chapter four
Tuesday nights at Garrett’s were dead except for people dropping in for dinner. The pizzas were from a box, but the food was cheap and we’d gotten into the habit of going every week since we were freshman. The pub boasted a dance floor and a deejay on busy nights. A few people filtered in and out, but we had the place mostly to ourselves.
Cassie and Jess were busy comparing notes for their courses. Since Cassie was a Public Relations major, she was freaking out over her last required core science course, while Jess promised to help her. As they discussed labs and tests, I thought about my mom and her threat earlier today. Once again, Tara was hinting that she wanted me to drop out and come home. I wasn’t sure it was worth telling them, though. Jess would worry about it, and then she would become unbearable if I was so much as ten minutes late to class. I sat wedged into the corner booth, not saying a word for fifteen minutes before they noticed. Between the scene in Interpersonal Communications and my less than pleasant conversation with my mother, I didn’t feel like talking.
“How was your communications class?” Cassie finally asked. Whereas I had slipped into pajama pants before heading out with them, Cassie was perfectly polished. Her black hair was tucked in a neat bun. Her outfit looked like a fashion tutorial from Pinterest, complete with chic suede boots and chunky, handmade jewelry. She looked like she had walked off a runway, not out of a classroom at Olympic State.
I shook my head. “I’m dropping it.”
“You only have a 12 hour load,” Jess reminded me.
“I can’t stay in the class. The professor humiliated me.”
“Shit, I thought you were taking that with Markson. I heard he was a goddamn cakewalk.” Cassie cursed like it was art form. She had managed to make it a required syntactical component.
I shrugged at her while Jess stayed silent. She had recommended the class after she took it last semester, and now I couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to tell me something.
Frank, Garrett’s longest running bartender, slid a combo pizza in front of us. “That’s hot,” he warned us.
On cue, we all busted out, “That’s what she said.”
“You girls staying out of trouble this year?” he asked. Frank was old enough to be our grandfather, and he took the role seriously.
“It’s too early in the year to determine that,” I said to him with a sly smile. He shook his head, muttering under his breath as he headed back to the bar.
“How did he humiliate you?” Jess asked, grabbing for a slice of pizza.
“It was just Markson,” I admitted, ignoring my own food.
“Intriguing,” Cassie said.
“Liam was there.”
“Wait,
Liam
, Liam?” Cassie asked with a squeal.
“You have not even met Liam,” I pointed out. She had no business being this wildly excited by a bad camera pic.
“Well,” Jess said, “she’s about to.”
I followed Jess’s gaze behind us to spot Liam walking into the bar with a few other guys. He was still in a t-shirt and jeans, and I couldn’t help but admire how they hung off his hips. I knew what was under those jeans. My pulse increased just thinking about it, and I could feel heat creeping onto my cheeks. I wasn’t sure why I was so embarrassed. It was hardly the first time I’d run into a guy I had slept with casually.
“Great Scot! Liam’s hot!” Cassie said in a low voice.
“Cassie, darling, you’re rhyming.” But I could see how his body would have that effect on her. Liam looked every bit the Scottish Highlander fantasy at the moment—rugged and well-built, but without the kilt or long hair.
“Call him over,” Cassie begged.
“No freakin’ way,” I said in a warning tone. “You have a boyfriend.”
“You don’t,” Jess said.
I shot her my best withering stare. Ever since Cassie and Jess started seeing their boyfriends, they’d been sneaking plenty of hints about hooking me up with someone. The wicked gleam in Jess’s eyes suggested that she wanted to make this dream a reality. “Markson made an example of us in class today. I don’t need to give Liam any more false hope.”
“False hope?” Jess said, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke. “Don’t you think you’ve gone a little too far to not expect him to be hopeful?”
“I swear to God, if every guy I screw is going to expect a relationship, I’m going to have to start an application process,” I muttered.
Cassie’s and Jess’s eyes grew wide, and my heart sunk into my stomach.
“He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” I asked.
They both nodded, discomfort written across their faces.
“Jess,” Liam said in a cool voice.
I couldn’t bring myself to turn and face him. He had definitely heard what I just said. I considered crawling under the table, but Garrett’s wasn’t the cleanest establishment and I would probably contract some type of STD.
