One & Only (Canton) (12 page)

“So this thing really is cutthroat.” And to think one of the things I was looking forward to at Canton was not competing for lab space.

“When it comes to Elaine?” His tone was grim. “Yes.”

I laid a hand on his arm. “We’ll find another lab space.”

“Not with all the equipment we need, and not for as much time as we’ll need it. She arranged this very neatly. And, lest you think I’m being paranoid, look at this.” He pointed at erasure marks on some of the pages, and I could see the ghost of Elaine’s name. “She erased every Thursday or Friday slot she had and every slot she had where we had classes. Now she’s only reserved
our
lab for the times
we
need.”

“Maybe her schedule changed?” I suggested. “I can’t imagine someone going through all this trouble just to mess with us.”

“Well, you’re a better person than Elaine.”

No, I was just a busier one. I could barely get my own shit together, let alone figure out how to fuck up someone else’s.

He slammed a fist against the board. “I’m so angry at myself right now. I don’t know why I didn’t sign up for the whole semester right off the bat.” Up until now, Dylan had just been signing us up for the labs when he came in for his early Monday morning class. “But in two years, I’ve never had a hard time reserving a space. I’ve ruined everything.”

“Hey,” I said. “This is going to be okay. I’ll go talk to her—”

“Yeah, you do that,” he said ruefully. “You go talk to her and see what she does. My money’s on gloat.”

“I never gloat,” said a voice behind us. Dylan and I turned to see Elaine standing there, her computer bag slung over her shoulder. “It’s so petty.”

“No, you know what’s petty?” he asked. “You know you can’t compete with us on real terms, so you’re just trying to make sure we can’t do our project as planned.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault you didn’t plan ahead, Kingsley. Might be good for you to realize you aren’t the center of the universe for once.”

I stepped between them. There was no need to go nuclear. I’d learned well from my mother how to arrange things so everyone got what they needed. “Elaine, the problem here is that I have shifts at my job on Thursdays and Fridays, so really our only time in the lab is Monday through Wednesday evenings. I’m sure we can work out some sort of schedule so we can all finish our projects on time—”

“Oh, please. You made your bed with this guy, so now you can lie in it. I told you he was bad news. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you need Lab A and all its equipment to finish your project, you’d better reserve your time well in advance. But Kingsley here thinks he’s above all that.”

How did she know what kind of equipment we needed? Dylan’s paranoia was sounding a lot more plausible.

“Elaine, seriously,” Dylan said. “Get over it.”

“Screw you,” she replied sweetly, turned on her heel, and left.

Dylan looked like he wanted to punch the wall again.

“Okay, that girl has issues,” I said to him. “What precisely did you do to her again?”

“I told you. I beat her in the freshman end-of-year competition.”

“She
hates
you,” I said, skeptical. “It’s not just rivalry. She honestly hates you.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Like you said, issues.”

I shook my head. Something didn’t add up. “Are you sure all you did was beat her that one time? You didn’t, like, strangle her kitten or spill wine on her silk dress or sleep with her and never call her again?”

“No!” He was quiet for a second. “I did sleep with her roommate freshman year.”

I gaped at him. “You
what?
”

“I slept with her roommate. Two years ago. Fall.” He looked contrite. “She was the first of the three.”

I smacked his arm. “Dylan!”

He flinched away. “What! I was eighteen. I was new at school. And I’d just had my heart broken by…” He gestured. “Well, you know all that.” He hung his head. “I made a mistake, Tess. Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

“Yes.” I made a mistake not calling him back all those years ago. I made a mistake breaking his heart, letting him go.

But Elaine’s roommate having an ill-advised hook-up with Dylan two years ago was no excuse for Elaine to sabotage our project now. Even if she was mad at Dylan, that was bullshit. And I’d never done a thing to her.

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Partnering with me, that was your mistake. I can’t believe I’ve screwed this up for you.”

Partnering with Dylan might still end up being a mistake, but not because of any of Elaine’s ham-handed machinations. Clearly, she had no idea who she was dealing with. I had a whole lifetime’s worth of experience working around people who didn’t want me to have nice things. If Tess McMann screwed something up, she screwed it up on her own damn terms. If I wasn’t going to let Dad get the better of me, there was no way I was going to let some Canton co-ed do it.

