𝐜 𝐡 𝐚 𝐩 𝐭 𝐞 𝐫 𝐭 𝐡 𝐫 𝐞 𝐞
𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒃𝒐𝒚
The first week of classes have been brutal to say the least. Not only do I already have two assignments due for next week, our coach had to take some personal time off which meant try-outs weren't going to happen until he came back—and we don't know when that'll be, meaning we are officially behind in season. And to top it all off, pause for an extra dramatic drum roll... Vivienne is in five of my classes.
Five. Five fucking classes and I'm only taking eight. I have to sit and stare at her for a total of 22 and a half fucking hours a week. Granted I don't actually have to stare at her, or angle myself to be even looking at her in my peripheral vision, or glare at some douche who decided to sit on the seat I wanted to sit in so that I could look at her in my peripheral vision.
But whatever. The point is, at the end of the week—I'm reminded for 22 and a half hours that Vivienne Delaney absolutely hates my guts, when all I want to do is rearrange hers. It's incredibly frustrating. It'd be worse if she actually looked my way, glared at me or shot me another middle finger. But she doesn't. And that hurts me because I happen to think she has a nice middle finger. Very direct, very assertive. I like assertive girls now apparently.
She ignores me, acts as if I'm not even there. And she knows that I am there because people in our classes talk to me, throw themselves at me, I speak up during lectures or have questions thrown my way. And still nothing. Not even a look.
It's Friday afternoon, I've had to sit through two Vivienne lectures today with a hangover from last night's poker game at the house. I'm tired, I haven't eaten all day and my muscles are sore from this week's gym sessions. I want my bed and I want it now. I have my earbuds in; Arctic Monkey's blasting and doing nothing to help my headache, walking through the campus quad on my way to my black Land Rover when someone puts a strong grip on my bicep.
I swirl around, already taking my right earbud out. Calum looks out of breath as he pants softly, "Mate, I've been shouting your fucking name for, like, a whole ass minute." I chuckle at him, pulling my phone out of my back pocket to pause Alex Turner's orgasmic voice. What? You heard me. I'd hundred percent smash Alex Turner given the opportunity. "Whatcha need, Cal Pal?" I asked my best friend, trying to think back to this morning and remember if I had seen his car parked at the house, maybe he had driven down with Ashton or Michael and needed a lift back.
"Ben's throwing a party tonight and we're going."
I immediately groaned, "Dude, no. Okay I'm tired and hungry and my head hurts and I just wanna go to bed." Calum looked at me as if I had suddenly grown two heads. I didn't care if I sounded like a pussy. I wasn't in the mood for a rager right now. Besides, we have two other roommates and an entire team worth of friends that would probably love to go to a frat party with Calum. "You fucking suck." He groaned, and started walking with me to the parking lot. "Yeah, but at least I swallow too."
Three hours later, I had showered and napped but was rudely awoken by whoever is in the room across the hall from mine with Michael, God she's a screamer. I groan as I sit up, clutching my still aching head. Water, I need water. Unplugging my phone that was on charge next to my bed, I slide into some sweatpants that had been discarded on my floor and unlock my phone.
I head to the kitchen downstairs, smirking when I hear Michael's very loud, and quite possibly put on dirty talk when he hears me walk past his door. "Yeah, baby? You like that? You like knowing that there are three other guys hearing you like this right now?"
Making my way down the stairs, taking two at a time, I see Ashton and Calum on the couch, headphones covering their ears as they go head to head in a game of Die Zombies, Die. I smile when Ashton starts to shout profanities at the top of his lungs. Ashton was better than me at this game, but Calum could give anyone a run for their money.
I open the fridge, grabbing a bottle of still water and making a face at the bottles of sparkling water touching the still bottles. Yuck. I'm leaning over the island, watching their game go on when my phone lights up with a chime. It's a text from Jess, and I try and remember if I had ever given her my number. But then I remember this one time at a party, Calum had been too drunk to drive them home and I had given her my number on the ride back to let me know if Calum got too much during the night.
