BELLA THANKED LIANNE. “My mind is blown, okay? I need to think.”
Lianne smiled like a cat. “You know where to find me.”
We went back into Bella’s room, where she threw my notebook on the floor and lay down on the bed on her stomach. I’d come up here to work on our Urban Studies project, but now there were more important things to discuss.
“Are you going to have her take the picture down?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, hugging a pillow under her arms.
Moving a stack of books off her desk chair, I made room for my ass. Bella looked far too sexy on that bed for me to get anywhere near her.
“I want that picture down, but I need to think it over.”
“Because you’re worried about retaliation?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I’m pretty sure that the boys of Beta Rho have short little attention spans. They’ll probably just move on to the next victim. But that bothers me, too.”
“Are you thinking about reporting them?” I tried not to sound too eager, but I wanted that fucker to pay. Whoever he was.
“Nope. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it go. I definitely want revenge.”
That didn’t sound good. “What kind? You told me that you were a fan of revenge. It was the night that I found out Alison…” I cleared my throat instead of finishing that sentence. The night that I found out Alison cheated, and then we stripped each other and went at it like horny rabbits.
Nice. I had to go and dredge that up. “What kind of revenge?” I asked again, moving the conversation along.
“That’s the thing,” she said slowly. “I haven’t hit on the right solution yet. I want to humiliate him.”
I would have asked “who?” if I thought she’d fall for it. “Humiliation, huh? You could ask Lianne to redirect the Brodacious website. Instead of their web content, you’d end up…” I thought about it for a second. “…on a porno, with frat boys getting spanked by a dominatrix.”
Bella began to chuckle. “‘Please, mistress. May I have another?’ I knew I liked you, Rafe. And you know why that’s a great idea? Because there’d be no way to know which of their many enemies pulled it off. There must be plenty of girls who hate Beta Rho.”
“And rival frats.”
She turned one cheek to the pillow and looked up at me. “The thing is, I want my revenge to be more personal. I want them to look ridiculous, and not just because the website didn’t go where it was supposed to. I’ve been trying to figure out how to catch them in the act of doing something stupid.”
“That sounds tricky.”
“Yes and no. The number of stupid things they do in a week probably helps my odds.” She stretched, arching her back, and I found myself admiring her butt. Which was not what I’d come upstairs to do. “I have a couple ideas. I’ve been doing some thinking.”
“Feel like sharing?”
Bella grinned. “Nope. You’d just try to talk me out of them.”
Fantástico. “So.” I cleared my throat. “Have you thought about what foodie business we want in our new commercial development?”
“Nope!” Bella said cheerfully. “I’ve been working on a paper for this women’s studies course I’m taking. It’s kicking my ass.”
Women’s studies. That sounded like what lonely guys do on freshman on move-in day. “Can’t say that I know what those classes are about. Though the topic sounds like something I’d like.” Yeah. I should really just shut up now.
“It’s politics and culture, from the feminist perspective. And I thought I’d really love it, you know? I’m interested in empowering females.”
“Sure. But you don’t like the class?”
Bella bent her knees, lifting her toes into the air — a move that immediately yanked her long legs into the center of my consciousness. My stupid brain decided to flash back to the time when I was lying on top of her in that bed, with those legs wrapped around me…
I mentally slapped myself and tried to focus on what Bella was saying. “Have you been going to class?” I asked, wondering if she’d give me a straight answer.
“That one, yeah. I figure even if I’m having trouble looking half the campus in the eye, a women’s studies lecture should be no problem, right? Since the basic premise is that men have been fucking up the world for women since the beginning of time.”
“Um…” I chuckled. “Not all of them.”
Bella waved a dismissive hand. “Fine. But we’re reading about institutionalized sexism, and wage inequality. That kind of thing.”
“Fair enough.”
“Some of it makes sense. But the professor’s big theory is that our culture defines a woman’s body as a void which needs filling. She thinks that idea is responsible for all kinds of evils: the wage gap, underrepresentation in seats of power…” Bella dropped her legs to the bed and pushed her cheek into the pillow. The girl had no idea what it did to me to see her all splayed out like that — her curvy body like a landscape on the bed.
“But you don’t think that sounds right?” I asked, still trying to stay on topic.
“I’m sure she’s right about a lot of things. But every time I lay down on this bed lately, I’m feeling a lot of sympathy for the void which needs filling.” Her eyes cut over to me. “Celibacy isn’t easy. I’m supposed to be writing a paper about female subjugation. But all I want is for someone to give me a good pounding.”
Jesucristo. I let out the world’s most strangled laugh. The picture she’d just put into my head was not very academic.
“I’m a failed feminist,” Bella complained.
“Nah. You’re your own brand of feminist. And there’s your paper topic.”
She grinned. “I’m pretty sure the professor would flunk me if she could see inside my brain. Today it’s like ninety percent sexual positions, nine percent food and one percent homework.”
Was it hot in here? I was going to have to go back downstairs to study if we didn’t talk about something else. “Let’s see if we can get that homework percentage up a little bit. Urban Studies, for example.”
