Page 1 of Notorious Man on Campus

Chapter 1

Rick “Brick” Blanick

“What’s the matter with you?” Roman shoves past me into the kitchen as I stand like a stone on the threshold, feeling like I’ve been struck by Medusa.

“What the fuck, Brick?” Dylan asks as he falls in next to me, coming off the back stairs.

Good question. Simple question. Right?

Not. The answer is far from simple. The answer stands across the room at the sink washing pots and pans, banging them around like she’s playing in the rhythm section of a heavy metal band. Either that or she’s fucking pissed at the world.

Well, I know what that’s like. Except it’s her I’m pissed at. What the fuck is she doing here at St. Paul University? At BMOC House? My house. Big Man on Campus House where I’m responsible for the well-being of a dozen of the school’s elite athletes. Unofficially responsible. I put it on myself to make sure we’re all in a prime mindset to win.

“Someone pull your plug out?” Allie says as she comes up on my other side. She’s Dylan’s girlfriend and I don’t usually pay much attention to her, which makes her try harder to get a rise from me. Occasionally we’ll banter, trading increasingly bizarre insults and witticisms like dueling banjos playing faster and louder until the strings pop. In our case, it’s usually Dylan who pops. Or threatens to pop me if I don’t back off his girl. She’s funny and smart, I’ll give her that. If she were a guy, I’d pal around with her. But she’s not.

Dylan snickers at her sideways crack about me being a robot. It’s an ongoing theme of Allie’s barbs. What she doesn’t understand is that I truly don’t care, aside from the entertainment value, what the fuck she hurls at me. For the record, I'm more implacable than robotic. But it's all in the name of fun.

Roman walks through the kitchen straight to the dining room to get his seat. As if someone would take his chosen spot from him.

He’s a fucking offensive lineman on St. Paul University’s football team. No one is going to take his fucking seat. Not even at BMOC House, where all the best athletes from SPU live, where I rule as president. Dylan elbows me and juts his chin in the direction of the girl at the sink, a question creasing his brow.

Finding my voice, I pull my shit together but I don’t particularly want to share the answer to the WTF question. It’s long and complicated and all about the girl standing at the sink, the girl who hasn’t even bothered to acknowledge us, barely turning her head.

“Nyla,” I scrape out her name.

She turns around. My heart taps hard and fast like I just downed a gallon of Red Bull. It’s her. Nyla Rhoades, the last girl on earth I ever wanted to see again. The girl who haunts my dreams like an evil temptress.

Get a grip, Brick. What happened to your famous indifference? Your world class cool and disregard for emotional entanglements with all females?

I do allow myself to feel lust because, hell, I’m male, and lust isn’t an emotion. And that’s all I feel for Nyla. After four fucking years, that explosive heat shouldn’t be shooting down my spine straight to my cock like a shot of epinephrine to the heart, making it throb to life. Yet it does.

“If it isn’t Brick aka Rick Blanick,” she says. Same sassy mouth as always. Same wrap-around-your-cock-and-squeeze voice. Something about the low velvety sound of it, the musical lilt, hits me where it counts every time. Then the slow smile, like she knows she’s stirring the pot of my desire, drags itself across her face, sure and warm at the same time. Fuck. She hasn’t changed—unless you count getting even better at turning on the heat, her shield of confidence growing strong enough to bounce boulders.

“What are you doing here?”

“You two know each other?” Dylan asks me. There’s a tease in his Captain Obvious question. I spare him a quick shut-the-fuck-up look and note Allie’s curious glance ping-ponging between me and Nyla. Shit. I wrap up tight whatever I’m showing on my face because the last thing I need is Allie getting a whiff of the truth about my past with Nyla. That secret isn’t ever going to see the light of day. For too many reasons to contemplate. Shoving the heap of trash that constitutes everything that’s happened between us, I force a cool smile at Nyla and join her on the other side of the kitchen, as if she’s any other girl, just an acquaintance.

“Nyla worked for my family.”

“I used to date Brick’s brother,” she adds. Shit. And just like that, one small corner of my past shame is exposed. I need to shut this down now.

“Long time ago,” I say. “So you’re working with Majik? She told me she was hiring someone to help in the kitchen.”

“I’m here on scholarship.” She smiles, the joy and pride bursting from her like a ray of sunshine, and I’m worried I’ll go blind. I have a severe sensitivity to sunny female personalities. What she says registers.

“You’re a student at SPU? A freshman?”

She shakes her head. “No, I went to Wilkinsburg Community College for two years so I’m starting here as a junior. Only a year behind you.”

I nod, pretending this is all fine and dandy with me, that she didn’t just slap me with the threat of exposure, a threat I’ll need to deal with for the entire next year.

As if she didn’t just turn my entire world upside down and turn my senior year that was supposed to be my year of triumph as QB1 and President of BMOC House, into a living hell.

“That’s great,” Allie says. “What’s your major?”

“I’m here on Majik’s culinary arts scholarship.” She inflicts another painfully elated smile on us, but no one else seems to mind. “I’ll be doing more than washing pots and pans here at BMOC House.” She zeroes her eyes in on mine. “Brick knows all about my cooking and baking skills. He was a fan of my pastries.” My chest tightens and my heart stutters out of whack, but I manage not to show that I want to strangle her. At the same time, she’s right about the pastries. I salivate, overcoming the seething hate that has the rest of me in a stranglehold.

“You cooking tonight?”