Again (9 page)

“Okay, return my jacket
then,” he said, calling my bluff.

I considered calling his
bluff right back, but I had no idea where my sweater was. Even if it was inside
somewhere, it was probably on the floor covered in beer. If I gave him his
jacket I would be walking to the dorm in only a bra.

And he was right. I needed
to go to the dorm. I was wasted.

Neither of us spoke for a
long minute; the sound of the party raged behind us, the wind howled around us.

“You should know, I picked
you even before I even knew what you looked like in your bra,” he said, blushing,
his words slapping his cheeks pink.

“What about after?” I asked,
moving closer to him, even though I shouldn’t. There was something undeniably
sexy about a guy who saved you, especially when there was no doubt you were in
desperate need of it, even if it wasn’t for the reason he thought.

He swallowed and put his
hands in his pockets against the cold.

Would he have picked me if
he knew who I really was? I mean, I was a grown-ass woman he was trying to take
care of. Or was my age the only thing that made me different from the girl I’d
been in college?

He kept his gaze fixed on
mine. “What’s it look like?”

The ground was suddenly even
more unsteady. The star-filled sky was whirling above me. The guy running the
carnival ride of my life had switched it to high.

Would I even be able to find
my way to the dorm without Carter? Would I be able to find Steph and Alex again
if I went back into the party?

Did I even want to?

“Lead the way, Prince
Charming,” I said finally.

“I always preferred
Superman,” Carter said, widening his shoulders like he was showing off his own
S
.

“Too many dimples,” I
replied, my attempt to show that even the one dimple on his chin would never
work on me. Of course, where was my proof considering I was choosing him over
more beer and debauchery?

We walked slowly toward the
quad, mostly because I was stumbling.

“You should have taken my
offer to study tonight. At least you’d still have your sweater.”

“So in addition to studying,”
I said, drawing his coat tighter around me, “You also rescue girls you deem
worth rescuing.”

“When they need me,” he
said.

We moved over the snowy
quad, the frosty ground sparkling in the overhead lights, billions of tiny ice
stars.

“I might need you tonight,”
I admitted, fighting to keep from slurring, “but I don’t
need
you.”

He shrugged, “Whatever you
say.”

“I won’t let that happen
again,” I vowed. It couldn’t.
What was wrong with me? Had David been right?
Was I just an out of control drunk?

Even when I was trying so
hard not to be, it was still what I became eventually.

“You’re in college, it
probably will,” he said, the air coming from his mouth as gray as thunderclouds
in the cold.

“I hope not. I’m kind of
trying to work on not drinking so much. I sort of have a problem.” It was the
least assured sentence I’d ever uttered, but the most I’d ever admitted to
anyone regarding my drinking.

“You’re a freshman,” he
said, both a statement and a question.

“I know,” I said, trying to
craft a response, but my mind was hazy. Did freshman think they had drinking
problems? Even if they did, did they care?

He put his hand on my
shoulder. “Listen, I’ll give you my cell number just in case.”

“I didn’t know Superman made
house calls,” I said, sobering up slightly from the cold. I was thankful he wasn’t
pushing me to talk about “my drinking problem.”

“Not house calls,” he
smirked, “house
party
calls.”

I laughed a thankful laugh.
A laugh I hoped told him I did need him, even though I couldn’t.

We got back to the dorm and
stood under the portico. He reached over to me and slid his hand into his
jacket pocket to get his keycard.

Touching me, even in such a
casual way, ignited something simmering between us the whole walk—since we’d met.
The heavy air between us was suddenly on fire.

 
He was so sexy. The kind of guy Veronica
would have said was worth ruining your panties over. The problem was, a lot of
them weren’t and they got ruined anyway.

With liquid courage, liquid
thought eradication, I launched myself against his chest and kissed him, his
lips hard and soft and rough and smooth and wrong and right and terrible and
perfect all at the same time. His hands eased under the jacket, cold shocking
my warm stomach. A moan trembled from his lips, the sound like a boiling teapot
about to whistle. I forced my hips against his, practically crawling on top of
him. He was hard, hot against me.

What I felt swelling through
his jeans was more than strong enough to break rule number two in half like it
was a board and he was a karate master. I went for his fly, frantic to feel his
pounding dick on the smooth skin of my hand, but he jerked back and took a deep
breath.

He shook his head. Uncertainty
clouded his demeanor like he’d been asleep and had awoken suddenly. He put his
hands on my shoulders. “Sorry, I’m not supposed to do this.”

 “Neither am I,” I said,
reaching for him again, even though he could have no idea what I’d meant.

“No,” he explained, “I
should not be kissing you, or doing any of the other countless naughty naked
things I want to do to you right now. We need to stop.”

“Why?”
Was he seriously
saying no?
This twenty-two year old college student was more mature than
me, able to put what he should do above his base desires.

Well, was I surprised
considering what I’d done at the party?

“As much as I want this to
happen, I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t because you’re drunk.”

“So?” I asked, suddenly
wanting to be nineteen again through Carter. Going back to make better choices
was one thing, being here and able to live like I was nineteen again was a
gift, something—when it came to Carter—I should not waste. I wanted him inside me,
to be on top of him, licking his neck, his chest, his taut stomach, the dimple
on his chin that
had
gotten me.

Sure he was seven years
younger than me, but guys did it all the time. David had done it with me.

“So,” he said, breathing out
and composing himself. “I don’t sleep with girls when they’re drunk.”

“Then you probably don’t
sleep with a lot of girls,” I said, playing with the button on his pants.
And
you’ve probably never slept with a woman,
I thought, wishing I could say it.

“I’m also your RA,” he said.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

His eyes were on me for
seconds moving like hours. I could tell he was considering it, struggling
against the chemistry between us, trying to let his body take control instead
of his mind.

