That Infuriating Feeling: An Academic Rivals to Lovers Novel (Chasing Feelings Book 2)

Chapter 4

Oli

Shit, shit, shit. This was not good.

I stared blankly in front of myself as I walked through the quad, my face slack and my eyes perceiving nothing but blurs. What class was I on my way to? What the hell did we even learn in history just now?

Fuck. Just what I fucking needed. Day one of classes and the universe already dealt me the most challenging hand. A distraction. An outspoken distraction. An impossible-to-ignore distraction whose pretty eyes I was most certainly not thinking about.

My mind wouldn’t stop replaying the way Juni’s dark hair cascaded past the warm brown of her shoulders as she stared me down and proved every single one of my points wrong. Her eyelashes were obnoxiously long and sweet, contrasting her shitty attitude, and her sharp eyebrows only enhanced the critical looks she gave me. She was…glorious.

Fuck.

I wanted to scrub my brain clean before the image of her spread like a virus. My legs practically took over and turned me right back around to argue with her more, to see just how riled up I could get her. Not only to listen to her and gawk at her intellect but to simply know that I had some kind of effect on her. It was like revenge. If I was going to be so fucked up over meeting her, she had to be fucked up over meeting me too.

I wasn’t even trying to be rude when I asked her if she’d ever seen a beard before. It was supposed to be friendly banter, not an insult. Obviously, banter is not my forte and, obviously, I’d offended her. Whatever. I guess we were rivals now. Probably better. Then maybe I wouldn’t get so caught up in her pretty eyes and her eloquence.

I was entirely too pleased that my wardrobe consisted of mostly flannels because she seemed to have an issue with them. I’d wear one every day, especially when it was hot out. I’d wear one on my arms and one on my legs. I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted her to look at me. Extra points if she was annoyed while doing it.

My palm hit my forehead and dragged down my face. I was officially thinking like an idiot, which was precisely what I was supposed to be avoiding. I should’ve been checking my schedule to see what class I was on my way to, not imagining the way Juni would flip if she saw me wearing two flannels.

There would be no smiling, no flirting, no thinking about that impeccable maven who handed my ass to me so easily. I was here to study. To earn a degree. To do what I was supposed to do so that I could move on with my life with even the smallest shot at success.

It was my responsibility to get Jonah off his ass, to make sure we survived this place, to make sure Kai was okay, to ensure my family didn’t crumble even further… I had to keep it together. I had to keep all of us together. Only three more years and I’d have opportunities pouring out of my ears. I was sure of it. Opportunities meant success, and success meant no longer relying on my parents, and no longer relying on my parents meant no longer having to spend time with a father who couldn’t see past his own nose. I was done with him, and this was my ticket out.

So, that was too much to be dealing with to add on yet another distraction. An annoying, snippy distraction with an attitude problem that plagued my brain the entire walk to…

What was it?

Fuck.

Mathclass.

I arrived at math and slumped into my seat, sweating my balls off in my flannel and trousers. Damn me for feeling the need to cover my tattoos in front of my teachers. No, actually, damn my parents for leaving London and moving to California. They should’ve just raised me there. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with this hot weather and the hot sun and my hot classmate.

Despite wanting to punch the air and kick my feet, I didn’t. I kept my external cool as always. It was quite literally all I had.

Well, my external cool and my friends, one of whom was plopping down in the seat next to me. Noah twisted, bending his body awkwardly to lay his head on the desk in front of me.

Noah and I met freshman year when we were paired up for a debate discussion about a short story we read in English class. I loved debates. Noah did not. To every point I made, his rebuttal was something along the lines of “Oh, yeah, you’re probably right” followed by an enthusiastic head nod and a finger pointed in the air.

“Oli oli oxen free! How are you, friend?” He closed his blue eyes and made kissy faces up at me, daring me to give him a peck. When he realized I wasn’t going to, he continued speaking. “Tell me all about your first class. Did you learn so many new things? Did you find yourself? Did you figure out the meaning of life? I did, but I won’t tell you about it unless you tell me first.”

I scoffed. If the meaning of life was a beautiful devil, then yes, I’d unfortunately found it. I leaned back in my seat and averted my gaze from my joyous, bass-playing friend.

“Oh, no,” he whispered, jumping from his laid-out position and sitting up to face me. “It’s Grumpy Oli!” He grabbed the buttons of my flannel urgently, inspecting me for injuries. “What could’ve caused it? Are you overheated? Do you need water? Did you accidentally swallow a drumstick?!”

