Birthday Girl (The Student Union Series Book 1) Read online

  Or maybe he was just good at playing games.

  “I mean we walk over there and get a milkshake or coffee.”

  “You’re drinking coffee right now,” I pointed out. “If you call the watered-down industrial runoff they serve here coffee.”

  “You must be from Seattle,” said Zach. “No one from around here is that much of a coffee snob.”

  “I’m not a snob. I just know what I like.”

  Zach finished his coffee, crumpled the cup in one powerful hand, and pitched it into the recycle bin. “Come on,” he said. “We can talk geology if you want.”

  8

  I tried not to walk too close to him as we left the Shark and headed upstairs to the main hall of the student union. The dining hall was off to one side, getting ready to open for dinner service, and the coffee cart, Grounds Keeper, was across the way. I stepped up to the counter, and told the guy working the espresso machine, “We’ll have two Depth Charges.”

  Zach laughed, a deep, chesty laugh. “You’re ordering for me. I like it.”

  “Paying for you, too,” I said, sliding a ten across the counter. When the barista gave me the coffee and change, I made a show of folding two bills and slipping them into the tip jar.

  I handed Zach his paper cup, and our fingers brushed as he took it. My body was saying, wait, don’t let him pull his fingers away, you want those fingers to.... “What are we drinking here?” he said.

  “A depth charge is eight ounces of brewed French roast coffee with two shots of espresso. Used to drink them in high school in Seattle. Sometimes they called them a Red Eye, or Trucker’s Special, or whatever clever name they could come up with.” Zach took a sip. “What do you think?”

  “I think it tastes like eating leftover coffee grounds out of the filter,” he said. “But I’m going to drink it, because you bought it for me and I’m polite. And apparently if I want to hang out with you, I need to be a cultured Seattle person who drinks sludge coffee.”

  “Well, fuck you,” I said, then wished I could take it back. But Zach just smiled. I felt shivery all over, probably from too much caffeine. I took a deep breath. “Look, I just need to say, I don’t know if this is a date or what, but you and me, it isn’t going to happen. Okay? But we can be friends.”

  He laughed again, and this time I noticed the way his shirt clung to the muscles of his chest. “Wow. You really know how to hit the fast-forward button, Brooke. I asked you for coffee, not to marry me.”

  I tensed up and then relaxed. Okay, it was a ridiculous thing for me to say. “Sorry. It’s just, things went really bad for me last year, and...”

  “You don’t have to explain,” said Zach. He took another sip of his Depth Charge and set it down. “For the record, this terrible coffee is starting to grow on me. And for the record, I did mean for this to be a date.”

  He did? Oh, shit. I felt my cheeks get hot, and my forehead, and between my legs.

  “But I get that I’m not your type, and I respect that, and I’m not going to go chasing after you like some asshole.”

  I wanted to tell him everything, right then. About what happened on my birthday, about my plans for the future and how sexy business majors didn’t fit into them. I wanted to tell him that a rugged small-town guy who looks great in a suit but somehow has feminist leanings was exactly my type.

  In my mind, I was leaning across the table to kiss Zach Hutchison, sliding my chair next to his, easing myself over onto his lap, right there in the middle of the snack bar. Hmm. Maybe Sierra had a point. What constituted “dating,” anyway? I didn’t have to go steady with Zach. Maybe we could just have some harmless fun.

  Maybe I’d already blown my chance, though. I smiled at Zach. “So what’s your story, anyway?”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed, and he sighed. “My dad’s retired. He and my mom used to run a feed store in town, until Mom passed away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a couple of years ago. But my dad’s a lot older than she is.” He shook his head. “Was. And I knew already that he was starting to forget things, but I didn’t realize he couldn’t look after himself. So I took some time off from school. He finally convinced me to come back and finish, so here I am.”

  “So what’s up with the clothes?” I asked. “And the briefcase?”

