The Opposite of Nothing (3 page)

“Rein it in, Romeo.” If he were quick, if he’d paid attention, he might have heard her gasp when his mouth was mere inches from her skin. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.

As if on cue, one of his groupies appeared. Meg, all sleek black bob and doe eyes. Callie and Tayber only had one class together. Lucky Meg had at least two since they shared a major. Callie tried to picture Meg as an English teacher. She could see Tayber breaking hearts at the head of a class, but not so much Meg. Meg looked like she belonged at the helm of an edgy fashion magazine. Callie couldn’t see herself in charge of anything.

Apparently oblivious to the fact that Tayber was currently holding Callie’s hand, she bumped her hip against him. “Hey, you. Are you headed to the library? I need a study buddy for today’s quiz.”

Hello. I’m right here. Do you not see that we are in the middle of a personal conversation?

Please don’t ditch me to go make out with her in the stacks. Please don’t. Please don’t.

“Sorry, I’ve got plans.”

Yes, he does. Thank you very much. With me.

“Alrighty then. Catch ya later.”

Callie braced herself for a snarky comment or a dirty look, but Meg only nodded, flashing a grin that could be interpreted as a challenge or begrudging admiration. Before she could decide which it was, Tayber tugged her back to reality.

“Let’s eat.” He propelled her out of the room.

Nothing felt natural anymore. She was too self-conscious, too aware of his touch. Too aware of everybody looking at her. She might never be able to look at him directly again.

The dining hall was a treacherous place, filled with people she kind of knew, but not really, and she was never certain where to sit unless directly invited. Usually she tried not to come during peak times, instead choosing to eat when she could be sure of an empty table. Lately she hadn’t been coming much at all. She had a kitchen now. She could make her own less-than-stellar food.

But today, Tayber was her cruise director. He’d engraved her invitation with a cocky flourish, and she followed him into the depths of social hell. She wasn’t even hungry, barely noticing the food she picked up as they wove through the lines.

Tayber set his tray on an empty table and grabbed half a sandwich off hers. Chewing, he sprawled in a chair. He never just sat. Spreading his legs, rocking back, dropping an arm across the chair beside him, he took up as much space as possible.
Stupid boy.

“So when were you going to tell me?” A few crumbs drifted into his lap as he spoke.

“Tell you what?” Her heart stuttered as a curl of ice twisted in her belly.

“About your boyfriend, space cadet.” He waved the stolen sandwich in the air for emphasis and rocked even further back in his chair.

“Oh, that. I don’t know.” She slumped, dropped her head into her arms and watched him from the corner of her eye.
Never, because I’m a big liar.

“He isn’t going to be a douche about you and me hanging out, is he?” He wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve and let his chair slam back to its upright position.

“No, he isn’t like that.” Her situation wasn’t just hopeless, it was ridiculous.
I have to come clean.
She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat and started to tell him that she didn’t really have a boyfriend, but when she opened her mouth all she could manage was a pathetic little “uh.”

“Good. Who else is going to save my ass in Statistics?” She’d be pissed if that’s all she was to him. The smart girl he took pity on because she helped with his math homework. But he licked his lips and smiled his sunny, dimple-busting smile. “I’m happy for you, Callie.”

She was gutted. Be jealous, you big jerk. Be pissed. Be anything but happy.

“I have to go. Meet him. Before my next class.” The lies, they just wouldn’t stop. Next she’d be planning an imaginary wedding. If she were looking for more ways to destroy their friendship, she couldn’t have done better.

“Later.” And he was grabbing his stuff, ready to swoop in on a gaggle of girls she knew he’d spotted as soon as they entered the dining hall. He was like a compass drawn to the magnetic north of hotness, and she was the pitiful South Pole. Except last night, when she could have melted ice caps. She shivered at the thought and clutched her books tight against her chest.

“Yeah, um, later.” She wasn’t sure where she was going. Certainly not to meet her fake boyfriend. She needed to go. Away. Immediately. She fled. She was always fleeing him lately.

“Callie!”

She turned around and he was right there. He grabbed her shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “If he isn’t decent to you, you tell me. Okay?”

