The Singles (63 page)

As I scroll past a picture of James giving a thumbs up as he and one of his frat brothers hoist up a skinny girl for a keg stand, my phone rings. Startled, I nearly drop my laptop in my effort to grab it before the noise wakes up Corinne. Once it’s silenced, I flip it over to see my mother’s name.  Mom’s old school—she holds fast to the belief that after nine, you don’t call people unless it’s an absolute emergency.

I quickly accept the call.

“Mom? Are you okay?” I breathe into the receiver.

The voice that greets me, however, doesn’t belong to my mother but to my father.
Shit
. Yesterday morning I’d sent him a message to let him know that I’d call him soon to catch up, but I never heard back from him. I assumed he was pleased that I even responded.

"A call would’ve been nice," he tells me in a tight voice. “But I’m glad to hear you’re alive and kicking.”

The exact wording he uses sends a jolt through my body but I shake it off as I quietly come to my feet and tiptoe out my bedroom. My suitemate, Hannah, is coming out of our shared bathroom as I head inside to talk, and she gives me a sleepy smile, murmuring, “’Night, Evie.”

When I tell her the same, Dad releases a breath. “Oh no, not yet you’re not.”

"Sorry, I was talking to one of the girls who lives in my suite,” I explain as I sit down on the bench seat right outside the standup shower. It’s wet, and I shift uncomfortably in my now damp pajama pants. “I’ve been busy with settling in, and—.” Something hits me, and I bring my knees up to my chest, wrapping my free arm around them. Dad’s calling me from Mom’s phone. “Wait. Are you back at home?”

"Evelyn,” he groans. I purse my lips, expecting him to start with the evasive maneuvers at any moment. Unfortunately, that particular habit is something we have in common. "I know you have some ...
issues
with me right now, but at some point you’re going to have to let your mom and I work out our own lives. This has nothing to do with you."

For some reason, I expected a better line of bullshit from him, but maybe he’s losing his touch. "Oh, I’m sorry that you’re a compulsive cheater," I retort sharply. "But she’s my mother. I think that has everything to do with me."

There's a brief moment of silence between us before I say, "So, are you living at home again?" While I was home for summer break, he’d spent maybe a total of seven days at our house. He had girlfriends, and yes, I do mean in the plural sense, and since I’d gone ahead and blown the whistle on his first affair, he didn’t see any point in hiding that truth any longer.

Growing up, it was never a secret that Mom favored Lily and Dad me—my mother and I seemed to clash at every turn—but after the last several months, I couldn’t be in the same room with him without feeling bitter.

“Did I lose you?” I say through clenched teeth, half-hoping that he did hang up on me.

To my disappointment, he says, "Let's talk about you instead. How are you liking the place so far?"

"It’s fine.” When he sighs, frustrated at my short response, I add, “What do you want me to say? That I'm settled in? Or that I'm all ready for my classes tomorrow morning and I have every intention of going this year? Or, even better, that I'm not hung-over?"

"Do you have to be so sarcastic about everything?" he demands.

"But it's all true. Besides, you’ve been quick to remind me about all my shortcomings whenever you want to get your point across.”

"I've apologized to you, Evelyn." As soon as I remind him about the text he sent me not even two days ago, he quickly corrects himself. “I’ve apologized to you about what happened with your mom.”

But you’re still seeing other women behind her back
, I want to say. There’s no point in arguing. He’ll just feed me the same lines of crap he’s been doling out to her. I slide off the bench and to my feet. “Look, I’m currently in a bathroom talking to you because everyone in my suite is asleep. I should probably get to bed too because I have a nine AM class, and I really, really don’t want to be late on my first day. If you are with Mom, tell her I said goodnight and I love her.”

As I walk back to my room, the next thing my father says makes me consider turning right back around just to argue with him. “It’s complicated. I know you don’t understand, but it is.”

I've always loathed that word. When I was a kid, and Dad wanted an easy out on something he couldn’t explain or didn’t want to deal with, he was quick to throw it around. Back then I had no problem accepting it, but now not so much. I stop right outside my door, placing my forehead gently against the wood.

“Complicated, huh?”

