Chapter 12
Ethan
I’m starting to wonder if there’s anyone else staying in this flat other than me and Meyers, because it’s completely empty when I get back from a late-night study session at the library.
‘Hello?’ I call out when the front door closes behind me.
No answer.
Not that there’s any reason for people to be hanging out in the hallway. It’s ten thirty on the first official day of school. My new neighbours are probably meeting friends, making new ones, hanging out. They’re definitely not standing in the middle of a hallway, talking to themselves.
Back home, I was never alone, even when I wanted to be.
There was always someone around. Bre, Chris, one of the guys, or my mom, usually armed with food, which probably explains why I’m suddenly starving.
No one has attempted to feed me today. It was cool of Clive to drop me off in town so I could pick up some essentials.
Not so nice of him to stare at me like I’d just suggested he sell me his soul when I asked if he wanted to grab something to eat together.
A sad, solo McDonald’s is not enough to keep me going for the whole day.
My empty stomach growls and sends me directly to the miniscule kitchen.
It’s smaller than our laundry room at home, but there’s a stove, a microwave, and a hot water kettle but no coffee maker, toaster oven or air fryer.
This could be a problem because toaster oven cooking is my speciality, and you’ve never truly tasted a pizza roll until you’ve cooked them in the air fryer.
One of the top ten inventions of this century, if you ask me.
Since I don’t fuck with a stove, I go for the easiest option.
Ramen. Or at least I think it’s ramen. In the cupboard I’ve claimed as my own via a piece of electrical tape with my name written in black Sharpie, I have a dozen plastic white cups labelled Pot Noodle.
The woman in the grocery store said they were a ‘student speciality’, and no, it didn’t exactly sound like high praise, but adding boiling water to instant noodles is something even someone as culinarily challenged as me can manage. In theory.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I hiss as boiling water spills from the kettle over the rim of the plastic cup, scalding my hand as I search for the peel off lid.
How was I supposed to know the lid needs to go back on while it, um, develops?
Stews? Marinates? I could’ve read the instructions before I started but it’s goddamn instant ramen, how hard can it be?
I’m squatting down, carefully rotating the cup to check how long this damn thing needs before I can eat it, when I hear the front door open. With almost embarrassing speed, I leap up and sprint out to see who’s there.
It’s Meyers.
She looks happy. Her cheeks are flushed, makeup smudged, her long brown hair pushed out of her face. I’m still pissed at her, but I can’t help but return her smile when she walks in.
‘Oh, hi.’
She raises a hand, awkward and flustered. Good. I hope she feels terrible.
‘Hey.’ I hold up my fork, my body wedging the kitchen door open. ‘I was just making dinner. You want anything?’
‘No one cooks in the kitchens.’ She pops out a pair of wired earbuds, wraps them around her weird silver phone and sticks it in the pocket of her jeans. ‘You didn’t eat at the ref?’
‘Missed dinner. Did you know it isn’t open twenty-four hours?’
‘Yes.’
Of course she did. Meyers knows everything.
‘Well, I didn’t. I was studying, lost track of time, missed dinner.’
She looks at her watch then back at me.
‘It’s after ten.’
‘I was studying for a long time.’
Lingering by the door, she’s the one studying me.
Her eyes are really, really blue, like sapphires, and her smudgy eyeliner makes them look enormous.
Insane that Gabe never mentioned the fact she’s this cute when she tutored him.
The guy is such a pussy hound, he would fuck a Hot Pocket if it was the only option.
Then a thought hits me. Maybe that’s why she hates me so much.
‘You and Gabe,’ I say, both of us still holding our positions. ‘Did you two ever … ?’
‘Did we ever what?’
I pinch my shoulders together, tapping the fork against my thigh.
‘You know. Hook up.’
‘Me and Gabe?’
The way her face scrunches up with disgust gives me my answer.
‘Just asking. I’m secure enough in my masculinity to say he’s a good-looking guy.’
‘Not my type.’
‘What is your type?’
She shakes her head as though she can’t believe she’s being forced to deal with me.
‘Ethan, it’s been a long day, I’m exhausted. Can we not?’
‘Not what?’
‘Look,’ she presses her fingers into her temples before she speaks again, like she has to squeeze the words out of her brain, ‘I’m sorry about earlier. What I said about your girlfriend.’
Now we’re both studying each other. She looks like she’s trying to predict my reaction, and I can’t tell if she’s being genuine or not.
Is she really sorry or does she just want to squeeze me for gossip to report back to the Marshall masses?
I can’t exactly say why but I don’t think that’s it.
Something in those huge blue eyes says she’s not the type.
‘And I’m sorry for whatever I did,’ I say. ‘All the noise this morning. Trust me, it was worse from where I was standing.’
‘Fine,’ she sighs. ‘Can I please get by?’
I hold up my hands in surrender and she scoots around me, walking down the hallway towards her room. She’s dragging her feet, like those boots each weigh the same as a family sedan.
‘You sure you don’t want anything? I’m making dinner.’
She stops in front of the kitchen, and steps inside with a suspicious expression, brushing past my body as I hold the door open. She actually has kind of a great ass.
‘That’s dinner?’
She points to the cup on the counter and I nod.
‘Choice of champions.’
‘You would get more nutrition from eating the container than whatever’s inside.’
‘Nu-uh.’ I pick up the cup, carefully, and read out the information panel on side. ‘Pot Noodle, King Sticky Rib, 525 calories, twenty grams of fat, eleven grams of protein, seventy-three grams of carbs and two point one grams of salt. Shit, that’s really not great.’
