No Easy Choices (A New Adult Romance) (2 page)

             
But I had to agree that, at least to some extent, she was right. I was here to try something new, wasn’t I? I hadn’t picked a school a thousand miles from home just to hang out with the same kinds of people and do the same kinds of things. Okay, I admit it, the sorority was kind of a bribe. My parents paid me off with a car and free reign to pursue a degree in art if I promised to rush my mom’s sorority. It was physically painful envisioning my mom sitting at a party like this, fending off the offers to go upstairs with a guy drinking from a disposable plastic cup, flicking droplets of spilled margarita off her clothes all night. Or worse...what if Mom hadn’t turned down their offers? Ugh.

             
But the bribe car had gotten me here and I had a full schedule of classes I could never have taken at my little community college back home, so it was time to hold up my end of the bargain. And truthfully, I hadn’t met a single catty back-stabber yet. These girls could actually prove to be real friends, if they would stop with the man-meat parade.

             
The real excitement of the evening happened when someone finally needed a ride home, a nice enough-looking guy whose name I’d never even been told but whose major was pre-law. The future barrister stumbled all the way to my car, leaning on me for support. It’s to his credit that the hand clinging to my shoulders never attempted to venture south for a quick grab.

             
I got the drunk guy in my car, silently calling off the deal with my parents if this guy puked in it, and was about to pull away from the curb when someone squealed my name.

             
“Andrea! Andrea! Wait!” a sister called, running on her tip toes to keep from falling off her sky-high shoes. “Wait for me!”

             
“It’s Andie,” I mumbled for the millionth time before smiling up at her from the driver’s seat.

             
“Andrea, I have to go with you to take him home. You don’t know where the Sigma house is, and besides, you can’t just drive off with a man in your car.” I was about to give her the run down on how women’s rights have changed in the last few years, and about how ladies don’t need to worry about keeping up appearances, when she continued, “It’s not safe!”

             
I checked my snippy attitude for the hundredth time that day while Harper surprised me by clutching her skirt closed and climbing over the side of my convertible to get in the back seat. Wow. They really do care. And boy am I an idiot for almost driving away with a random guy in my car.

Chapter Three

             
“Hey...” the guy next to me drawled sleepily. “Heeeeey...”

             
“What’s up?” I asked, already annoyed with my passenger, and we hadn’t even made it past the campus. Mister Drunk and Disorderly had apparently gotten his second wind after getting in my car, because he turned quite grabby in the vicinity of my boobs. Harper smacked him good on the forehead, her oversized ring actually making a ka-thunking sound against his skull, a move that seemed to help him figure out that he really wanted to keep his hands in his lap for the duration of his ride home.

             
“Hey, I have to go over here,” he said, raising one numb hand and pointing out the passenger side.

             
“The library? I find that incredibly hard to believe,” I answered, rolling my eyes. Even though he was someone who’d supposedly made it through three years of college already, I still had a hard time grasping that he knew anything about libraries.

             
“Sugar, we’re going to your house, remember?” Harper said sweetly from the backseat.

             
“No, I have to go over here. Now.” He fumbled with the seatbelt that had taken me a full five minutes to strap on him, then grasped for the door latch. I swerved to the side before he could actually get out of my car, coming to a stop just inches from the sidewalk. Tall, dark, and drunksome fell headfirst out of the car, landing just in time to vomit all over the sidewalk.

             
I jumped out of the car, followed by Harper, who I now figured out really loved climbing in and out of a convertible sans doors. I rushed around the car to help him up, feeling only a little smug at seeing the scrape already turning bright red on his cheek from where he landed. It would be a nice little reminder of how he got home.

             
“Don’t just stand there, Andrea,” Harper began, “help me get him up!” She reached to pull him out of my car without having to step in any puke. I don’t blame her, it didn’t match her shoes.

             
“I’m not touching him ‘til he’s finished spewing,” I replied wearily, leaning against my car and crossing my arms, taking in the view of the manicured grounds surrounding the gorgeous, historic library.

             
“Is there a problem here?” An olive-skinned guy with the most stunning teeth outside of a toothpaste commercial stepped out of the dark, his curly black hair catching the glow of the streetlight overhead as he approached. He had an accent that made my legs forget to hold me up, kind of a sexy, tropical-sounding lilt. Harper noticed it, too, dropping what’s-his-name back on his face in his own little puke pool. “Your friend does not look very good.”

             
“Um...” Harper began, trailing off as she took in the stranger’s T-shirt stretched so tightly across his chest that I swear I could already hear fabric ripping.

             
“Yeah...” I finished, just as stupidly.

             
“Should I pick him up then? Perhaps? Stand back, so you are not fallen on.”

             
Our dark-haired hero squatted down and hefted our drunken cargo off the sidewalk, turning and placing him back in my car while Harper and I just watched the spectacle. Her hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, squeezing it tightly in response to the defined muscles that were at that very moment pushing against the seat of this stranger’s faded blue jeans.

             
“Oh wow,” Harper sighed, letting go of an appreciative breath. “Would you just look at that?”

             
“Yeah, I’m seeing it,” I whispered back, running the back of my hand across my lips just in case I was actually drooling.

             
“There you go, he is now safe in the car again. It is all right?” he asked with a smile. I stared like an idiot, but thankfully, Harper’s Southern upbringing kicked in. She beamed and held out a hand to him.

