Finding Dell (19 page)

The pedestrian bridge, a poured concrete eyesore, rambled over the train tracks and linked the north and south ends of campus,
leading to Collier Loop, the lower-income student housing option. The bridge ended by the entrance of Whalen Stadium, and in the winter the university turned the unused outdoor arena into an ice skating rink.

Cam followed me through the turnstile to the ticket booth. Above our heads, the royal blue signs announcing nacho and beer prices were crusted with a thick coating of frost. We sat on cold bleachers to tug on brown rental skates.

“Here, let me help you.” Cam kneeled on the cold concrete in front of me and reached for my ankle. With a firm tug, he pulled on the fraying laces.

“If your laces aren’t tight enough,” he said, “your ankles will be weak, bend inward, and you won’t skate as well. It’ll hurt afterward.”

He shook his dark hair from his eyes as he looked up and smiled. He held out his hand to pull me from the bleachers and we gingerly treaded onto the field to the makeshift ice rink lodged between the goalposts. Memories of walking the field with Sebastian flooded into my mind, but I closed my eyes and tried to shake them away; it was a new semester, I was starting over.

The rink had teemed with students before winter break, but on a cold Tuesday night there were few people on the ice. A girl gracefully skated backward into a tight spin, carefully maneuvering around a slow-skating couple making their way shakily around the perimeter. The girl weaved with ballet-like moves, cutting a sharp, swirling pattern into the ice.

I stepped onto the ice with a touch of hesitation. Cam skated onto the rink and turned to me quickly, cutting a spray of ice shavings onto the smooth surface. He smiled and reached for my hand. His fingers, gloveless, were freezing, so I shoved our clasped hands into my coat pocket and he skated next to me.

We skated slowly around the rink. Overhead spotlights were trained on the ice, illuminating glassy reflections. Holiday carols warbled over the loudspeaker, but instead of filling the air with spirit, the music projected a sad, forgotten feeling, like a Christmas tree left up in January that shed its dry pine needles on the living room floor.

Over the carols, Cam talked about a new exposure technique he was excited to learn about in one of his classes. I felt lulled by the rhythmic sound of the skate blades cutting into the ice as he talked about aperture and shutter speed.

Our hands grew damp with sweat in my coat pocket. We passed the other couple on the ice. The girl held the boy’s elbow while his knees splayed awkwardly beneath him. She fought to pull him up and the toe pick on her skate caught in the ice, sending her tumbling forward. They both laughed and I suddenly felt wistful watching them.

The hot hand in my pocket pulled me back to the moment and I remembered that I had nothing to be jealous of. I was on a date with a cute boy myself.

I turned my left skate to the side and skidded to a shuddering stop. Cam spun to face me as I stopped and I pulled him close. I let go of his hand and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in for a greedy kiss.

The surprise made him stumble on the ice and he pushed against me while we kissed. The ice moved under me and we stopped when my lower back gently bumped into the guardrail circling the rink. We steadied and continued to kiss, his cold fingers tangled in my hair and the sound of blades cutting ice and post-holiday carols filling the air.

Cam pulled away. His cheeks were flushed pink and he smiled a lopsided grin. I reached up to brush his hair from his eyes and forehead. I felt a sudden urge to tell him I loved him,
which surprised me. I broke his gaze and looked away for a moment.

I’d never said “I love you” to anyone before. I’d wanted to tell Will I loved him, and I almost did last spring, on a night I wore blue plaid pajama pants and we slept in his room. It was after a kiss that electrified my whole body and I’d never felt anything like that before, so I knew I must love him. But I got nervous and the words remained unspoken.

Cam nestled his head into my neck and kissed my ear. He sighed and pulled away reluctantly, pulling me onto the ice as he skated backward.

He continued to talk about image noise and motion blur as if we never stopped, and his eyes glittered under the gleaming overhead lights.

The urge to tell Cam I loved him convinced me. I squeezed his hand and decided that Natalie had been wrong when she said I gave up when I started dating him.

CHAPTER 21

IT WAS DARK
and blustery, achingly cold outside. Cam and I stomped across patches of ice, listening to the brittle crunch under our feet. He held my backpack in his hand. He refused to wear a winter coat and instead shivered in his black sweatshirt and threadbare corduroys.