“It’s nice to see you,” Jess said as she tried to smile. It came out looking more like a grimace.
Liam didn’t say anything else, and, a minute later, Cassie and Jess both collapsed against each other, signaling he was safely out of earshot.
“Ohmigod, awkward!” Cassie exclaimed against Jess’s shoulder.
“You should have been in class,” I said with a groan. I picked up my pizza and then set it right back down. I suddenly wasn’t very hungry.
“What exactly happened?” Jess asked, widening her eyes in concern. The ones that made her look like Bambi; they were impossible to resist.
I related the events of the class with Professor Markson, pausing occasionally to allow them to express their horror. But by the end of my story, I could tell they were both holding back smirks.
“You two are unbelievable. Show a little moral support, why don’t you?” I said. I hadn’t bothered to fill them in on my phone call with my mother or how Liam had heard half of it. I didn’t like to expose that side of myself to them. Jess worried more than my mother, although her heart was in a much better place.
“It’s just that we kind of agree with Markson,” Jess admitted.
I picked a piece of sausage off my slice and threw it at her.
“No food fights!” Frank yelled from the bar.
“Nothing gets past him,” Cassie said. She smiled sweetly at him and called out an apology. No one could resist Cassie’s charm, not even nosy old Frank. But Cassie’s easy-going nature also made it hard to get her to take anything seriously. Jess and Cassie were the perfect foils for one another. They both cared, but they displayed it from opposite ends of the friend spectrum.
“I don’t need my professor getting involved with my love life,” I said.
“What fucking love life?” Cassie asked and froze. It was a totally un-Cassie-like thing to say, and it stung.
“I don’t need a boy to feel complete,” I said. “Unlike some.”
Jess held her hand up. “That is totally unfair. We never make you feel bad for not wanting a boyfriend. You shouldn’t make us feel bad for dating.”
“You made me feel bad this morning,” I reminded her. I reached for my purse and pulled it over my head. “You made me feel bad five minutes ago.” I stood up so quickly that I knocked my chair over. I couldn’t even bend over to pick it up, I was shaking so bad.
“Dammit, Jills,” Cassie said. “Don’t do this. Calm down. It’s not good for—”
“Stop,” I commanded her. “Just stop. I’m going home.”
“Jills, you need to take—” Jess began, but I shot her a look that shut her up.
I turned on my heel and started toward the door. Unfortunately, going by the door meant that I would have to go by Liam. I hesitated a minute before I lifted my chin and took a deep breath. Olympic State was a small school, and I was bound to run into him, even if I dropped the class. I focused on the door, walking a straight line toward it with quick, purposeful steps. My hands were trembling, and I clenched and unclenched them, trying to control it like I’d been taught in physical therapy.
“Bye, hen,” Liam called, the farewell coated in an especially thick Scottish brogue. I knew he was doing it to get a rise out of me. He probably wanted to get back at me for what I’d said earlier, but I hadn’t been talking to him then, so he had no right to be mad now.
I rounded on him and held up one shaky finger. “I am not a chicken. I am not your chicken. So take your cock somewhere else.”
One of Liam’s friends smacked him on the shoulder, laughing, until he realized that neither Liam or I were joking.
“Tastes like chicken,” another quipped beside him, but Liam and I were frozen in a mutual glare.
I pushed open the door and stepped into the night air. It was already cool in the September evenings in the Pacific Northwest, and the cold air hit my eyes, stinging them as tears began to pool. I’d known Jess and Cassie wanted to set me up when they started dropping hints last school year. Of course, they had been more subtle about it then.
“Jillian,” Liam called, following me outside. “I promise that I’m not interested in applying to be your fling. I’m on a student visa, and I’m afraid I’m not allowed to work full-time jobs.”
His words were cold and hard, containing none of the charm and silliness he’d shown me this morning or after class. I swallowed hard and nodded, walking away from him. He continued after me, catching up to walk beside me.
“You might think—” he began before he cut himself off.
I tried to hide my face, so he wouldn’t see my tears. I couldn’t think of anyone else I wanted to see me cry less. Especially because I didn’t want Liam to think that these were tears over him. These were about much, much more than our stupid one-night stand.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said quietly.