Bella sat up. “Fine. Let’s talk Urban Studies. I really need to get out of my head.”
And I needed to cool off. I yanked my backpack into my lap, practically ducking for cover. I pretended to search for something inside, though all I really needed was a way to disguise the tent I was pitching in my pants.
“Your notebook is here,” Bella said, lifting it off the floor.
“Ah, right.” I grabbed it as if that had been my goal the whole time.
“Name all the food businesses you can think of. Go.”
“Dominican restaurant.”
Bella giggled. “How ever did you come up with that one?”
“Everyone’s a critic. Okay — grocery store. Wine shop. Sushi place. Bella, this isn’t going to get us anywhere. Except now I’m starving.”
She looked up from her own notebook. “Didn’t you eat dinner?”
“Of course I did. But that was hours ago.”
“Boys.” She shook her head. “They’re always hungry.”
“Pretty much,” I sighed. Though there were several kinds of hunger. And I was feeling more than one of them at the moment.
Bella smiled at me right then, and it broke my heart a little bit. Because I wanted to see her smile. And it felt really damned selfish to want other things, too.
“Is there another wine shop in that neighborhood?” she asked. “That sounds like a high-margin business. And it doesn’t need as much floor space as a grocery store.”
“I’ll look it up,” I said, reaching for my laptop.
On Monday, Alison emailed the rest of the tiny Beaumont Urban Studies team, informing us that it was time to hold a meeting. I let Bella and Dani reply to the email first, and both of them agreed to meet. So I grudgingly agreed, too.
Bella had chosen the location — the creaky little Beaumont library. So at least the commute was short. Bella knocked on my door a few minutes before the meeting. “Your girlfriend’s message said that she wanted to outline the tasks at hand and ready herself for the challenge,” Bella said. “Does she always sound that constipated?”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I corrected. Alison had always been a little formal. I didn’t really trust myself to give an opinion right now, because there was probably nothing Alison could say today that wouldn’t irritate me.
My anger at her was still fresh. Whenever I saw her across the dining hall or the Urban Studies lecture hall, it always took me back to that awful moment when Mr. Rolex appeared. I got all kinds of angry when I thought of that night — and not just at Alison. I was pissed off at myself, too. Because I knew things hadn’t been quite right with her. There had been so many little signs, and I’d ignored them all.
Next time, I’d be more careful with my trust.
“Earth to Rafe.” We were standing in front of the library, but I’d been too deep inside my head to notice. Bella put both hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay? Do you want me to tell her that you were too busy to come to her little planning session?”
“Nah,” I grumbled. “Lead on.”
Bella grabbed my elbow to tug me inside, but she happened to hit me a little too high up under my arm. And I’m very ticklish. “Shit.” I laughed, twisting away from her.
“What the fuck?” She dug her fingers into my inner bicep again. “Who’s ticklish there?”
“Dios.” I grabbed her arm. “You are such a pain in the ass.”
“Uh-oh!” Bella sang. “Somebody looks jealous!”
I looked through the window to see Alison staring at us.
“Eh. I doubt it.” I let go of Bella, anyway.
Luckily, when we reached the table Alison had saved for our meeting, Dani was just arriving, too. So I didn’t have to make small talk. For the next fifteen minutes, I let Bella speak for both of us.
“Jeez, you guys are doing great,” Dani said. “That’s a lot of progress.”
Bella nudged me with her elbow. “I told you we started too early.”
“I like to get a jump on things,” I mumbled.
“He always does that,” Alison said, crossing her arms. “It’s a thing with him.”
Ack. I did not want to be a topic of discussion. “So what about the, uh, design part?”
Alison and Dani rambled on for a few minutes about their ideas, while I pretended to listen.
“I don’t know about that green roof idea,” Bella argued. “That sounds expensive.”
“It’s excellent for the environment,” Alison argued.
“As long as we can pay for it,” Bella said. “Are we done for now?”
I grabbed my book bag in the hopes of making a quick getaway.
“Wait,” Alison said. “Rafe, I really need to talk to you for a minute.”
Uh-oh. “Is it about the project?”
She shook her head. I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up a hand. “Please, it will just take a second. Please.” She beckoned to me, then walked outside, where I assumed she was waiting for me.
“Dios,” I muttered.
Bella picked up her backpack. “Do you want me to rescue you in a minute? I could tell her that we’re late to a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Work with me, here.”
“Okay. Yeah. Come and get me for the thing. In three minutes.” That should be plenty of time. Because what was there to say?
I marched myself outside, stopping in front of Alison.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Peachy.” Let’s get to the point, here.
“Look, I owe you an apology.”
“You think?”
Alison gave me a bit of an eye roll. “Can you just let me do this? I wasn’t honest with you.”
“I got that.”
She threw her arms out to the sides. “Just give me a second, okay? This isn’t easy for me to tell you.” The crystalline blue eyes that I’d always loved filled.
That pretty much crushed my asshole ’tude, because I never could stand to see a girl cry. “Okay,” I said softly. “I’m listening.”
