The Singles (70 page)

He tilts his head back and his expression changes, the mockery edging away into a guilty smile. “Is it that obvious?” Before I can answer, his lips touch the tip of my nose. Then I feel them against my temple as his hand cups my neck. And finally, he hovers his mouth right over mine and my breath hitches. “And what happens after we do this?” he wonders aloud.

“We pretend it never happened,” I suggest, feeling my head go cloudy when he finally—finally—skims his lips across mine before immediately drawing away. “We pretend that—”

“Do you think you’ll come in here three days a week and not want to do it again? Or that you won’t want more?” At my silence, he shakes his head. “Because you will. We both will. And if my boss, as you call her, finds out what we’re doing...”

I lean away from him as what he just said has a chance to drown into my brain. Crap. Here I am coming on to him and I never stopped to think that it might impossible for him to act on anything because of Professor Cameron. Turning away from him, I nod my head fiercely, wanting the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

“I won’t lose my job if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says quietly, “but it’s still unprofessional.”

“Oh.”

“Come here,” he orders, pulling me against his hard body. My chest hits his, and he feathers his fingers across my skin to touch my cheek and tilt my face up to his. “I want to touch you. Want to kiss you.” When I nod, his tongue flicks out and drags across the center of my lips. “Jesus, I’ve been trying not to do this.” I don’t have time to breathe before he covers my mouth with his.

As his lips learn mine, I mold against him. I open my mouth just slightly, giving him a chance to slip his tongue inside. Our lips and tongues crush against each other, tasting and exploring. My hands grip his black hair, and I pull him deeper into me. He taste good, smells even better, and ripples of pain and pleasure shoot through me as I feel his hands all over me.

“You feel so good, so right, Evelyn,” he groans against my lips. “I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in a very long time.”

Suddenly, that wary part of me—the one that was reluctant to even be around him in the first place—snaps awake. And I can’t help but wonder if he would be kissing me now if he knew everything there was to know about me? Breaking away from him, I stumble backwards. We’re both breathing heavily, our skin flushed and our lips swollen, and we stare at each other for several seconds.

“Fuck, Evelyn—” he begins, but I shake my head.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp, shoving past him. I grab my bag from the chair and burst out the room, struggling to breathe as I run down the steps and leave the building. He doesn’t follow me, but I also don’t stop moving until I’m in the freshman parking lot. I sit in the front seat of my car with my stereo volume cranked to the max and Skylar Grey serenading me about slowly freaking out.

The song is ironically accurate for my current situation.

“Shit. Shit!” I yell at myself, gripping the leather steering wheel. He had given me exactly what I asked for, and more, and the second it was over, I bolted like a fool. Catching my reflection in the rearview mirror, I make a face at myself. “Get a grip!”

As if agreeing with me, my purse starts to vibrate and when I pull my phone out, I see that it’s Kendra. Jabbing my radio’s power button, I answer. “You sound like you just finished running a marathon,” she says, her voice full of curiosity. “Alright, you’re upset. What’s up?”

I run my hands over my face. “I ... I just kissed my voice instructor.”

“The fifty-year-old woman who scares the hell out of you?” I can clearly picture her eyebrow lifting into a perfect arch.

“No.” When I finish answering her, I feel my frustration with myself spike with every word. “Her twenty-something assistant who I shouldn’t want to be around in the first place.”

“Ohhhh.” I hear a rustling noise and then she says in a soft voice, “I thought you pulled out of lessons with him. At least, that’s what you said you were doing last month.”

I roll my gaze up to the tan-colored ceiling of my car and hunch down in my seat. “I caved.”

“And then you kissed him. And since you’re breathing like that, I’m assuming you ran.” When I don’t answer because I’m close to tears, she releases an understanding sigh. “Why
did
you run?”

