Three
Charlie’s gaze sweeps across the quiet student union lobby.
Sunshine streams through the large windows, dappling the worn laminate floors with light, drawing attention to the fact they haven’t been replaced since the eighties.
The large clock hanging on the wall above the fireplace that’s never used ticks closer to two p.m.
Students trickle through the hall, making their way to the café or class or one of the overused, understuffed couches in desperate need of reupholstering, giving her table a noticeably wide berth.
“Free condoms?” She hurries to intercept a nervous-looking freshman, pressing a trio into their palm. “Keep one in your wallet, one in your nightstand, and one on hand for emergencies!”
The student, wide-eyed and baby-faced, promptly drops the package and scurries away. Charlie frowns at the multicolored condoms that always remind her of flat discs of hard candy.
“Ouch. Another swing and a miss.”
That voice, the familiar drawling baritone, sets her immediately on edge.
Heat crawls up her neck, marking the imminent arrival of the unattractive splotchy flush that appears whenever she’s flustered.
Steeling herself, she picks up the abandoned condoms and lets out a slow breath before facing the body attached to the voice she’s been trying to ignore for the better part of an hour.
Wesley Quinn leans back in his chair, feet propped on the table, his broad, six-foot-something frame a picture of effortless arrogance.
His blond hair falls across his forehead, disheveled in a way she knows is on purpose, the corners of his mouth quirked up in that insufferable smirk.
His sharp eyes glint with amusement as he sips from his water bottle and takes her in.
“Almost had one there,” he quips.
Charlie stomps over to the table and smacks his shoes. “Feet off. And I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Wes complies, but not before he crunches his now-empty water bottle and tosses it in a nearby trash can. Charlie’s tempted to retrieve it and throw it at his head.
“You know…” He picks up one of the disturbingly realistic silicone penises Charlie borrowed from the human anatomy department. Wes’s fingers dance along the shaft, complete with veins and ridges. “If you had a bit more to draw people in, you might actually make an impact.”
Charlie’s irritation flares, provoked as usual by his sense of superiority and his general existence. She grabs the penis from his hand and returns it to the table before busying herself with straightening the pamphlets on birth control, the boxes of condoms, and the spermicide samples.
“Like what?” She gestures to the tiny, pathetic table. “Enlighten me.”
“Toys.” His mouth curves into a devilish grin. “Something that vibrates.”
Shaking her head and ignoring her rapidly deepening flush, she grits her teeth and turns her back to him, away, scanning the lobby once more.
She doesn’t bother explaining that she’s been trying for years to increase the budget for the Sexual Health Outreach Program—a paltry description at best—in order to engage more students in educational discussions about safe sex.
Each request, however, is promptly struck down by the Office of Student Affairs, citing budget cuts and students’ ability to visit the Harris Student Health Clinic if they desire more information.
Another prime example of how everything to do with sex ed is slowly being dismantled, to the detriment of people’s health and bodily autonomy.
“Do you know anyone who uses this?”
When Charlie glances over her shoulder, Wes is holding up a brightly colored spermicide sample.
“Yes,” she lies. She snatches it from his hand, feeling how warm his skin is when his fingers brush hers.
She can’t look at him without thinking of the lie she told the night before.
“Some people with vaginas prefer nonhormonal options, and it’s eighty-seven percent effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies.
I believe in comprehensive protection.” She readjusts the full box of condoms so she has something to do with her hands. “Safe sex is enjoyable sex.”
“Seems messy.”
She lifts her gaze. “As opposed to the alternative? And semen in general?”
He winks. “Keep going, Rogers. I love when you talk about semen. It’s alarmingly attractive.”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Charlie tries holding on to the modicum of patience reserved specifically for him, striving to maintain her control.
Smoothing the front of her lime-green T-shirt displaying the Peer Health Advocacy Group logo, she asks, “Why are you even here if you’re just going to be a nuisance?”
He leans back in his chair again, floating two legs off the floor, and crosses his arms over his chest. She steadfastly ignores his bulging biceps, the way his muscles flex under his form-fitting light-blue T-shirt.
“We’re required to volunteer at two events a semester.” He gestures to the table. “One down. One to go.”
