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  Maybe nothing I did would ever be enough.

  My mind rewound to Saturday night. Kate had gotten back to the dorm safely, but she could have left.

  She was pretty drunk, so I doubted it. I’d held her up almost the entire walk back to the dorm, trying to deny everything I felt when I touched her delicate frame—filled with fever even in the freezing cold night. My stomach was as empty as air, floating like a helium balloon set free. I’d left her in the lobby and taken the stairs because if we had ridden in the elevator together I would have kissed her again and again and again. I wouldn’t have wanted it to end.

  Had she found a guy who was willing to do what I couldn’t?

  Professor Parker turned to the dry erase board. I started typing notes, but my mind was on Kate. Was I wondering where she was because I was worried about her, or because I couldn’t stop imagining our kiss?

  About giving in to it so completely at first like I wasn’t me and she wasn’t her; like we were just two people who yearned for each other without pasts, or presents, or futures.

  I licked my lips. Damn, whatever was between us before our kiss had now multiplied and bloomed like one of those fast-forwarded videos of a flower growing in a garden.

  I tried to focus on Professor Parker droning on at his lectern, talking about constitutional law and how it pertained to modern life, but Kate kept creeping in. After a self-imposed sexual draught she was the sweetest nectar, a mirage that was real. When we kissed, her lips, her body, her hands were all mine, wanting me. The shiver of being touched again, the taste of willing lips, replayed again and again in my gut.

  I also couldn’t stop hearing her reply when I said I wasn’t supposed to be with her.

  Neither am I.

  What did that mean? Did she have a boyfriend? Did she have something from her past keeping her from me too?

  I should have taken her back to my room, but I didn’t sleep with anyone anymore, especially someone drunk.

  And she was drunk. She’d said she didn’t drink, but I knew what this place could do to you. What it could change you into without you doing anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Mr. Blackwood, do you have an answer?”

  Professor Parker was staring at me, along with the whole class.

  My ears and cheeks ignited. The tone in his voice made it clear he was repeating himself. I knew from my last time around he hated repeating himself, hated anything he deemed a waste of his very valuable time.

  I breathed out, gathering my composure, trying to cool the heat in my face, stop my heart from beating in my throat. Everyone hated when people looked at them, but I really did. In my case, they thought a lot more than the typical crap people did when they got called out in class.

  “What?” I asked, buying time, even though it was no use. I hadn’t heard his question. There was only one question in my head.

  Was Kate okay?

  “What is the most significant purpose of the US Constitution?” He sighed. “That is, if you can spare your attention to answer.”

  I cleared my throat. My studying had at least prepared me for this. “Conferring power on the national government and limiting the power of national and state government,” I recited word for word from one of the chapters due today.

  He paused, didn’t even blink, making it clear he would never lose to me even if I was winning right now. “Correct,” he said, “lucky for you. Moving on…” He turned back to the dry erase board and started writing.

  Had he called on me because I wasn’t paying attention, or because he thought I’d gotten off easy? That I should have left school like some of the other guys had.

  I’d considered it, and as much as I hated what my father had done to make sure I could stay, I deserved it. Being stuck in the place where Jeanie had been hurt, where I hadn’t done anything to help her, was the ideal punishment. I needed to remember, and leaving would only make me forget. I had no right to forget.

  I probably would have skipped taking Professor Parker’s class, but I had to. It was one of the last ones I needed to make up from the mess I’d made second semester freshman year. This class was supposed to be easy. I mean, I was a senior in a freshman level class. Why was I making it harder by caring about Kate?

  I gathered my things together quickly when class was over, but I couldn’t escape before Professor Parker yelled for me to stay behind above the din of everyone leaving.

  I took a deep breath and walked to the front of the classroom. I was totally not in the mood for a face to face with Professor Parker. I was never in the mood for a face to face with anyone.

  “You do know you need my class to graduate,” he said, squinting.

  “Yes sir.”

  Sir was a word I learned to use after what happened to Jeanie, sir and ma’am. There were so many people demanding my attention then, demanding my respect. Sir and ma’am was how I gave it. A word was the very least I could do, but it was also my way of keeping everyone from getting to me too much.

  If they were only sir and ma’am they weren’t people—asking things of me, requiring things of me, looking down on me. The only person who mattered was Jeanie and that was why I always called her Jeanie.

  Not that girl, like my father did, or that stupid slut like some of the guys from the frat did, or even plaintiff like the lawyers and the papers did. She was Jeanie. She was a person and she had a name.

  “Then you better start acting like it,” Professor Parker said, sliding papers into his leather bag. “You can also tell your friend Ms. Thompson,” he said, punctuating her last name, “if she misses another class I’m kicking her out.”

  My friend, was that what she was? I mean, I’d spoken with her a total of four times in a week, but I’d also gone to a party to make sure she was safe. I’d also kissed her. I’d also desired and denied myself a lot more.

  “It’s not her fault,” I said, searching for an explanation. “Her roommate was super sick and she had to take her to the health center.”

