Loud: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Male Romance) (2 page)

A blush warmed my cheeks. “He wasn't looking at me
like
that
.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“No, he
wasn't
. And besides, just look at him.”

“Oh, I
did
, girl, I
did!”
She cocked an eyebrow and grinned.

“C'mon, Les, that's not what I meant. We both know
exactly
what type of guy he is. Tight shirt to show off his physique. Big, flashy bike
to attract attention. Shampoo commercial hair that looks like it takes him more
time in the morning to get ready than you or I take. He's probably a
self-absorbed douchebag who goes through girls like a Pez dispenser.”

“And, if he is? What's wrong with having a little fun
with a guy like that?”

I shook my head and folded my arms across my chest,
feeling a bit of defensiveness creeping in. “Maybe it's alright for
you
,
Les, but I'm…I'm just not that kinda girl, and you know it. Besides, after the
Andrew thing, I mean-”

“Oh my
God,
Brooke,” she exclaimed, giving me
another one of her trademark eye rolls. “I thought we agreed that you weren't
gonna bring up the A-word today. Please, his name doesn’t deserve to be
mentioned. Ever. I know you're still hurting, but seriously, it’s been long
enough, BeeBee. You have to actually
make
an effort
to move on. I've told you a million times: I
can't stand to see you stuck like this, unable to get past what he did to you.
You're never gonna get over him if you carry on like this, you know that. Come
on, you’re a smart girl! There's a
totally
hot guy who's
clearly
attracted to you, and he lives right next door! Look, I'm not telling you to
jump in the sack with him right off the bat. Hell, take things as slowly as
you're comfortable with. But seriously, don't write him off without even making
just a little effort to get to know him! Who knows, he might be totally
different than what you're judging him to be and-”

“He isn't,” I said flatly. I wasn't sure why, but a
burning feeling of annoyance was bubbling beneath my skin.

“You don't
know
that.”

“And, you don't
know
that I’m wrong, either,” I countered. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. Besides, subject
change. He's coming back with his friend.”

Leslie glanced up and saw Emerson coming out of the
apartment building followed by a very muscular, deeply-tanned guy with short,
spiky hair held in place with what I could only guess was an entire bottle of
gel. Bulging muscles screamed against an impossibly tight wife-beater tank. I
tried not to squint my eyes in a way that made it obvious I was questioning his
decision to wear the garish gold chain that hung around his neck. He looked us
each up and down without even trying to conceal it and whistled slowly from
between his teeth.

“Ladies,” he said with a cheeky smile. “Welcome to our
kingdom! I'm Chris, King of the Realm. And, you two are obviously the
princesses we've been waiting for.”

He laughed boisterously at his own joke while Leslie
and I shot each other a sideways glance out of the corner of our eyes and shook
our heads as we chuckled politely. There may have been a little controversy regarding
what kind of guy Emerson was, but there certainly
wasn't
any about
Chris.

He hopped up onto the back of the truck next to me and
pulled his sunglasses down his nose a bit so that he could lock his brown eyes with
mine for a second. I looked away, not wanting him to see the distaste in my
eyes and think I was being completely rude. Thankfully, he seemed completely
oblivious to it.

“I heard you ladies needed some muscle,” he said as he
flexed his enormous biceps. “Well, as you can tell, there's more than enough of
that to go around!” He grinned and flexed in front of us again, prompting a
bout of giggles from Leslie. I couldn't quite tell if they were mocking giggles
or if she was, on some level, actually attracted to this dim-wit.

Again, Chris laughed loudly at his own lame joke, and
I couldn't stop myself from shaking my head and wondering just what type of
girls fell for this guy; no matter how hot his body was, he was a tool.

“Okay, bro, grab that side,” he said to Emerson, who
now seemed a lot more reserved and quiet compared to his loudmouthed friend.

“I got it man,” Emerson said as he gripped the edges
of the sofa.

