Chapter 8 Bennett
Bennett
I can taste her tongue in my mouth for days.
When we returned from bowling, Clover hardly spoke to me. She slept on the farthest edge of the bed, and I followed her lead.
The list of rules grows and becomes increasingly specific.
No trash can sharing. (I had been using the trash can on her side of the room to throw away my protein bar wrappers.)
No going to bed with wet hair. (She’d accidentally gotten my pillow wet. It also made the smell of her unbearably strong as I tried to fall asleep. It was inconsiderate.)
No sharing water bottles.
No sitting on the bed when there are index cards laid out in a certain order.
Clover is gone most mornings before I’m up, but I’ve gotten in the habit of waking up early to jack off in a shower stall and then going back to bed.
Maybe I’m a sick fuck, but sometimes she makes this noise in the middle of the night.
It’s a soft whimper, and likely just a muted giggle or a failed attempt at talking in her sleep, but it’s the kind of sound that sends a rush of blood straight to my groin.
I tell myself it’s biology and beg my brain to think of anything but her as I pump my hand up and down my dick.
Every time I fail, the tailspin of self-disgust has me promising that next time, I won’t touch myself at all as punishment.
Then it’s the next morning, and the pattern begins again.
On Fridays, Tex, Julian, and I have identical schedules. The three of us have business law in the afternoon and German 1 two hours later. It’s not quite enough time for us to go back to the town house and hang out, and today we have a quiz to study for.
I haven’t gone to the trouble of learning Clover’s schedule, but last Friday she was gone, so I take my chances and offer up the dorm as a hangout space so we don’t have to leave campus.
Julian wrinkles his nose as we step into the muggy, practically antique elevator. “Maybe we should have taken the stairs. Does this elevator shaft go to the pit of hell?”
Tex rolls his eyes and hits the doors’ close button.
We make it to our floor with a dramatic jolt, and Julian darts out as soon as the doors open, then clings to the walls dramatically.
“You expecting visitors?” Tex asks, motioning to the four girls gathered at the door to my and Clover’s dorm room.
I shake my head. “Probably Clover’s—”
“Guten tag, ladies!” Julian calls to them from up ahead.
And then I recognize them as the giggling girls from our German class who sit behind us.
Julian turns back to us, shrugging innocently. “I thought we needed a study group.”
“Really?” I ask Tex quietly. “So, he chose the four hot first-years behind us—one of whom said she was inspired by Heidi Klum to learn German.”
“Julian only convinced us to take German so we could have a fully immersive experience at a Berlin sex club one day. I don’t think we’re exactly academics here, Ben.” He nudges me with his elbow. “Hey, the tall, shy one looks like Cortana from Halo. I call dibs.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I remind him as he saunters toward them.
After I let us all into our room, I hurriedly make my side of the bed. Clover’s is already made, of course.
“No need to tidy up for us,” says one girl, who I recall being named Felicity, as she wanders over to the other side of the room and pokes around a few of Clover’s cosmetics.
“Hey, could you leave that stuff alone?” I ask her, feeling suddenly protective over Clover’s things.
“Touchy, touchy,” she whispers as she unceremoniously drops some sort of small metal spray bottle.
The look on my face must be enough to silence the other three, because they all cluster and cower at the end of the bed.
“Uh, sorry,” I say in an attempt to be less of an asshole. “We don’t really have enough room for a large group like this. We should go to the common—”
Julian flings himself across the bed. “Or we could have a cuddle puddle!”
Felicity stretches along the head of the bed in what I think is supposed to be a seductive pose.
“We are already here,” Tex says, eyeing his Cortana look-alike.
I sit on the foot of the bed with one leg hiked up while Julian uses Felicity as his own personal pillow.
Tex sits on Clover’s side of the bed opposite me.
The Cortana look-alike, who I learn is named Gabby, sits between us while the other two girls lie across the middle.
Reagan is on my side while Zara is over by Tex.
There are so many of us on the one bed that it’s impossible not to touch.
Reagan glances over to me with a charming little smile. “Do you mind?” she asks as she slings her legs over my thigh.
And normally I wouldn’t. In fact, I don’t. She’s cute, but whatever speck of morals I have says this doesn’t feel right.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Julian says.
Like always, he manages to ignore the violent glare I point in his direction.
