David: Sophomore Year (Three Daves #1)

LOS ANGELES

Three Daves, Book 1: David, Sophomore Year Copyright © Beverly Nickelson, 2016

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmittedin any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Omnific Publishing

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Los Angeles, CA 90064
www.omnificpublishing.com

First Omnific eBook edition, April2016
First Omnific trade paperback edition, April2016

The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any similarity to real persons, living or dead,is coincidental and not intended by theauthor.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Elson, Nicki.

Three Daves, Book 1: David, Sophomore Year/Nicki Elson–1sted.
ISBN:978-1-623422-41-7

1.New Adult—Fiction.2.College—Fiction.

3.Sex—Fiction.4.Virginity—Fiction.I.Title

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21

Excerpt from "MacBeth Act I scene VII written by William Shakespeare.

Cover Design by Micha Stone

Printed in the United States of America

A Note from the Author

Oh, how I adore being a writer during the digital age of publishing. It made it possible for my publisher to say yes when I had the crazy notion to rewrite my debut novel,
Three Daves
, and split it into three novellas—one for each Dave.

I’ve always said
Three Daves
could be told in any modern era. I became curious to see what it would look like in a current setting, so I time traveled Jen and all her Daves from the 1980s to the new millennium. But don’t worry, fellow 80s lovers—that most awesome of eras still gets a nod through David’s retro playlists.

Writers never stop honing their craft, so while I dug my hands back into the manuscript, I took the opportunity to streamline. The writing’s been purged of unnecessary verbiage and passive phrasing. Scenes have been reworked to “show” more and “tell” less. The narrative is less judgmental. The story is the same, but now it’s told in a more active, engaging way.

I had wicked amounts of fun slicing and dicing Jen’s adventures with her Daves. I hope you all have as much fun reading this new version.

Dedication

For every Brian, Sean, Rob, Rick, Len, Steve, Carter, John, Darren, Craig, Dan, Chris, Patrick, Jack, and mysterious guy from Decatur who inspired the Daves. And to the campus of Eastern Illinois University for being my personal Neverland.

Chapter 1

David. He sent a rush of adrenaline through Jen at just a glimpse of him from across the cropped lawn of the north quad. She felt it even before she was sure it was him. The guy’s washed-out denim jacket, hugging a mid-sized frame, and dark, unruly hair was enough to plant him in her mind.

She and David had met through a mutual friend the previous year, their freshman year at Central Illinois University. David was the guy who always made her heart beat a little faster whenever she saw him. He was the guy she loved ending up with in some cozy corner at a party, talking about music or favorite movies or whatever. But they’d never moved beyond friendship. David had a girlfriend from back home, a girlfriend who just a few weeks ago had joined him at CIU for the new school year. No matter how much chemistry Jen and David might have, she knew he was destined to only ever be her “what if” guy.

She had no idea that by the end of sophomore year, David would catapult straight past “what if” to being the first guy to make her entire body hum. She had no idea she’d lose her virginity so soon. Though she was sometimes embarrassed at feeling like the only virgin on campus, her virtue was a source of pride for her. That day, as she moved past the three-story stone and brick buildings that had been there for more than a hundred years, she had every intention of saving it.

The trees and shrubs at this end of campus were large and bushy, giving it a warmer, softer feel than the sharp, modern southern end where she lived for the second year in a row at Longbourn Hall. Drawing closer to the guy, she could make out more of his details—thick lashes surrounding deep brown eyes, the pouting curve of his mouth as he focused on the hacky sack he tapped with his black Chuck Taylor high tops. It was David, all right.

“Hey!” Jen called, waving. He looked up and tightened his mouth. It seemed as if he’d tried to smile, but it hadn’t worked out so well. “What’s wrong?”

He kept his dark eyes fixed on the rise and fall of the tiny sack. “Ashley screwed around on me.” The bag fell to the ground.

Jen stared at him, her mouth gaping and eyes wide. Ashley and David had been going out for two years. He’d waited all last year for his girlfriend to graduate high school so she could be with him on campus. “How could she do that?”

David shrugged as he bent to scoop up the bag. He held onto it in one hand and picked at it with the other. “She met some guy last week and decided she likes him better than me.”

“That sucks.” Having no experience in the matter, Jen didn’t know what else to say. She’d never had a serious boyfriend, much less one who’d cheated on her. “I’m so sorry, David.” As much as she’d hoped for a chance with him all last year, she didn’t wish this on him. They stood silent for a few moments, with Jen racking her brain for some way to make him feel better. “Some of us are talking about going to Romans tonight. Want to come and drink off your sorrows?”

Romans was what undergrads in-the-know had dubbed the monthly Wednesday night parties held on the same nights that fraternities and sororities—the Greeks—had their date parties. Those who were staunchly independent of the Greek system called themselves Romans. They preferred drinking cheap beer and dancing to retro tunes in a shabby, off-campus house to the more starched Greek functions.

