The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (29 page)

She nodded. “All these guys I’ve ever dated were rich, popular, good-looking and supposedly cool.” She shook her head bitterly. “But they turned out to be selfish assholes. And after a while, you know, you start to wonder if maybe all guys are just the same. I’m not there yet.” She laughed and ran her hands through her hair. “But I realized something tonight. I’m done with assholes. I want to be with a nice guy. You know—somebody who’s actually a good person. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s what I want.”

“Okay.” It came out a little squeaky.

She stared into his eyes and her lips curled up into a perfect smile. “Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are ridiculously sexy? They’re almost like ice. But I don’t feel any… coldness.”

He stared back, in awe of her beauty, feeling completely over his head as he tried to think of something to say. His tongue felt thick and clumsy, and when he couldn’t retrieve the right words, he looked down at the floor. A moment later, he looked up to find that her eyes were nearly closed.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You should probably get to bed. You look pretty tired.”

“Yeah, I guess I am. Well… um… good night. I had fun tonight.” She opened the door to her room. Then she stood there, her back turned to him, and paused like she was waiting for something. Finally she slipped in. After the door closed and he heard the click of the lock, he started up the stairs.

I should’ve made a move
, Felix thought as he reached his floor.
She wanted me to. Didn’t she? Didn’t she just practically invite me into her room? And what did I do? I stared at my feet like an idiot. What the hell’s wrong with me?

A girl was standing in the hallway in front of his room, leaning back against the wall, facing the door. When she saw him approach, she turned toward him and smiled. He’d never seen her before. And she wasn’t the kind of girl you would forget. Tall and skinny with a thick mane of long strawberry blonde hair, she was wearing only a white tank top, yoga shorts and black knee-high riding boots.

“Are you looking for Lucas?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “I’m looking for
you
. Hi Felix.”

“Me?”
he said, surprised to hear his name. “Why?” He checked her out as he walked toward his room. Sick body—no question about that. Interesting outfit too. A little underdressed for a mid-October night, but if she caught cold what did he care?

“Because,” she said, undressing him with her dark brown eyes, “you happen to be the hottest guy in the freshman class. Even hotter than your roommate.” Her voice was velvety with droplets of smoker’s rasp.

“Thanks. I guess. I’m not sure what to do with that.”

“You can do me.” She flicked out her tongue and left it there, the tip visible for a moment, pressed between her full lips.

“Huh? Oh. Okay.” Now he was even more confused. Even if he wasn’t drunk—which he most certainly was—this situation would be extremely confusing. “Um… what’s your name?” Stupid question, but he felt awkward, and it’s all he could come up with.

“Amber.” She reached out and touched his chest, tracing her fingers down to his stomach, pausing when she got to the waistband of his jeans. “You’re as hard as a rock.”

He shivered.

“You like that, don’t you?” She lifted her eyebrows provocatively.

“I like your tattoo,” he said numbly, not sure why he’d said it. “What is it? A Tiger?”

“Yeah.” She turned her wrist over so that her palm faced up. On her inner forearm was a tattoo of a roaring tiger inked from her wrist to the hollow of her arm. Vivid, alternating black and orange stripes made up its body. Its eyes were fire red. Long ivory fangs filled its gaping mouth.

“It’s fierce,” Felix said, relieved that he was able to distract her. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Maybe if he had a few minutes to think, he could sort this out.

“Seen one like it before?” She lowered her eyes to the tattoo. “Do you know what it means?”

He shook his head.

“I’m ERA.”

“ERA?
Never heard of it.”

She leaned into him and whispered in his ear: “It stands for the Evolution Revolution Army. Once you join, you can get the tattoo.” She reached around his waist and laced her hands together, wedging her thigh firmly between his legs. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of us.” She moved her leg against him, slowly, pressing, releasing, and then pressing again. “The ERA’s growing. It’s getting bigger and stronger every day.” She unclasped her hands and took a step back, her eyes flicking down to his crotch. “Just like you.” She smiled, letting the moment, and Felix’s uncomfortableness, hang in the air.

“Oh.”

