Page 4 of Best Things in Life

“Never mind. It’ll work out. We’re together now. He’ll have to get over you. As long as we’re discrete and you’re nice to him it won’t be a problem.”

“Discrete? You make it sound like I’m moving in with you.” A flash of panic hits me from nowhere.

“Don’t I wish.” He gives me a look that says watch out and I wait for the pulse of desire, push for it, lick my lips in anticipation. But it never shows. Shit. What’s wrong with me? He has kind blue eyes, a strong jaw, and a ready smile. What more do I want? He’s energetic in bed and tries so hard to please me I should be grateful. One orgasm is the same as the next, isn’t it?

I shut my eyes trying to blot out the memory of Nate and those orgasms, but the memory of our last time together rocks me and I cover my shudder, which feels far too close to a genuine aftershock. I squirm in my seat and he gets into his side of the car. Shit. What was I thinking when I agreed to come to St Paul University? So what if they have a top-notch culinary arts program. Did I think I wouldn’t run into Nate? They’re on the same fucking team, living in the same motherfucking house.

Shit, if Bigs heard my mind swearing like that he’d have a hissy fit. He’d purse his lips and shake his head. I almost laugh at the idea of that qualifying as a hissy fit, but it does for Alan Bigsby, the nicest man I’ve ever met.

And don’t you forget it, Sarina Marie Torini. He would never tell me I’m shit compared to hockey like someone else I know and despise. I need to be mature and put the important things first. Forget about dimension-shattering orgasms and the kind of looks that make you shiver.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.

“What’s that?” he says as we pull into the driveway a few doors down from BMOC House. Because of course Bigsby’s old man got me into the best sorority house on campus. He has all kinds of strings to pull. It’s something I should appreciate but all I can muster is a vague sense of resentment.

Some people have to work hard to get where they get. It hardly seems fair that I waltz into one of the best schools around and land in the best sorority house and never lifted a finger to deserve it. Not unless you count two years of award-winning work at community college, which they should, but I’m not so sure it mattered to admissions as much as Bigsby senior’s phone call.

“Nothing.” I leap from the car and pull a bag from the back—the heaviest one, because I spend a considerable amount of time in the gym honing my girly muscles into killer shape. The bonus is I’m freakishly strong for a so-called petite girl.

But I find out once I settle in that I’m nothing compared to Emily Winiski, a tall brick house of an athlete and the lady in charge at Kappa Kappa Gamma house.

“Was that Bigs who just dropped off your bags—in a Porsche Boxster?” Emily says, standing in my doorway, without waiting for a reply. “And where the hell did he get a—”

“It was a consolation prize from his dad after SPU lost the Frozen Four championship last season.” I like her instantly and give her the full honest answer. “How about if we go out and have some pizza and beer as soon as I’m unpacked, Emily?”

She squints at me, as if my forehead has a label with fine print and she’s looking for poison as one of my ingredients. I grab her arm because I know if she looks too long she’ll find that poison in the form of anger and resentment bordering on bitterness all aimed squarely at Nate the Great.

“Come on—I’m not asking you to marry me. Help me unpack.” I pull her into my room and get to work unpacking my bedding and tossing it to her while I put clothes and toiletries into my dresser. This room is going to need a whole lot more than my best chair and fluffy comforter—a soft deep rug for one thing—but that can wait.

“You’re a bossy pants for a new girl. And no offense, but you don’t seem like Bigsby’s type.”

“Tell me about it,” I half mutter and then flash a smile and add, “You never know about these things. What the heart wants…” I trail off because I can’t bring myself to more than imply the big fat lie that my heart wants Bigsby. Not while all my lady parts ache right now, weeping in sorrow and shame for the bastard Nate who deserted me. Focus on his true colors, how he left you. I slam the door firmly on my carnal yearning because … I can’t give in to that memory because that’s all it is with Nate. He’s a memory. Whatever we had—which I thought was everything—meant exactly nothing to him. He wanted only hockey.

The bastard ruined hockey for me. I haven’t been able to watch a game since he left. I should hate him for that alone.

Firming up my resolve, I stow my luggage in the closet and we finish up.

“You ready? I’m buying,” I say, grabbing my Dolce & Gabbana knock-off that Bigs tried to replace with the real thing until I convinced him that kind of gift-giving would be a deal-breaker.

“Good, I hope you’re talking too because I have a few questions.”

“What does that mean?”

“How’d you get so many strings pulled that Reverend Church himself—the frigging president of SPU—called to request you get a room in this house?” Emily tosses the Q-bomb over her shoulder as she leads me from the room. My first instinct is to go on the attack to get back control of this situation. Then I remember where I am and that Emily is president of this house and she’s someone who I can respect because being on an athletic scholarship, she worked hard to get here, earned her way to where she is.

So I dial down the defensiveness a notch and realize I’m going to need to do that for the duration whether Nate’s constant presence gets under my skin or not. A knot of tension makes its presence known across the back of my shoulders.

“Bigsby,” I answer because she probably figured the truth. “Or more specifically his dad, pulled some strings.” She nods, grabs her purse from her room that looks like part locker room, part summer camp bunkroom, and we head down stairs.

“Just so you know,” she says as we head out the front door into the late afternoon sun, “some girls are already resentful. And by girls, I mean Summer Philbin.”

“All good,” I say. “Summer means nothing to me so I’m not about to sweat it.”

“Easy to say since you don’t know her or the fact that she had her eye on Bigs. Poor girl is striking out in the love department—worse than me. At least I had a fling with Bane last year.”

“That right? Good for you. Too bad about Summer.”

“Yeah. She had Trey Eagleton in her grasp and lost him.”