“I never said anything to him about meeting before,” I say, and before Kendra can give me one of her speeches on telling the truth, I defensively add, “I figured all it would do is make things awkward between us.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

I don’t know, which scares the ever-living crap out of me. It’s taken all my willpower not to act hastily because whenever that happens—well, that’s when everything goes to hell for me. Closing my eyes, I rest my head forward against the steering wheel’s smooth leather. Almost instantly, thoughts of how Rhys’ forehead felt pressed against mine hits me hard. I blow out a harsh breath and shake my head in hopes it’ll help knock the images from my mind, but of course it doesn’t. The memory is firmly cemented there now—a brand new addition to both the vault of
What-the-hell-was-Evie-thinking?
and
Why-the-fuck-doesn’t-Evie-ever-follow-through?

“You’re letting me be selfish again,” I suddenly tell Kendra. Plus, I’m more than ready to steer this conversation to something else. “What’s going on in
your
life?”

She sounds reluctant to change the subject but after a little coaxing from me, she asks me what my plans are for Founders’ Oktoberfest, which is coming up in two weeks, before giving me the best news I’ve heard all day. “Save me a spot on your floor. I’m hitching a ride with a guy from my Spanish class, and I’ll be there all weekend long.”

“Are you kidding?” I don’t even try to hide my excitement because this is something I absolutely need. When she assures me that she’s definitely coming, I realize I’m grinning. “And now the next two weeks will officially be the longest of this entire year.”

“I know. As soon as he told me he’d be coming up to Founders for the weekend, I practically stalked the poor guy. He thinks I’m certifiably insane.” For the next few minutes, the focus of our phone call is strictly Oktoberfest until she has to go to head to an evening class. Before she hangs up, she offers me one last bit of serious advice.

“Talk to the guy. You’ll feel so much better if you do.”

––––––––

K
endra’s wise words are still weighing heavy on me an hour and a half later when I go to dinner at a tiny sandwich shop right off campus with Nathan, his roommate from last year Harrison, and Corinne. But while Kendra’s words play in my mind, so does vivid images of Rhys himself.

Every time I close my eyes, I can picture him right in front of me, his off-black hair messy and just screaming for me to run my fingers through it as his own hands entwine in my hair. His soft lips demand everything from mine. It’s both distracting and unnerving, and it takes so much more effort to relax enough to carry on a normal conversation. Even then, my roommate is quick to point out how preoccupied I seem.

Raking my mind for something that will firmly shove my ass into the dinner table conversation and appease Corinne’s nosiness, I finally say, “Tell me about Oktoberfest.” I move my gaze from Nathan to Harrison and note the massive shit-eating grin that springs onto the former’s face. The corner of my mouth twists up. “Okay, you look
way
too happy about this.”

“Best weekend of the year,” Harrison promises me. “Best parties, best looking girls, best—”

“He’s been coming for Oktoberfest since he was in high school and his brother went here,” Nathan interrupts, “So it’s like Christmas for him. It was good last year—well, the parts I remember at least. Michaela’s coming in from Vegas for the weekend.”

“
Nice
. I can’t wait to meet her.” I take a bite of my meatball sub and wash it down with a sip of my Coke. “My friend Kendra is coming too.”

Nathan widens his blue eyes in mock surprise, and I can already guess what he’s about to say. “What’s this?” He gazes around the table in shock before leaning forward to get closer to me, and I give him an unimpressed look. “The elusive Evie Miller will be letting us meet one of her friends? I’ve got to admit, I’m kind of scared.”

Chucking my balled up straw wrapper at him, I laugh. “Whatever. And besides, I never said anything about you meeting her.”

Corinne looks up from her phone and lifts her shoulders. “You’re probably the most mysterious person I know.”

“Oh come on, is everyone going to start piling on me?” I clear my throat uneasily, and Harrison holds up his hands and shakes his head. Rubbing my tongue over my teeth, I heave a deep sigh and glance from Nathan to Corinne. “One thing. Ask me one thing and I promise I’ll answer it.”

Nathan jumps all over my invitation before Corinne has a chance to process it. “Why’d you come to Founders?” At the hesitation that must be obvious on my face, he shakes his head impatiently. “Don’t look at me like I just sprouted a damn horn. You said one question, so there it is. There are so many colleges around Bristol—why this one?”

Twisting my napkin, I tilt my head to the side. “Because I went to one of those colleges last year, and I flunked out,” I admit matter-of-factly, surprised that I don’t feel any of the shame that used to come along with owning up to the bad situation I’d created for myself.