  I guess I was going to keep trying to save Kate. She might have said she didn’t need me, but that had nothing to do with me needing her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kate

  I woke to a knock at the door and squinted at my phone—five o-clock p.m. Shit. I’d slept through the whole day.

  Sunday had started in the toilet and ended in the sewer. Apparently, I’d cashed in my grandmother’s stock portfolio so I could have a safe room to spend in a coma recuperating from being a drunken asshole.

  She’d be so proud.

  I considered putting a pillow over my head and ignoring the knock like I’d ignored everything already that day, but the pounding got more insistent, stronger, bringing the headache I’d gone to sleep to avoid into focus like a bull’s-eye of fire at the center of my forehead.

  I stumbled across the room and steadied myself on the doorknob as I pulled it open. “What?” I asked angrily, my hangover doing the talking.

  Carter stood in the hallway with a cup of coffee in one hand and something wrapped in a paper bag in the other.

  My growling stomach hoped it was a bagel, with extra cream cheese. But why would I even think it was for me? Especially after how I’d acted. He was probably here to get his coat.

  “Oh, hi,” I corrected, my cheeks flushing.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said.

  “Yeah, about last night…” I started, leaning against the doorjamb. Thankful he was giving me an invitation to apologize.

  “That was two nights ago. You missed class today,” he interrupted.

  “Fuck,” I said, not able to keep the word in. Seriously? I’d slept a whole day and another half day. Had there been something in one of those drinks? Did it even matter since I’d been the one licking the plastic cup clean?

  As a senior, Carter was probably used to drunk girls make asses out of themselves. What he wasn’t used to were those same girls disappearing for two days afterwar
d.

  I shook my head. “I guess I slept through it.”

  “I got that,” he said, trying to get me to focus on his eyes, “but Professor Parker isn’t nearly as generous as I am.”

  “He noticed I wasn’t there?” I asked, my voice rising.

  He nodded, “I covered for you. Said your roommate was sick and you had to take her to the health center.”

  Was it Carter the guy who’d kissed me covering for me, or Carter the RA covering for me? Why was I even wondering?

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I wanted to.” He looked down at my hot pink manicured toes, attached to my bare feet. Attached to my bare legs and my bare thighs, hitting at the T-shirt I’d slept in.

  My ears burned. After my bra the other night and now in this, Carter could conceivably imagine me naked. Considering the bulge throbbing against me when we were kissing, I had a pretty good idea about him too. My thighs and arms blossomed in goose bumps.

  “Besides,” Carter finally continued, “he said if you missed class again he was going to kick you out. I had to say something.”

  “Crap,” I said, my adrenaline spiking like I’d been staring down at my cell phone on the street in the city and almost been hit by a speeding cab.

  “Just don’t miss class again,” Carter said, as if that was the easiest solution in the world. It would have been, if my stupid vices didn’t keep getting in the way.

  “I won’t,” I finally managed to say, “don’t worry.” Though he wasn’t really the one who should have been worried.

  “Remember the story: roommate, health center,” he said, handing over the coffee and bag. They were for me. “I need to pass Parker’s class this time.”

  “Thank you for covering for me and for this,” I said, ripping into the bag. It was a bagel with extra cream cheese. I took a greedy bite. “Really, for everything.”

  He waved my gratitude away, like everything he’d done was nothing at all. “The story?” he asked.

  “I can remember,” I said, even though my lies were starting to pile up. Not that I couldn’t keep them straight or anything, but I sure had an awful lot for just the start of the second week.

  “You think your roommate will cooperate?”

  I considered it and took another bite of the bagel, frantic with the hunger of having not eaten for a whole day, “If it means lying to a lawyer, she might.”

  “Your roommate doesn’t like lawyers?”

  I shrugged and wiped my mouth. “She thinks they’re assholes.”

  “So clearly they room her with someone who is pre-law,” he laughed, his blue eyes brilliant.

  “I guess her dad’s a lawyer or something,” I explained.

  “My dad’s an asshole too,” he said, breathing so hard his broad shoulders fell, “but not because he’s a lawyer.”

  “Clearly,” I said, toasting him with the coffee and taking a long drink, “not a case of like father, like son.”

  “I sure as hell hope not,” he replied quickly. He poked his head in and glanced at Dawn’s side of the room. “It looks like her dad is Bram Stoker.”

  “Yeah, she likes black and metal spikes and anything that used to be alive.”

  “Coolest thing about being an RA,” he said, crossing his arms, making his muscles more prominent, “no roommates.”

  “Yeah, but you must have people bothering you all day for stuff.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people think that because they are on their own now, they don’t need help from anyone.”

  I pressed my lips together, my mouth tasted sour. “I’m really okay. I just drank a little too much, that’s all.” But it was an excuse. One I’d used so many times before. One I would keep using, until I got my shit together.

  “Don’t feel bad,” he said, touching my shoulder. “When people first get here, they can get a little crazy.”

  I nodded. I wished I could lay blame there. It would have been a lot easier to deal with. The truth was, I’d always been a little crazy, when I was in college the first time, when I was out of college, and now that I was back.

