2 Whispering (3 page)

College parties aren’t like the movies. There aren’t crazy frat boys hanging out on the roof and there aren’t horny teenage girls lining up for wet T-shirt contests. It’s more like visiting a house with a hundred people you don’t know, ten people you do know, bad Justin Bieber music and a keg.

That was exactly what I was looking forward to tonight, though. I was more than happy to shell out $7 for a red plastic cup with endless refills – all in the comfort of simple jeans and my purple Converse. It was just one of those nights.

It took us about fifteen minutes to walk from the dorms to the off-campus house. While it was cold out, it wasn’t yet bitter. Thankfully, the house was big enough that a lot of people could mill about on three different floors without being too crowded.

We had been at the party for about an hour when I separated from the group to refill my cup. It’s funny that you go to a party to ostensibly meet new people – but you really end up hanging out with the people you came with. I was winding my way through the assembled groups when the unthinkable happened: I met someone new.

“Sonofabitch!”

Unfortunately, the new face was accompanied by a lukewarm cup of beer being spilled down the front of my brand new
Star Wars
shirt.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

The face of my new “friend” was visible now – and even though it was cute – I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the way it was suddenly introduced into my life.

“Great,” I grumbled. “I’m going to smell like stale Rolling Rock for the rest of the night.”

“I’m so sorry,” the boy repeated.

I met his warm brown eyes with my own icy blue. “I guess I’m supposed to say it’s fine. Since I can feel beer soaking my favorite bra, though, I’m not really feeling that,” I said honestly.

“You could take it off,” he suggested helpfully.

“That’s an interesting thought,” I said blithely.

“Just trying to be helpful,” he smiled, flashing a simple dimple in his left cheek in my direction. “I’m Zach,” he said, extending his hand towards me. It was an oddly formal gesture.

“Zoe,” I said, shaking his hand quickly and then returning to my task of trying to pull my soaking top away from my chest.

“So, you go to school here?” Zach asked nervously.

“Really? That’s what you’re leading with?”

Zach smiled sheepishly. “It can’t go much worse, can it? I mean, as far as introductions go, this hasn’t exactly been one for the record books.”

“It could be worse,” I interjected. “It could have been a colored drink.”

“There is that.”

“So,” I said after a second. “Is this your house?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I live in the dorms. I live in Wharton Hall, actually,” Zach said. I noticed his eyes were glued on my suddenly prominent breasts.

“That’s where I live, too,” I said.

“Really?” Zach finally moved his eyes up to my face. I noticed, for the first time, that his shoulder-length dirty blond hair was actually shorter on one side by about an inch and a half. Huh.

“Yeah.” Now I was fixated on his hair in the same way he had been fixated on my breasts only seconds before.

“On the third floor,” Zach said. “What about you?”

“What about me what?” Really, did his hairdresser screw up or something? Did he not notice? Did he think his hair was even?

“What floor do you live on?”

“Oh, five.”

“What are you looking at?”

I tore my gaze away from Zach’s uneven hair and met his gaze again. “Um . . . nothing.”

“Do I have something on my shoulder or something?”

“No.”

“Is there someone more interesting behind me?”

“No.” Well, not that I had noticed, at least.

“Is it my hair?”

“No, well, yeah. Do you know it’s uneven?”

“I do,” Zach laughed.

“Do you want it uneven?”

“I do.”

“Cool.” I said the word, but I was really thinking just the opposite.

“Do you want to know why?”

“I have no idea. Is it a gross story?” Hey, it’s college, you never know.

“Why would it be gross?”

“Go ahead, tell me the story,” I sighed. “Unless it’s some ritual thing. You’re not a witch are you?”

“A witch?”

“A vampire? A werewolf?”

“You watch a lot of television, don’t you?” Zach looked amused. He had no idea that I was being truthful.

“So why is your hair uneven?”

“Because I tilt my head a lot.”

Huh. “I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?”

“Is your head heavy or something? Do you lack the strength to lift it up sometimes?”

“No. I just tilt my head a lot and when I tilt my head, my hair evens out.” Zach demonstrated the phenomenon to me.

“Ah, I see.” I so didn’t see.

“You think I’m weird, right?”

“Compared to some of the other guys I’ve met here, you’re actually remarkably normal.”

“I don’t know how to take that,” Zach laughed. “I thought I was such a rebel.”

Thankfully, the conversation didn’t get a chance to get any weirder because Paris was suddenly tugging on my sleeve. “Have you seen Brittany?”

“Why? Is she playing hide and seek? I didn’t see that on her focus board.”

Paris shook her head irritably. “You should lighten up on her.”

“She should stop being so annoying,” I countered.

“Or, maybe, you should stop being so irritable?” Paris suggested with wide-eyed faux innocence.

“That’s always an option,” I sipped from my own cup of beer. “This is Zach. His hair is uneven because he tilts his head a lot.”

Paris smiled at Zach winningly. “At least he doesn’t draw his eyebrows on.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me about that, by the way.”