“I’m not crying over you,” I screamed at him, which only made me cry harder. “I’m crying because my best friends think I’m a loser, and my mom wants me to drop out of college, and I can’t afford to pay my own tuition if her and my dad decide they won’t pay anymore.”
Liam didn’t say anything, so I kept going, unable to control the trembling in my hands. It spread up from my wrists until tremors rolled through my arms. “Which, by the way, means that my parents think I’m a loser, too. And Professor Markson thinks I’m so broken that I should be a class project, and you—” I pointed at him “—keep calling me chicken.”
The tears fell in fat drops down my cheeks, but my hands shook so badly that I couldn’t even wipe them away.
“Are you cold?” Liam asked. The anger had melted from his voice.
“I’m fine.” I didn’t want his sympathy, not after I’d been such a bitch to him earlier.
“You’re shaking,” he accused.
I might have just vomited all my problems onto him, but this was one subject I wasn’t going to touch. Instead, I quickened my pace in the hope that he would give up and leave me alone.
Liam reached out and caught my hand, which hurt, given the attack I was having. It forced me to stop and shake him off. But he took the opportunity to pull me into his arms, wrapping his arms tightly around me. I wanted to push him away, but my hands were too weak, so I settled against his chest, slowly feeling my body relax back to normal. Our breathing shifted, each inhale and exhale coming at the same time.
“Let me take you home,” Liam suggested in a soft voice.
I shook my head and pulled out of his arms. “I’m okay. It’s not that far. Go back to your friends. I was just upset.”
“I won’t call you hen anymore,” he promised.
It was such a little thing, but it made me want to cry more. It felt like forever since someone had listened to one simple request of mine. Jess, my mom—they were all too busy telling me what to do or treating me like I was still a little kid.
“Do they really call girls hens in Scotland?” I asked him.
His mouth crept into a grin. “Only the cute ones.”
“So I’m cute then?” I bet I looked hot right now with my blotchy eyes and red nose.
Liam laughed and turned back toward the bar, but before I could start heading home, he called out to me. “No, Jillian. You’re beautiful.”
chapter five
The following Thursday found me perched nervously in Professor Markson’s class. Somehow I had been so freaked out that I’d wound up getting there five minutes early. I hadn’t been early to a single moment in my life so far. I checked my notebook. Opened it. Closed it. Clicked my pen. My iPhone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my bag.
JESS: GOOD LUCK ;)
I wasn’t sure how she had convinced me to come back, and I wasn’t about to admit to her that Liam’s concern the other night at Garrett’s did more to make the decision for me than her lecture. Letting Jess know that would have been akin to showing her my entire hand at poker. She would know she won. It was safer to keep bluffing.
“Hey, Ch-Jillian,” Liam corrected himself as he dropped his messenger bag on the floor between us. He looked tired, like he had been out all night.
That wouldn’t be a surprise. Yesterday was the first Wednesday night out that I had skipped in two years at Olympic State, except for when I had the flu or my period. If I had to get serious about my grades to keep my parents footing my tuition bill, I was going to have to slow down.
“Out late?” I asked him.
“We went to Garrett’s. I thought I might see you there.”
I almost asked him who “we” was. It was probably the guys I’d seen him with on Tuesday night. “I’m trying to party less.”
“I didn’t get the impression that you were the party less type.” Liam pulled out his MacBook, flipping it open.
“I am not giving it up,” I told him. There was no chance of that, but I figured if I went out every other week, my grades were sure to improve. It was simple math. Fifty percent less partying, fifty percent improvement in my GPA. Of course, I hated math, so it might be a flawed equation.
Markson strode into the room and grabbed a piece of chalk. I winced as it squeaked across the chalkboard. He stepped back and revealed today’s topic: Getting to Know You. Markson tugged on his vest and cleared his throat over the buzz of a dozen conversations.
“I’m glad to see we haven’t lost anyone yet,” he said, and his gaze landed on me.
I kept my face impassive. He better watch it. It was still early enough to pull out of this class.
“Today you’ll be doing one of your most important interpersonal activities with your partner. You’re going to get to know them. I want each of you to find out ten things about your partner,” he instructed.
