Eternal Eden (3 page)

“Come on.” He winked, nodding to the cafeteria entrance “I’m famished.”

I didn’t miss the inflection in his voice, and what was worse, I liked it.

He grinned, hooking a chair with his foot and scooting it next to me. “It seems arguing with you gives me quite the appetite.”

He took a seat and inched the chair closer to me, so close our elbows nearly touched, and despite a sliver of air and a couple of garments separating us, there was a current sparking—coming from his skin or mine, or both, I couldn’t tell.

I had my campus map and highlighter at the ready, pretending to focus my attention on the poorly xeroxed copy and took a swig of my coffee, which would be serving as my dinner tonight since, unlike William, the knots in my stomach induced by the man beside me had taken away my appetite.

I took another sip of the coffee while he terrorized a piece of pizza dotted with oil-pooled pepperoni.

I curled my nose. “Is that good?”

“Not really,” he answered, sawing off another bite.

“Then why are you eating it?”

He swallowed, then took a long drink of soda—a calculated attempt at stalling. “Because I’m nervous, and I eat when I’m nervous,” he said, looking at me from the side.

Despite the loose dark-wash jeans and charcoal canvas jacket he was wearing, I could tell the body wrapped within was lean and muscled, leading me to assume he was rarely nervous.

“Why are you nervous?” I asked, trying not to think about his body.

Another long drink of soda before his eyes looked hard into mine. “
You
make me nervous. I can’t seem to say the right thing, or do the correct thing. It seems anything I do only makes you madder, and I want you to like me. I really want you to like me.”

My stomach flipped, then flopped, and repeated, before I had a chance to process everything. Guys like him didn’t like girls like me, I knew that. Everyone knew that—it was a pubescent right of passage learning the etiquette for what kinds of people could date other kinds of people, and nowhere on this planet would I date him. Not that I wanted to anyways . . .

I could tell he was staring at me, straight through me again, and I knew I’d be done if I let my eyes meet his. My wall of indifference and façade of irritation would crumble and I would be revealed for what I really was: a girl who felt destiny climbing up her legs like a tangle of ivy. A girl who wasn’t only falling hard for the man sitting next to her, but wasn’t fighting the free-fall, despite knowing she should.

I distracted myself by looking across the room, immediately regretting it. A set of eyes caught mine—mascaraed, lined and narrowed with the expertise of a true mean girl.

Amy stumbled theatrically across the cafeteria, falling into the arms of the nearest male, whose face lit up like he’d hit the jackpot. Her followers looked back at me, laughing through their nibbles of lettuce, one forming an L with her hand she held to her forehead. Could I fall any deeper down the rabbit hole tonight?

Amy righted herself and slid her hands down her silver dress. She looked more like she was ready to attend the Oscar’s than pretend to eat her dinner of celery and lemon wedges. The way she swayed caught the lights in the cafeteria and made her sparkle like a disco ball. Why was it the meaner the girl, the more she sparkled?

William turned his head to see what had my attention, just in time to see Miss Sparkle come to a stop behind him, hitching a hand on her hip. “What have we here,” she said, looking him over like she was imagining him without his clothes, and enjoying every square inch of it.

“I’m Amy Kirkpatrick—your express ticket to the front of the line here at OSU.” She extended her hand palm facing the ground, as if expecting him to kiss it. She waited, but when William didn’t take it, or even look at it, she drew it back and ran it through her hair. “And you are?” she asked, smiling in a way I imagined had been passed down to the gorgeous girls around the world for generations. That, demure, interested-but-not-too-interested, luscious kind of smile that was equal parts lip and teeth.

William turned away from her and shoved his tray across the table. “Not interested.”

Her smiled waned for one heartbeat before it was back in all its former splendor. “I like when a man plays hard to get. It’s a breath of fresh air from dimwits throwing themselves at your feet.” Despite William’s back to her, she tossed her hair, releasing the scent of perfume that was sweet—too sweet. Like artificial sweetener. “Why don’t you sit with me and my friends? I promise we won’t leave you disappointed.”

“No,” he answered instantly. “I’m going to sit with Bryn and her friends when they arrive.”

“Bryn flies solo,” she laughed, as if it was obvious. “Other than the time she threw herself at Paul, I haven’t seen her show interest in anyone.”

William’s shoulder’s tensed. “Paul? Is he your boyfriend?” he asked, looking at me.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head a little too emphatically.

“She wishes. She couldn’t even tempt him enough for a one night stand.” Her eyes regarded me like I was a harlot. “I know all about you California girls.”

“Is Oregon the lone state of purity now?” I snapped back, having a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

She rolled her eyes and looked away from me like she’d already wasted too much time on me. “When you change your mind, here’s my number.” She placed a folded piece of pink embossed paper next to him, before strutting away from us. I imagined peacock feathers coming from her butt to lighten my mood. It worked, at least until I saw William’s hand close over Amy’s parting gift.

Somehow, that made me more angry than anything else had tonight.

“I know your type,” I said, shoving my chair a few feet away from him. Hoping space would get me away from whatever hypnosis I’d fallen under with him. I wasn’t that girl—that girl that batted their eyes and laughed in all the right spots. 

He scooted in, erasing the space I’d found to separate us. “You do, huh?”

“Yep.” I crossed my arms and inched back, right into the empty table behind me. “Rich, single child, a girlfriend for every night of the week, drives some fancy sports car, majoring in girls and drinking.” My tone was acid, and it felt like it rising out of my throat.

He didn’t scoot any closer, but he squared his body so it was facing me. “I’m a middle child in a family of five, never had a girlfriend, I drive a ‘68 Bronco, and I’m majoring in pre-med.” His voice was calm, patient.

