Adrian Lessons (2 page)

I turn eight thousand shades of red. New variations on that beetroot color are discovered in my capillaries. All around the world, artists hold conferences as they decide how to best incorporate these new colors into their palates.

I do not meet the eyes of David Englebarry’s apartment-mate. I almost flee directly into the hall, boobs swinging akimbo, before I realize there are probably other boys out there—and two boys who I don’t want to see my boobs having seen my boobs is enough for one day. I break several world records in how quickly I apply bra and shirt to my body, aim myself at the door, and zoom past that hand on the knob.

The large, strong hand, with a hint of muscular vein and a little V-shaped scar on the back.

The hand attached to a boy who I very, very determinedly do not look at.

~2~

“It was a disaster,” I moan into my Monday morning strawberry-banana-soymilk-protein smoothie. Even the flax seeds aren’t making me feel any better. Marie is walking me to class to hear all about my hideous post-Eric hookup—or rather, I’m speedwalking to class to outrun my shame, and she’s just barely keeping up.

“I’m not the hookup type. I’m just not. I’m the write-sex-scenes-so-filthy-I-could-make-the-sun-blush type while also being the twenty-two-years-old-and-only-ever-had-sex-with-one-person type. I’m a natural contradiction. Like Jennifer Lawrence.
Atchoo
!”

“Bless you. And why is Jennifer Lawrence—” pants Marie.

“I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head when he saw my boobs, okay? I don’t think he even realized women
have
secondary sex characteristics. He seemed fundamentally surprised about it.
Atchoo
! And then we got
walked in on
—”

“You’re kidding,” she gasps. “By who?”

“His roommate, I guess. I didn’t exactly take down his license and registration. I didn’t even look at his face. I just ran for it.
Atchoo
! Not only did David not look like Brad Pitt, like you swore, he was a walking germ pit instead, and I woke up with a cold.” I sniffle, whipping a tissue from my pocket and wiping my nose.

“Oh no.” Sympathy buzzes all around her like a cloud of annoying flies.

I brush them away and slurp up half a frozen strawberry. “Your genius plan to revitalize my writer spirit fell through. I’ll just have to go to India to discover myself like that chick in
Eat, Pray, Love, Sleep, Masturbate
and whatever else.
Atchoo
!”

“No, I had a—” And she trips, nearly falling flat on her face. I slow down. It is eight thirty a.m. on a Monday, after all, and while I may be a morning person, my stumpy-legged roommate is most certainly not equipped for a hearty jog across Statham’s massive campus. Even though we’re running late.

“Ow,” she grumbles. “They really need to deal with these gopher holes. Anyway, I had a better idea.”

“Considering your last idea got me in bed with high school virgin disguised as a college student, I think I’ll pass.” I finish off my smoothie and chuck it in a trash can overflowing with last night’s beer bottles and, dare I say, used condoms. “I know what you’re going to say. That I should try again. But honestly, I’ve come to terms with real-life sex being shitty. I’m just stuck in a little rut with the writing thing, but I’ll get out of it. Really.”

In response, she shoves a newspaper at me.

I peel it off my chest. It’s not just any newspaper. It’s the Statham Blotter, that student-run dishrag that people only read to see who got in trouble with Campus Security over the weekend. Occasionally they run articles by freshman whining about the food in the cafeteria or profile some perpetually drunk sucker on the men’s lacrosse team. “Sorry, I don’t need to blow my nose at the moment. Or wipe my ass.”

“No, look at this.” She stabs her thumb at the page it’s been folded open to.

“
Advice from the Sex King
,” I read. “Is this a sex advice column? Come on, Marie. I could have come up with something snappier than that.”

She prods the paper again. “Just read it!”

I sigh and lower my eyes.

Dear Sex King,

I write erotic fiction for a living, but recently I’ve been unable to come up with anything. Writer’s block. I think it has something to do with the fact that I got out of a long relationship recently, and haven’t had sex since. I’d love to rediscover my sexual side and hopefully stimulate my muse in the process. Any ideas for how I should go about doing this?

Sincerely,

High and Dry

“Did you send this in?” I demand. “Marie! What the hell?”