That sounded easy enough. I was certain I already knew ten things about Liam. He makes waffles. He could be totally obnoxious. I doubted Markson wanted a length estimate. Though, I could provide that too.
“But there are rules!” Markson called out. Several partners had already started chatting quietly. “Listen up. You may not tell me anything about clothes. I don’t care how phat their pants are.”
There was a collective groan at his use of “phat.”
“Do you guys say wicked?” he asked.
“Sick!” someone yelled from the back of the room.
“Okay, I don’t care how sick their pants are. You may also not give me a rundown of their class schedule. I want you to get to know them. By the end of this class, you should feel like you’ve been on a really great first date.”
I frowned. The last thing I wanted was to feel like I had been on a date with Liam.
“Write it down on a sheet of paper. I can’t wait to learn all sorts of interesting and terrifying things about each of you.”
Liam scooted his desk so that he faced me as I tore out a sheet from my notebook. He was humming something under his breath. The melody sounded vaguely familiar.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“It’s ‘Getting to Know You’ from
The King and I
—the musical.” He said it without a hint of embarrassment. Further proof that he wasn’t your typical American male.
“Okay, Liam likes musicals,” I said as I scrawled it on the paper. One down, nine to go.
“You sounded a little judgmental, Jillian.”
A cough interrupted us. Markson was watching us and he mouthed, “I statements.”
“Sorry,” Liam said. “I feel like you’re judging me.”
“I’m just getting to know you,” I reminded him. “Do you like musicals?”
“I do,” he admitted, folding his hands behind his head, revealing his rather impressive biceps and triceps and several smaller, but well-defined “ceps” of some sort. “I have five sisters.”
“You have five sisters?” I repeated in disbelief.
“And I’m not gay.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew that much about him. I jotted down the bit about five sisters.
“What about you? Brothers? Sisters?” Liam had his own pen poised to take notes.
I shook my head. “Just me. My parents decided it was better to break the mold, which was a benefit to all humanity.”
“Well, now I know you’re self-deprecating.” Thankfully, he didn’t write that down.
“I don’t really get along with my mom,” I said. “You heard us on the phone the other day.”
“I can’t imagine not having my sisters,” Liam said in a thoughtful voice. His words were sad and distant, as though he was stuck halfway between here and Scotland.
“You miss them,” I said.
“I do. They taught me everything I know about women and waffles.”
“I suppose I owe them a note or something.” I wrote
Liam makes good waffles
on my paper alongside
five sisters
.
“A thank-you note?” Liam wiggled his eyebrows.
Or a reprimand. “Something like that.”
“It feels like cheating to put down that you’re from Scotland, because I already knew that,” I said, reading over my notes. So far I had discovered two new things about Liam.
“I only have one thing about you,” he pointed out. “What’s your major?”
I supposed that didn’t fall into the no-course-schedule rule, but I dreaded answering the question. It was one thing to admit to being undeclared when I was a freshman, but the weird, pitying looks had started last year.
“I don’t have one yet. I’m still deciding.”
Liam didn’t even blink as he wrote it on his sheet. “Okay, so you’re undeclared.”
“I have one,” I said, thinking of the guys he was with the other night. “Where do you live? I mean, do you go home to Scotland for breaks?”
“Can’t afford it. I saved up for two years so that I could study over here. One of the biology professors it sponsoring me. He has a son in the Alpha Lambda fraternity,” he told me as I scribbled several things on my paper.
That explained the guys he was with. “So you came here specifically to study?”
“I’m going into oceanography,” he said. “I volunteer at the aquarium, so I can get acquainted with the local aquatic life.”
“The one on Pine Street?” It was only a few blocks down from Garrett’s, which explained why I kept running into him there.
“That’s the one,” he said. Liam leaned forward in his chair and turned the full force of his blue eyes on me. “Are you going to visit me?”
My breath hitched in my throat, but I shook my head. “Not really my thing.”
“But you’re undeclared, maybe it would inspire you.”
“I love the ocean,” I admitted, “but swimming in it terrifies me.”
“Yeah, you can’t be scared of the ocean as an oceanographer.”
