Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) (4 page)

Shit. Logan must have kept texting. “Uh, that’s weird.” My heart was racing and I wanted to hold my hand up to my forehead, to check to see if I was sweating, but I knew that if I let the pulsing of my heart rule over my judgment, that I would be sure to out myself as a liar to the sorority. This wasn’t about to go so deep. Little did I know how deep it would get. I had never wanted to lie to them in the first place but I didn’t want them to think I was a loser that couldn’t even nab a bouncer. If I’d known back then what I knew now, that Skylar wasn’t like just any other bouncer, that he wasn’t going to play the games that girls like me, pretty and young, played with boys, that he was a man and that girls like me weren’t what men want, that they wanted women, then I would have never gone after him to begin with. I would have found someone else, anyone else, but not somebody I could never have.

“No, I think that means you’ve been lying to us, Emma,” said Samantha as if she was joking but at the same time was not. I knew she loved to play these mind games, I just never thought it would be with me.

“What? No, that’s the other Skylar,” I lied.

“You said that was him before though.” Kim raised a perfectly thin brow that ended in a hook that drew me in. It was so fucking hard to lie to her. Luckily, I wouldn’t have to, emphasis on “I”.

Skylar, the real Skylar, acted surprised. “Oh, my friend has my phone.” I hadn’t expected Skylar to lie for me. I hadn’t expected him to play along. Part of me thought that we’d get up here and he’d embarrass me and tell them all about how I’d begged him to pretend that I had his number, but instead, Skylar lied for me. My heart fell. I had never meant to get him involved, and it would be easier to hate Skylar for something like betrayal than to look at myself and the situation and wonder when I’d turned into such a bitch.

“They do?” asked Kim, suspicious as usual. Her sixth sense had probably gone off again, her bullshit meter finely tuned.

“Yeah, he got it off me before he left the club. He’s kind of an asshole. Just ignore it. Guys will be guys,” said Skylar, and the girls all tittered. Jesus Christ, they had low standards for humor around hot guys. Skylar wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close. He was so strong, it made me feel so safe. The fact I had to feel safe in front of my sorority sisters, in front of my friends, was something that I didn’t want to think about.

“So, where are you two going on your first date?” asked Becca, glass of champagne in hand as usual. What a class act.

“Our first date?” I asked. Shit. I hadn’t expected this to come to that. I didn’t really date guys, I just saw them around campus and flirted, and eventually, we ended up in someone’s bedroom or closet, the sort of behavior that the sororities and fraternities didn’t advertise to pledges but that soon became as much of a part of their daily life as spa treatments and Starbucks runs.

Skylar moved his hand to my lower back and pulled me in close to him. Who did he think he was, getting that touchy with me? And who was I, to actually like it, to like the fact he was being so possessive, even though this was all supposed to be an act to get my sorority off my case.

“Yeah, you two have to go somewhere,” she insisted. “But your schedule is booked through the week. We have a lot of socials this next week on campus so you can’t come to the club after this weekend, at least for a while. You’re going to have to start doing more activities with the other frosh. A day date would probably be best.” Becca was social chair and good at it, either naturally or by necessity, I couldn’t tell. She had a talent for remembering people’s schedules and during her summers, was a personal assistant to a wealthy businessman who had flown her all over the country with him. Some people thought she was his mistress, but she was just generously compensated for her time and had a fetish for billionaires, in and out of the bedroom. That was all.

“Coffee,” said Skylar, but it was probably more of an insistence. I knew why. He wanted to get rid of me, rid of how annoying I was to him. Too bad for him, because I fucking loved coffee and I’d order the most expensive drink on the menu.

“What?” I asked incredulously. How far was he planning on going with this? He didn’t have to play their game, but I don’t know if he knew that. I don’t know if he knew that he could just laugh, say “fuck that”, and leave so that the girls and I could talk shit about him and that in that moment, he could have just shut the entire game down, easily. What did he have to gain?

“There’s a Starbucks around here, right?” he asked.

“There’s a Starbucks everywhere,” said Kim, rolling her eyes. Becca lightly pushed her shoulder against Kim’s. Becca was the only person that Kim would take that shit from and Becca pushed that limit all the time. The girl from the streets of Compton and the South Korean businessman’s daughter, who would have guessed?

“Starbucks is great, she’ll be there.”