I hold the blue bottle up to my lips as I open her text. It's a video of something, and while it takes a second to download, I think about her giving me Vivienne's number and me being too chicken-shit to do anything with it. What was I supposed to say? Hi? How are ya? Even if I did think of something cool to say, she'd probably ignore me or block my number.
When it downloads, I open it up. It takes me a second to register what the video is of, but a grin graces my face when I put the pieces together. It's of Vivienne, and she's dancing on a coffee table, signing along to some Madonna song playing, shouting the lyrics into a bottle of rosé. She swings her hips as she turns around on the surface, and holy fuck, her jeans. Those fucking baggy mom jeans that hug her ass so well. She's in a tight black top, her breasts all but falling out.
I'm well aware of my cock standing to attention when Jess texts me again.
Calum's Jess: we're celebrating first week of classes at our dorm
Calum's Jess: now's your time to shine pretty boy
Calum's Jess: just don't be gross ok
Calum's Jess: and bring calum
Calum's Jess: plz
Chuckling at the last two texts, I lift my head back up to see their game coming to an end. I throw my bottle cap across the room, hitting Calum's arm. He lowers his headphones, glaring in my direction. "What, sleepin' beauty?" I roll my eyes; he's just pissed off because neither Ashton nor Michael and his guest upstairs wanted to go out tonight. "Put a shirt on," I tell him as I move around the island. "We're going to the dorms." And without any explanation needed, they hop up and do what their captain tells them to.
Thirty minutes later, Ashton sits in the back of my Landie and Calum connects his phone to my car's Bluetooth from the passenger seat. "You sure you're okay being the DD?" Ashton pipes up, hope in his eyes. I nod my head and look up at him in my rear view mirror. "I'm sure; this headache still hasn't fucken left." The Kooks' 'Bad Habit' begins to play through the speakers, and one look at the screen on my dashboard tells me Calum's playing his "getting pumped" playlist.
We drive down to the campus, music low as we try to keep an even lower profile. Yes it's Friday night, but technically—there's still an eleven pm curfew for the dorm rooms. Parking in an empty spot between two smaller cars, I shut mine off and turn to Calum. "Okay mate, what's your plan?" I ask him, and Ashton nods from the back seat. Calum looks between us, mouth open slightly. "Dude, you've gotta have a plan!" Ashton shoves his shoulder.
"P-plan? What do you mean? We're just hanging out with—" I roll my eyes and Ashton pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Jess. We're hanging out with Jess," And Vivienne, but I decide to leave that out for now. "You can't get all weird and clam up in there okay, she's obviously been drinking." Ashton then adds, "You gotta be cool, play it aloof." Calum looks over to Ashton and gives him a look that says how-do-you-even-know-the-word-aloof. "Just be cool." I tell my best friend, slapping his knee.
"Easier said than done." Calum mumbles as we get out the car, closing the doors as quietly as possible and then all but jog across the damp grass on the quad. "Dude, why is this so hard for you?" I hear Ashton ask Calum in the dark as we slow down to a walk. Off-campus students shouldn't be here after eight, we're off-campus students and it's nearly 9:30pm. I shouldn't have napped so late in the afternoon; I'm going to be up all night. "Jess always makes me hard," Calum teases back and I hold in my laugh. "Wanker." I feel Ashton push Calum into me.
"Seriously though," I give him a side glance, "You were never this nervous to be around her before." Calum suddenly looks down to the floor, our wet shoes leaving behind evidence of our footprints on the brick paving. Calum shrugs nonchalantly, "When we ended things last year, it wasn't exactly on good terms—she had said certain things that I couldn't say back, I wasn't ready for the next step and she was. End of story. Now I'm just so scared of fucking it up further, so I'm giving her space, time—whatever she needs."
