Off Campus (36 page)

About the Author

Amy Jo Cousins writes contemporary romance and erotica about smart people finding their own best kind of smexy. She lives in Chicago with her son, where she tweets too much, sometimes runs really far, and waits for the Cubs to win the World Series.

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Look for these titles by Amy Jo Cousins

Coming Soon:

Bend or Break

Nothing Like Paris

Sometimes you have to play love by ear.

Fever Pitch

© 2014 Heidi Cullinan

Love Lessons, Book 2

Aaron Seavers is a pathetic mess, and he knows it. He lives in terror of incurring his father's wrath and disappointing his mother, and he can't stop dithering about where to go to college—with fall term only weeks away.

Ditched by a friend at a miserable summer farewell party, all he can do is get drunk in the laundry room and regret he was ever born. Until a geeky-cute classmate lifts his spirits, leaving him confident of two things: his sexual orientation, and where he's headed to school.

Giles Mulder can't wait to get the hell out of Oak Grove, Minnesota, and off to college, where he plans to play his violin and figure out what he wants to be when he grows up. But when Aaron appears on campus, memories of hometown hazing threaten what he'd hoped would be his haven.

As the semester wears on, their attraction crescendos from double-cautious to a rich, swelling chord. But if more than one set of controlling parents have their way, the music of their love could come to a shattering end.

Warning:
Contains showmances, bad parenting, Walter Lucas, and a cappella.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Fever Pitch:

Giles tuned the instrument, then taught Aaron how to bow, when to use his wrist and when to lift his arm. While it wasn't exactly
necessary
Giles touch Aaron's arm to help him move it correctly, it certainly didn't hurt his education.

He didn't complain, either, when Giles lingered a little longer than the demonstration warranted.

Aaron was, of course, a natural. He winced when his first attempt at bowing elicited a screech, but it wasn't long before he knew how to produce a crisp, clear sound.

“Good job,” Giles told him. “You'll do well with fingering too. Kids use tapes when they learn, but with your ear you won't take long to pick it up.”

“It's so clear.” Aaron pulled a long, strong A, then an E. “This has to be more Henrietta than me.”

“She's not a cheap date, no. She was my birthday, Christmas, and—” He stopped himself from saying
get-out-of-the-hospital-for-the-second-time present.
“She was expensive, so she has great sound. But the player still has to bring it, or she won't sing.”

Aaron played a few more notes, riding the four strings up and down. “I love orchestras. Strings make me shiver.” He stole a shy glance at Giles. “When you play the double bass for Salvo, I get chills every time.”

Never, ever would Giles have guessed he could get so hard talking violin. “I'm a lot better on Henrietta.”

Aaron's cheeks flushed with color. “I'd love to hear you play sometime.”

Sweet baby Jesus.
Giles wanted to put Henrietta on the chair and push Aaron to the floor. “I'll play for you right now. But let's give you a chance to shine first. How about I teach you a song?”

From Aaron's reaction, Giles would have thought he'd offered to give him a million dollars. “Can I learn ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb'?”

“Too tricky for your first attempt. I was thinking more ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. It only uses two strings, and it has the benefit of teaching you a lot of fingering at the same time.”

This lesson involved more touching as Giles helped Aaron apply his fingers to the board, showing him the right pressure and position. As he'd anticipated, Aaron had no trouble keeping his notes on pitch, and Giles only had to explain the very basics before Aaron taught himself the song. When he finished, he laughed and flourished his bow, flush with pride.

Giles clapped and grinned. “Well done, maestro.”

“Thanks. That was fun.” Aaron passed Henrietta and the bow over. “Let's hear the real deal now, though.”

Giles tucked Henrietta to his shoulder, his fingers sliding easily into position on the bow. “What do you want to hear?”

“Anything.” Aaron settled into his chair. “Pop, classical—anything. Though—if you know anything with the plinky-plinky sound?” He mimed plunking strings on an imaginary violin.

“Pizzicato? Sure.” He plucked a few arpeggios, stomach flipping at the way it made Aaron smile. “Now the question is, do you want something classical and official, or do you want me to make you giggle when I play ‘TiK ToK' pizzicato?”

Aaron burst out laughing. “Shut
up
. Seriously?”

Giles grinned. “I'll consider that a request for Ke$ha.”

He launched into the song, and Aaron laughed so hard he fell sideways. But when Giles started to lower his violin, Aaron waved him on as he wiped his eyes and rose, heading to the piano. “Keep going. I have an idea.”