  Zach laughed again. “Hell, you don’t mince words, do you?” He hoisted his briefcase onto the table and opened it. “Backpacks are a scam. They’re fine if you’re going out into the woods and need to carry clothes, and a tent, and other stuff that’s fine if it gets smashed together like Play-Doh. If you spend most of your time hiking around a college campus carrying papers, a briefcase is just practical.”

  I looked down at my red Jansport backpack and silently cursed the way it roughed up the corners of folders, books, and papers. I’d promised myself a million times to stop jamming papers into the main pocket, because they always got crumpled down to nothing, but I knew I’d do it again within the week.

  “You may have a point about the briefcase,” I said, “but that doesn’t explain why you wear a fucking tie.”

  “I figured if I was going to be a business major, I might as well look the part.”

  “Why business, then?”

  “To make money,” Zach said quickly. “Which I know is a crazy concept to you, but I think we have something in common anyway.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We both need to pass Geology if we’re going to make it out of here. So how about if we study a little?”

  9

  When I need to let off some steam, I swim.

  When my mind feels like it’s been turned up to ten and I can’t figure out how to turn it down, I swim.

  When I can’t stop thinking about a guy who I have no intention of dating, well, swimming probably couldn’t hurt.

  Sierra figured this out about me last year. I was telling her about my history class, and cursing left and right about the idiot professor and his stupid, irrelevant assignments, and she interrupted me to say, “When was the last time you went for a swim?”

  She had a point. I went to the gym, put in a thousand meters, and went back to my room and wrote the paper. Even my roommate Ashley hanging around and playing country music couldn’t bother me.

  Since then, I try not to go more than a few days without getting into the pool.

  So after dinner, still buzzed from the Depth Charge and from Zach telling me he wanted to date me, I changed into my blue one-piece and dove in. When I visited Cascade as a prospective, the perky campus tour guide told us that the pool was donated by a wealthy alum whose son drowned because he didn’t know how to swim, and they used to make every student pass a swim test. I found the story beautiful and sad, until I mentioned it to my friend Chelsea at Mills and learned that their campus had the same rumor, and it was probably just one of those urban legends.

  While I pulled myself through the water, I thought about Zach. He hadn’t actually said he wanted to date me, just that he was asking me on a date. Not the same thing. Presumably he’d changed his mind once he realized what a freak I was, forcing him to drink weird coffee and pestering him with questions about parts of his life that he clearly didn’t want to talk about.

  I finished the first hundred meters and switched to breast stroke for the next hundred. The pool was never particularly crowded, and tonight, as my head broke the surface, I could see just two other swimmers through my goggles. I got into my head space and concentrated on nothing more than the few inches of water ahead of me on each stroke. I’m not much for meditation, though, and while I’d never tell anyone this, something about the way the water slides around my curves makes me think about sex. I used to love it, escaping into a secret sexual realm, warming my body up with my own exertions, feeling wet inside and out. But ever since my last birthday, I’ve tried to stuff those feelings down into a strongbox deep in my brain, where they won’t get access to my heart.

  Today, though, images of Zach Hutc
hison kept escaping from the box. To try and pack them back down, I switched to butterfly, the most demanding stroke, and swam a couple of lengths. My shoulders and lats burned every time I threw my arms forward, and it felt good.

  Exhausted, I checked my splits, slipped my waterproof stopwatch around my neck, and climbed out of the pool. I stood and dripped dry for a moment, then grabbed my towel and wrapped it loosely around my shoulders. I was about to head into the bathroom when the male swimmer in lane two paused between laps and lifted his head. It looked liked Zach, but without my glasses, I couldn’t be sure, and I’d left them on the bleachers, safe but out of reach. “Hey, Brooke!” he called. Sure enough. Just my luck. Zach could see me in all my panting, drippy post-workout glory, and to me he was just a bare-chested, Speedo-clad blur—at least until he got out of the pool and walked over to me.

  “Long time no see,” I said, then immediately regretted it.

  “You were lapping me out there,” said Zach. “How’d you learn to swim like that?”

