Forgiven (8 page)

“Trust me, it was a onetime thing,” I said, a hint of sadness in my voice. “I’m going to go lay down before Em gets home.”

Jillian looked surprised. “She’s already here. She’s been waiting for you in your room for about two hours.”

Shit!
I checked my phone…26 missed calls. Somehow she already knew what had happened with Caleb. “Oh, thanks.” I forced myself to sound normal.

I walked down the hall to my room, dreading every step. I really didn’t want to have this conversation but I couldn’t avoid it. I just wanted to get it over and done with. I slowly opened the door and found Emily sitting on my bed.

I pasted a bright smile on my face. “Hey Em. What are you doing home so early?”

“Don’t give me that phony-ass smile. I know what happened this afternoon and I know you well enough to know that you’re not okay,” she frowned.

“What do you want me to do, sit here and cry my eyes out for you?” I demanded.

She got up and came over to me. Taking my hand, she led me over to the bed. “Sit down and look at me.” She grabbed my shoulders and made me face her.

“Why can’t you admit you have feelings for him? I saw the way you looked at him on Saturday so I know you do.” I tried to look away, but she ducked her head to keep me in her sights. “And even if you don’t want to do anything about it, I know it bothers you that he pushed you away first,” she said sadly.

I felt the tears build up in my eyes. She was right—she knew me too well. “I know it seems silly because he gave me exactly what I wanted, but it still hurts to know that someone doesn’t want you.”

Emily pulled me into her arms and let me cry. “I know. Just remember he’s not the guy for you,” she said patting my back. “We’re going to find you the perfect man, and he’ll be everything you hoped for.”

I sniffled. “Okay. It’s just that I feel so unwanted right now. I mean I know that I’m not beautiful by any standard, but…”

Emily cut me off, “Don’t start that shit. You are gorgeous.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the mirror.

She pointed to my reflection. “Look at yourself.” I looked but she must have seen something on my face that she didn’t like because she glared at me. “I mean
really
look.” I opened my eyes wide and leaned forward, trying to be a smart-ass. She shot me a dirty look before she continued. “If Caleb Jacobs is too fucking stupid to miss what is right in front of him, then that is his loss.”

I looked in the mirror again, but still didn’t see what she was talking about. I wasn’t going to argue with her, but all I saw were the same boring brown eyes looking back. Emily’s eyes were pale blue and she had light brown hair—not red like mine. If one of us was gorgeous, it was definitely her.

I moved back over to my bed. “The worst part is that I still have to work with him. We’re meeting tomorrow at the library.”

She suddenly looked thoughtful, like she had a plan in mind to torture Caleb. She came to sit down beside me again. Normally I would ignore her harebrained schemes, but this time I wanted to make him suffer…just a little bit. “We’re going to show him what he’s missing tomorrow.”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked mischievously.

She laughed, “We’ll talk about it later. Right now I need to get to class. I just came back to check on you.”

“Thanks. I don’t know what I would do without you some days.”

She hugged me. “I will always be here for you. Now take a nap, because we have a lot to do when I get back.” She got up and left for her last class of the day.

After she left, I lay down on my bed. I knew I had to get Caleb Jacobs as far away from my thoughts as possible. I only had to deal with him for the next week and a half. He would be easy enough to ignore in class—we’d never interacted before, so why should that have to change? What was it about him that made him so different? I had to come to grips with the fact that he didn’t want me. I realized that it didn’t matter. My mother hadn’t wanted me, and neither did my father. He’d been reminding me of that fact for years. I survived his abuse—I could easily deal with one asshole.

With that realization, I closed my eyes. I knew I had a lot of work to do if I was going to get this project done early. The less time I spent with Caleb, the better.

Emily came back to the apartment right after her last class. She’d spent the entire class plotting. Heather had also come back from class. After we ordered a pizza, Emily and I filled Heather and Jillian in on what happened over the weekend and today. They agreed with Emily and the scheming began.

“He’s a fucking assmunch,” Heather said, disgusted. She was very much like Emily—both more than willing to speak their mind when you pissed them off. You would never know that looking at her. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and she was petite—only about five feet—but she made up for it with her spitfire personality.

“He needs to regret asking to forget that kiss,” Jillian agreed.

Emily had
that
look on her face and I knew I was in trouble. “Don’t worry ladies, I have a plan. But first we need to root through the wardrobes.”

Heather smiled, “Let’s go. We can skip my closet—her legs are too long for anything I might have.”

“We can start with mine,” Jillian piped up.

“Excellent! We’ll make that boy sorry that he ever even kissed you.” Emily said as she dragged me back to Jillian’s room.

For the next hour I must have tried on a hundred different outfits, until they finally found the right one. I knew for sure that if Caleb had never regretted anything in his life, he was certainly going to regret his decision today.

I decided to leave early to meet Angie at the library. I knew she had class until one-thirty, but I wanted to be there when she arrived. I was excited to see her, even though I knew it was wrong. As long as I watched her from a distance—I couldn’t bring her into my problems.

I was pretending to work when really I was watching the door, but nothing could have prepared me for when she walked in.

“Holy Shit!” I whispered under my breath.

