The Shameless Hour (3 page)

Double standard, much?

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Big-D or his comments. Beside me, I sensed a spike in Graham’s blood pressure. “You ass,” he hissed. “Don’t start that shit or I’ll—”

“No you won’t.” I planted a hand on Graham’s chest. “Let it go, man. Everybody knows that Big-D only talks smack about me because I won’t take
him
home again. Once was plenty.”

Big-D’s mouth hardened, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I let go of Graham and gave Big-D an evil grin. “You should know better than to offend the team manager. You might get the shittiest hotel rooms on every road trip from now until April. Your skate blades might not get sharpened, and your meal vouchers could get lost.”

“I was just
teasing
, Bella.” He gave me a self-conscious smile. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I?”
Try me
.

“Tough crowd here for a Saturday.” Big-D shook his enormous head, as if we were all just a little too touchy. Then he turned and ambled toward the house.

“I hate that fucking guy,” Graham said after Big-D had gone.

“He’s just really insecure,” I said. It was true, too. Big-D wasn’t a pretty boy like Graham, or witty, like Trevi. And he didn’t have Orsen’s natural warmth. He was harder to love, and he knew it. As a result, he lashed out, making himself into an even bigger ass.

Did I mention that I was a psych major?

The truth was that people were always going to talk smack about me because I didn’t hide the fact that I’d had more than a few sexual partners. Girls who played the field got called names. I knew the drill.

Also, while we’re being honest, I
had
been
scoping out the rookies earlier, pondering the fresh offerings. Last year I went home with a freshman from this very event. Proximity to the hottest athletes at Harkness was an important perk of my job.

“What do you think of the football team this year?” Trevi asked Graham, changing the subject. Because a good captain knows when to defuse.

Graham began to talk about quarterbacks. I wasn’t much of a football fan myself. So I tuned him out, tipping my chin toward the sky to look for stars. Harkness was located in a rather industrial part of Connecticut, and usually there’s too much light pollution to see them.

Not for the first time tonight, I felt my attitude sag. The temperature was dropping fast, hinting at winter’s approach. The chill seeped into my core. I stepped closer to Graham, who draped an arm around my shoulder. I appreciated the gesture, but it didn’t really solve the problem. The empty feeling I was working tonight was bigger than a friendly hug or the beers I’d drunk.

The caterers began to take down the beer table, signifying the end of the season-opening barbecue.

My
last
season-opening barbecue.

The year stretched before me felt like that giant hourglass in the Wizard of Oz, ticking down while Dorothy panics.

Behind me, a group of hockey players began to laugh hard over some joke I’d missed. Their jolly voices echoed into the night, making me feel more alone.

A
fter my quick
departure from Alison’s room, I did not go home.

For a couple of hours, I walked aimlessly around campus. In an angry haze, I passed the rare books library, its peculiar stone walls rising like monoliths over my head. I passed the monument to students who had died in every war since the Revolution. I kept going, passing the graveyard and the hockey stadium.

My mind was a continuous loop of anger and confusion. Where had I gone wrong?

My phone rang in my jacket pocket. I almost didn’t look. There was no way I could talk to Alison right now. But when I drew out the phone and answered, it was only the restaurant, wondering if I still needed my reservation. “I’m sorry,” I told the maître d’. “Our plans have changed.”

Had they ever.

The temperature dropped even further, and it became surprisingly bitter for a September evening. My hands were cold, I hadn’t eaten supper and it was probably time to go home. Walking the streets wasn’t answering any of my questions, anyway. I’d been a good guy, and a good boyfriend. My only sin was stupidity.

I stomped back to the Beaumont House gate, where I had to wind through a clot of students who were on their way out to some party or another. I would be alone tonight, having blown off all my soccer buddies to spend my birthday with Alison.

And for what?

Numb, I climbed another stone staircase toward my second-floor room. I unlocked our door, bracing myself to make some sort of explanation for tonight’s disaster. “We broke up,” was all I was willing to say about it.

