Harvard Hottie (3 page)

I didn’t want to admit the real reason for not wanting to go to Thayer, which was that I was scared of running into Luke. Well, not
scared
, exactly. But he wasn’t my favorite person these days and I knew seeing him would put a crimp in my night. Then again, if I slipped in and out of Thayer real fast, the chances of running into him were pretty slim.

I trekked out of my dorm into the yard. I was only wearing a sweater and it was freaking cold, although at least I had my hair to keep me warm. New England was colder than Jersey by a noticeable margin. I heard on the radio that it was supposed to snow soon.

I was shivering pretty violently by the time I reached Thayer House. Gripping my bag of popcorn in my raw, red fingers, I raced in the direction of the common room. I noticed there was a couple making out on the couch, but I figured I wouldn’t disturb them if I slipped in there and popped some corn real quickly.

Except just my luck: half of the couple was Luke Thayer.

I cursed to myself. I should have known when I saw all that damned blond hair. He looked up when I entered the room, as did the girl he was kissing. I didn’t know who she was but she was really beautiful, and I was pretty sure it was a different girl than the last one I’d see him with. But really, who the hell knew?

“Twelve Fingers!” Luke exclaimed, his face lighting up when he identified me.

I didn’t even look at him. I marched right to the microwave and shoved the bag inside. Unfortunately, I had no idea how long it was supposed to go in for or how to work the controls on this stupid microwave.

Luke noticed me struggling. He climbed over the back of the couch and landed practically right at my feet. “Get away from me, Thayer House,” I snapped.

But Luke didn’t budge. “Can’t even work the microwave?” He clucked his tongue. “This is kind of a disgrace. How’d you get in here anyway?  Maybe they needed to fill their New Jersey quota.”

“Well, they definitely filled up their arrogant rich asshole quota,” I replied. Stupid microwave. If Luke wasn’t staring at me, I would have been done with the popcorn ten minutes ago.

“What did you get on the SATs?” Luke asked me.

“I got a 1600,” I replied honestly, lifting my chin to him. A perfect score. Beat that, Thayer House.

“Oh yeah?  Me too.” He grinned at me, then pressed a button on the microwave, which whirred into action. “I guess working microwaves wasn’t on the test.”

I stared into the microwave, willing the popcorn to pop faster. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he said. “Don’t you live in Weld?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. How did he know that? “Yeah, so?”

“So you can’t use our microwave,” Luke said. “That’s illegal. The popcorn is rightfully ours if you pop it here.”

“My keycard works here, so that means I
am
allowed,” I argued.

“
Nuh-uh,” Luke said. He turned to his date, who was studying her nails. “Hey Lindsay, we’ve got some popcorn here. Ellie here is donating it to us.”

Lindsay lifted her vivid blue eyes. God, she was really beautiful. “I don’t want it. I’m on a diet,” she said. Even though she probably weighed about as much as that bag of popcorn.

“Lindsay doesn’t want the popcorn,” Luke reported back to me, like I wasn’t standing right there. “She’s on a diet, apparently. So I guess I’ll let you keep your popcorn.”

I gave him a dirty look. “Wow. How gracious of you, your majesty.”

He leaned in close to me and I could smell his aftershave. It occurred to me that I’d never been so close to a man who wore aftershave before. He smelled… nice, actually. “But you have to give me a handful,” he said.

I shook my head, clearing it of the intoxicating aroma of aftershave. “No way.”

“You’re not leaving this room if you don’t give me some popcorn,” he informed me.

“Watch me.”

The microwave dinged and we both jumped. I reached for the door, and Luke grabbed my wrist. His grip was strong, his hand warm, and he might have hurt me if I was trying to resist, but for some reason I wasn’t trying. I hated the fact that at that moment, I would have given him popcorn or pretty much anything else he wanted from me.

“Luke?” Lindsay’s voice interrupted our little face-off. “What are you
doing
over there?”

She didn’t sound angry, only terribly bored. I wasn’t a threat to her, obviously. It was pretty clear someone who looked like me wasn’t stealing Luke away from someone who looked like her.

Luke dropped my wrist. “You got off easy this time, Twelve Fingers,” he said to me. His brown eyes met mine. “But trust me, sooner or later, I’m going to get that popcorn.”

Not if I had anything to do with it.

Chapter Three

Let me tell you about Primal Scream:

This is a semiannual Harvard tradition that occurs on the night before final exams. It’s a way to relieve stress. Basically, the students (most of the male variety) run a lap around Harvard Yard screaming at the top of their lungs. Also, they’re completely naked.

I wasn’t planning on running Primal Scream. First, I was a girl. Nice girls don’t run around campus naked, even on nights when it’s socially acceptable. Especially when they’re mostly skin and bones. Second, we were in the throes of a New England winter. The temperature was currently 16 degrees. There was ice on the ground.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to watch. Delia and I bundled up in our down-laced winter coats, put on our warmest hats, and perched on the steps of our dorm to see the boys run past. Even with all that padding, we were hugging ourselves and bouncing up and down to keep warm. “I’m freezing,” Delia said. “My teeth are chattering. Look!” She showed me her quivering jawline.

“We just need to put on more weight,” I said. “The warmest shape is spherical.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Delia said.

“Look who’s talking, pre-med.”

We were near the end of the circle so we got to watch as the herd of naked students made their way toward us, desperate to find their friends with clothing. I heard in the spring, they run pretty fast, but right now there was so much ice on the ground that the boys were moving almost in slow-motion in order to avoid falling on their bare asses. I could pick out each individual body, each individual set of genitals. Even as I tried not to look, it was impossible not to.

“Hey, there’s Luke!” Delia said.

