The Singles (68 page)

“Or maybe it’s because he busts my ass every time we have a lesson.” I don’t add that at the moment, there have only been two official lessons, because Corinne comes back to the table. Instead of sitting, she leans over me, her slinky V-neck top riding down and showing me so much boob that I can’t help but reach out and adjust it.

She giggles. “Hey, I’m going over to Baseball House with Ella.” She points and I follow her finger over to the girl she’d disappeared with ten minutes ago. “If you decide to come, send me a text, okay?”

I have no intention of going to Baseball House, but I quickly say, “If you need a ride home, call me, okay? I don’t care how late it is.”

“Or I can do it,” Mac speaks up beside me. She gives my roommate a stern look. “I’ll be over there a little later, so just find me if you need
anything
.”

As soon as Corinne promises she will and she leaves, I tell Mac, “Thanks. Seriously.”

She waves it off. “God, of course. The campus cops are dicks, and I’d hate for her to get one of their gross tickets. Speaking from firsthand experience here.”

At the sound of the band taking a break, Mac flicks her tongue over her teeth. “I’ve got to use the bathroom, so can you grab me a virgin ... you know what, surprise me?” She doesn’t give me time to protest as she slips ten bucks in my hand and shoves her way through the crowd.

I consider keeping my ass exactly where it is and making her get her own drink upon her return, but finally, I release a relenting sigh and push away from our table. Rhys is busy taking another drink order when I slide on one of the bar stools, so I wait patiently, tapping my fingers on the countertop in sync with The Black Keys song the house DJ is playing.

“Bored?” the guy on the stool beside me asks, and I shake my head, keeping my gaze straight ahead. “You at least going to look at me?”

A sound of exasperation escapes the back of my throat, and I turn my eyes up to the ceiling before I look at him out the corner of my eye. He’s good-looking enough—but so are so many other guys on this campus—and I’m in no mood for chitchat right now. “I’m seventeen,” I lie, but from the way he blatantly checks me out, I don’t think he cares.

“And they let you in?” When I lift my shoulders a little, he laughs. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

I plaster on a smile. “Statutory.” I glare ahead at Rhys’ back, wishing he’d hurry up so I can get back to my table, but the guy beside me pushes his face close to mine.

“Well fuck you too,” he sneers.

“Hey!” Rhys’ smooth voice snaps my gaze up. Those eyes that seem to pierce right through me every time I’m around him are stabbing daggers into the guy to my right. “You hassle my customers, you get out.” As the guy slaps his money down and takes off in a huff, Rhys tells me, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sorry about that, he’s—” But then he finally looks at me, and he swallows the rest of his words. As he collects the money from the bar top, he shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “Of all the people ...”

Clasping my hands together, I nod in agreement. “Same thing I said when I saw you were bartending.”

He touches my hand, examining the bold black X on the back of my left one, and smirks. “What can I get you, Evelyn?”

“Something sweet and virgin.”

“Sweet and virgin?” he drawls, and a grin that’s way too sensual crawls across his face. Warning bells go off in my head, but I ignore them as I give him a smile that I know is a mistake. “And here I was thinking you’d try to talk me into something else.”

“It’s for Mac.”

He drags his stare from me for a moment to search the crowd until he spots her. “You should tell Mackenzie she should fetch her own drinks,” he advises, filling a glass with ice. A couple minutes later, he slides something that smells fruity and delicious in front of me. Even though he’s busy as hell, he bends over the bar until our faces are close to each other. “Will I be seeing you tomorrow?”

I flick my tongue over my lips, an automatic reaction that draws his attention to my mouth. “Are you going to be a dick?”

Tugging his bottom lip between his teeth, he looks at me long and hard before tossing his head back to laugh. It’s a sound that warms my skin. “Always.” He takes Mac’s money and quickly gives me change, but as I slide off the bar stool, he stops me.

“No hat tonight,” he muses.

I lift my shoulders. “Couldn’t find any to go with the dress.”

“Start doing that more often,” he tells me gently, the words more of an order than a request.