“By the end of the first semester I lost my scholarship, and then when my final grades came through we found out that I was put on academic suspension. My parents freaked, of course, and they gave me a choice. I could sit this semester out, stay at home with them and try again next spring, or I could see if there was another school that would take me. My aunt went here and I grew up listening to her praise this place like it was Hogwarts or something, so I applied. I guess it’s bad to admit I didn’t think I’d get accepted.”

“You’re not going back to that other place next year, are you?” Nathan demands, narrowing his clear blue eyes into thin slits. “I’d miss hearing you give Rhys Delane smart ass answers in class every other day.”

Grinning in spite of the rush that goes through me at the mere mention of Rhys’ name, I start to tell him I have every intention on coming back but then Corinne mutters a curse.

With every eye at our table now directed on her, she offers me a contrite smile. “I suck at messages,” she explains, bowing her curly head. “One, that guy Rhys is gorgeous—like I-couldn’t-figure-out-what-to-say-at-first gorgeous.  And two, he came by looking for you this afternoon.”

I shoot her a warning glare in hopes she’ll get the hint and finish giving me this message later, when we’re alone, but I have no such luck. “He wanted me to tell you to check your email when you get a chance. I wrote a note and put it on your laptop, just in case I forgot.”

“Thanks.” I pretend my half-eaten sandwich is the most interesting thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. I hear Nathan’s low, questioning rumble. “Don’t touch it with a ten foot pole,” I warn.

Signaling for our waitress and the check, he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. I can tell he’s holding back a huge smile as I glare across the table at him. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I personally don’t touch the email until more than twenty-four hours later after Rhys doesn’t even make eye contact with me when we brush up against each other in passing. I’d turned around and followed him with my gaze until he disappeared from sight, instantly feeling a bitter twist in my stomach when he didn’t spare me a second glance. I spent the rest of the day struggling with the urge to go track him down, but in the end, I figured I’d wait to see if he came to me again.

When it’s obvious that he’s not going to do that, I open his email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 5:08 PM

Subject:

This is far from over. Far from it. If you want to figure it out before our next session, you’re more than welcome to call me.

Plus, I have your books and music. You left them when you raced off.

Even though I’ll see him tomorrow in class and I know I’ll be able to get my stuff back then, I realize I won’t be alone with him again until Friday afternoon since Professor Cameron has claimed my time on Thursday afternoon. I massage my temples. I’m not sure I can wait until Friday to clear the air with him. He’s already affecting my thought process, so the sooner I talk to him the better.

When I shut my computer and start to go through the stacks of papers on my desk in search of my Sight Singing and Dictation syllabus, Corinne glances up from where she’s lounged across her bright teal comforter working diligently on a paper.

“Lose something?” she shouts over the sound of the music streaming from her ear buds. It’s so loud that even I can hear Demi Lovato singing about skyscrapers from the opposite side of our room.

I finally spot the syllabus at the bottom of the pile. I flip through it until I find Rhys’ number and plug it into my iPhone. “Nope. I just found it.” I scoot the syllabus back to the bottom of the stack. I change out of my ratty old choir fundraiser tee and into a pair of jeans, a soft black flutter sleeve t-shirt, and a pair of flats. As I dab gloss over my lips and check my appearance in my mirror, I see Corinne pluck out her ear buds one by one behind me.

“You’re going out?” She checks the time on the bottom of her laptop screen and then stares back up disbelievingly at my reflection as I drag a brush through my hair. “It’s a Tuesday. You don’t even go out on the weekend.”

Grabbing my bag and keys and shoving my phone deep inside the back pocket of my tight jeans, I flash a quick smile. “I just have to grab something for one of my classes tomorrow. It shouldn’t take me long.”

Her green eyes follow me to the door. “You look really awesome for a Wal-Mart run,” she calls after me. 

My stomach is tangled into a mess of nervous knots as I text Rhys from the elevator, asking him where I can met him to get my books. Before I reach the bottom floor, he responds with an address. A few seconds later, another text comes through.