On The Floor (Second Story) (9 page)

“Just going out with some friends. We’re planning on going to some of the bars near here. Sort of like a pub crawl, if you will,” he says smiling.

We both start laughing. “You’re a dork!”

“You know you like it,” he says winking at me. And the butterflies start.

“You’re right, I do,” I say, giving him a flirty smile.

“I might be thinking some very unfriendly like thoughts about you right now.”

“Oh really?” I think the butterflies have morphed to birds.

“Mmm… yeah.” He gives the sexiest smile I have ever seen. “It’s pretty hard not to think that way when you come over here in that,” he says pointing at my outfit.

And that’s when I realize what I am wearing. I have on a pair of tiny boxer shorts and a light grey camisole without a bra. My face turns red. I was so excited to see and hear him play again that I totally forgot what I was wearing.

He notices my reaction and his expression changes from one of seduction to one of apology. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You look great. We’re friends and I made you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. Why do I keep fucking it up every time we hang out? It won’t happen again,” he says giving me a friendly smile.

Great. Now I’ve taken the opportunity I had to finally turn our friendship into something more and totally ruined it with my blushing. Silly shy girl. I was being so brazen one minute, the next I’m blushing like a twelve year old.

“It’s fine, Jake. You don’t have to be sorry for anything. We were just flirting. It’s fine. Anyways, I should get back to my project. See you around.” I smile at him and leave before he gives me a response.

Great. Now he’ll never make a move.

***

Saturday is spent doing homework and trying to finish my project.

It’s eleven at night and I am just finishing all of the assignments I have. This leaves me with nothing left on Sunday, so I can have the lazy day I have been dreaming of. Other than the floor meeting, I plan on spending the day in bed with Channing Tatum. Jenna might even join us.

Oh relax! He’ll be on the TV. Unfortunately.

I decide to make it an early night (relative to my other Saturday nights), and turn in. After all of the homework and reading I have done today, my brain can’t wait to turn off and I fall asleep quickly.

***

I wake up to knocking. It’s still dark outside my window, so I look at the clock. Two thirty.

I get out of bed to answer the door, hoping this isn’t an issue with one of the freshmen on my floor. I hate getting woken up only to be thrown into solving some sort of problem.

Another knock and I answer the door. It’s Jake. And he is drunk. I can smell the liquor on his breath and his eyes are hooded. Other than that, he looks amazing. He’s wearing a black fitted T-shirt, tight dark jeans, and his hair looks like he has been running his fingers through it.

I notice he looks sort of sad.

“Hey Jake! What’s up?” I ask stepping aside so he can come in. He takes two steps inside and I close the door behind him. Before I can turn around, he’s moved up right behind me and I can feel his body press up to my back, his hands sliding down my arms to wrap around my hips.

“Why did you run back to your room last night?” he asks, his breath hot on my ear. His speech is totally clear, no slurring. So maybe he’s not as drunk as I thought.

“I don’t know,” I respond. Maybe because you made me want you and then apologized for
embarrassing
me?

“Is it because that comment I made about your clothes? I didn’t mean it. I mean, I did mean it. You looked so fucking hot. Like you don’t even try to be gorgeous, you just are. I thought you were flirting, so I rolled with it. I know we’re just friends, but I want you so bad. Living this close to you. Seeing you all the time. It’s killing me.”

Is this really happening? It must be a dream. He wants me. Bad. His words. What do I do? But I guess I knew that he wanted my body, it’s the other stuff he doesn’t want.

Since I don't say anything, he continues. “Say something! Please, tell me if you want me too. This friends idea was so stupid, I don’t know why I thought I could be your friend. You’re amazing. Beautiful, smart, funny. You’re everything I want, that I never knew I wanted. I think I can be good enough for you, if you’ll give me a chance. Just say you want me too.” He’s pleading with me, like I could ever say no to him.

Is he asking me for more? Is he asking to be with me? I don’t take too long to think about it. I just answer.

“I want you too.” And then he turns me around so we’re face to face.

