Undecided (25 page)

“I was
going for neon.”
“Remind me what the hell neon is?”

“A noble
gas.” I don’t take the course now, but I actually really liked chemistry in
high school, opting for the advanced class just for the hell of it. “Did you
know that the guy who organized the periodic table denied that the noble gases
existed—”

I break
off when I see Crosbie pinching the bridge of his nose as though he’s in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask, reaching over to touch his leg. “Chemistry’s not that
bad. And this story is pretty interesting.”

“You know
what I can’t believe?” He bends his leg so I’m no longer able to reach it, and
for a second I just stare at the now-empty spot on the comforter.

“What?”

“The
first day you came up here and I got you to quiz me, I swore the next time you
were here, we’d do a lot more than ‘quiz.’ And now here you are, my girlfriend,
on my bed, and I’m just…”

I bite my
lip. “Mad?”

“Yes,
Nora!” He thumps his hand against the pillow and we both pretend not to hear
the magazine rustle inside. “What the fuck?”

I tug on
a loose thread at the hem of my shirt. “I said I was sorry.”

“Well,
you should be. Opening the door to see you standing there is like waking up
Christmas morning and finding this huge gift under the tree, then you open it
and it’s just…a banana.”

I do my
very best not to laugh. “A banana?”

“Yes, a
banana. A disappointment.”

I gasp.
I’m sure me accusing him of sleeping around on the road trip wasn’t his
favorite part of the day, but calling me a disappointment? I’d heard that term
enough last May to last me a lifetime.

“Crosbie,”
I say tightly, “I’m sorry. I tried to sound…civil when I came here, but what
was I supposed to do? The writing was quite literally on the wall, and whether
or not you like your reputation, it’s not like you didn’t earn it.”

“Are you
kidding me?” He shifts so he’s sitting on his knees, like the wall couldn’t
possibly support the weight of his irritation. “First of all, I don’t even know
what names are on that list, but none of them were my girlfriend. You know how
I know? Because I didn’t
have
a girlfriend. The writing might be ‘quite
literally’ on the wall, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I never lied to
anybody, and I haven’t lied to you.”

“I said I
was sorry!”

“Who was
it?” he asks abruptly.

I freeze,
confused. “Who was what?”
“The guy. You said there was a guy last
year. He obviously did something to make you…like this.”

I gape at
him. “
Like this
? Like,
what
, exactly? Like, sees that her
boyfriend supposedly slept with three girls and dares ask him about it? Like
that?” I toss the book at him and swing my feet to the floor, halted by his
grip on my arm.

“Seriously?”
he demands. “You’re going to storm out? After you stormed in here in the first
place? You’re the only one who can ask personal questions?”

“No one
‘made me’ like this,” I snap, jerking away my arm and standing. “I
chose
this. I chose to ask if you cheated on me. I chose to believe you when you said
you didn’t.”

He’s
breathing hard, his chest rising and falling beneath the thin T-shirt, and
finally he pushes to his feet. “You know what?” he says irritably. “Fine. Let’s
go.”

“Go
where?”

“To get
rid of the list, once and for all. We’ve got some paint around here somewhere.
Maybe Kellan’s list came in handy, but mine sure as fuck hasn’t.”

I watch
as he stuffs his feet into sneakers and grabs his jacket from his desk chair,
tossing me mine. Unable to believe we’re really doing this, I trail him down
the stairs and wait as he confers with Dane in the living room to determine
where they keep the paint. Why this is something they would have, I don’t know,
but he disappears into the basement for a minute and comes back up with an old
can of blue paint and two brushes. “All right,”
 
he says tersely, grabbing a wool hat with a hockey logo and
sticking it on his head. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s
go,” I echo. “To the Student Union building.”

“Uh-huh.”

He starts
to stomp down the path to the street, but reconsiders when he spots my bike on
the grass. Instead he snatches it up and gestures for me to get on the back.

“Crosbie—”

“Are you
coming or not, Nora?”

I sigh
and swing my leg over the seat. It’s not even remotely comfortable, and for the
first minute I expect us to topple over in an uncoordinated tangle of angry
limbs. Eventually Crosbie finds the right balance and pedals us toward campus,
the paint can hanging from the handlebars and thumping against his knee.

“We don’t
have to do this,” I say when we park at the building and clamber off awkwardly.
Painting school property seems like a pretty solid way to get in trouble again,
and Crosbie’s making no effort to hide the evidence of our poorly thought-out
plan. Fortunately the lobby is even emptier now than when I first visited, and
the security guard is nowhere in sight. Crosbie’s breathing hard from the
exertion but I’m shivering from the cold and the warmth of the indoors is no
match for my common sense.

Still,
I’m supposed to be behaving better. “Crosbie,” I hiss, yanking my hand from his
while he jabs the button for the elevator. “This seems like something that is
most definitely against the rules.”

“It’s my
name,” he says stubbornly, nudging me into the elevator when it arrives. “And I
want it gone. If they won’t paint it, I will.”

We don’t
speak for the rest of the ride, nor when we enter the women’s bathroom. Crosbie
shucks his jacket so he doesn’t get paint on it, and after a reluctant second I
do the same. “You seem pretty comfortable in here,” I comment, earning myself a
cutting look and a brush slapped into my hand none too gently.

He shakes
up the can then wedges off the lid, sticking it in one of the sinks. “Which
stall?” he asks.

I sigh
and point to the correct one, trailing him inside like the world’s most
aggrieved accomplice. He scans the wall until he sees his name, and I believe
him when he says he’s never seen it before. From the way his eyes widen, I
don’t think he’s seen any of this.

“You’ve
never been up here?” I confirm. I know the lists are copied in the men’s
bathroom as well, so he could have seen it.