“Do you dive?” I asked him. I had seen guys in wet suits at the local beach. I thought they looked crazy, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Liam in a wet suit.
“Yeah, you want to come with me?”
“Not a swimmer, remember?”
“I won’t let you drown.” His words were thick. Possibly because of his accent, but maybe because he was staring at me so intensely.
“Okay.” I focused on my paper. “So you’re a budding oceanographer with five sisters who makes waffles and lives with a professor.” I wasn’t too bad at this assignment, and I’d managed to mostly avoid flirting with him so far.
“And you’re an undeclared major with no siblings. That’s not enough. I need to know more about you,” he said as he tapped his pen on his paper.
I don’t think I was imagining how he emphasized the word
need
.
“I live with my best friend, Jess. You met her,” I said.
“When did you meet her?” he asked.
“We were assigned as roommates freshman year when I lived in the dorms.”
“Good. That’s three things. Who was the other girl you were with at Garrett’s?” he asked.
“Cassie. She lived across the hall. She’s actually still in the dorms. Her scholarship covers her living expenses.” Cassie was ridiculously smart, which most people didn’t realize given her sailor-in-training vocabulary. But I wouldn’t trade places with her if it meant I had to keep living in the dorms.
“Favorite food?” He was reaching for things now.
“Tacos,” I said. “Although it’s impossible to get good Mexican food here. It’s easier in California.”
Liam looked fascinated by this information. Almost as if he was hanging off my every word. Maybe this assignment was more dangerous than I thought. Now he could build up an image of me to go with the night we spent together. I needed a way to remind him that I was only interested in being friends or class partners. But his next question surprised me.
“Have you been to Disneyland?”
I blinked and laughed a little by his boyish interest. “Of course. It was my parents go-to vacation idea.”
“I’m so jealous.” Liam smacked the table with his hand. “I’ve always wanted to go to Disneyland.”
I grinned and wrote this down. “It’s not that great. Bad animatronics and old rides. Disneyworld is much cooler.”
“Stop,” he said, holding a hand up. “We don’t have anything like that in Scotland. I keep hoping I’ll get a chance to go while I’m here.”
“Maybe you can come home with me for a break.” The suggestion was out of my mouth before I could swallow it back. Had I just invited him to my house? Was I trying to encourage him?
Liam gave me a wicked smile. “Maybe I will.”
The memory of our bodies pressed together, sweaty and naked, flashed through my mind, and I tried to shake it out. I wasn’t about to wind up back in bed with him. The suggestion was a polite invitation. I didn’t have to follow through on it.
In the front of the room, Markson called the class to attention, asking us to leave our papers for his perusal over the weekend. I looked over to see if Liam had been able to get all ten things about me. To my surprise, the sheet was full. I didn’t feel like I had told him that much. My own paper was missing one thing, so I scrawled one final thing I knew about him on the bottom of the page.
Markson stood by the door, collecting our papers, but he paused when I handed him mine.
“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you the other day. I’m glad you came back.” Up close he was younger than I thought. His closely cropped hair and preppy clothes hid his real age. He probably wasn’t even a real professor, but one of the grad students who taught the more generalized courses for the department. I even thought I spotted a tattoo creeping out of his button-down shirt.
“No big deal,” I said with a shrug. Even though it was a really big deal to me. But if he had the balls to apologize, then he probably would back off for the rest of the course. If not, I could always get my revenge when we filled out feedback forms during finals.
Liam followed me out the door, walking closely by my side as we excited Taylor Hall. I tried to shake him, but he seemed content to tail me.
“Listen, Jillian, do you want to grab coffee?” he asked me in a hopeful voice, adding, “As friends?”
I wanted to tell him no, but instead a “maybe” slipped out.
“Maybe next week?” he suggested. “I wouldn’t mind knowing more than ten things about you.”
Before I could react, he grabbed my iPhone from me and tapped in a number.
“Sure,” I said, adding another “maybe” to the end of it.
“I hope I see you out this weekend.” Liam slung his bag over his shoulder as his lips curved into a pleased grin.
Thanks to this class, he officially knew more about me than any guy I’d known since high school. I slid the lock on my phone and went to delete his number, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it when I saw it listed under Waffle-maker.