“Rafe, I’m…” She swallowed. “I’m asexual.”
I replayed those words in my mind and came up blank. “You’re… what?”
“Asexual. I can’t… I don’t experience sexual desire. Ever. Not for anyone.”
That was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. And I’d already spent a couple of months choking on the message that she didn’t want me like that. Why make a weird excuse? “Then why did you sleep with Mr. Rolex? And don’t try to tell me you didn’t. Something happened with him.”
She took a deep breath in through her perfect nose. “I slept with him because I wanted to know if I could do it. It was an experiment. If I could live through it with him, then I thought I could handle sex with you.”
At that moment, you could have pushed me over with a feather. “Dios. I always hoped you could tolerate sex with me. Do you even hear yourself?”
Her face got red. “I know, okay? It’s taken me a bunch of counseling sessions to even admit that it was a stupid idea. But I loved you, and I just wanted what so many other people have. A normal relationship.”
Again, the fact that she was getting upset checked my anger. “But I just don’t understand. Not at all. Because everybody wants someone.”
Slowly, she shook her head. “Not necessarily. Not me. I’d been wondering about myself for years, honestly. My boarding school roommates were always talking about how so and so has lickable abs. I’ve never wanted to lick anyone in my life.”
I managed to crack a smile, even as I realized that she wasn’t joking. “Maybe you like girls?”
She shook her head. “If I did, that would be easier. I’d never even heard the term ‘asexual’ until a year ago. I started Googling right away, but reading about it only depressed me. Because I suspected that was me. And then we started dating, and I tried. I really did.”
“So…” I cleared my throat. “It’s not just you. This is a… thing.”
Alison gave me a tiny eye roll. “Yes, it’s a thing. There are support groups and the whole nine yards.”
It was at that moment when Bella decided to stage her rescue. She came wandering over to me with a comical smile. “I need to steal you.” She put her hands on my chest and rubbed my pecs. “There’s a half an hour until class, and I’m feeling so tense. I was hoping you could help me relax.”
I kept a straight face, but just barely. “Just give me a minute, Bells. I need one more minute here.”
Bella made a sad, pouty face that was entirely out of character. “I’ll be waiting, lover.” She sauntered off, hips swaying. I admired the view, because it was important to stay in character.
When I looked at Alison again, her eyes were hard. “Wait. You asked her to rescue you from this conversation? Is it really that hard to talk to me?”
That’s when I lost it a little. “Cristo. Is it really so hard to believe that someone would ever want to have sex with me?” Too bad I didn’t keep my voice down. A couple of freshman girls walking past us looked up quickly.
“Of course not,” Alison whispered. Her face went soft. “My counselor was right.”
“What about?”
“That sex was tied up with most people’s self-esteem. And that I almost certainly hurt your feelings because I didn’t want you that way. I’m sorry I’ve been so dense.”
“It’s…” Argh. “Can we just move on?”
“I was hoping that we could be friends.”
“Isn’t that all we ever were?”
Alison let out a shaky sigh. “I loved you, Rafe, and then I did something really stupid because I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. And I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I whispered. Was I supposed to tell her now that all was forgiven? I just couldn’t make myself say the words. Although I didn’t like the idea that my pride had been wounded at least as badly as my feelings. “Thank you for telling me,” I added, hoping that it would be enough.
Alison gave me a watery smile. “You’d better go. Your friend is waiting for you. Actually, she’s looking like she’d like to kill me. You probably told her I was a monster.”
Yeah, I probably did. “See you around, Alison.” Trying to be generous, I leaned forward and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then I spun around and caught up with Bella, who was waiting by the door. She did, in fact, look ornery. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for that to take so long.”
“Let me guess. She’s sorry, and she wants you back.”
“Eh,” I said. “She’s sorry, at least.”
“Would you take her back if she asked?”
“No,” I said quickly. “We weren’t… a good fit.” I was still trying to understand what Alison had told me. If she was right about not wanting sex with anyone, that meant most relationships were off the table. She’d told me once that she wanted kids, too. So that wouldn’t be easy.
It was pretty damned depressing, really.
“I have an idea,” Bella said. “About Beta Rho.”
“What?” That got my attention. “What kind of idea?”
“I read in The Harkness that they’re having a centennial celebration next month. ‘One Hundred Years of Beta Rho.’”
“Ugh. Just what we all need — a hundred years of assholes.”
“I know. But I figure that a bunch of their alumni will be in town for it. They’re having a big tailgate party for the last football game.”
“Are they now?” I sure hoped Bella wasn’t planning to go. I didn’t want her anywhere near a couple hundred drunk frat boys.
“The article said that they bought out a big block of tickets to the game.”
“So?”
“So, my wheels are turning.”
I opened our entryway door. “Bella, I can’t think of a single good thing that could come of you mingling at the Beta Rho centennial.”
“I don’t want to be good, Rafe. I want to be bad. Very bad.”
Dios. “I don’t even want to know,” I said, and we began walking again.
Yes you do, a little voice nagged. You absolutely want to know.