“When you’re older you’ll understand.”

I swallow hard. “Yeah, sure. Goodnight. I'll call you ... soon, okay?" I don't give him the chance to stop me before I disconnect the call.

After I’ve once again deactivated my Facebook account and put my laptop back on my desk, I lie in bed reflecting on all the things
I’ve
screwed up over the last year. For starters, there’s my parents’ marriage—but of course, that was broken long before I found out about all the affairs and told my mom. She deserved to know, deserved better. And yet, she would’ve preferred to remain oblivious. I’d seen that much in her eyes as she avoided my gaze all summer long.

And then, I’d wrecked what was left with James. Don’t get me wrong, we were never perfect—we had a relationship that began in high school and was based around too much sex, smoking pot, and drinking ourselves into oblivion—but the end still
hurt
. When I’d retaliated after our breakup, I only managed to damage myself.

Even if my grades hadn’t gotten me kicked out of school, the slut shaming I faced from James’ fraternity after that “retaliation” probably would have sent me on my own way.

Yawning, I roll over on my side and face the wall.

Screw Dad.

Screw James.

And most of all screw Rhys Delane.

––––––––

L
ast year, I was sure I lucked out with my relatively light class load. During first semester, I only took fourteen credits and second semester, due to my already failing grades, I enrolled in even fewer—twelve in total. Thinking back on that now, as I rush to get ready for my first day, I decide that maybe so few classes was a curse. Maybe if I’d registered for as many courses as I’m taking this year—eighteen credit hours just this semester—I might have had a little less time for messing up.

“No point in worrying about that right now,” I tell myself as I shimmy into the longest pair of shorts I can find in my wardrobe, which, thanks to my long legs, barely graze my fingertips. Taking a swig of the Red Bull sitting on my desk, I pull my flowy, Bohemian-esque shirt from the back of my computer chair and drag it over my head as I shove my feet into a pair of plain nude flats. Grabbing the same messenger bag I used last year from the center of my bed, I drop my phone and two textbooks inside as I head out the door.

I race across campus to make it to my first class, which to my extreme displeasure is Professor Cameron’s Sight Singing and Dictation course. Although the whole tardy and absent thing is an entirely different ball field in college, I absolutely don’t want to be late to a class that is not only taught by my advisor, but is also my worst subject in my major.

I’m early—the class is only partially full when I walk in—and I let myself relax. I take a seat a couple rows from the front, beside a freckled, shaggy redhead who automatically makes me think of Ed Sheeran, and behind a girl who smells like the perfume department at Sephora threw up on the front of her bright pink hoodie.

Turning his head to look at me, the redhead gives me a smile. “Nathan Stone.”

“Evie Miller, nice to meet you.”

Pulling out his laptop—which I doubt he’ll need in this particular class—he asks, “You liking it so far?”

“Not sure.” Grinning, I lay my hands down flat on my desk, rubbing my thumbs together. “I’ll tell you how I feel about it after this class is over, though.”

Chuckling, he moves his head to either side. “No, I mean the first real weekend back. This place can get a little crazy.”

“Oh ... this isn’t your first year?”

“Nope, I was here last year.” He drags a bottle of green tea out the side of his laptop bag and downs a quarter of the contents before adding, “I decided in the middle of March that I wanted to screw myself and double major, so here I am.”

“
Nice
.”

“Yeah, I—” His gaze leaves my face for a second, looking over my shoulder, and he lifts his eyebrow. “I swear that guy makes the rest of us look like ass. I’m glad my girlfriend doesn’t go here,” he jokes.

Oddly enough, I already know precisely who Nathan is referring to without having to look behind me, and I automatically feel my body go taut as my mind wraps around thoughts of Rhys Delane. Since half those thoughts are the kind that will easily get me in trouble, I squeeze my hands together and give a noncommittal shrug.

“He’s alright, I guess.”

“Well, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that happen,” Nathan mutters, shaking his head incredulously. He looks over my shoulder again, and this time when our eyes meet, he gives me a serious look. “The succubus is here. She’ll go Leonidas on us if we’re talking while she’s explaining the fifty page syllabus.”

