He smiled at me as I exited the closet, but his eyes pulsed with concern. I instantly felt worse—Charles Hayward had about a gazillion other things to worry about than a not right in the head son. With the usurping a dominant Inheritor Alliance that adopted everything that Immortals as a whole stood against thing, father had had his hands full with clean-up duty. Plus, being all but the President of the United States of Guardians had a way of filling a man’s schedule the better part of forever.
“Hey,” I offered, folding my hands into the low-slung jeans pocket. “Good to see you all back and safe. Sounds like things got a little hairy with those Inheritor slugs.” I did my best impersonation of old Patrick, hoping crazy Patrick wouldn’t burst through the fake shell.
“Hairy is a good word for it, yes,” he answered, his eyes scanning over me, trying to seem unintentional about it. “Son,”—just the way he said it, all coated in apprehension, made me cringe—“what are you doing here?”
I didn’t know what
here
he was referring to. The bedroom of my best friend and the woman I loved; Montana, when I wouldn’t have tolerated being left behind while my family went on a mission of butt-kicking proportions; or maybe my present state of mind that was fragile to put it nicely and loony to put it, well, truthfully. I went with the least complicated of
heres
.
“Sierra cornered me in the bathroom and isn’t one of those girls that has the word
no
in her comprehension bank, if you catch what I’m throwing your way,” I said.
He shook his head. “Let me clarify. What are you doing?” he asked, laying it all there. Not that I’d come to expect anything less from my father. Delicacies like pleasantries, beating around the bush, sweeping things under the rug, so on and so forth, weren’t in his arsenal. Chancellor Charles Hayward was a meat and potatoes kind of guy; he didn’t care how uncomfortable he made you, and he didn’t miss a thing. I suppose you could say growing up with this kind of father figure in your life, for generations no less, was a bit intense.
When I didn’t offer an immediate answer, he added, “The past few months I haven’t recognized you. The son I remember, the man I know you are, is either in hiding or gone,” he said, unbuttoning his coat jacket and measuring me with his eyes. “Now, I’m fine with you needing a break, some time clear your head or renew your spirit or whatever it is you need,”—I might clarify that I don’t think my father has the slightest idea I fell for Bryn, her Unity being the catalyst for my “break”—“but you’ve holed yourself up in a room for weeks straight, drinking more root beer than any grown man should,”—something of amusement tugged at his mouth—“Joseph all but had to force-shower you, and I know you like to
try
to disguise your proclivity for the fairer sex, but when did you begin teleporting in the opposite direction of a beautiful young lady?”
I knew perception was considered to be a virtue, but to the son of a perceptive father, it was more like a curse. “I just need some time to sort things out. Get my head on straight again,” I mumbled, only realizing when I was done that I’d mumbled. I wasn’t a mumbler, at least the old me hadn’t been. Sure, I muttered, the smart alec I’m-going-to-pretend-I-don’t-want-you-to-hear-this-but-I-really-do kind of under the breath verbiage, but I’d always had more than enough backbone to stay above mumbling. Apparently, no longer.
“You’ve had some time,” he replied. “How much have you gotten figured out? How much straighter is your head back on?” He asked with genuine honesty, nothing antagonistic about it, but I almost would have preferred the latter because an honest question required an honest answer, and I’d rather give him about a million other answers than the honest one.
“Let’s just say I’ve only added more questions to the pile than I’ve wrangled out answers,” I said, clearing my throat. “And I can’t even remember where I left my head.”
My father took that in, sorting through it before answering. He was the kind of man that defined
think before you speak
. “So shutting yourself away and trying your hardest to pretend the world doesn’t exist hasn’t cured you of whatever this is?” he said, scrolling his eyes over me. I didn’t respond. I knew from decades of experience he wasn’t looking for one. “Only a fool would think that continuing down the exact same path would lead to a different result, and since neither of us are fools,”—he scrubbed his hand over his mouth threatening to pull up in the corners—“I’m sure one of us can come up with another option that is less dramatic and escapist to help the son I know you are come back to us.”
