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Authors: Julie Cross

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College, #Contemporary Fiction

Third Degree (3 page)

BOOK: Third Degree
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His eyebrows shoot up and he looks me over carefully. “Isabel Jenkins, right?”

“You know my name?” My face heats up, my heart pounding. I reach for the car keys in my pocket. “Okay, maybe I am going back home.” I pop the trunk and bend over to grab the boxes off the sidewalk, preparing to toss them back in. There’s no point in staying if I’ve been outed already. Maybe I could try Eastern Illinois University. They don’t start the fall semester until next week.

I glance at the guy’s shirt pronouncing his status as resident advisor. His name tag reads
MARSHALL COLLINS
.

“I have an Isabel Jenkins on the RA list for my floor and your license plate says
I-JENKINS
,” Marshall explains. There’s an urgency in his voice, like he’s going to be in trouble with the residential life office if I get in my car and drive away. After glancing over his shoulder at the line of parents and students obviously waiting to bug him with questions, he whips out a handicap placard from his back pocket, opens the passenger door, clips it on my rearview mirror,
and turns to me with a big grin. “That should hold off the tow trucks.” He nods toward the door to the residence hall. “Let’s get you moved in, Isabel.”

“Izzy,” I correct. The name shift has already become automatic.

I’m frozen for a long moment, sifting through my options and thinking how wrong it is to misuse a handicap placard, then I decide it must be the kind of thing normal eighteen-year-olds do. Plus I do have my own personal history of illegal behaviors. Finally I hold out my hand. “Thanks for helping, Marshall.”

He stares at my hand before deciding to shake it. “Marsh.”

“Your name tag says Marshall.”

He picks up a box, stacks another one on top, and starts walking toward the doors. “And your registration says Isabel.”

Good point.

I grab an armload of stuff from the trunk and follow him. Marsh leads me inside and into a jam-packed elevator. I’m silent on the ride up to the second floor, listening to Marshall recite names of other advisors on the third and fourth floors to everyone who asks for help but who isn’t listed on his clipboard. After we exit, he stops in front of a door right across from the elevator and then swings it open. There’s a full-sized bed in the center of the room, a wooden dresser, and a desk.

“Get comfortable with knocking on my door, because that’s what I’m here for.” His tone right now reminds me a little of the way professors and TAs spoke to me when I first started college. It definitely feels artificial, but at the same time it’s also genuine. Makes me wonder who he is when he’s not the RA.

“I just need to get your room keys,” Marshall adds.

I set my stuff on his bed while he sorts through a pile of keys lying on his desk. “So I guess it makes sense that you knew my name. You get a list of names in advance. How many could it be? I’m sure it’s not easy for you to memorize all of them.”

“I’m in charge of twelve rooms on this floor, so twenty-four students.” He turns to me, holding out a silver ring with two gold keys dangling from it. “And I’m sure it’s easy for
you
to memorize twenty-four names.”

Oh, shit, he
does
know me
. My cheeks are hot again, and I’m already backing up toward the exit. “Was it
Dr. Phil
?” I ask. “You saw the show, right?”

A couple of years ago I reluctantly participated in a segment on highly gifted children who had skipped grades in school. I had headlined the episode since I pretty much skipped all the grades in school. I went to kindergarten for a week and drove my teacher nuts, then my mom home-schooled me for a couple of years until I started the Stanford University online high school. Then college at twelve. Dr. Phil had a field day with that.

Marshall grins and shakes his head. I watch as he pulls out his desk chair and takes a seat like there aren’t dozens of freshmen and their parents outside this room requiring his attention. “I had your mom for biology junior year of high school.”

And there’s my answer. My mom keeps a picture of me on her desk at school. I would have been much younger in whatever picture Marshall saw, but still recognizable. I lean my back against the wall beside the door and let my face drop into my hands. “God, this is impossible.”

“What’s impossible?” he asks. “I doubt anything this university can throw at you will be impossible. Aren’t you, like, a doctor already? What are you even doing here?”

Good question, Marshall Collins. Maybe you’re a genius, too
.

“Being someone else, that’s what’s impossible,” I snap. “What are the odds that I’d get assigned to the one RA in this university of eighteen thousand four hundred and twelve students who is from my hometown and had my mom as a teacher?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugs. “I’m sure you could come up with better stats then me.”