His dramatics pulled a chuckle out of me, though I swatted him away. Noah was one of the few people who could bring me back to myself with his goofy antics. He often took me away from my stress and back to the Oli who played drums and pulled pranks and laughed at stupid shit.

“There he is!” he crooned as he glimpsed my soft smile. “There’s my beautiful baby boy.”

He sat back in his seat, smacking my shoulder with the back of his hand playfully. He looked like a giant ball of sunlight with long, shiny hair, a bright orange band T-shirt, and khaki shorts. The tie-dye socks he wore were just the icing on the cake. He was in the middle of sitting happily when he suddenly twitched, leaned up, and turned to look behind himself. Unsure of what caused it, I turned along with him to find two girls sitting behind us, grinning stupidly at Noah.

Ah, yes. This was a common occurrence. Noah was gorgeous, and people tended to notice. It was honestly a little relentless.

“Sup, chicas?” he said, tilting his chin up in salutation.

One of the girls wiggled her fingers in greeting while the other sat up a bit taller in her seat, looking him over. They literally could not have cared less that I was sitting here too. I tried not to laugh as I thought about where the conversation was inevitably going to lead.

“I like your hair,” the one sitting up tall said, eyeing Noah’s beautiful, golden mane.

“Thank you,” he said kindly. “But I would, like, super duper appreciate it if you didn’t touch it again. It’s all good my feminine friend but, like, personal bubble and all.” He smiled, looking back and forth between the two girls.

“You got a girlfriend or something?” she asked.

My eyebrows shot up at that. I found it incredibly rude that her response didn’t acknowledge his very reasonable request. If I were him, I would’ve just ignored her and turned back around. But Noah couldn’t resist.

“Sure do,” he said as his grin grew.

Talking about his girlfriend, Tiff, was arguably his favorite activity. It was one of the things he had in common with Jonah; music, long hair, and talking about the girls they loved. They were like night and day, Jonah and Noah. The same twenty-four hours, just opposite halves of it.

He pulled out his phone and showed the girls his lock screen. “That’s my girl, Tiffany. Tiff for short. My first and last, forever and evskies. But she’s got nothing to do with the fact that I don’t want you to touch my hair.” Even when Noah got stern, which was literally never, he maintained that boyish stupidity of his, nodding like he was high on drugs. He usually wasn’t, he just wasn’t exactly what you’d call au courant either. “Matter of fact, I think it would be so super chill if you, like, didn’t touch any part of me.”

The girls glanced at each other, silently communicating that they were done with this conversation, sinking into their seats, and effectively ignoring Noah. He caught my eye as he turned back around to face the front. “Sorry if I scared them away,” he whispered. “I saw a cute guy on the way in, though.” He bumped my shoulder with his.

As if I fucking cared. Flirting was not on my to-do list. Besides, I was admittedly horrible at it. “I’m not interested in dating. I’m here to work.”

“You’ve been saying that since the day I met you, my large liege.”

I clicked my tongue. “Which is hardly even a year. That’s such a normal amount of time to not think about dating.” Especially considering Noah knew why it was so important that I did well in school and graduated.

“I don’t know, babe. You’re so fun when you’re being yourself.”

I grunted. “I’m always myself.”

He swiveled his head on his neck. “Nope. You spend way more time worrying about stuff than you do pranking these days. You are too stressed to function, bromigo.”

I nodded once. Too stressed to function. Very interesting take. I made a mental note to bring a whoopee cushion next class and somehow get it under Noah’s ass without our professor seeing it. That’d show him.

◆◆◆

June

Hours later, I still couldn’t fucking believe that guy. The first day of classes, and I already had an archnemesis. It’s not like this was a fucking ivy league. He had no reason to be so incredibly pretentious. So high and mighty. As if he truly believed he was smarter than me? I scoffed to myself at the thought.

I spotted Mary on her way out as I walked down the gray hallway to our dorm room.

“Off to play with a boy toy!” she said as she neared me, holding up her palm.

I slapped it with my own as we passed each other. “And I’m off to stare at the wall!”

“You go girl!”

I chuckled as I unlocked the door to our room, though it wasn’t really that funny. Her joke was, of course. But not the fact that I truly had no other plans than to stare at the off-white paint on our walls and think about that asshole, Oliver.

God, he sucked.

As I bounced onto my very un-bouncy bed with nothing but empty hours ahead of me, I thought to myself about how to spend the rest of the day, running through possible activities. My homework was taken care of, and I had no classes left. I checked my phone. 4:00 p.m.

Okay, June. Let’s think.

Maybe about six more hours until I go to bed.

What to do? What to do?