I hated that reverse psychology crap. I succumbed to the inevitability of where this little father/son chat was heading, and though I couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction he was going with it, I knew it would be all downhill from here. I slouched down onto the nearest piece of furniture, acting more my biological age than my true one, as was my style anyways, until I felt the mattress molding around my body. William and Bryn’s mattress . . .
My body wouldn’t have jolted harder than if I’d had power lines fitted over my head. Father ignored my insane reaction; at least, mostly ignored it. “What are you planning to do with your life next?”
Nothing like a loaded question to ease a cat on a hot tin roof down. “Well . . .” I began, rubbing the back of my head and searching the ceiling for an answer of the genius quality.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, interrupting my dead-end thoughts. “And since you’re perhaps too close to the situation to formulate a plan that will wield us a favorable result”—like running a Council meeting; after a century of dedication, it was hard for father to separate himself from the Chancellor role—“I’d like to suggest an option, something I imagine you’ll be rather eager to explore.”
He was building it up, whatever scheme he’d come up in that mind of his. Not a good sign.
“You’ve been a rock the entire time of your Immortality, carrying out your duties without a question, taking your calling seriously, becoming the most capable strength instructor in our Alliance. Everything has been done with the larger good considered, selflessness at its pinnacle.”
I coughed, looking away from my father going on about me being the Gandhi of Immortals. If there was a contest for that title, my name wouldn’t have been on the ballot. I wasn’t all selfish, but I wasn’t selfless either. That was a title reserved for my saints for brothers.
“All right, father,” I interrupted, not able to take it any longer. “Building me up before you bring me down isn’t exactly your thing. Come on, I can take it,” I encouraged, waving my hands in a bring-it-on gesture. “Throw the hammer down. I promise I won’t cry.” His brows raised and I grinned. “I won’t cry too hard.”
Gauging me a few more moments, he nodded, resolved. “Your brothers took a little time away from Immortality, either when they were in desperate need of something new or when their encroaching stations required it.”
“Yeah, but the only times they’ve done that,” I interjected, shuffling through the memory files that all had the same red flag warning tagged to them. Red alert, red alert, red alert. “Was when they left to go to college,” I all but grumbled.
“Precisely,” he answered.
“I’m not the college type,” I said, that streak of Hayward stubbornness that ran in all of us rising like the tide.
“That’s only because you’ve never tried,” he replied calmly. “Despite the view you like to hold of yourself, you are just as intelligent as your brothers.”
“Gee whiz, thanks for the compliment there,” I said, being difficult because that was what I did. “And thanks for the suggestion. Really,” I reiterated, crossing my arms. “But I’m just fine where I’m at. Whatever it is I’m going through, I’ll be fine in a few days time. I can feel the selfish, very un-college like me coming back already.” I plastered on an overdone smile, chancing a look at my father’s stoic face, remembering why it was useless arguing with him on anything. Charles Hayward’s word was law, father and Chancellor alike.
“You’re already enrolled,” he said, not even attempting to lighten the blow with an apologetic tone. “Fall semester starts in a couple of weeks.”
I groaned, the deep belly-rumbling kind. “Any chance of vetoing this ultimatum?” I asked needlessly.
My dad’s fisted hand covered his mouth, hiding his grin. “That’s the wonderful thing about ultimatums, son. They’re final.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you were going to say,” I said, feeling the respect and admiration I’d painstakingly gleaned in our Alliance running through my fingers when everyone heard I was so mental I had to be sent away to the kegs, frat houses, and textbooks of the land of Mortals. “So where are you sequestering me and for how long am I banish-ed?” I said in my most Shakespeare worthy voice.
“It takes the normal college student four years to get their degree,”—I choked on the time reference—“but since you’re anything but normal, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.” He turned to leave the room, judging I needed a serious moment alone to figure out the path of suck my life was heading down.
“So when I get in my car, which direction should I head until I find hell?” I called out after him, wondering if I tried hard enough, if I could kill myself. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
“I doubt you’ll need twenty guesses. You’ve got a whole family of alums, so there was no problem pulling a few strings and getting you enrolled.”
