
think we’re only going to spend like five minutes at that party before I have
to bring you home,” I told her. Nicole grinned and blushed, looking down at the
floor, and Ashley came out of her end of the dorm room.

  
“You
two are impossible,” Ashley said, shaking her head. “He’s right though—you look
like you’re ready to be eaten up by some lucky man.”

  
“I
am ready to be eaten up by a lucky man,” Nicole told her roommate, glancing
from her to me and grinning a little more confidently.

  
“Later,
babe,” I told her. “We should at least pretend like we have a social life,
right?”

  
“Okay,”
Nicole said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “If you say so.”

  
“Are
you ready, Ash? Or are you riding with someone else? I think Alex is already
headed over to Lucas’ house.”

  
“I
was going to ride with you guys if that’s okay,” Ashley said. “Let me just grab
my coat and I’ll be ready.”

  
We
headed down to the ground floor, taking the elevator since the girls were in
high heels. I could barely keep my hands off of Nicole—she looked so completely
stunning, so utterly hot that I almost wanted to call it a night already and
not even bother with the party. But Nicole and I had agreed it was a good idea,
and we had Ashley to think of—it wouldn’t be fair to strand her at the dorms
just because we wanted to spend the night having sex together at the last
minute.

  
All
three of us piled into the car and I started it up, trying to remember where
Lucas’ house was. I’d gone to a couple of parties at his place before, when
Lucas had first started living off campus in his junior year. The parties were
always pretty good, with a lot of different people invited, good booze and
usually snacks.

  
I
felt a little guilty about the fact that I was going out at all, especially
after the low score I’d gotten on the CPA exam practice test; but dad had told
me more than once that it was no use burying myself in books until I lost my
mind. He had told me to take care not to let partying become my major—but he
had also pointed out that if I didn’t take time off to have fun every once in a
while, I was going to burn out before I even graduated, and I wouldn’t be in
any position to take the exams and come to work at the firm.

  
As
I made my way off campus and started off on the road to Lucas’ place I listened
to Ashley and Nicole chatting. It was good to see Nicole loosen up a bit
too—she was stressing out at least as much as I was, maybe even more, since she
seemed to be struggling more in her classes. I knew I was going to pass all of
my classes for the semester; I just didn’t know whether I’d be able to get a
good enough score on the CPA exam to get the job I’d been trying for and
planning for ever since I’d been a kid.

  
“Oh
man,” Nicole said, shaking her head and laughing. “You would not believe what
Maureen Angelotti wants me to do with her hair.”

  
“What
does she want?” I bit my lip to keep from saying anything about the topic of
conversation. I knew better than to interrupt two girls when they were talking
about gossip.

  
“She
wants me to bleach it out to platinum and then dye it lavender.”

  
“What’s
wrong with that?” I glanced at my girlfriend, confused.

  
“Maureen’s
natural hair color is practically black,” Ashley explained from the back seat.
“If she wants to bleach it to platinum she might as well just shave it off—it’s
going to totally break her hair.”

  
“I
told her that it would take at least two or three bleaching sessions, and I
wouldn’t do them closer than a week apart,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “At
that I’ll be shocked if her hair doesn’t turn into white straw.”

  
“How
do you girls always know so much about this stuff?” I shook my head. “I don’t
understand it at all.”

  
“It’s
not that difficult once you know what you’re doing,” Nicole said with a shrug.
“It’s a little chemistry, a little physics…”

  
“Hair
chemistry? Hair physics?” I laughed—and then looked to make sure that Nicole
wasn’t mad at me for it.

  
“Well
bleaching and stuff—that takes a little chemistry know-how,” Ashley said. “You
have to know how the bleach is going to work, and how the different developers work.”

  
“It’s
pretty basic,” Nicole insisted. “Higher volume developer means it lifts more
color out of the hair. It’s straightforward.”

  
“It
sounds like it,” I said dryly.

  
“And
things like cutting hair are just kind of…knowing how hair works, knowing how
it will fall and stuff,” she said, shrugging again. “It’s not a big deal.”

  
“Nicki’s
the one who did my hair,” Ashley informed me. “And it’s so amazing that
everyone has been asking me what salon I went to.”

  
“It’s
just a standard bleach and deposit,” Nicole said, sounding almost defensive.
“It was easy. And you paid for the supplies.”

  
“But
I never would have known how to pull it off so well on my own,” Ashley
insisted. “Nicole is seriously gifted.”

  
“I
can see that,” I said, glancing over at my girlfriend again and seeing how nice
her hair looked. She was stunning—I was a lucky man. I told myself that I was
going to stay at the party just long enough to fulfill my social obligations
and then Nicki and I would go home so I could get her hair very carefully out
of that complicated, braided up-do.

  
“Can
we talk about something else?” I shrugged at Nicole’s question.

  
“Go
for it,” I suggested. She and Ashley started talking about one of the other
girls in their year—who apparently was having a runaway romance with one of the
members of the school’s most party-prone frat. I laughed and grinned along with
them as they rehashed the details between themselves, thinking of how things
had been back in my freshman year.

  
I
had managed to drink to the point of puking twice that year, but I had learned
from my mistakes pretty quickly. It seemed to me that Nicole and Ashley didn’t
even need the benefit of spending half a day cradling a toilet bowl to learn
that they needed to pace themselves; they were both talking about keeping their
drinking to a minimum, even though I would be there and able to keep the creepy
guys away.

  
The
whole drive to Lucas’ house, I thought about how great my life was overall; I
had a great girlfriend who was awesome, sweet, funny and sexy. I had great
grades in my classes, and I had the prospect of a good job when I graduated in
a few more months.
That is, assuming I
manage to do better on the actual exam than I did on the practice test,
I
thought with a moment of bleakness. I forced myself to stop thinking about it.
The practice test was behind me, and I was going to take another practice test
early in the spring semester after I’d studied the areas I’d done the least
well in and I would be much better the second time around.

  
We
finally arrived at Lucas’ house and the party was in full swing already; Lucas
had been blessed to have fairly rich parents, who could afford to rent him a
nice-sized house that was just about in the middle of nowhere. He was able to
throw parties without having the cops show up, which was a major benefit; but
he didn’t party too hard. He always managed to somehow have enough food to keep
people from getting too drunk too fast, and he managed to pay for decent kegs
and a wide selection of other things to drink.

  
In
the spring I’d have to make the time to go to another one of his parties,
especially assuming that Nicole and I were still together then: he had a huge
swimming pool in the back yard, and I would love to see her hot little body in
a bikini. The image danced in my brain even while I managed to park the car
without running anything—or anyone—over in the process, and I leaned across the
center console to kiss Nicole on the lips for just a moment.

  
The
girls put on their jackets for the walk to the house—it was just cold enough to
need them—and we got out of the car. “So tell me about Lucas parties,” Nicole
said when I grabbed her hand to walk her to the door.

  
“They’re
basically the best parties you can go to,” I told her. I kissed her again,
unable to help myself and not even caring if I got lipstick on my lips in the
process. “It’s going to be a great night, babe.”

  
“Ugh,
you two are going to give me diabetes,” Ashley said, grinning. “Of course maybe
I’ll find someone I can hook up with. Or at least someone I can talk to about
New Girl
.”

  
“That
would be a girl,” Nicole said, rolling her eyes. “And hey, if you want to hook
up with a girl, I’m not going to judge you.”

  
“College
is for experimentation,” Ashley said, grinning, as we got to the door.