3. CHAPTER THREE
White on white on white.
The kitchen of our staff housing block is a fluorescent fucking nightmare on my tired eyes. A far cry from the walnut and oak wainscoted walls of the dining hall at Lancaster C & P. It’s all synthetic: Plastic and polyurethane, the hard surfaces reverberating the noise like an echo chamber. And they don’t even have porridge. It’s a staple. Canada is a colony and they grow oats every-bloody-where.
“Just put something on a plate, Jess. Please .”
I grunt at Romeo and shuffle forward along the cheap gray linoleum floor to a basket filled with donuts. Bright, huge, and not a breakfast food. How the hell can someone start their day properly with so much sugar? However, I did have a croissant every morning for seven years and that’s layers and layers of pastry wrapped around layers and layers of butter. So is it really much better?
Leaving the Continental V New World food debate behind me, I throw a donut on my plate and scuff my grandpa slippers towards an empty table. Pulling the seat out, my eyes catch a ragged-looking girl in the back corner, hugging her legs against her chest. Darting her gaze away from mine, she scans the room like a nervous chipmunk before locking in on Romeo as he plods towards me. Dumping what looks like one of everything on offer on the table, he heads straight back to the coffee station like a zombie. Then, the girl’s eyes are back on me and her stare is callus and stark as the fingers of her right hand twist the earrings in her ear. It’s creepy. I swear she’s dismembering me in her mind. Hacking off piece after piece of me and laying them to the side for inspection.
Shuddering, I curl my top lip and slump into a chair.
So far—aesthetics aside—this place is just like Lancaster College & Prep. A total freaks r’ us. But instead of the children of the British elite, this time I’m surrounded by the misfits of society. And where the fuck does that leave me?
“Hi,” some girl greets me as she walks past. Her fingers wave enticingly as she holds my gaze for a few seconds too long for the interaction to be out of pure politeness. Her hair is piled high on her head and whilst the t-shirt she’s wearing with her pajama pants is quite endearing, my brain is still on London time—and thus—so is my willingness to flirt back.
The aroma of the strongest coffee I’ve possibly ever smelt makes my brow pinch as I continue to stare at the random girl, still awaiting a response. Taking my finger, I plunge it into the middle of the icing-covered donut, making the jam ooze out. Lifting my finger, I hold it up to Romeo as he puts two cups of coffee down on the table. Sitting down himself, he leans in and sucks the jam from my finger.
“Raspberry,” he drones, not looking at me or the girl.
Again, I dip my finger into the donut, but this time taste it myself. “Raspberry,” I repeat with a small confirming nod, and the girl finally walks away.
“You know she’s only going to be more interested now,” Romeo sighs, though his lamentations aren’t at my actions but his own self-pity. Pushing the plate of food he’d piled up into the middle of the table, he guzzles down his coffee in one giant gulp.
“Was there any decent tea?” I ask, smearing the jam through the icing sugar, making swirls, and occasionally having another taste. I get a shrug from my friend as he lifts the second cup to his face, this time pausing to breathe in the steaming mist rising from its black contents.
“She was cute,” he refers to the girl and takes a sip.
“You think they’re all cute.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You trying to argue this with me is what’s cute.”
“I don’t want to talk about this shit again.”
“Feel free to go over and introduce yourself if you think she’s worthy.”
“They’re all worthy, Jess… Every woman is worthy.”
“But it’s not your job to let them all know, mate.”
“Just show a little fucking respect, is all I’m asking.”
The fact that Romeo—who has fucked more women than everyone I know combined—is telling me to show respect proves two things. One, he’s just as tired as I am, and two, his mum remarrying hasn’t healed the scars his father left him with because I’m still the only one out of the three of us who would gladly welcome a relationship.
Bed-hopping just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I crave the mornings after instead of avoiding them at all costs. You know, the times when you wake up after having fucked a chick so thoroughly that she doesn’t stir until the smell of bacon and eggs wafts into the bedroom as you bring in the tray. Then you climb back into bed to replenish your energy for another day, week, lifetime of the same…?
No?
Me either.
I have no idea what it feels like to wake up next to someone so special that you’d readily cast aside a life of one-night stands to spend every possible moment with them. Your entire body aching when they aren’t around. But there couldn’t possibly be a more inopportune time to seek out a relationship. I’m shacked up with people from the four corners of the globe who are all working temporary jobs like me. Nothing serious can ever happen. And I know that’s why Saxon suggested coming here in the first place. He needed a diversion from having his family secrets splashed throughout the tabloids and the anonymity of being a world away from people who do give a fuck about some rich prick and his money.
And me? I was happy to take a year off before starting my Master's of Law. I just didn’t expect the timing to coincide with the maturity of my emotional IQ.
“Just drink your fucking coffee,” I exhale, pushing the donut away from me until its plate clanks against Romeo’s.
Swallowing down the last of his drink, Romeo stacks the cup with the other and leans his cheek on his crossed forearms. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired. I know you’re not the disrespectful one. Though your hair story is getting a little old now.” Reaching up, he wraps his fingers around a patch of hair by my ear that has always grown darker than the rest. “You think that seeing you’re a big grown-up man now with a degree and everything that we can retire that story?”
Like a drama queen, I gasp like I’m about to grasp at some pearls but snatch the hair from him and stroke it. “That little tale got me through my tentative years. I’ll have you know.”
“Lucky girls,” he scoffs, tucking his hand back under his head. “Did you try it on Mavis?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“She laughed in my face.”
“She sounds perfect to me… For you, I mean.”
It’s my turn to nod without offering up any words because I know she’s perfect. So do you. We’ve already been through it. You understand she’s funny and switched on enough to realize that the story about my hair was never about having girls feel sorry for me. It had always been to weed out the ones smart enough to call me out on my bullshit.
With a sudden intake of breath, I yawn so big that my throat makes that funny squeaking nose where you aren’t sure if other people could hear it or if it was just you.
“Why don’t you go lay for an hour and I’ll come get you before induction?” Romeo suggests.
“You’re the one falling asleep at the table. Why not take your own advice?”
“I’ve just had two double espressos. My eyes might be closed, but there’s no way I’ll sleep. Seriously though, jetlag is fucked. If you can nap now, go and do it.”
I shrug off his suggestion and start poking at the food on his plate. “It’s cool. I’ll wait for Sax.”
“You sure you wanna do that?” he chuckles.
No. I’m positive I don’t want to do that. But here I am, barely clinging to consciousness because I’m too nervous to close my eyes for longer than five seconds because all I see is Kai. Hypnotizing me from across the hall. Casually slumped against the door frame like it’s a completely normal thing to seduce the new guy.
Do you seriously think I’d be here right now if I wasn’t escaping the treachery of my own mind?
Fuck no.
These thoughts are too much.
I spent ten years of my life surrounded by dicks. It was literally twig and berries morning, noon, and night at Lancaster, and not once did I ever let my eyes wander out of anything other than a curiosity about where I fit in the scheme of things. Above average, by the way. I may not have a total weapon like what Romi and Sax have to lug around with me everywhere I go, but more than most has never gotten me any complaints.
Goddamn it. Now I’m thinking about how I’d measure up to Kai.
I already know he’s packing heat, but is he a grower too?
Would it be the same size as mine? Or bigger?
Why does the thought of him being smaller annoy me so much?
Why the fuck am I thinking about another guy’s knob in the first place?
I. Am. Not. Gay.
I’m not even bi-curious, for Christ’s sake.
Dear Lord, who I don’t believe in. Will you please bless me with the presence of my asshole friend Saxon and the fuckwittery that accompanies him wherever he doth go?