“Super,” I deadpanned. “Said college wouldn’t happen to begin with an S, be two syllables, and rhyme with man-I’m-already-bored, would it?”
My father responded with a laugh. Infuriating. “Try to enjoy it, Patrick. As much as you are capable at least.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening.
One week into fall semester at one of the top-rated universities in the nation and I had to admit, father had been right. I capitol L-oved Stanford. It was right up my alley, I guess you could say. A gorgeous campus graced by the California sun everyday, decorated with girls that genetics had looked favorably on, and professors that didn’t take roll call. If ever there was a Utopia on this spherical mass, I’d found it. I’d even added a new piece to my real estate collection, so if I wasn’t enjoying the California girls—that were, by the way, everything they were cracked up to be—I was enjoying the view of the Pacific from my swanky as hell, four thousand square foot bachelor pad.
College life was the good life.
Another added bonus to paradise found, Bryn wasn’t at the forefront of my mind and on the tip of my tongue. Whether it was my new surroundings, or the sunshine, or the reinstitution of regular hygiene, I didn’t care because that heart ripped out of my chest feeling was beginning to dull. I could breathe, hypothetically, for the first time in weeks.
Hello, hello,
my non-stop internal monologue interrupted as my baby blues detected the blur of a herd of scantily—more like
barely
—clad legs passing by.
Incoming
.
“Looking good, ladies, looking good,” I said, tilting my aviators down so there’d be no mistake who I was looking at. The leggiest of the leggy, the blonde one that had more than likely driven more than her fair share of men to insanity, noted my unblinking stare and smiled one of my favorite kinds, the anything but innocent one. God I loved that smile. “Keep up the good work. And when you decide that school is for fools, come find me. I’ll be here all year.”
Blondie tossed a wink my way and the look in those lidded eyes told me the bait I’d tossed out had caught the exact fish I wanted in record time. They didn’t call me the hook, line, and sinker man for no reason.
As I watched goldilocks and her co-eds hip-sway away, a shadow eclipsed my face. A clearing of the throat followed.
If I didn’t have justification to be irritated because I’d been interrupted in the middle of my hate to watch you go but love to watch you leave personal experience, I had absolute reason to be ticked my mid-day rays were being temporarily cut off. This is primo California sunshine you can’t put a price on.
“You know, I’ve passed you at least a dozen times this week, and if it wasn’t for your incessant cat calls that are about as creative as a paint by numbers, I’d have thought you were a statue,” the dark form casting a shadow on my morning said. Female voice, but that was about all I could identify. The way she was directly in front of the sun made her appear as a black paper cutout. “You haven’t moved from this patch of grass once.”
“Observant,” I muttered under my breath.
She continued, either not hearing or not caring I was trying to give her the brush off. “Just in case you missed the bulletin, this is a university. A pretty good one actually. Complete with classes, credits, and co-eds.”
“The co-eds I have most definitely noticed,” I said, shielding my hand over my eyes, trying to get a better look at the blacked-out woman in front of me.
“Good for you,” she replied, clapping her hands in a patronizing way. “Your parents must be so proud. You know, if you were going to do nothing but play hooky the four years of your one time chance at a college career, why didn’t you go to some state school or, better yet, a community college, and save yourself some money?”
Given this girl was a stranger and didn’t have a clue about what I’d been through
and
that I’d all but been forced to attend here because my certifiable genius brothers attended, it seemed she was being a little harsh.
“Let me save you the suspense, sugar,” I said, slipping my glasses back into place in hopes I’d be able to make out this fiery female wielding insult to add to my injury.
“There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that are the college sort and those that are not. I’d fill you in on where I fit in to those two categories, but given you’ve seen me a dozen times sun tanning during prime class time, I’m guessing you already know.”
Her head bobbed side to side, causing the sun to shoot like lasers into my eyes with every bob. “And let me save you the suspense,” she repeated. “You’ll never know unless you try.”
Few things catch me off guard, but I have to admit that kind of did. “You are so very wise, grasshopper,” I said, lowering my voice and making a face. “Any other proverbs for me today?”
