Page 59 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

Matt, however, finished his beer and roared a rift shamelessly, then wrinkled his nose when several people laughed. “Not my finest hour, I’ll admit it,” he said.

I wanted the ground to open under my feet and swallow me whole.

“I used to be able to belch through half the alphabet,” he bragged.

“Try that the next time you’re pulled over,” I teased. He’d been pulled over with me in the car and the officer was the most stunning young woman I’d ever seen. Obviously, she left Matt tongue-tied at once, which firmly assured her that he was drunk. He’d recited the alphabet backward and walked in a straight line, then ended up blowing the balloon until it was proved, beyond a shred of doubt, that he was not drunk, but merely an idiot.

“It happened once, dammit.” Matt slapped my shoulder and shook it a little. “I still dream of her.” His tone was soft and dreamy and way over the top. And when he began giggling, I remembered he’d been testing that bong.

“How about we head back?” I asked.

“Are you mad? The party’s barely started,” he said. “And my mission is to score you a date for the next one.”

“You’re basically giving me up for adoption is what I hear.” I deadpanned and Matt stretched his lips into a huge grin and looked into my eyes. He ran a hand through my hair, straightened my little bowtie, told me to exhale, sniffed, then patted my shoulders. “Minty breath, clean fingernails, nice hair. There’s no mother who wouldn’t want you as her son-in-law.”

“I’m not exactly trying to score someone’s mom,” I said.

“That’s as close to a yo-mama joke you’ll ever get, my friend,” Matt said, feigning heartbreaking disappointment, then sliding his arm over my shoulders and looking around. “How about that guy?”

I looked at where he was pointing. “Are you fucking crazy?” I asked.

“Language, Mister,” Matt said. “And what’s wrong with him?”

The guy Matt was still pointing at very visibly, was a six-foot-four boulder of muscles, a drop-dead gorgeous face, upturned nose, blue eyes, and bright blond hair. He was an all-American beauty. He was a walking stock photo that advertised anything from Greek Life to college football or sexy cologne. “He’s slightly out of my league. Stop pointing your finger at him.” I swatted Matt’s hand down and exhaled in frustration. The blond guy was making his way to the one that had been hanging out with the blond girl. The girl had gone somewhere and the two guys struck up a conversation. “This is stupid. I really just want to go.”

Matt raised his hands in surrender. “Alright. I’m not gonna force you.”

I felt bad instantly. Matt had been trying to help me solve my single biggest problem ever and he didn’t even know what the problem was. He had no clue about my lack of experience. And not just in dating and networking, but in everything. He just assumed there was an app that took care of the awkward bit and got me action, but he couldn’t be more wrong. Yeah, I’d downloaded apps at one point, and they had freaked me out so much and so quickly that I’d never opened them again.

He had no idea I was a virgin. And every day that passed, I was a virgin for a day longer, which made it harder to tackle that monolithic first time.

“If you want, we can go,” Matt said. And he meant it, but I couldn’t do that to him.

“I’m good,” I said bravely. “You can have fun and I’ll stick around.” Matt moved away to mingle with the crowd.

There was pizza in boxes all over the place, so I grabbed a slice, decidedly not worrying about who else had touched it. It made me think of my personal hero, Nikola Tesla, who was such a germaphobe that he supposedly stopped shaking people’s hands. His solitary life was on the list of things I had in common with the great man. And, according to some whispers and unproven gossip, remaining a virgin was on the same list. And none of that made him any less brilliant, I told myself as I went down a mental rabbit hole of considering Tesla’s achievements and life. He had immigrated to the US to work for Thomas Edison on the promise of a huge payment if he could improve Edison’s direct current. And when he did, Edison claimed the payment promise had been a joke all along. It was only the first of many slights and still, at least today, Tesla’s genius was getting the appropriate appreciation.

Did you ever stop to consider that thinking about Nikola Tesla at a frat party might be why you’re still a virgin? The snarky voice inside my head was right, but I indulged anyway. I chewed my pizza and washed it down with sparkling, sour, and bitter beer. It was a horrible combination and my time would have been better spent doing literally anything else. I could have been reviewing my notes from senior year’s introduction to astrophysics. I had a session with a student who was two years ahead of me, but I’d already covered the grounds privately. In high school.

I sighed and looked to the other side of the crowded area. Some sort of commotion was taking place over there around the black-haired, tattooed, broody guy who looked ever so slightly amused. The blond girl and the jock Matt had been pointing at were starting to debate something loudly while, between them, the black-haired boy crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at everything.

But the debate grew heated quickly and the black-haired hottie was starting to seem surprised. He was, without a doubt, the best looking, most confident specimen of a college fuckboy I had ever seen. The dangling earrings, the pouty lips, the bored expression. If you took everyone at this party’s best features and combined them all together, it would make him. His dark, slanting eyes and the tattoos rising along his neck made me short of breath.

The hot guy was raising his hands when the two blonds looked at him for answers. The girl grabbed his upper arm and yanked him towards her, but the guy was also doing the same thing, almost spilling the drink the hottie was holding in the process. As I watched, Matt came closer to me. “See? That guy’s gay. You could have struck up a conversation with him and seen where it went.”

“And do you see that he’s into the other guy?” I asked.

“That’s Sawyer.” Matt said, his tone holding no surprise. “What the hell is happening over there anyway?”

Sawyer, apparently, was everything I was not. Even as he was being torn apart by two blonds, he seemed as confident as if there was nothing the other two wanted but him. And by the look of it, there wasn’t. They were pulling him back and forth, hotly telling each other to back off. “You know him?” I asked Matt.

“Yeah, he was asking how to get in touch with you,” Matt said casually as if brushing it off while focusing on the brewing fight over there.

My heart tripped and I took a moment to sort through my thoughts. This hot as hell guy wanted to get in touch with me? He knew of me? But, as my brain sped up, I remembered the only reason anyone ever wanted to get in touch with me. I deadpanned at Matt. “To tutor him?”

“Obviously. You don’t go seducing twins and acing courses. And Sawyer’s the type who loves to seduce.” Matt was all distant, frowning at the commotion. “Don’t worry. I told him you were booked.”

He could say that again. I was booked for the rest of the year and had more than a few students vowing to need my help next year, too, sending me preliminary times and dates together with boxes of chocolate.