“Great, should we go dance more, babe? I can fit in one more song on my break,” asked Skylar, looking me straight in the eyes in a way that to the girls, probably looked like the gaze of a lover, but to me, was a commanding glare.

I returned the look with a fake smile. “Sure, babe.” I put emphasis on the last word as I tilted my head. I hoped the girls couldn’t tell that I was putting on an act, that although I’d tried to get Skylar before, he wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted anymore. I didn’t want something complex. I didn’t want drama. I didn’t want to have to work for a guy’s attention like this was high school and I was a wallflower again.

“Great.” Except it wasn’t. He took me onto the floor as a new song came up, a static dubstep beat. I couldn’t hear him over the pounding music so he wrote it in his phone’s note app instead. I was dancing to shield him from the girls who would be watching, judging. Always watching. Always judging. Always there. But that’s what sororities were for, right? So that we’d always be there for each other, through thick and thin, through days of class and nights of clubbing.

“Give me your number,” said the black letters glowing on a lined yellow background that looked like a kid’s notebook. The cartoony font was so childlike that it made me laugh. I was that drunk. That drunk!

“Give me yours.” I wrote back by erasing the word number and adding an s.

“No, I’ll text you.” The music pulsed in the background and so did my heart, but this time, I think it wasn’t because of the pills. It was because in that moment, Skylar had more power over me than most guys ever had in their life. Guys had practically lined up to fuck me at the frat house social mixers, but Skylar was pushing me away. He promised he’d text me, that he’d pull me back in, but how did I know that he wasn’t like me, that he wasn’t a liar?

This had stopped feeling like an LMFAO song and more like something by The Lonely Island as I just danced there awkwardly, half expecting myself to be in a polyester leisure suit, index fingers pointing to the ceiling and to the floor back and forth.

“Fine.” I gave him the number. Before I could check to see what his number was through the settings (so sneaky!), he snatched it back and walked away. I went back to the VIP and explained he had to get back to work, so I sat with Kim, who was watching the rest of the ex pledges dance and gyrate, and we did a line of coke on her clipboard. This was my reward for not failing her this time. This was the only thing that I wanted more than Skylar, the only guy I wanted more than the cocaine touching my brain. The white gold filled my nose and burned my lungs until it filled me with a sense of ecstasy even ecstasy itself couldn’t rival. I trusted Kim to know exactly how much to portion out and trusted her to stop me when she thought we had too much too soon. Usually, with the girls, I joked about stuff when we got high, but with Kim, who just smiled, I observed the dance floor.

The other girls from my pledge class, the freshman and a few sophomores, had all found guys that were cute enough, but none that were really as cute as Skylar. Skylar, the one guy I’d never thought I’d actually end up on a date with. Skylar, the one guy who was sexier than all the others in the club. Someone had to be the hottest. That somehow had to be him. Of course. I felt my thoughts slurring, as I thought about Skylar one moment and about how jealous the others were going to be that I had a cute new boyfriend. I’d be the only girl to get a townie boyfriend in my pledge class, and the only to be having hot sex with a guy that was a solid ten. I’d be the only girl for Skylar. He’d be the only one for me. Skylar. Emma. Maybe our nickname would be Skymma. Or Emmylar. Ha ha. Maybe. Fuck it, fucking fuck fuck it, I was getting stupider by the minute, but I kept smiling. Kim didn’t ask about what but she didn’t need to. Or maybe, she just didn’t care.

It felt good to have my plans fall into place, even if it meant I had to see Skylar again.

But in a way? It wasn’t a have to. It was a get to.

T
HAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I got a text from Skylar saying we should meet at the Starbucks on campus in thirty minutes. Was he crazy or something? That was nowhere near enough time to put together a cute outfit, but somehow, I managed. I kept my makeup simple enough: dewey foundation with a bit of creme blush, some natural style eyeshadow from my Naked palette (I could finally afford the things that I’d seen on beauty sites and listed in magazines I’d read when waiting to check out at the grocery store), with some light pink lip gloss that made my already light lips even lighter, shinier, more plump and kissable. I felt the cinnamon oil sting but I knew that just meant it was working.