She laughed. It was a small one, barely two notes, but it was there. “Yeah, here’s one,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “Get your suntanned butt to class.”
And then she was gone, twisting away and cutting into the rest of the college sorts intent upon their next class where their minds would be filled with useless junk and impossible dreams. I didn’t catch a very good look at her, other than average height, average build, and having an impenetrable wall up to my charm, but I didn’t need to see more.
From that alone, I already knew she wasn’t my type.
Another full day passed in exactly the same way, lounging in the grass, only diverting my attention from the sun to admire the stream of sorority sisters swaying by. Although, come the same time every day, the female droves thinned out to alarmingly low level. Darn those early afternoon classes, preferred by ten out of ten college students near and far.
I felt like I was betraying my rebel stance, but a man’s got to take matters into his own hands at times in life. If the eye candy wouldn’t come to me, I’d have to go to it.
I popped up, shuffling through my backpack that had served as nothing more than an outdoor pillow during my tour of college life. I knew I’d stuffed that course schedule somewhere in one of these pockets.
Fingers scurrying over the bottom, I felt a wadded up piece of paper and pulled it out. Just the way I’d left it. Smoothing it open, I searched over the classes. Whoever had selected my classes for me thought I was a genius or was messing with me. Since I was all but certain Joseph had taken on Patrick Does Stanford enrollment duties, I had my answer.
There it was, my early afternoon class, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Intro to Psychology, complete with a hand penned note from the little brother peanut gallery:
Appropriate for a head case like you. Enjoy!
I growled, contemplating teleporting my California suntanned self back to Montana to unleash a nasty noogie on the wiseass. See if he was still laughing then.
“Excuse me,” someone apologized, dodging me where I straddled the sidewalk contemplating. A girl with legs that could turn a man cross-eyed if he stared too long jogged by, tripping my thoughts of revenge. Payback could wait, those legs couldn’t.
Like a magnet, I was pulled after her, not sure if I was heading anywhere close to the right direction the building Intro to Psych, AKA Intro to Pseudo-Science, was held, but I didn’t care.
I had to lengthen my stride to keep up with her, holding myself back from breaking into a gallop after her. I wasn’t used to chasing after a woman, literally or figuratively, and if I was going to break tradition, I wanted to do it right.
She shoved through the door leading into a brick building, and it was all I could do to hang onto whatever dignity I still had and not break into a run after her. I flung the same door open she’d gone through, not even ten seconds behind her, and scanned up and down the halls, keeping my gaze low because I couldn’t tell you the shade of her hair, but I could draw an exact likeness of those legs.
Nothing, nowhere, and nada. Disappearing as instantly as she’d appeared. Who knows? Maybe I’d made the whole thing up in my deranged, sick, screw-loose mind. I was positively mental.
Intro to Psych, here I come.
“Hey, man.” I grabbed the shirt sleeve of the closest passerby. “Can you point me in the direction of . . .”—I flashed my schedule in front of him, pointing at the location because it was three seconds faster than saying the dastardly long name—“the place where they teach you about the id and the ego, killing your mother and macking on your father thing.”
The boy who looked like he’d graduated primary school a year and a half ago looked at me like I was a whack-job. Intuition was right on par. The kid was going to make it far.
“You’re here,” he answered, steering away from me like crazy was contagious.
“Ah, groovy,” I said. “Any idea where Room”—I glanced down at my schedule—“120 is?”
“Down that way,” the retreating boy said, pointing down the hall to the right. “Last room on the left.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, taking a breath of resolution. Time to go get responsible and learn-ed. “Hey,” I hollered after the boy. He turned, half of his face formed into a wince. “You haven’t seen a hot little minx running through here with killer legs, would you?”
The boy took a circumnavigation of the student filled hall. Shrugging, he said, “Take your pick.”
I could have gone into an argument that all female legs are not created equal, but I remembered what it had been like to be a twenty year old boy, an
actual
twenty year old boy, and women’s legs were women’s legs. As holy and sought after as the fountain of youth. “Thanks again,” I said, loping down the hall and doing my best to extinguish the woman and her legs from my mind.
