Deeper We Fall (17 page)

He cleared his throat, but didn’t move.

“So yeah. Just tell him that.” I involuntarily crossed my arms. I could practically feel his blazing stare and I didn’t like it.

“I will.” He said and I bobbed my head before he passed by me and went down the hall toward the showers. I had to take a breath before knocking on Will’s door.

“Lottie my love!” Simon’s beaming face was just the ray of sunshine I needed. He pulled me into his arms. “You look tired. Up late reading again?”

“Not exactly. Taking care of a heartbroken roommate. Do you mind if she comes to breakfast with us? I want to get her out and about.”

“Of course not, the more the merrier. We don’t all have to wear pink, do we?”

“No,” I said, flopping down on his bed. “Where’s my worser half?”

“Shower.” At the mention of it, my face got red again, and Simon noticed.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, when people say ‘nothing’, that always means it’s something. If people would just say something other than nothing, people wouldn’t be as suspicious.”

“Whatever.”

“Spill, girlie.” He crashed down next to me and put his pouty face right in front of mine. I pretended to bite his nose and he kissed me on the cheek.

Oh, there were a number of things I could tell him. About Zack coming up to me, about the rain incident, about Zan seeing my girlie parts (even though he said he didn’t look), about me threatening both of them, multiple times.

That was quite a list. A list I wanted to keep to myself.

Will interrupted Simon badgering, grumbling about how he’d bumped into Zan in the bathroom.

“God, it wasn’t enough that his drunk roommate was yelling all night,” Will said, cleaning his ears out with his towel.

“What?” I said.

“The guy forgot his card, couldn’t get in and then started banging on the door until Zan let him in. And then he wouldn’t shut up all night.”

“Why didn’t you get the RA?” I said.

Simon shrugged.

“If it was the end of the semester, sure, but we figured there were any number of ways to retaliate, so we decided to suck it up,” he said.

“Did you hear Zan?”

“Not really, but he doesn’t talk much so that doesn’t mean anything.”

Huh.

I couldn’t picture Zan taking care of a drunk roommate, but then I didn’t really know what he was capable of.

“Come on, I gotta make sure my roommate isn’t crying herself into a puddle,” I said.

***

I filled Trish in on the drama from the night before as we re-stocked the buttons. It took two of us to match up the right ones to make sure we got them in the right places. I’d already consumed three cups of double caffeine tea to help me stay awake, and it was Trish’s job to poke me if my eyes closed for too long.

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if you ended up with one of them? What a story you’d have to tell your kids.”

I gave her an icy look.

“Don’t freak out on me, I was just saying that if your life were a Nicolas Sparks novel, you’d totally end up together, dying in the same bed while holding hands.”

I slid another card of ivory buttons on the rack.

“What?” she said.

“I never pegged you for a Sparks fan.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a fan…” she trailed off and fiddled with the box of buttons.

“Trish, is there something you need to get off your chest?”

She glared at me before she rolled her eyes back and sighed.

“Fine. I’m a Sparks fan. Happy?” I grinned and nodded. “But don’t tell anyone.”

“Your secret is safe with me as long as you don’t tell anyone I read those books with the half-naked dudes and the swooning women on the cover.”

“You do not.”

Our souls gave another fist bump.

I wanted to go over to Trish’s after work on Sunday, but I was still taking care of Katie. Her stupid friends had come over to commiserate, but all they’d done was make her feel even more like shit and piss me off in the process.

I stole Will’s truck again and forced Katie to go shopping with me. Not that she needed anything else pink, but I figured retail therapy couldn’t hurt.

“What do you think of these?” She held up some dangly earrings with, you guessed it, pink beads on the end.

“Cute.” The only earrings I ever wore were studs. The dangly things were always brushing the side of my neck and freaking me out.

“Do you mind if we stop at the bookstore?” I said.

“What for?” I resisted the urge to say ‘unicorns and rainbows.’

“I just want to see if there’s anything new out.”

“Yeah, sure.” She grabbed the earrings and added them to her basket.

