While I resent my infuriating neighbor, I’d be downright blind not to notice how sexy he is. He looks too mature to be just twenty-one. Too buff to only be on the track team. Too everything. Even his facial hair is perfect, not substantial enough to be called a beard exactly, just a manly scruff. And dammit, how does he make bedhead look so good? Barbers should list a photo of how he looks right now as an option because it is a gorgeous, rumply mess of chocolate-brown hair with a couple of natural golden streaks garnered from running out in the sun so often.
My own hair is probably a cotton-candy-like mess of midnight black frizz. I should have at least put my fingers through it first, never mind a brush, before opening the door. I’m still getting used to it being so short, but I don’t regret chopping it off this summer to just below my chin to donate it to Locks of Love. Besides, my friends have assured me that my sleek bob emphasizes my green eyes and is both sophisticated and flirty. Their descriptors, not mine.
“We’re headed out to Thatcher Field to catch the meteor shower,” Amerie explains, checking the time on her phone. I’m glad at least someone can talk because, for some reason, I’m tongue-tied looking at Cal.
“A bunch of us are going,” Jax adds and Diego nods.
“Word. Give me a sec and I’ll join you,” Cal says, and my mouth drops open.
“You weren’t invited,” I call after him, and Jax jabs me in the ribs with her elbow. Yes, I’m being rude, but still, I’m just speaking the truth.
“I didn’t realize I needed a private invitation to look at the sky,” Cal calls back from inside his room, undeterred. “Be right there.”
Ugh! He shouldn’t be here at all. Stef, my college bestie, should be living in his room. At the end of our sophomore year, I’d won a high lottery number, allowing me first dibs on selecting the best housing on campus for our junior year. So, after much investigation, Stef and I had chosen these attached rooms in Atwood Quad’s historic Tasker Hall, which had been built in 1890. But when Stef up and transferred to a local college in New Jersey, leaving one of the best private colleges in New England just to be closer to a guy, she also left me high and dry. And now I’m stuck with a jock next door living up his senior year. For a girl who prefers to go to bed by midnight and loves sleep more than books and Boba Tea, Cal is an unwelcome thorn in my side this semester and likely until summer move-out.
To top it off, not only do I share a wall with him, but a connecting door, too, which is thankfully locked. While I can’t hear anything from the room on my left, I hear too much on Calvin’s side due to that stupid door. I know things—like his favorite songs, that he calls his parents every Monday and Friday, that he sleeps with the light on, and that he almost always has a giggly female in the room with him. Seriously, no one is that funny.
Occasionally, I overhear snippets of his conversation, but it is hard to make it out unless he’s shouting or talking right near the adjoining door. So, I mainly hear mumbling and, of course, that constant giggling from his girl fan club.
There have been two major exceptions. One time, after I pounded on the wall for him to be quiet, I overheard a female voice say, “Is she always like that?” My resulting gasp had been so loud, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they heard it on the other side. But then came his garbled response that went like, mumble, mumble, and then, “She’s not like you.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? This time, my breath had stuck in my throat, or rather my ego, and it was still living there weeks later. I’d heard that kind of shit back in high school, but I was never the girl panting after the guy or pretending to like the same stuff as them. Nope, the days of me trying to be like everyone else are behind me, because here … here I’d found my people. Yet all those hurtful, childish memories came flooding back with Cal’s cruel remark.
The second embarrassing incident … well, I’d rather not think about with my friends nearby. Hell, a shiver of desire runs through me for a brief second as I recall the experience, and I pull the comforter tighter to ward off the unwelcome sensation as we wait for Cal.
Seeing him come bounding out of his room breaks me from my annoyed thoughts. I’m not sure if I should be thankful or disappointed that he’s thrown on a Thatcher College sports hoodie, hiding his rocking abs, and slipped on track pants over his boxers. Yup, I’m torn. I only let myself absorb him for a moment before I come to my senses and remind myself, he is everything I don’t like. He is arrogant, annoying and he is a player. And he is undeniably one of the best-looking men I have ever seen. He knows it, too, given the smile on his face as he looks me up and down.
“Let’s go,” declares Amerie, turning on a flashlight I didn’t realize she’d been holding and pointing it toward the exit. She’s a natural born leader, which is to be expected of a daughter of a US senator.
We dutifully follow, and I try to gather up my comforter so it doesn’t drag down the front steps of Tasker Hall, but it’s too much for my five-foot-two height to manage successfully. Cal leans over, grabs the bottom of the plaid fabric, and holds it aloft, continuing to walk behind me. I grunt my thanks, feeling a bit like a queen with a loyal subject assisting her. The image is ridiculous, but it’s happening and I’m going with it.
It’s pitch-black outside, and the frigid, early November morning air smacks into me, bringing my spine up straighter. Now I am a haughty queen. The thought makes me laugh, and I feel Cal’s gaze pivot to me. I shiver, but I don’t think it’s from the cold.
Our group trots through the quad like an unchoreographed parade until we finally reach the sports complex. Half of the student body is out on the football field. The grass, which usually looks like a dark lake in the night, is now littered with blankets and folding chairs.
Jax unrolls a large quilt for all of us on an empty patch near an overturned soccer goal, or maybe it’s some sort of football training equipment? So not my area of expertise.
“It looks like two sailboat masts sticking out in the ocean,” Cal whispers near my ear. Another shiver. Weird, I’d thought the same thing. Shocked, I only nod and look toward the sky. The shower hasn’t started yet.
Amerie informs us that it will be sometime over the next hour and I try not to groan, thinking of how I could still be sleeping. Everyone plops down on the quilt, claiming their own area. Like Noah’s Ark, the couples pair up, leaving an awkward space together for Cal and me. I descend to the ground with as much dignity sitting on a quilt over dewy grass allows and grip my blanket tighter around me. Cal collapses next to me, barely an arm’s width between us, seated with his legs confidently stretched out and spilling onto the grass. The scent of him overpowers my senses. Like fresh laundry and the salty spice that is all man. Just great! Suddenly, I’m wishing for our door, separating us as usual.
My friends are talking quietly with their S.O.s, and I briefly debate curling up and going back to sleep. In the darkness, no one will be able to tell if my eyes are open or shut, but I have a feeling Cal may call me on it. Grumbling, I toss away the idea and yawn. A loud, lioness kind that has my friends turning back to look at me.
“My bad,” I mumble, and Cal chuckles next to me.
“It sure is cold out,” he remarks.
I shrug. “It’s November in New England, and we’re outside before dawn. Of course it’s cold.”
“At least you have a blanket,” he says, looking pointedly at how I have it wrapped around me like a tamale with me the meat inside.
“Yup,” I say, but he continues to stare at me expectantly.
“Well, are you going to at least share?”
“Nope.” Again, I hear myself sounding like a bitch, and guilt stabs at me.
Cal brings his knees to his chest and hugs his arms around them, shuddering violently. It’s so exaggerated that it looks like he’s convulsing. I roll my eyes heavenward and, incidentally, do not see a meteor yet. “Fine, you big baby,” I say. With a sigh, I loosen my grip on my blanket and sling a portion over his shoulders. He’s a foot taller than me, so he ends up needing more of it than I thought, and I have to scoot even closer to him. His shaking stops immediately. Hmph.
