Winter Miracle Read online

  “Which one of us are you referring to?” I ask.

  Truth is, we’re pros at this. It’s almost too easy to get a rise out her.

  The Dean starts to smile, pushing her cell to the side. “Okay. Very funny. And hell, you’ve got me. This… sex act was performed off campus grounds. We can’t identify who posted it to the intranet or how they came to obtain it. It looks, god knows why, consensual, so my hands are tied, but know this. When you screw up, and just like your big brother, you will, I’ll be waiting here with Abbotsleigh’s one-strike policy to kick your preppy asses back to the East End. Am I clear?”

  We nod in unison.

  “Just give me a reason, boys. Just one,” she continues. “Now, get the hell out of my office. I need to order some eye bleach.”

  *

  I lean against Colton as we step outside. “First year inside and already you’ve got balls bigger than Hunter and I combined.”

  Hands in his pockets, Hunter starts walking backwards to speak to Colton. “You forgot to tell her I was the one filming the whole ‘debaucherous’ spectacle.

  I punch Colton in the shoulder. He stumbles away and almost hits a pretty redhead. “That was ballsy, little bro, but you’re marked now. The smarter play would have been to keep quiet.”

  Colton laughs, head tilted back. “And I suppose you two football fagboys know all about the ‘smarter play,’ right?”

  Hunter shrugs ahead. “At least we’re not jerking each other off on the lacrosse field all day.”

  Colton stabs his finger at Hunter. “Fuck you, Joe Montana.”

  “Lick my ass, stick boy.”

  I push them apart. “Enough, enough. You want to fight, or you want to get laid?”

  “Por que no los dos?” trills Colton, imitating the little girl from the Old Paso ad. “Why can’t we have both?”

  I shove him again. “You’re buying.”

  *

  The campus bar doesn’t have a name, but everyone calls it ‘The Lab’ given its proximity to the science building.

  The rest of the Trojans are here. They form a gauntlet for Colton, shoving him through.

  “Where’s the rest of the lacrosse team?” shouts one of the boys.

  “Practicing their ball-handling skills,” calls another.

  Poor kid. He should have stuck with football like Hunter and I, but no. He wanted to be different.

  Colton emerges from the gauntlet smiling. It’s all in jest, after all. He’s a Beckett. There’s a certain level of respect around these parts for that name.

  Hunter and I wait with a couple of others at our usual table up the back, Colton arriving with a tray of drinks.

  I pick one up. “What the hell is this?”

  Colton places the others down. “The girl at the bar called it a ‘magic mojito.’ You said this was the Lab, so we should experiment, right?”

  I swipe the cotton candy on top of my drink. It dissolves like a deflating balloon. “Looks like a fucking tampon. What happened to good, old-fashioned beer?”

  Hunter’s already downed his. He wipes his mouth, addressing Colton. “The girl at the bar? That’s Lucy, and you just put down, what? A hundred for this round?”

  “Two hundred,” replies Colton.

  Hunter stands up, shouting across the bar to Lucy, who’s smiling with knowing. “Thank you very fucking much, Lucy, my darling.”

  She salutes back, her nose piercing glinting.

  I push the cocktail aside, speaking to Colton. “You’ve been played, baby brother. Lucy’s laughing her ass off over there.”

  He looks confused. “But…”

  I put a hand up. “What? Did you think she was going to suck your dick or something? Hate to tell you this, but you’d have better luck penetrating a Sherman tank than Lucy Love over there. Ain’t that right, Lucy?” I shout.

  She throws her hands up. “I like girls. What can I say?”

  “See?”

  Colton falls into his seat. “Ah, shit.”

  I clap him on the shoulder. “You’ll learn, brother. You’ll learn.”

  Someone picks up my glass. “What the fuck is this sissy shit?”

  It’s Dwayne and his cohort of cum-munchers. We might all be Trojans, but there’s only room for one quarterback this year, and I intend it to be me.

  Hunter, normally the most level-headed of us, stands and shoves him, the ‘magic mojito’ spilling down the front of Dwayne’s jersey. “Fuck off, Dwayne.”