  Maybe I was just crazy. Insanity was my real problem. I considered what life had to offer and was crazy enough to believe I deserved more. Unfortunately, like most people, stuff got in the way of going after more. My stuff always became alcohol because it helped me cover up other stuff.

  “I want to apologize for Saturday night,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. We’re fine.”

  Were we? Because I felt pretty damn confused about what we were.

  “I still have your coat,” I said, pushing my confusion down, “but I can wash it first.”

  “Why? Did you throw up on it?” he asked, his face tight.

  “Slept in it,” I admitted.

  “That doesn’t sound like it would smell so bad,” he smiled.

  I couldn’t help smiling back, wishing I had the balls to pull him into my room. Wishing he had the balls to throw me over his shoulder again and carry me over the threshold.

  Was I seriously starting to fall for this guy? Or did I like being taken care of for a change?

  We stood there waiting to do more than stand there. Everything I’d felt kissing him came rushing back like a waterfall. I wanted this person, to touch me and kiss me, to make me scream. But, I also didn’t want him to want me, because I wasn’t me.

  While I was still lying to everyone else, lying to Carter filled me with revulsion. He was too good to lie to. He deserved a lot better than an old lady who lied so she could go to college for free.

  He deserved a lot better than a college freshman who got drunk at parties and took her sweater off.

  I stepped back into my room, put the coffee and bagel on my desk and handed him his jacket. “Thanks again.”

  “If you need to copy my notes from class today, let me know,” he said, walking down the hall toward his room.

  I tried not to watch his flawless ass go, but I couldn’t help it.

  Apparently there was a lot I couldn’t help.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carter

  “Dude you’ve had your fingers on your straw so long I’m beginning to wonder if you’re considering switching teams,” Tristan said.

  I looked up from my tray, woke to the sounds of the dining hall: the clink of silverware on plates, of ice ringing in raised glasses, the voices of students laughing and talking and being around us. The hum of campus life when students were just being human, filling needs instead of wants.

  I let go of the straw I’d been fiddling with and eyed Tristan. “If that’s how the guys you’ve been with have been doing it, you might consider switching.”

  “Funny,” he replied, “but if my parents couldn’t get me to do it, you’re not going to.”

  “Wouldn’t dare try—girls are nuts,” I sighed, putting my hands on my lap so I would leave the damn straw alone.

  “Are we talking about who I think we’re talking about?” he asked, leaning in closer, his body making a shadow across his tray of food.

  “I kissed Kate,” I admitted. There was no use hiding it and, truthfully, I wanted to be able to tell someone. When something that amazing happens, you can’t help but share it even if one half of you can’t stop thinking it was a mistake.

  Actually, every mistake feels at least partly amazing, otherwise you wouldn’t keep making them.

  “So that means you finally took my advice,” he said, unable to hide the smugness in his voice.

  “Well, she kissed me,” I explained, “but I kissed her back.” Like that made it better or any less confusing.

  “Shit, dude.” He shook his head, a whistle escaping his lips. “That didn’t take long.”

  He was right. Considering it had been years since I’d even been in close enough proximity to talk to a girl, a week was nothing. I still couldn’t figure out how Kate had gotten to me the way she did, but clearly she had.

  “How was it?” he asked, a smile sweeping a
cross his lips.

  “That’s the first thing you’re asking?” I laughed.

  “Yeah, I’d much rather hear about that. We can get to the weirdness you feel about it later.”

  Instead of telling him there was no weirdness, because I mean, he wasn’t stupid I told him what he’d asked for. “It was incredible, better than I remember actually.”

  Talking about it, it was like her lips were on mine again. The emptiness in my chest, in me, filling more and more the longer we kissed. A tightness building, becoming a fullness that, if we had kept going, would have been the release that made you crave the fullness again.

  “Was it the kind of kiss that could make you a member of your team for life?” he asked, crunching on a potato chip.

  “It would make you a member of my team for life,” I replied. I couldn’t help but smile, remembering the way Kate looked at me as she leaned in. The bit of her that was only animal glinting behind her eyes.

  “That must have been some kiss,” he laughed.

  Thank goodness for Tristan. As much as I felt like I had no one who understood me, who gave me the benefit of the doubt, I had him. I don’t know what I would have done without him.

  We were guys so we’d never said so, but he felt the same. I was all those things to him too. Being gay wasn’t a crime like my past seemed, but to some people it was. To some people it was worse. It was everything most people saw when they looked at him, just like what happened to Jeanie was all they saw when they looked at me.

  “It was,” I said, shaking my head, “it was…” I trailed off, closing my mouth tight. I was suddenly reluctant to give it words because it had been something without words, without explanation—it just was. I was only me and she was only her, there was nothing else between us.

  “Details,” he said, moving his hands toward him like he was trying to call a dog.

  I might not want to ruin our kiss with too much description, but I could tell him about Saturday night. “Well, after I carried her out of the Delta Tau party,” I started.

  “Whoa, slow down,” he said, stopping me with his hand and sitting straighter in his chair. “You went to a frat party?”