Chapter 34 – Thomas
Chapter Thirty-Four
Thomas
Clover stomps up to me in the library with her arms crossed and a horribly cross look on her face.
Her cross look doesn’t bother me. Her full lips purse together tightly and her pretty eyes narrow in a dark, but alluring glare.
I can’t help but smiling at her, despite her outrage.
She slams her bag down and groans dramatically. Girls.
“I hate everything,” Clover sighs.
“What’s new?” I grumble.
“I’m DJing the big Halloween party. Apparently,” she grumbles, giving me a horrible glare as if it’s my fault just for my association with Kit.
“How is that horrible? I wish I could DJ. Wouldn’t have to talk to people. Wouldn’t have to dance.”
I won’t be dancing anyway. I plan on following Clover around all Halloween, making sure she doesn’t get her arse into trouble. Her glare intensifies and she shoots back with her usual attitude.
“Yeah, but how the hell would you sneak your ass upstairs and touch people if you were the damn DJ?”
She can’t let go of that, can she? I care about her, that’s all. I’m fucked in the head, but I still give a shit. I still want to look after her.
“I said I was sorry. Plus, you wouldn’t be upstairs.”
“So now creeps discriminate?”
“This creep does,” I respond. This doesn’t come off as suavely as I hope.
Fuck’s sake, she makes me feel so stupid.
At least I make her crack a smile inadvertently.
Clover catches herself and rolls her eyes.
I want to move closer to her. Just watching her talk, rant and rave drives me wild.
Maybe we ought to be friends. Just friends. But I don’t think I could handle that.
Clover continues, “I’m no closer to solving this blackmail issue. Sylvia dismisses the whole vandalism thing as a prank since nothing else has happened and Kola… Well, she’s chasing after Jamal and no closer to catching him.”
“Don’t think about that,” I tell her, fighting the urge to put my hand on hers. If I did, I think she’d murder me on the spot. “Think about the greatest holiday of the year. Halloween.”
Clover wrinkles her nose. “Ew. I hate Halloween.”
“Who the bloody hell hates Halloween? Costumes? Candy? Dancing? Pumpkin flavored beer?”
“All those things are disgusting,” Clover insists.
“What, you have some sort of Halloween trauma?” I tease her, digging my pencil into Clover’s side. She snatches my pencil away from me and glowers.
“Yes. Actually.”
At least I got away with something approximating touch this time. She only confiscated my pencil — she hasn’t stabbed me with it. Yet.
“Come off it,” I reply. There can’t be any such thing as Halloween related trauma.
“I’m serious,” Clover says, her voice tightening.
“What happened? I thought America had superb candy. Caramel covered in deep fried sugar. That’s America.”
Clover holds my pencil like she’s going to throw it at me, but she just rolls it over to me.
“It’s not about candy, dumbass,” she grumbles.
“Then tell me.” I want to know everything about her.
“My parents put my entire life on the internet. They made all my choices. Some of them… were weird.”
“Like what?”
“My Halloween costumes. Let’s list my childhood costumes shall we? Sexy Jasmine, Playboy bunny, a monkey eating a banana, Marilyn Monroe, sexy lifeguard, sexy Pocahontas… Do I need to continue?”
“A monkey eating a banana?”
“Subscribers voted for that one. And the Playboy bunny. I was seven.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” she sighs. “Some of the people who watched us were really really weird. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I get that. I had a weird childhood too. You don’t grow up in a Bainbridge household without a few screws coming loose. Violet’s only high strung. The rest of us are all properly fucked.
“You’re eighteen,” I remind Clover. “You don’t have to be sexy if you don’t want to.”
“What are you going to dress up as?” She asks, definitely deflecting.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Um. No.”
“Tarzan. Loincloth. Hair loose.”
“Ew.”
“Sexy Tarzan,” I tease her.
She rolls her eyes so far back they almost disappear.
“Why does everything have to be sexy?”
“I dunno. You’re the one obsessed with sex.”
It was only a joke, but she definitely doesn’t take it that way. Fuck.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Great. Nice going, Thomas. I was only teasing her, but the expression on Clover’s face tells me this isn’t a joke.
“I’m not shaming you or anything.”
“I am not obsessed with sex,” she hisses.
Fuck, she smells amazing.
“No? You can’t seem to live without it,” I accuse her. She’s hooked up with Jude. Kit. Who knows how many other secrets she might have. I seem to be the only man who utterly repulses her.
“I haven’t gotten any in months and I’m totally fine. Do you think you could last that long?”
Clover snickers. “Boy, I don’t know what the hell you are, but you ain’t fine.”
“Really?”
“You touched me, Thomas,” she snaps, searching for my weapon. I slip my pencil into my pocket before she snatches it away from me and makes another attempt on my life.
“We’re doing a horrible job of getting work done,” I mutter, because I don’t want to talk about the things I did to her or how fucking hard it’s been to go so long without sex. I’m not obsessed, but fuck, I miss… touch.
“You’re right,” Clover says. “Let’s stay focused.”
We keep at it for a while, putting the finishing touches on the project and chatting solely about work. When we finish for the night, we both linger as we pack our things, neither of us saying anything. I have to do something.
“You don’t have to be alone tonight,” I tell her.
She gives me a look halfway between annoyed and flattered, the sort of look that only someone like Clover Robinson could master.
“I won’t be alone.”
“Right. You have Molly.”
She sighs. “I don’t, actually. She’s sick again. Spending the night in the health center with influenza. Or something.”
“I see.”
I can’t take my eyes off her and she keeps my gaze for a minute before her better instincts take over. Clover bites down on her lower lip and then squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m probably going to regret this but… you can sleep over. Platonically.”
“Platonically?”
“On the floor.”
“And here I was thinking Americans were known for their hospitality.”
Clover rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Take it or leave it, Thomas.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Great. I’ll sleep with my cricket bat and watch your back too.”
I chuckle. “So far, this spicy freak hasn’t touched me yet. It’s you I worry about.”
Clover quips back immediately. “You should worry about controlling your creepy ass urges.”
“You trust me to control them tonight, don’t you?”
She bites on her lip again and it takes everything for me not to lean over and kiss her, putting an end to this strange dance we keep engaging in.
“That’s why I have my cricket bat.”
“Cheers.”
“I’m not keeping this from Sylvia,” Clover says. “I’m going to tell her that… we’re friends. Or whatever. And that we’re doing homework.”
“That’s still lying.”
“I don’t want her freaking out about the blackmail,” Clover says. “I’m not lying to hurt her. She has enough going on.”
“Right,” Thomas said. “We’ll stop by her room and confess everything.”
“Don’t say confess,” Clover corrects sharply. “That makes it sound like we’re doing something wrong. Which we’re not.”
“Right. I’m innocently sleeping on your floor. Naked.”
“Naked?!” Clover squeals.
When she sees the mischievous smirk on my face, she beats me thoroughly with her cellphone until I beg her to stop through peals of laughter. She puts her hands on her hips and her face nearly matches the deep red color she dyes her dreadlocks.
“Let’s go, Thomas,” she snaps. “And don’t try me again. I told our dorm head I would be in a half hour after check-in, so we won’t get in trouble or anything. Well, unless you get us caught.”
I shrug and offer Clover a suspicious wink.
“Off to Sylvia’s we go…”
* * *