“Nah.” David resumed kicking the sack.

“Okay…well, I’ve got to get to class, but call me sometime if you need to talk about it.” She didn’t actually expect him to. Their talks were usually of the more frivolous variety.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Later that night, Jen was glad David hadn’t come to the party. Soon after being ushered up a narrow, rickety staircase, she’d spotted Ashley’s strawberry blond hair near the bar alongside one wall. The Roman’s house was located a mile and a half off campus, near the central square of the small downtown. The party was held in a spacious, dormered attic. Jen and three of her friends from the dorm had scavenged a ride to town. The girls had become Romans regulars after most of them had opted out of Greek life freshman year. Only one member of the group, Chris, had joined a sorority, but she often blew off the date parties to come to Romans, instead.

The many slopes of the ceiling gave the open space the feeling of having different rooms. Jen stayed in a different section from Ashley, hoping David’s ex wouldn’t recognize her from the few times she’d visited CIU the previous school year. When an upbeat tune from The Cure’s later years kicked on, Jen jumped into the mass of bobbing students who danced at the center of the room.

As one of the party hosts had explained to the girls the previous year, the heavy dose of 80s and early 90s music on the playlist was a nod to the original founders of Romans, two CIU students who were now fabled to have gone on to write sitcoms in Hollywood. David had been essential in cultivating Jen’s appreciation of the post-punk and new wave tunes favored by the Romans. He’d even made her a few retro “mix tapes” that held a special place in her digital music collection.

While she danced, Jen inadvertently caught another glimpse of Ashley. The freshman screeched in excitement and ran over. “Oh my God, Jen! CIU’s awesome!” She threw her arms around Jen’s shoulders and squeezed.

“Yeah… good… glad you like it,” Jen stuttered, pushing out of the embrace. “So, you’re doing okay, then? I mean, about David.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m great!” Ashley gave a spastic wave of her hand. “Why have one cute guy when you can have twenty?”

Jen couldn’t disagree with that logic, but she found it depressing coming from Ashley’s mouth. David was a great guy. He loved Ashley. Why wasn’t that enough? She became overwhelmed with a need to get away from the girl. “Glad you’re having fun. I’ll see you around, okay?” She made off toward the bar, where she’d spotted some friends she hadn’t seen yet this semester.

The next couple of hours passed with the usual chatting, drinking, and dancing. Late into the evening, Jen noticed Ashley again. She was plastered against some guy wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar sticking up. Somebody must’ve left the door open at the frat house.

***

Two days later on Friday afternoon, Chris and Maria, Jen’s friends from down the hall, stood in the doorway of her dorm room. Jen looked through her pocket-sized crossbody purse to make sure she had her phone, money, ID, lipstick, and keys—all the party essentials. Then she stopped in front of the mirror mounted on her closet door to smooth her straight brown hair and put on another coat of lip-gloss.

“Come on! You’re smokin’. Let’s go!” Maria demanded. Easy for her to say—Maria was petite and gorgeous. Her long, flowing black hair was the envy of every girl she’d ever met.

Even still, Jen smiled at the remark. She liked the way her pink cowl neck highlighted what was left of her tan from the summer and complemented her light eyes. Just as she gave her hair one more finger-comb, her phone buzzed with a text. She’d have left it in her purse to check later, but her roommate, Kate, had just caught a ride to the train station. She was going to Chicago to visit her boyfriend, Jake, who studied pre-law in the city. Jen figured she better answer the call in case Kate had run into any transportation problems.

Chris and Maria expressed impatient dissatisfaction when Jen pulled out her phone and read the text.

David: Hey.

Her eyebrows pulled together as she wandered toward the wall-length window at the end of her dorm room. From her eighth-floor vantage point, her gaze drifted along the western border of the south quad to Pemberley Hall, David’s dorm. It was a squat, three-story building of blond brick and glass, basically a shorter version of her building.

“What is it?” Chris asked, giving her golden, chin-length bob a stern shake.

“Nothing.” Jen turned toward her friends. “It’s just David.” She glanced at the phone again.

“Text him from Rocs,” Chris said. She was the mutual friend who’d introduced Jen to David. She’d gone to high school with him. “They’re going to start carding soon.” As long as the girls were seated by five o’clock and had ordered food, they could stay at the restaurant-by-day, bar-by-night, for a few hours before being shooed out.

“I can’t. He just got his heart smashed. This’ll be quick.”

“Text him on the way,” Maria said.

“You know I can’t type and walk at the same time.” Jen’s thumbs moved over the screen.

Jen: Hi. How are you doing?

Before she could get the phone back into her purse, it buzzed again.

David: Not great.

Jen groaned. She’d been looking forward to Friday happy hour but couldn’t leave him hanging, not after she’d offered for him to call if he needed to talk. “Sorry.” She looked at her friends. “He needs a friend right now. You guys go ahead and I’ll try to meet you there before five.”