“What about the rich?” I said, his calm only fueling my anger, and did he really expect me to believe he’d never had a girlfriend? He could have told me he’d been born on Pluto ten-thousand years ago and I would have accepted this easier.

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking chagrined. “I shouldn’t be penalized for having worked hard.”

“Ha! You’re what, 21 . . . maybe 22?” I snapped. “You’ve had such a long time to work so hard, also known as Daddy’s trust fund.”

His forehead creased. “You’re one to point your finger. That car of yours doesn’t come cheap. And you’ve got single, pampered child written all over your face.”

“How do you know what kind of car I drive?” I said, bristling from his single-child comment. I had no say in my parent’s choice to be a one-child family.

He paused for the shortest moment, before his answer rolled out, “It’s kind-of hard to miss a vintage piece of American heavy metal in mint condition on a college campus.”

“So you think you have me all figured out because of the car I drive?” I shouted.

“Kind of like you think you know me because I’ve got a little more cash in my bank account than the next guy?” His voice was still calm. Infuriatingly calm.

“I do know who you are, and I’m not about to be fooled by your attempts at slumming it with the middle class students like me.” I jolted up. “And the car? It was part of an inheritance.”

“Some inheritance,” he said, looking at me in a knowing way. “Rich grandparents?”

“Nope,” I answered, my voice ice. “Just dead parents.”

His face fell until a look that was either pity or understanding filled his eyes. I didn’t wait around long enough to find out which it was.

I shoved out of my chair and rushed out of the cafeteria, leaving him behind with the campus map, my half-drank cup of coffee, and the desire to see him again so much I knew I never should.

CHAPTER THREE

SPARKS

Since storming away from him a week ago almost to the hour, I hadn’t seen him once, and it wasn’t for lack of looking. I told myself I didn’t care, but I wasn’t very convincing.

The crowd erupted behind me, thousands of OSU basketball fanatics hollering, stomping and snarling. I pitied the poor referees who should have come prepared with body guards and armored tanks if they wanted to leave the campus unscathed.

Home team was down by fifteen, and one of the refs had just doled out a technical to our top scorer, or at least that’s what I’d heard a couple of guys complaining about when they passed by the ticket booth, also known as the haunt I got to spend a few hours at just about every week thanks to the volunteer sheet I’d signed at the start of winter quarter.  

The other students who worked the booth got paid, some sort of work study thing, but since I’d been naïve enough to sign the “volunteer” sheet, I was basically a modern day indentured servant. I was pretty much convinced by now I had the word
sucker
tattooed on my forehead.

Other than the foul stench that led me to the conclusion the walls were shellacked with sweat and stale hotdogs (I kept a cinnamon scented candle burning under the counter to keep it bearable), and the endless stream of people shoving their crumpled bills at me like I was a malfunctioning change machine, it wasn’t a bad gig.

Someone had to man the booth until halftime (again, the sucker always got conned into it), and once the seas had parted and the fans were directing their attention at someone else, I used the time to catch up on some homework or doodle until my mind was empty. Those were precious moments for me that didn’t come often.

Knowing my Business Ethics book would look like it was printed in hieroglyphics—as it had all quarter—I’d spent the last half hour sketching whatever my subconscious directed my hand to. I surveyed the current masterpiece just as I finished topping the layer cake with candles.

My mind went from nothing to brimming.

The pen fell from my hand as the memories came back, each one hitting me like a boulder until the avalanche crippled me. I crumpled the sheet and tossed it in the direction of the garbage can, like it was a game of hot potato and I couldn’t get it away from me fast enough.

“Let me guess,” a voice spoke, pricking goose-bumps on my arms. “Mrs. William Winters written a hundred times with little hearts dotting the
i
’s.”

His smile was relaxed, mimicking the positioning of his body leaning against the booth, a crumpled piece of paper in hand.

He crinkled it open. “Nope,” he said. “Just some bad drawings. Some
really
bad drawings,” he said, playing trombone with the paper.

“Do you mind?” I said, reaching for the paper. “That is private property.”

He dodged away from my reach, holding the paper above his head like a worm on the end of a hook. “No it’s not. You we’re discarding it,” he said, eyeing the garbage can. “Therefore, your former piece of private property is now, by default, a very public piece of property.” His eyes glinted. “Me being the public.”

“You being the annoying,” I said, blowing aside a piece of hair. “So how did your first week go? I didn’t see you around.” It took some effort to sound indifferent.

“It was a great week. I was busy observing, studying,” he said, his face amused. “You know, college stuff?”

Taking advantage of his temporary distraction, I heaved against the counter, jumping to reach the paper. Not even close. He was a solid half a foot taller than me, and his arms seemed disproportionately large the way they were towering above me.

“You’ve got the height, but I think you need to work on your jump shot if you want to play for the lady Beavers,” he said, sounding delighted with himself.

“Grow up.” I gave up trying to retrieve my doodle sheet and crossed my arms.

“I’ve wasted too much time being grown up,” he said, his mouth curling up on one side. “I want to act my age, if for once in my life, now that I’m here.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “How old is that?”

“Twenty-two,” he answered immediately.

“Maybe in calendar years,” I said, trying my hardest not to let his mischievous expression and low-slung Levi’s distract me. “I was referring to maturity level.”

He lowered his arms, folding my kipped artwork into his back pocket. “So, maturity-wise, how old would you say I am?”

“You wouldn’t want to know.”

“I guarantee I would,” he said, folding his arms on the countertop. His shoulders were tense, his eyes more-so, although he was attempting to disguise it.