I nodded at his words, remembering that their break-up had been kind of sudden. One look at his pouting, guilt stricken face and I knew I had to distract him. "What floor again?" I ask Calum once we're inside, rubbing my hands together, it's beginning to get chilly and I think I can actually see my breath come out in a puff of smoke in front of me.
"Three—no, four. Four. It's definitely four." Ashton and I share a look and I shake my head and smile. Calum had been banging this girl for nearly a year and he still struggles with what floor she lives on. We bound up the stairs, and my muscles scream at me in agony, still not over me pushing them at the gym this week. My black t-shirt tightens around the top of my bicep when I reach forward to open the stairwell door on floor 4.
We walk into the hallway, and although you can't physically hear any music or laughing or chatting of any kind, the hint of a party runs through my body and down my spine. Maybe I've just become accustomed to parties, I can feel when they're near; I can sense the excitement of someone dancing, smell the alcohol being spilled, feel that rush of sensation when you're about to hook up with someone for the first time.
Or maybe I'm just nervous as fuck to see Vivienne.
We walk down the hall as Calum looks at all of the doors, or rather, the numbers on them. "Twenty one, twenty three...There it is, twenty five." He stops just outside a dark wooden door and takes a deep breath in. His shoulders rise and then sag. "You can do this, you can do this. You have a plan. You're a man with a plan You. Are. The. Man." I shift my eyes to Ashton, who looks like he's about to roll onto the floor with laughter, but holds it in for Calum's sake.
I lean over him, my shoulder bumping his as I knock on the door. There are a couple hushed voices behind the wooden barrier, and then we hear footsteps getting louder before the door opens up by just a fraction. There's a small, slim, short haired brunette behind it and she narrows her eyes at us before looking behind over her shoulder and calls out, "Hey, did anyone order 3 lacrosse players?" Ashton smirks at me, nodding his head in her direction. I roll my eyes as someone inside laughs and shouts, "I did!"
The door opens up wider, and Jess, who is in a mini skirt and sheer stockings, puts her hand on Calum's shirt and pulls him into her. She drags him over to the middle of the living room and turns her back to him, pressing herself into his chest. "I like big boys, itty bitty boys. Mississippi boys, inner city boys." She sings along to the popular Lizzo song, another girl dancing into her and Calum. He shoots us a confused look and I laugh at him, coming into the dorm room.
It's the same as every other dorm on campus. Four bedrooms, two on either side of a living room a small kitchen, a bathroom shared between the two bedrooms. "I like the pretty boys with the bow tie." The girl who had answered the door pulls Ashton into her and the kitchen table, singing the next verse to him. Ashton, being Ashton, goes along with it and grinds into her. "Get your nails did, let it blow dry. I like a big beard, I like a clean face."
I'm half expecting a girl to grab onto me when I take a look around the room. There are two other guys here; they're sitting on the sofa drinking beers with a taller brunette girl. I actually know this girl, and I'm proud of the fact that I had never hooked up with her. Nelly has a boyfriend on campus, but it's hush hush considering her very conservative family have plans for her to marry someone else.
The two guys are not paying any attention to the drunken girls in the room. Which is strange to me considering they're flying around the room half naked. "I don't discriminate, come and get a taste. From the playboys to the gay boys. Go and slay, boys, you my fave boys." One of them wraps a hand around Nelly's waist, lifting her onto his lap. Okay, that must be the boyfriend.
I look over to Ashton and the shorter girl; she's tiny actually, coming up below his shoulders. I won't insult her by trying to remember her name, although I'd definitely seen her around before. A flash of dark hair spins in my peripheral vison and it's like my cock just knows when Vivienne is near. She's dancing with a blonde, whose name I actually know, but only because we were partners on an assignment last year. It's Sabrina. Vivienne arms extended out over the shorter girls shoulder, a glass of wine in one hand. They're dancing into each other and she throws her head back before rolling it to the side and making eye contact with me. She holds onto my stare, not backing down when she mouths out the next verse.
