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I was heading back to my room when I saw Kate in the hallway coming from the bathroom in the white T-shirt and yoga pants she’d worn the other night. I couldn’t help picturing her without them. Her beautiful, naked outline surrounded by light—wanting me, needing me.

  It was less than a week ago, but it seemed like decades.

  She paused when she noticed me at the end of the hall, stepped back like she was unsure what to do.

  I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I was not letting her walk out of my life. I was done letting my past dictate my future.

  She was my future.

  “Kate,” I said, before she could hurry away from me. I hoped my voice might take her back to that night in my room, too, might make her remember the guy she had fallen for before I’d ruined everything.

  She didn’t respond at first. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was pink and chapped like she’d been crying. Her lip wobbled like she might start again.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, forgetting my agenda.

  Tears started falling down her cheeks like my words had flipped a switch.

  I hurried to her and held out my arms. She fell into them and a racking sob came out—so violent she sounded like she was choking.

  “I can’t escape myself.” She burrowed into me.

  I kissed her forehead, ran my fingers down the back of her head, her soft, shiny hair. “It’s okay,” I whispered.

  “I’m always the same,” she said, disgust in her voice. “That was what coming here was about, but I’m still just me. I’m still just this.”

  “Kate, stop,” I said, trying not to lose myself in her too much—in her smell, in her touch. She was letting me hold her again, comfort her. I couldn’t take it for granted, or do anything to make me undeserving of it. “I think your this is pretty damn good.”

  She shook her head, her voice thick with tears. “You see me as so much better than I really am. You see the person I want to be.” Her eyes darted across my face like maybe she was trying to figure out how I could.

  “I’d accuse you of the same thing,” I said, “or at least I would have.”

  She stepped back, trying to steady her breathing.

  I wiped the tears away from one eye, then the other. She trembled at my touch.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” I drew her back into me and spoke into the hair on the top of her head, “but I’ve never been able to escape who I am, either.”

  She looked up, wanted me to see her eyes. To see she was ready, that she’d still be mine when I was done. “Tell me,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, “Let’s go into the stairwell.”

  We walked down the hall side by side. After the door closed behind us, we sat next to each other on the cold cement step.

  I told her. Everything. What a coward I had been, what a coward I still was for not having been able to admit it to her, even that I’d gone to visit Jeanie the other day. “I would understand if you never want to talk to me again,” I finished, my words echoing up and down the fifteen floors of the dorm.

  She turned to me, her gaze contemplative and her lips tight, her arms flat against her thighs. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy,” she finally said.

  “That’s it? No questions? No yelling?” I asked, shocked at how well she’d taken it.

  Or maybe she was just done with me, the fear I’d had about her finding out my secret and what she would think of me completely confirmed. I strained to stop my limbs from shaking, fight the dizziness filling my head like a fog.

  “It was a really shitty thing you did, but you obviously feel terrible about it.”

  “More than I could ever articulate or make up for,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “It was also a long time ago,” she said after what felt like an endless minute. “You didn’t do any of that to me, Carter.”

  I guess she wasn’t done with me, but there was something else, a distance. “I know,” I said, attempting to bring her back, “but I kept it from you. I lied to you.”

  “You did what you had to,” she exhaled heavily. “Besides, I can’t be mad at you about that and still be lying, too.”

  There it was.

  “Tell me,” I replied, not missing a beat, ignoring the hole in the pit of my stomach.

  She sat up straight. “You might not want to talk to me again after I say this,” she admitted. She took another long breath. “I never graduated from college, so transcript-wise I’m still a freshman,” she squinted, puckering her whole face like the words she was about to say were poisonous, “but age-wise, I’m twenty-nine.”

  I stared at her, unable to speak, my lips and tongue seemingly detached from my mouth. I stacked ten years on the girl I thought she was.

  Twenty-nine? Twenty-fucking-nine?

  My mind spun. I wanted to take care of a twenty-nine year old. I’d told a twenty-nine year old all my secrets. I’d had incredible, mind-blowing sex with someone more than five years older than me. I was pretty sure I was ready to be her boyfriend.

  “It was crazy, it was wrong,” she said. “I believed that I deserved another chance and pretending was the only way.” She barely stopped to take a breath before she added, “I also needed a scholarship to stay here past this semester and lying was the only way that could happen, too. It worked. My doctored transcripts and a nudge from Professor Parker did the trick.”

  Everything seemed uneven. I wondered if it was how Kate felt when I told her about the night with Jeanie.

  But she had been willing to move past it for me. Couldn’t I do the same for her?

  “I know,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “You hate me.”

  “No,” I finally said. My spiraling thoughts formed into only one. She might have been ten years older than she said, but she was still Kate. She might have been older than me, but she was still someone I wanted to take care of.

  Still someone I wanted to take care of me.

  “I’m not mad.” I pulled her hands from her face, took them into mine and squeezed tightly. “Surprised, really fucking surprised, but not mad.”

  “Surprise,” she said, “I’m almost thirty.”

  “Surprise,” I replied, “people call me a rapist.”

