Contradictions (9 page)

“Dinnertime? What are you, forty? We’re in college. We don’t follow any dinner bell. We eat when we’re hungry, day or night. Haven’t you ever been on a two
A.M.
taco run?”

“An irregular diet is bad for your body,” he answered before blushing. “Not that there’s anything wrong with your body.” He looked away quickly when I caught his eyes drifting down my midriff.

“You need to get out more often,” I mocked him, standing up with my bag. I kept my voice neutral so he wouldn’t become more embarrassed. “I need to run anyway.”

“You run? Maybe we can go together one time.”

My jaw dropped at his words before a laugh bubbled up through me. The way he took everything so literally was a bit adorable. Quirky, but adorable. We were as different as night and day. It was easier that he was like this. It would help remind my hormones that I should be keeping him at arm’s length.

“I meant I have things to do. The only time I run is when someone is chasing me,” I joked, pawing through my bag for my keys.

“I know. I was teasing you,” he said in a deep, husky voice.

My eyes jerked up and I felt my pulse quicken. You’d think I’d never heard a sexy voice before. In my defense, that smooth, deep voice coming from his mouth was a bit of an oxymoron. The fact that he continued to surprise me was throwing me off guard. I was fine when I could put him in a box and tell myself he wasn’t for me, but keeping him there was proving to be harder than I expected.

I had to get away before I did something stupid that we would probably both regret.

“Just stick to what you’re good at,” I said. I threw out the snarky comment, pretending I didn’t notice the way his face fell as I walked past him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Sure,” he answered as I closed the door.

I berated myself during the short drive home. Why was I letting him get to me? If I was going to get through this mess, I needed to pull my head out of my ass.

For the next few days, I was able to stick to my guns and focus on the actual tutoring. It was only occasionally that I noticed small things like how his forearms were more muscular than I’d realized, or the way he liked to hum game show theme songs while he waited for me to answer a question. Holding our tutoring sessions at the library provided a more formal setting, which seemed to help. Although Trent’s humming garnered continuous looks from anyone sitting around us. Between that and his Tootsie Pop obsession, he was driving the library staff nuts. He’d been warned more than once that there was no eating or drinking in the library. Each time he was reprimanded, he would inform them that, technically, he was sucking on his lollipop, not eating or drinking it. Different staff workers would approach him each time, but their reaction was always the same. They would stand for a moment, trying to figure out if he was serious or just screwing with them. Eventually, they would walk away. I would laugh, but I empathized with them. Half the time I didn’t know if his dryness was real, or if he just liked effing with people’s heads.

On Friday I arrived at the library before Trent, which was nothing new. I’d quickly realized that he was never on time. His brain, which was so brilliant in some respects, seemed oblivious to time schedules. It was ironic considering he was helping me become more organized.

I was working on an assignment for my business management class when he finally showed up.

“Late again,” I mocked. “You need an alarm clock superglued to your forehead.”

“My eyes don’t roll up that high,” he answered, sinking down in the chair next to me.

My eyes zeroed in on his mouth. I’d noticed the other day that his lips quirked slightly when he was teasing. It was the only tic I had picked up on to tell if he was screwing with me. “You need some new material. You know how some people go to fat spas or relationship camps? You need a sense of humor makeover,” I said.

“My humor is just too sophisticated for regular people.”

“Regular people? You mean human beings, right, Spock?”

“Do you even know who Spock is?” He sat forward in his chair like the end of the world hinged on my answer.

“Sure, he’s Luke’s father,” I said, looking down at my book so he wouldn’t see my smirk. I’d learned on Wednesday that Trent’s biggest pet peeve was when characters from his favorite shows or movies were mixed up.

“First of all, Spock is from
Star Trek
, while Luke’s father—whose name is Anakin Skywalker, or Darth Vader to the layperson—is from
Star Wars
.”

I egged him on further by looking down at my book, disinterested.

“Furthermore, the two are not even in the same universe or time period, for that matter. One happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, while the other takes place in the future. It couldn’t be any simpler,” he sputtered.

It was almost too easy, like taking candy from a baby. I let him suffer for a few seconds before looking up and grinning at him. “Don’t get your undies in a bunch, Captain Kirk.”

“Do you always use nicknames as a shield?” he asked, moving my statistics book closer to him.

My grin faded. Damn him. He always seemed to be able to do this to me. With a few words he could knock me down several notches. I clamped my mouth closed, even though I was dying to retort, but that would only waste more time.

“I took the last practice test in unit one of statistics. I asked Ms. Joyner about the makeup exam. She said I could go in on Monday and take it. Even if I ace it, the highest grade I can get is an eighty-five.” Changing the subject was how I got around his random probing questions that always seemed to make me uncomfortable.

