My words hung between us. The air crackled, alive with tension and something indefinable. And yet I recognized it. It happened around him a lot, buzzing over my skin like an electrical charge.
“That’s convenient,” he murmured.
I moistened my lips. It felt as though we had been staring at each other forever. Another second and I might splinter from all the tension.
“So.” He arched an eyebrow. “Are you inviting me?”
“Oh.” A short, nervous laugh burst from my lips. “Yes. Yeah. I guess I am.”
He smiled then, and I melted right there. I gripped the edge of my door to stop my knees from buckling.
He leaned forward, that one arm still close, partially caging me. “Okay. I’ll follow you.”
“Okay,” I repeated, grinning like a fool.
He lowered his arm from my car and walked backward, still looking at me as he moved. “Wait here. I’ll bring my Jeep around.”
“Okay,” I said again, wishing I could come up with something better to say. Something clever and flirty.
I released a shaky breath as he turned and jogged away.
Chapter 15
Dropping into the driver’s seat, I waited, watching his tall frame disappear in my rearview mirror. My fingers tapped the steering wheel anxiously. Giving my head a fierce shake, I released a little shriek inside the safety of my car, getting it out of my system. Lifting my hands, I pressed them against my flushed face.
Yanking down the visor, I stared into my eyes, the green brighter than usual, and addressed myself firmly, “All right. Pull yourself together, Pepper. You’re a big girl. You asked for this. You’re not doing anything hundreds, thousands of women aren’t doing tonight.” I was probably doing less considering I wasn’t even having sex. “No. Big. Deal.” Even as I spoke the words, I continued to shake in my seat.
The lights of Reece’s Jeep soon flashed behind me and I put the car into reverse and backed out.
He followed me out of the lot and down the strip. I cut through campus, driving between the familiar red brick buildings lining Butler, past the quiet quad with its grassy lawns and empty benches. I managed not to total my car, which was somewhat miraculous considering I couldn’t stop glancing in the rearview mirror to watch the dark shadow of Reece inside his vehicle.
We found two spots near each other in the parking lot. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my backpack from the passenger seat and climbed out, grateful that I’d at least gotten all my studying done at the Campbells’. Reece was already waiting for me, looking relaxed and at ease with a hand buried halfway in his pocket.
“Are you all right leaving the bar?” it occurred me to ask.
“I called my brother. He can close up.”
“Oh. Good.”
He fell into step beside me as we headed toward the dorm. I glanced at his bare arms. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s a short walk,” I volunteered unnecessarily. “We’re almost to the door.” Apparently nervousness made me spew gibberish.
I swiped my card and entered the dormitory. At the elevator, I pushed the UP button and sent Reece a small smile as we both stood in awkward silence. I tried to appear more confident than I felt. Fat chance. He knew what I was. What I wasn’t. I trained my gaze on the descending floor numbers, watching each one light up. Seven. Six. He knew what I didn’t know. Five. What I needed to learn. Four. Three. Everything. Two.
I quit my study of the flashing numbers as two girls spilled noisily into the building. They clearly had a few drinks in them from the way they hung on each other.
I didn’t know them, but they looked familiar. But then so did everyone else who lived in the building. I was sure we had passed each other in the halls or shared an elevator before. The blond one had maybe even loaned me a quarter in the laundry room.
Their giggles and shrill voices died when they saw me standing there with Reece. They exchanged wide-eyed looks and compressed their lips as though it was killing them to hold silent. The doors slid open with a ding and muffled whoosh. Reece waited for all three of us to step in ahead of him and I swear they tittered like thirteen-year-old girls.
Rolling my eyes, I pushed for the fifth floor, wishing we had just taken the stairs. It was habit that I avoided the stairwell this late at night. It was too dark and smelled like sweaty socks on a good day. Plus, I just didn’t like the sense of isolation in the stairwell. Like I was inside a tomb. Small spaces and I never got on well. Too much of my childhood spent in closets and bathrooms.
When the girls got off on the third floor, they didn’t wait for the doors to close before they started whispering indiscreetly and looking back at us.
“God,” I muttered. “It’s like high school. Some things never change.”
“Some things do.” He slid me a long glance as we stepped off at my floor. “I didn’t spend the night with too many girls in high school.”
I arched an eyebrow. “No?”
He grinned. “No. That came later.”
“I bet.” I unlocked my door and moved into the pitch-black of my room, my steps automatic, moving from memory. I flipped on the lamp at my desk and dropped my bag onto the chair. The room’s adjoining door was ajar, as usual. I peeked inside the murky space. Emerson’s shape was visible beneath the covers of her bed. I could even detect her soft snores. I closed the door between our rooms (probably a first) and turned the lock.
Whenever Georgia wanted to be alone with Harris, they hung out at his place. She even spent the night there on occasion. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Emerson waking up to a closed door. She wouldn’t know what to think.
I faced Reece, smoothing my hands over my thighs, the soft denim somehow normalizing me. Lifting my chin, I braced myself for his first move.