He shakes
his head distractedly, trailing a finger down his list to find the three most
recent entries. They seem legit, first and last names, carefully dated. “I
don’t know them,” he says, glancing at me. “And I know Kellan hasn’t exactly
been a good example, but I learn names.”

“Okay,
Crosbie.”

He sticks
his brush in the paint and swirls it around, then carefully swipes it across
his own name at the top. Watching it disappear is unexpectedly sad and
satisfying.

I’m envious. I wish erasing my own mistakes
were this easy. Failed a bunch of classes? Nope. Got arrested? Never happened.
Slept with your future boyfriend’s best friend? Definitely not.

I’m
already addressing those mistakes the best I can, so I bend down and stick my
brush in the can and help Crosbie cover up his. It only takes a few minutes but
it’s unexpectedly rewarding, and soon we’re marching into the men’s bathroom
and doing the same. It’s worth noting that the list in here still ends at
twenty-five; the three mystery women are conspicuously absent. He doesn’t
comment on it, though, and we paint in silence until the list is gone, a pale
blue void on the graffiti-covered wall.

For a
long moment we just stare at the empty space, and I wonder if he regrets it. If
that list was the most tangible type of bragging right, proof positive that
he’s a stud. “What do you think?” I ask eventually.

He’s
quiet for a second. “I like it.”

“Yeah?”

He
glances at me. “Yeah.”

We
shuffle out of the stall and rinse off the brushes, then put on our jackets and
retrace our steps back to the lobby. With some of his anger burned away,
Crosbie makes more of an effort to hide the paint can, though of course now the
security guard is back at his post, watching us suspiciously.

“Evening,”
he says.

“Evening,”
we call back, hustling away. One of the paintbrushes falls out of Crosbie’s
pocket, leaving a wet mark on the polished floor, and I quickly snatch it up.

“What’re
you all getting up to?” the guard asks, standing. He’s a heavyset guy, armed
with nothing more than a flashlight and a walkie-talkie, no threat to us when
we sprint through the doors and jump on my bike.

The guard
doesn’t give chase but Crosbie pedals like a madman anyway. I grip his waist,
feeling the paint can pressed against his stomach, his rib cage expanding with
each breath. The cold air is biting and I bury my face in the back of his puffy
jacket and close my eyes. Before I even know I’m going to do it, I start to
laugh. I laugh so hard the whole bike shakes and Crosbie throws a look over his
shoulder, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Nora!”
he shouts, the word whipped away in the icy wind. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,”
I mumble into the fabric, knowing he can’t hear me. “Don’t stop.”

Even
though he couldn’t possibly understand, he doesn’t stop until we’re back at the
Frat Farm, parking on the lawn again.

“Are you
laughing or crying?” he demands, letting the paint can fall out of his coat to
bounce on the frozen ground. “I can’t tell.”

“Laughing,”
I admit. “I don’t know why.”

It’s too
dark for me to recognize the glint that normally appears in his eye when he
gets this way, but I don’t stop him when he backs me into the trunk of the
ancient oak tree and covers my mouth with his. His fingers tangle in my hair,
pulling almost painfully, but I don’t stop him then, either. I just kiss him
back, angry and relieved and exhilarated, and suddenly much more hot than cold.

“Inside,”
I gasp, breaking away to breathe.

“Here?”
he asks. “You sure?”

I shove
him toward the house. “Yeah.”

He grabs
my hand and tugs me up the stairs. I hear a couple of catcalls from the living
room but ignore them, unzipping my coat and following Crosbie into his room. We
kiss and grope and strip, but when we’re halfway undressed he suddenly stops,
pushing me back a step. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Nora, I don’t have any condoms.”

For a second
my mouth just opens and closes wordlessly. “Can’t you…borrow some?”

“I will,
but do you really want me to go down there and ask? I mean, they’re probably
filling in the blanks already, but I know how you feel about your name getting
tossed around…”

It
shouldn’t, but the words do throw a wet blanket on the whole idea. My shirt is
gaping open to my waist and I slowly button it to hide my lacy pink bra.
Crosbie groans and scoops his T-shirt off the ground.

My
stomach clenches when I see the erection tenting the front of his sweats. He
follows my gaze and waves away my proffered apology. “It’s not your fault,” he
says. “I kept sticking them in my wallet to bring to your place, and forgot to
get more.”

“I should
have gotten some more for my room so you didn’t always have to be the one
bringing them.”

“You’re
right. This is all your fault.”

I smile
at his attempt to alleviate some of the tension simmering between us. It’s not
quite angry any more, but it doesn’t feel finished, either.

“You
know…” I begin, planting my fingers in the center of his chest and bumping him
back toward the bed. “Last time you showed me your ‘trick,’ but I didn’t show
you mine.”

His brows
raise almost comically high. I’ve never gone down on him, and even though that
first night together I’d asked about it and he’d said “not this time,” he’s
never once tried to get me to do it. But now I want to. My experience with
blowjobs is rather limited and unenjoyable, but so was my experience being on
the receiving end of oral, and that turned out to be pretty excellent.

He stops
when the back of his knees hit the bed, but doesn’t sit down. He exhales
heavily when I drop my hand and stroke him through the cotton fabric, hot and
hard. “I haven’t done much of this either,” I whisper against his ear, keeping
my face turned so he can’t see that the confession embarrasses me. “So tell me
what you like.”

“Nora.”
The word is raspy and pained and such a turn on.

I start
to kneel, but he stops me.

“You
don’t have to,” he says, closing his eyes briefly. “If you’re just thinking you
should because you’re sorry, don’t be. It’s okay.”

“I’m not
trying to apologize.”

“Only do
this if you really, really want to.”

I hold
his stare and we both break at the same time, smirks turning into full-blown grins.
“I want to, Crosbie. I feel such
need
.”