He looks into my eyes and I can see everything he just told me in them. He wants me.

He grabs my chin and runs his thumb across my lower lip. Tilting my head up, he leans down and kisses me. He tastes like mint and tequila. I am drunk on him.

His tongue slides across my lips and I part them, allowing our tongues to touch. Our kiss is electric, just like I thought it would be that first night I met him.

The kiss starts to deepen as I run my hands up his back and into his hair. His hands trail down my body and stop on my ass. He squeezes and pulls me closer to him. I can feel him hard through his jeans and I want him. I want all of him.

After a few minutes, the kiss starts to slow and he pulls away. He smiles at me. “Best kiss of my life.”

I smile back at him. “I totally agree.”

“I should get going though.” My smile turns into confusion. He sees that and continues. “It’s just if I stay, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. And I don’t want to be drunk the first time we sleep together. You’re too special for something like that.” He gives me a shy smile.

“Ok,” I say and smile back at him.

“See you tomorrow, Rachel,” he says opening the door and walking over to his room. He looks back at me before he goes in and then closes the door.

I won’t be getting much sleep tonight. My body is completely awake and on fire.

***

Sunday morning I wake up at ten thirty after tossing and turning to get back to sleep. I am so happy I could burst. Jake finally told me he wanted me. And that kiss was absolutely amazing. Hot. Sexy. Perfect. I check my phone before I get up to go to the bathroom. Jenna sent me a text last night telling me she found herself a new man. She wants to get lunch so she can give me all the details about the amazing night I missed. She’ll die when she hears what I have to tell her.

I get back from the shower and look over at Jake’s door. It’s still dark in his room, so I walk back into my room and start to get ready to meet Jenna at eleven thirty.

Still no Jake when I go to leave to meet Jenna. We decide to go get sandwiches and Jenna starts telling me about her new man, Will. He’s a bartender at this place called, The Grove. It’s a pretty low-key place. They have live bands every Saturday and it’s a thirty-minute drive from campus, so it’s not really a college bar.

“And guess wha-at!!!” she sings loudly.

“What?” I ask, knowing she’s about to tell me about his friend.

“He has this friend named Nate that you should meet. We think you guys would really hit it off. And I already met him last night. He plays drums in a band. He’s tall and gorgeous. You’ll love him!” She has a huge smile on her face. She’s trying to make up for Mike.

“Well, thanks for the offer, but I’ll decline,” I say with a big smile on my face.

“Wait, what’s the smile for?” She finally notices my happy mood.

“Jake. He came by last night and told me he wanted me. And we kissed. It was… awesome!” I have this huge grin on my face and no matter how hard I try, it won’t go away. Then again, I’m not trying very hard to get rid of it.

“Jake! Oh. My. God! Why did you let me go on and on about Will when you had news like this?!” She looks genuinely excited for me. “Spill. I want all the deats. Not this generic little blurb you just gave me. I want to know where hands were, where lips were, and everything he said.”

I go on to tell her almost word for word what he said. I’ll never forget it. And I describe our kiss in detail, just like she requested. Jenna wouldn’t let me get away with anything less.

“Wow. Sounds hot! If I didn’t have Will I would be so jealous! But I do have Will, so let me tell you about this thing he does with his tongue. Make you a little jealous. Okay, so he starts with my…” and she goes on in typical Jenna fashion describing every single thing that Will did to her with his tongue, fingers, and ahem… other appendages. I tune most of her verbal porn out and think about Jake. What he would be like doing all those things to me.

After Jenna finishes, we get up and start to leave. I notice a group of teenage guys staring at Jenna as we walk towards the door. They must have heard her talking. It’s not like she tried to keep her voice down. She winks at them and blows them a kiss, causing them all to blush. She’s one of a kind.

***

I get back to my room at twelve thirty and see Jake’s light is finally on, so I go and knock on his door. He answers and squints at the bright lights in the hallway. He looks rough, but still gorgeous. He must be hung over.

