A Kiss Like This (3 page)

I accidentally chuckle, the sound coming out in a rich timbre and sounding foreign. “Yeah, why?”

“Nothing. It’s just… you don’t
look
like a Caleb.”

“Wow, thanks. I’ll let my mom know,” I drawl out slowly.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just. You look more like a—” She clamps her pouty lips shut.

I tip my head, curiously waiting for her response, and prod her on. “More like a…?”

“I don’t know. Like a… like a…” her hand twirls around in the air aimlessly, her cheeks burning up with fire. “Biff.”

I almost let out a bark of laughter.

Almost.

“My friends call me Showtime,” I supply, growing uncomfortable with the intimate direction our conversation is taking. I don’t want to know anything about her, and I don’t want her knowing shit about me. Pretty soon we’ll be sharing childhood tales and favorite colors.

“Showtime?” She rolls her eyes, mumbling to herself with a feminine snort. “Guys are such idiots. Why would he let anyone call him that?”

“Because I’m
such
a fucking idiot.”

“How about you watch your mouth!”

Instinctually, I go on defense. “How about this instead: why don’t you tell me why you were climbing out your ‘cousin’s’ window at seven in the morning rather than taking the front door?” Yeah. I use air quotes when I mock the word
cousin’s
, sounding suitably repulsed.

“How about you mind your own darn business?”

Darn business? Jesus. Doesn’t this chick ever swear?

“I
was
minding my own darn business, sweetheart, only you were too busy sticking your ass out your boyfriend’s second-story window to notice. Oh wait. I’m sorry. Did you
want
me to let you kill yourself?”

“I told you, he’s—ugh!” Pausing to shoot me a look of contempt, she starts stomping her feet across the grass and heads for the sidewalk, calling over her shoulder, “I don’t have to stand there and listen to you belittle me like I’m full of—”

“Shit? Or were you going with… poopy?” I snicker at her retreating form.

She halts abruptly on the lawn, spinning to face me with her hands planted on her hips. “You know what,
Showtime
?” She spits my nickname with such disgust I’m surprised saliva isn’t dripping out of her mouth. “You have
some
nerve making assumptions about
me
when you stand there looking like a… l-like a common
thug
who rolled off of his mattress just so he could rob the place.”

Ouch.

I take a few menacing steps toward her. “Oh, you think I look like a thug? Because I’m wearing a hoodie and Adidas track pants? Honey, clearly you wouldn’t know a thug if he passed out between your thighs. Hurry back to your dorm and bitch about the STD you undoubtedly contracted last night.”

The brunette lets out another gasp, visibly mortified, and angrily flounces to the other side of the street. She’s so pissed I can hear the heels of her boots thrashing the concrete from here, one angry clomp after the next.

Snarling, I turn toward the massive white house behind me, reaching under my ball cap to run a hand through my shaggy hair. Tugging the hat back into place, I only give pause when a glimmer of something shiny catches my eye. A pit of horror forms in my stomach, and, taking a few steps to my right, I bend down, hooking my index finger through a gleaming gold ring abandoned on the concrete driveway.

More specifically, on the driveway underneath the window of a particular second-story Kappa Omega Chi house…

Shit.

It’s a simple band that I study closely in the rising morning sun, a small blue sapphire chip mounted on top. I hold it closer to my face for examination, turning it this way and that, and make out the inscription,
Love Mom & Dad
, on the inside shank that’s virtually been rubbed out from wear, and barely legible.

My head snaps up, and I scan the perimeter for the brunette. Unfortunately, the only sight is an empty sidewalk, and a dog chasing a squirrel around the yard of the house across the street.

I groan.

Shit
.

CHAPTER 3

Abby

By the time I get back to my off-campus apartment, I am fuming breathing so deeply it sounds like I just returned from the Color Run. Flinging my door open so hard it hits the wall, I slam it shut behind me before stalking over and throwing myself on the bed.

Muttering a curse, I let out a frustrated scream. “Who the frick does he think he is?” I ask to no one. “Off all the nerve.”

Of course, he
did
kind of save me. Kind of.

Whatever! The jackhole.

Caleb
.

Caleb, Caleb, stupid Caleb.

Ugh!

I close my eyes, forcing the image of him stowed in my memory to materialize in my mind. And it does, so vividly it’s like he’s here, glowering down at me.

