AFTER MY QUICK departure from Alison’s room, I did not go home.
For a couple of hours, I walked aimlessly around campus. In an angry haze, I passed the rare books library, its peculiar stone walls rising like monoliths over my head. I passed the monument to students who had died in every war since the Revolution. I kept going, passing the graveyard and the hockey stadium.
My mind was a continuous loop of anger and confusion. Where had I gone wrong?
My phone rang in my jacket pocket. I almost didn’t look. There was no way I could talk to Alison right now. But when I drew out the phone and answered, it was only the restaurant, wondering if I still needed my reservation. “I’m sorry,” I told the maître d’. “Our plans have changed.”
Had they ever.
The temperature dropped even further, and it became surprisingly bitter for a September evening. My hands were cold, I hadn’t eaten supper and it was probably time to go home. Walking the streets wasn’t answering any of my questions, anyway. I’d been a good guy, and a good boyfriend. My only sin was stupidity.
I stomped back to the Beaumont House gate, where I had to wind through a clot of students who were on their way out to some party or another. I would be alone tonight, having blown off all my soccer buddies to spend my birthday with Alison.
And for what?
Numb, I climbed another stone staircase toward my second-floor room. I unlocked our door, bracing myself to make some sort of explanation for tonight’s disaster. “We broke up,” was all I was willing to say about it.
Although the lights were burning, our common room was empty. My eyes swept around the room, taking in the signs. Both of Bickley’s crystal goblets sat on our coffee table, dregs of dark red wine in their bottoms. I turned to eye our bedroom door. It was shut.
There was no flag on the doorknob, but Bickley was expecting me to be gone tonight. So I would have to proceed with caution.
I stood very still, listening. The faint strains of slow music could be heard, probably from the bedroom I shared with Bickley. Yet the other bedroom door — leading to Mat’s tiny single — was also shut.
I shrugged off my jacket and dropped it on our posh leather sofa. While most common rooms were decorated in the style of Early American Squatter, ours was exquisite. It was all Bickley’s doing. He was the son of an honest-to-God British peer, and the family had some serious coin. The furniture he’d bought for our dorm room had cost several times the value of everything in the tiny Manhattan apartment I shared with my mother.
Alone in this opulence, I perched on the edge of the leather seat, unsure how to occupy my time. What does a guy do on the night he finds out his so-called girlfriend gave it up for some rich dude in a tent in Ecuador? Watch a little TV? Play a few video games?
Ritual suicide?
From our bedroom came the sound of moaning. Figures. It was just the soundtrack I needed tonight. Where was the universal remote, anyway? I needed that sucker, stat. I felt around between the couch cushions, but couldn’t find it.
Then, from Mat’s bedroom, I heard grunting.
No freaking way. Both my roommates were getting it on? Was the universe trying to tell me I would die a virgin?
Frantic now, I got down on my hands and knees, peering under the couch, desperate for the remote. Bickley had set up his complicated video system in a way which required the remote and a NASA-style checklist of instructions he’d taped to the wood paneling on the wall.
Unfortunately, the sexual soundtrack continued in stereo behind me. My frustration rose a hundredfold, until my hands were shaking with irritation at every fricking thing in the world.
My foot connected with the stupid gift bag I’d been dragging around all night, almost toppling it. I gave up. Grabbing the bag, I stood and stomped out into the stairwell, letting the door close behind me. Not that I had any idea where I should go. I was pretty tired of walking around in the cold. So I sat right down on the stone staircase, like the loser that I was.
All I had going for me was a bottle of overpriced wine. I lifted that puppy out of the bag. Owing to my lengthy walk, the champagne was cold. Or at least coldish. I probably should have just tossed the whole gift bag into the first trash can I’d found. But what a waste, right?
Welp. Time to get drunk on champagne. I trapped the bottle between my knees and tore the gold foil off the top.
A little gust of cool air traveled up the stairs. Someone had come in the entryway door below me. Slow footsteps began the upward trudge. Whoever it was would soon appear, probably wondering why I was sitting there twisting the wire thingy off a champagne bottle in the freaking stairwell.
See the World’s Biggest Loser right here, ladies and gentlemen! Step right up!
I tossed the wire into the bag and put my hand over the cork. It wouldn’t do to put my own eye out. This night was pretty tweaked already, but if I’d learned anything, it was that things could always get worse.
“Well hello there.”
I looked up to see my favorite neighbor approaching me on the stairs. “Hey, Bella.” It figured that the sexiest resident of Entryway F would be the one to witness my pathetic little scene in the stairwell. Dios. What’s one more humiliation?
