He doesn’t get it and I don’t expect him to. But there is one
person who will. “Is Callie at her dorm?” I ask.
Seth nods as we veer around the side of the humanities
building and hike diagonally across the lawn toward the sidewalk
that borders the street. The trees are raining down droplets of
water and they land on my shirt and the paper. There’s a light
spring breeze blowing against my back. “She’s working on some
paper that needs to be turned in by the end of the year, but she’s
hit a”—he makes air quotes as he walks backward—“writer’s zone.”
I smile at the thought of her locked in her bedroom,
scribbling away in her journal, naked. Although I’m pretty sure the
last part isn’t true. But if I really wanted it to be, I could probably strip her down and have her write naked for me. She’s trusted me
a lot lately and our relationship has been heating up immensely.
But I never push her—I don’t ever want to.
“I’m going to head over and talk to her.” I swing around a
jogger stretching near a tree. “Are you coming?”
He shakes his head, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his
tan pants. “Nah, I got a date.” He hurries off, with a spring in his
step, toward the parking lot on the opposite side of the main
office, the puddles splashing up beneath him. When he reaches his
car, there’s a guy waiting for him with a big teddy bear in his hand.
It makes me smile, thinking of Callie and the teddy bear at the
carnival.
I pick up the pace, taking as long a stride as possible,
allowing the wind to take me where I need to go.
* * *
I knock on the door several times before her roommate,
Violet, answers. She’s kind of a scary chick, with studs on her
clothes and one in her nose. Her black hair is streaked red and she
has a dragon tattoo on her neck. She wears a lot of black and she
always has this look on her face like she’s about to start a fight.
Violet walked in on us one time when we were having sex.
Callie was absolutely mortified, although I thought it was kind of
funny. Violet didn’t think so though, and she chewed us out, saying
we needed to hang a scarf on the doorknob next time. I was a little
surprised by her reaction. Violet has a reputation around the
campus and it seemed a little unfitting for her to get so worked up
over sex.
“You’re not Jesse,” she says, with her hand on the doorknob,
frowning. She takes me in with her eyes and then she fiddles with
the diamond stud above her upper lip. “Do you two ever take a
break?”
I roll the paper in my hand, making a cylinder as I shake my
head and shrug. “Nope, not really.”
She rolls her eyes and then steps back to let me in. I wipe my
wet boots on the rug in front of the door and then stand in the
center of the narrow room between their beds. Instead of closing
the door behind us, Violets leans over and grabs her jacket and
bag off the chair next to her bed and then heads out the door.
“You don’t have to leave.” I turn to her. “I just need to talk to
her.”
She raises an eyebrow, looking at me and then at Callie,
who’s sleeping on her bed. “Yes, I do… You two are a little too
much for me.” She walks out and slams the door. The whiteboard
on it falls to the carpet and I pick it up. It’s Callie and Seth’s list of things they have to do before they die.
I’m surprised at how many have been crossed off, especially
number eleven: do a dance in your underwear. Laughing
underneath my breath, I hook the board back onto the door and
then stand next to Callie’s bed. She’s lying on her back, with her
arm draped over her stomach and her shirt folding up at the hem
so I can see a sliver of her soft pale skin. She’s wearing the
necklace I gave her—she always wears it—and it makes me smile
every time I see it because it makes me feel like she’s mine. Her
journal lays open beside her head and there’s box of chocolates
next to her. Somehow she’s managed to fall asleep with a
chocolate in her hand. She’s put on a little weight since Christmas
break and seems to me to be doing better. I think it might be her
therapist. She’s always a little happier when she comes back from
her sessions. It hurts, though, sometimes, thinking about what was
done to her and all those years she spent in solitude. It’s probably
the biggest regret of my life. That I didn’t see who she really was
back when we were kids. Maybe if I had, then her life wouldn’t
have been so hard.
I drum my fingers on the side of my leg, deciding the best
way to wake her up. There are tons of ways, from using my fingers
to my tongue, but I know I have to be careful. She sometimes still
has nightmares and if I surprise her in her sleep, it could upset her.
Kneeling down on the bed, the mattress caves beneath me. I
set the paper down on the nightstand beside the bed and the lean
over her, resting one of my arms next to her head. With my other
hand, I trace her temple, the one with her birthmark, a small brown
spot beside her eye that makes her even more perfect.
Her eyelids flutter and she lets out this cute little moan that
gets me a little too excited. Grinning, I slant closer to her and
brush my lips across her forehead.
“Kayden,” she murmurs, not fully awake, and yet somehow
she knows it’s me.
I’m enjoying this way, way too fucking much, my cock
instantly getting hard. But oh well. Moving my lips down to her
temple, I lightly kiss the birthmark I’d just been tracing with my
finger, and then I move to the side and place a gentle kiss on her
fluttering eyelids. Her body shivers beneath me and she lifts her
chest and presses it against mine. My mouth travels down her
nose to her mouth, where I part her lips with my tongue, delving it
into her mouth and licking a path to the inside. Her eyelids lift up
and her massive blue eyes catch in the light flowing into the room
and they sparkle. She sucks in a sharp breath through her nose
and I straighten my arm, putting a little distance between our
bodies so she can regain her breath.
She glances around the room and then directs her attention
back at me and the sleepiness in her eyes starts to dissipate as she
blinks up at me. “How did you get in here?”
“Violet let me in,” I say and lean down to kiss her. She
responds instantly, opening her jaw and letting my tongue deep
into her mouth. She taste like chocolate and smells like
strawberries as my tongue explores every inch of her mouth.
By the time I pull away, we’re both panting, with fire
scorching in our eyes, and I’ve got my hand up her shirt. Keeping
my fingers near the bottom of her bra, I roll off her and lie beside
her on my hip. She glances down in her hand at the piece of
chocolate melting in her palm and then her face contorts with