  We both started laughing. I guess we didn’t know what else to do.

  Her breath caught. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes wet in a new way, tears of happiness, of relief.

  “I will always want the true you, and for you I will always be the true me.”

  “Okay,” she nodded, “for you, I’ll try.”

  “So, is there anything else?”

  “How much are you ready to hear?” She laughed nervously.

  “Everything you are ready to say,” I replied, tightening my grip on her hands.

  She sighed. “My last relationship was with a married man,” she admitted, “he was my boss. Most of the reason I’m here is because he fired me and dumped me on the same night.”

  “Wow, that’s cold. Are you still upset about it?”

  “With myself, yes; with him, not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Our relationship was a two way street. The end of it was, too.”

  I nodded.

  “What about you?” she asked. “All aboard the truth train—woo-woo.”

  I laughed again. “I’m a lot younger than you,” I said with a smile. “That’s all I’ve got so far. I’m hoping if we stay together, it’s all I’ll ever have.” I put two fingers to her chin, tipped her lips toward mine and kissed her gently. A kiss I hoped could be the mark of our new start.

  “Out of everyone on this campus, how did the two biggest liars find each other?” she asked.

  I brushed a stray hair away from her forehead, “Maybe because we’re finally ready to start telling the truth.”

  Kate

  Carter was kissing me with so much force he slammed me against the wall of his room—as solid at my back as he was throbbing against me. His
lips were ravenous, practically swallowing mine. He lifted me up and a squeal escaped. We were still entwined as he carried me to his bed with arms so strong they were like a truth all their own.

  “I guess this means you don’t think I took advantage of you,” I said.

  His eyes slowly lapped me up and down, up and down, like the sweetest drink. “You mean because you’re older,” he laughed. “I didn’t, but that’s a fun idea.” He lay down on the bed. “Your move.”

  I stood next to him, a sly, sexy smile permeating my lips. I took him in, focusing on his strong steady shoulders and panty-melting eyes.

  “Okay.” I straddled him, pushed his thick arms behind his head and clasped his hands together. “No touching, and you can only say yes.”

  “Yes,” he breathed, licking his lips.

  The heat of our skin radiated through the fabric of our clothes. I kissed his top lip, his bottom lip, both sides of his neck—an appetizer.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Keep saying it.” I slid his shirt off, forced his hands back behind his head, and teased my fingers down his taut chest and stomach. I traced small circles around his nipples first with my fingers, then with my tongue.

  “Yes,” he moaned. “Si, oui.”

  I looked up sternly.

  “I want to keep saying yes,” he explained, “but I’m trying to keep it interesting.”

  “Oh,” I said, my lips sliding back down to his torso and trailing kisses down to his waist, “It’s about to get interesting.”

  I undid his fly, pulled off his pants, and put my lips around him, his dick so hard it bucked against the back of my throat. He sighed, his body falling completely under my spell. My lips slicked over him from the base to the head. He closed his eyes in pleasure. I licked the tip, my tongue looping around it. “Say the word.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes,” he cried.

  I slipped off my shirt, my pants. His body quaked as I took him inside me. His hands grasped at my hips.

  “No touching,” I scolded, forcing them back behind his head. “I’m in charge.”

  I reveled in the power. Controlling the moans and sighs coming from him, a building pleasure that would grow and fill and burn and pound, finally releasing like a gentle rush—the same rush beginning to rip through me. I eased against him slowly like my movement was a breath, a whisper, plunged harder and faster and rougher until it became a chant and then a squeal. We were entwined like vines, like roots, like the two of us were both halves of a wishbone that would never be broken, the wish already granted.

  “Can I say something else?” His breath was rough as his body continued to rock with mine.

  I nodded.

  “I think I love you, Kate. Yes,” his velvety voice proclaimed, “I know I do.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I’ve never been surer of anything than the way I feel about you.”

  He rushed his hands to my hips, gripped me tightly, and flipped me onto my back so quickly I barely had time to breathe.

  “I love you,” he said again, “and now…” His lips traced along my neck, down to my breasts, his tongue slid along the curve of my stomach, teased at my hips and slipped lower. “It’s time to show you exactly how much.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Kate

  “What, did you fall asleep in the bathroom or something?” Veronica asked as I snuck back into my bed right before daybreak.

  I was trying to get in without waking her, but the mattress was so small I was lucky I hadn’t crushed her. Honestly, it was so tiny she could probably smell where I’d really been all over me.

  “Shh,” I said, “Dawn is sleeping.” I tried to pull my body as far to one side of the bed as I could without falling off.

  I would tell Veronica about Carter—but not now. Not when her yelling WHAT? would probably wake this whole wing of the dorm.

  “So was I,” she said, her eyes big. “Now I’m up and wondering where the hell you slept last night.”

  It was no use. If I didn’t tell her she would probably have a tantrum that would wake this whole wing of the dorm anyway.

  “I was with someone,” I whispered, trying to pacify her. But also, it was time to start telling the truth. Well at least to everyone I cared about.

  She hit me. “After you gave me so much shit last night—who?”