When we reached his car, Cam cranked the heat up and sat quaking in the driver’s seat for several minutes before putting the car into drive.

“I just need to stop at the Bike Surgeon for a minute. My boss forgot to lock up.”

I held my hands in front of the heating vent and rotated my wrists slowly. “Does your boss really think someone is going to steal bike repair supplies in this weather? We shouldn’t even be on the road right now.”

“There is expensive equipment in the store, and I wish you’d take it more seriously. The shop can’t buy everything new, you know. The owner doesn’t have a disregard for money that’s so common here.” He gave me a sidelong look. “And I’m a good driver, even in bad weather,” he said quietly.

I felt a nagging hint of tension so I placed my hand on his arm and smiled.

“I wouldn’t trust being in a car with anyone else tonight,” I said in my most reassuring tone.

He drove down Douglas Drive, the brakes catching on the icy pavement as he tapped them at the empty crosswalks. With a careful turn onto Railroad Pass, the campus gave way to small shops and bars. I winced when we passed the movie theater, with its grand and glittering entrance inviting even in the winter storm, remembering the night Cam cut his hand on his broken umbrella.

The drive was less than ten minutes, but we passed the rest of it in silence until Cam eased his Saturn over to the snowy curb in front of the Bike Surgeon.

Cam kicked a buildup of snow from the door and pushed it open, the bells chiming our arrival with an echo. The bikes hung like skeletons from the ceiling and the blustery wind from outside sent them waving and stretching, shadows playing on the walls until the bikes stopped moving. I held a hand up to steady a mountain bike dangling by my head.

I followed Cam past a display of helmets and a wall of a brightly colored handlebars. I watched him rummage behind the back counter for a moment, studying how his shoulders almost touched his ears and his neck muscles bulged with tension. My hand found my shoulder muscle and began to unconsciously massage the tension as I watched him. When my fingers grazed my star cluster tattoo, I stopped. Bernie wasn’t at Seneca anymore, but I could almost hear her voice in my ear, and she urged me to let go and live in the moment. Be spontaneous.

I circled the counter and grabbed Cam around the waist, kissing him with a feverish intensity. He was rigid with surprise, but I felt him relax under my touch, from his lips to his tense
shoulders. We stumbled past the counter, still kissing, until I pulled on the hem of his sweatshirt and we collapsed to the floor in an ungraceful heap. His breathing was ragged as I climbed on top of him. My palms flat on the cold, pale red linoleum, I steadied myself. Cam reached a hand up and hit a standing display of vanity nameplates and a shower of monikers crashed down.

Emily. Isabelle. Jack. Jenny. Noah. William
.

I scrambled to my feet and pushed the “William” plate across the floor with a swipe of my hand until it clattered to a stop beneath a yellow road bike.

Cam lifted his body up, his neck straining as his elbows bit into the linoleum.

“Why’s there never a ‘Dell’ license plate for my bike, that’s what I want to know,” I said weakly.

Cam tried to smile, but there was a note of confusion in his eyes. I bent to pick the nameplates from the floor and scanned the alphabetical display for their holding space.

“We should go back to your dorm,” I said, “before the storm gets worse.”

Outside, the wind slammed against the door with so much force that the bells twinkled as if someone had entered the shop. The snow was a swirling embrace of flurries, so white that the dark shop seemed to be getting brighter as the storm carried on.

Cam nodded and found the keys behind the counter. After he locked the door, we lowered our chins to our necks as we made our way to the car. Cam reached for my hand when I slid on a patch of ice.

He said something that I couldn’t hear over the whistle of the wind and I shouted for him to repeat himself.

“I said, if it makes you feel any better, it’s really hard to find a license plate that says ‘Cam’ for my bike, too.”

The wind whipped my hair in front of my eyes, but I
pushed it away to study Cam’s grin, unrelenting even as ice pellets formed from the flurries.

At that moment, it seemed possible to fall in love with him. Being around him gave me confidence, and I felt more desirable.

When we got in the car, I breathlessly kissed him again. The heat in the car rattled and snow accumulated on the windshield until he reluctantly put the car in drive and headed back to campus on slippery roads.

