James Games (5 page)

“She doesn’t scare me,” I shrug. “I’ve helped cows give birth before. If I can handle cow vaginas, I can handle her.”

“I’ve heard things too.” The acrid sarcasm is gone from Iris’s voice, for once. “She prides herself on how many freshman girls she can scare into transferring. She behaves when Brooklyn’s around, but Brooklyn’s on track to try out for the Olympics next year and everyone says that Sigrid is basically running Phi Delta Chi these days. She’s on a power trip and you should try to avoid pissing her off, Fiona.”

“That’s what people said about Hitler, too. Look how great ignoring him turned out.”

“I mean it,” Iris growls. “I don’t want a dead roommate.”

I elbow her. “But then I wouldn’t be able to talk all the time and annoy you! Wait, yes I would. I would just have to haunt you instead.”

She shakes me off. “Promise not to annoy Sigrid or I’ll put bleach in your hair conditioner.”

She would, too. “Fine. But only because I’d make a terrible blonde.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence in which I stew, Iris glowers, and Mags fidgets. Finally Mags says, “Do you guys know what you’re wearing to the party? I’m thinking a high-waisted skirt, long-sleeved blouse, and black tights.”

“I’m going in a thin sheet of bubble wrap,” I announce.

Her eyes go wide. “But don’t you want to win the Games?”

“I want to win the Games about as much as I want to insert my toes into a paper shredder.” I’m in a bad mood. Guess it’s my longstanding allergy to authority. I was always getting goat-milking duty for disagreeing with the preacher.

“You don’t want to go out with James?” she gasps.

“Jesus Christ. No. Not interested,” I laugh. “This whole James Games thing is a joke. That guy probably gets with whoever he wants, whenever he wants. I doubt he saves himself for the winner of our little competition every year.”

Mags shakes her head. “If he does get with girls, they’re not from UCSD. Actually, he has a reputation for ignoring every girl who tries to talk to him. Except the winner of the Games. And according to past winners, he’s only polite to them for one night and then ignores them the next day.”

“That’s cold. He sounds like a jerk.” A cool breeze dusts through the night air and I hug myself to ward off goosebumps. “Why would anyone want to date him?”

Mags and Iris exchange a look. “You haven’t seen him,” Iris says again.

I groan at the moon. “Show him to me, then. Show me what the fuss is all about.”

Mags pulls out her phone. The case is light pink and it’s got a big bow on the back. Of course. She scrolls through something, the tip of her tongue sticking out just slightly, until she finds the photo she wants. She holds the phone up to my face.

The backlight is all the way up, and I squint for a second. Then I see a strong jawline.

And sculpted cheekbones.

And wavy, tousled blonde surfer hair.

And eyes like twin storms, that I last saw looking at me at a coat closet at a concert.

I stop dead. Iris and Mags come to a halt too. Iris smirks at me, sure I’ve been stunned into silence by his pure beauty. I don’t even have the energy to snark at her.

James Reid…is my masked stranger.

~5~

I curse whatever demon lord convinced me it would be a good idea to sign up for an eight a.m. class. Who wants to learn about philosophy at the asscrack of dawn? Answer: the devil that apparently possessed me when I selected my class schedule.

Iris is walking with me, since she’s got an early lab across campus. Although ‘floating’ would be a more appropriate word. Not the nice kind of floating. The slack-jawed, unhinged-from-reality kind of floating that’s plagued her ever since I told her that James Reid was the one who fucked me through a wall at a concert.

“Iris?” I try for the millionth time, waving my hand through whatever force field is surrounding her.

“I was at that concert,” she says, dazed. “He was at that concert. We were at the same concert.”

“Hey, uh. Are you sure you’re my roommate Iris? You know—my sarcastic, too-good-for-everything roommate? Because I think you might actually be an evil imposter from outer space.”

I poke her square in the cheek and she doesn’t even react, except to whisper, “We were at the same concert,” in awe.

That’s it. Normal Iris I can handle. Zombie Iris I cannot. And, as anyone who’s watched
The Walking Dead
knows, there’s only one way to deal with zombies.

I stop in the middle of campus and slap her across the face.

