Tangled (11 page)

She
avoided his gaze. “What’s up?”

“I
thought you might be needing this.” He lifted her purse.

“You’re
a godsend.”

“Well
chickadees, as cozy as this is, I must be on my way.” Jade rushed to her desk.
“The library awaits me.” She stuffed the rest of her notebooks and texts into
her Coach tote before slinging it over her shoulder.

“Call
me later,” Tess said pointedly and pitched the checkpoint at her.

“Bet
on it.” Jade threw her a pitying look. And then she was gone.
 

An
uncomfortable silence muscled its way into the room. He’d known the instant
he’d walked through the door and seen Jade’s plastic grin that she was evading
him. She must have seen him with Erin last night.

Cameron
cleared his throat. “You straightened your hair.”

Tess
tucked an errant strand behind her ear. “Yeah. It was time for a change.”

“It
looks good,” he murmured.

“Please,
I’m a hot, sweaty mess,” she quipped, all too eager to slip back into their usual
banter.

“I’ve
seen you look worse.”

Her
lips trembled with a smile. “Dick.”

Cameron
lost his playful grin. “Jade told me about the surprise dinner.”

Jade, the bleeding heart.
She never knew when to keep her trap
shut. It was a good thing she didn’t tell her with whom she’d gotten down and
dirty. “Don’t worry about it,” Tess played off with a shrug. “I ended up eating
most of it. My fat ass thanks you by the way.”

“Your
ass is fine.” The soft admission punched through her, leaving a gaping,
fist-sized hole in her midsection.

Fighting
for calm, she ejected an airy laugh. “We’re friends. You have to say that.” She
tugged her hair free from the elastic band, grabbed her brush from her desk,
and restlessly began to detangle.

“Where
did you end up spending the night?”

“Oh,
at a friend’s place,” she didn’t quite lie. “I was too lazy to walk across
campus.”

His
strong, calloused grip halted the frantic motions. He guided her hand to set
aside the brush’s wooden handle and swiveled her around. Her belly quivered.
His eyes were true blue, somnolent and achingly vivid. They made her want to
climb inside and swaddle herself in their warmth. “How about I repay you?”

“How
do you plan on doing that?”

“Let
me take you on a date.”

Stumped,
Tess stared at him. “What?”

“I
mean…to make up for the missed dinner.” The tips of his ears reddened. “Look, I
didn’t think you’d be stopping by so I got together with my lab partner, Erin.
We didn’t
get together
, get
together,” he rambled awkwardly. “After we finished our assignment, we went out
for a few drinks and I crashed at Lance’s frat house.”

Nausea
clubbed her with the force of a wrecking ball. In fine form, as always, she’d
jumped to conclusions and consequently into the sack with Adonis.
And all over a misunderstanding.

Irritated
with herself and him for pulling her in so many directions, she shucked off her
shirt. Nothing said friend more than casually undressing in front of one. “You
can make it up to me by buying me sushi and another bottle of merlot.”

Cameron
didn't answer. Fixated on her chest, his pupils had become glacial bergs,
frozen amidst arctic blue. Her face burned with equal parts self-consciousness
and indignation. “What?”

“Who
did that?” Fury shook in his voice.

Tess
glanced down to the bruises and blemishes that patched her hips and torso. That
creep! He’d probably done it on purpose. Panicking, her brain leapt for a
suitable excuse. “I…it was the guy I’m seeing.”

His
expression became neutral. “Is that who you stayed with?”

Bottled
aggravation tipped out unvarnished truth before she could disguise it. “What’s
it to you?"

The
surprise stupefying his face would’ve made her laugh if the urge to cry hadn’t
prevailed. “I’m sorry,” she said and rubbed her eyes. "I didn’t sleep much
last night.”

“No,
it’s fine. I didn’t mean to pry. Just…” His fingers tumbled through his unkempt
hair, at a loss. “If you ever need help, or anything, you know where I am.”

“It’s
nothing like that,” Tess said, fatigued.

“Had
to make sure.” He faked a wide, insincere grin. “I’m going to head out now.
We’ll reschedule the date for some other time.”

“Sounds
like a plan.”

Eyes
burning, she waited until the door shut behind him to sink onto the foot of her
bed. What the hell was wrong with her? She needed to schedule an appointment at
the health center,
asap
.
Clearly Adonis must have infected her with a chronic case of psychosis.

Chapter
6

The piercing wail of the guitar riffs and
the systematic thrash of percussion belted from the stereo system. Its
pulsations jolted liquefied walls into spiked peaks.
 