I uncover my face. “Probably somewhere around one in four hundred thousand, factoring in the number of students who use campus housing and the population of Evanston—”

“Okay, okay,” Marshall says with a groan. “I didn’t actually mean for you to answer that.”

I bite my lip. “Right, I knew that.”

He pushes up to his feet again and places the keys in my hand. “Trust me when I say that no one here is going to recognize you from
Dr. Phil
or whatever.”

“But
you
know,” I point out. I also take note of the fact that his artificial RA tone has a tendency to fade in and out.

Marshall rolls his eyes. “Your secret is safe with me,
Izzy
Jenkins.”

I scoop my stuff up from the bed and let out a sigh of relief. “I’m trying to make up for missed experiences, you know? Think I’ll be able to blend in? Make some friends, maybe?”

God, why am I asking him this? I might as well plaster
INSECURE GEEK
to my forehead. Before he can answer I add, “Ignore me. I’m not good at this small-talk stuff. Give me a lab coat and sit on an exam table and I’ll know exactly what to say.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re about ten seconds from asking me to drop my pants, aren’t you?”

Shit. That statement was full of innuendos. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and inhale. “I didn’t mean it
that
way.”

“Neither did I,” he says. “I was fully prepared to keep this relationship professional, considering my position of authority. Now you’ve gone and made it all NC-17.”

I give him a smack on the arm, but I can’t stop myself from laughing.

“And to answer your question about your potential for finding companionship at this fine
university, I’d say the odds are in your favor,” Marshall says. “Pretty, and smart enough to commit crimes without leaving any forensic evidence—you’re like a lethal weapon. We should warn all the males on this floor.”

What an ass-kisser. I roll my eyes and try to hide the fact that I’m blushing while Marshall leads me back out into the hallway.

We walk past three other doors before stopping in front of my room. “If you’re an RA, then I’m guessing you’re not a freshman.”

“Smart girl.” He grins while opening the door for me. “Junior.”

“What’s your major?”

“Pre-med,” he says with a perfectly straight face, then his mouth twitches again, forming a crooked smile. “Kidding. Physical education major.”

“Me too! Well, not like in the teacher sense. I’m working on my physical fitness and my hand-eye coordination. My left side is seven percent more efficient than my right.…” The room distracts me from elaborating further. It’s tiny. A twin-sized bed on each side, with a dresser and a desk crammed at the end of each bed. Everything is clean and empty. “Guess my roommate’s not here yet?”

“Correct.” Marshall drops the boxes onto the floor. “That means you get first pick of beds.”

I immediately point to the left side. “Do you know who she is? My roommate?”

“Kelsey Long, cheerleader, psych major, African American,” he rattles off.

My eyebrows shoot up. “You can’t memorize twenty-four names but you can remember that?”

He laughs. “She’s a sophomore. We both lived here last year.”

I open my mouth to ask more questions about this mysterious girl I’ll be living with all semester, but Marshall nods toward the door. “I better get back out there to direct traffic before someone turns me in. Let me know if you need any more help.” He winks at me and then adds, “Student relations is a specialty of mine.”

Oh, I bet it is
. “Thanks, Marshall—I mean Marsh.”

“You’re welcome, Izzy-who’s-never-been-to-college-and-can’t-do-really-complicated-mathematical-equations.”

“So you did see
Dr. Phil
!” I accuse, shouting at his back as he jogs out of the room. When he’s out of sight, I retrieve my phone from the pocket of my jean shorts and call my mom again—I want to pick her brain for information.

“What’s wrong, honey? Did you find your room okay?”

“Yes, that’s all fine,” I say. “Do you remember Marshall Collins? He was a student of yours.”

“Cute kid, wavy hair … always cool, casual, and rumpled, like he just rolled out of bed, threw on a T-shirt and flip-flops, and walked out the door?”

“Yep, that sounds about right. Only cute has evolved into insanely hot, probably as a result of the final stage of puberty, which in males often happens between the ages of seventeen and nineteen. I’d guess he’s about twenty now.”