“Okay, hit it!” instructed Chris, and the two of them
grunted and maneuvered the heavy sofa from the back of the truck.

While Chris was clearly vying for our attention, I
found it easy to ignore his brash arrogance. It wasn’t so easy, however, to
ignore Emerson. While Chris' physique bordered on the ridiculous — there was no
way he wasn’t on steroids — Emerson's was more natural, less extreme, but
powerful nonetheless. I found my gaze lingering far too long on the rippling
muscles of Emerson’s arms as he carried the heavy sofa across the lawn. I had
to admit, the way the afternoon sunlight caught the stubble on his jaw as he
turned toward me took my breath away just for an instant.

Several grunts later (and more ludicrous comments from
Chris), the two of them disappeared into our apartment with the sofa and
emerged a few minutes later, each covered in a sheen of sweat that enhanced
their well-developed physiques. Emerson hung back, dabbing at his sweat with a
handkerchief he'd retrieved from his pocket. I smiled. I couldn’t remember the
last time I’d seen a younger guy carrying a handkerchief. Chris, on the other
hand, walked immediately back over to us, smiling suggestively all the while.

“Any other heavy lifting I could help you two with?
Now or…later perhaps?”

Leslie laughed and folded her arms across her chest. “Thanks,
Chris, but that was the only thing we needed help with. We're super grateful
for your assistance, but I think we’re good.”

“You sure? I mean, that sofa was nothing really.
Nothing compared to what I'm about to go smash in the gym. Seriously, if you
need us to help out with anything else, we're down.”

“Thanks, guys. We’ve got it from here,” Leslie
reassured him.

Emerson took a few steps closer to us and looked up into
the back of the truck. His eyes met mine, and I turned away quickly.

“Are you sure you guys don't need any more help?” he asked,
directing the question at me.

“We're totally fine now, thanks,” interjected Leslie.

“Yeah. We’re good. Thanks,” I said, still avoiding eye
contact.

Chris shrugged. “Alright then, ladies. So, uh, what
time is the housewarming? I'll bring Jell-O shots and vodka. Say nine, nine
thirty?”

“There isn't gonna be a housewarming,” I said, aware
of how cold my tone had suddenly become. “We have a lot of unpacking to do, and
since we have class Monday morning, this has to get done. We're both swamped
this semester, and I seriously don't think we're gonna have time for parties.”

Chris stared at me for a moment and then he shook his
head.

“Whatevs. You only live once, yo. Life's too short to
waste sitting behind a desk staring at books all day. And yeah, speaking of
short, we're gonna be late for gym, bro! Jason already messaged me like ten
minutes ago saying he was waiting for us.”

“Alright,” Emerson replied. “Let's go. See you around,
uh…”

“I'm Leslie, and this is Brooke,” Leslie announced.

“Leslie and Brooke,” Emerson said as if he was completing
his sentence. “It’s really nice to meet you both. I guess we’ll see you around
sometime, and welcome to the neighborhood.”

With that, he climbed onto his bike, while Chris
climbed into a sleek, black sports car. No real shocker there. Emerson started his
bike up and revved the engine before spinning the back wheel as he took off.
Chris winked at us as he pulled out of his parking space. Leslie laughed, and I
couldn’t help but chuckle. When they were gone, Leslie grabbed a box from the
tailgate of the truck and grinned up at me with a look I knew all too well.

“Come on, BeeBee,” she said. “You have to admit you
saw it. Emerson couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. He’s
totally
got a
thing for you.”

“I have to admit nothing,” I fired back, trying to
sound less defensive than I felt for some reason. I didn't want to think about
that guy, or any guy for that matter — not with thoughts of Andrew still
swirling around my head. It had been months; I knew I should be getting over
it, but for some reason, what he had done still haunted me.

“Can we please just forget about it, Les? I'm not in
the mood. Let's just get the rest of this stuff into the apartment. I've gotta
get the truck back to Bryan soon.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “But seriously, you’re
going to have to lighten up sometime.”