And then I saw him. Luke Thayer, completely naked. And… oh. My. God. If I thought he looked good dressed, he looked
incredible
naked. He had such a perfect body—slim yet well-defined muscles in his arms and legs and chest, his limbs covered with a healthy layer of golden hair. I felt my jaw fall open. I’d heard he rowed for crew, and clearly it had paid off. I was so mesmerized that I barely even noticed he was walking towards me.

“Hey, Twelve Fingers!” he cried.

He was standing about three feet away from me, completely naked. Considering I was cold in my coat, he must have been freezing, but he seemed totally comfortable. I, on the other hand, was having some difficulty taking deep breaths. I couldn’t look him in the eyes, but then again, where the hell was I supposed to look?

“Hi,” I finally said.

“I hope you realize how cold it is,” Luke said. He grinned. “I wouldn’t want you to think that this is all there is.”

“Uh…” I said. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, but Delia later explained to me that he was referring to his penis. Although if he was apologizing for
that
, he really didn’t have anything to apologize for. Not that I looked or anything. Heaven forbid.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” he said, and gave me one last wave before jogging off.

Delia took one look at my face. “So you don’t like him, huh?” she teased me. “Suuuure….”

I believed in my heart that Delia was wrong, that I didn’t like Luke, that I could never like someone who was such an asshole. That I would
never
be so superficial as to fall for someone just based on looks, even if he did happen to have the body of a Greek god.

Yet after that night, I found myself having dreams about him. Dreams of him naked, in bed with me, kissing me. And when I awoke, I’d always feel a touch of disappointment that it had all just been a dream.

***

Final exams were really rough. I barely slept for almost a week, surviving on catnaps and coffee. On the night of my last exam, all I wanted to do was crash in bed, but Delia wouldn’t hear of it. She pointed out that I hadn’t gotten drunk once all semester and I deserved to unwind.

“We’re only eighteen,” I pointed out. “We’re too young to drink.”

Delia groaned. “I’m going to smack you, Ellie. Seriously.”

Delia had leads on a few parties, but the first one we tried wouldn’t let us in because we were freshman. That is, we were freshman and we weren’t hot enough. We tried a second party though and nobody was guarding the door, so we walked right in.

Despite how cold it was outside, the party felt like a sauna. It was so hot that steam immediately filled my glasses and I had to take them off to clean them. I could feel my hair curling. The place was dimly lit and there was loud music playing the background. I took off my coat and tossed it onto a sticky pile on the floor.

“Hey! Twelve Fingers!” I nearly groaned when I heard the voice coming from behind me. I didn’t want to turn around, but Delia had mysteriously disappeared and we were packed into the room like sardines. I took a deep breath and came face to face with Luke Thayer.

“Thayer House,” I said, forcing a smile. “How are you?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Luke said, with a grin to show that he wasn’t on his first drink of the evening. He thrust a tiny paper cup into my hand, like the kind you put ketchup in.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Jello shot,” Luke said. He had one in his other hand, and he popped the contents into his mouth, then tossed the cup onto a nearby table. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t really drink,” I mumbled.

“Of course you do,” Luke said. “This is college.”

I looked down doubtfully at the green
jello. It looked innocent enough, I guess. Anyway, how much alcohol could it possibly have? I took a deep breath and popped it in my mouth, nearly choking on the taste of rum.

“They’re strong, huh?” Luke said.

I nodded, still coughing a bit. I noticed Luke was standing very close to me. He sort of had to be because the room was so packed, but he was even closer than he had to be. His shoulder was touching mine.

“You were a worthy adversary this semester, Twelve Fingers,” Luke said. “I’ll miss you.”

I laughed. “You’ll miss me? Really?”

“Of course,” he said. His golden hair was kind of damp from the heat in the room and looked darker than it usually did. “Won’t you miss me?”

“Um.” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. “I sort of thought you… hated me?”

“Hated you?” Luke gave me a confused look. “I don’t hate you, Ellie. In fact…” He moved a bit closer. “I really like you.”

This was the first time a boy had ever told me that he liked me and I couldn’t believe it was Luke Thayer. I considered pinching myself, convinced this had to be another of my crazy dreams. “You do?”

Luke didn’t answer my question, but instead took this opportunity to press his lips against mine. After a split second, his tongue slipped in between my lips and my mouth tingled as it massaged my own. His breath tasted like rum and cigarettes, which to this day is a combination that never fails to turn me on.

I allowed Luke to kiss me for probably thirty seconds too long before I pushed him away. He grinned at me. “Was that your first kiss?”

“What?” I cried. It totally was. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “It was great. You just… I got that feeling.”

I wasn’t about to admit he was right. “Look, Luke, I can’t do this.”

His face fell. “Why not?”

“I’m not your type.”

“My type?” Luke shook his head. “What’s my type?”

“You know…” Lindsay was his type. Or any of the other identical blond beauties I’d seen him with around campus. I was about as far from that as you could get and still be of the same species.

“No, I don’t know.”

I sighed. “Also, we have nothing in common.”

“So?”

“So…” I was at a loss. All I knew was that being with Luke would compromise everything I believed in. I hated him. Well, I didn’t hate him. But I hated everything about him. He was the absolute worst kind of person. I had already given him my first kiss—I couldn’t give him my first anything else. It would be like compromising my soul. “I just can’t, Luke.”

He looked like he was going to argue with me more, but then his shoulders sagged and he seemed resigned to the fact that this wasn’t going to happen. “It’s too bad,” he said. “We would have made a great team. Twelve Fingers and Thayer House.”

As Luke walked away, I felt a moment of regret. Luke was sexy as all hell and the rum was starting to hit me. But no, I couldn’t fall for Luke Thayer. He was an arrogant asshole and I knew he was just going to get worse as he discovered that everything in life could be his with just a snap of the fingers. Luke was never going to know a moment of hardship. He was always going to be a spoiled brat.