She could only nod. His palms were so warm and he was so close. His cologne, the scent that was so him it haunted her dreams, fogged her brain.

Meltdown in three, two—

“He better appreciate what a good girl he’s got.”

One.

I don’t feel like a good girl.
Soft lips, warm and dry, touched her forehead. The spark of heat radiated over her scalp, down her neck, and across her chest. For a split second her mind went blissfully blank. She forgot everything except the feel of his mouth on her skin. Stunned, reeling in the middle of the dining hall, the truth of their situation returned. The truth of her lies.

She ran, hoping he wouldn’t realize that she’d never told him her fake boyfriend’s name.

* * *

L
unch cut short, Tayber made a pit stop in the career center. The lady at the front desk introduced herself as a ‘job coach’ and handed him a survey.

“I’m looking for anything that doesn’t require a lot of experience. I can start immediately. I’ll work any shift that doesn’t conflict with my existing class schedule. I’m desperate.”

She nodded sympathetically. Tapping her chipped nails against the desk, she encouraged him to take advantage of the self-help materials and local job postings.

He’d rather shove a dull pencil in his eye than tutor the person who’d posted the ‘you’re English skills are needed’ flier, but he grabbed it anyway. Who used red ink on blue paper? That and one for a house-sitting gig. ‘No weirdos. No pets.’ He wasn’t sure if those were requirements or job perks. At this point in the semester, the job center was more suited to finding internships and capital C careers. He needed fast cash, like human-guinea-pig fast. Where were the medical test subject fliers?

He scanned a small business card seeking nude models for an art class. ‘$50 a session Suite 314, Arden Hall.’ That wasn’t bad money, but stripping for cash turned his stomach. Even if it was for educational purposes. Even if he’d get paid with crisp twenties in a clean envelope, not sweaty singles shoved into a g-string. He’d seen behind that curtain. Maybe back in Denham that was all he could’ve been good for, but he’d come to Copeland to escape that spiral. To try, at least. If he started peeling off his clothes now, what was the point?

He waved the house sitting flier at the job coach. “You know anything about this one?”

“Oh, that’s been filled. I was supposed to take those down yesterday.”

Blowing off Lit, he hauled ass back to his dorm, crushing the pale blue paper in his sweaty fist. He’d leave a message about the tutoring job. Maybe he’d swing by Suite 314 just to see. Modeling wasn’t really the same as stripping. For starters, the art department probably didn’t offer the models a line of coke at the beginning of their shifts. Of course the least distasteful job was taken. Dignity didn’t mean much when you were facing eviction. Hadn’t he heard his mother say those exact words more than once?

* * *

“C
J Evans here at WCCC, The Cube, with Random Nonsense. Regular listeners, all five of you, I’ve got the blues. The actual, gritty, blow-your-mind, blues. So I’m going to shut my mouth and let Bessie Smith tell you all about it.”

She tapped a cracked jewel case against her laptop after she cued up the track. Usually she worked from her MP3 collection, or the music library at the station, but when she’d found this cover-less CD in a Goodwill bargain bin, she’d slipped it into her purse without thinking. Impulsive and reckless and stupid.

As she’d darted across the parking lot, head down against the wind, it had practically vibrated against her hip. She’d glanced back to see if an angry manager was on her heels, leaned against a dusty delivery van parked at the far corner of the lot, and fished it out. It was like the Sexy Lips gloss incident all over again. Only her mother wouldn’t find this buried at the bottom of her underwear drawer, drop it into her lap at the dinner table, and drag her back to the drugstore by her ear.

Fingers trembling, she’d been poised to return and, if not confess her crime, at least sneak her contraband back to its proper place. The Essential Bessie Smith. Sunlight had hit the CD at the perfect angle to cast a prism of blinding light in her face. She’d raced home to listen.

With the first illicit burst of horn, she’d been lost in a kind of time travel. She wasn’t wearing headphones, she had one ear pressed against the wall of a 1920s gin joint. She’d rocked, eyes closed, body thrumming with the callused-finger caress of each scratch and hiss in the recordings. A phantom curl of cigarette smoke tickled her nose. And the voice, the voice that reached across the divide to grab her by her shirtfront, was a belt of whiskey against the back of her throat. The smooth burn of shameless passion, and the ragged edge of need. She drifted right back to that place every time she played it.