She looked fantastic. How was I supposed to keep her at arm’s length when she looked like that? She was wearing a skirt that showed off her never-ending legs—every time I thought about those legs I got a hard on, and seeing them again was doing wicked things to my body. My eyes wandered up her body. Shit, I wanted to lick my way across her breasts, while I pushed inside her.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I had to get it together. “Hey Angie.”

“Hi Caleb, I see you started without me,” she said, sitting down in the chair next to me.

“Yeah, I thought—” I turned towards her and stopped. All I could see was her impressive cleavage in my face. I felt my dick getting harder. I saw the gleam in her eyes as I fidgeted in my seat, trying to adjust myself.

She waved a hand in front of my face. “Earth to Caleb,” she laughed.

That snapped me out of the fantasies I was having. “What? Oh sorry, I lost my train of thought.”

She smiled, “I can see that.”

I realized she knew exactly the effect she was having on me, and yet I still couldn’t control it. The longer she sat next to me, the more I wanted her. How in the hell was I supposed to get through the next week and a half? I needed to take my focus away from her breasts, and back on the project. I was so flustered that I asked the first question that popped in my head.

“So, where are you from, Angie?”

Damn
. Of all of the things I could have said, why did I pick that question? She was probably going to ask me the same thing and that was something I really didn’t want to answer

She looked a little uncomfortable. “About 10 minutes from here.” That was a strange response—girls usually loved talking about themselves. Her vague answer was not what I expected.

“Only 10 minutes? Then why are you paying to live on campus?” I was confused—it seemed like such a waste of money.

She paused, like she didn’t want to answer. “I just didn’t want to stay at home anymore. I wanted to get out and find myself.”

I understood the need to get away. “I can appreciate that.”

She paused in what she was doing, “Can I ask you a question?”

Shit, what was she going to ask? This is what I hated about working with other people—they always wanted to know more about you. I knew I shouldn’t have asked her anything. “I guess.”

“I know this sounds cliché, but what is your major?” she asked with a smile.

I laughed. “Engineering. What about you?”

“History. Why would you take History of Ancient Egypt to fill a history requirement? There are plenty of early American History classes that are much easier,” she said curiously.

I shrugged. “To be honest, I find it fascinating. I knew I could get an easy A in some of those classes, but I wouldn’t enjoy them as much.”

“Impressive,” she admitted. “I have to admire someone who chooses a class based on their likes and not on the work load, cause Rutledge loves to dump the work on us.”

I laughed “I figured that out. Luckily I didn’t take this class during the football season.”

“Yeah, I saw you play this fall,” she said, a gleam in her eye.

“Was it at least a game we won?” I gave her a sideways glance.

She giggled, “Yeah it was. You scored during the 3
rd
quarter.”

Wow, her giggle was the most amazing sound. I would do almost anything to hear it again, and she’d paid enough attention to my game to know when I’d scored. “How much do you know about football?”

“All of it—the down system, offensive plays, defensives plays.” My face must have betrayed my surprise because she shrugged her shoulders, offering a shy smile. “Sports were big in my town. You had to know about football to survive.”

The more I learned about her, the more I wanted her. She had a great laugh, and she understood the game I loved—something many girls didn’t. If only things were different. I needed to focus.

“Should we get started?” I asked, pulling out my notes.

“Sure, I got a lot done this weekend,” she agreed looking a little sad.

“Really? How much work did you get done at the party?” I joked.

Her eyes flared for a moment before she put up a wall that hadn’t been there when we were talking earlier. “I thought we were going to pretend that never happened?”

Even though she tried to pretend that she didn’t care, I could hear the hurt in her voice.

Fuck
.

Maybe yesterday hadn’t gone as well as I’d thought. Was that what Emily was talking about yesterday in the courtyard?

“Can we get to work?” she asked, without a trace of anything being wrong. “I’ve a lot of homework I need to complete for tomorrow.”

Maybe I imagined the hurt in her voice. Perhaps it was a reflection of the fact that I wanted her? “Sure, let’s at least get the research and some of the paper done today.”

“Sounds good,” she smiled.

Good, things seemed back to the way they were when she first showed up. We worked well together, and within an hour and a half we had compiled all of our research, and had even completed the first two pages of the paper.

She leaned back in her chair. “I think that’s all my brain can handle for today.”

I stood up and stretched. “I couldn’t agree more.”

She started packing up her notebooks and iPad. “Do you want to meet again tomorrow? I’ve class until three but I’m free after that. I would love to get this done as soon as possible, one less thing on my plate.”

“I’d love to, but I have workout from three-thirty until five. I can meet up after that?” I said.

“Well…the library will be packed with everyone planning on going out tomorrow night. We won’t be able to get anything done.” She looked around as if she was trying to decide something.

“Why don’t you meet me at my apartment after your workout?” She started to fidget, playing with the straps on her bag. “We can use my laptop and order a pizza. I have better programs to create the presentation anyway.”

Shit
! Would I be able to stay away from her at her apartment? I knew if I wanted to keep up the pretense of not caring I’d have to deal with it. I could keep my hands off her for one night—besides, her roommates should be home. I could do this. I
had
to do this.