“We’re not going down without a fight, Dylan. Elaine doesn’t own the lab. I’ll switch my shifts at Verde to early in the week. We’ll reserve every Thursday and Friday instead. We’ll come in at 6:00 a.m. if we have to.”

“You need your Friday-night shifts at the restaurant. That’s when you make the most in tips.”

He’d been paying attention. “I’ll be fine. As long as we win, I’ll be fine.”

He shook his head. “And if we don’t win?”

I shrugged. “I’ll figure it out then.”

Dylan looked at me, his blue eyes keen and penetrating. “You’re a marvel, Tess. You know that?”

“Give me your pen,” I said brusquely, trying not to let his words sink in. “I’ll sign us up for every space left on the chart.”

“I mean it. I know why you’ve really been borrowing my textbook. I’m actually a pretty smart guy.”

“Yeah,” I said, concentrating on filling in the slots. “Is that why you’ve been tipping me out the wazoo lately?”

“So you’ll quit borrowing my textbook? Yes,” he joked. “I don’t like your sticky notes.”

I looked at him, my expression dead serious. “I don’t want you giving me money, Dylan. And I don’t want you bullying jerks into giving it to me, either.” I returned to writing our names down.

Tess McMann and Dylan Kingsley. Tess McMann and Dylan Kingsley. Dylan Kinsley and Tess McMann
, just to switch it up.
Kingsley/McMann
.
Tess + Dylan
.

No, I wasn’t going to write that last one again.

“Jerks don’t deserve their money as much as you do for putting up with them,” he said softly. He’d moved in so he stood right behind me. His voice was nearly a whisper.

My pen stilled on the page. “Stop,” I whispered.

“Why?” He was so close. Heat poured off his body in waves. His breath stirred the hairs on my neck.

“You know why.” I closed my eyes for a long moment, waiting for the feelings to pass. If I just concentrated on breathing, if I thought about anything else—my classes, the weather, that strange knocking noise I heard in the engine of my car from time to time—it would pass. I wouldn’t want to jump all over him. I could be better than my parents. I could overcome this.

“Yeah. I do.” He stepped back and I breathed a sigh of relief. When I turned around to look at him, he’d pulled out his phone and was entering the new schedule into his calendar. “I should get to class,” he said without glancing up. “I’ll email the new hours to you so we both have them.”

“Okay.”

“If you want, we can meet later to figure out our plan of attack.” He looked up. “After all, it’s not like we have other plans tonight.”

“Okay.”

“My place? Five thirty? I’ll make dinner.”

“Okay,” I said again, automatically. I don’t know why. I should have been smart enough to realize what would happen.

We both should have.

***

When I arrived at Swift 202 that night, I could smell Dylan’s cooking from the other side of the door. By the time he answered my knock, I was already drooling.

The way he looked didn’t help. The contacts were gone, the glasses were back, and the hair was damp and mussed and downright floppy. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and his feet were bare and his collar was worn and
I could have had him. I could have had him two years ago and I walked away
.

“Come in,” he said. “I just got out of the shower. Went to the gym this afternoon.”

Tell me more about this shower
, I thought, stepping across the threshold. The gym part was obvious. His T-shirt was thin, and the definition in his arms and chest were there to remind me that despite those glasses and the untamed hair, I was no longer dealing with the eighteen-year-old boy I’d once known.

“What are you cooking?”

He grinned, then practically bounded into the kitchenette. “I hope you like it. It’s this Greek shrimp thing, with feta and tomatoes.”

“I love feta and tomatoes. And shrimp. And Greeks.”

“Me too,” he said. “My family went to Greece last summer and I have been on a Greek cuisine kick ever since.” He picked up a bottle of wine from the counter and presented it with a flourish. “Ever have retsina?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Oh.” He lowered the bottle. “I didn’t know—”

“No,” I clarified. “I’ll drink alcohol. I just mean, I’m not a wine aficionado. Before I started working at Verde, all I knew was that white went with fish.”