Yeah
, I thought to myself.

I am.

But not
today.

CHAPTER
TWO

Emerson

“One more rep, E! Smash it, come on!” Chris growled at
me.

I grunted under the bar as I pushed with all my might
against the unrelenting weight. My arms felt like jelly and a fiery pain
blasted through them as if my blood had been replaced with molten lava. Still,
I delved deeper into the final reserves of strength I had left and extended my
arms up until they locked, completing the rep. With a sigh of relief, I lowered
the bar onto its supports and closed my eyes.

“Yeah, bro! Yeah!” Chris whooped. “New record, yo! Two
hundred and eighty pounds! High five!”

With my eyes still closed, I extended a trembling hand,
which he slapped enthusiastically.

“Of course,” he added, “if you would just try out a
lil', you know,
juice
you'd be pushing
three hundred
and eighty
pounds instead and you’d be doin’ it with ease, like me.”

“Not gonna happen,” I replied. “That stuff… I know you
say it's safe, but you gotta think long term. It does a
lotta
damage to
your body. No thanks, man; I'm just lifting to stay strong and healthy.”

“It
is
safe, if you inject it and cycle it
correctly, like I do. And, look at the results, bro! I'm
ripped
, dude!
Bitches can't get enough of me. Yo, especially those two little hotties who
just moved in next door! What did you think, man? Did they live up to old
Wally's description or what? Don’t you remember last time we went down there to
sort out the rent, he told us there was gonna be two smokin’ hot chicks moving
in next to us and, man? As old as he is, he sure ain't blind. They
are
fine.
Especially the quiet one, what was her name?”

“Brooke,” I replied as I sat up from the bench and
dabbed the sweat from my forehead with a gym towel.

Chris punched me playfully in the shoulder.

“I saw you checking her out, bro. Don't deny it.”

I shrugged. “I admit, she’s gorgeous. But man, she's
got a bit of an attitude, don't ya think? I mean, we hauled that heavy sofa up
three flights of stairs for her and she could barely find it in her to mutter a
thank you? Yeah, she may be hot, but with a personality like that, I can't say
I'm all that interested in getting to know her much.”

Chris scoffed. “Why you gotta get to know her, bro? I
didn't say you should date her or make her your girlfriend or nothing. Shit,
just get in there, have some fun, and then move on to the next one, before
things get 'complicated' as chicks always like to say.”

Because I'm
not like you, Chris,
is what I
wanted to say, but didn't. Instead, I merely shrugged. “She's just not my type,
man,” I replied. “I don't wanna waste time with a chick that I would just never
be compatible with in a million years. And besides, you heard her – she's gonna
have her nose stuck in books the whole semester, anyway. She sounds like an
overachiever. Nah man, seriously, just forget about it. And what about you,
huh? Why don't you see if you can pull something off with her roommate, Leslie?
She seemed like a lot more fun-loving than Brooke. A little more your speed.”

 
“I dunno, bro,”
he said with a shit-eating grin pasted across his unnaturally tanned face. “If
you're not gonna go for Brooke, I think I just might get in there myself, know
what I mean?”

A sudden flicker of jealousy flared up inside me — as
much as I wanted to deny it.
Stay the
hell away from her
is what I wanted to say but, again, I didn't. I took a
moment to try to suppress the unwarranted reaction and then replied in a tone as
calm and unemotional as I could muster, “Yeah, sure, whatever. Go ahead, if you
wanna waste your time on a bore like her.”

“Maybe I will,” he grinned, apparently completely
oblivious to the rage bubbling just beneath my skin.

“Hey, check it out,” he said, changing the topic and
pointing across the gym. “Melissa.”

I looked up and my heart sank. It was definitely
Melissa — and she had seen us.

“Here she comes, bro,” Chris whispered as Melissa
stepped off of her exercise bike and headed over to where we stood in the free
weights section.

