37. Calista
THIRTY-SEVEN
CALISTA
T he sky was an inky blue when I made my way back to campus from Lincoln’s house.
I pulled into the empty dorm parking lot.
As I placed Ella’s car in park, I sighed.
I hadn’t planned to stay as late as I did.
But I found it hard to say goodbye. After a week or so of not seeing Lincoln, I wanted to soak up all the time I could with him.
I was an addict going through withdrawals.
Something about him drew me in like a moth to a flame.
The memory of the hard plains of his chest had me thinking of all the unspeakable things that I would have liked to do to his body. And I did. On my knees, water pelting down on my face. I worshipped him the way he deserved.
Heat rose to the back of my neck. What the hell is he doing to me?
I slapped my palms over my cheeks. I had to rein in my wild thoughts. If she was already home, Ella was like a bloodhound for this sort of thing. The last thing I needed was for her to sniff out my hormones and tease me about it for the rest of the weekend .
Propping the driver’s side open, I slipped out into the crisp winter night. Besides the wind, I didn’t hear a sound. The rest of campus was dead quiet, almost eerie. I shut the car door with a bang and fixed my jacket around me a little bit tighter.
The red sedan beeped as I commenced the short walk around to the front of the dorm building.
I fixed my bag higher up on my shoulder as I trudged through the layer of snow that had built up on the sidewalk.
Sparse lamp posts lit the path around the building, casting shadows across the walkway in an unsettling way.
I wasn’t a fan of walking through campus this late on my own, even if it was a short journey to my dorm building from the quad.
The thought, along with the cold nipping at my cheeks, had me picking up my pace.
As I rounded the corner towards the front of the building, a man wearing a red baseball cap came into view.
A cigarette rested between his fingers. He leaned against the brick wall in a dark puffer jacket.
The light by the front doors illuminated his face.
A thick stubble coated his chin. He couldn’t be any younger than forty.
I could have been wrong, but something told me he wasn’t a student.
The metal of Ella’s keys felt chilly in my hands as I maneuvered one of them between my fingers. With my keycard in my other hand, I tried my best to seem unbothered as I made my way towards the swipe pad.
“You’re Calista, right?”
The unease spread. I paused mid-step, turning towards him.
“Sorry, did I spook you?” If the glint in his eye was anything to go by, the apology wasn’t sincere. A thin stream of smoke poured from his mouth. “I can see why he’s got such a hard-on for you. ”
“Excuse me?”
He stuffed one of his hands in the pocket of his jeans. “I know Lincoln. Pretty well, actually.”
Sirens were going off in my head in warning. But because I couldn’t shut the polite part of my brain off, I responded, “Oh, do you work at the gym on campus?”
“We go way back, but we’ve reconnected over boxing.”
“That’s cool,” I replied, inching a few steps closer to the door. “Do you train him or something?”
“Or something,” he snickered after taking another long drag of his cigarette. “He could probably learn a thing or two from me, but the boy’s got that raw talent. It’s hard to come by these days, with society going soft and all.”
I offered him a laugh as I reached the swipe pad. “Yeah, well, I should get inside?—”
“Actually,” he said as he pointed a finger in my direction. He stepped forward, and it took everything in me not to turn around and run. “I’m glad I bumped into you. I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”
I swallowed. “Me?”
“I would have run it by Lincoln, but I’m sure you’ve realized how fucking stubborn the guy is.” His gaze scraped up along my body. I shivered. “I can tell you’re much more sensible than he is.”
He nursed his cigarette some more before continuing.
“What Lincoln does for a living… It’s a tough gig, I’m not going to lie.
You’ve got to have some balls to be able to get into a ring with someone who wants to beat the fucking shit out of you, ya’ know?
As much as you gotta be physically fit, a lot of boxing is a mental thing.
You gotta be on your A-game at all fucking times.
I’m sure he’s told you all about that. ”
“He has,” I responded, recalling how Lincoln had compared boxing to chess.
The middle-aged man nodded as he stared off into the empty quad. “So you understand why it concerns me that ever since you’ve waltzed into Lincoln’s life, he’s mentally checked out.”
The comment caught me off guard. “I?—”
“I don’t fault you,” he said. He dropped his cigarette to the floor, the end burning a fluorescent red.
“You haven’t been around long enough to see what kind of damage he can do.
But I can tell you from experience… Lincoln’s head isn’t in the matches like it should be.
That’s a very dangerous position to be in. ”
I kept my mouth shut. It was clear we were no longer talking about the boxing he did for Fenton. This man knew Lincoln from the Pit.
“He got his ass handed to him by Silva the other night.”
“The guy brought a knife into the?—”
He cut me off. “We can fucking cry about it all we want. The fact of the matter is, if he had been focused on what actually matters, he would have overtaken Silva. This wouldn’t have been the first time someone brought steel into the ring.”
He brought his leather boot down on the cigarette butt, twisting his foot for good measure. “There’s no room for distractions. They end up getting people killed, and I’m sure we both don’t want that, do we?”
“No,” I replied. The sound came out as nothing more than a strangled whisper.
He gave me a curt nod. “Glad we’re on the same page. Since Lincoln doesn’t seem to understand what’s best for him, maybe you can help him make some better choices.”
I couldn’t get my brain to move fast enough to formulate a response. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. This guy, whoever he was, didn’t seem like he was here to have an actual conversation. While I was gathering my thoughts, he began to walk away.
“Have a good night, Calista,” he called out before coming to a stop in the middle of the quad. “Oh, how rude of me,” he said with a nasty smile. “I’m Claudio, by the way.”