“I was going to tell you, just when Brittany wasn’t around,” Paris explained. I saw she wasn’t exactly focusing on the two of us, though. Instead, she was scanning the room.

“So, you lost Brittany? Maybe we’ll luck out and we won’t be able to find her.”

“Yeah, if she goes missing we’ll definitely get a new roommate,” Paris prodded.

“It couldn’t be anyone worse.”

“You don’t know that.”

I sighed dramatically. “Where did she go?”

“She went for another cup of beer, but it was like twenty minutes ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Maybe she’s dry humping some guy in the corner?”

“Nice,” Paris said sarcastically.

“Come on, I’ll help you look,” I sighed.

“You want me to help, too?” Zach asked hopefully.

“Sure.”

“What does your roommate look like?”

“She’s about 5’3” tall and she’s wearing a cardigan.”

“Is that a joke?” Zach looked puzzled.

“No.”

Zach shrugged and smiled. “Let’s find your roommate.”

It took about twenty minutes for us to check the entire house – all three floors – and when we were done, we still hadn’t found Brittany -- or her fuzzy pink sweater.

“She wouldn’t have left, would she?” Paris asked.

“I doubt it. It’s not like she’d go home with a random guy and no one else would take her.”

“If she’s dead, you’re going to feel really bad for saying that,” Paris chided me.

“I’m willing to take the risk.” If she was dead, I probably would feel guilty. That used to be an empty thought, though, until I came to Covenant College, that is.

“What’s that?” Zach asked from behind us, pointing down a hallway off the main living area of the house.

“What’s what?”

“That group of people? What are they looking at?”

“That’s a pretty good question,” I muttered. “Maybe Brittany is pole dancing?”

“You’re not the one that’s lost,” Paris reminded me.

“Nice,” I grimaced.

The three of us wound our way through the crowd until we reached the group of people. “What are we looking at?” I asked.

“Some girl is tossing her cookies,” a generic guy in flannel said. He looked far too pleased with himself.

“She’s not blonde with a fuzzy pink sweater, is she?” Please don’t let it be Brittany. Please don’t let it be Brittany.

“Actually, she is. Do you know her?”

Crap. I pushed a few people out of my way and, sure as shit,  there she was. Little miss high and mighty kneeling at her porcelain throne. I exchanged a dubious look with Paris. “You’re carrying her home.”

“I can’t lift her.”

“Oh, that’s great. Make fun of the sick girl on the floor,” Brittany croaked out. “Why am I not surprised?”

“We’re not making fun of you,” Paris soothed, pushing Brittany’s hair away from her face. “And I’m not carrying her home,” she hissed at me.

Great. I’m just going to stop going to parties.

As it turned out, no one had to carry Brittany back to the dorms after all. She managed to walk the entire way there on her own – well, with a little help from Rick No. 2 and Zach so she didn’t take a nosedive into a hedge. Sure, she fell into bed and passed out still in her clothes – but that wasn’t really my problem.

The next morning, Brittany looked like she had been reincarnated as a wet rag – but she was up before Paris and I even thought about climbing out of our bunks. You had to give her credit – she was determined when she wanted something. And, since it was book-buying day at the University Center, she was already on task.

We made the walk together after breakfast, and I was surprised to see that Brittany didn’t seem to be harboring any ill feelings about our snipe fest from the day before. If she could be a bigger person so could . . . well, at least I would try not to start anything today.

The University Center is at the center of campus and it’s essentially the home of student aid offices, a coffee shop and the campus bookstore. Thankfully, most of the books I needed for my classes were available on my Kindle. I still had to pick up some blue books, a few notebooks and a few other supplies – so I was happy to make the trip.

For her part, Brittany preferred physical books because she liked to highlight stuff in a bevy of pastel colors. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

When we got to the bookstore, we all separated to do our shopping. For me, that essentially meant sitting at a table and flipping through the latest Us Weekly while sipping a Diet Coke. Priorities. I just had to know if Robsten would ever get back together.

“Looks like dire stuff.”

I glanced up when I heard the voice, and I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. “Hey Zach. What are you doing here?”

Zach slid into the empty chair across from me, tilting his head so his hair looked even. “What is everyone doing here?”

“Shopping for books and people watching?”

“Pretty much.”

“You don’t have any books,” I pointed out, glancing at his empty arms. I couldn’t help but notice that one of his sleeves was rolled up and the other was buttoned at the wrist. He must have been hungover when he got dressed this morning.

“I just got here.  I saw you and thought I should come over and say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.” He really was cute. “So where is Brittany? How is she feeling?”

“She’s happily buying twenty books.”

“She’s not hungover?” Zach looked surprised.

“Oh, she’s hungover, but not enough to keep her from the happiest day of the semester,” I said with faux brightness.

“You don’t seem to like her,” Zach pointed out, smoothing down his wrinkled shirt sleeve distractedly.

“I like her fine,” I hedged.

“And yet you’re constantly making fun of her.”