“Well, retsina can be an acquired taste. It’s resinated—tastes a bit like pine needles.” He looked at my face and laughed. “I told you. Acquired. But I definitely acquired it this summer. Brought some back. This is my last bottle.”

And he was using it on me? Sweet. “They let you have alcohol in the dorms?”

He started taking the cork out. “Well, they haven’t shut down my speakeasy yet. Besides, I turned twenty-one before the school year started. You?”

“Next week.”

He turned to me. “Really?”

I nodded.

He yanked out the cork with an audible pop and poured me a glass. “Then happy early birthday.”

I took a sip, painfully aware that Dylan was watching me, just like he had the night we’d met at the Cornell party. Watching me as if my reaction to what I was putting in my mouth was the only thing in the world that mattered. On second thought, I didn’t need wine. That thought alone was enough to knock me sideways.

Dry white wine with just a hint of pine hit my tongue and brought me back to the moment. “Not bad,” I said.

“You’ll love it with the food.” He turned back to the pans on the stove, and I tried a large gulp of wine this time, just to fortify myself.

Maybe it would be better if I put some space between us. His kitchenette was just too crowded. I circled around the bar, into the main living space. His futon was in sofa-shape tonight, all evidence of its use as a bed tucked away somewhere. Textbooks and pens lay scattered across his coffee table, and his shelves were lined with cookbooks, DVDs, and video games.

“I don’t know how you have any time for these,” I said, pointing at the games and movies. What with all his labs and trips to the gym and cooking experiments…and Hannah.

“I’m an excellent multi-tasker,” he called from the kitchenette. I turned to see him poking his head out over the bar. “Plus, you know me. I never sleep.” He winked and went back to cooking.

Don’t wink at me, Dylan Kingsley. I’m trying my hardest here.
I continued my self-guided tour around his studio. There were pictures of his family hanging on the wall above the bed—I mean, above the futon. There were no pictures of Hannah out. I knew because I checked as I circled the place, studying everything and, as it turned out, finishing my wine. By the time I made it back to the kitchenette, my glass was empty.

“More?” he asked, holding out the bottle.

I stared at the glass in my hand, my heart pounding. How had I consumed an entire glass of wine already? I hadn’t eaten since lunch. This was a bad idea. Coming here had been a bad idea. Drinking while alone with Dylan Kingsley in his apartment was quite possibly the worst idea I’d ever had.

“Sure,” I said before I could stop myself. I watched the green-gold wine splash into my cup and I raised my eyes to his and he smiled and I smiled. Then, my eyes never leaving his, I had another sip. He watched me drink, the movement of my jaw and tongue and throat, blatant and unmistakeably an invitation. “Mmmm.”

Here’s the truth, unvarnished and inalienable: I wanted him. I’d
always
wanted him. I could pretend otherwise, I could walk away, I could avoid him for two years, but it didn’t change a thing.

Dylan was mine. First, last, and always. I stood there in his apartment and I looked into his eyes, allowing the full force of my desire to shine out, raw and intense. I didn’t care that he was dating someone. I didn’t care that she was Hannah Swift. For perhaps the first time in my life, I understood what my parents thought about when they did the things they did.

“Tess…” Dylan’s voice was pained.

I blinked at him, slow and languid. “Hmmm…?” I was the daughter of seduction; I was the product of lies. I was born for this.

“Stop.”

I stopped. I looked down. His hands were fisted against his sides. “You poured the wine,” I mumbled.

For a long time, we just stood there. I didn’t know if he was looking at me or not. Blood rushed in my head. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t.

I was so sick of all the things I shouldn’t do.

“I…can’t…I can’t take this anymore,” he whispered at last. “I think about you all the time. Where you are, what you’re doing, why I’m not with you. I go to Verde on Sundays because two days without seeing you is two days too long.”

I turned away and put my hands on the counter, pressing down as if I could somehow leave marks on the granite. As if I could somehow imprison my hands here and keep them from grabbing him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be
sorry
,” he said from behind me. “Be
honest
. You feel it too, don’t you?”

“Dylan…” I hung my head, in agony as every nerve tingled, and I forced myself not to turn around. If I saw his face, I was a goner. “I don’t know what you want.”