Although the lights were burning, our common room was empty. My eyes swept around the room, taking in the signs. Both of Bickley’s crystal goblets sat on our coffee table, dregs of dark red wine in their bottoms. I turned to eye our bedroom door. It was shut.

There was no flag on the doorknob, but Bickley was expecting me to be gone tonight. So I would have to proceed with caution.

I stood very still, listening. The faint strains of slow music could be heard, probably from the bedroom I shared with Bickley. Yet the other bedroom door — leading to Mat’s tiny single — was also shut.

I shrugged off my jacket and dropped it on our posh leather sofa. While most common rooms were decorated in the style of Early American Squatter, ours was exquisite. It was all Bickley’s doing. He was the son of an honest-to-God British peer, and the family had some serious coin. The furniture he’d bought for our dorm room had cost several times the value of everything in the tiny Manhattan apartment I shared with my mother.

Alone in this opulence, I perched on the edge of the leather seat, unsure how to occupy my time. What does a guy do on the night he finds out his so-called girlfriend gave it up for some rich dude in a tent in Ecuador? Watch a little TV? Play a few video games?

Ritual suicide?

From our bedroom came the sound of moaning.
Figures
. It was just the soundtrack I needed tonight. Where was the universal remote, anyway? I needed that sucker, stat. I felt around between the couch cushions, but couldn’t find it.

Then, from Mat’s bedroom, I heard grunting.

No
freaking
way
.
Both
my roommates were getting it on? Was the universe trying to tell me I would
die
a virgin?

Frantic now, I got down on my hands and knees, peering under the couch, desperate for the remote. Bickley had set up his complicated video system in a way which required the remote and a NASA-style checklist of instructions he’d taped to the wood paneling on the wall.

Unfortunately, the sexual soundtrack continued in stereo behind me. My frustration rose a hundredfold, until my hands were shaking with irritation at every fricking thing in the world.

My foot connected with the stupid gift bag I’d been dragging around all night, almost toppling it. I gave up. Grabbing the bag, I stood and stomped out into the stairwell, letting the door close behind me. Not that I had any idea where I should go. I was pretty tired of walking around in the cold. So I sat right down on the stone staircase, like the loser that I was.

All I had going for me was a bottle of overpriced wine. I lifted that puppy out of the bag. Owing to my lengthy walk, the champagne was cold. Or at least cold
ish
. I probably should have just tossed the whole gift bag into the first trash can I’d found. But what a waste, right?

Welp
. Time to get drunk on champagne. I trapped the bottle between my knees and tore the gold foil off the top.

A little gust of cool air traveled up the stairs. Someone had come in the entryway door below me. Slow footsteps began the upward trudge. Whoever it was would soon appear, probably wondering why I was sitting there twisting the wire thingy off a champagne bottle in the freaking stairwell.

See the World’s Biggest Loser right here, ladies and gentlemen! Step right up!

I tossed the wire into the bag and put my hand over the cork. It wouldn’t do to put my own eye out. This night was pretty tweaked already, but if I’d learned anything, it was that things could always get worse.

“Well
hello
there.”

I looked up to see my favorite neighbor approaching me on the stairs. “Hey, Bella.” It figured that the sexiest resident of Entryway F would be the one to witness my pathetic little scene in the stairwell.
Dios
. What’s one more humiliation?

To be fair, Bella had always been kind to me. Even now, she gave me a bright-eyed smile. Instead of continuing her climb toward her room on the fourth and highest floor, she took a seat beside me on the stair, folding her hands. “Throwing yourself a private party?”

“Yeah. But if I can get this open, I’ll share.” I angled the bottle away from our faces, and slowly let up on the cork.

Nothing happened.

“Can I give you a hand?”

Yet another embarrassment. Clearly, the kind of guy who knew how to uncork champagne was not the kind of guy whose girlfriend would cheat on him.

Bella smiled at me, and that smile packed a punch. I’d always had a thing for Bella, not that I’d admit it out loud. I’d noticed her last year, when I was just a lowly freshman. There was something so
lively
about her. Bella had a perpetual sparkle in her eye, and color on her cheeks — the kind you get from laughing, not makeup.