It was a sobering thought. When Paris said it, I thought she was just trying to irritate me. Was I always making fun of Brittany? Really? No wonder she didn’t like me.

“I’ll try to stop.”

“That might make the rest of the semester more tolerable,” Zach laughed. “For both of you.”

He had a point.

“So, I never asked,” he wisely changed the subject. “What’s your major?”

“You really are a sparkly conversationalist.”

“Undecided?”

“Probably journalism,” I said. “I’m not one hundred percent sure, though.”

“That’s cool.”

“What about you?”

“Advertising.”

“We’ll probably have a few crossover classes,” I said pragmatically.

“Probably.” He looked pretty happy at that prospect.

We compared class schedules after that, but we didn’t have any crossover this semester. He seemed disappointed, but I was secretly relieved. I had a lot going on in the man department. There was that whole Aric thing – which I still didn’t know how to define. Then there was the lurking vampire that I hadn’t seen since I had helped save him from being burned at the stake. That was on top of my ex-
boyfriend, Will, who had been part of the whole homicidal werewolf cabal. I really couldn’t juggle another guy – no matter how cute he was.

“Well, maybe next semester,” Zach said hopefully.

“Maybe next semester what?”

I grimaced when I heard the voice. Crap. Speaking of man problems. I glanced up and met Aric’s searching gaze with a wary one of my own. “Aric.”

“Maybe next semester what?” He repeated the question while looking Zach up and down. He didn’t look too concerned, although I did notice that he puffed out his broad chest like a hissing cat trying to mark his territory the minute he saw Zach.

“We were talking about classes,” I said carefully. “We have similar majors. We thought we might have some of the same classes.”

“And you are?” Aric fixed his brown eyes on Zach. At well over six feet tall, Aric really was an imposing sight to a normal sized guy like Zach.

“Zach Payne,” Zach extended his hand for Aric to shake. I realized he had done the same thing to me the night before. It was kind of a weird gesture on a college campus.

Aric ignored the proffered hand. “And how do you two know each other?” The question was pointed.

“How is that any of your business?” He was really starting to irritate me.

“We met at a party last night. Her roommate got really drunk and I had to help them home,” Zach offered.

“Brittany?” Aric raised his eyebrows. “She doesn’t have a lot of luck at parties, does she?”

“She can’t hold her liquor,” I agreed.

“She was just having fun,” Zach argued.

“You don’t even know her,” Aric challenged.

“And you do?”

“Better than you.” I could feel the testosterone emanating off of Aric in waves.

“Well, give me time.” I was surprised at how gutsy Zach was – especially given Aric’s size.

Aric sneered at him. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Good grief.

“Hi Aric,” a bubbly voice chirped from behind us. I had never been so glad to see Brittany in my entire life, even if she did turn into a giant puddle of goo every time she saw Aric. He had that effect on women.

“Hi Brittany,” Aric said warmly. “How are you? I heard you had a rough night last night?”

Brittany slid me a hateful glare. “So, you’ve been gossiping about me?”

“Actually, Zach was gossiping about you.” Yeah, I threw him under the bus. He didn’t have to live with her, though.

Brittany smiled when she saw Zach. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” Zach said humbly. “I didn’t realize it was secret.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just a little irritable today,” Brittany explained. “I have a headache.”

“I bet,” Zach said. “I’m amazed that you’re so put together after getting so drunk. I would be a mess on the floor.”

I saw Brittany redden. “I just bounce back really easily.”

“Well, I’m still amazed.”

I slid a glance in Aric’s direction.  He didn’t seem impressed with Zach’s people skills.

“Brittany is amazing,” Aric suddenly interjected. “You two seem to have a . . . a spark. You should spend some time together.”

I couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth. He really was an alpha.

Brittany seemed to like the idea, too. “We could study together?” She suggested. She didn’t seem to mind his haircut at all.

Zach looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I . . . um . . . I . . . sure,” he broke off lamely.

Brittany didn’t seem to notice how his face had suddenly fallen. She really doesn’t pick up on social cues that well.

“Sounds like a perfect match,” Aric said smugly, slipping a proprietary hand on my shoulder. The motion wasn’t lost on Zach.

“I should probably be going,” Zach said finally, getting up from the table. “I have to get my books still.”

“I can help you look for them,” Brittany offered. “I know where everything is in the store.”

“Sure.” Zach was clearly defeated.

When they were gone, I swung on Aric. “What was that?”

“What?” Aric feigned innocence.

I blew out a frustrated sigh. “You’re not the boss of my life. You realize that, right?”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“Then what was that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aric replied, averting his flirty gaze from my steely one.

“We aren’t dating,” I reminded him.

“Do you want to date?” Aric looked like he wanted a genuine answer.

No, but I would totally like to see him without his shirt on. “No. I can’t think of anything more repugnant.”

Aric smiled at me knowingly. “When you’re willing to admit it, you know where to find me.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” I muttered.

I wanted to wipe that smug smirk right off his face as he was walking away. The sad thing is, I also wanted to give his butt a firm squeeze while I was doing it. Crap.