In Too Hard (Freshman Roommates Trilogy, Book 3) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty

Montrose

I was lost in self-pity and doubt for five years.
 

And then she found me.

S
yd O’Brien slept in my arms, our limbs intertwined. She was nearly on top of me on the narrow couch. One of my hands was buried in that thick, soft glossy black mass of her hair, now completely out of its bun. My other hand rested on her smooth hip, holding her so she wouldn’t slide off to the floor.

We would get to the floor eventually. We weren’t nearly done with the couch.

And I
definitely
had plans for the scarf I’d given her.

It felt really odd to be with her. My growing feelings for her had very much been in my head these past seven weeks, due to being away from her. Though I found her incredibly attractive (okay, totally smokin’ hot), and was attracted
to
her (okay, I had pretty much been sporting wood for the past seven weeks), all that FaceTiming and texting, had kind of become the norm.

Until my first day back when I had, indeed, kissed the shit out of her.

And then…nothing. For a month. A very,
very
long month. And all because I was an insecure, arrogant prick.

Diandra had called me that when we broke up. I thought, at that time, that she was just being bitchy about the break up, even though it had been her idea. But I realized soon after, that she was pretty much spot on.

Well, maybe not
soon
after. It took a couple of years for me to figure it out, and a few months after that to put in motion a plan to turn the slippery slope of prickness uphill.

Thus, my year at Bribury. I probably could have scored a guest lecture spot at one of the Ivy League schools, certainly at Brown, my alma mater. But, being a one-time deal, and a very big experiment, I went for a lesser known, but still considered high-brow college to teach at. And to try and get my head out of my ass.

So far? Well, I’d been too busy reading college freshmen papers to wallow in my lack of productivity.

I was also telling myself that said papers were the reason I hadn’t gotten any real writing done.

Different day, same bullshit.

No, not the same bullshit. Syd O’Brien was lying in my arms after a most…thrilling evening. Shit, I was a writer and all I could come up with to describe the past two hours was thrilling? Yeah, maybe I was a totally overrated hack who caught lightning in a bottle once, never to repeat the experience.

Shit. Okay, I could do this. Making love with Syd had been…transcendental.

Christ. Transcendental?

As I often did, in my mind I saw my harshest critics’ faces frowning at me. This time even Michiko Kakutani for the
Times
, who had loved
Folly
, was shaking her finger at me.

Yeah, so scrap transcendental.

Her skin was so smooth, her hair so silky…God, it was all crap. All true, of course, but yeah, National Book Award winner Billy Montrose could not put the words together to describe the life-altering event of having sex with a girl.

But, it wasn’t just any girl. It was Syd.

And, maybe life-altering was the best, or at least the most accurate, description to use, if not the most lyrical.

I’d noticed her in my class right away, of course, as the more interesting looking girl who always sat between the other two. One being Jane Winters who certainly made her intentions known right away, and Lily Spaulding who was breathtakingly beautiful.

I’d been given the codes of conduct when I started, and of course any kind of relationship with a student was verboten. And I had kind of scoffed at it. I hadn’t dated a girl that young in…well, since I’d
been
that age. After Diandra, I had a couple semi-girlfriends, and they’d both been a few years older. A co-ed hook up was the last thing on my mind when I took the gig.

This year was supposed to be about finding my joy of writing again, by teaching it. And finally getting on track with my next book, whichever one that turned out to be.

Until I read Syd’s first paper. The assignment for each freshman was a thousand words on how Bribury was different than what they had expected.

And the words flowed from her with purpose and strength. I could tell she’d probably whipped the thing off in a couple of hours, and yet it was the freshest, most insightful paper I read out of over a hundred students. As was her next one, and the next. And I found myself searching her out each time I entered the room.

Yes, Lily was beautiful, and Jane had this “it” thing going on that was appealing (and at times very annoying), but Syd, while quiet during class, and clearly embarrassed of Jane’s antics, was the one with the still waters running deep essence about her.

And that essence was confirmed with each paper I assigned. I’m not really proud of it, but I did tweak some of the themes of the papers to feed Syd some of the things that I was curious about.

I told myself that it was good for all students to stretch themselves a little bit in their writing—and it was true. But, at some point, I started searching through the pile of turned-in papers to read hers first.

And last. I always read it last to give comments and a grade. But I read it first…just for me, I supposed.

I spent equal time on each student’s paper with comments and feedback. Perhaps more time on the others’ because with Syd’s papers the comments flowed almost as effortlessly as her writing seemed to.

I knew of her guilt at leaving her little brothers behind in Queens. But also of the near desperateness in her to become something more than what she saw every day. There was obviously much more to the family dynamic at home than she disclosed in her writing. I could almost see the point where she would yank her fingers off the keyboard, teetering at the edge of the abyss of her deepest feelings. Then slowly edge herself back to safety.

That safety in her writing was something I wanted, as her instructor, for her to break through.

And as someone interested in her in other ways, I wanted to protect her from going beyond her safety point.

Coming out of your comfort zone was one thing. But I sensed with Syd there was something pretty deep that needed, at least for now, to continue hibernating.

Demons could be fought later on, when you were a bit more removed from them, and not when you were in a new environment, trying (in Syd’s case, desperately) to fly under the radar and blend in.

She turned away from me and I took my hand out of her hair, watching the strands, so black against my winter-white hand, softly fall and drift down to lay against her back.

