AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No sooner had I laid everything out than I head the front door close, excited voices filling the front room. Most of the joviality was coming from Jessica, who seemed to have energy to spare. Becky was really just trying to keep up.
“Oh, hey, babe,” Becky said, catching sight of me in my finery.
“This way, please ladies,” I said, sounding as close to a Downton Abby character as possible.
“Why is he talking like that?”
“No idea, honey,” Becky said, following me into the dining room anyway.
I pulled their chairs out for them, helping Jess up onto hers, both of them gazing with some surprise at the spread I had managed to conjure.
“This is amazing.”
“Thank you,” I said, bowing my head politely.
“Who helped? Is your mom hiding somewhere?”
“We've been doing a master chef class,” Jess said.
“Yeah, but still, wow!”
“I think I'll take that as a compliment,” I said.
“Good, it was meant as one,” Becky said, reaching for a cheesesteak and taking a bite.
“What do you think?”
“Pretty close,” Becky said, mouth still full.
The meal went off without a hitch, and then it was time for dessert. A New York cheesecake recipe I had just learned but looked pretty good none the less. I gave Becky the piece with the ring in it, not expecting her to eat it so fast.
“No!” I shouted, not quite sure how to do the Heimlich on a pregnant woman.
She blinked at me. “What? It was good.”
“There was an engagement ring in there! I was trying to surprise you! Should I call a doctor? Will the baby be okay?”
“This ring?” Becky asked, pulling it from where she had hidden it inside her lip.
“How did—”
“Felt it on the fourth bite. And yes, by the way. I will marry you.”THE ENDCramped QuartersYour Dirty Little Secret Romance AuthorChapter One - RachelThe scent of fresh cut grass blended with the wafting aromas from the food trucks, which formed a daisy chain on the circle drive around the Student Union Building. Both the groomed lawns and the culinary extravaganza were acts in the show. It was as if the administration was showing off how much money it could extract from freshmen to pour into unnecessary displays.
This was a strange contrast when you considered the fact that this university embodied the best theology school in the state. This was the site of the type of scholastics I’d dreamed about since I’d discovered such institutions existed. I just didn’t realize that they’d be so showy in their wealth.
While other girls my age were hanging pictures of Bieber and his ilk on their bedroom walls, I, as a young teenager, had a glossy photograph of these hallowed halls on my wall. Right next to the oil rendering of our Lord and Savior.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Dad asked, the wheels of my last suitcase touching down on the asphalt.
“Yes, Daddy,” I lied.
I wanted to slap myself. I was eighteen, about to start university, and I was still talking like a little kid.
“I’ll go up with you, just to be certain.”
From what he needed to protect me, I couldn’t fathom, but I never argued with my father. Particularly when he insisted on paying through the nose for my tuition and carrying my bags up to my dorm room, leaving me to unload just a small backpack. He was a man of extremities, my dad. Both in terms of love and hate.
Part of the deal for having the theology school was that the students had to live in general housing. The administration was far too tightfisted to splurge on a whole new dorm building.
Once we got inside, it was like a paint-ball team exploded. The corridor of the residence was a riot of bright colors and shapes. I thought my dad might swoon right then and there, but he plucked up his Irish courage and forged ahead. His steely blue eyes set on an imagined Calvary.
The administration had saved money by “letting” the students decorate the dorms. For no pay of course. They were no doubt expecting the results of letting a pack of young adults, free from home for the first time, loose with decorating supplies. One brave soul even got away with putting 1312 on their door.
“Good year,” Dad mused, admiring it.
I was supposed to be sharing my room with another girl named Jinx Devlin. But when we arrived at room 113, there was only one name on the whiteboard screwed into the powder blue door. Mine.
“That’s different,” Dad commented.
It was, but I wasn’t about to say so. Not least of all because when he said ‘different,’ I got the strong sense he had meant ‘wonderful.’ He had been rather insistent that I get a big room on a floor ‘with no boys.’ The housing office couldn’t promise the lack of males on our floor, but could be sure they roomed me with a girl. Now I wouldn’t even have that. It gave me the opportunity to be cloistered away and focus exclusively on my studies. And to eat occasionally.