‘How does it taste?’
Peeling back the lid, I wind up a noodle onto my fork and take a bite. Clamping my teeth together to keep it in, I throw up an okay sign.
‘That good?’
Oh, now she’s smiling.
‘Best thing I’ve ever tasted,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Thank God I have another dozen or so. You want one?’
‘I’d rather eat my own foot.’
‘It might taste better.’
A hint of a chuckle forces its way out of her closed mouth, and I can’t help but smirk.
She laughed first, I win. She releases the clip holding her hair back and it cascades over her shoulders, wavy and long, and not just brown but a rich, glossy chestnut.
Under the overhead lights of the kitchen, golden highlights sparkle when she moves.
‘So, I was thinking,’ I say, absolutely not noticing when she adjusts a slipping bra strap through the thin fabric of her shirt, ‘how about we call a truce?’
‘A truce?’
She looks so suspicious that this time, I’m the one who laughs.
‘Yeah, a truce. I’m not an asshole to you, you’re not an asshole to me, we spend the rest of the school year under the same roof not hating each other’s guts. How does that sound?’
‘I’ll consider it.’ She steps out of the kitchen and yawns, releasing the door as she goes. ‘G’night, Ethan.’
Staring at the spot she’s vacated, it takes too long for me to realize this damn noodle cup is burning my hand.
‘Jesus, fuck,’ I grunt before dropping the entire thing in the trash. ‘How do people eat these things?’
The only other food I have is stashed in a cubby above my bed.
Technically a bookshelf but now home to an enormous box full of protein bars, the last and most tragic refuge of the hungry athlete.
Returning to my room, I grab two without looking at the flavours – not that it matters, anything has to taste better than that noodle stuff – and toss myself backwards on my bed with its box-fresh sheets.
They’re scratchy and smell like chemicals, but it’s still a step up from the bare mattress I had last night.
There’s a brand-new laptop on my desk, and I’m almost certain when I open it I’ll find an email from my dad asking why I charged ￡1,000 to my emergency credit card today, but I choose not to look because I don’t have a great cover story yet.
Once upon a time, he would’ve been more than okay with the truth, but I don’t think it’s going to fly right now.
Or ever again. Tearing into the first protein bar, I inhale half the thing in one bite.
Not bad. Could be better. Either I need to set an alarm to make sure I get down to the cafeteria to eat or I’m going to have to learn to cook.
I’m halfway through the second bar when I close my eyes to listen to the peace and quiet around me.
The Hemden halls of residence are a damn sight quieter than the dorms at Marshall College.
Those walls were made of paper and spit and your neighbour only had to cough to wake up the entire floor.
Even when I lie perfectly still, I can only just hear movement in the next room.
A creak of a floorboard, the soft closing of a door, and is that … is that music?
It’s Mia, I realize, stuffing the rest of the protein bar in my mouth and tossing both wrappers somewhere in the direction of the trash can.
Once I’ve swallowed the rest of my dinner, I sit up, press my ear against the wall and hold my breath.
She’s singing. I can’t make out the words, just her sweet, high voice.
Peeling off my shirt, I lie back on the bed, arms crossed under my head to make up for the weak sauce pillow.
Is she undressing in there? Already in her PJs or dancing around in her bra and panties?
I wish I could’ve seen what colour bra she was wearing.
In my imagination, it’s pink, a true pink, not one of those weird skin-coloured bras Breanna insisted on wearing under her white T-shirts.
That has to be the least sexy item of lingerie ever invented.
No, I decide, settling against my mattress, it’s a baby-pink bra with matching underwear.
Not a thong, she doesn’t seem the type, more like cute little panties, maybe with lace at the edges and a little ribbon on the front, her hair spilling down her back, enormous eyes staring at me like she wants it and that pouty little mouth opening just for me.
And just like that, I am rock hard.
Staring at the tent in the front of my shorts, I try to work out how long it’s been since I had sex.
How long since I even jerked off? Last night was a fail and it’s been weeks, months, since I was with Breanna.
The answer is definitely too long, since I have a throbbing erection over a girl who can barely stand to look in my direction.
Maybe the longest I’ve gone since I lost my virginity when I was sixteen.
Before I know it, my hands are moving down my body and under the waistband of my shorts.
‘Fuck.’
The grunt that comes out of me when I wrap a hand around my cock takes me by surprise.
There isn’t even time to reach for the bottle of lube I’ve already placed in the drawer closest to the bed, along with the ambitious number of condoms I packed at the last minute.
The woman on the checkout in Target definitely thought I was planning an orgy.
My balls pull tighter with each stroke, and a vision of Mia standing in the kitchen appears in front of me, the dark makeup bringing out her blue eyes, the look of surprise on her pretty face, and it only takes a couple of pumps before I explode into my underwear.
Panting, I lie still, my hand still gripping my dick and waiting for my heart rate to drop.
I haven’t come that fast in years, not even when I was trying to speed things along.
Carefully, I roll off the bed and into my bathroom to clean up.
The music in Mia’s room has gone quiet and all I can hear is my own heavy breathing.
What the fuck just happened? How desperate does a guy have to be to jerk it over a woman who can’t even agree to tolerate his existence? This desperate, I guess.
My classes might not start until tomorrow, but I don’t need a degree in psychology to know this is not good. Not good at all.