18. Jason
18
JASON
T he Professors’ Nightmare party forced a reset on the frat house. My buddies partied so hard and drank so much that they needed the whole weekend to recuperate.
I stayed in my room, holing myself in from their acting like babies. I didn’t bother going out there to act like the leader or president of the house, letting them handle the cleanup and figure out how to scrape the dried-up vomit from the bathroom.
Instead, I kept to myself and studied.
I refused to let my idleness lead to obsessing about Laura any more than I already was. After kissing her and feeling how wet she was for me, it crystallized how much she was coming to matter. And that didn’t work.
I was supposed to hate her, not feel proud to pleasure her.
I was supposed to make her miserable, not look forward to giving her relief.
When I wasn’t jerking off to the memory of her, I directed my frustration to the stupid tests that I had to redo. The trigonometry exam would be more challenging, but the retake on the pathology exam that the professor had scheduled for me wasn’t anything to stress over.
Regardless, for the first time in over a year, I studied and focused on my notes.
When I spotted Laura’s neat penmanship, I sighed and wondered how much she had to regret caving to me as much as she had.
Because she did. She should’ve slapped me and run screaming.
She kissed me back. She arched into me and lifted her leg to set her foot against the door to give me access to feeling her up.
Laura fucking wanted me. And I needed to buy more time before seeing her again to have my head back where it belonged. I had to hang on to this control around her.
When Tuesday evening neared, I headed to the building for the scheduled retake of the exams that my professors had set up.
This was the first time I’d blow her off. I came to every single tutoring session until now. The academic recovery program coordinator wouldn’t ding me for missing. I was still in “good faith” with the program for showing up with Laura, and they’d see that I had retakes scheduled.
But I hadn’t told her .
It was a dick move not to update her that I wouldn’t be coming tonight, but it wasn’t an intentional action to bother her or piss her off. I simply wasn’t sure how to address her yet.
Sitting in the testing room, I waited for the proctor to take the trig test and hand me the pathology one. And again, my thoughts fell to Laura.
Would she be waiting for me at the library?
Would she wonder why I didn’t show?
I cringed and furrowed my brow, not liking the idea of her sitting there alone and waiting for me not to show. Because if she could read my mind and see the truth, she’d realize that I was always enthusiastic to be near her.
After the path exam was complete, I turned it in and hated that I was still curious about her.
Fuck, this is getting twisted.
Instead of heading straight back to the frat house, I detoured and walked through the library, seeing her sitting there and writing on a notebook, seeming to study for her own coursework.
She was there, just like I expected.
It was a reminder that she wasn’t good or a diligent student for the sake of appearances, but because she really did like it. She wasn’t lying when she admitted that she loved to learn. And I hated how that made her even more… endearing.
When I got back to the house, Dennis and Rory looked up at me. They sat on the couch, and Rory smirked. “There he is. Ask him.” He scratched at his crotch.
“Ask me what?” I slowed, mildly curious what they wanted.
None of them had asked me about why I broke the projector or lost my cool at those pictures of Laura they showed. They probably assumed I’d taken her to my room and fucked her, and that was that.
“I’ve got this cheerleader upstairs who wants two of us,” Dennis said. “She likes it up the ass and wants to go double.” He grinned, nodding like he just couldn’t wait.
“I’m out,” Rory said with a wince, still scratching. “I think one of those bitches gave me crabs over the weekend.”
I rolled my eyes, glad that no matter what, I got myself checked for STDs every other week. Then again, I hadn’t gotten any for months now, too angry to want easy pussy.
“No thanks.” I wasn’t even remotely interested. How could I be when the memory of Laura had me two seconds from an instant boner all day and night?
“Dude, what’s up with you?” Dennis asked. “Do you realize what you’re giving up?” He scoffed and shook his head.
“Yeah, I know what I’m passing on,” I replied.
“Since when are you not interested in sharing a girl?” Kevin asked from the chair across from the couch.
I shrugged as Rory left the room, still scratching his crotch. Since now. Since… Laura.
“You’ve been acting weird since that, um…” Dennis frowned. “Since taking Second-Best to your room.”
