Here Comes Trouble (4 page)

When class ended, I rushed out of the
lecture hall with everyone else and kept walking when I heard his
voice calling for me to wait. I was furious. What were the chances
of him being in my very first University course ever?

“Wait up, Lex!”

I swiveled around to face him. “What do you
want?”

He stopped in his tracks, looking a little
uncertain and totally gorgeous. He was wearing the plain black
shirt I’d imagined him wearing and it
did
accentuate his
biceps and chest.

He hoisted his bag higher on his right
shoulder. “So we’re in the same History of Music class.”

“Yeah, I figured that out when you put me
out of my misery in front of everyone.”

One side of his lips quirked up. “Glad to
help.”

I crossed my arms. “I thought you said you
were taking premed.”

“I am. I needed an art elective and I happen
to love music. I play guitar.”

I sighed. Of course he did.

“What seminar are you in?” he asked, pulling
out his phone.

I didn’t need to pull out my calendar; I had
my schedule burned in my memory. “Wednesday at 3.”

“No way! Me too. Professor Durst?”

“Yes,” I responded through my teeth.

“What are the chances?” He flashed me a grin
before walking away down the hall.

I gripped the straps of my bag and took a
deep breath. The seminar had at most ten people, which meant I was
going to be forced to spend an hour a week in close proximity to
Ian Crawford for the
entire year
. How was I possibly going
to do that?

Wednesday had just become the worst day of
my week.

But when Wednesday rolled around, I was
spared alone time with Ian by a terrible flu. I hadn’t been sick
like this since I was in elementary. For the first time, I was glad
the bathroom was right outside our room. I made multiple runs in
there to toss my cookies and when I could no longer get out of bed,
I just rolled over and puked into the trashcan.

“It stinks in here,” Melissa groaned when
she came back from class. “Seriously, you couldn’t get up?”

“I was asleep and woke up to puke,” I
snapped.

“Well it’s disgusting. You should get up and
shower. It will make you feel better.”

True—plus I could puke in the shower if I
needed to. I pulled myself out of bed, grabbed my basket of shampoo
and razors and padded like a zombie into the bathroom. All three
stalls were empty so I chose the most private one.

I’d missed all of my Wednesday classes.
Luckily I’d been to most of the lectures already, so it was only
the History of Music seminar I was really worried about. Like it or
not, I was probably going to have to talk to Ian about getting the
notes. The idea made me queasier.

I showered for what felt like half a day,
relishing in the warmth and the feeling of actually being clean. If
only the water could cleanse me of my illness and make me normal
again.

God, I missed being healthy. You really do
miss what you have when it’s gone.

When I could finally tear myself from the
warm water, I stepped out of the stall and realized I’d forgotten
my robe in my room. Cursing silently, I wrapped a towel around me
before shoving open the bathroom door. It connected with someone
outside in the hall.

“I’m so sorry,” I began and then swallowed
my words. Ian was standing in front of my room.

“Oh, it’s you. Then I’m not sorry,” I
muttered. To my surprise, he looked momentarily hurt, and I felt a
twinge of guilt.

“I actually came by to give you the handouts
from the seminar today.”

Damn. That was pretty sweet. I took them
gingerly, holding my towel up with only one hand. He smirked and
shoved his hands in his pockets, glanced away.

“One other thing,” he said, frowning at the
names on my whiteboard as if he’d just noticed them, “I guess
there’s a group project for each semester. Prof asked us to choose
a teammate, and I told her I know you.”

“Okay...so we’re in a group together? How
many other people?”

He turned to look at me again, a smile
playing on his lips like he knew I wasn’t going to appreciate
hearing what he had to say next. “Just us, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?
I held my towel tighter
around me. I suddenly felt very, very naked. “Just us? And there
wasn’t anyone else you wanted to work with?”

His eyes flashed with anger. “I thought it
would be
convenient
to work together seeing as we
practically live in the same building. As you can see, I’ve already
come in handy for you. You’re welcome.”

He pivoted and marched off down the hall,
shoving through the stairwell doors.