When we were bored, Alana and I used to love going down to that one spot by the reservoir to stare at the water. Life was easier then. I didn’t need to think of after-school activities. Doing nothing was perfectly acceptable because I had someone to do nothing with. We’d think, and talk, and even sit in silence.

Sure, I could’ve sat in silence now, too. But something about doing it alone in a room seemed so vastly different from doing it accompanied in front of a body of water.

So, sitting in silence. That’s a no. What other activities are there? What do I even like to do?

Mary was off to see a boy toy. My face melted into a stink as I momentarily considered texting Liam, the old soul from the library.

No. Just no.

Okay, what else?

I sighed. I couldn’t think of a damned thing. I needed something to ponder, something to frequently occupy my mind so I wouldn’t notice how often I was left with lonely downtime.

“How do people even do this?” I mumbled to the air. “Spend time alone. For what? What is the point of sitting by one’s self with an empty head and nothing to do?”

Well, perhaps the empty head was the problem.

I groaned and threw my face into my pillow, pushing hot air out my nose until my ribs caved in. I then shot myself back up, swung off the bed, and stormed out the door.

“I’ll be damned if I’m already bored to bits on day one. I’m fun. I can still be fun.”

I took to walking around campus as I had so many times before, murmuring to the wind about how lame it all was. I peeked my head into a cafe and got a couple of weird looks, tried sitting on a bench in a green space but was quickly consumed by unwanted thoughts, and even managed to sneak my way into another dorm building just to see what it looked like on the inside. Alas, I ended up at the library. Liam wasn’t around, and I realized I was kind of an idiot for assuming he’d serendipitously be here at the same moment I was. And I was even more of an idiot for thinking it would be a good idea to reappear after leaving him on read for months.

I mosied up and down the rows of books, taking in that all-too-familiar smell of paper and imagination. How I wished I liked reading so I could enjoy this environment, but it was just so fucking boring. Perhaps even more boring than I was now realizing I was. Maybe I’d stooped low enough to take it up as a hobby.

I stuck my finger on top of the spine of a colorful book, dragging it from its slot on the shelf. The picture on the front was quite cute; a happy, 18th-century couple twirling around on a grassy plain. Had it been a movie, I might’ve been interested to know how those two got together. I placed the spine in my palm and let the pages fall open, searching for a random line to read and occupy a few seconds of my perpetual nothingness.

He removed his trousers in an instant, pulling her skirts up to her navel and plunging into her…

What. The. Fuck?

Not what I expected to read.

Her corset burst open, revealing her naked bosom. Jonathan took the opportunity to…

Oh my god.

People write books about this shit?

I shoved the book back into its spot and pulled out another, letting it fall open as I had the first to see if it was happenstance that I’d opened up the one dirty book in the entire library.

Sherry looked so fucking beautiful, her blonde curls a mess and her tight dress around her waist. Long, black tears streaked her cheeks. A visible side effect of taking my cock so deeply.

I slapped the book shut, looking around to figure out if I’d accidentally wandered into the pornography section. Or worse…if I’d been seen wandering into the pornography section. The green sign at the top of the bookshelf read: Romance.

How discrete.

I grabbed both the corset book and the ditty about black tears and tucked them under my arm in search of a place to sit. I suddenly had to know how Miss Sherry got into such a compromising position. I was curious to continue this…research…on…the joys of reading.

By the time I rolled my stiff neck, I realized I’d been sitting on a squishy, sage library chair looking down at the story about Sherry and her bodyguard, Ronan, for two entire hours. It turned out she got into that compromising position by disobeying his orders to stay inside. For the first time in my life, I felt like I should look into hiring some private security. I also felt like I should get some sticky notes so I could mark this shit up. There was gold in these pages.

I checked both books out—failing horrendously at swallowing my embarrassment when the girl behind the counter saw them—and brought them along with me as I made my way back to the dorm room. With the corset book tucked away under my arm, I continued to read on about the bodyguard, wondering how Ronan could possibly get Sherry suspended that way against the glass window of her father’s corner office. My eyes strained to see the bouncing words as I stepped under the campus lights, the dirt on the sidewalk crunching under my black Converse.

A shooting pain surged up my shin as I stomped hard, stopping myself from bumping into the large body that suddenly appeared in front of me. I looked up to find a chest and craned my neck to find the rest of the human attached to it. My jaw clenched immediately. Oliver from history class.

Seriously? Twice in one day? God, this semester was going to suck.

His eyes raked from my face to my book and back to my face. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

“Sorry,” he finally forced out as if he really didn’t want to say it, but whatever manners inclined him to call professors “sir” obliged him to.