I hate that fucking name.
How could she be second-best at anything when she alone had the power to make me so needy like this? No other woman had ever made me feel this unsettled and unfinished.
“Wait.” Kevin grinned. “Don’t tell me she isn’t second-best at that…” He laughed, and Dennis joined in.
“I’m going to the gym,” I said, leaving before they could ask me anything else. I couldn’t bring myself to defend her, either, because that would trigger them to know something was up.
During my workout, I, of course, was cursed with her in my mind. It didn’t matter if I spent time checking out the girls exercising in here, only wearing sports bras and the teeniest shorts ever. It didn’t matter if I replayed equations in my head.
I couldn’t shake my thoughts of her.
Only when I trained my focus on my brother did my obsession wane a little bit.
Because she was the opposite of what I was supposed to be doing. I was stretching out my college time just to make Dean Chen pay for expelling William. Wanting and lusting after Laura didn’t feel like I was paying anyone back for anything.
I went through my usual routine of lifting and stretching. Doubling my time on the treadmill, I tried to outrun my thoughts, too.
I failed.
I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was supposed to do about that raven-haired, quiet beauty now.
That simple taste of her last week wasn’t enough, but I hated myself for wishing for more.
Besides my guilt trip about wanting the enemy and obsessing over the girl I couldn’t have, I struggled with the logistics of it too. As was shown with my frat brothers, I was perplexed about how to act around her after setting the precedent and routine of tormenting her.
I couldn’t just pull a drastic one-eighty and be nice to her now.
And I couldn’t be a saint or martyr and ignore how much I wanted her.
She deserves my wrath.
I had to convince myself of that.
Her whole family needs to be paid back for ruining William’s life.
I had to make it happen. I was his brother. I was supposed to look out for him and make sure he didn’t suffer.
Straining at the ache of my overused muscles from running too hard and pushing myself through too strenuous of a workout, I dreaded the stupidity of trying to burn out my frustration like this. It wasn’t working. I could throw myself into a whole extra workout to the point of exhaustion, and I wouldn’t have an answer. She’d still be on my mind.
The image of her against the door, her eyes hooded with desire while I gripped her neck and kept her in place…
Fuck.
I was hopeless. I hung my head as I sat spent and sweaty on the bench. Keeping my elbows on my thighs, I willed my dick not to get hard at the mental image of Laura like that.
I borrowed her concern.
Why me?
Why does she have to do this to me?
How?
“You all right?” A football player paused across the free-weight room, furrowing his brows at me.
No. I’m not fucking all right.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
I was so far from good it was laughable.
He chuckled. “Maybe it was a mistake to push it that hard on the machines, huh?” Walking off, he laughed lightly like he was amused and not laughing at me.
“Something like that,” I muttered.
What wasn’t a mistake was kissing Laura like I had. I’d only wanted her to shut up and stop insisting she wasn’t beautiful. It pissed me off that she’d believe it, and without thinking it through, I wanted to show her how wrong she was.
This confusion about how to handle her wasn’t a joyride, but at no time in this self-inflicted hell did I regret it.
It wasn’t a mistake to kiss her.
I just had to figure out whether it would be a mistake to try again.
To kiss her and earn her breathy sounds and feel her wordlessly ask for more.
Zoning out staring at the floor, I wondered if I’d be able to step back and pause the next time. If this guilt over not treating her like the enemy would sober me up from following through with having her.
I stood, wincing at the sharp pain in my thigh at overdoing it.
It wasn’t like it helped. I was still just as stuck in my head. She was still stuck in my head.
Worse than that, I had to admit that I was developing feelings for her. Regardless of how stupid it was to let her mess with me like this, I had to be blunt and honest with myself that she had. And I welcomed it.
I was a fucking moron to have any feelings other than hatred for Laura Chen.
But there was no denying that I did.
It wasn’t lust. The need to make her believe she was beautiful was something deeper. The urge to stop all those people from laughing at her was a possessive need to protect and comfort her.
I wanted her so fucking badly, but it was my heart that I had to guard around her more than anything else now.