Between Mac’s description of Professor Cameron as the mega bitch and Nathan now referring to her as the succubus, I’m seriously ready to pre-empt the pity party for myself for the next several weeks.

Giving me a little wink, Nathan turns forward in his seat. When Professor Cameron starts to talk a moment later, her tone just as crisp and detached as it was during our meeting last week, I have no choice but to follow suit.

I automatically regret it because the moment I do, Rhys passes by my desk, dropping the syllabus on the corner. Our eyes lock, and despite not wanting to show any reaction to him, I swallow hard, causing the corners of his lips to move just enough for me to notice. He probably believes I’m thinking of our brief encounter before formally meeting last week. And while I’m sure there are—judging by the number of female gazes that follow him longer than necessary as he finishes doling out paperwork—plenty of women who would easily react to him, sixty-five percent of my response is rooted in something entirely different.

As both Professor Cameron and Rhys introduce themselves and start to go over the syllabus, Nathan gives me a look from across the aisle. “
He’s alright, I guess
,” he whispers, mimicking my nonchalant words from a few minutes ago. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see your face light up the second he opened his
alright
mouth.”

“If she doesn’t Leonidas kick you, I will,” I promise sweetly, and his shoulders shake with silent laughter. He lowers his gaze back down to the bullet point on attendance.

“You’re still leering at him,” Nathan whispers.

With fifteen minutes to spare, we reach the end of the syllabus, which is the section I dread the most—midterms in October and final exams in December. Sitting behind the desk at the front of the room, Professor Cameron slides her glasses up on her nose and looks over to Rhys, who’s on the stool beside the desk.

“Anything you want to add?” she questions him.

Glancing from Cameron out to us, Rhys tilts his head to the side, examining everyone carefully with his piercing blue-green eyes. When they skim over me, I feel a jolt in my chest. I look away just as he clears his throat.

“I know most of you’ve already been fortunate enough to meet Professor Cameron,” he begins, and I bite my lip when Nathan snorts just loud enough for me to hear him, “but since we’ll be together all semester and, hopefully, next, I want to know more about each of you. I’ll start. From the syllabus you already know I’m Rhys Delane. I’ve been a student here for almost five years, since I transferred from Georgetown as a sophomore.”

Rhys starts to say something else, probably something about himself, but then he rubs his hand thoughtfully over his mouth, and points to one of the girls in the very front row. “How about you? Who are you and why’d you pick this place? What’s your goal?”

She giggles—actually giggles—and then says, “I want to teach music.”

After a few more of my classmates have introduced themselves, Rhys focuses his attention on me. Blatantly. I feel every eye in the room turn in my direction. There’s a part of me that wants to pull the woven fedora I put on this morning as far down over my head as it’ll go, but I manage to face his questioning gaze head on.

“And you?” he asks.

“Me,” I breathe. What does he expect me to say? Hell, there’s so much I could say, want to say. But the first thing that comes out is, “I don’t know.”

His eyebrow jerks up. “You don’t know your name? What you did before you came to this program? Or what—”

“My name is Evie Miller, and I wreck things.” Before he can respond, I look around at all the confused faces and immediately add, “But I’m working on fixing everything. Singing has always been something that’s therapeutic for me. It’s what I’m good at, but I know I’ve got a lot of work to do while I’m here.”

“I see,” Rhys says, his stare unwavering, sending fire to scorch my skin.

“Yes.” I try like hell to smile as I look away from him again, coming eye to eye with Professor Cameron. Her chin is propped in her hands, and she’s leaned forward, listening to me intently. I return my gaze to Rhys and tell him confidently, “So my goal is short term: Pass finals this year. I don’t want to be the girl who screws everything up anymore.”

He stares at me for a moment longer before dipping his head into a nod and moving his attention to Nathan, who turns out to be from right outside of Las Vegas and a bit of a piano prodigy, from what I manage to make out from his humble introduction.

As we leave class together, he brushes off the fact that he almost decided to go to Julliard, so I quickly change the subject. “You moved from Vegas to come to Virginia?” He nods, and I snort. “I’m guessing that by now you realize that winter in this place over the last few years made Elsa’s wrath look tame, right?”