Chapter 8 – Reese
IF YOU COULD JUST STOP CONFUSING ME FOR TEN FUCKING SECONDS, THAT WOULD BE GREAT
REESE
Iblinked blearily as I stared at the wall in front of me, wondering when the window had disappeared.
The smell of my pillow was different, too. I turned my face into the soft fabric and inhaled. It smelled like…maple syrup and something smoky. The scent was so comforting that I inhaled again and again, turning onto my stomach and pressing my face into the pillow.
When the last vestiges of sleep cleared, I popped up from the pillow as a cold, anxious sensation spread through my body.
What in the actual fuck was I doing in Dakota’s bed? And where was he? And where was my fucking mind, sniffing his pillow like a goddamned creep?
I scrambled to my knees, and my legs got twisted up in the blanket when I frantically tried to get out. I fell over the side of the bed and hit my shoulder hard, my legs slowly following me to the ground as I lay there.
“Ow.” I sat up and looked around the room again, just to make sure he really wasn’t here—he wasn’t, thank fuck.
But that was the only thing I was grateful for right now, because why was I in his bed?! When did I get there? Last night? This morning? Before or after he’d left? Was I sleepwalking again?
I rubbed a hand down my face and groaned.
This was bad. This was so fucking bad. It was so beyond bad that I didn’t even have a better descriptor for it. What if I’d crawled into bed with him last night and…done something weird?
My stomach churned with nausea. Why hadn’t he just kicked me off the bed if that was the case?
I had so many questions, and Dakota wasn’t here to answer them, but I couldn’t just sit here thinking about it all day. I didn’t even know what time it was, and I had classes to get to.
I used my shaky arms to push to my feet, then stumbled over to my side of the room. My covers were bunched at the foot of my bed, and when I touched the sheets, they were cold—which meant I hadn’t been in my bed for a while.
Fuck.
I grabbed my phone off my desk to check the time. I was about to turn off the screen when I saw a little notification at the top with the number four next to it.
I had text messages.
I never got texts.
My finger was shaking as I clicked on the messages icon. An unknown number sat at the top.
Unknown:
Hey. You’re pretty wild, you know that? You owe me
Or maybe you don’t owe me, but damn. That was some night
Poor word choice, I didn’t mean it like *that*. Or did I? ;)
I really didn’t though.
What the fuck…? I stared down at the messages, which were obviously from Dakota. They gave zero information about what had actually happened.
I was regretting the course of events that had led me here, but more than that, I was cursing Professor Hawkins for making us share our phone numbers with our duet partners.
I should just block him, project be damned.
Except instead of doing that, I typed out a reply.
Me:
Then what did you mean it like?
The message immediately went from delivered to read, and three dancing bubbles appeared below it.
My heart was pounding so hard I felt dizzy, so I sat down on my bed and stared at the bubbles. They moved, then stopped. Moved, then stopped. This went on for so long that I wondered if he was writing a whole essay.
But when the message finally came through, it was painfully short.
Unknown:
Just that it was wild. *You’re* wild.
That gave me less than nothing to go on, and because I felt like the entire conversation would keep on giving me nothing if I kept it going, I tossed my phone behind me and covered my face with both hands.
It didn’t seem like he was mad about whatever had happened. Then again, I’d never really seen Dakota get mad.
God, what was I doing? The longer I was around Dakota, the less I thought he was just another elite asshole. But if he wasn’t fucking with me, then…
I didn’t have a clue. It was impossible to believe anyone would be interested in me on any level. And even if he was, it didn’t matter.
I wasn’t a good person.
Maybe that’s why Dean Voss was making me keep tabs on Dakota. He wasn’t a good man, either, and maybe he recognized that in me.
I jumped when the alarm on my phone went off, then swiped to dismiss it.
If I was being perfectly honest with myself, I was just as morally bankrupt as Dean Voss.
It was really hard to care about being a decent person when there was no one in your life left to judge you.
The jury was still out on Dakota, though, and I wished they’d hurry up and give me their fucking verdict because I wanted to lump him into the same category as his dad so it wouldn’t hurt so much when I had to hand all his secrets over.
Not that I’d uncovered any secrets.