  “Can we please talk about it later?”

  “The cute guy from the dining hall?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows for emphasis.

  “What?” I guess I hadn’t been that good of a liar after all.

  “I’m not stupid, Kate,” she said. “I might have pretended I didn’t notice anything pass between the two of you at dinner last night, but when you slink back in here, your hair like it was styled by a rolling pin and your skin glowing redder than a maraschino cherry, I can only assume.”

  I paused and glanced at Dawn’s bed to make sure she was still asleep. She already knew about Carter, she just didn’t understand why it was such a big deal.

  “Yes, Carter,” I said. “His name is Carter.”

  “You college cougar.” She hit me again. “How old is he?”

  “Why would that matter?” I asked, loud enough so Dawn could hear if she was bothering to listen. “He’s a senior, twenty-two,” I whispered.

  Carter’s reaction to my age had only gone so well because he knew everything else about me. I’d been lying to Dawn from day one. And I’d kept lying even as we grew closer. She might not have shared everything with me, but I was pretty sure she’d never lied to my face.

  “You like him.” Veronica paused, her gaze sweeping over me. “You do. You like a twenty-two year old college senior.”

  I couldn’t help but tinge red even as I asked, “So what?”

  I heard Dawn grumble and turn over.

  “We should stop talking,” I whispered.

  “No.” Veronica jumped from the bed, “I need details. Coffee—.” She snapped her fingers, “—now.”

  I didn’t protest. I was happy to finally be able to give details.

  We got dressed quickly, went downstairs, and headed to the coffee shop, our arms wrapped around our coats, blowing air we could see into our gloves.

  “I can’t believe you like a twenty-two year old,” Veronica said. “I mean, like, like.”

  “I do,” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Thinking about Carter made me smile. Everything about Carter made me smile.

  She gasped. “You more than like him,” she said, hitting me lightly.

  “I know it seems weird…” I started.

  “No weirder than any of this.”

  “So that means you still think I’m crazy?” I asked.

  “I never thought you were crazy.”

  I glared at her in a way only a best friend can.

  “Fine, maybe a little,” she laughed.

  “At least you admit it,” I said, pulling the door to the coffee shop open.

  “Speaking of crazy, what was all that stuff last night when we were walking home?”

  We took our place in line at the register. “I don’t know, I guess my starting over is going to take more than only a change of scenery.”

  “My insisting on going out last night and giving you beers probably didn’t help either.”

  “I’m the one who made the decision to go, to drink,” I said. “I could have said no to you.”

  She waited.

  “I mean, you would have been a total bitch about it, but I could have.”

  “The fact you’re even feeling this way is a pretty big step,” she said, touching my shoulder.

  We ordered two coffees and took a seat at the counter lining the window.

  “So tell me about Carter, the stud,” she said.

  “It’s hard to describe…there’s something about him.”

  “You mean his hot body?” she asked with a slow, knowing smile.

  “No,” I laughed, though that was definitely in the plus column. “He likes me for exactl
y who I am.” I paused before answering what would surely be her next question. “Yes, he likes a twenty-nine-year old freshman.”

  “You told him,” she exclaimed, her eyes wide.

  “I trust him.”

  “You are crazy,” she said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I might not have completely but, when it came to Carter, I definitely did.

  Chapter Forty

  Kate

  Carter, Veronica, and I headed to campus for Professor Parker’s class on Monday. It was her last day here and I was going to miss her. I kind of wished she was staying longer.

  After an initial weirdness when they first met, Carter and Veronica were getting along fine. She’d been nice enough not to ask him if he knew what a Rubik’s Cube was and he’d been himself.

  I swear he didn’t have an asshole bone in his body. I wondered if that was why he carried what had happened to Jeanie for so long, because it didn’t compute with the kind of person he truly was.

  The day was clear. Warm enough that the snow was melting, the sound of it dripping from buildings and lampposts almost like wind chimes.

  I let the sun warm my cheeks. It was good to be with two people who knew everything about me, who I didn’t have to hide from.

  It was good to know that even after Veronica left I’d still have Carter.

  “I came here to get away from lawyers,” Veronica said as we headed out of the sun and into the lecture hall. “Now I have to sit in a class with hundreds of them.”

  “Not lawyers yet,” Carter replied, “lawyer wannabes.”

  “Ugh,” she said, “even worse.”

  I was heading toward a row in the back of the room when I noticed Dawn sitting across the way in full black and spiky regalia. Her clothes and demeanor were as welcoming as a sea urchin; her face was tight and thick with makeup. Her arms were crossed, her knee bouncing and shaking the seat in front of her.

  What was she doing here?

  “Hey, Dawn,” Carter said, sliding into her row.

  Veronica followed him and waved as she walked past her to a seat.

  “Did you need to talk to me about something?” I asked, taking the seat next to her, attempting to keep my adrenaline in check, my breathing even. Maybe she’d actually heard when Veronica and I were talking about Carter’s age, about how I was a college cougar, and rather than wait all day for me to get back to the dorm alone, she was confronting me now.