Tall. Broody. Muscular. Of course, the muscles could have all been an illusion created by his bulky sweatshirt and slouchy Adidas athletic pants. The thick, heavy eyebrows, which peered at me from under a navy blue Flying W ball cap, were creased into a permanent scowl.

Solemn, serious, full lips set in an unyielding expression, he’s hardly the man of a girl’s dreams.

But that doesn’t stop me from wondering about that mass of hair hidden under that well-worn ball cap and the obscurity of his hooded sweatshirt. My thoughts stray to the five o’clock stubble casting a rugged shadow over his angry, chiseled jaw and cheekbones, all adding to his severe expression.

Believe me, I’m not waxing poetic about Caleb because I’m attracted to the Neanderthal (puh-lease, I’m not that desperate). Nope. I’m simply wondering where he came from, because you have to admit, he did just kind of appear out of nowhere to help me…

My chintzy, hollow bedroom door flies open, smashing against the wall behind it with a thud, and I glance up from under my pillow to see my two roommates in the doorway, both eyeing me with shocked expressions—Jenna, who I inherited as a roommate by default, and Meg, who I’ve been living with since sophomore year.

Jenna is the first one to speak. Her curious green gaze, which has been artfully lined with bright aqua eyeliner, scans my bedroom suspiciously until it lands on the curtains. “We heard a loud bang. What the hell is going on in here? Are you okay?”

I toss a pillow and roll to my back, staring at the ceiling to avoid her watchful gaze, measuring my words carefully. “Nothing. I was just upset before.” I give them a glance. “Jenna, you can stop staring at my curtains like a guy is going to jump out from behind ‘em.”

She wishes.

Our other, more laidback roommate, Meg, shrugs her shoulders idly and wanders into the room, plopping herself on the edge of my double bed. Unlike Jenna, Meg is still in pajamas—the fuzzy, footie kind we wore as kids. “It’s Saturday morning. What on earth could you possibly be pissed off about?” Meg looks down at the vintage silver watch on her wrist that she is never without. “It’s barely nine.”

“I’ll give you one guess,” I mutter.

Jenna saunters leisurely to the window, trailing a yellow fingernail along the curtains, none-too-subtly sneaking a peek behind them. Her ever-changing hair is piled in a messy mop on the top of her head, and the lavender and blonde strands artfully wisp around her face when she turns to give me a once over.

“Hmm. My first guess would be parent-related. But… since you’re obviously still wearing the same clothes you had on last night…” Her pert nose wrinkles with distaste and one skillfully plucked eyebrow arches into her hairline. “I’d say you just stumbled in.”

Meg flops onto her back next to me, giving Jenna a
duh
look. “Nice detective work, Einstein.”

Jenna ignores her. “Please tell us you
finally
gave it up to someone last night.”

Meg’s mouth falls open, and she props herself up on an elbow. “Do you have to go there? Immediately? Why is everything always about sex with you?”

“Because it’s always about sex with me.” Jenna rolls her eyes. “And because she’s twenty years old and hasn’t done it with a guy? Abby is still a virgin. I’m trying to
help
her.”

My cheeks flush as they continue talking about me like I’m not in the room.

Meg sighs. “Spare me. Not all of us lose our virginity when we’re fourteen, okay, hooker?”

“I never said there was anything wrong with being a virgin, just that she was one. Sheesh! And for the record, I lost mine when I was seventeen. And I was in love with the guy, but nice try.”

Jenna plops down in my desk chair, her large metal earrings jingling merrily around her face as she gives the chair a swivel. “Let’s try not to get off topic here.” She gives me a pointed look. “So? What’s the deal? Slamming and banging doors is so unlike you.”

Meg immediately turns her attention back to me, absent-mindedly giving a loose string on her sock monkey pajamas a few tugs. She snaps it free and lets it fall to my carpet.

“And it’s pretty obvious you didn’t come home last night, which is also very unlike you.”

Under her breath, Jenna mutters, “Unfortunately,” as Meg continues. “The only place you ever stay over at these days is Cece’s, and she’s too far away. You obviously couldn’t have gone there.”

Cece is my best friend, and she just moved back to the Midwest from California. Her boyfriend, Matthew, is a professional hockey player, and he was just traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. Which is great, because now, instead of being thirteen hundred miles away, Cece is only an hour car ride. And even though we rarely see each other, we text each other every day.