The sound rings out, but not one of the students hurrying to their morning classes around us pauses to stare. There’s more than one zombie in the vicinity, but at least Iris is no longer one of them—she blinks, rubs her face, and shoots me such a wicked glare that I know she’s back to her usual witch self.

“Snap out of it,” I tell her. “You’re the one who rolls your eyes while I drool over boys. Not the other way around.”

“I don’t know what you’re so calm about,” she growls, hiking her lacy black tote higher on her shoulder. “Sigrid is going to cut you up into little pieces and then scatter them all over campus once she finds out that you—” She gives a little spasm. “Banged James Reid.”

“The campus landscapers are gonna be on her butt. Rotting bits of flesh everywhere aren’t the best way to attract new freshman.”

“I mean it,” says Iris with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Watch your step.”

“No one knows except you and Mags, right?” I wave my hand, kind of wishing I hadn’t blurted out the truth in front of Mags last night. I don’t know her that well. “You guys won’t tell anyone. And even if you did, I can take Sigrid. Like I said, she’s nothing compared to a cow’s vaginal cavity.”

Iris shakes her head. “You have to lose the competition. At the very least, you have to stay far away from James.”

“I’ve never lost a contest in my life. Except the pie-eating contest when I was eleven, and that’s because Amos Glick trained for five months beforehand and gained a hundred pounds—”

“Fiona,” Iris barks. “This is more serious than your little competitive streak. If Sigrid and her cronies find out, they’ll fuck with you until you’re forced to transfer—at a minimum. I know that for a fact.”

“How?” I laugh. “You’re as new to this school as I am.”

Discomfort flits across her face, but I’m at my building. I kiss her cheek and she lets me, which is a testament to how distressed she is. But I don’t bother consoling her anymore before I turn and enter my building. She’ll learn soon enough that Fiona Arlett is not intimidated by bullies.

I ought to win the Games and then turn down James’s date. That would show them.

It’s not like I want anything more to do with James. Sigrid is free to keep him in her perfumed, manicured evil robot claws. Just the thought that I had sex with that clearly stuck-up slimeball is enough to make me wish I’d never gone into that coat closet.

Even if it was mind-blowing, wall-smashing sex.

Even if I am curious to know why a guy who could have his pick of any undergrad would bother going to an off-campus concert and donning a mask to get laid.

But I’ll never ask him, because I’m never going to speak to him. Even if he walked into my dorm room naked with a tub of whipped cream under his arm, I definitely wouldn’t let him lick it off my—

Oops. Bad train of thought.

When I walk into room 302, a shiver runs over me. The atmosphere is way too charged for this early in the morning. Girls are clustered together, whispering in taut voices. You couldn’t puncture this tension bubble with a sewing needle. For a second I wonder if we just got some awful email that the professor died, but then I follow everyone’s furtive glances to the back of the room.

Where James Reid is sitting, lounging in his chair.

What the hell is he doing here? He’s not in this class.

One look at him and my mind immediately transposes a black mask over those sexy lion man features. The wall is crumbling and I’m screaming my release and a bead of sweat is trailing down his chest. A lightning bolt shoots through my abdomen, and I have to squeeze my thighs together. James Reid chooses that moment to look directly at me.

Our eyes meet.

It’s like standing in the center of a storm. If I move a tornado will sweep me away, but for this bare moment, the air is calm. His eyes are cool and evaluating. He recognizes me, and he knows I recognize him. He’s waiting to see if I’ll blush, if I’ll stumble, if I’ll squeal. He’s expecting it.

I drag one eyebrow up, slowly, like he’s the opposite of everything that’s impressed me in the history of ever. I don’t bother letting my gaze linger. I pick an empty seat in the center of the room—not too far from him, and not too close. I slide my binder out and let my body language do the talking. Easy set of the shoulders, wide legs. You can say a lot without saying anything at all, and here’s what I just shouted:

I am comfortable in this room. And I couldn’t give less of a fuck that James Reid is ten feet away from me.

I attract a couple of curious glances, but before long the professor, a severe-looking thirty-something woman, walks in, and everyone pretends to be much more interested in Nietzsche than the golden specimen in the back of the room.