  Jesus, Zach Hutchison was standing a foot away from me, wearing a Speedo, and I was trying to make small talk. His torso was firm and taut, with only a light patch of chest hair, and I wanted nothing more than to run my finger down his sternum. How obvious was it that I was checking him out? Totally obvious. I looked up at him and caught his eyes darting to my boobs. Good. They looked pretty good in this suit. I adjusted my towel to give him a slightly better look. “Roosevelt High School varsity,” I said. “I was no good at soccer, so I tried swimming. Turned out okay. You?”

  He reached for his towel, and while he was looking away from me, I stole a closer look at his Speedo. His bulge was impressive. What would it feel like to just cup my hand around it? Dammit, he definitely caught me peeking. “My high school didn’t have a pool,” he said. “I just try and keep in shape.”

  Yeah, no shit.

  I put on my glasses just as the other swimmer was getting out of the pool. It was Ashley Weaver, the very last person I wanted to see. She was wearing a white bikini. Who wears a bikini to lap swim? When she walked over to us, I could see that her pointy nipples were clearly visible through her bikini top. Just great. “Hey, Ashley,” I said.

  She nodded. “Brooke. How’ve you been? You going to introduce me to your friend?”

  I wanted to say, Go to hell, Ashley. The way she was pretending like we were still friends was really rich. But I decided to take the high road. “Zach Hutchison, this is Ashley Weaver, my ex-roommate. Ashley, Zach.”

  “It’s great to meet you,” said Ashley, flashing her biggest, whitest smile, and she turned so Zach could get a little side-boob. “Are you a transfer?”

  “Returning student,” said Zach.

  “Well, it’s great that you’ve made a friend like Brooke already,” said Ashley. “If you need someone to show you around, well, I can’t text you my number right now because I don’t have my phone on me.” She looked Zach up and down. “And you don’t either.” She looked down at her cleavage and frowned, adjusting her top a bit. “I’m going to go shower. Toodles!”

  “Well, she’s certainly...energetic,” said Zach after Ashley disappeared into the locker room.

  “Yeah, she’s a handful. She was my roommate last year.”

  “Didn’t get along, I take it?”

  “We did, actually, until...for a while.” Zach toweled off his hair and beard, leaving himself attractively disheveled. He took a step closer to me, and I inhaled sharply.

  “Brooke,” Zach said softly. I could smell him now, a heady mix of sweat and chlorine. I looked around, and the room was empty. The only sound was the hum of the exhaust fans and the occasional slap of an errant wave against the side of the pool. Zach put his hand on my shoulder and let it slide down my arm, which was still a little damp. Now my nipples were straining against the thin lycra of my suit. Could he tell? “I enjoyed getting coffee with you. Can we do it again sometime?”

  “Sure,” I managed to say. His face was inches from mine. “Uh, I’ve got to go. See you in class tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.”

  As Zach turned away toward the locker room, my jaw dropped. The bulge in his Speedo had grown. A lot. But was it because of me or Ashley? Certainly Ashley had made it clear she could get any man she wanted. I told myself I didn’t care if she wanted this one, but I felt a twinge in my neck even thinking about it.

  10

  I stopped by Sierra’s room on the way to Geology the next morning. Sierra’s not a morning person, so I expected to find her lounging in her pajamas, texting Trevor or pretending to study. Instead, I found her door closed. At first I figured she was out, but then I heard an unmistakable sound coming through the door. Skin slapping on skin, and Sierra crying, “Come on, fuck me! Harder!” So I guess she’d given Trevor the morning booty call. Good for her. Maybe I’d catch her at lunch if she wasn’t still indisposed.

  For my part, I’d gone home after swimming and jumped into bed, exhausted from my workout and totally confused by my feelings. I’m not the kind of woman who goes all gooey just because of some hot guy. So why couldn’t I stop thinking about Zach? The way Ashley flashed her nips at him...just thinking about it made my cheeks red and hot. I got the feeling there was more to Zach than just a handsome face and a great body, but I also knew that if I tried to find out, things could get complicated. Or painful. And it was stupid to risk going through that again, not with mere months left of my senior year. But this celibacy thing was not working. Spending so much time around Zach was turning me into a sex-starved mess. A nice sweaty hookup—my first!—seemed like just the thing. What had Sierra said? “Don’t get involved—just fuck him.”