Cam carried my backpack and led me down the hallway to his bedroom. My mounting nervousness sent my stomach fluttering. After rolling around on the cold floor of the bike shop, I knew tonight would be the first time we had sex.

I’d slept with two people: Adam Byerly, to get it out of the way before I started college, and Alex Connor. The anticipation of adding another person to that list made my throat dry and my hands sweat. I always thought the third person would be Will, and for a short time I thought he might be the last, too.

Cam pushed the door open and his brow furrowed when he saw his roommate, Gus, sitting at his desk. Gus grunted in recognition of our arrival.

A flurry of relief spread through me as I realized we wouldn’t have sex for the first time with Cam’s roommate inches away. I thought I should still act surprised since Gus’s presence seemed to throw Cam.

“What are your plans for the night?” Cam asked.

Gus turned from the glowing monitor and sized us up, his eyes traveling from my head to my toes several times. His eyes rested on the overstuffed backpack dangling from Cam’s hand before he turned his attention back to the computer.

“Didn’t you hear there’s an ice storm tonight? I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his eyes transfixed.

Cam’s eyes narrowed at the back of Gus’s head while he continued to stare at his computer screen. Cam dropped my backpack down near his desk. I cast an imploring, disappointed look in his direction so he would think I commiserated with him, although I was relieved I’d have at least one more night before jumping into sex with a new person.

Cam crossed the room to turn off the overhead lights before he hoisted himself onto his lofted bed. He dangled his hand over the edge to help me up and I landed in a graceless sprawl on top of his sheets.

We cuddled under sparse blankets while the windows whispered of an icy draft. The room was dark but for the glow of Cam’s TV and Gus’s computer monitor. Keys clacked distractingly louder each time our lips smacked after a kiss. Cam opened his eyes mischievously wider each time the animated typing occurred, and he let his hand roam under my shirt. I made a game of trying to kiss him as quietly as possible, and Cam neared laughter each time the bed squeaked below us. Gus finally put on his headphones, which Cam took as a sign to ease on top of me.

He kissed me slowly, his lips traveling down my neck, and then back up to linger at my earlobe. I ran my hands through his hair and tried to block out his roommate sitting below the lofted bed.

With a breathy whisper, Cam spoke into my ear.

“I want you tonight.”

My loose fingers wandering through his hair became rigid with awareness. I thought I’d escaped the possibility of sex when I saw Gus in the room.
Have sex for the first time with his roommate just a few feet away? This is the worst idea ever
, I thought wildly.

Cam’s hand tugged at my pajama bottoms, and the bed creaked under my scrambling limbs as I tried to untangle myself
from the mess of sheets, Cam’s legs, and my pajama pants. I bit my lip as Cam began to remove his own pajama pants. I didn’t want to remember my first time with Cam to be to the sound of his roommate’s clacking keyboard.
This isn’t how number three is supposed to be
, I thought.

Cam lowered himself onto me and began to push into me, and I gasped lightly. He kept moving and I realized we were having sex, so I closed my eyes to try to block out the glow from Gus’s computer screen.

I held my breath and kept one hand braced on the cinderblock wall. After just a few minutes, the rocking stopped and Cam sighed heavily, quickly kissing me before kneeling above me. He hit his head on the ceiling, hanging low above the lofted bed. As he rubbed his hand to his mess of dark hair and murmured in momentary pain, I slid my hand down the bumpy surface of the polished cinderblock wall and realized that the sex was already over. I calculated that it had lasted four, maybe five, minutes.
Five minutes and now I’ve had sex with three guys
, I thought with a twinge of regret.

Cam tugged on his pants with a free hand and my hands fluttered under the blanket to find my pajamas. He hopped off the bed and landed with a loud thud and hurried into the bathroom.

I closed my eyes again and willed myself to be in a different room when I opened them. If it were destined to happen tonight, I wished it would have just happened in the bike shop, where at least we would have been alone. Instead, when I opened a single eye to view the situation, I looked down to see Gus stealing a look in my direction only to pivot quickly back to his computer screen.

When Cam returned, he tossed a thin hand towel onto the bed before climbing up. He pushed gently at my thigh, urging me closer to the wall.