I make a valiant effort to pay attention as Professor Moore goes over the reading, but the sight of James has made me really fucking horny. And that pisses me off. How dare he make me horny when I’m just trying to learn about what an old bearded man thought about life?

“Fiona?” Professor Moore’s voice slices into my fantasy involving James and copious amounts of lube. “You usually have something to add. Why so quiet?”

Damn Moore. She smelled the distraction on me. I clear my throat. Just say something. “Well, I feel like people are always thinking of Nietzsche as the father of nihilism. But he wasn’t in favor of it or anything. I think he’s saying that we do have to recognize that life has meaning in order to live successfully.”

“I disagree.”

The voice is sharp and low and new. And coming from the back of the classroom. The swivel-and-gasp routine from the rest of the class tells me who’s talking.

“If it’s true that he’s arguing against nihilism, he’s certainly not claiming that we have to
recognize
some meaning already inherent in life,” James Reid says. “He’s saying that when we understand that life is, in fact, meaningless, we experience a crisis. And if he believes that we should tell ourselves pretty lies to feel better about it, I have to disagree with that as well.”

Annoyance surges in me. I twist around. “So you think we should just give up on everything because life has no meaning.”

“No,” he says calmly. “People just need to be strong enough to face reality.”

“Except that that’s not reality. Life has meaning. Nietzsche is saying that nihilism occurs when life doesn’t have the meaning we
thought
it had. That doesn’t mean there’s no meaning at all.”

He doesn’t lift his eyes from mine. For the first time in my life, I feel shaken by someone else’s gaze. And the only way to deal with that is to talk louder.

“People don’t need to be strong enough to face reality,” I finish. “They need to be strong enough to understand that reality might be different from what they’ve always been taught. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“Very good,” Moore starts, but then the buzzer goes off. I blink. That class went by fast. I guess that’s what happens when you spend forty minutes fantasizing. “And there it is—our discussion interrupted, as always, by the inevitable progression of time. I challenge you to think outside of class what meaning life holds for you—and whether it’s possible to create your own meaning.”

I gather my things, forcing my shoulders to relax so it’s not so obvious how hard I’m trying to keep from looking toward the back of the classroom. Everyone else is hesitating, so James must still be in the room. All the better. I’m the first one out the door. In the hallway, I can finally breathe.

Until he catches up with me barely two minutes later.

He doesn’t tap my shoulder or anything. I pause to glance at a flyer for the dance next weekend, and then I feel his presence next to me. I glance at him. My breathing shortens. I remember how those lips felt.

“Great to know I fucked a nihilist,” I say bluntly. “I’ll add that to my resume.”

He leans against the wall, intentionally covering the flyer with his shoulder so I’m forced to look at him. “I’m not a nihilist. I’m a realist.”

“If you’re such a realist, why didn’t you tell me who you really were that night?” Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Don’t get sucked in, but don’t look away.

“I didn’t know I was obligated to provide ID to every annoying girl I meet.”

I nobly restrain myself from punching James in the nose. Instead I lean forward, challenging him. “You didn’t think I was so annoying when you were tearing my clothes off.”

He doesn’t move away. It’s like we’re back in that crowded concert hall, fighting for the same space. “That was before you opened your mouth.”

People are staring. Whispering. I’m breaking the eleventh holy commandment—thou shalt stay away from James Reid—but at the moment, I don’t care. I’m too excited about the Nobel Peace Prize I’ll receive for resisting the urge to punch him. “The thing is, I don’t care what you think of me. Know why? I already got the one thing I wanted from you.” I lean in, my smirk getting a little bigger, a little harder.

“Good. Then we’re even.”

“Good!”

The nearness of him is forcing my body to respond in ways I wish it wouldn’t. I’m in his space, challenging him. In his sharp-jawed, storm-eyed, six-foot space. And he’s not moving away. He reaches behind me, and for a sizzling second I think he’s going to pull me close. Right here in the middle of the hallway.

Instead, he pulls the fire alarm.

The ensuing blare is so immediate and so like nails pounding into my skull that I shriek, covering my ears. All around us, everybody loses interest in the fact that James Reid is talking to a freshman girl and gains interest in the possibility of burning to death. Footsteps rattle past us. In half a minute, we’re alone.