  I continued to the science building and settled into a seat in the back of class. Professor Radford looked stunning as always, today in a charcoal gray dress, and her retinue of front-row admirers had maintained their perfect attendance record. As she lectured about the different types of volcanoes found in the Cascade range, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Must be Sierra, shaking off her post-coital haze. To my surprise, when I pulled my phone out of my pocket, the text was from Zach.

  How’d you sleep?

  I looked over at him, but he was facing the front of the class and looking studious. I held my phone under the desk and wrote back. Why? Did you wear yourself out yesterday trying to keep up with me?

  For a minute, my phone was silent, and I was afraid I’d been too flirty. Then a reply came in. Are you as fast on land as you are in the water?

  Me: You’re asking if I’m fast? I’m not that kind of girl. :)

  Zach: Hey, I already know you’re fast. I’m just wondering if I need to watch my ass on land, too

  Me: I’ll watch your ass for you if need help

  Oh, god, why did I say that? Oh well. I’d show this to Sierra later and she’d be proud of my harmless flirting. I tried to follow Professor Radford’s lecture on cinder cones and stratovolcanoes, but my mind kept wandering. My phone buzzed again.

  Zach: Can I say something totally inappropriate, and you can tell me to shut up?

  Me: OK

  Zach: You looked fucking amazing in that bathing suit last night.

  Oh, shit, he was paying attention.

  Me: Even next to Ashley and her practically bare tits?

  Zach: Didn’t notice

  Bless him.

  “As absolutely no one has forgotten, the midterm is tomorrow,” said Professor Radford. “Please take a handout about the camping trip on the way out today.”

  I slipped the handout into my backpack on the way out of class and did my best to make sure Zach didn’t see the stupid grin plastered across my face. I zipped up my jacket on the way into the quad, but I was still shivering. Zach said I looked amazing. No, fucking amazing. I had only one thing on my mind: get back to my room, get my jeans off, and start touching myself. That was one subject where I was guaranteed an A.

  “Brooke, wait up,” came a familiar voice from behind me.

  “I told you
, you can’t catch me.”

  Zach pulled up beside me. “I just want to make sure you’re okay with what I said.”

  I stopped and turned toward him. He had his fingers on his chin, stroking his beard. “Zach, look. Of course I’m okay with it, I really appreciate it, and you looked amazing, too.”

  “But?”

  “But I can’t date you. I want to, but I can’t. And you deserve an explanation.” We turned off down the lightly-traveled path toward the administration building, and sat on a bench. “I was dating this guy Evan. Evan Stringer. He played baseball, he had a buzz cut, he seemed like an all-around good guy.” Zach nodded. “We got together toward the end of freshman year. I dated him for two years. Lost my virginity to him.”

  Zach pulled a pair of gloves out of his coat pocket and started to put one on, but changed his mind and offered them to me. “You’re shivering.”

  “I’m fine. So last year, on my birthday, I had dinner planned with Sierra and Ashley and Evan, and a couple of my other friends. I told Ashley I was going to treat myself to a trip to the mall in the afternoon, but after class I didn’t feel like it, so I decided I’d earned a nap instead. So I went back to my room, opened the door, and there were Evan and Ashley, totally naked, going at it.”

  “Oh, god,” said Zach. “I’m so sorry.”

  That was the PG version of the story, but as I told it, the details came flooding back. The parts I could never tell anyone.

  “Yeah, so that sucked,” I said. “And now I’m over it. But I’m not going to make the mistake of getting involved with anyone now, when the year’s almost over and I’m heading to grad school.” My mouth almost got away from me and said, but if you want to just make out for a few hours…. But I reined it in, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I thought Zach had old-fashioned values and wouldn’t want a woman to throw herself at him. But more likely, I was just afraid he wasn’t really that into me, that he was just teasing me with a few steamy text messages, and if I flipped through his phone, I’d find similar exchanges with ten other girls.