She and I didn’t get acquainted until move-in day this year, when I’d helped her carry a couple of boxes up the entryway stairs. She was a senior and had a fourth-floor single under the eaves of the building — a room with slanted ceilings and a window that looked like Hansel and Gretel might have peered out of it. “Great room,” I’d said, setting the boxes down. I loved the heck out of the Harkness architecture, where no two rooms were the same.

Old things. I couldn’t get enough of ’em.

“It’s kind of a hike, though,” Bella had panted while I’d tried not to notice her chest as it rose and fell beneath her Harkness Hockey T-shirt. Standing there in her room on Labor Day, I’d felt suddenly conscious of our proximity to one another. Some girls dressed to look sexy, with short skirts and tight-fitting tops. Bella managed to exude sex appeal wearing sporty clothes and no makeup.

She’d always turned my crank, even though I found her a little intimidating. Not only were we entryway buddies, she and I were taking the same Urban Studies course this semester. I noticed her more often than I cared to admit.

And now? We were going to drink together. I’d been planning to make my pity party a private one. But I could use a friend to distract me from my misery. If only I could get the bottle open.

Bella waited with a patient if slightly amused expression on her face. “Have you done this before?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Can I give you a tip? Try twisting gently.”

“Twisting?” The instructions I’d dug up on the internet this afternoon hadn’t said anything about twisting.

“Trust me. I’m very good with my hands.” She gave me a playful nudge with her elbow.

My neck heated, as it always did when Bella used innuendo. And she used plenty of them, so I really should get over myself already. But Bella was sexy in a way that always made me break out in a sweat. The way she looked at me made me overly conscious of my body, and all the ways it might be put to use.

Theoretically.

Moving on
.

Hunkering down to the task at hand, I gave the cork a gentle twist the way she’d told me to. Under my palm, I felt it begin to give. Half a second later, a satisfying pop echoed through the entryway, and the cork flew into the air, ricocheting off an oak moulding before crashing back down onto the stairs.

Bella put both hands on her knees and laughed. “Not bad for a virgin.”

Holy
…
!
My heart skipped two or three beats. Was it
that
obvious? Was I marked in some way? Was I
GLOWING LIKE A BEACON?

She got up to retrieve the cork, and then handed it to me. “Here you go. A memento to celebrate your first time.”

Oh
. I blew out a breath. She was only talking about the champagne bottle
, estupido
. My shoulders relaxed a fractional degree. “Here,” I said, handing her the bottle. “You can have the first sip.”

“What a gentleman.” Bella took the bottle and tipped it carefully to her mouth. She took a sip, but then had to wipe her mouth quickly when the foam rushed over the bottle’s lip. She laughed. “I’m fine with the whole down-and-out vibe we have going on here. But next time we’re slumming it in the hallway, I’ll bring bourbon.” She passed me the bottle.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, taking a sip. Even though my heart was bitter, the wine was not. It was magnificent.

“Why are we out here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

My chuckle was dry. “My room is a little crowded right now. Not the common room, but…” I just shook my head.

Bella giggled. “Really? Both your roommates are getting busy?”

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “The hallway seemed like the place to sit until the walls stop shaking.”

“I would probably have asked if I could join in.” Her eyes twinkled at me. “But that’s just me.”

I managed to smile instead of swallowing my tongue. I’d been raised in a home where sex was just not talked about. It’s not like I’d ever made a conscious choice to be a prude. I just didn’t know how not to be one.

Bella stood. “Come on, then. You can tell me the rest of your sob story upstairs.”

“What?”

She beckoned. “I have furniture. And also glasses.” She hefted the champagne bottle and picked up my gift bag. “On your feet.” Then, without waiting to see what I’d do, she turned and walked up the stairs.

F
or a second I
wasn’t sure if he was going to follow me. But after a moment of hesitation, I heard Rafe trudging up the stairs behind me. That was good, because I really did not want to be alone tonight, brooding over all my uncertainties.