Another group of students stroll past, and when Charlie approaches them, condoms in hand, they avert their eyes and hurry away before she can say a word.
Walking back to the table, she doesn’t look at Wes, embarrassed and unable to bear his smug face. A throb pulses in her temple, and she rubs a finger over her eyebrow. “Why did you even join the Peer Advocacy Group?” Dropping the condoms in the box, she slumps against the table.
“Looks good on law school applications,” Wes replies.
Charlie scoffs. “Right. As if you need any assistance getting into whatever law school you want, unlike the rest of us. Daddy Quinn can simply pay your way in.”
While Wesley Quinn enjoys a certain level of notoriety across campus as an enthusiastic playboy, his family is well known outside the Archwood University community for different reasons.
His father, Gabriel Quinn, a multi-hyphenate business and real estate mogul, launched his own media company in the early nineties before becoming a prominent high-profile celebrity lawyer whose name frequently appears next to the divorce announcements of famous couples.
Wes’s mother, of course, is popular New York senator Rebecca Belvedere-Quinn, best known for championing women’s issues and filibustering for nineteen hours several years ago in order to prevent a bill that would drastically cut benefits for low-income families from moving through the Senate.
She routinely speaks out on various news networks against the president’s draconian policies.
Unsurprisingly, Wes is considered Archwood’s golden boy, a fact Charlie didn’t yet know when she met him three years ago, when she believed him to be her friend.
He stares at her with an arched brow, his expression stony. “Would you rather I say I’m here because I’m desperate to spend time with your charming personality?”
Charlie’s pulse trips, remembering a time when that statement may have been true and not laced with condescension.
She brushes past his barb. “It’s much more believable than saying you joined the Peer Advocacy Group to pad your résumé.”
Wes shoots her a wry smile. “Speaking of law school—”
“Were we?” she mutters.
“A little birdy shared that someone scored exceptionally high on her LSAT.”
Charlie snaps her gaze to him. Wes’s smile broadens into a knowing grin. Her skin tingles under his direct attention.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Quinn.” The “little birdy” is most likely her academic advisor, a middle-aged white man who loves to gossip.
“Why wouldn’t you want everyone to know?” His tone is light, teasing. “It’s quite the achievement, and it’s certain to get you into any law school you set your sights on.”
“Because I’m not you.” She presses her palms flat against the table and leans forward. “I don’t rely on the praise of others to feed my overinflated ego.”
Wes’s grin vanishes, and a tense silence follows.
Charlie’s face flames as he narrows his gaze.
She never intends to escalate their arguments like this.
It’s his fault. He’s always goading her, putting her on the defensive, picking apart everything she says as if his life goal is to undermine and question her.
Shaking her head, she readjusts the birth control pamphlets for the hundredth time. “Why don’t you just leave?”
He scoffs. “And have you dock my hours so I’m forced to volunteer again? No thanks.”
She’s about to explain that she wouldn’t do that, despite her obvious vexation toward him, when another all-too-familiar voice cuts in.
“Well, isn’t this adorable?”
Nash strolls toward her, his dark hair curling around his ears, his white Henley accentuating his smooth golden skin. She’s struck by how perfectly banal and classically handsome he is, and yet she is utterly unaffected.
“Hi.” She tries to smooth the loose curls around her face, which stubbornly defy her efforts to manage them. “What are you doing here?”
Nash steps closer and presses a hand to her hip. Startled, she stumbles into the table, jostling the items she just straightened.
“I wanted to come show my support.” His grin widens, his attention drifting to her lips. “Listen, do you want to grab dinner after this? I’d love to continue what we were doing last night.” Sliding his hand around her waist, he tugs her close.
Charlie’s skin crawls. “Dinner?”
He arches a brow as if charmed by her response. “That new sushi place next to the Monkey Barrel is supposed to be good.”
She swallows. “I—”
A throat clears loudly.
“If you could kindly refrain from groping each other in front of me, I would be much obliged. I have no interest in plucking out my eyes.”
Charlie jolts back, disentangling herself from Nash. Wes, hands linked behind his head, peers at her with a look of bored annoyance. She bristles, her flush returning. Before she can rebuff his insinuation, Nash beats her to it.
“Is this weird for you two?”