He took the bait. “What did you score on your practice test?”

“Ninety-eight. I missed a damn ratio problem.”

“Ratios,” he announced, flipping open the book to the appropriate section. “We’ll go over them again.” His tone was animated as he searched for the page. For once, I was happy to dive into a textbook.

The next hour passed with Trent covering ratios yet again. He was patient in his explanation and deemed me ready for the test when I correctly answered ten complicated problems that he had randomly pulled out of his head. It must be nice to be a total brain.

After we finished with ratios, Trent proofread my paper for business communications while I worked on a mock employee schedule for a group assignment in my business management class. We had to create a fictional online company, which was surprisingly fun. The group voted and decided on an online shoe company. The project was worth 80 percent of our overall semester grade, so it was important my group did well. I was struggling with how many employees would be required to ship out shoes each day when Trent finished proofing my paper.

“Was it awful?” I asked, clicking the track changes button on my computer to read his notes. Just two days ago, I had broken out in a cold sweat over the idea of him reading my stuff, but I had come to realize that although he was very analytical, he was also an excellent tutor. Without sounding critical, he had a way of clearly explaining things so they made sense.

“No, you covered many of the points that were in the rubric. I noted a couple more points you might want to add.” I nodded my head absently at his words since I was already reading his notes. I was a little embarrassed over the grammar mistakes he found. I always seemed to mess up
there
,
their
, and
they’re
, which was pretty aggravating since I knew the difference. I shut down my laptop once I finished reading through his notes.

Stowing all my stuff in my bag, I stood up and was quite pleased with myself for getting through another session. It was all about mind over matter. Trent stood up with me.

“I guess I’ll see you on Monday,” I said at the same time he started to ask me a question, so our words jumbled together. “I’m sorry, what?”

He pushed his glasses up, which meant he was either nervous or thinking hard about something. “I asked if maybe you wanted to catch a movie,” he said, clearing his throat.

“No,” I barked out like a drill sergeant. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way, but his question took me by surprise. I tried to smile so the rejection wouldn’t seem so harsh.

Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to be bothered by the shortness of my answer as he leaned back against the table we had been sitting at. “Why not?”

Did I really need to break it down for him? Judging by the way he stood waiting for an explanation, that’s exactly what I needed to do. I sighed loudly, placing my heavy bag on the table.

“Because we’re the least compatible couple on the planet. We have absolutely nothing in common.”

“That’s not true. We’re both from the same town.”

“So? Millions of people live in New York City, but that doesn’t mean they’re all compatible.”

“Fine. We went to the same high school.”

“You’re making my case for me. We went to the same high school and yet our circles never overlapped. What does that tell you?”

“That I was biding my time,” he said, taking off his glasses so he could clean them with his shirt.

My mouth dried, making my next retort die in my throat before it could even emerge. Seeing him without his oversized geek glasses was an instantaneous knee-jerk kind of moment. His blue eyes were even more pronounced without the glare from the lenses. Plus, I was seeing an unobstructed view of his entire face. To say the overall effect was panty dropping would be putting it mildly. Heat moved through my body, latching on to every single nerve ending.

I tried to focus on his last words, but my brain was on vacation on
smexy island.
I was having a hard time remembering what we were even talking about. I knew I was rejecting him. I just couldn’t remember why.

The buzzing of my cell phone provided the interruption I needed to pull my eyes away from his. “I have to get this,” I said, grabbing my bag and fleeing the library. Thank God for lifelines when you’re about to drown is all I have to say.

I hit the
ANSWER
button as I pushed the library doors open.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” Cameo demanded.

“At the library. Why?” Things had been a little tense around our apartment the last few days. Cameo and Derek were still trying to adjust to the new me and the fact that I spent more time lately studying than partying. At least Derek seemed to understand my situation and was handling it better than Cameo. She continued to act like it was something I could fix with a weekend of cramming. As for not going out every other night to drink, she dismissed my new lack of interest as me being too dramatic over David’s death. What she didn’t understand was that I just didn’t see the point of wasting my time here at school. Sure, it took David’s death to make me realize that, but Cameo wasn’t going to change my mind because she called me overly dramatic. Anytime she brought up his name, I would cut her off. It was a taboo subject for me.

“Derek heard there’s an underground party at Phi Beta. We’re going to check it out, so you need to hurry home.”

A week ago those words would have filled me with an almost euphoric feeling. Regular parties were superb on their own, but an underground party was downright killer.

“Are you sure? I thought every frat house was on lockdown. They could get in serious trouble if word gets around.”