At this stage, Dakota was just a confusing puzzle of a person that I did not want to solve.
But I should at least give the impression that I was trying to keep an eye on him, right?
I looked around the room, eyes landing on my backpack, then leaned forward and pulled out a notebook. I flipped to the back and scribbled a few words that would hopefully placate the dean.
Notes:
9/22 ~ Dakota seems to be an ordinary boy so far, a little annoying. He goes to class, he reads, he sleeps. Nothing of note to report just yet.
I didn’t address the fact that I was the one who’d been acting out of the ordinary.
I closed the notebook and slid it back into my bag. Hopefully that would satisfy the dean.
Besides, nothing was going to happen anyway.
Unknown:
Have you been able to find the laundry room?
I sighed as I read Dakota’s text.
No, I hadn’t found the laundry room. The night he gave me directions, I’d been too wound up after attacking him like a maniac, flustered beyond words when he asked if I was going to kiss him, and drained from crying alone in the bathroom for half an hour.
By the time I came out, I was so internally overwrought that when he’d told me where it was, his words had gone in one ear and out the other.
All I retained was the word basement, and going down the basement hadn’t shown me the way.
There were so many doors and rooms and turns that after checking ten, I’d given up.
And then when I returned, there was some guy in his bed. The irritation that had prickled under my skin when I saw them pressed so close together baffled me, and I didn’t want to think about why I reacted that way.
I set my phone down on the table and ignored him, turning my attention back to my textbook. But my mind kept drifting back to Dakota, and I found myself typing him a reply.
Me:
No
His response came through before I could turn my screen off.
Unknown:
Told you. I’ll show you tonight. Do you like chocolate?
I blinked, then scratched my head.
He had a talent, that was for sure. He so easily irritated me in one breath and confused me in the very next.
Me:
No.
Unknown:
Hmm. I don’t believe you.
Me:
Believe or don’t believe whatever you want.
Unknown:
That sounds like a slippery slope. Speaking of slippery, how’s your leg? Doin okay?
For a moment, I thought he was talking about the scars on my inner thighs, and the most horrible dread started spreading through me. Then I realized he meant the leg that had gotten caught in the wire, and I sighed at my own paranoia.
Me:
It’s fine
Unknown:
Good. Be more careful where you step, darling.
Me:
Please don’t call me that.
A hot, itching flush burned across my cheeks, and this time I did turn the screen off, then set my phone facedown and buried my face in my hands.
Where the hell did he get off, calling me that?
The phone vibrated against the table, so I grabbed it and shoved it into my backpack.
I didn’t want to play games with him today.
Each interaction with him only left me feeling even more flustered and confused, and I wished I could get a handle on him.
That I could put him in a clearly marked box and tape it shut.
I just wanted to be able to label him a self-involved asshole so I could move on, but he was frustratingly hard to pin down.
And to ignore.
I’d gone all day without seeing him, but this irritating curiosity had its teeth in me, and I couldn’t get rid of it no matter what I did. A deluge of questions flooded my mind; I was drowning in my own desire to know more about him.
I wanted to know why his dad thought he needed to be watched. I wanted to know why he was closed-off one moment, and then intensely open the next. Silly and serious, self-centered and self-sacrificing. Opposite ends of a spectrum housed in one confusing body.
I wanted to know what made him tick so I could put this all to rest. Maybe if I understood him just a little better, he wouldn’t be able to get under my skin so easily.
After my morning class, it started to rain, so I ran across campus to the library and found a nice corner to hole up in on the second floor.
I had another hour before I needed to get to my next class, so I rifled through my backpack for my phone, ignored the new text messages, and opened the browser so I could scour the internet for everything I could find on the Voss family.
And I found a whole hell of a lot.
Dakota had two siblings—an older brother named Everett and a younger brother named Valentine, the guy I’d met in our room the other day.
Everett looked like the exact type of person that had bullied me in grade school.
He was smiling in every picture, but it was the kind of smile that dripped with arrogance and cruelty.
The I’m better than you and I know it and I’ll prove it glint in his eyes was infuriating, even through the screen of my phone.
He also bore a striking resemblance to Dakota, though he didn’t have any freckles and his hair was a lighter shade of brown.