Giles started the song over, and goddamn if Aaron didn't pound out harmony on the piano like the music was in front of him. Not wanting to appear a slouch, Giles stepped up his game, adding some flourishes whenever he could. Aaron kept playing, never missing so much as a note.

“Now switch,” Giles called out as they cleared the bridge. “You pizz on the piano, and I'll bow the harmony.”

Aaron frowned, but it was a stare of concentration. “There's no such thing on the piano. How do I—?” Then he grinned. “Got it.
Go
.”

Giles tried to keep his brain three steps ahead of his fingers, working out the harmonics before he played them, wanting both accuracy and elegance, because of course Aaron brought both. Aaron's “pizzicato” was staccato beats in the upper register, sometimes with harmony added, sometimes not. Sweating, Giles did his best to keep up, a task difficult partly because of the notes, partly because it took everything in him not to break out in giggles. Though as soon as they finished the song with a ridiculous flourish, they both bust out laughing.

“That was
awesome
.” Aaron wiped at his eyes. “Oh, shit—I want to do more.”

“What about ‘100 Years'? It gives good pizz. Do you know it?”

Aaron stared at him, his look unreadable.

Giles faltered. Was he pissed? Annoyed? “I— Sorry—”

He stopped as Aaron grinned and rolled his eyes before his fingers moved over the opening bars with the precision of someone who'd long ago memorized the song.

Oh.
The look had been incredulity, Aaron insulted at the idea he
didn't
know the song.

Grinning, Giles joined in, playing pizzicato through the first verse, but as Aaron filled out his harmony, Giles started bowing.

When they hit the chorus, Aaron began to sing.

Giles didn't know why Aaron's vocals hit him so hard—it
wasn't
because he crushed on him, though that didn't help anything. It wasn't so much that Aaron's voice was some kind of perfect harmonic, though it was. A million people had great voices, though.

Not many opened a vein quite like Aaron.

Giles stopped worrying about looking good and focused on the spaces the piano couldn't cover, never overpowering Aaron's voice but rather lifting him up, easing the spaces between the notes so when he sang, he soared even higher. Giles forgot about making mistakes, forgot about everything in the world that wasn't playing with Aaron.

When the song ended, they held still, gazes locked, hands frozen on their instruments.

Aaron broke the silence, his voice soft and heavy. “‘With or Without You'?”

Giles lifted his bow and glided gently into the lead.

The magic of the moment let them play like gods. Giles rose through the song as Aaron put in a gentle baseline, just enough color to finish things off. Aaron took up the vocal melody, soft and sweet, his pretty tenor resting oh so tenderly on each note. He turned the song into a lullaby, ignoring all bait to belt, which only made the vocals more powerful. It was so beautiful Giles had to close his eyes.

I love him.
His heart swelled and spilled over as they rounded into the final chorus.
I'm so in love with him I can't even ask him out. I want to lie at his feet, want to smooth out all the wrinkles in his life and make everything okay.

I can't ever tell him, because if I'm wrong, if somehow he doesn't want me, my life would be over. I'd rather have this than nothing.

Someone as wonderful as him can't want someone as awkward as me. There's just no way. There's no fucking way that's real, no matter how much I want it to be.

Aaron closed off the song with a chord—with a soft pull on Giles's bow, it was done.

The music hung in the air between them.

Giles lowered his instrument. At the piano Aaron let his fingers fall from the keys.

They stared at each other, breathing hard but silent, neither wanting to break the spell.

He's waiting for you to ask him out.

I can't, I can't, I can't.

The door to the rehearsal hall opened. Giles and Aaron startled, turning away from each other as if they'd been caught kissing, not staring. It was one of the other quartets coming in to practice, and the members greeted them both warmly, apologizing if they were interrupting.

“No problem,” Aaron told them. But he cast one last longing glance at Giles.

I can't.
Except there was nothing,
nothing
in the world Giles would rather do.

The wrong secret can poison everything--even if it's kept with the best of intentions.

Weight of Silence

© 2013 A.M. Arthur

Cost of Repairs, Book 3

Gavin Perez knows he's a living cliché. He works a dead-end job, shares a trailer with his waitress mom, has an abusive, absentee sperm donor, and he's poor. So color him shocked when middle-class, white-bread Jace Ramsey agrees to hang out with him.

Granted, Gavin is trying to make up for dumping a bowl of cranberry sauce on Jace at Thanksgiving. And boy, is Gavin forgiven, over and over again…until Jace goes back to college for finals and stops returning Gavin's calls.