Melissa has had a crush on me for, well, I don't know
how long. As long as I could remember. We'd had one or two
moments
together, but they'd always been when I was drunk. It wasn't that I wasn't
physically attracted to her. I mean, any guy would be. She had a killer body
and was a beautiful girl, but something about the kind of person she was not
only put me off, it kind of repulsed me.

Chris, though, was super into her. It was pretty
obvious to everyone but him that those feelings weren’t reciprocal. For
whatever reason, it was
me
she was into. And the more I tried to push
her away, the harder she tried to get into the zone. To make it worse, Chris
would encourage it because whenever Melissa would want to hang out with us,
she'd bring along a bevy of hot friends, most of whom were airheads who fell
head over heels for his ripped body and lame jokes. It was easy pickings for
him.

I admit, they were fun to be around for a while, fun
to drink with, but I didn't care for the pressure Melissa always put on me. And,
it would always end up like that when we had parties at our place. Chris and
the other guys would be chatting merrily away with Melissa's friends, while she
would manage to maneuver me away from the crowd and get alone.

Time to put my powers of resistance to the test again
— not that it would be an issue since I hadn’t been drinking.

“Well, hey there, guys,” she said as she walked toward
us, exaggerating the swaying of her hips as she did. It looked like she'd just
had a session in the spray tan booth. Her entire body was an even, honey-toned
hue. It was hard to
not
to notice since most of her tanned skin was
revealed in her skimpy gym outfit. It also looked like she'd just been to the
cosmetic dentist; her teeth seemed impossibly white against her skin. I
suddenly found myself wondering if anything on her was real. I knew her chest
was fake — I won’t go into details about how I knew — and as she turned around
(on purpose, I'm sure) I had to wonder if there were implants in the back, too.
Such a perfectly round, firm rear just didn't seem like it was, well,
real.

“Hi, Mel,” Chris said. “Working hard over there?”

“You bet. I'm a certified personal trainer now. Did
you know that?”

She was speaking to Chris, but her eyes were on me.

“No way! Nice, girl, nice! So you're gonna be in the
gym all day, every day now, huh?” he asked.

“That's right.”

“Damn, girl, I wish I could spend that much time in
here.”

She turned to me. “And what about you, Emerson? Do you
wish you could spend all day every day in here, too? With
me?”

“Um, well, I like the gym,” I replied uneasily,
avoiding eye contact, “but uh, I'm way too busy with other stuff to even think
of doing something like that.”

Melissa rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

“You're
still
persisting with that boring-ass
science shit? You could be out making good cash right now, Emerson. You could
model, for one thing. I told you, I've got connections to get you good-paying
jobs. Or you could get serious about the gym and get your personal training
certification like I have.”

“I'd have to drop out of college to take those jobs,
Mel. They're all-day shoots, and often in different cities. And besides, I
mean, thanks for the compliment and everything, but I just don't want to be a
model. Science is my passion. Physics-”

“Is so lame and boring.” She rolled her eyes again. “And
seriously, what are you gonna do with that when you graduate? Teach high
school? There's no money in that.”

“It’s not about the money. Like I said, it's my
passion and-”

“Hey, guys,” a new voice interrupted me. I glanced in
its direction and saw Emily, one of Melissa's friends. She was dressed all in
pink, and her bleached-blonde hair was done up in two bouncy pigtails. Like Melissa,
she was well-built. And also like Melissa, I couldn't really be sure how much
of it was real or how much of it had been surgically enhanced.

“Well, hey there, sexy,” Chris replied, looking Emily
up and down with unabashed lust in his eyes. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I'm totally awesome! You guys are looking good,
all pumped up and sweaty, huh?”

“We've been crushing the lifts, yeah. Emerson here
just broke his personal bench press record; he nailed two hundred and eighty
pounds, yo.”

Emily beamed a toothy grin and me and clapped her
hands with delight.

“Nicely done, Emerson!”