“Leave it to my Isabel to insert the phrase
final stage of puberty
into what could have been a great cute-boy gossip session,” Mom says. “So why are we talking about him? Is he a student?”

“He’s my RA. And I’m not sure insanely hot is right for me anyway. Looks are highly overrated. I did a six-week geriatric rotation, remember? I’ve seen what we all become eventually—wrinkled with saggy boobs and permanently flaccid male anatomy.”

“Oh boy, your RA, huh?” Mom says, ignoring the last part of my comment. “Does that ruin your little plan?”

“My little plan? You make it sound like I’m having a tea party with my stuffed animals. But no, it doesn’t ruin my plan. He’s just one person.” I relay the conversation to her word for word.

“You know he wears those flip-flops and shorts all winter, too,” she adds. “It’s like the boy forgot he lived in Evanston and not on the beach in California or something.”

“Is that all you remember about him?” Yes, I know I have no reason to dig for details, but what if I need a reason later? Isn’t it better to have and not need than the other way around?

“All my past classes tend to blend together. I think he missed a lot of school, but I’m not sure why. Don’t think he was a skipper, but then again, he barely pulled a C if I remember right.”

I hear footsteps outside the door and then Marshall’s voice fills the hallway as he gives the my-door-is-always-open speech to a pair of freshman guys. “That’s all I needed, Mom. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

There’s just enough time to tuck my phone into my pocket before Marshall’s poking his head into my room. “Want to meet your neighbors?” He flashes that infectious grin again, and I have no choice but to nod. The two boys get shoved inside the perimeter of my room. One is blond and stocky, the other taller and part Asian.

“This guy is Evan.” Marshall taps the blond’s head, then moves his hand to the other guy’s head. “And his roommate, Yoshi.”

I lift a hand and give a little wave. “Izzy Jenkins.”

Both of them simultaneously do the roaming-gaze move that Marshall did on me outside right before he put two and two together. My stomach flutters with panic, my face heating up yet again. My thoughts tumble together trying to form a distraction of some kind. Finally my gaze rests on a cold sore at the corner of Evan’s mouth. Before I can stop myself, I’m lifting my finger
and pointing at it. “You should really get something for that sore. They’re contagious.”

Evan’s mouth falls open in shock, Yoshi snorts back a laugh, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing. Shit. Yoshi smacks Evan on the chest, “Dude, she just told you to take care of your herpes.”

My gaze moves to Marshall, whose eyes are wide. “Abreva is the best product to treat herpes simplex virus type one,” I add as if Dr. Rinehart, my old boss, were here asking me about the best course of treatment.

“Oh, look!” Marshall says, pointing to something in the hallway. “I see two moms waiting for their weepy goodbye. Better hurry and get it over with.”

The boys shuffle out quickly, neither saying anything else to me. Marshall turns his attention back to me. “Well, I think you dodged those two bullets, huh? I mean, they
are
from Wilmette, so I can’t say I blame you. But most girls just glare if they’re not interested in a guy. Disease diagnoses might be better reserved for extreme situations.”

Sarcasm is often lost on me and I have to have the point clarified later on, but this time it’s not. And God, I hate this introduction phase. It’s like being under the gun in the worst way. Like being onstage at the
Dr. Phil
show—racing heart, churning stomach, loss of appetite, sweaty palms, and no physical reason for these symptoms other than my body’s increased adrenaline production. Nothing throws me off my game more than psychological explanations for physiological reactions. Too much gray, non-scientific area for me.

“Marshmallow!”

Before I can think up a reply to Marshall, a petite dark-skinned girl is pushing her way into the room dragging a suitcase and a full black garbage bag. She tosses the items onto the empty bed and then literally jumps into Marshall’s arms, wrapping her legs around him. I back up toward the window, already uncomfortable with the intimacy of this reunion. She’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. Are they together? Why do I even care?

Justin’s words come back to me:
Physical intimacy is all you were good at
. I know that the last thing I need is some hot guy confusing me on the difference between physical attraction and emotional connection. If I’m going to dabble with the opposite sex, I need to surround myself with guys who are less hot. And I need to date. Like out in the open, not ripping each other’s clothes off behind the locked door of the on-call room or in the confines of a professor’s office.

BOOK: Third Degree
3.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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