Back home from the semester from hell, Jace doesn't want to do anything but sleep through the holidays. It's easier than coming out to his family—or facing Gavin's hurt. But Gavin's ready forgiveness draws them back together, and Jace won't be able to stay in the closet much longer.

Nor will he be able to keep hiding his pain. He trusts Gavin with his body, maybe even with his heart. But can he trust that a devastating secret that's eating him up inside won't destroy everything—and everyone—he loves?

Warning: This book contains one slightly hyperactive hero from the wrong side of town, a frustrated college student looking for a little life experience, and an unexpected romance amid dark secrets that just won't stay buried. Also contains references to physical abuse some readers may find disturbing.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Weight of Silence:

At precisely 1:21 p.m., Gavin Perez dumped an entire serving bowl's worth of cranberry sauce on the most adorable boy he'd ever seen. Gavin knew the exact time of the saucing because his mother had just asked him for it (the time, not the sauce), and the only reason he wasn't looking in front of him was because he'd glanced down at his cell phone.

Head down + Push door = Disaster.

He couldn't blame his mother. She'd asked an innocent question. Gavin should have stopped walking long enough to check his phone and answer her question. Should have. Did not. Usually did not and/or could not. They'd never had the money for an official doctor's diagnosis, but Gavin had all the major traits of adult hyperactivity.

Plus he'd read a bunch of books on the topic. After twenty-three years, he figured he knew a heck of a lot about himself, including his incurable need to multitask from waking to bedtime. He also had a long mental list of mishaps and accidents caused by his need to be on the move and going at optimum speed. The cranberry sauce collision just jumped to the top of said list.

And to be fair to himself, the incredible cutie he'd sauced hadn't seen him either, or gotten out of the way. They were both trying to go through the same door at the rear of the diner—Gavin into the back room and Cutie Pie out of it and into the dining room. The door had a wide window at eye-level, probably to prevent such accidents during regular business hours, and neither of them had used it.

Gavin had stopped short the moment he realized he'd caused an accident, and Mama ran right into his back, which nearly made him ram into the door a second time. He grabbed it as it swung back at him, ignored Mama's curious squawk, and peeked around the corner.

Cutie Pie gaped down at the huge splotch of red goo clinging to the front of his white dress shirt. Most of the sauce was still in the bowl, but some had dripped to the floor and onto his shoes. He hadn't even looked up yet to see who'd dressed him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. But in a diner as small as Dixie's Cup—and with so many people rushing around getting food out to the counter—they'd already drawn a small audience.

“
Dios mio,
” Mama said. She'd inched around Gavin to see what had stopped him. “Oh dear, that's going to stain.”

“My mother made this from scratch,” Cutie Pie said to the bowl of sauce.

“Most of it is still in there,” Gavin replied.

He thought it sounded helpful, but Cutie Pie gave him a sour look. “It splashed all up on my shirt. Do you think people want to eat cotton fibers with their cranberry relish?”

“Sorry.” That sounded horrible, even to Gavin's ears. “I mean, I'm sorry about hitting you with the door.”

“My fault too.” He gave the cranberry relish such a forlorn, kicked-puppy look that Gavin was struck momentarily speechless—and that didn't happen often.

“Look, dinner doesn't start for twenty minutes,” Gavin said. “I'm sure we can find some canned sauce somewhere.”

“On Thanksgiving Day?”

“No need,” Mama said. “We have some in the stock room. We can doctor that up and use it for today.”

Cutie Pie blinked. “Why does Dixie have canned cranberry sauce in stock?”

“For Barrett's Gobbler Panini. It's a lovely sandwich he does on special once a week.”

“Oh.”

Gavin gave himself a mental head-knock. Ever since Dixie had splurged on a Panini press two months ago, her night cook Barrett McCall had been experimenting with combinations. The Gobbler had been a success from the first day. Mama had called Gavin in to taste test it before it went public, and he'd called it “Thanksgiving on a bun”.

Barrett had corrected him and said it was “Thanksgiving on ciabatta”.

“Great. Problem solved,” Gavin said.

Mama ushered the three of them into the small, cramped back room of the diner. She took the bowl of ruined sauce from Cutie and stuck it in the large industrial sink, then disappeared to root around for the canned sauce.

“Half the problem is solved,” Cutie said. “I need to change.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, sweetie,
very nearly popped out of Gavin's mouth. That would have been incredibly embarrassing. The simple fact that Cutie Pie was here helping out with Dixie Foskey's annual Thanksgiving Feast meant she knew his family, which meant Gavin should know him too. After all, Gavin's mom had worked for Dixie for over ten years and Cutie Pie was awfully familiar.