Tex, who spent a few summers in the German countryside with his uncle when he was a kid, manages to lead some semblance of a review, but with the way Felicity and Julian are eye fucking and the others are giggling, I barely string together how to introduce myself and ask a few basic questions.
After forty-five minutes or so, Zara is using my lap as a pillow while Gabby plays with her hair and Reagan is still using me as a footrest.
It is the exact worst moment for Clover to walk in, wearing a beat-up flannel shirt speckled with wet clay, cutoff jean shorts, tights, Wellies, and one earbud in her ear.
“Wifey is home!” sings Julian.
“Oh shit,” mutters Tex.
Felicity picks her head up. “Did you say wifey?”
Clover, at first, looks deeply embarrassed and hurt. Her pillows have been tossed to the ground. The books and makeup on her desk have obviously been moved, and it’s then that I notice Felicity is wearing a bubblegum–pink beanie that I recognize as a Christmas present from my mom a few years ago.
Seeing Clover like this takes me back to one of the most reprehensible days of my life. The memory is clear. I can see Clover earnest and hopeful as she waited for a person who didn’t exist.
I hate it. I hate seeing her like this. I would literally do anything for her not to look like this again.
But then her expression quickly turns to outrage.
Those full lips purse as she throws her tote bag to the ground and crosses her arms, nostrils flaring.
And the guilt I was drowning in just moments ago begins to recede.
Her embarrassment and hurt feelings? Those, I cannot handle. But her anger? I could feast on it.
“Should I go ahead and add no unauthorized visitors to our rules?” she asks.
“Hubby’s in trouble,” Julian points out rather unhelpfully.
I stand up and Gabby’s head hits the mattress as Zara fumbles a little.
“You’re married?” one of them asks.
“Oh my god,” says another. “I was wondering why this bed was so huge.”
“So fucking weird,” one of them—I think Felicity—mumbles.
“No,” I tell Clover. Even though I feel guilty and awful, I still find it in me to bristle at her attitude. “I don’t think that’s a rule I plan on adhering to. But luckily, we were just about to head out, darling.”
The girls are quick to evacuate the bed and Tex leads the way, giving Clover a polite nod.
Clover yanks the beanie off Felicity’s head as she walks past her, and Julian lingers for just a moment before giving Clover a hug.
With a discontented sigh, Clover returns the embrace, her anger deflating just enough to indulge in this reunion. “You look good,” she whispers.
“Oh, I know,” he says. “Don’t be too hard on him. I’m the one who invited them all.”
“Yes, and I’m sure you also had them throw their bodies all over my bed.”
“Actually, he did,” I say, but am ignored.
Julian gives her a kiss on the cheek before joining the others, and the moment we are alone, Clover prickles like a porcupine.
“I swear to god, if I find any of their loose hairs on that bed, I will murder you in your sleep and I’ll wake you up halfway through so that the last thing you see is my face.”
“It’s my room too,” I remind her. “Considering I’m the one paying for it.”
Her shoulders slope. That was an asshole thing to say, but it’s true.
“Whatever,” I say, and begin to step past her.
“I’m picking up as many extra shifts as I can to cover next semester’s dorm fees, so you’ll have your life back before you know it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to come up with a backup plan,” I tell her. “Maybe look into community college.”
“That’s none of your business,” she says bitterly.
“It is when you’re using me to game the system.”
She lifts her hand to her face and swipes it across her cheek.
Now I’ve made her cry. Fuck.
She turns her body away from me and it’s such a stark difference from her warming my lap just last week that I can’t believe these two instances can even coexist in the same universe.
“Get out.” When she doesn’t immediately hear me move, she says it again more loudly. “Get. Out.”
So, I do.
That night, after class, I go to the town house with Tex and Julian. I’m tempted to stay the night, but I guess I have to go back eventually, so I decide to get it over with.
I’m about to walk into our building when I get a text from Vanya inviting me to a party.
I stand in front of Haystack Hall and count to the fifth floor. I’m not sure which room is ours exactly, but every window in the right area is still lit up, and I think I can make out Clover’s fairy lights from here.
I should go upstairs so we can talk and at least come to some sort of truce.
But the invitation in my phone doesn’t come with any guilt or need for conversation, so I turn around and send up a flare to Tex and Julian.
The girl upstairs, waiting with her light still on, already has plenty of opinions about me. It’s easier to just let them be true.