“Inviting me to your bedroom?” I joke, “What? Do you want to make a porno for one of those naughty websites? Come on, Grant, I expected more creativity from you.”
He clears his throat. “That’s not what I was thinking, but we’ll definitely throw that on the list of possibilities. Depends how desperate we are, I guess.”
“What list? There’s a list?”
“Come on.”
I follow him into his bedroom, and I feel like I’m doing a very bad thing going into a very sexy man’s bedroom before eight a.m.
Thankfully, I glance at the clock and it’s 8:04 a.m. Okay, that’s better.
Grant has this spark in his eyes like he really wants to help me. Which is funny, because I totally mentioned the ten-thousand-dollar thing as a joke. But Grant is a man of action.
Once we’re in his room, he tells me to sit on his bed, and I see why he invited me in—he’s got a giant dry-erase whiteboard on one side of his bedroom.
“Whenever I need to come up with an idea or something, like for a paper, I always start with a brainstorming session on this whiteboard. Which is what we’ll do right now.”
At the top of the board, he writes How to get Maya $10,000 in Four Weeks and underscores it.
“Ten-thousand, because you’ve already saved two-thousand, correct?” He asks, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes that’s right.”
I lean back on his bed and no lie, I’m a little turned on because the bed has his scent. My eyes are at his well-endowed unit level—after all, I saw it in my sculpture class yesterday—and this is going to be distracting if I’m sitting, so I scoot my body back onto his pillows and use them as back support as I lie down at a forty-five degree angle.
The sexiest thing about Grant right now is the fire in his eyes as he stands there with his long fingers wrapped around a marker and his arms crossed, brain synapses sparking off. When he’s concentrating on something—anything—nothing stands in his way. The man’s mind is as sexy as his body, and that is a deadly combination, especially for me.
Plus, he’s taking my major life problem that I expected him to shrug off, as seriously as if he were trying to solve a complex math problem.
For the first time in months, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for me to stay enrolled this term.
“So, if you have any ideas just shout them out and I’ll write them down. First idea is make a porn with Grant,” he smirks as he writes it on the whiteboard in blue marker.
I roll my eyes. “Does porn even make that much money anymore? There are so many damn videos up there. The market is over-saturated, I’m pretty sure.”
“I honestly don’t know. But I do know you’re absolutely beautiful. So, if you want to look further into this…”
Our eyes meet, and we share a moment. My body tingles when he uses the B-word.
I don’t know if he feels what I do. But my lips moisten, I part my legs ever so slightly before I realize what I’m doing, and a shiver of pleasure rolls through me. I can see the outline of Grant in his gray athletic pants, and I have to clench my fists at my sides to stop from salivating.
Then Grant laughs it off, and for the first time in our entire morning interaction, I feel a wave of awkwardness from him, like he’s trying to brush off a thought he shouldn’t have had.
We both burst out dying laughing so much our sides split.
“Like we’d ever do a porn,” I snort.
“I know, right? Crazy talk. Besides, we made that pact to be just friends fall term.”
Something coils in my stomach. “Yes. And that was a fantastic idea. Because if we ever, well, you know…” I trail off.
“Hooked up.”
“Right. If we ever hooked up, it would just be totally awkward and…”
My body flushes with heat as I stare at Grant’s focused gaze. I’m lying out of my teeth right now. He’s the hottest guy on campus, and don’t even get me started about the rumor about how well he kisses.
“Yeah. Totally…awkward,” he trails off, then clears his throat. “Anyway, you could be a classroom figure model.” He writes it down as another suggestion.
Thanks for making me picture you naked again in sculpture class!
“How much do those make?” I ask.
“Well, when I do it, I make twenty an hour. I think that’s the going rate.”
“Not bad.”
I do some quick math in my head, realizing how far off any hourly job would put me.
“I could sell my car,” I say, and he writes it on the board before I add, “If I had a car.”
Pursing his lips together, he crosses out ‘sell Maya’s car.’”
By the end of the brainstorming session, this is our list:
Make a porn with Grant
Be a classroom figure model
Deal drugs
Lab assistant
Ask mafia for loan?
Work at the Gizmo
Grant caps the marker and puts it on the tray, then flops down on the bed with me. I can feel the weight on the mattress shift to his side.
He says, “I just feel like we’re not thinking big enough. Can we like…flip a house? Sell something online?”
I sigh. “I love that you’ve indulged in this brainstorming session with me, but I feel like maybe I’m just living in denial of the fact that I’m not going to be able to come up with this money. Maybe I got the hanged man tarot card because I should just call it quits on my college career and move back to Traverse City, Michigan.”
Even though Grant is lying on the bed with me, but I can feel him staring at the list, not at me. I look at his eyes, and he is really thinking hard.
Turning to me, he says, “But, Maya, you have to stay here. I’ll miss our drunken conversations and occasional drunken dancing. And I’ll miss seeing your pretty face around campus. Plus, a Greene State college degree is expensive, yes, but it will open doors for you. College graduates, on average, make more than their non-graduate peers. Of course, that could be more correlation then causation, I suppose.”
A soft smile falls over me, and I repeat, “You think my face is pretty?”
“That’s all you got out of that entire rant?” He grins, but he’s serious at the same time. He reaches out and touches my cheek. “And yes, it’s the prettiest face on campus, in my humble opinion.”
Butterflies flutter in my stomach. We didn’t smoke that much. But am I high, or is Grant Taylor seriously flirting with me right now?
“Grant, don’t,” I whisper, not even sure why the words come out. Maybe I’m worried if he keeps touching me like this, I won’t be able to stop myself with the way he warms up my body.
“Oh, did you think…I’m sorry. I’m not going to do anything,” he says, softly. “I just want to be friends with you, Maya.”
I squint. “Oh, uh, okay.”
Wait a second. Did I just get friend-zoned? No-no-no. I’m the one who tells guys we can’t take this any further.
I thought that friend pact we made fall term was more of a tongue-in-cheek joke, but he appears to be taking it seriously. Before I can bring this up to Grant he continues.
“I enjoy hanging out with you so much, Maya. I wouldn’t want to mess that up with, you know, a hook-up. But I do like touching your face. Your skin is so soft.”