“Chill out.” She sips her own smoothie, unruffled for once in her life. “Nobody’s gonna know it’s about you—”

“You’re always so paranoid about people finding out that I write your sex scenes. I can’t believe you’d put it in the Blotter!”

“I didn’t.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I said you write erotic fiction. Nobody’s going to read that as ‘writes the sex scenes for her friend’s romance series.’ Just read what he wrote in response. It’s—”

I crumple the newspaper up. I’m about to chuck it in the nearest trash can, but this one’s even more stuffed than the last, and having hippie parents left me with a deep-rooted anti-littering stance. I stuff the balled-up newspaper in my tote, vowing to ceremonially burn it later. “I’m not getting sex advice from some hopped up frat boy who thinks he’s the world’s biggest gift to women because someone blew him once at a party.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but we’ve arrived at the Abraham Shapiro Academic Building. Her English seminar is down past the cafeteria. My Psych lab is here. I blow her a kiss. “Don’t stress. I’ll sit down to write after dinner today.”

“Hang on. I have these allergy meds that will help a ton with your congestion,” says Marie, rummaging in her bag. I love her, but the girl’s a hypochondriac. She goes through at least four things of pills before she catches sight of the clock mounted just inside my building. “Damn it! Professor Greene’s gonna kill me. Here.”

She shoves a random baggie at me and runs for it, her bag bouncing off her notoriously sticky-outie butt. She’s earned the nickname of
The Upperclassman with Lower Class
among the freshman, though they’re all too scared of her Catholic sensibilities to make a move.

I pick out two of the white pills—she didn’t say how many to take, but my nose is running like Niagara falls—and dry-swallow them. That girl is going to get nailed by Campus Security if she keeps insisting on sticking her pills in baggies to save space.

I slip inside, rounding a hallway papered with ads for the Psychology Club’s latest potluck dinner and dodge two grad students mumbling about this year’s tuition increase. The reminder makes me wince. As much as I love—or
used
to love—writing about sex for the hell of it, adulthood has brought a whole new round of motivations. HarperCollins has deep pockets. And Marie, whose parents have deep pockets of their own, has given me a third of her advance just to write her sex scenes. A third that paid for last spring semester at Statham.

But Marie won’t be getting her next payment unless she turns in a manuscript by the end of October.

And I won’t be getting my third unless I write some seriously scintillating sex scenes.

I slip into the girl’s bathroom to smooth any flyaways, look myself in the eye, and take a deep breath. The start to a new semester always has me rattled. “De-rattle,” I tell myself firmly. “You are going to get through classes, survive Statham’s pasta station for dinner, and write the filthiest porn that’s ever graced a keyboard.”

A girl whom I did not know was in the stall behind me starts choking on her own saliva, judging by the coughing.

Can it, sister. This ain’t a preschool bathroom.

By the time I reach my hall, my nose is still spewing snot like it’s being paid for it, but I’m starting to feel distinctly…happy. It can’t be the pills. If they were working, my nose would have calmed down by now. But suddenly, I am in a
very
good mood.

My thoughts wander. To my sex-writer’s-block. I need inspiration, damn it! Clearly great sex is not in the cards for me, so I need something else. A bolt from above. An epiphany. A—

I open the door to Room 34B and my inspiration is sitting in the back of the room, sliding a notebook from his bag.

My jaw doesn’t just drop. It plummets. It hits the floor and rolls into oblivion.

I’m not one for clichés, but I now understand why all those girls in romance novels flip the hell out when they first see The Boy. This Boy is like an amalgam of the sexiest possible part of every male that has ever lived.

You wouldn’t call me overdramatic if you could see him.

A strong jaw, lightly dusted with dark stubble. Cheekbones someone sculpted from marble. Tanned California skin. Dark Greek hair with just enough wave. Twenty-three, twenty-four years old, maybe. Tall, with a body about to enact a prison break from his jeans and fitted shirt, the lines of his six-pack visible through the fabric.

He looks at me. Directly
at me
. His mouth curves in a slight smile.

I realize I should probably put my jaw back in and take a seat, but his eyes are green as all hell, twin emeralds—I’m sorry, they really
are
emerald green—pinning me in place.

“Miss Reynolds, I assume?”