Tactile and omniscient, treble clefs and
half notes throbbed in the rubbery tubing of his veins. Echoed in hollows of
his bones. Bled into sponged cartilage. Satiny wavelengths
ribboned
in windblown scuds past his head, which had unlatched itself and levitated
several inches above his neck.

Meshed under the frantic, beating wings
of sound, particles of conversation gravitated like a dust motes, annoyingly
evident but harmless.

One was louder than the rest. He glared
at her. The bitch hadn’t shut up since they started. Words chased her wandering
mouth in bold fonts. Tethered by glistening, fibrous tendons, her eyes hovered
outside her skull like balloons. He was glad the music trampled over her
garrulous drivel. Why couldn’t she shut the fuck up and mellow out like a
normal person?

He turned to his friend. “Where did you
get this shit?”

“I told you, I got you,” Deck yelled, his
mouth overly wide and eyes too spaced apart. “It’s good shit, right?”

How long had they been tripping? It felt
like days since they dropped. Gripping the sofa's armrest, he waited until the
floor's tectonic plates aligned into a walkway before swaying to a stand. “I
gotta
piss.”

It took a few seconds for the words to
penetrate before Deck pointed down the hall. “Second door on the…left, right.
No left!”

“Turn this shit off and play some real
music.”

“Ministry is god, mother fucker!”

“My balls it is.”

Deck flipped him off and re-engaged with
the girl at his side. Teetering into the hallway, he clasped the edge of the
wall for balance. It heated beneath his fingertips, swirling in cotton candy
blues and reds. He panicked as it began absorbing his hand. Wrenching back,
Adonis staggered into a door, which cushioned him from serious injury and
gently steadied him on his feet.

Fuck, he needed to come down off this
shit.

After four attempts, he found the
bathroom. He waded in a pool of sharp, fluorescent light. Spinning wobbly
knobs, he drank from the faucet until the sawdust lining his gullet oozed down,
a mass wasting of clotted saliva.

Adonis gawked at the mirror. His face was
a kaleidoscope of shifting fractals and eclipsing geometric shapes.

At least his head had reattached to his
shoulders.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them
again, grappling for clarity of mind. He toed
the
incline of a slippery slope. One wrong step and he was done.

A crushing sense of
helplessness overwhelmed him before it disappeared, imbibed by his psychedelic
transmutation.

Adonis started when the door closed with
a quiet click.
The chatty girl.
With her features in
their fixed, upright position, he supposed she was attractive.

She spoke but her words were muffled, as
if underwater. Dropping to her knees, she unzipped his fly. He wasn't really in
the mood, but a blowjob was a blowjob.

Head lolled back, sensation swept him as
her mouth engulfed him. Her nails teased his inner thighs as she greedily
sucked. Aware of his gaze, she glanced up, eyelashes fluttering coyly as
precum
leaked from her pink glossed lips. The act was meant
to entice but it only pissed him off.

Adonis seized her hair and thrust into
her sweet, little mouth. Experienced hands massaged his swelling sack and
pumped what she couldn't take. Tension snaked around the base of his spine.

He lunged harder into her moist heat,
ignoring the slight choking noise she emitted. A trooper, Chatty bobbed faster
to keep pace and falsified a moan.

And for a second, auburn curls
transplanted dark hair. Smoldering hazel-green eyes overlaid eager brown.

With a grunt, he exploded into her mouth,
coming in long, hard spurts. Adonis blanched as the orgasm receded. What the
fuck?

The girl rocked back on her heels with a
self-satisfied smile as she wiped his
jizz
on her
sleeve.

What’d she want? A treat?
For him to return the favor?

Not fucking likely.

Adonis tucked himself back into his pants
and walked out of the bathroom without as much as a thank you. He chucked
deuces at Deck, who saluted him with his beer, before grabbing his keys and
pushing past the screen door.

Impatience dogged his steps.

Of all the times for
her face to surface, why in the middle of a blowjob?

Adonis blamed the acid. Her face wasn’t
the strangest shit he’d seen tonight. But somehow it disturbed him the most.

Her refusal spun an irritating track on
the turntables of his mind. He’d been turned down.
By Tess of
all people.

Adonis had known better than to treat her
like some wilting flower and so had done away with all pretenses. The end
result hadn’t been half bad on his end. All their animosity and hatred must have
communed and combusted. They’d fucked like rabid animals all night. His body
was a mural of scratches and teeth imprints. Hers was the same. He'd made sure
of it.