“I’m sorry, I wish I could,”
he said as he guided my hand away and started to let us into the dorm. “You can
bring my jacket back tomorrow.”  

“Forget it,” I replied,
starting to pull it off. “Take it now.” If he was rejecting me, whatever his
reasons were, there was no way I was facing him in tomorrow’s embarrassing
morning light.

He stopped me. “Sleep well,
and please take care of yourself, Kate,” he said, squeezing my shoulder and
walking toward the stairs. I guess he didn’t want the added temptation of being
in an enclosed space as we rode to our floor in the elevator together.

Instead of going up to my
room, I fell back onto the couch in the lobby, trying to switch myself off. Kissing
Carter had turned me
on.
 I was buzzing like a bee.
I was ready,
open for business. If another guy would have walked in, it was possible I’d
jump him—no questions asked.

I saw my reflection in the
huge lobby windows, Carter’s coat so big and puffy it made me look like a
linebacker from the waist up, my makeup smeared from our kiss, from the party.

He was right. I did need to
take care of myself. How the hell did I do that?

Until I figured it out,
starting over wouldn’t matter.

Kate

I opened my searing eyes: wall
sized windows and a crappy, scuffed tile floor reflected by a crappy, stained
ceiling. It took me a moment to realize I was lying in the lobby with Carter’s
coat wrapped around me. The light coming through the windows was a sickly gray,
which meant it was now the start of week two.

As I sat up, the night
before came into humiliating focus. At least I was alone. Rule number two was
sort of intact, but only barely. It wouldn’t have been if Carter hadn’t stopped
us.

Aside from the terrible
night’s sleep, I was starting the first day of week two half naked and hung over.
The way so many days had started before I got here. The way days weren’t
supposed to start anymore because I was here. I touched my forehead. The cold
was soothing, but the pounding was revoltingly familiar. Brought me right back
to the morning I’d conceived this idea.

This crazy plan that now,
too, couldn’t even keep me on the right track.

Maybe I should have gone to
rehab, but then I’d only be sober. Being here was supposed to help me start my
life again. Become the Kate I should have been if college-take-one hadn’t
happened. I was already failing.

Like they say,
wherever
you go there you are.

I was Kate, and no matter
where I went, she would follow me. She would get wasted and leave her expensive
new clothes at frat houses and practically sleep with a guy seven years
younger—a really nice guy who was an insanely good kisser and had abs as tight
as woodblocks under his skin.

I shook my head, then,
remembering the pain, moaned instead, blowing out a long, contemplative breath
tinged with stale beer.

I wondered if Steph and Alex
had come back in and left me lying here—or worse yet—Dawn, up early and already
out for the day. I reached into my pocket for my phone and checked my mirror
app,
phew
,
no penises
, not even the severed demon variety.

I slowly stood, shuffled to
the elevator, and headed to my room craving only sleep, wanting only to forget
everything that happened the night before. But it was impossible. Carter’s
concerned face floated in front of me.

Hopefully I hadn’t humiliated
myself beyond forgiveness last night.

The elevator ride was
solitary, interminable. Standing sucked. I headed down the hall, slipped into
the bathroom quickly, and bee lined it to my room. I opened my door slowly,
trying to slink in quietly and not wake Dawn, but she was already up. She sat
on the corner of her tightly made bed.

 Had she been waiting for
me? Maybe even been worried about me?

“So, you slutted it up
already,” she said, her eyes tight, like she was disappointed. The thing was, she
had absolutely no right to be. I mean, I’d just met the girl.

Sure, I told her I wouldn’t
be anything like her last roommate, but that hadn’t been a lie. It had been
more of a lapse.

Though who was I kidding? I
was exactly like her last roommate, hung over and wearing the coat of the guy
who’d stopped me from slutting it up.

“No, I passed out in the
lobby,” I said. It was easier than explaining. I hung Carter’s coat on my
chair.

“Then why are you in only
your bra and jeans?”

“Sweater thieves,” I replied,
pulling off my boots, then my jeans. Dawn watched me the whole time.

“But you had some guy’s
coat,” she said, glancing at it. “So maybe he has your sweater,” she reasoned.

“What do you care?” I asked.
I was not in the mood to be judged, I was doing a fine job on my own. I pulled
on a T-shirt and got into bed.

“I don’t,” she sneered. Her
lips were black, her eyes lined in it, too
.

Full makeup at five-thirty a.m.?
Maybe she slept in it. Maybe she was even more committed to her character than
I was.

I pulled the covers over my
head. I wondered if Steph and Alex were snoozing next door, both happy with the
night they’d had, not feeling like more of a loser because they had a hypercritical
mirror who wore safety pins in her ears staring back at them.

“At least you didn’t bring
him back here,” she said.

“I didn’t bring him anywhere,”
I retorted from under the blankets. She didn’t need to know what I’d tried to
do. What he, someone years younger than me, had to stop me from doing. In terms
of maturity at least, it appeared I had nineteen down.

“I told you it would happen
to you, always does.”

I swallowed a guilty
swallow. I hadn’t wanted it to happen at all, let alone so soon. “Thanks for
the lecture, Dawn. It’s the cherry on top of my hangover.”

“Not a lecture,” I heard her
shrug, “simply a statement.”

“Yeah, well, you can shove
your statement,” I said, sitting up to glare at her.

“Try to hurry with your
implosion,” she flitted her hands out in front of her. “I’d really like a
single room again.”

Before I could respond, she
grabbed her shower caddy and headed for the door. “Enjoy your hangover,” she
yelled, slamming it behind her much harder than she had to.

What the hell had I done to
her? Other than meet every expectation she’d had for me.

The echo of Dawn slamming
the door rang in my sore head. Even she couldn’t keep me on the right track
when I wasn’t in this room.