Only he wasn’t even looking at me. He was studying my room, turning slowly, his gaze exploring my private sanctum like he was viewing something interesting. My bedspread with its overly large purple flowers. A poster of Mickey Mouse’s ears, just the shadow of them set against a star-speckled night. He took it all in, and so did I—seeing it through the eyes of a stranger. His eyes. My gaze skimmed the bed, the poster, the stuffed Pluto resting against my pillow that had seen me through so many years. It was a poor substitute for Purple Bear, but it was the first gift Gram had bought me so I treasured it. It was a little girl’s room, I realized. Or at least it would appear that way to him.
I searched for something good about it. Everything was tidy and organized. Textbooks neatly piled on my desk beside my laptop. No clutter. I hated having a bunch of stuff I would only have to cram into my car at the end of the year and then find a place to store while back home at Gram’s for the summer.
He stepped up to my desk. Three pictures sat there. One of me and my dad blowing out the candles on my first birthday cake. I’m on his lap. There are a bunch of bodies pressed behind us, none of their faces visible in the shot, and I always liked that. Liked not knowing which one was Mom. If one of them even was. The photograph was of just me and Dad. The way it would have been if some land mine hadn’t taken him from me and left me with her instead.
Even though it was my birthday cake, Dad was the one blowing out the candles. Probably because I wouldn’t. Instead, I watched him with this wide-eyed, bewildered look on my little round face. Like he was performing the most amazing feat I had ever seen in my short life.
The second photograph was of me and Gram at my high school graduation. Tucked into the edge of that frame was a strip of four photo booth snapshots of me, Emerson, and Georgia taken at the mall last spring. It was on the same day we had decided to sign up for a suite together. We were making the requisite crazy faces. In every pose Em looked like she was making love to the camera. Like Porn Goddess was the only expression she could make.
The last picture was me with Lila and Hunter at their family’s annual Fourth of July barbecue last summer. His girlfriend had been lurking somewhere nearby, but the photo had been snapped when it was just the three of us. Reece’s hand went unerringly to this photo and picked it up off the desk. “Is this him?”
“Who?”
“The guy.” He looked at me and then back at the photograph, his expression thoughtful.
I blinked, startled that he would guess so accurately, and uncomfortable talking about Hunter with him. At least in any detail. It was enough that he knew I was doing this to attract someone else. Did I have to share everything with him?
He must have taken my silence for confusion. Or he’d become impatient. Either way, he tapped the glass over Hunter’s face. “He’s the one you’re doing this for. Right?” He waved the frame between us.
I gave something between a nod and a shake of the head. “How did you know?”
“You have only these photos here. I’m guessing these are the most important people in your life.” I glanced at the frozen faces of my father, Gram, Emerson, Georgia, Lila, and Hunter. He was right. These people were everyone to me.
“And,” he continued, “you’re glowing here.” He looked back down at me with Lila and Hunter.
I moved forward and took the frame from him and set it back on the desk. “I was a little sunburned that day. That’s all.” I don’t know why his words embarrassed me or why I felt the need to deflect them, but I did.
Moving forward had placed me closer to him. Only an inch separated us. I held my ground though, determined not to step back like proximity to him scared me. That would be silly considering I had invited him back here for one reason alone. Playing coy now would just be ridiculous.
Lifting my chin, I smiled, hoping it passed for a come-hither look. I wanted him to kiss me. Touch me. That would be easier than all this talking.
But instead of getting on with it, he moved his attention to the picture of me and Dad. “This is your father?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“You’re cute. Your hair was really red then.”
“What little I had, yeah.”
His gaze trailed over my hair. “You have plenty of it now.” His attention returned to the photo. “Guess you didn’t get the red hair from him though.”
I frowned. Unwelcome memories nipped at the edges of my thoughts. Why was he asking so many questions? That’s not why I brought him here. We both knew what he was here for.
I took the picture from him and set it back down. Turning, I moved to the bed and sank down on it, propping my hands on the mattress behind me. Crossing my ankles out in front of me, I answered him. “No. That would be from my mother. She had the red hair.”
Hopefully the “had” would put him off from asking more about her. There was a reason a photo of her did not grace my desk. There was a reason she wasn’t included among those people that were most important to me. He was smart enough to figure that out. Without saying anything more about her, he should be able to understand this much about me. With that small bit of information, I’d told him more than even Emerson and Georgia knew.
“My father is dead,” I suddenly volunteered. I’m not sure why. I didn’t have to. He wasn’t prying about Dad right then. It was probably to distract him from the subject of my mother. It was less painful to talk about my father getting blown up in Afghanistan. Sad but true. Neither qualified as makeout conversation, but one was the milder poison at least. I would rather him look at me like a poor little orphan than the way he would look at me if he knew the truth about my mother.
“Sorry to hear that. So it was just you and your mom?” He wasn’t going to let it go about her apparently.
I stared at him, certain my frustration was visible. My feet twitched out in front of me. “My mom is gone, too.” Not exactly the truth but not a lie, either. “My grandmother raised me.”