Not to be bested, Chris had to interject. “Well, it's
decent…for Emerson's standards. He's got a long way to go to get to four
hundred pounds, though,” he said as he folded his arms across his chest and
not-so-subtly flexed his upper body muscles to a point of bulging. “Just keep
working hard, though, bro. We'll get you there.”

“Say, what are you guys up to tonight?” asked Mel.

“I'm-” I began, knowing where this was gonna go.
Chris, however, also knew where it was gonna go, and he wanted it to go there.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, interrupting me before I
could complete my sentence. “We've got no plans. You ladies wanna come over to
our place for a drink or two? Then maybe we can head out and hit the clubs? It
is Friday, after all, and the last weekend before the new semester starts.”

“Now, that sounds like a plan,” Melissa said, staring
straight at me with a suggestive glint sparkling in her blue eyes. “I’ll bring
the vodka.”

***

I needed to get out for a while. Chris had been playing
Call of Duty
for over three hours and
I could only take so much war. The sounds of grenades exploding and machine
guns firing were driving me a bit nuts, especially coming through his huge
sound system. It sounded as loud in my room as it did in his, whether the door
was closed or not. The walls inside our apartment were paper-thin.

I walked past his door and knocked on my way out. “Hey,
dude, I'm going to get out of the apartment for a bit, maybe walk down the
road. I might pick up some chips and whatever on the way back; you want
anything?”

“Nah, bro, I'm good,” came the reply, almost drowned
out by a hammering machine gun blast that seemed to rattle the walls
themselves. I wondered if the new neighbors could hear Chris' game, too.

As soon as I stepped out of the front door, I had the
chance to get an answer to that question, but I never asked. Brooke was stepping
out of her apartment at the exact same time. An unexpected thrill rushed
through my veins at the sight of her long raven hair spilling over her
shoulders, revealed so casually through a strappy top. She was dragging what
seemed to be a pretty heavy garbage bag out of the apartment. I walked over to
her and smiled.

“Hi, Brooke.”

If she was happy to see me, she didn't really show it.

“Hi, um…”

“Emerson,” I reminded her.

“Sorry, I'm terrible with names. I forget my own
sometimes.”

“No worries, it's not the easiest name to remember.
Hey, do you need a hand with that?”

“No,” she replied a little too quickly it seemed.
“I'll be fine on my own.”

“Um, are you sure? That bag looks pretty heavy. I'm on
my way out, I really don't mind helping you get it down to the dumpster.”

She paused for a moment, staring at the garbage bag. I
could tell she was internally debating about whether to let me help her or not.
I won't lie, it kind of annoyed me. I mean, come on, was her stuck-up pride
really so important that she was gonna break her back hauling a garbage bag
that weighs a ton
just
to avoid having to interact with me? Sheesh. I've
encountered some ice queens before but this one seemed to be a freakin' ice
empress
.
But still, those eyes of hers, they did something to me…

“Alright,” she responded quite unexpectedly. “Yeah,
I'd be super grateful if you could help. The previous tenants didn't clean the
place out too well. I called the landlord, but he said it would be Monday
before he could get anyone out here to clean it. I can’t stay in such a mess
until then. So we are doing it.”

“Sounds fun,” I chuckled as I walked over to grab the
bag from her.

“Loads. They left a lot of broken stuff lying around.
We've spend the whole afternoon picking up their mess. And, Leslie is such a
trooper. She’s scrubbing the bathroom. I won’t even tell you what kind of
disaster area that is.”

“Yeah, I remember those two. They were a couple of
nerdy guys. Spent all their time playing online games, smoking weed, and eating
junk food. I can’t say I'm surprised they left the place trashed.”

I grabbed the bag and grunted as I lifted it up. It
was
heavy. Made me wonder what the hell the dorks who'd previously lived in
the place had kept in there. “Damn, did those guys have an S&M dungeon in
there or what? Feels like this bag is full of old leg irons and steel
handcuffs!” I joked.