The staircase wound up into the eaves of the old building, growing narrow at the top. Up here there were just two rooms — mine and another single, its door ajar. Strains of classical music could be heard from a stereo within.

“Evening, Lianne,” I said in the direction of my neighbor’s door. “I have a friend over in case you wanted to join us.”

Silence.

I smiled to myself. I’d been deliberately vague about what it was Lianne might join us
for
. Generally I considered myself a nice person. But Lianne’s distaste for my personal life had rubbed me the wrong way since move-in day.

My neighbor didn’t approve of the frequency with which men turned up in my room. Her serious frown could often be seen through her open door as I passed by with one of the hockey players who sometimes shared my bed. Both our rooms opened onto a tiny, shared bathroom, and Lianne had once gotten an eyeful of a bare-assed guy in our shower. Her mouth had zipped into a straight, disapproving line.

Lianne thought I was a total slut.

For her part, Lianne seemed to live like a monk. Not only had I never seen her with a guy, she didn’t seem to have friends at all.

“Goodnight,” I called into the crack of her open door.

There was no response.

Whatevs
.

Unlocking my door, I propped it open for Rafe. Then I dropped his shiny paper bag on my bed and fetched two dining hall glasses from my desk drawer. I poured the champagne slowly, tipping the glasses so that it wouldn’t fizz up. Into my glass, I only poured a little, since I’d had a couple of beers already. His I filled to the top.

Rafe followed me into the room a moment later, shutting the door behind him. What a hottie he was, with big dark eyes set into a handsome face. Rafe was a soccer player, and he totally had that soccer look. He wasn’t as bulky as the hockey players I usually hung around with, but he carried his muscular body in a way I found absolutely sexy.

Also? There was something to be said for guys who could run for two hours straight. Endurance was an excellent trait in a guy…

Rafe glanced around. “Your room is so cool. I love the slanting ceilings.”

“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. Those ceilings could dole out a vicious bump to the head — or to other body parts — if you weren’t careful.

I handed a glass to Rafe, and then sat down on the bed, my back to the wall. “Sit already,” I told him.

Rafe’s eyes darted around the room for a second, and I saw him doing the math. Aside from the bed, my desk chair was the only other option. And it had about seven books stacked onto its seat.

“Right here,” I told him, patting the space beside me. I needed this tonight — a chance encounter with an obviously lonely guy. A distraction.

A hook-up, if I played my cards right. And I always played them right.

“I don’t bite,” I assured him. “But I do want you to tell me why you’re all dressed up, carrying around a bottle of bubbly and…” I picked up the bag in my free hand and dumped it onto the bed. Two things slid out: a small box with a fancy ribbon around it and an unopened box of condoms.
Uh-oh
. “Huh. Looks like you had a big night planned. What happened?”

Sitting down beside me, Rafe groaned. “It’s too embarrassing to talk about.”

Aw
. “I’m sorry. I’m quite familiar with humiliation, actually.”

He glanced up quickly, surprise on his face. “Challenge.”

“Seriously? My humiliations could arm-wrestle yours to the ground one-handed while singing Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You.’”

“No way.” Rafe’s sexy eyebrows lifted. “Of course, now I’m desperately curious.”

“What do I win if I’m right?” I had a few excellent ideas, of course.

He touched his glass to mine and took a sip. “I’m sharing my champagne either way.” He touched his glass to mine and took a sip. “Tell me your tale of woe.”

“You first,” I demanded, just to see what he’d do.

“
Dios
.” He rolled his shoulders and undid the top button of his dress shirt, exposing a V of bronzed skin. “You only get the short version. I was dating a girl since last spring. But she spent the summer at a program in South America.”

“Wait!” I grabbed the bottle off my desk to top up his glass. “I remember her. That snooty blonde? Alison with one L.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Go on.”

He sighed. “She’s back from the summer, right? I thought everything was good…”

I picked up the condoms off the bed. “They must have been good.”

Rafe dropped his gaze. “Tonight we were having a birthday celebration.”