“Good job,” Melissa said when I entered our
room again. “Insult the Resident Hottie.”

I winced and closed the door behind me to
change. “You heard all that huh.”

“Yeah, he asked to be your partner. What an
asshole.”

“He’s just...” I let my sentence run off. He
was just what? Flirtatious? Cute? Considerate?

Maybe I was the asshole.

“I don’t like what happened between him and
Vanessa,” I muttered as I opened my wardrobe. “I don’t trust guys
like that.”

“He’s a
guy
. That’s what guys
do.”

“Not the kind of guys I want to be with.” I
pulled out my comfiest sweatpants and tossed them on the bed. Then
I searched for a shirt.

Melissa snorted. “He doesn’t want you,
Alexis. He just wants to be your partner for an assignment. Don’t
read so much into everything.” She lifted her drama textbook again,
effectively ending the conversation.

***

The next day I felt well enough to go to
classes again. When I got back to my room, the entire hallway stuck
of weed. I knocked on Lena’s door and there was a scuffling sound
inside before she opened it a crack, grinned widely when she saw
me.

“Leeeeex, it’s you! I’m so glad.”

She opened the door and let me in. She was
wearing a long skirt and tank top, and a blue bandana tied her hair
back. The window was wide open and smoke was still slipping out
through it. On every wall was a poster or print screens of Bob
Marley. Catpower played from the laptop on her desk.

“I was wondering if you want to grab a snack
from the caf or something.”

“Oh yeah, I’m super hungry.” She rubbed her
stomach. “I’ll just get my stuff together.”

Almost ten minutes later, she’d found her
purse and keys and we were walking to the cafeteria chatting about
classes. Grabbing food took even longer. She waited both in the hot
food and cold food lines and then grabbed a bag of chips. Basically
she wanted everything she saw. We carried our trays outside to eat
in the late afternoon sun.

“So what are you taking?” I asked, biting
into my bagel and cream cheese.

“Mostly art courses. I still have to pick up
a science course. I know, it’s almost been a week.” She grinned
sheepishly. “I’m thinking Nature Studies. All I really care about
is my fiction writing courses. I want to be a novelist.”

“Wow. I thought about being a novelist once.
What genre?”

“Fantasy and women’s fiction. I’ve been
working on a novel about a High School dropout that ends up in a
girl gang. Have you ever heard of girl gangs?”

I shook my head.

“See? They’re pretty underrepresented.” She
took a bite of her sandwich and then put it down. “What about you?
I can’t figure you out... You seem artsy but also very
down-to-earth and almost logical.”

I laughed. “That’s probably my parents’
influence. I wrote and drew comics growing up, and they think good
writers make good lawyers.”

“What do
you
want to do?”

“I’d love to write song lyrics,” I admitted.
“Or design album covers. I want to work in the music industry. I’m
taking A History of Music and a poetry course.”

“Oh, I know someone in that course!” Lena
exclaimed. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember. “Ian,
our RC.”

“Right.” I nodded, my mouth a thin line.

“You’ve met him right?”

“Oh yeah.”

She frowned. “Don’t you like him? I think
he’s a cool guy. He’s really good at guitar too. I watched him play
in the lounge the other night.”

I took a sip of my chocolate milk. “Is he in
a band?”

“No, he says he doesn’t want to be. I can’t
remember why.”

“He doesn’t like fame and notoriety.” I
rolled my eyes.

She looked surprised. “So you
do
know
him.”

Yeah. I could feel the heat rising into my
cheeks. Dammit. The last thing I wanted was to have feelings for
Ian Crawford, but it seemed like no matter what I did or where I
went, he came into the picture.

“You like him.” Her large grin was back. I
looked down, trying to hide my smile, but she ducked her head too.
“You totally do!”

“What? He’s hot. Too bad he’s so pushy and a
manwhore.”

“Right, the blowjob thing.” She picked her
sandwich again and took a bite, speaking with a full mouth. “I
don’t see why everyone cares so much. It’s a fucking blowjob. Who
hasn’t given one?”

“Totally.” I sipped my milk and looked
away.