Other fish in the sea, other fish in the sea, I repeated to myself as I journeyed to the end of the hall. I glided into the auditorium style classroom, and I must have been early because it was only about half way full. My brothers would be so proud. The last time I’d been on time for class had been my first day of grammar school.
My eyes floated through the chairs, row for row, until I made it to the front. No targets of particular interest, so this whole going to class thing was an utter waste. Oh well, I was here now, and I was always willing to try anything once.
I prowled down the stairs, my eyes doing the same, figuring I might as well do the first college class thing all the way. I walked down the front row, taking a seat dead center. Sliding my backpack from my shoulder, I glanced down the row on either side of me. Laptops at the ready, fingers cocked over the keys, eyes forward, backs straight. They looked like German Shepherds ready to pounce on the first word out of the professor’s mouth.
Overachiever was the first word that came to mind.
I didn’t have a laptop, nor did I have a notebook to take notes in. Not that I needed either. I had a memory like a trap. Literally. Whatever went in that I made a conscious effort to retain, stayed right there. So you’d think school would come easy for me, right? It could have if I could have kept my mind focused on
school
. Instead I found myself focusing on the perks of school. Namely, the women. I had the Immortal equivalent of ADD.
“I don’t know whether to be flattered you listened to me or insulted it took you so long,” someone said as they slid into the seat next to me.
My eyes were already angled down, so when those legs of divine origin settled into place beside me, I almost gave my arm a pinch to make sure I was awake. I was staring, I knew, and I also knew after a few seconds had ticked off without a reply or a turning of my stare somewhere else, the owner of those legs knew what I was doing. But this wasn’t one of those times where I cared about being gentlemen-like.
“Hello, hello,” I said, twisting my smile into just the right place I’d found drove women nuts. Not too high, one side pulled up more than the other, and topped off with a sideways glance with an unmistakable glint in the eyes. Drove them wild.
“Looking good, lady?” she said, pulling the words from my mouth and not in a particularly amused tone. “Yeah, I caught that the first million times you hollered it out on the quad.”
The wince that pulled my face together was as painful as a palm slap to the forehead would have been. “Blacked out by the sun girl calling me out yesterday?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I squinted my eyes open to look into her face for the first time.
When I saw it, I don’t know what had taken me so long to get there. Her legs had nothing on that face. A face that wasn’t perfect, but a face that was compelling—compelling in a way that drew me in and kept me there.
She smiled, not demurely or coyly, a real one. An honest-to-goodness, genuine smile, the rare kind humanity had somewhere along the butt-kissing, brown-nosing, sucking-up way forgotten how to form. “That’s me,” she said, twisting a little towards me. “But my friends call me Emma.” Her smile peaked higher as she extended her hand towards me.
I didn’t know why the burst of perspiration had surfaced, but I made sure to wipe my palm on my slacks before sliding my hand around hers. My hand wrapped around the entirety of hers, and that feeling that runs all the way down to your toes and turns your stomach to mush hit me hard. So hard, it knocked my purchase of the English language off the tip of my tongue.
“And you must be suntanned, cat-calling, god’s gift to not only the world, but the entire universe, boy who likes to play hooky,” she said, filling in the conversation since I’d been rendered speechless. First time in a long time that had happened, but I was almost as talkative as I was charming, so it came back to me quickly.
Nodding, I met her eyes. “But my friends call me Patrick,” I said, clearing my throat, hoping I didn’t sound like a guy that had just been kicked in the crotch.
“You look like a Patrick,” she said, shuffling a notebook from her backpack that had either been run over by a steam roller several hundred times or was as old as I was.
“Thanks. I think,” I said, not sure if the reason I wouldn’t look away from her green colored eyes was because I couldn’t or didn’t want to. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you yesterday for verbally humiliating me in public, but thank you. I’ve never been the kind of guy that gets the message unless someone takes me by the proverbial head and smashes it through a brick wall.”