Despite my olive complexion, I’m pretty sure I’m as red as her drink as I plunk it down in front of Mac and sit beside her. Taking a sip, she closes her eyes and releases a moan. “Ahh, so good. Drinks like this don’t even make me miss alcohol.” She holds it in my direction in offering, but I quickly decline. “Rhys didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”

“No,” I say almost too fast.

Before she turns around to watch the band as they come back on stage, she gives me a smile that tells me she thinks I’m full of crap. “Of course he didn’t.”

––––––––

W
e stay until the end of the set, and after telling Mac goodbye, I excuse myself to the bathroom. As I start to leave, I hear voices outside—one of them distinctively Rhys’. I hate eavesdroppers as much as the next person, but I’m a big ass hypocrite as I stand with my side pressed against the door, listening.

“I’m not taking you home with me, Cari,” I hear him groan right before there’s a loud thud against the wall. “Not tonight, I—”

“Don’t be stupid,” the female voice whispers, breathing heavily. I swallow hard as I hear the undeniable sound of kissing. Whether it’s her all over him, or vice versa, it does nothing good for my sanity. “I’ll be at your place after your shift ends and—”

“You’ll be sitting outside alone,” Rhys replies sharply.

There’s more heavy breathing on her part, and a moment later, the door flies open and Cari stares back at me, stunned. Before I have a chance to move, she barrels through the door, her strawberry blond hair leaving a fruit-scented trail. “Excuse me,” she snaps.

Rhys is standing directly across the hall, rubbing his hand over his face, but when he hears his ex shout, he looks up. He swallows hard when he realizes it’s me.

“Christ,” he breathes heavily as I force my legs to move out of the bathroom, “You’re
everywhere
.”

“So are you.” I wish he knew how true that is for me. I’ve lost sleep thinking about him, lost minutes and hours and seconds of my day.

The sound of a few people coming into the hallway draws our eyes away from each other, and we each press our backs against our respective walls so they can pass through. His lips part to say something, but before he can and I have a whole new reason to think about him, I turn on my heel and rush past him.

Because Corinne hasn’t texted me, and I don’t expect her to anytime soon, I drive directly back to campus. With the can of pepper spray Kendra had given me for Christmas last year in my hand, I walk from the freshman parking to my dorm, my thoughts on Rhys the entire time. How can he remind me so much of my past, of Lily, and yet make me want to kiss him at the same time?

What the hell is wrong with me?

“I’ll sleep it off,” I say as I walk past a crowd of smokers under the smokers’ hut at the front of my dorm. Waving to a few people I know from class, I scan my student ID and go inside, convincing myself that I’ll really be able to sleep Rhys off tonight, and I won’t even think about wanting him tomorrow at our lesson. But as soon as I come off the elevator to see my suitemates sitting outside in the hallway on their laptops, I quickly realize that my plans for a relatively early bedtime might be shot all to hell.

Before I can ask them what they’re doing, Hannah loudly declares, “Your roommate is having really, really loud sex.”

“
Oh
.” That explains why Corinne hasn’t contacted me—she’s in the middle of shirtless Daniel sexy time. Hannah presses her already thin lips into an even thinner line at my flippant response. Does she expect me to say something else? Or to go in there and interrupt them? Smoothing the skirt of my dress, I sit on the opposite side of the door and start to take my phone out of my bag. If I’m going to be stuck out here for another fifteen minutes, I can at least see if Kendra’s awake. After I send her a text, I look at Hannah and Lara and shrug my shoulders.

“I actually can’t hear them, so you two are probably safe in your room.”

“Stick your head inside,” Lara chimes in. Unlike Hannah, her tone is indifferent as she reaches up behind her to open the suite door. Cursing under my breath, I decide to humor her, and sure enough, I can hear the distinct clack, clack, clack of the tiny twin-sized bed banging on the floor. I wrinkle my nose, but I meet Hannah and Lara’s stares with a straight face.

“Honestly, I’ve heard worse.”

“I have a paper due tomorrow,” Hannah states vehemently.

She’s really starting to piss me off with the prude act. I send her a hard glare. Early this year, it was people exactly like this who were quick to talk crap about me behind my back after the fallout with James, and the last thing I’m going to do is sit around and let her turn this into a big deal. Besides, I’m the one who has to wait in the hallway when all I want to do is sleep and forget Rhys.