Wes barely glances at him, his gaze fixed on Charlie. “What the hell are you rambling about now, Hudson?”
Nash laughs, sharp and crackling. “Because you two fucked, right?”
Charlie blinks, struggling to process his words. Alarm bells blare in her brain, a signal she is either having a stroke or has fallen into an alternate dimension.
Wes leans forward, his front two chair legs slamming to the floor.
“Excuse me?”
No. No, no, no.
Charlie’s heart is in her throat, her knees wobbly like the ground has dropped out from underneath her. She presses a hand to the table, steadying herself as the room spins.
Wes glances sidelong at her, and all Charlie can do is stare back at him, wide-eyed and blinking with shock.
“Charlotte shared that little tidbit last night when we were hanging out.” Nash tucks an escaped curl behind her ear, and she commends herself for not flinching. “But you don’t mind, do you, Wesley?”
Wes’s gaze narrows, and then a slow, lazy grin transforms his face, so familiar and easy that Charlie’s pulse trips.
“Not at all.” He stares at her as he says this, his eyes glittering with an unknown emotion, and she can’t look away. “We had a great time, didn’t we, Rogers?”
Charlie nods, her throat dry, and wrenches her gaze from his. Forcing a smile, she squeaks, “We did.”
Nash’s eyes flash before he leans in and kisses her. She gasps at the unexpected contact, stepping back in surprise.
“Glad to hear Wesley finally took something for himself first.” He shoots her a wink before looking at Wes. Charlie has no idea what he means, but Wes’s gaze drills into Nash, dark and murderous.
Nash raps his knuckles on the table. “Y’all have fun, but not too much fun.”
With one last wink, he stalks off, leaving destruction in his wake.
Students laugh together as they cross the lobby, ignoring Charlie and her pathetic excuse for sexual health outreach, something she once hoped to improve during her time at Archwood.
She joined the Peer Health Advocacy Group, sponsored by the Harris Student Health Clinic, freshman year as a way to educate herself on sexual health.
Student volunteers are supposed to help facilitate uncomfortable or difficult conversations between people their own age, the idea being that it’s easier to relate to each other than to much older adults.
She’s been trying to expand the Sexual Health Outreach Program to include free STI testing and contraception for students, as well as planned discussions on campus about a variety of topics pertaining to sexual health and reproductive justice.
She doesn’t want anyone to feel shame about having sex.
She doesn’t want people who grew up like her, with parents who preached about chastity and purity, to believe something is wrong with them just because they have normal desires.
However, Charlie quickly learned many students made a mockery of the program. Between that and budget cuts, her goal of expanding it has become a pipe dream.
Leaning against the table, a sense of defeat slowly spreads through her chest.
“Rogers.”
Wes’s fingers tap rhythmically against the table, his expression inscrutable.
She studies him, taking in the sharp edge of his jaw, the straight line of his nose, the plush swell of his lower lip. Heat unspools in her center. Even through her embarrassment, her body’s reaction to him is inescapable, a betrayal.
“What,” he says in that same low voice that’s always caused her blood to simmer, “in the actual fuck was that?”
Charlie pushes her shoulders back as if assuming a defensive stance can keep him from asking any more questions. Instead of cowering, however, he leans over the table, his face inches from hers.
“Why,” he rumbles, “did you tell Nash Hudson we slept together?”
Charlie glances at the clock on the wall. Her time was up, anyway. “I have to go.”
Without looking at Wes, she begins condensing her samples into one box and unceremoniously rips down the Peer Health Advocacy Group sign.
“Rogers.”
She ignores him, feeling his eyes on her while he continues standing over the table.
Gathering the boxes in her arms, she turns on her heel and begins walking away.
“Rogers—” Wes says. “Rogers, what the fuck?”
She storms across the lobby, face flaming with mortification, but his footsteps soon follow her.
“Seriously, Charlie?” he calls. “You’re just going to ignore me like you did three years ago?”
She freezes at her first name on his lips, at the reminder of their past together.
“Please, Quinn,” she says over her shoulder. “Just forget it, alright?”
Pushing through the main doors, she steps into the blinding sun, leaving him behind.
Sometimes she wishes she never met Wesley Quinn.