I sat her down on a bench just inside the entrance and muttered something about how it wasn’t working out between us, and how I needed to just focus on school and keeping my game tight. She let go with a litany of loudly whispered accusations and damnations. Only her fear of embarrassing herself and getting kicked out of the library kept her from yelling at me in her full voice. But boy did the name she chose to call me make up for it. She raised her hand to slap me, and I caught it midair.
“You’re better than that, Van.” I didn’t want to call her by that endearing nickname again, but it was my last effort to bring some humanity back to the situation.
“Go to hell.” She did say that at full volume before she stormed out of the library. She shoved the door so hard to open it that I thought she was going to break the glass.
I laid my head in my hands and kept still. I wanted to wait until I was sure Vanessa had gotten far enough away before I braved going back out onto the quad. I must have sat there a good long while, because suddenly a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Come on, man, she’s good and gone now.” I looked up to see Tank standing in front of me. I hadn’t even heard him come in, but Kirby and a couple of the other guys were standing outside by the lamppost. They looked like they were freezing their asses off.
“Jesus, I hope this doesn’t ruin my reputation.”
“Nah. These freshman girls know they’re not going to snag a permanent thing their first time out of the gate. She’ll be more worried about licking her own wounds to try to inflict any on you. The worst thing she’ll do is make it seem like you didn’t mean that much to her in the first place, because it’ll make snaring the next sucker that much easier.”
“I was that big of a sucker, huh?”
“Just a player, like most of us.”
“So, what now?” I asked pitifully.
“What you need to do is come shoot some pool and knock back a few with us.”
And that’s just what we did. On the way to the pool hall just off campus, Tank did ask me if the next part of my plan included Keira in any way. I admitted that it did.
“Good man. I wish you luck, my friend.”
I knew I was going to need it, and I didn’t feel any luckier when I headed out at the crack of ass the next morning. I remembered that Keira had an early class, only because it was a morning that she didn’t have English Comp with Vanessa. I was just going to walk to the freshman dorm, straight to Keira’s room, and knock on the door. I told myself that chances were Vanessa would still be asleep, and also that I’d have no trouble whatsoever talking to Keira.
Not only was Keira awake, but she’d decided to have an early breakfast, apparently. If I had been a few minutes later, I would have missed her altogether. I was equal parts thrilled as fuck to see her and scared shitless to see her coming down the path toward me. The problem was, she didn’t look happy to see me coming. At all. I knew she thought I was coming to see Vanessa, and that just about killed me. Keira looked down intently at the sidewalk, like she wasn’t planning on interacting with me at all. I wasn’t about to let that happen. But as soon as I opened my mouth to call out to her, just about the worst thing that could happen, did. Vanessa came running out of the dorm. Fuck.
I tried to think quickly. It was almost like a poorly executed handoff, with Vanessa trying to launch herself into my arms at the same moment that Keira passed us on the path. Jesus, Vanessa looked awful. I hate it when women cry, but in this case, I really just couldn’t stand to see it. Maybe I was a dick for thinking it, but if she thought her raccoon eyes and mascara- streaked cheeks were going to get me to reconcile with her, she had another thing coming. I’d always thought she wore too much makeup anyway, like so many girls did these days. It was one of the reasons I thought Keira was so sexy—-when I looked at her, I could actually see her—those full rosy lips and the soft natural color on her creamy cheeks. It just made me want to see the rest of her, up close and personal.
I had to hand to to myself. In a matter of seconds, I held Vanessa off of me, and responded to her desperate assumption that we were getting back together by announcing that I was there to see Keira. Of course in my effort to save Vanessa further humiliation, I tried to make it seem like it was no big deal. Well, that just about had me dead in the water, with Keira anyway.
Vanessa stomped back to the dorm, and that left me to explain a few things to Keira. Like why I’d made it sound like wanting to talk to her was no big deal. Then there was the hard-on that I was sporting pretty plainly, the same one I’d had pretty much since I’d seen Keira that Sunday night in the freshman dorm hallway. Having her call me out on it while she stared right at it should have been enough to shrivel it. Instead it just made me hotter for her. Since she was walking away from me again, the only thing I could do was reach out for her and plead.
Thank goodness she agreed to at least talk to me, and if all it took was buying her breakfast, then maybe this would go more smoothly than I thought.
Except when I finally brought her breakfast to her, when my chance was finally standing right there in front of me, I clammed up. I felt like I was five fucking years old again. I stood there fumbling with my bagel like it was going to start talking for me. And of course, Keira had to be the one to jump start the conversation that I had requested in the first place.
She hit me with both barrels, too. First, fucking, which me and my woody could hardly deny, then dating, which I wanted, too. It was all just out there way too fast, and we were both wound tighter than an engine coil. So, I threw my own Hail Mary, and after asking her nicely, I grabbed her and kissed her.
Holy fuck. I knew it would be good, but I had no idea it would be that good. It was fucking perfect. She tasted like cinnamon and honey, and the way she parted those sweet lips for me so willingly was sublime. I don’t know how she was feeling, but I damn near came in my pants, especially when she let out that sweet little moan.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, including that kiss, if we didn’t want to get arrested for lewd public behavior. I also needed to come clean about the other reason I wanted to talk to her. That’s when I almost fucked it up again.
“I’m in trouble,” I said. “I need your help.” I could tell by the look on her face that this could go either way, but I pressed on. “I need you to tutor me.” Suddenly the air around became an arctic blast.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Keira’s face turned to stone again. “Is this some kind of joke? A bet that you made with your Neanderthal friends, see if you can seduce her into helping you?”
“No, Keira, that’s not—“
“Well, first off, even if I did agree to help you, don’t think you can just sweep me off my feet as payment. I work for cold hard cash, asshole. And second of all, why me? There must be a dozen math tutors listed in Student Services. And third of all, you know what? This is fucked up. I’m out of here, I’m done.”
She was right, of course. Who did I think I was kidding? I wanted to keep her from walking out of the the Starbucks and leaving me like the sad sack I was. I also wanted to kiss her again and remind her of the chemistry that was obviously burning between us. Instead, I just spoke honestly, without any hope that it would work.