Katie insisted on taking me into Bath and Body Works before we went to the bookstore. I loved their stuff, but seriously, how much body lotion and those little bottles of anti-bacterial gel did one person need?

“Try this,” she held out a bottle for me to smell.

“That’s nice.” It had a soft floral scent that wasn’t overwhelming.

“You should get it.” She handed it to me and found the matching shower gel and a bottle of perfume. “Every girl wants to smell pretty.”

“Is this some sort of subtle way to tell me that I stink?”

She laughed.

“No, I just think you need a signature scent. Once you have that, we can work on your look.”

“My look?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with it?” She gave me a sardonic look. Okay, so I was wearing jeans that were a little too big and a ratty Train t-shirt, but who cared? It was Sunday. Sunday was frumpy clothes day.

“If you want a guy to notice you, you have to put at least a little effort in. You’ve been taking too many fashion tips from your brother.” It was true that Will and I used to swap clothes when I was younger. That was before he grew like a weed and dwarfed me. I could still wear some of his shirts, though.

“Sweetie, you could have this total vintage thing if you wanted to.” I loved the vintage look, but it just seemed so out of my realm. I couldn’t wander around with Will and Simon in a pretty dress. It would just be weird.

“We could get you some skirts and some cute tops and some pumps. You could do the whole 1940’s pinup girl thing. It’s really in right now.”

“I don’t know. I don’t wear heels very often.” It wasn’t that I couldn’t walk in them, but they always seemed to give me blisters. Probably because I bought cheap-o ones from the discount stores.

“You should. They’d make you taller.” No shit, Sherlock. She picked up a few more bottles and threw them in her basket before she continued. “Would you let me do a make-over?”

“What?”

She clasped her hands and pouted her lips. “A make-over. Please?” On the one hand, I didn’t think I needed to be made over. It wouldn’t last anyway. I’d go right back to my comfy t-shirts and jeans. On the other, maybe this would distract her from Zack. I’d do almost anything to make that happen.

“Okay,” I said, heaving a sigh like it was a big inconvenience.

“Really?” She nearly smashed over an entire display in her enthusiasm. “Oh my God, this is going to be awesome.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to be as enthusiastic. I had a flash of her turning into some sort of psycho makeover demon.

“Okay, when we get back we need to go through and decide what look you’re going for. Then we can do a color palette and then we can start shopping.” Wow, that sounded like a lot of work. “Yay, I’m so excited!” She made the little squeal-y noise that Zack usually elicited.

Katie’s enthusiasm was on hyperdrive for the rest of the day. I even convinced her to come to dinner with Will and Simon and me. Will flirted mercilessly with her, and she giggled a lot in return. Oy. Even Simon flirted with her. He was so good at it.

“Your brother is cool,” she said as we walked to our door. There was someone standing in front of it.

“Babe, where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all day.” Zack had been waiting for us. I played with my keys until my little pepper spray container was in my hand and ready to use.

“What are you doing here?” Katie said, not rushing immediately to him. I tried to take that as a good sign.

“What was I supposed to do? You won’t call or text me back. I need to talk to you.
Alone
.” He directed the last word to me.

“Zack.” Katie drew out his name. I wanted to tell her to stay strong and not cave to her hormones, but that would have been a losing battle.

“Babe, come on. I want to make it up to you. We can go out. You can wear that gorgeous pink dress. I’ll open the door for you, we can dance.” He put what he thought was a sexy smile on his face, but it just made me sick.

Zack Parker was a predator. I wanted to spray him in the face and then shove the bottle down his throat and watch him choke on it.

“Can you give us a minute?” Katie said, biting her lip and not looking at me.

“Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t going that far. “I’m going to go hang out with my brother. I’ll see you later.” I went down the hall as if I was going for the stairs, but I lurked around the corner. I could just barely hear them.

“I’m so sorry, babe. I just… I just want you so much. You turn me on. You’re so fucking sexy. You’re turning me on right now. I just want to get you out of those clothes—” his voice got low and husky, and I could tell he was probably kissing her face, “and kiss you all over and touch you. Especially here…” I may or may not have heard a little moan from Katie.