"Baby, I don't need you. I just wanna freak you. I heard you a freak, too. What's two plus two?"
Alright, now I need to change my underwear. I wipe the sides of my mouth with one hand, the other shutting the door behind me. The last thing I want right now is a RA coming in and shutting this little party down. I stay on my spot, eyes never leaving Vivienne in her tight blue jeans as she gets closer and closer to Sabrina. My jeans have become incredibly tight in turn.
"You want a beer, man?" I'm taken out of my trance when a tall, slender dark haired guy hands me a cold bottle of beer. I look at his face, furrowing my brows for a second before I realise where I've seen him before. I decline the beer, holding my hand up politely. "Designated driver." I tell him simply, eyes going back over to Vivienne quickly before he can see. But he does see, and he laughs at me before putting the beer back into the fridge.
I can't imagine Vivienne or any of the other 3 girls who live here drinking beer. In fact, I vividly remember Jess pulling her nose up every time Calum tried to get her to play beer pong. So then how come there's over twenty bottles jammed into the fridge. Are they all his? What? Is he moving in or something? "So you're another one of Viv's victims, then?" That gets my attention back on him. "Excuse me?" I straighten up my back and fix my posture, realising him and I are nearly the same height, I'm taller though, obviously.
"Viv?" He asked, nodding his head in her direction. "I don't blame you, man. She's something else completely...Just didn't realise jock was her flavour." Okay now I'm completely lost. And he's smirking at me. Why is this stretched out Disney reject looking kid smirking at me? I need to put him back in his place; I always have the upper hand. Except of course, not with Vivienne. Who apparently has flavours? No, no Luke. You've learnt a lot over your years at university and one of the most important nuggets of knowledge was to not listen to what men say about women.
"It's Trevor, right? You're Trevor." I know damn well his name isn't Trevor. It's Tom. The same Tom who stood Vivienne up last week and then showed up at the diner with her later that day. He looks confused for a second, "No, man. My name's Tom. Tom Mallard." He extends his hand out to me, and I take it gladly. Squeezing as hard as I can muster, I say "Yeah man, that's what I said." He takes his hand away and takes a sip of his beer.
I'm on high alert as Vivienne walks over, eyes zeroed in on me. "Surprised you came, pretty boy. Would have thought you'd got a year's worth of staring in this week?" I'm stunned by her remark, was it that obvious that I was looking at her? Clearly it was. She smirks at me and walks in between Trevor and I, pouring more rosé into her empty glass. "Hey, Viv," He curls a hand around her arm and I want to curl my hand around his throat. "Maybe you should slow down on the wine." She doesn't flinch, doesn't even look at him as she pours even more in. I smile at the action of defiance.
"Maybe you should not tell me what to do." She tells him, screwing the cap back onto the wine bottle and turning to face us, her lower back resting on the kitchen counter. "Yeah, Trevor. Maybe don't tell her what to do." I cross my arms over my chest, and I know that makes them look bigger than what they already are. I notice Vivienne staring at my arms, and Trevor visibly swallows. "What, you got a jock standing up for you now?" He jokes with her, obviously on edge.
"I have a lot of guys doing all sorts of things for me." She tells him, slowly sipping from her glass as she stares at him from over the brim. He clears his throat and laughs awkwardly. "Right, yeah sure." He takes a nervous sip from his beer bottle.
It's clear as day that I don't want him here, and I won't speak on behalf of Vivienne but Trevor doesn't move away. "Wanna dance?" She asks no one in particular, and we both turn to her and reply with a yes. She giggles, her cheeks rosy from the wine. "He answered first." She's still not talking to anyone in particular but when she puts her glass down onto the counter and curls her fingers around my wrist, I'm nearly choking on my spit.
"C'mon pretty boy, let's see if you have moves off the field as well."
━🥀𝐡𝐢, 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨, 𝐡𝐞𝐲. 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐬, 𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐞𝐬𝐬' 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥
𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲
𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐚
𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐝𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