As the track ended, she cross-faded from Bessie into an indie rock anthem that bordered on power ballad. She liked to think of her juxtaposition of old and new music as a quirky trademark. Really, she played what she wanted to hear and hoped no one ever analyzed her song choices for deeper meaning.

Jessa, her partner on the air and former roommate, smoothed a hand over her auburn dreads. She snatched the cheat sheet off the desk and rolled her eyes as she read. “Can you play something that doesn’t make me want to slit my wrists?”

Callie stuck her tongue out. “You know, I only hear the sad songs lately. I may even start spinning some country.”

Jessa widened her heavily lined eyes and leaned over to grab a CD off a teetering stack. “Perish the thought. You need some ska in your life, stat. Maybe some thrash metal. Something you can dance to by yourself.”

“I don’t dance.”

“Everybody dances. You’re just too wrapped up in who you’re dancing with. Or who you aren’t dancing with, more likely.”

Was she that transparent?

“You don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Don’t try to play me. Random Nonsense has been nothing but a thinly veiled love note for the last few weeks. I don’t know who. I don’t care who. But you need to do something about it.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

She waved the CD at Callie. “Get out of your own head for a while. And if you keep sticking your tongue out at me, I’m going to pierce it.” She clicked her own silver stud against her front teeth as punctuation.

Wasn’t that part of the problem—Callie spending too much time in someone else’s head? She cued up more Bessie.
Need a Little Sugar In My Bowl.

A tiny icon in the corner of her screen let her know she had a new message. No, scratch that, Sasha had one. She didn’t dare read it with the way-too-perceptive Jessa around as a witness. She closed the email program so no more alerts popped up and returned her attention to Random Nonsense. It was Jessa’s turn to pick a few tracks.

She phoned in the rest of the show, unable to focus on anything but the email waiting for her. The one with Tayber’s dorm number in the subject line. The one that she absolutely should not read, and certainly could not read until Jessa left.

“I’ll pack up here. I’m free for the rest of the evening,” Callie offered.

Jessa smirked, and Callie realized she’d just made a terrible tactical error.

“Free, huh? In that case, meet me at The Brick later.”

“Maybe.”

“We’ll dance. We’ll drink. We’ll get you out of your crazy hamster wheel head. I see you thinking, don’t think I don’t.”

“I said maybe.”

“Your maybes always mean no. Come. You need it.” Jessa shrugged her messenger bag over her shoulder and blew Callie a kiss as she darted out of the sound room. “I know about these things. Trust me, Callista.”

Jessa was the only person who didn’t use her nickname. She’d gotten it off the roommate notification sheet and clung. It was too exotic for anyone else to use.

Back in her apartment, finally alone, Callie opened the illicit email.

Did you fall asleep while we were talking last night? I was up for another hour, and you never came back. I wish you would let me call you. It’s hard to type all the things I want to say.

I’ve got all this family shit going on and talking to you takes my mind off the drama. My brother keeps leaving me these messages. I can’t even listen to them. Hearing his voice after all these years... it’s too much. I’m glad he’s alive, but I’m not interested in reconnecting. Cold, but he deserves it. He bailed on us when we needed him. Now, I don’t need anything. Except a job. And to hear from you.

If by some chance you decide that you’d finally like to call me, don’t bother using the number I gave you before. I broke my phone and I don’t know when I’ll have the cash to replace it. I’ll probably get a new number, since Aaron keeps abusing my old one. But then I’d have to update everyone. Seems like too much work. He’ll stop calling, eventually. Call my dorm.

I know you won’t call. And that’s okay. But sometimes I dream about it, what your voice would sound like if you read your messages out loud. How would you say cock? I want to hear you say it. Would you whisper it? Would you growl it? Either way it’s hot. Or you could just listen, if you wanted. I’d do all the talking. Tell you where to touch and when to stop. I’d tell you to taste yourself because I can’t do it myself and listen for the slip of your finger between your lips. Let me make you gasp.

Do you think about what I sound like? Are you imagining it now?

-T

God damn him. She was.