I gave him a wry look, denying him my forgiveness.

“Don’t you have a more comfortable place to read?” he asked, finishing his final word with a hard, rude D-sound.

“Is every word that comes out of your mouth intentionally impolite, or are you simply unaware of how to appropriately communicate with humans?”

His face was indecipherable, the campus around us oddly empty as the day wound down into night. My eyes flicked to the pharmacy bag in his hand.

“Vitamins,” he said quickly. Why the fuck would I care if he’s buying vitamins? “I got them for my roommate. I read online that vitamin D… I don’t know. Never mind.”

My face contorted. Was that his attempt at human communication? “I’m gonna go now, Oliver. Hope your, uhm, roommate feels better.” I stacked Sherry’s story over the corset book and hugged them both into my chest, deciding I’d save the reading for a safer place if it meant avoiding unintentional run-ins with Sir Oliver. I brushed passed him and continued down the road toward my dorm.

“Goodbye, Juni,” he uttered behind me.

“It’s June,” I said over my shoulder.

What. A. Dickhole.

When I got back to the room, Mary was still gone, off somewhere with someone. I spoke aloud, telling Alana all about Oliver and his dickish tendencies, his arrogance, and his profound stupidity, flailing my hands as I gossiped with the air. When I finished, I waited for some kind of answer. For the wind to blow against the window or for a pen to roll off my desk.

Nothing.

A cold, hard nothing that offered very unwanted clarity into just how fucking off my rocker I was, mumbling my thoughts aloud as if my dead best friend could hear them. Just as I was about to curl into myself and sob, my phone went off, the device vibrating in my jeans pocket. I pulled it out and eyed the caller ID. Daya.

I sighed. If I didn’t pick up, she’d just keep calling. I answered and set the phone down on my desk, placing my sister on speaker.

“Hey, Daya,” I said tiredly, kicking my shoes off.

“How many dicks have you seen so far?” Her voice echoed strangely, the sounds of driving in the background crowding her words. Ugh. I hated it when she called me from the car.

“Just one,” I grumbled as I peeled off my jeans and replaced them with pajama pants.

“No way!”

My head fell to the side so abruptly my neck cricked, my eyes rolling into my forehead. “How about ‘Hey, June. How’d your first day go?’ Or ‘Any interesting classes?’”

“Boooooring! Tell me about this dick.”

“It belonged to Funky Finn,” I teased, pulling an oversized T-shirt over my head.

Her voice hardened in an instant. “Juni Sharma, you did not! I swear on all that is holy if you fuck any of your professors, I will—”

“You told me to see some genitals. I’m just doing what you asked.”

“He is thirty years old! And taken!”

“Universe save me,” I muttered under my breath. I picked up my phone and took my sister off speaker, sticking the device to my ear as I fell into bed. “Daya, I’m kidding. He’s just my history professor. He’s cool.”

She sighed with relief so heavily that I had to pull my ear away to avoid her hot breath on my skin. “Fine, fine. How are you feeling today?”

“Hate that question.” I definitely did not want to get into a conversation about feelings. I rolled into my covers and pulled the sheet up to my ear.

“June,” she said in that tone I knew was meant to calm me. To reassure me. It never did. All it did was remind me that I was the type of person who needed constant calming.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I stared at the junction between my top sheet and where it collided with my bottom sheet, gazing into the shadow that seemed to never end.

“She’s with you, you know,” Daya said quietly, the sounds of her driving having stopped. I heard the click of what could’ve been her transmission shifting into park.

“She’s not, and that’s bad enough. Don’t lie to me on top of it.”

Just what I fucking needed. Thank you, Universe. Really. For an awesome day, topped with a shitty classmate, heartbreaking loneliness, and a subtle reminder from my family that I’m too fucked up to even have a normal fucking conversation. I couldn’t remember the last time I genuinely spoke to one of them without them bringing Alana up. But what did I expect? She was in everything I did. She truly was always with me, weighing down my heart though never showing her face. She was an asshole like that, and she was so going to get a piece of my mind when I got to the other side. I already knew what I was going to say to her, too.

“That was torture, Alana. How dare you make me suffer through so many years of social interaction without you?”

“The world’s best prank!”she would probably say. “Payback for putting pink food coloring in my shampoo.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Daya asked.

“No, thank you. I’ll text you later.” I hung up and shoved my phone under my pillow.

I broke down in hysterical tears almost immediately, heaving hot, damp breaths into my sheets. No matter how angry, or bored, or even happy a day made me, it was always punctuated with this same sadness. Because Alana simply wasn’t here.