I scoff at Meg’s judgment of my evening. “Be serious. I would never have stayed at Cece’s in Chicago and made it home by now, you guys. On a Friday night? Not happening.” I cross my arms and stretch out on my bed next to Meg.

“Fine. Then the real question is, who was he?”

I roll my eyes, feigning ignorance. “Who was who?”

Both my roommates stare at me, waiting and determined to pry an explanation out of me.

I grab the pillow from under my head, sit up, and rest my back against the wall next to my bed. “You guys, it’s not a big deal. Remember how I popped in at the Kappa O party last night? I went with Maddie, Tabitha and Maria, not because I wanted to, but because my parents paid me to. Anyway, they left before I did, and you know my rule about walking anywhere alone at night. Long story short, I crashed in Tyler’s room.” I shrug as casually as my churning stomach will allow. “The end.”

Snidely, Jenna asks, “Wait, those bitches left you there? Alone? Typical.”

“You should have texted one of us,” Meg scolds. “I would have walked over to get you.”

“Yeah, but then
you
would have been alone in the dark,” Jenna points out.

“It was fine,” I interrupt before they start squabbling again. “I holed up in Tyler’s room. It was gross, but I survived.”

Jenna, who’s far more astute than people give her credit for, eyes me skeptically. “Right. Okay. So what’s with all the loud crashing and door slamming? What could your moron cousin
possibly
have done to annoy you this early in the morning? Did lover boy hog the covers?” She snickers and spins the chair around.

Worse. He drools.

“Yeah, real funny,” I grit out, crossing my arms and hugging a stuffed penguin to my chest. “For your information, Tyler didn’t do anything but drool all over himself.” I bite my lip. “I wasn’t pissed off until—”

I stop mid-sentence, causing my friends both to lean forward, waiting for me to continue.

“Until…?” Meg probes, giving me a nudge with her leg. “Until? Until?”

“Until your cousin touched you with his morning wood?” Jenna supplies optimistically.

Even Meg is horrified by that visual. “Oh my god, stop.”

“Well, out with it already. We don’t have all day,” Jenna intones, getting irritated. “Actually, I don’t have all day, but Meg does,” she jokes. “It’s only the three of us here. We promise not to tell anyone.”

I hesitate, so Jenna tries again, sweet-talking. “Look, we all know something upset you, and if it wasn’t Tyler’s weiner than it was someone else’s. So tell us who it was. You know you want to. And also, sorry I said weiner. I meant dick.”

As crude as Jenna is, she’s right; I
was
dying to tell them, not because I want them to be all up in my business, but I am curious to know if they know who Caleb is.

I lean back against the wall. “Do you remember the song they sing at the Kappa house when a girl tries to sneak out in the morning?”

Both my roommates nod.

“Well, this morning I could hear them chanting it, and obviously I wasn’t about to be humiliated by walking out into the hall.
Especially
since I was in Tyler’s room. I mean, can you imagine?”

“You didn’t want them to think you were banging your cousin.” Jenna stifles a laugh.

“That is so not funny,” Meg admonishes. “It’s disgusting.”

“Come on, lighten up. That’s what she was thinking.”

She’s right; I was.

“Do you want to hear this or not?” I grumble, shifting to get more comfortable. “Anyway, the guys are all singing their plagiarized ‘walk of shame’ chant, and the words are just awful. Why girls put up with that escapes me.”

My roommates exchange glances questionably as I continue.

“Anyway, Tyler’s room is only on the second floor, and there’s this overhang near his window…“

“Stop.” Jenna holds a palm in the air, halting my account of this morning’s events. “Stop right there. Do
not
tell me you climbed out his window.”

“…so I climbed out the window…”

Jenna and Meg both groan, but they lean closer still.

“…and
just
as I’m about to lose my grip on the gutter guard, this huge, angry guy starts yelling at me to let go. Like, he was really annoyed. Long story short, I fell and he caught me.”

Meg puts her hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa—back the truck up. Rewind!”

“That’s insane!” Jenna shouts, excited, and loudly slaps her hand on my desk as she bounces up and down on my desk chair. “Who was it? Who was it?”

“See, that’s the part I’m not sure about. He wasn’t someone I recognized, but I think he’d been at the old Omega house. I think. I mean, I thought he walked back to their yard after…”