Then, I slipped on a pair of my cut off shorts, which were ironically cute in Los Angeles but the kind of thing I would have worn all summer in Iowa, as well as one of the flannel shirts over a white spaghetti strap tank top, paired with a thin natural colored leather belt and a pair of strappy leather sandals that would have been super impractical anywhere but Cali.

Before I left the house, I went to my not so secret stash of pills inside one of my purses. The pills inside glistened like sweets at a candy shop and I took out two I remembered Kim had told me were uppers and another that I used for studying. I wanted to be perky and at my most focused for the date with Skylar. I wasn’t going to rely on pills forever, just until I was ready to stop using them, just until things got easier, got better.

I’d been saying that for three quarters now, almost a full school year.

But hey, I was a freshman. It wasn’t like I’d be hooked for the next three years and relying on the pills for everything. I’d just take them when I partied, or when I was pulling all-nighters, or if I needed to study for tests, or if I needed a pick me up or a confidence boost or if I was bored, right?

Luckily, Omega House was only a few minutes’ walk from the twenty-four hour Starbucks, to the point that the in kitchen espresso machine was barely ever used and the coffee grounds that were purchased for it were thrown away stale by the bagful.

Skylar was dressed in another dark pair of jeans like he’d worn the past few nights as well as a flannel shirt like mine. He was wearing a plain black and white pair of Converse high tops as well as a leather messenger bag. His hair wasn’t styled with product, and it sort of fell on his face like bangs instead of rising in a pompadour style peak. The tattoo sleeves peeked out of his shirt sleeves but all I could really make out was the thick black X’s emblazoned on the back of his hands like two engraved shadows. As embarrassing as it was, I couldn’t tell you what his tats were yet. It’d been too dark in the club, that was my excuse, but really, I’d been too drunk to notice.

“I guess we match,” I joked. “Twinsies!” I held up two fingers to make the number two, and realized I must look like a fucking dork making a peace sign. When Kim Lee pulled it off with her friends from South Korea who all wore designer clothes like her and pouted their lips perfectly, it looked cute. When I did it, I looked like a weird in an anime costume at a convention instead of a cute young lady. Obviously, it was a skill I needed to work on. I still wasn’t used to this new look, this way of life, even this body.

He smiled for once, forming a dimple on his chiseled cheeks, the one soft point I’d found on him. “Yeah, it’s cute. I’m glad you like coffee. My treat, as usual,” he joked. I got the reference to the cab rides.

“Ha. Ha, ha. Funny. You’re lucky you’re so cute, Skylar,” I said, wanting to ruffle his hair with my hand. Why did he have to be so cute but so infuriating? Why did he have to be a bouncer instead of a student here? Fuck.

“Funny and cute? Truly, I am blessed,” he said. Something was different about his voice, about the way he talked. It wasn’t like it was in the club. It was...smarter. He sounded like a teacher’s aide instead of a body builder. Now that I looked at him, he dressed like one too. I’d half expected him to roll up on a motorcycle, wearing gold chains, a graphic shirt with rhinestones, and a snapback with a witty phrase, but instead, he looked like an actual grown-up adult, like someone’s sexy dad.

But, some things never changed.

Like those tattooed arms.

Like those firms biceps.

Like the sly turn of his smile and the way it made the two dimples pop out as they popped in.

Like the way he made me want him.

I ordered my usual, a vanilla bean Frappuccino, extra whip, with whole milk in the base, and three pumps of raspberry syrup. Kim, who basically used this as her office away from the sorority when things got too loud, too noisy, too social, had taught me about that recipe. It tasted like cotton candy and had probably, like, ten times the calories, but I didn’t care. I’d just hit the sorority’s state of the art private in home gym later, double time. Skylar just got plain green tea in a plain paper cup. Boring!

It was also cheaper than what I got by a few dollars. I remembered when that mattered, back before the black card, the credit limit that was nonexistent, the ability to charge whatever I wanted to some checking account my dad kept full. I remembered when I couldn’t afford to go to Starbucks on even a monthly basis, when it was cheaper for me to get a shake to split with my siblings at a fast food restaurant or when we packed thermoses of powdered drinks mixed with water in custom flavor combos because it was too expensive to buy juice, not to mention soda at a gas station. That wasn’t the time I wanted to remember because that wasn’t the girl I wanted to be anymore, especially not around Skylar. If he didn’t like me now, he wouldn’t like me if he learned about my past.