***

I couldn’t concentrate. It was only the
first of classes and I already had an assignment due. My poetry
prof had given us weekly writing assignments to be handed in every
Friday. Usually I could just sit down and write, but today I was
staring at my blank laptop screen and hating every second of
it.

It’s the pressure, I thought. That, and the
sound of Melissa chewing her pencil. Who even uses pencils these
days?

I shoved my chair back and rummaged through
my drawers for running clothes. Nothing cleared my mind like a good
run, and I’d been meaning to return to the forest since the animal
game. Running outside was my cure-all for most things: boredom,
insomnia, creative blocks...

Outside our residence, a running path
circled campus and ran along the edge of the forest. I took it past
the forest, and then continued to run through the neighborhood
houses. I was filled with nervous energy, driven by the beat of the
music I was listening to. I was alone. I was free.

I was so lost in my thoughts and checking
the area around me, I didn’t realize I’d been running for close to
an hour. The sun was beginning to set by the time I reached campus
again.

Slowing to a walk, I cut between the
buildings, the pathways lit by old-fashioned streetlamps, and
through the dark wet-green grass of the Quad. A few students were
emerging from the brick library and others sat smoking on the edge
of the fountain. The leaves on the trees looked emerald green under
the soft lights.

I lay on my back in the Quad and pulled my
knee to my chest, stretching my hamstring. The sky was shards of
broken glass stars, thousands of them, not a cloud to be seen. I
switched legs and then stretched my arms out to the sides, took a
moment to just breathe and take it all in. How lucky was I to
finally be here?

A face framed by wavy black hair appeared
above me. “Are you always on your back? It’s giving me the wrong
impression.”

“Haha.” I sat up. “I just finished a run and
was stretching.”

Ian frowned, his green eyes bright in the
low light of the field. “You shouldn’t be running around campus
alone at night. It isn’t safe.”

“Why, a bad guy might get me?” I said and
then regretted it. I sounded childish. And he was my RC.

“Well yeah.”

“It wasn’t dark when I left. I guess I lost
track of time.”

“I’ll walk you home.” He put out his hand to
help me up, and I took it.

“What were you doing?” I asked as we started
toward our block. “RC rounds of some sort?”

He chuckled. “No, I was out for dinner with
some friends and saw some people I know at the fountain. Stopped to
say hi when I saw you lying there.”

I bit my lip. I must have looked mega weird.
“I’m not used to living with anyone. Our room is super small. I
wanted to be alone for a while.”

“I understand that.” He hesitated. “Would
you like to come hang out in my room? I have some movies or video
games, if you’re interested. Wii games that I know girls like to
play.”

I rolled my eyes. First of all, it wasn’t
cool to peg me as just another girl, or to peg any girl for that
matter. I knew girls that played Halo with guys for days at a time.
And second of all, how obvious was that invitation to spend time
alone with him in his room?

“Wow, you’re smooth,” I said and started
walking faster.

He caught up to me. “What’s your problem,
Lex? When you found out we were in the same class I could tell you
weren’t pleased, and then yesterday you blatantly didn’t want to be
my partner. Did I do something to piss you off?”

“Nothing. I shouldn’t have said
anything.”

His eyes narrowed. “Tell me what you’re
thinking.”

I stopped and sighed. We were just outside
the block now and the last thing I wanted was for someone to come
out of a building and see us arguing. But the words just poured
out.

“I heard about you and Vanessa. In fact, I
talked to her about it. You got her to give you a blowjob and let
your friends watch and when you got busted, she looked like a slut
and you came off all cool. I don’t like guys like that.” I was
surprised at the one venom in my own voice.

“Whoa,” he said, putting up his hands.
“That’s a lot. First off, I never let those guys watch. Truth be
told, it was a great experience and I was enjoying it way too much
to notice anything else happening around me. Yeah we shouldn’t have
done it there, and I feel bad about that—but we’d both had a few
beers and made a dumb mistake. As for her looking like a slut, I
haven’t heard anything like that and we’re still friends. I went
for coffee with her yesterday, in fact, and she didn’t say anything
about it.”