  Dwayne shoves him back, pulling out a chair from the table beside us and sitting down. “Hey, Cayden.”

  Reluctantly, I turn with hands raised. “Sorry, Dwayne. I’m fresh out of blowjobs tonight.”

  Dwayne fingers the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, because it looks like you still have a bit of, you know, right here.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” I ask.

  I see Hunter fuming. He’s ready to knock this prick out. Fuck what the Dean said. The Lab could use some excitement tonight.

  Dwayne leans close. “I want you to pull back in training. It’s my time.”

  I laugh. “So, what? So you can be QB? What the fuck makes you think I’m going to allow that?”

  Dwayne looks to his pals before answering. “Because you’re a limp-dick waste of fucking space.”

  That’s it. Hunter launches for him, but he’s intercepted by Trojan team captain Ricky Lewis. He holds Dwayne back with one hand, Hunter with the other. Colton’s on his feet looking for a piece too.

  Dwayne sees him. “Oh, look at the Beckett baby here. Big boy sport too much for you? Too busy playing with your silly little stick?”

  Colton launches now, Ricky forced to hold him back as well.

  “The fuck?!” shouts Ricky. “You assholes are on the same fucking team, you know.”

  He shoves Dwayne away. “Sit somewhere else.”

  Dwayne flips the bird before walking off. We’re laughing, but it’s short lived.

  Ricky turns to us. “And you two?”

  “Three,” chimes Colton.

  Ricky ignores him. “You’re not helping the situation. The Dean’s all over my ass this year. She wants blood.”

  “We know,” I tell him.

  “Do you? Because I think you’ve forgotten what happened to Mason.”

  Mason, the eldest of us. He was a student here at Abbotsleigh as well, on his way to grid-iron fame, but he fucked it all away. He fucked up and they kicked his ass out. It didn’t matter. He still became a lawyer. He still cashes in more money per annum than Smith could hope to see in her entire life, but he never lived it down, what happened here.

  Ricky picks up the magic mojito Dwayne discarded. “Get your shit together, boys.”

  He walks off.

  I grab Colton by the collar and hand him another hundred. “Beer this time. For the love of God.”

  *

  Three rounds in and my wallet’s feeling a hell of a lot lighter. That goes double for my head, which scans The Lab for promise. We’ve attracted a couple of girls to the table, but they’re not my type. No, I’m looking for something different tonight, something fresh—exotic.

  Hunter’s boring the table to death with running stats when the need to urinate shifts from ‘pressing’ to ‘extremely fucking urgent.’ I excuse myself and stumble my way to the john, fending off two girls looking to join me. The first I was with earlier this week, a real screamer. The second has a face like an armpit, though it could be the beer googles in action.

  Whatever the case, I manage to make it to the bathroom, answering the call before taking a further five minutes to find the door out.

  I see her the second I’m out.

  She glows. I mean, one of the spotlights on the roof is literally beaming down on her as she stands at the bar. She speaks to Lucy, papers of some sort in her hand.

  She’s fucking angelic, and not just because of the aforementioned halo. It’s her honey-blonde hair, the way it’s drawn up into a tight ponytail. It’s the way she stands,
the way her lush lips move. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

  Locked on. Weapons hot.

  My cock gives a small jerk of life in my pants. It’s as hungry as I am for something wet and warm to sink into.

  I’m on my way, ignoring the cat calls from the corner, when I see Dwayne stand and stumble his own way toward Angel Girl from the other side of the room.

  Fuck that.

  I quicken my pace, almost falling over a table in my haste, but he’s too quick. He sidles up beside her as Lucy disappears to the far side of the bar to attend to a gaggle of Sig Kappa sisters who are shouting something about slippery nipples.

  Dwayne taps Angel Girl on the shoulder. She turns, bemused.

  He leans in and starts to speak, a hand moving up her hip.

  She shakes her head and swats it away, but Dwayne hasn’t got the picture. He leans in closer and presses her against the bar, a hand snaking up between her legs.

  She screams, shouts something, but it’s lost in the din of The Lab, Twenty-One Pilots pumping from the speakers overhead.