After her door slammed shut, Jen sat cross-legged on her bed under her posters of Benedict Cumberbatch and Edinburgh Castle and called David.

He answered after one ring. “I came across as so pathetic you needed to call, huh?”

“Well, yeah, kinda.”

After a moment of silence, he said, “I just can’t understand it. The whole reason she and I decided on CIU was because we knew it was a college we could both get into. I could’ve gone Big Ten, easy, but I came here because of her.” He sound more bewildered than angry.

There were so many things Jen wanted to say about Ashley. She doubted any of those would make David feel better about having wasted two years with her, so she bit her lips together until the feeling passed. “What’re you doing right now?” she asked.

“Lying on my bed, talking to you, listening to The Smiths.”

Jen recognized the droning in the background as Morrissey. “Turn that off, David.” He didn’t need any assistance plummeting into the bowels of depression. “Chris and Maria are going to Rocs. Let’s go meet them.”

“Nah. You go ahead.”

“I’m only going if you do.”

“Then I guess you’re not going. I’m not up for socializing.”

“Fine. I’ll take you…” Her mind flicked through quiet, sufficiently non-social places to take him. “…bowling.”

“Bowling?”

“Yeah, the campus bowling alley. It’s cheap, and it’ll probably be mostly empty on a Friday afternoon.”

“Bowling?”

“C’mon. You can’t just lie around on your bed thinking about her.”

“Bowling?”

“Look, I’m trying to help you. I suggest you be a little less smart-assy.”

“All right, let’s go bowling. I’ll meet you in the Longbourn lobby.”

“Great. See you in ten.”

David was already there waiting for her when she stepped off the elevator and entered the lobby. He slouched with his shoulder against the wall and one hand in his jeans pocket. With his mouth pulled into a tight scowl as he stared out the glass front doors, his cheekbones were more pronounced. His gaze shifted onto Jen, and one corner of his mouth curved upward, though his dark eyes stayed sullen.

Damn, tortured looks good on him
, Jen thought, wondering how long etiquette demanded she wait before considering David as fair game. She knew better than to go for a guy on the rebound, but maybe once he’d healed from the Ashley breakup, he could become something more than “what if.” She shifted her mind back into platonic mode and vowed to keep it there the rest of the night.

As expected, the bowling alley was lightly populated. After they’d put on their bowling shoes and commandeered a lane, David asked, “How was Romans the other night?”

“Fun.” She spun her ball in her hand, trying to remember which fingers she was supposed to stick in the holes.

“Good crowd?”

“Yeah. The ususal.”

“Any new faces?”

Ashley flashed across Jen’s brain, but she scrunched her lips together before speaking the name out loud. Instead, she concentrated on lining up her toes with the tiny arrows on the wood floor.

The warmth of David’s body sidled up directly behind her. “Jen, any new faces?” His tone had become demanding.

She turned toward him, but still didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

“Ashley was there.” He sulked back to the chairs and sank onto one. “Was
he
there, too?”

Jen came over and took the seat next to him, cradling the heavy ball in her lap. “I don’t know. There was a guy there, but it might not’ve been the same guy from before.”

David winced.

“Look, I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse, but I talked to her and she doesn’t seem interested in getting serious with anyone. It’s not you that’s the problem. She’s just not ready for commitment right now.”

His shoulders lowered more with each word, and he stared at the floor.

“If you don’t want to hear it, don’t ask me any more questions,” Jen said. “Because I won’t lie to you.”

He nodded, and they refocused on flinging their balls down the alley. David spared and picked up a nine while Jen knocked a total of two pins down. David resumed his seat on one of the molded, plastic chairs and sighed. “I just don’t get it. Was she lying to me the whole time?”

Jen’s ball came back up the machine, and she tossed it down the alley, whooping when she nailed six pins. Then she turned to David. “I’m sure she wasn’t lying. People change their minds. It’s hard to know what something’s going to be like until you’re in the middle of it.” She thought back to her own freshman year. If she’d had an older boyfriend like David keeping her from fully reveling in her newfound freedom, she very well might’ve cut him loose, though she hoped not in Ashley’s slash and burn style. Regardless of Ashley’s motivation, David was hurting. Jen was his friend, and she’d do whatever she could to bring him out of his funk. “You should really look at this as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to what? Wallow in self-pity?” David asked just before landing a strike.

Jen got up to grab her ball. “An opportunity to do whatever you want—hang out with the guys, stay out all night. And no one to answer to.”

“But I want to answer to Ashley.”

“You’re pathetic.”

He let out an offended chuff as she approached the alley.

Jen smiled. “I told you I wouldn’t lie to you.” She dropped the ball. It made it three-quarters of the way down the alley only to teeter on the gutter’s edge for a couple of feet and fall in.