To be fair, Bella had always been kind to me. Even now, she gave me a bright-eyed smile. Instead of continuing her climb toward her room on the fourth and highest floor, she took a seat beside me on the stair, folding her hands. “Throwing yourself a private party?”
“Yeah. But if I can get this open, I’ll share.” I angled the bottle away from our faces, and slowly let up on the cork.
Nothing happened.
“Can I give you a hand?”
Yet another embarrassment. Clearly, the kind of guy who knew how to uncork champagne was not the kind of guy whose girlfriend would cheat on him.
Bella smiled at me, and that smile packed a punch. I’d always had a thing for Bella, not that I’d admit it out loud. I’d noticed her last year, when I was just a lowly freshman. There was something so lively about her. Bella had a perpetual sparkle in her eye, and color on her cheeks — the kind you get from laughing, not makeup.
She and I didn’t get acquainted until move-in day this year, when I’d helped her carry a couple of boxes up the entryway stairs. She was a senior and had a fourth-floor single under the eaves of the building — a room with slanted ceilings and a window that looked like Hansel and Gretel might have peered out of it. “Great room,” I’d said, setting the boxes down. I loved the heck out of the Harkness architecture, where no two rooms were the same.
Old things. I couldn’t get enough of ’em.
“It’s kind of a hike, though,” Bella had panted while I’d tried not to notice her chest as it rose and fell beneath her Harkness Hockey T-shirt. Standing there in her room on Labor Day, I’d felt suddenly conscious of our proximity to one another. Some girls dressed to look sexy, with short skirts and tight-fitting tops. Bella managed to exude sex appeal wearing sporty clothes and no makeup.
She’d always turned my crank, even though I found her a little intimidating. Not only were we entryway buddies, she and I were taking the same Urban Studies course this semester. I noticed her more often than I cared to admit.
And now? We were going to drink together. I’d been planning to make my pity party a private one. But I could use a friend to distract me from my misery. If only I could get the bottle open.
Bella waited with a patient if slightly amused expression on her face. “Have you done this before?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Can I give you a tip? Try twisting gently.”
“Twisting?” The instructions I’d dug up on the internet this afternoon hadn’t said anything about twisting.
“Trust me. I’m very good with my hands.” She gave me a playful nudge with her elbow.
My neck heated, as it always did when Bella used innuendo. And she used plenty of them, so I really should get over myself already. But Bella was sexy in a way that always made me break out in a sweat. The way she looked at me made me overly conscious of my body, and all the ways it might be put to use.
Theoretically.
Moving on.
Hunkering down to the task at hand, I gave the cork a gentle twist the way she’d told me to. Under my palm, I felt it begin to give. Half a second later, a satisfying pop echoed through the entryway, and the cork flew into the air, ricocheting off an oak moulding before crashing back down onto the stairs.
Bella put both hands on her knees and laughed. “Not bad for a virgin.”
Holy…! My heart skipped two or three beats. Was it that obvious? Was I marked in some way? Was I GLOWING LIKE A BEACON?
She got up to retrieve the cork, and then handed it to me. “Here you go. A memento to celebrate your first time.”
Oh. I blew out a breath. She was only talking about the champagne bottle, estupido. My shoulders relaxed a fractional degree. “Here,” I said, handing her the bottle. “You can have the first sip.”
“What a gentleman.” Bella took the bottle and tipped it carefully to her mouth. She took a sip, but then had to wipe her mouth quickly when the foam rushed over the bottle’s lip. She laughed. “I’m fine with the whole down-and-out vibe we have going on here. But next time we’re slumming it in the hallway, I’ll bring bourbon.” She passed me the bottle.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, taking a sip. Even though my heart was bitter, the wine was not. It was magnificent.
“Why are we out here, if you don’t mind my asking?”
My chuckle was dry. “My room is a little crowded right now. Not the common room, but…” I just shook my head.
Bella giggled. “Really? Both your roommates are getting busy?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “The hallway seemed like the place to sit until the walls stop shaking.”
“I would probably have asked if I could join in.” Her eyes twinkled at me. “But that’s just me.”
I managed to smile instead of swallowing my tongue. I’d been raised in a home where sex was just not talked about. It’s not like I’d ever made a conscious choice to be a prude. I just didn’t know how not to be one.
Bella stood. “Come on, then. You can tell me the rest of your sob story upstairs.”
“What?”
She beckoned. “I have furniture. And also glasses.” She hefted the champagne bottle and picked up my gift bag. “On your feet.” Then, without waiting to see what I’d do, she turned and walked up the stairs.