  Dwayne manages to get a hand over her mouth, another pinning her right hand to the bar while he grinds and oscillates against her.

  I’m there in seconds. I shove him, far harder than I mean to.

  He’s a big guy, but he’s drunk. He goes spinning away, sprawling onto a table, glasses smashing to the ground, the entire place coming to a stop.

  He’s down, disorientated, but he’ll be up soon enough. He brushes fragments of glass off his jacket while I close my fists, preparing to take him out.

  I’m ready for him, red all I see, until I’m swept away by strong hands, literally dragged towards the door by Hunter and the others.

  As I’m being pulled, I see Dwayne’s buddies coming to his aid.

  Just before the stairs, I manage to break free from Hunter’s grip. He hauls me back. “Cayden. Fuck. Let’s go.”

  “The girl,” I stammer. “Wait.”

  I’m looking for Angel Girl, desperate for another glimpse of her, but she’s gone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  INDY

  I close the door and press myself against it, breathing hard.

  What the hell just happened?

  “Everything okay?”

  My roommate, Naomi, looks up from her cell, her face neon blue. She seems too old to be a college student, but I’d far rather rooming with someone who’s here to study as opposed to body-shotting their way through the Greek alphabet.

  I push off the door and take a seat on the edge of my bed, reaching to scratch my shoulder, as has become my habit. “I was accosted by some jock at the bar.”

  Naomi sits up and places her cell down, suddenly serious. Her dark goddess braids are still in place, her mocha skin blemish-free. “Did he hurt you?” The way she says it implies she’s about to go Terminator 2 on his ass.

  I shake my head, reaching up to pull out my hairband and raking through my hair with my fingers. It’s my best feature—honey blonde in one light, copper in another, silver by night. My aunty used to call the color ‘pearl’. “No. Another guy wearing the same football jersey pushed him off. The Trojans. Do you know them?”

  Naomi looks at me curiously. “You don’t know the Abbotsleigh football team? Last year’s NCAA national champions?”

  I shrug. “I’m not big on sports, sorry.”

  I am finding it hard to forget the guy who stepped in, though, with his inky hair and ice-blue eyes. He was on a mission, alright. I should have hung around, thanked him, but my flight instinct is strong since New York.

  “What were you even doing down at the bar?” says Naomi. “I may be wrong, but you don’t strike me as the drink-until-horizontal type.”

  “I was handing in my resume, actually. Sadly, college isn’t going to pay for itself.”

  Naomi nods in understanding. “Truer words were never spoken. I’ll be in adult diapers and still paying my loans off.”

  I smile back. “There are plenty of guys out there who love that adult-baby stuff… or so I hear.”

  “Ew, and ew.”

  Naomi’s side of the room is bare save for a poster from the movie Warrior. “Do you like Tom Hardy?” I ask.

  She looks up at the poster, running her hand down Tom’s abs. “You might say I’ve got a hard-on for Hardy, yes. You don’t?”

  “Have a penis?” I retort.

  She laughs, eyes rolling. “A thing for bad boys.”

  “I don’t have time for ‘a thing,’ penis or not.”

  “You’re in college, girl. This is penis central.”

  “And testosterone,” I add. “I felt like I was going to suffocate in it at the bar.”

  “And yet you want to work there.”

  “I need a job.”

  Naomi nods. “Fair enough,” looking to my Pop! Vinyl collection she adds, “geek girl.”

  “You can call me Scully,” I wink.

  Naomi points to herself. “Does that make me Mulder?”

  I take off my jacket. “No, but it does make you X-citing.”

  She cocks an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Okay,” I laugh, “so that was bad.”

  “Bad?” she scoffs. “Putting salt instead of sugar into your coffee is bad. Prank-calling your ex is bad. That? That was terrible.”

  I smile wider. I had worried about having a roommate. I had my own place in New York not far from NYU. I even had a pot plant. The last thing I wanted to do this year was transfer to a brand-new college on the other side of the country, but it’s not like I had a choice.

  But Naomi doesn’t seem so bad.

  Maybe this isn’t going to work out after all.

  I switch off my light. “I’m going to bed. Clearly, I need to work on my material.”