Despite the blowjob only minutes ago, he felt
himself
swell, remembering her responsiveness, her
insatiability, her sleek tightness. Adonis refused to believe she didn’t feel
the same. He couldn’t be the only party this affected. For her to tell him
otherwise was absurd. She was lying. She had to be. It was only a matter of
proving her wrong.

He slowed, spotting Cameron’s car outside
the house.

Something niggled at him, but Adonis
brushed it away. He found Cameron on the couch, immersed in Call of Duty.
“Jesus, what’s with you people and this fucking game?”

Cameron smirked. “Mad because you suck at
it?”
  

“There’s a difference between sucking and
not caring.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, man.”

Adonis grabbed the second controller from
the coffee table. “Put it on multiplayer.”

They played in companionable silence for
a few minutes. Just as he was beginning to understand the hype, Cameron
casually dropped, “Tess is seeing someone.”

His fingers became dead weights. A stray
bullet spiraled through his character’s skull, spraying his section of the
split screen with blood and goopy brain matter. “How about that,” Adonis
murmured. So she’d come through after all. “You don’t sound too happy about
it.”

“I am happy for her.” The muscle in his
jaw flexed. “I just don't want to see her hurt.”

“She's a big girl. She can handle it.”
In more ways than one.

“Yeah.” A scowl shaded his voice.
 

“Then stop moping. It’s not like you were
into her.” Unease contracted in his gut at his friend’s reticence. “Right?”

Cameron laughed, but it came out tinny,
thin. “You're right. We're just friends. She can see whoever she wants.”

Stuffing his guilt, Adonis tossed the
controller on top of the table. “Then stop mooning over that slut. It’s
Saturday night and we need to get fucked up.”

“Don't call her that,” Cameron said, his
blue eyes steely. “She’s not like the type that fall into your bed.”

I
wouldn’t be so sure about that,
Cammie
.

________________

To
make up for her laziness over the weekend, Tess holed up in the library to
study for her organic
chem
midterm and crank out her
sociology paper. Despite her intentions, she couldn’t focus. Too many things
crowded her mind.

Cameron
hadn’t called or texted her since dropping off her purse Saturday morning. She
considered it a blessing in disguise. It bought her time to figure out a way to
break the news. Sadly she was no closer to an answer than she was 48 hours ago.
 

What
would she say?

I got tired of you taking
so long to make a move?

I was drunk and it didn’t
matter?

I still love you?

She
didn't feel as guilty as she did sick. Sick with dread. Sick with frustration.

Sick
that her body hadn't gotten the hint that there would be no second act. The
curtain had drawn on that lapse in judgment.

Snippets
of that night haunted her waking hours and plagued her dreams.
The scalding glide of his lips.
The weight
of his body.
His ragged
breaths
mingling with
hers.
The unguarded rapture that gripped his features as he
climaxed.

Heat
engulfed her face as the image planted itself in the forefront of her mind.

Tess
never considered herself a sexual being. Her scant hookups before him paled in
comparison. The feeling spun her off course, casting her into the choppy seas
of incertitude. It scared her. The power he wielded over her body. The fact
that he’d weaseled his way into her head.

And
she despised him for it. How much more would he take from her?

Her
cell buzzed next to her spiral bound notebook, its perky vibrations quaking the
whole of the library.

Ignoring
the glares from her studious neighbors, she unlocked her phone. It was Jade.
Food?

Her
stomach gurgled accordingly. She did deserve a break after three hours, even
though she’d only dedicated a meager twenty minutes to actual study.
Student
ctr
in 10?

Kk
.

Tess
crammed her textbooks and printouts into her bag and took off. Within ten
minutes she and Jade staked their claim at one of the few vacant tables on the
veranda.

“God,
what happened to freshman holing up in their rooms for meals?” Tess griped,
dousing her onion rings with ketchup.

“Don’t
act like we weren’t there last year.” Jade strained dressing over her salad.

Tess
stared at the sad excuse of a meal like it would crawl off of the plate and
launch an assault. “I don’t understand how you can eat that with a straight
face.”

“What’re
you talking about? Salads are delicious. How can you eat
that
?”
  

Tess
glanced down at her Philly cheese steak, its gooey cheese and beefy juices staining
the wax paper. “This? This is called food.”

Jade
gaped at the monstrosity,
scandalization
waging
bitter war with envy. “Not all of us have time to work out.”

Because
it wasn’t like Tess worked part-time and juggled a full course load. She
diplomatically settled for, “Metabolism.”

“Lucky
bitch.” She switched gears. “Dude. Halloween. We need to start planning.”

“What’s there to plan? We all bring a
bottle and wear devil horns.”