I could hear Cameo’s sigh. I didn’t need to see her to know that she was probably making a face at her cell phone. “What do you think
underground
means? The school’s not going to find out. Are you going with us or not?” She was clearly irritated, but that didn’t mean she had to act like a complete bitch.

Now I was aggravated and never one to respond well to bitchiness. “I’m on academic and extracurricular probation, in case you forgot?” I snapped.

“How could we forget since you like to remind us constantly,” she snipped back. “Are you never going to go to another party, ever?”

I wanted to lash out more, but I bit my tongue. My silence was all the answer she needed. “Fine, suit yourself,” she said, disconnecting the call. Her parting words lacked the bite that she had started with. She sounded more hurt than anything else. Feeling guilty for snapping at her, I put my phone back in my pocket and leaned against the rough brick exterior of the library. I closed my eyes, trying to calm the twisty emotional monster mucking up my brain. What was happening to me? I felt like I was going through some kind of identity crisis.

“Everything okay?”

“Damn it. Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Trent looked as surprised as I felt. He’s lucky he didn’t get a punch in the throat or a kick in the balls for sneaking up on me like a freaking ninja. “Sorry. I assumed you knew I was there since I was right behind you when you came out here,” he pointed out. “I can’t help it you’re so self-absorbed you missed that part.”

“Self-absorbed? Are you kidding me?”

“What’s wrong?” His eyes cut through me, seeing past my defensiveness.

I glared at him for a moment. I didn’t need any psychoanalysis bullshit. “My roommate is pissed at me, all right?”

“Why?”

“Why do you care? You’re not the Tressa Whisperer. You’re already involved enough in my life as it is.” I turned to walk away.

Trent’s hand reached out, encircling my bicep. It was probably my imagination, but the warmth of his touch traveled through the two layers of clothing I was wearing. Luckily for him, my normal instinct to knee a guy in the balls for handling me that way never surfaced. I chalked it up to the fact that Trent was different because I felt nothing for him.

“Don’t be like that. Tell me why your roommate is pissed. By the way you talk, you two are close. Maybe it’s a simple fix.”

“What makes you think everything can be fixed?” I already knew the answer to my own question. His analytical mind always looked at everything like an equation that could be solved.

“Because it can. You just have to take the emotion out of the situation to find the root of the problem. Conflict is caused by emotion. As human beings, we allow and even thrive on the emotions that ultimately lead to our destruction. Look at the root of every war and you will find a dictator who allowed his emotions to control his thinking until it curdled into something else.”

“People are not math equations, Trent. Your concern is touching, but for such a smart guy, you don’t know shit. For your information, emotions don’t always cause conflict. They also cause good things, like love. For every emotion that leads to our destruction, there is another that makes us stronger.”

“Interesting hypothesis. I think—”

“Wait a second. Let me cut you off right there,” I interrupted. “What I said wasn’t a damn hypothesis, it’s a fact, you goober. Look, people don’t choose to have emotions, they’re part of us. Like it or not, you can’t just turn them off. Without emotions, we’d all be robots. My roommate is miffed because of the decisions I’ve made to change my lifestyle. You think she gives a rat’s ass about the logical reason for my decision? Hell no. She’s pissed. Hence, human emotion.”

He raised his eyebrows at my choice of words. “I see. So the student becomes the teacher.”

I doubled over laughing. “God, you can be such a nerd, but I’m glad you understand. Welcome to Earth.”

“I still say she should understand you’re on probation,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

“Yeah, well, that’s easier said than done. I’m just not sure I care anymore, but who knows? Maybe where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“And you no longer have the will?” he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Nope,” I admitted, turning to walk to my car. This chat was stimulating, but wasn’t helping my current situation. It really wasn’t Trent’s fault. Not even my friends understood where I was coming from.

He kept pace with me by jogging along my side. “Why not?”

“No offense, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I’d yet to confide in anyone about the way I felt about David’s accident. I tried with Cameo, but all she wanted to do was tell me I was being stupid, so I buried it in my gut and spent the last week being twisted into a tight knot of guilt. Logically, I knew I wasn’t directly responsible, but I had been there. I couldn’t help dwelling on what would have happened if I’d never talked to him, or maybe if I could have talked to him longer. Was our conversation the point on the pendulum of life that triggered his death? Would it have mattered if he went into the water sooner or later? This was the morbid shit that was keeping me up at night. The coroner’s report had come out and concluded that David had smacked his head on an outcropping of rocks when he tumbled overboard. They believe he lost consciousness and drowned. Would that have happened if he had been in the water a few seconds earlier?