             
“Thank you so much for helping us. I’m Harper, and this is Andrea,” she gushed, gesturing at me with a wave.

             
“It’s Andie,” I said quietly, still taking it all in.

             
“I am Javier. I am finishing work in the library.” He indicated the looming old building with a jerk of his head, a movement so fluid that a clump of soft curls fell into his eyes. He moved them out of his vision by raking a hand through his mane, pushing the other hand deep in his front pocket in what looked so wonderfully like a nervous motion. “And you? You will be able to put him in his home?”

             
Harper and I looked at each other. The accent was stunning. The grammar? A little hard to understand. I kind of wanted Javier to just keep standing there looking awesome, but following his broken English was a little tough.

             
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Harper asked, a little too loudly. Javier just smiled, probably used to the old talk-louder-so-they-can-understand-you habit a lot of Americans have.

             
“I mean,” he began, pointing at the embarrassing button still stuck to my chest, “you have to take him home. How will you place him inside?”

             
“Oh, I get it,” I said with a small laugh. “He’s asking how we’re going to get this guy in the house once we take him home.” Javier nodded his approval of my exceptional translation skills.

             
“I can follow you in my car, too,” Javier offered. “I will put him in his home.”

             
“That is so sweet of you,” Harper said with a small frown, “but we’ve got it. Thanks for all your help!” She walked around the side of my car and climbed back into the back seat, waving goodbye to Javier and jerking her head at me to get in and drive.

             
“Harper,” I hissed through my plastered-on smile, “Javier is offering to carry this guy up the stairs and put him in his room. I, for one, think we should be polite and let the nice man help us.”

             
“And I, for one, think we should get going before someone at the party misses us.” The murderous look on her face was hard to miss. Ignoring her attempts at telepathy, I turned back to Javier.

             
“If you’re not too busy, I would appreciate your help. Very much. Just follow us, okay?” I shot him another smile and got behind the wheel of my car. No sooner had my butt hit the seat than Harper kicked the back of it, trying to get me to look back at her in the mirror. No can do, sweetie. I’m not looking.

             
“Andrea, what do you think you’re doing?” Harper barked as soon as I pulled away from the curb and turned onto the main road. “I saw the way you looked at him, and let me tell you something. Hah-vee-air is not our kind of people.”

             
“What is THAT supposed to mean?” I fired back. “You mean, because he’s god-like and ripped and kind enough to carry this dipshit idiot into his fraternity house?”

             
“Well, of course not!” She blew out an exasperated breath and flopped back against the seat, crossing her arms over her chest and looking out at the trees dotting the long driveway to the Sigma Zeta house.

             
“Oh, please don’t tell me you mean because he’s obviously not from here. I can’t believe you would classify someone based on his nationality. Wake up and join the 21
st
century, Harper!” I practically yelled, angry at her snottiness and at the realization that racism was alive and well.

             
“That is NOT what I meant, Andrea! I meant...”

             
“What? Huh? Go ahead and tell me, what did you mean when you said he’s not our kind?”

             
“I meant...he works in the library!”

Chapter Four

It took all my strength to keep from laughing at Harper, that is, until I switched off the engine and turned to step out of my car, only to find myself at eye-level with Javier’s crotch.

             
“Gaaah!” I yelled, more from the surprise of seeing someone standing that close to my door than from the embarrassing way I was caught staring at a guy’s bulging zipper. I was ready to curl up in a shriveled ball and crawl under the front seat when Javier opened my door and held out his hand to help me out. Against my instincts and the angry glare from the snob in the back seat, I took his hand, surprised at how warm and firm his fingers were as they fitted themselves around my own. He practically lifted me from my car, then reached back to help Harper out as well.

             
While we stood on the sidewalk in near-awe, Javier plucked the unknown party boy from the front seat and fireman-carried him into the Sigma Zeta house. Luckily, the rest of the brothers hadn’t made it back from the party, so the place was deserted.

             
“Where does he belong?” Javier asked in that yummy accent, swinging his burden down on the porch.

             
“This looks like as good a spot as any,” I suggested, pointing at the porch swing.

             
“Andrea, we can’t leave him on the porch. We have to take him inside,” Harper said huffily. She got the front door open and Javier dragged the limp, passed out brother inside where he settled him on one of the leather sofas in the front room. He paused, then jogged into the adjacent kitchen and came back with a mop bucket, which he placed on the floor near the blond guy’s head. Javier was almost ready to leave, but came back one more time and shifted the drunk on the couch so that he laid more on his side and stomach. Javier gave us a wan smile, gesturing with his hands that it was in case the brother threw up again.

             
“Not our kind, huh?” I quietly hissed at Harper as we followed Javier down the brick steps of the house and out onto the sidewalk. “I believe this stranger just went out of his way to follow us here and make sure we were safe, and then went to the trouble to drag this body in here and keep him from choking on his own puke. I’d say that makes this guy pretty incredible, don’t you?”

             
Harper just snorted at me, then tossed her long curls over her shoulder and sauntered back out to my car. Javier appeared next to me, watching my sorority sister with a confused expression.

             
“She is unhappy? Because that is her boyfriend?” he asked, pointing back towards the fraternity house and its unconscious tenant.