“Whose?”

He lifted those espresso-colored eyes. “Both of ours, if you can believe it.”

“Get out of town! You two have the same birthday?” This story kept getting better and better. And I hadn’t even heard the punchline. “And happy birthday, Rafe.”

“Thanks. But before you decide that she and I were meant to be, let me get to the part where her boy toy from the overseas program abroad shows up tonight with flowers at the same time I walk in.”

Jesus
. “Seriously? She’s two-timing you?”

He nodded, miserable. “He’s all, ‘Hi baby! Surprise!’ And I’m, like, ‘Who are you? I’m the boyfriend.’ And he says, not in so many words, that he’s the fuck buddy.”

“Oh, Rafe!” I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You poor thing. What did you do?”

He just shook his head. “Got the hell out of there. Good riddance.”

“Well…” I hated to see my hook-up prospect go up in smoke. But it was a rule of mine never to hook up with someone who was already involved. And maybe all was not lost with Rafe and his little preppy queen. “Maybe she thought you weren’t supposed to be exclusive while she was away. Could it be a misunderstanding?”

Rafe’s expression darkened. “Not a chance. Things were
very
clear that we were waiting for each other. And she let me believe that she had.”

“What a bitch!” I said with a little too much glee.

“That’s exactly right. I mean… she knew
exactly
what it would mean to me. She
knew
. And the guy she cheated with…” He gave his head a violent shake. “She could have slapped me in the face and it wouldn’t have been any clearer.”

“Why? Who was he?”

“Never met him before. But some rich dude in a fancy suit. Your basic nightmare.”

I let out a hoot of laughter. “Rafe? Did you just quote
When Harry Met Sally
to me?”

His gaze slid into mine, and a slow smile began to overtake his face. “I might have. My mom really likes the chick flicks.”

Aw
. “And a good son watches them with his mother once in a while, right? Just to be nice. Not because they’re funny as hell.”

His smile grew, and I felt more than a flutter. Because that smile? It was blindingly hot. “That’s right. Just doing my duty.” We just sat there, taking each other in for a minute longer. And I couldn’t help but fixate on his lips, which were a dark, rosy red. I wondered what they’d feel like sliding against mine.

That’s how it always was with me. I loved men and their variety. The texture of their hair made me want to run my hands through it. Rafe’s hair was coal black and shiny. I imagined it would feel soft as it slid through my fingers. And that muscular chest was calling to me. Last week I’d seen him out jogging shirtless, and he had a set of abs that was tight enough to bounce quarters off of.

Just thinking about it now made me wonder about the scent of his skin and whether those abs would clench when I touched him.

I liked men, and I liked sex. A lot. I gave Rafe’s hand one more squeeze. “I’m sorry your girl was cheating.”

“I am
such
an
idiota
.”

“Betrayal always makes you feel like that.”
And I should know
.

“This just pushes so many buttons for me, though. My mom, for one, will not be surprised.”

“She didn’t like Alison?”

Rafe grimaced. “They never met. But Alison comes from money. She was this fancy California girl, you know? I always thought it didn’t matter to her, though. We hit it off right away last year. We had fun together. But she’s sleeping with Mr. Rolex.”

“And you,” I pointed out. It seemed possible that Rafe was taking this whole social divide thing a little too far.

Rafe looked down at his hands. “Not today,” he mumbled. “Though I guess it’s better to find out first, I guess.”

“Not hardly!” I yelped. “If you’re going to have your heart broken, at least you could get sweaty first. Instead, you get betrayal with a side order of sexual frustration.”

He sipped his wine, a stoic expression on his face. “Nobody ever died from sexual frustration.”

I was pretty sure I’d come close a few times, but I kept that to myself. “There must be some way you could get revenge,” I teased him. “Let’s steal her phone, and break up with her fuck buddy via text message.

He chuckled. “You are evil.”

“Only when it’s deserved. And revenge is very cathartic.” I mimed someone texting on a phone. “Sorry Mr. Rolex, but you’re just not that good in bed. I’ll call you if I’m feeling desperate.”