I give him a big smile as he moves out of my way and gestures for me to come in. I sit on his bed and try to keep my excitement to a minimum. I don’t want him to think I am some crazy stalker who was waiting for him to finally wake-up. Even though that may describe me a little bit.

He sits in his chair and puts his elbows on his knees resting his face in his hands. “Hey,” he says sounding just as rough as he looks.

“Hey,” I say quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Ugh. I’ve got a killer hang over. I drank too much last night. I don’t even remember how I got back to my room. That’s the first time I’ve ever blacked out. I’ll never be drinking tequila again,” he says shivering at the mention of last night’s drink of choice.

And just like that, I am dying inside.

He told me all those perfect things and kissed me, and he doesn’t even remember it. Did he even mean the things he said? Should I bring it up? My face has fallen and I feel like someone just stomped on my heart.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t drink that much,” I say my voice dejected and cold.

He looks up at me. I know he can tell my mood changed, but he looks confused as to why. Then it looks like a light bulb goes off and I feel hopeful that maybe he remembers something about last night and he’ll ask me about it. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I know you had a flaky AM last semester. Don’t worry. I already have all of my stuff done and I’ll be at the meeting one time.” He gives me smile.

So he thinks I’m mad because he didn’t do his job and that he’ll be flaky like Ty. Honestly, I am so upset right now, I think I would rather be back where I was last semester working with a constantly absent AM. I may have been doing everything myself, but at least my heart didn’t feel trampled on.

“Ok, cool. Glad you didn’t flake on me. See you at the meeting!” I say a little too loudly, a big fake smile on my face that doesn’t reach my angry eyes. I can see the confusion on his face as his smile starts to fall.

“See you then!”

“Yep!” I say with my back to him as I walk out of his room.

This is so awkward.

I get back to my room and text Jenna.

Me:
I changed my mind about Will’s friend. Set me up.

Jenna:
What happened with Jake?

Me:
Nothing, as far as he’s concerned. We’ll talk later. I have the floor meeting.

Jenna:
:(

Me:
Absolutely

Jenna:
Come to my room when you’re done.

Me:
Thanks, Jen

At the floor meeting, the awkwardness continues. We keep accidentally talking at the same time and then looking at each other. Then we both start talking again at the same time. Then there is silence for a few minutes.

The group looks really confused and uncomfortable and I know it is my fault. I
could
act normally and pretend that nothing ever happened, but it’s harder than it sounds.

Jake presents his idea about volunteering at the center and a lot of the group seems really interested. Watching his excitement when he talks about the center and the kids he works with brings a real smile to my face. Not like the rest of the smiles I’ve been giving during the meeting.

He sees me smiling at him and his smile grows. I can tell he doesn’t understand why I am so cold towards him, but there is no way I am explaining myself. Maybe it won’t hurt so much tomorrow.

The freshmen going on the trip to LA next week hang around after the meeting and we talk about the details. Jenna is letting me borrow her SUV, so I can take six people with me and Jake can fit four people in his truck, so we don’t need any other vehicles. I go over the hotel room assignments and our plan for the days at the exhibits. Since we are getting student passes for the show, we go over basic guidelines for conduct while we’re there during the day. The group seems excited that they’ll have Saturday night free. Even though they're all under twenty-one, they should be able to find something to do there.

After they leave, it’s just me, Jake, and a whole lot of tension left in the common room.

“Rachel?” I look over at him. He sounds sad. He doesn’t even know how much he just stomped all over my heart. “Is everything ok?”

I put a big fake smile on my face. “Yep. Just nervous about this date I have next weekend. He sounds really great!” I say hoping to do a little stomping myself. I don’t know if what he said last night was what he really felt, but if it was, then he should be feeling close to what I am feeling right now.

“A date?” he asks, his face darkening a little even though he's still smiling.

“Yep. Another set-up, but this guy actually sounds really great. I think he has some real relationship potential, unlike some guys I know.” Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

“That sounds great. Hope you have fun,” he says, a tight smile on his face. With that he picks up his stuff and leaves the common room.