Her back to my chest, I considered waking her, but I let her sleep on. We’d gone at it hard, and for a long time. And though I had dozed for a little bit after, I was now too energized to snuggle into her without being selfish and rolling her under me for Round Two.

Or Four. Whatever, I’d stopped counting. (Who am I kidding, I’m a guy, we don’t ever stop counting that kind of shit.) It would be Round Four.

Instead, I carefully extricated myself from behind her and swung one leg over those gorgeous, latte-colored thighs, and got up from the couch.

I grabbed my jeans from the floor and slipped them on, leaving the top button undone. (Chicks loved that, right?)

I took my long coat and covered Syd with it. It didn’t quite reach her shoulders, and although I would have loved to see the creamy curves on display, I used the scarf I’d given her to place upon any exposed skin.

It was February after all. And the sweat we’d worked up (
a lot
) was cooling off now, at least on me.

I pulled my T-shirt from the floor, my hoodie from the chair, and put them on as I made my way around to my desk. I angled my chair so I could see both my laptop screen and Syd as she slept on.

Defenseless, her guard down, she seemed so much…softer. Watching her, I felt a small pang in my chest. I had better be careful here. Yes, Syd was from Queens, and one tough chick, but she was also young and I was in no position to offer anything more than this, what we’d just spent the last few hours engaged in.

For one, there was the student thing. I didn’t think anyone would string me up for sleeping with my assistant after she’d been my student, only because I’d be gone in a few more months. It wouldn’t be worth it to the administration.

And I didn’t intend on continuing on with teaching, though I was enjoying it much more than I’d thought I would.

But it could hurt Syd. And that couldn’t happen. Not because of me.

For another, I had no intention of starting
anything
long term. Not when I was trying—clawing—to get back to serious writing.

No. Not serious writing. I’d done plenty of that in the past five years.

I needed to do some serious
finishing
.

That’s why it was so perfect for Syd and me—beyond the whole code of ethics thing. (I never had been one for codes being impressed upon me.) She knew I’d be gone in a few months, never to return. She had three more years here at Bribury in which to find something more serious—if that’s even what she wanted.

The other reason it was perfect was although Syd was certainly a reader, she wasn’t one of the many—
many
—women I’d encountered who wanted to “heal” me because they were obsessed with Aidan Colly of
Gangster’s Folly
and mistakenly thought we were one and the same.

Yes, Syd was that great blend of someone I could hold a great conversation about books with, but who wasn’t an overzealous Billy Montrose fan.

Though, shit, after making her come four times, she’d
better
be a Billy Montrose fan now!

Smiling at my own guy-ness, I started going through the notes she’d transcribed this morning.

God, had it just been this morning when she’d been here and left the note about quitting?

A shot of panic swiped through me now as it had when I first read the note and realized that being an insecure ass was going to cost me something great.

I’d quickly gone back to my apartment, loaded up some more boxes to show her how much more I needed her. I had seen the gift-wrapped scarf on my coffee table where I’d thrown it the night that I’d thrown my little tantrum, and grabbed it too. I’d rushed back to the office, then texted her, holding my breath that she’d answer.

Yeah, there were a lot of moments in the past five years that I’d acted in a way in which I was embarrassed. But none more so than when I’d laid into Syd for reading my stuff.

And she’d nailed it at the time—I’d been embarrassed that she’d seen my secret shame. I hadn’t written beyond a few pages of a new book in over five years. Paralyzed by fear, or others’ expectations, or lack of discipline, or whatever.

It sure wasn’t because I didn’t have any ideas. At last count there were over two hundred beginnings of stories on the laptop that now glowed in the dim light of my office.

With one more glance at Syd, and again thinking she probably needed sleep more than she needed me pawing at her again, I opened a new Word doc and typed the words I’d typed nearly every workday for the past five years. Chapter One.

Syd let out a little murmur in her sleep and I pulled my fingers from the keyboard like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. She turned slightly, burrowing deeper into the old, soft couch. It was a great couch, and I’d taken a few naps on it. But its stock had skyrocketed today. Maybe I’d even see if they’d let me buy it and take it with me at the end of the year. It would fit, just barely, in my already-cramped office in my already-cramped apartment.

Taking my gaze from Syd and returning it to the blinking cursor (damn that thing taunted me), I was about to start the first line of a new story, when I stopped.

I sat back in my chair, my heart beating a little faster, my palms becoming sweaty. I took a deep sigh, glanced at Syd once more to make sure she was sleeping and wouldn’t witness what might quite possibly be an epic fail, and one that would end in another tantrum, or worse, tears.

I closed the new doc, not saving it, and went to the
Down In Flames
folder, opening both the notes Syd had transcribed about Esme/Rachel’s story and the book file itself. I read through what I had written long ago, liking it. And then typed the words I hadn’t in so long.

“Chapter Two.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Syd

I
woke up to see Billy at his desk, hunched over his laptop. I watched for a moment from the couch, loving the feel of his coat on my body, and his scarf across my shoulders. I stretched, my body aching in several delicious places, and still he kept typing. And typed. And typed.

God, he was writing! I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I totally sensed it. He was writing. And from the look of determination on his face, I’d guess he’d been doing so for a while. I leaned over and grabbed my phone from the floor where it must have fallen when I was hurrying to get my clothes off of me, and his hands on me. Three-thirty in the morning. My guess was that I’d dozed off around midnight. I didn’t know if he had slept too, but if not, he’d been writing for quite some time.