  Naomi swivels until she’s sitting on the edge of her bed. “Sure thing, Scully. Sweet, penis dreams.”

  Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes.

  I pull off my pants and top, folding them neatly on top of the quilt before sliding below.

  I should be thinking about classes tomorrow, about civil litigation and contract formation, but all I’m getting is Mr. Blue Eyes. Tall, sexy, and dangerous. Yep, definite double-down on the dangerous, and god knows I’ve had enough of ‘dangerous’ to last me a lifetime lately.

  *

  I take a seat up the back of the lecture hall. This one’s a lot smaller than those at NYU, but it’s also far grander in an Ivy League way. History itself is in the cherry-wood walls. You can smell it. There’s an air of nobility about the place I quite like, absent of the hum of traffic outside.

  I’m not great with new anything. I try my best to meld into my seat and avoid attention, busying myself with my notes as students continue to pour down from the stairs above.

  Someone sits beside me. “Angel,” they say, voice low and gravelly.

  Oh, hell.

  I turn, and screw me, it’s him. Mr. Blue Eyes Big Arms from the bar last night, and boy are those eyes in full panty-melting mode today.

  “Sorry?” I stumble out.

  He leans closer. “I didn’t catch your name last night. You know, when I saved your ass from Dwayne.”

  So, you’re one of those guys, huh? The football jersey, which seems like his one wardrobe item, should have given it away. “Saved my ass? I was fine, thank you.”

  Blue Eyes Big Arms shakes his head. “Come on. He was half way to impregnating you. I’d hardly call that ‘fine.’ What were you going to do? Glass him? Snap a pool cue in half? Dial up your posse?”

  I wrap my arms around myself, because under those eyes it sure as hell feels like I’m completely naked right now. “What makes you think I don’t have a posse?”

  His gorgeous face scrunches up, the lightest smattering of five o’clock shadow upon it. “Please, I know your type.”

  Now he’s just being offensive. I lean back. “My ‘type’? Do enlighten me O master of womankind, what my type is?”

  He smiles. It’s a half inch
from ‘You’re Mine.’ “The quiet transfer.”

  My heart quickens in alarm. “How did you know I was a transfer?”

  He nods down at the Abbotsleigh sloppy joe I’m wearing. “They only hand those sweaters out to transfers. Come on. Do you see anyone else wearing one?”

  He’s right. By trying to blend in I’ve inadvertently turned myself into the sore thumb of the room.

  Blue Eyes Big Arms tugs at his football jersey. “You should have worn one of these. It’s the ‘in’ thing.”

  The way he says ‘in’ kicks some dormant part of me into life—a naughty part.

  He’s right, though. Half the room is wearing Trojan jerseys.

  “There’s a pep rally tonight,” he continues. “Bonfire… and other things. You should come.”

  “Come?” I question, taken aback.

  He leans over further, whispering into my ear, his breath hot on the open shell of it. “I can make it a certainty, if you like.”

  It takes me a second to lock onto what he’s saying. I look around for a free seat, but the lecture hall is full. I’m stuck here. I swallow down a sudden lump that’s worked its way into my throat, conscious of the way I’m squeezing my legs together harder and harder the longer this conversation goes on. “I thought you said I needed a jersey?”

  He smiles, a practiced move. “Right you are.” He stands, right there in the lecture hall, and strips off his jersey, pulling it over his head, the tank he’s wearing underneath almost coming away with it, rocky abs revealed momentarily. People start to whoop and shout.

  He’s got a great body. There’s no doubt about that—a diamond-cut chest that leads down, down, down to God only knows what. He’s got tatts, too, which is unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. His entire demeanor screams ‘I am man. I am alpha.’

  Do not fall for it.

  He sits and hands over his still-warm jersey, sitting there in his tank, arms bulging, and eyes lit. “Looks like you’re out of excuses.”

  He winks. He actually winks as if to drive this point home. Sadly, a quick quip fails to pop into my head, but I’m saved by the lecturer, who calls up from the lectern. “Mr. Beckett. Thank you for the pre-show, but if we could all settle down, we’ll get right into the thrilling world that is taxation law.”