“I think you want to invite me into your room now.” She said it like she knew he wasn’t going to object. She was right.

“Okay,” he said vaguely, unlocking the door and nudging it open.

She stepped in front of him, rubbing against him as she entered the room. She sauntered over to the window, placed her hands on the glass, and arched her back. She looked over her shoulder and smiled saucily, staring at him with lusty eyes as she rocked her ass back and forth. “Which bed’s yours?” she purred.

He pointed absently while she slinked over to him.

Still pointing, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled his lips against hers, plunging her tongue into his mouth. She tasted like bubble gum, cigarettes and Southern Comfort. She bit down hard on his tongue and grabbed him by his shirt with both hands, bunching it in her fists so that the fabric tightened across his throat. “You can do whatever you want to me! All those nasty things your little girlfriends won’t let you do to them.”

Her taste was still in his mouth, lingering like motor oil that wouldn’t come off in the shower. It was overpowering, disgusting and amazing—all at the same time. She was hot—hot in a slutty way, but still hot. He wanted her in the worst way imaginable. But something wasn’t right. His insides were twisting and knotted.
But why?
What was the problem? Maybe it was guilt. But he had no reason to feel guilt. He didn’t have a girlfriend for the first time in three years; he was completely unattached. But as he looked at her face, all he could see in his mind’s eye was Harper. Harper was perfect and beautiful—and she smelled like vanilla and spring. This trash bag grinding up on him looked like a porn star and smelled like a road weary stripper. This wasn’t right.

He gently pushed her away. “Sorry. I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can
do
this.” She tried to pull him against her, but he easily kept her away with his long arms.

“No, I really can’t. Sorry. I just… I just need to get my head screwed on straight.”

She glanced down at his crotch, her eyes filled with raw sexual energy. “It looks perfectly straight to me.”

C’mon. Sorry, but you gotta go.” He brushed by her and opened the door, holding it for her.

She crossed the room reluctantly, without urgency, as though she was unwilling to pull up stakes and cede control of the room (and the situation) back to Felix. But Felix was done. He was over this. Over her. Amber. Or whatever the hell her name was.

“You sure?” she said doubtfully. “We could do it on your roommate’s bed. Does that turn you on? You like pulling hair?” With a piercing moan she clutched a fistful of hair and yanked her head back.

“You’re a freak.” He nodded at the doorway.

“Me? A freak?” She gasped, wide-eyed, as if it was the most shocking and salacious accusation she had ever heard. “You have no idea.” She stepped into the hallway and turned to look at him. She smiled coyly, running the tip of her finger along her bottom lip. “See you around, Felix August. You won’t say
no
next time. They never do.”

“Whatever.” He pushed the door closed. Then he locked it.

He felt dirty. He changed out of his clothes and lay down on his bed, forcing himself to relax. That was spectacularly weird. A scene from a movie; a movie his parents would never let him watch. He closed his eyes and pictured Harper, trying to block out the images of Amber sizing him up like a sixty-dollar fillet. It wasn’t long before he passed out.

A noise in the hallway woke him up. He checked his clock. It was 3:45. His head felt inflated, throbbing, the mezzanine level of what was sure to be a memorable hangover. He gazed blearily across the room at Lucas’s empty bed. He wondered for a second in a cloudy half-conscious kind of way if Lucas was all right, then he rolled over and went back to sleep. But not for long.

In the gray light of dawn, Felix trudged across a desolate campus to the Caffeine Hut. Aside from two workers—unfortunate students who must have drawn the short straws to get stuck with the Sunday morning shift—no one was there. The air was thick with the sweet scent of baking goods drifting out from the ovens in back behind the bar with its milk frothers, bean grinders, coffee makers, espresso machines, stainless steel carafes, rows of heavy mugs and tall stacks of little pastry plates.