The dreamboat gets up, comes to me, and gets down again on one knee. He lifts my hand and lightly brushes my skin with the barest of kisses. “I’ve been waiting for you, Miss Reynolds.”

“You have?” I squeak.

“Yes, I would like to start class with all my students present. Please try to be on time from now on.”

I blink. I may have just experienced a minor hallucination. Dreamboat is in his chair—he never said a word. Professor Newbury, a bald guy with a pocket protector straight from the eighties and eyes about as far from emeralds as it’s possible to get, is staring me down from the front of the classroom.

I slink into the last available seat, which just happens to be right behind Dreamboat.

Okay, there are other seats available. So sue me.

While Newbury’s TA passes out the syllabus and the professor himself drones on about class goals or whatever, I stare at the back of Dreamboat’s head. His hair is thick and a little messy, begging to have hands buried in it. It sweeps to a point at the base of his neck. My fingers twitch. In my head, I’m writing Marie a new description for her love interest. She thought he was blonde and blue-eyed. Screw that.

The guy in my next sex scene is going to have the vividest green eyes.

“—So please partner up,” Professor Newbury is saying. I only tune in at the word ‘partner.’

There’s a rustle as everyone in class turns to their nearest friend. I’m a senior—this class is mostly freshman, apart from Dreamboat. He seems to come to the same conclusion, because he turns to face me, hooking his arm over the back of his chair and highlighting one perfect bicep. “Care to examine my tongue?”

What?

“What?” I manage.

Is he asking me to make out?

Is that the weirdest way of asking someone to make out that I’ve ever heard?

Do I care?

More on this at five.

“The experiment,” he clarifies, although that doesn’t really clarify anything for me. Then the TA slips a sheet of paper onto my desk and I look down to see the heading
Taste Bud Experiment
. Oh. I glance up, and Dreamboat’s green eyes are glittering with amusement.

Christ Almighty.

“Yes,” I say smoothly. “Tongue. Examine. You. Tongue. Yes.”

“Cool.” His smile widens, just barely. It’s adorable. And sexy. “I’m Adrian.”

“Yes. Yes you are.” I nod in totally suave agreement. “Oh. And I’m Cleo.”

“Cleo,” he repeats. My name is damnably sweet on that tongue I’ll apparently be examining. His eyes are still dancing, like he’s laughing at some private joke he thinks I’m in on. It’s almost…familiar.

“Do I know you?” I ask, scanning the recesses of my brain to see if I’d had a class with him at some point—there’s no way I wouldn’t remember.

His eyes widen a fraction and I swear, he chuckles. “I wouldn’t say so.”

I’m about to ask, but Professor Newbury captures our attention and demands we begin our tongue experiments, the nature of which I’m still totally in the dark on. He counts off our groups by number. “Good. We have enough supplies. Sarah will pass out the dye and papers and you’ll be doing the experiment at your desks…”

I tone him out and realize I’m staring at Adrian with the approximate expression of a bulldog that just scented a lamb sausage.

I write myself a mental letter. If you don’t get it together right this second, Cleo Reynolds, and stop acting like a total dumbass in front of the sexiest man you’ve ever seen, there will be no Loco Tacos for a week.

The threat of losing out on my favorite Mexican Monday dinner stop scares the awkward right out of me. I clear my throat. And blurt, “What are you, Greek?”

He nods, impressed. “My grandmother’s from Athens.”

Disgustingly attractive
and
European roots. I make a note to sacrifice at least three baby goats to the gods of sex. I’m already imagining a fictionalized Adrian leaning over Marie’s blushing protagonist, fingertips caressing her cheek as he delivers a hot kiss to her ready—

“Open your mouth,” he tells me.

My jaw hits the floor for the second time that day, but he’s holding up a small blue bottle of food coloring and a cotton swab. He winks. “I can’t count your tastebuds if you don’t give me access.”

Something is wrong with my brain. I’m high on his presence. Or maybe I’m just high. Did I walk through a pot smoke cloud on my way to class?

His voice is deliciously low. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to hear it rumble close to me, pouring dirty words into my ear. No, Cleo. Get it together. Think of the tacos.

Obediently, I open my mouth. He leans in close. I can smell him—a hint of spicy aftershave and that warm undertone of clean boy. I pray to the gods of dignity that I won’t drool.