Rafe shook his head. “At least I can return the earrings.” He tossed the little jewelry box back into the gift bag. “Couldn’t really afford them. But I wanted to get her something nice. I thought we were going to be together for a long time.”

“And that is why I do not do relationships.”
Because some nice person like you comes around to remind me why it’s a bad idea
.

Rafe cocked his head to the side. “How’s that working for you? I think it’s your turn to tell me an embarrassing story. Because I’m pretty sure I’m winning this bet.”

“Not hardly.” The truth was that my humiliation could dance the cha-cha around his. But I’d already decided to keep the worst of it to myself. Instead, I was going to tell my
second
most humiliating tale.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I’d never repeat it.”

He wouldn’t, either. Rafe had one of the more trustworthy faces I’d ever come across. There was something serious in his expression that I didn’t often find in men our age.

With a fortifying gulp of champagne, I told him about the ugly morning I’d had last January. “I have a friend, but he and I used to be friends with benefits. We’d stopped fooling around a year earlier, though. His decision. And he never really said why…”

I got lost there for a second, picturing myself in Graham’s room, removing his clothes. We were usually drunk and giddy. Getting Graham’s jeans off his body when he was wasted wasn’t easy. But I was happy to do it. Graham only liked to have sex when he was trashed. That should have been a clue. Maybe there were other clues, too. But I never saw them. I’d always had a blind spot when it came to Graham.

Rafe was waiting patiently for my story to continue. I’d
never
talked about this. Not with anyone. But there was something steady in his expression that made it possible for me to go on. “I was hung up on him,” I admitted. I’d never said that out loud before, either. And it wasn’t easy. College was too early, in my opinion, to get all swoony over a guy. That never worked out.

But still, I’d hoped.

“Even though we weren’t fooling around anymore, I always thought that some day we’d get together and stay that way. Because he understood me in a way most people don’t. We were such close friends, too. We told each other everything. At least that’s what I
thought
.”

I had to swallow hard then.

“You really don’t have to tell me,” Rafe said gently.

Christ
. I obviously wasn’t as good at putting a brave face on things as I imagined. I cleared my throat. “I walked in on him hooking up with somebody else.”

“That sucks,” Rafe said softly.

I held up a hand. “That’s not the point. I never thought he was celibate after we stopped fucking. The problem was that I walked in on him with a
man
.”

Rafe’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. That’s not where I thought this story was going.”

“Me neither.” I gave a nervous laugh.

“Maybe it was just a one-time thing. Or maybe he’s bi.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t. And he isn’t. He has a serious boyfriend now. They’re ridiculously happy together. And when I saw them that morning…” I broke off, because it was impossible to express. I just
knew
. All of a sudden, I understood what I hadn’t wanted to see before. For all the sloppy, drunk sex we’d had, it had never meant a thing to him.

That awful day last winter, it was stone sober wake-up-next-to-the-one-you-love-and-grab-each-other sex that I’d walked in on. And when I saw Graham kissing Rikker, there was more passion and tenderness on his face than I had
ever
seen there before.

People could say what they wanted about all the recreational sex I’d had. But I
knew
what love looked like. I’d probably stood there thirty seconds longer than necessary that morning, just trying to process my own disappointment.

I let out a big sigh. “I
never
made him as happy as he is now. Not even close.”

“That sucks, Bella.”

“It really did. But it was the lying that killed me. I thought we told each other everything,” I said, hating how pathetic it sounded. It’s hard to admit you’re just in someone’s periphery when you imagined you were closer to the center of their world.

“He should have leveled with you. But maybe he was afraid.”

But not of me
, I argued to myself. I liked to think of myself as bulletproof. Things that bothered other girls (like being called a slut behind my back) didn’t bother me so much. Graham’s heartbreak hadn’t been so easy to brush away. He had never belonged to me. But it had been a shock to know he never would.

Also, I considered myself an excellent judge of character. But
twice
now I’d fallen in love with people who were incapable of loving me back.