“Did you know there are dorms on this campus where you don’t even have to see a penis?” When Hannah’s mouth drops open, I continue, “You have ear buds plugged in your computer already. Use them and pretend like you don’t hear anything. I can suggests some good music if you need help.”

Giving me a withering stare, my suitemate clambers to her feet, clutches her laptop close to her chest and stomps into our suite. I hear three rapid taps on wood and then her shout, “Keep that shit down!” before she slams her bedroom door.

Lara gives me an apologetic look. “Ugh ... sorry, Evie. She’s just in a bad mood about that paper, and then now with Corinne in there with Elliot...”

Who the hell is Elliot? Suddenly, all thoughts about Rhys Delane fly out the window as my eyebrows jerk together in confusion. Lara flushes and stares down at her screen to avoid making eye contact.

“Daniel Hanson’s roommate? You know him, right?” I rack my brain for a second until a vague memory of the short, dark-haired guy I played beer pong against once pops into my head. Since then, I’ve seen him with Daniel, and I’ve seen him around my suite a couple times, but never with Corinne. And when I realize why I’ve seen him, I keep the muscles in my face relaxed as Lara expands, “He’s been hooking up with Hannah.”

She stands up and peers into our suite at my closed door before shaking her head, the tail of her loose French braid swinging against her back. “Guess that’s over. Night, Evie.”

***

T
o my relief, and disappointment, Rhys is distant the next day and during our next lesson on Monday, so I’m not left thinking too hard on him. I’m grateful for this because, though I swore up and down to myself I wouldn’t let anything like this happen to me this year, I find myself caught in the middle of a rift between Corinne and Hannah. Although there are no actual words exchanged—except for on Saturday night when my roommate stumbles in drunk after partying and Hannah flips out about all the noise she makes—the atmosphere in our suite is frigid all weekend.

I’ve been avoiding saying anything directly to Corinne. For starters, I don’t exactly know what to say. I don’t want to come off preachy—because, with my history, that’s the last thing I am—but I also know that unless Hannah stands down soon, I’m going to have to eventually say
something
.

It’s not until a week later on Friday, when Corinne finds me in the D-hall, that she finally talks to me directly. Sitting down in front of me, she buries her face in her hands before pushing back her curly hair and coiling it into a knot on top of her head.

“What’s up?”

“What do I do about Hannah?” she sighs, releasing her hair to tumble around her delicate features.

I trace my fingertip along the cold rim of my Coke can. “Do you think you were wrong?”

“They weren’t dating,” she quickly assures me, which I already know. Lowering her green eyes to her hands, she shrugs. “I know what she’s saying about me. She won’t say it to my face because I’m guessing she’s afraid I’ll go off on her or something, but I know she’s telling anyone who’ll listen that I’m a slut.”

Even when it’s not being directed at me, I hate that word. Hate it with a passion. I stab my plastic fork into my untouched hamburger and shake my head. “She hasn’t called you that to me.”

Corinne releases a hysterical noise from the back of her throat and laughs. “Because you’re hostile and like a foot taller than she is.” I press my lips together at her description of me, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she implores, “Evie, what should I do? It was one time, I swear, and I was just pissed because of Daniel.”

Daniel. Learning that Corinne and Elliot went down because of something that has to do with Daniel instantly ruins my appetite, and I lean back in my seat, dropping my fork. There’s a lot I want to tell my roommate. I want to tell her that even though this campus is big—much bigger than the school I went to last year—even the slightest ding on her reputation might have a ripple effect. I want to tell her that no matter how good retaliation might feel when it’s happening, there’s always something that will come along to wipe out that satisfaction.

I want to tell her that all of this has happened to me, and I don’t want her to screw herself up like I did.

But before I can say anything, she sucks in a deep breath and when I lift my eyes from my tray, I realize that her expression has fallen. “You know what? Never mind.” Grabbing her bag, she jumps up from the table. “Forget I asked. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“Wait.” I come to my feet ready to go after her, but she continues to walk quickly, nearly knocking over Nathan as he walks toward my table.

“Shit,” I grind out, slamming back into my seat. I massage each of my index fingers over either side of my nose and shoot a look over at him, meeting his questioning blue eyes. “It’s not you, it’s just—”