Page 66 of Best Man on Campus

After class, Dooley shoots out the door like his pants are on fire and I frown, taking my time, leaving the classroom last in defiance of the rest of the hurried students. When I emerge I nearly run into a wall of familiar solid chest muscle and his unforgettable minty-cinnamon and leather scent surrounds me. My eyes shoot to his.

“Ben.” Seeing him splits my heart open and makes me want to sing and cry at the same time. He’s like a blinding white light, a unicorn, a rainbow, and they’re all like mirages, the kinds of ethereal things that disappear when you try to touch them.

“I needed to see you, lay my eyes on you, Jazzy.” His smile is tentative and he leans in close, whispering, “You’re more beautiful than my dreams.”

I try to back up, get some space because I feel him sucking me into his dream, but the wall is behind me. The hallway’s empty as students scurry into classrooms and we’re alone.

“Let’s go outside,” he says and he puts a hand on the small of my back in that way no one’s ever done before, making me feel like home, giving me a glimpse of a different kind of existence. We go out the door at the end of the hall to the outside, but we stay in the alcove, a warm breeze blowing my hair. He touches my face, pushing a strand of hair aside.

The need to tell him my secrets overwhelms me, erupting in a rush of words.

“I got a letter from Sarah Galiskar,” I say, barely controlling the tremble I feel from the enormity of the shock the letter gave me this morning. He’s bad for me. Seeing him dredges up everything after I managed to burn the letter, purging it, purging her, putting it all out of my head as if my past was a nightmare. I don’t miss the register of surprise in his eyes.

“The Sarah who murdered—”

“Don’t give me that fucking shit,” I hiss. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. My old social worker contacted Majik and she gave it to me and I don’t know what it’s about, but I know I didn’t want to find out, so I burned it.”

His eyes accuse me of being a fucking coward, too afraid to know.

“Why didn’t you read it, Jazzy? I thought you wanted to confront her—”

“Confronting her isn’t the same as reading a fucking letter. That’s a one-way conversation I don’t want to have.” That’s what I tell myself—told myself as I tossed the unopened letter onto the burner on my stove.

He pushes a hand though his hair, a tell that he’s upset. His tension reaches out and squeezes me with its pent-up power. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I know it’s something and I know I don’t want to know about it. So I rush on.

“Majik said Sarah wrote the letter because she’s dying or some shit, so I say let her take her secrets to her grave. I want no part of her dying confessions. She’s a lying murdering bitch. She murdered the only man who ever loved me.”

“He’s not the—” Ben says and stops, my heart stopping, rising in my throat with his words, waiting like I’m at the top of a roller coaster ready to plunge down to the bottom. He clears his throat.

“I’m the reason Sarah wrote the letter. I went to visit her, to find out why she …did what she did.”

My heart plunges so fast, dizziness hits. And then a well of grateful appreciation at how much he cares fights with raging anger and fear because I don’t want to know and he has no fucking business interfering.

“You went to see that fucking bitch?” I sputter, outrage winning out because it’s easy, familiar behavior, like putting on old slippers, the ones with claws and teeth. “Don’t you dare fucking tell me what she said. If I wanted to know I’d find out myself. All I want from her is…”

“You want the truth, Jazzy,” he says in a quiet voice.

He’s right and I’m so fucking confused I want to scream, to lash out, but I hold it in because I can’t lash out at him anymore. I can’t hurt him anymore because it hurts me too much. I want him, but I want him to be happy, not with a loser like me. I can survive without him. I’ve been surviving all this time, haven’t I?

Maybe I want to do more than survive. Maybe I want to live, to have a life, to have some fucking joy. Like the kind he gives me, like being with him, in his arms, cooking for him, singing to him, pushing him, teasing him, kissing him. Fucking him.

“What I want is you.” That’s all the warning I give him before I bunch his shirt in my fists and slam my mouth into his, opening up and sucking in his lips, thrusting my tongue as deep as it’ll go inside him. My heart pounds as the sensations sweep through me, my greedy kiss doing nothing to satisfy my thirst for him, making me want more as he wraps his arms around me and I press my hips to his, grinding against him. As soon as the feel of his hard cock against my thighs hits me, the hammering in my heart stutters and my hard breathing catches.

Letting go of his shirt, I end the kiss, but he keeps me in his arms, the stubborn bastard.

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Who says?”

I let out a hard laugh. “Same horndog as always.”

“Come back to BMOC House with me,” says the horndog. My first instinct is to say yes, to let him carry me away, but I remind myself it’s a short trip and it won’t end well. It never ends well for me.

“No. In fact, I wanted to tell you I’m going to NYC for a gig. So I’ll miss your game.” I turn away and pull from his arms. “Good luck, break a leg, whatever.”

“Jazzy, I…”

“I’m not yours, hockey boy. I’m a free spirit.”