Shit. Shit fuck.

“Let’s go back to my room. My roommate is gone,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She couldn’t seem to think of a good reason. Probably because Zack was doing his thing. Why didn’t I have something loud to explode in the hallway? Or maybe I could set off the fire alarm.

“What are you doing?” It was the second half of the Brothers of Doom. Of course.

“Nothing,” I whispered.

He moved closer behind me and I tried not to flinch. “Then why are you whispering?”

“Can you just shut up for a second?” I’d missed something and now they were walking away. “Damn.”

“Are you spying on someone?” He peered around the corner. I yanked him back before they could see him. I motioned him to come with me and I went down the hallway to the study lounge.

“I was spying on your brother and my roommate. He’s working his magic on her right now and sucking her back into his vortex.”

“His vortex?”

“You know what I mean.” This was the longest civil conversation we’d ever had. He was also standing way too close to me. I took a step back. “You and I both know that your brother isn’t good for any girl. I blame him more than you for what happened.”

He stared down at me from his height and the scrutiny felt invasive. “You do?”

“If he wouldn’t have been so intent on getting in Lexie’s pants, he wouldn’t have wanted to get in the car, ergo, you wouldn’t have had to drive drunk, ergo, you wouldn’t have been driving. Or maybe you would have. I don’t really know anything about you, but I still blame him more. That doesn’t mean I don’t blame you too. Just less so.”

He took my verbal word spew with barely a blink.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“About Zack and Katie? Well, my master plan to distract her by letting her give me a makeover lasted about five seconds. I’ve also considered throwing my brother at her, but that’s not really fair to Will, although he’d probably be all for it. He’s trying to get over his girlfriend, even though he says that their break-up was mutual, it was totally more on her side, but I’ve been trying to set him up with my friend Audrey. Soooo…” I was able to cut it off there. I heard Zack and Katie walking and then the door to the stairs shut with a bang. They must be going downstairs to his room.

Zan seemed oblivious. “She wanted to give you a makeover? Why do you need a makeover?”

“Which room is he in?” I said, turning.

“106.” I started to go for the stairs, but had a thought that halted me for a second.

“What were you doing up here?”

He took his hands out of his pockets.

“I don’t know.”

“I thought I told you to stay away from me.”

“You did.”

Chapter Eighteen

Zan

“So why were you up here?” She wasn’t going to let me get off that easy.

“Would you believe me if I said I was lost?” She blinked for a second. Charlotte always blinked a lot when she was confused.

“No,” she said, turning for the stairs. “I’m going down to see my brother.” She also spoke more slowly than normal when she was lying.

I followed her as she walked toward the stairs. “No you’re not. You’re going to check my brother’s room to see what they’re doing.”

“Smart, you are,” she mumbled under her breath, thinking I couldn’t hear. I almost burst out laughing. That hadn’t happened to me in a long time.

“What?” I said, hoping she’d repeat it. There was nothing cuter than a girl quoting Star Wars. Well, there was nothing cuter than Charlotte quoting Star Wars.

“Nothing,” she said, pushing the door to the stairs open. Against my will (yeah, right), my eyes drifted from her head and down her spine and right to her butt. I tore them away and focused on her back. I hadn’t really gotten to see much of it, but I was sure it was as pretty as her front.

“You’re following me again.”

“Maybe I’m still lost.” I couldn’t see if that made her have to hide a smile or not. We walked a few more steps before she spoke again.

“Now are you talking actually lost, or lost in the existential sense?” I could hear the smirk in her voice. That was a first.

“Can I be both?”

“Sure, why not?”

We got to the bottom of the stairs, and I wanted to open the door for her, but something told me that would be too much. I was taking this one step at a time. She peered around the corner and dived back, then did it again. I had to bite back another laugh.

“Is this how you play it cool? You’d be a terrible bank robber,” I said as she took one slow step into the hallway. If she just acted normally, no one would give her a second thought. By trying to act like she wasn’t up to something, she was sending out a flashing signal that she definitely was up to something.