He ordered a coffee and waited, idly glancing at the old photos on the wall. The early morning light, hazy and subdued, filtered in through the high arched windows, casting a gray pall on the faces of the students in the photos staring back at him. He tried not to look, but their eyes drew him in. He wondered what they would have thought if they’d known that one day, when they were long dead, future generations would be gazing at their faces and thinking about who they were, and how they’d lived. Maybe they did. Maybe they sensed their own mortality. And that was why their faces were smiling, but their eyes were sad and hollow and… suddenly he realized what had been bothering him all this time. Looking at the pictures was like looking at his own reflection in a mirror; in the depths of his own eyes he revealed his pain, his sadness and his guilt, just like in the eyes of the dead people staring back at him, their youth captured in little five by seven images which now hung on the wall of a coffee house.

“Here you go.”

Felix shuddered, which made his head hurt more than it already did. He’d had a few too many rums last night. The barista, a cute brunette with a sparkly nose ring, had placed his titanic mug on the counter.

“Thanks.” He brought his coffee over to a two-chair table across from the bar. Someone had left a Halloween party flyer behind; it was orange and black with lots of cartoonish drawings of bats, and a skeleton embroiled in a death match with a mummy and a caped Count Dracula—the widow-peaked vampire seemed to have the upper hand in the battle royale.

Just a few weeks until Halloween. This was about the time his mom would start nagging his dad to get the decorations down from the attic. She was practical like that; she knew it usually took him a while to muster up the energy to get the boxes. Halloween wasn’t her favorite holiday, but she still decorated the front porch with skeletons, witches, monsters and loads of cobwebs. She didn’t want the neighbors to think the Augusts were anti-holiday weirdos. His dad gave her a hard time about it. He said the same thing every year: “We’ve lived in this neighborhood for forty years, Patricia. The neighbors already know we’re weirdos.”

Felix pushed the piece of paper aside. He really wished he could sleep. He was exhausted. And now here he was—the Caffeine Hut’s first customer of the day—drinking coffee and wondering why he hadn’t followed Harper into her room last night. Unless he’d misread the signals, she’d wanted him to. But he’d stood there like a fool, afraid to make a move. There wasn’t a guy on the PC campus who wouldn’t have accepted the tacit invitation—or at least taken a step to find out if it was an invitation. But Felix’s fear controlled him. He wanted her so badly it blurred his vision and screwed with his pulse in ways that made him wonder if he might need medical attention. But he was afraid. Afraid of what would happen if they did hook up. What would the next day look like? Would they start
dating
? Would they be a couple? Boyfriend and girlfriend? How could he be with Harper—or anyone for that matter—when he was living in constant fear of being exposed? All it would take is a single question about his parents and he would shut down. She would want him to open up, to share his feelings with her. But he couldn’t. His unwillingness to trust her (which is how she would interpret it) would hurt her deeply. She would question his feelings for her. The accusations would follow. Then the excuses. They would argue. Bitter, creeping resentment would grow between them and divide them. Their relationship would end. Badly. There was no hope for them. Not following her into her room had been the right decision. Why pursue something predestined to fail?

He drank down his coffee without really tasting it.

He hated himself sometimes. Why was his mind always racing in circles? At the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning he shouldn’t be at the Caffeine Hut obsessing about Harper. And he shouldn’t be torturing himself with his stupid what-would-my-parents-be-doing-if-they-were-still-alive fantasies. It just made him crazy. And sad. If only his brain had an off switch he could—

“Felix?” a voice said. “Excuse me. Felix.”

Felix’s eyes darted around for the source of it. He found it—found
him
—standing next to his table holding a coffee mug. He was middle-aged, but on the younger side of the spectrum, and tall—maybe even slightly taller than Felix—with dark hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken a few times. Dark stubble covered his face (which held the remnants of a tan) and crept down his neck past the collar of his T-shirt. He was wearing a yellow rain jacket and stained jeans with a rip above one knee. Felix didn’t recognize him.

“It’s Felix, right?” The man was smiling. “Do you mind if I join you?” He pointed at the empty chair.

“Huh?” Felix was more than just a little out of it, submerged in a deep pool of mental muck. And he wasn’t sure where this guy had come from; he hadn’t seen anyone come in. Of course, he hadn’t been paying attention either.

“Okay,” Felix mumbled after a long while, still adrift in his own thoughts. “Do… I… um… do I know…”