“I mean, my shirt's ruined,” Cutie added.

“Not necessarily,” Gavin said.

“So big red spots on white shirts are fashionable now?”

The light-hearted tease gave Gavin hope that he hadn't made a total disaster of a first impression. “Well, maybe in a hipper town than Stratton, but we can save the shirt.”

“How?”

“Take it off.”

“Hey, Jace, what's—oh.” A brown-haired girl stopped in the back room doorway, eyes wide as she took in the pair of them. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Minor accident,” said Cutie Pie, whose name was apparently Jace.

Light bulb!

Gavin knew exactly who they both were now. Jace and Rachel Ramsey, twins, college sophomores, children of Keith Ramsey, local police officer. The Ramseys had been staples of the diner for years, and Gavin had seen Jace dozens of times before without getting lost in the dark shaggy hair, the wide brown eyes or the dimples that wanted to say hello even when he wasn't smiling.

College had been good to Jace Ramsey.

“But we're going to fix it,” Gavin said, giving Rachel a bright smile.

“How?” she asked. “With blindfolds?”

“Cute. No.”

Gavin rescued the ruined cranberry relish from the sink, grabbed Jace by the wrist, and dragged both items around to the small bathroom. He ran the water in the sink until it warmed up, then pulled the stopper and dumped half the cranberries into it.

“Take your shirt off, please,” he said again.

Jace gave him a dubious look but unbuttoned his shirt. Gavin reigned in his instinctive need to check him out—ogling while trying to be helpful was rude—and took the shirt once Jace had stripped it off. Gavin shoved the whole thing into the pink water, which enticed an adorable squeak of protest from Jace.

“Trust me,” Gavin said.

“Do I have to?”

“It's too late now.”

When the sink was half-full, Gavin turned off the water and swirled the shirt around in it. He realized too late he should have been using gloves, because the water quickly stained his cuticles pink. After a minute of soaking in silence, he released the stopper.

“There should be a hair dryer in that basket of stuff beside the toilet,” Gavin said. “Can you find it and plug it in?”

Jace hesitated then turned around to rummage. He bent over, instead of squatting down, and the narrow room gave Gavin a lovely view of his ass in those black linen dress pants. An ass that was connected to a trim waist and a lean, smooth back… Nope. Gavin snapped his attention back to rinsing out the shirt. The white material was now stained pink all over, instead of only on the front, and by the time the rinse water ran clear, Jace was back with the hair dryer at the ready.

They tag-teamed the shirt until the newly pink fabric was dry enough to wear and only smelled slightly of fruit.

“That was kind of brilliant,” Jace said after he'd put the hair dryer away.

“I was an accident prone kid. Sometimes you have to get creative when there's no money to buy new clothes.” Gavin wasn't ashamed of growing up poor. Most people in Stratton knew him and his mother, and they also knew his father was a deadbeat asshole who Gavin had vowed to kill if he ever laid a hand on him or his mother again.

Jace eyed the shirt but didn't put it on. He didn't seem to know where to focus his attention—the shirt, the floor or Gavin. The bizarre nervousness made hopeful little butterflies spring loose in Gavin's stomach. He hadn't actually lucked into meeting someone his own age in town who was—

“Hey, you guys coming?” Rachel asked. She appeared in the doorway, and her thin eyebrows shot up when she saw the shirt in Jace's hands. “Wow, you fixed it.”

“Kind of,” Jace said.

“It's all one color now. I call that fixed.”

“It's pink.”

“Yeah? So are roses and baby butts. Suit up, bro, I'm hungry.”

Gavin laughed before he could stop himself. He liked Rachel already.

Jace gave him a look that seemed to say, “Don't encourage her,” then put on the shirt. Gavin didn't say it out loud, but he allowed himself a moment to appreciate the fact that Jace looked very good in pale pink. It lightened up his brown hair and made him even more boyishly adorable than he already was. Gavin, with his mixed Mexican and Hawaiian heritage, never had the complexion for pastels.

“All you need is a black string tie,” Gavin said once Jace buttoned back up and presented himself for inspection. “And maybe a jacket to sling over your shoulder. It's very Sinatra.”

“Great, I'm channeling a dead singer,” Jace said. He was smiling though, which gave Gavin hope that he hadn't made a complete fool of himself.

“A dead singer who had men and women falling all over him.”

Jace's eyebrows jumped. “And probably a mafia boss or two puppeteering his entire career.”

“A man who knows old Hollywood.” Gavin had to mentally stop himself from falling head over heels into insta-crush with Jace. “Where have you been my whole life?”