Page 3 of Best Man on Campus

She’s giving me a piece of herself with her words and everything behind them. I take her hand and squeeze it, the way I always do. I think we’ve only hugged a handful of time since I’ve known her in five years.

But today I have the urge to hug her, so I do. Reaching my arms around her, I hold on, riding out the flood of memories of past hugs, the ones from people who are gone. She doesn’t move or show anything more than mild surprise, but I know she feels it because I’m giving her a piece of myself. And the funny thing is it’s not a loss, it feels more like I gain something.

There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere for me to apply to other relationships and life, but I’m like a baby barely gone from crawling to standing when it comes to relationships. Somehow I went backward that night five years ago, went from being a relatively normal girl to an empty prickly husk. Majik’s brought me back as far as she can. But she can’t do anything for my issues with male relationships as Dr. Dani would say.

I need to tackle that on my own. With the help of one brave fucking man. A unicorn.

Too bad I don’t believe in unicorns. But maybe the treasure hunt will be fun.

Chapter 1

Ben

The minute someone spills a drink on Jasmine Romano I know the night is fucked. Jazzy’s got a rep as a hot-tempered mess. I keep my eye on her as she wipes her hands over her barely covered large unrestrained breasts. She flicks the foam off her T-shirt. My dick is riveted. She’s an Italian wet dream oozing sex and sin. I realize I’m staring like a fucking adolescent and I jolt my attention to her words.

“You bitch. You spilled that beer on me purposely.” Jazzy gets in the space of Kace’s current girl, Phoebe.

“Why would I do that, you paranoid nutcase?”

Shit. The hockey team’s supposed to be out celebrating our win tonight. Clinching second place in the Hockey East conference. Not first, which has Coach fucking mad as hell. The last thing we need is to be caught in the middle of a fight—not even a cat fight. There was enough brawling during the game and the coach is fucking ready to roll heads, accusing us of having ambitions to be nothing more than minor league goons. He doesn’t like coming in second any more than the rest of us. Either way, I jump in between the two girls—valiant of me—to prevent bloodshed at Wildbeast Pizza.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I say to Jazzy, squeezing between her and Phoebe. Kace pulls his girl away while I stare down into Jazzy’s fiery dark eyes popping with sparks of gold and I swear I see flames. She doesn’t back away, so I take a step back to remove myself from the swirl of overwhelming heat and crackling energy that she emanates. Her sensual pull is dizzying.

“Fuck that,” she says, lifting a pitcher off the table next to us. The guys sitting there are too focused on the show to care that she’s confiscating their beer. “That chick wants to embarrass me, but she has no fucking clue. I’m impossible to embarrass.”

“Don’t do it,” I say, knowing talk is useless.

Jazzy lunges to the side, arm ready to fling the contents of the pitcher at Phoebe, but I’m ready and reach out to stop her, catching her wrist. The pitcher slips from her hand and shatters on the floor, splattering beer and glass shards in a large circle as people jump back out of the way. Jazzy pulls away from my grasp and, to my horror, she slips on the beer, crashing down directly on top of the pile of broken glass. Fuck.

“Jesus fucking—” She pushes herself from the floor.

“Don’t.” Fuck. I reach down and pull her to her feet. But not before she ends up with a small shard of glass, maybe more, stuck in the palm of her hand. Bleeding like a hose. The sight of it hurts me, but I tighten my gut against the nausea I know will come.

“Shit that hurts like a—”

“Let me see it.” I’m holding onto her now and I can feel her shaking, blood dripping down her arm. I take her hand when the last thing I want to do is look at a bloody cut.

“Oh my god. Are you okay?” Phoebe says.

“She’ll be fine.” I nod at Kace and our crowd subsides, their previous enthusiasm for bloodlust gone with the reality. Now their faces and voices show concern, if not shame.

“Doctor Hockey will take care of it,” Kace says.

With an arm around Jazzy’s waist to steady her, because she’s clearly shaky and pale now, I guide her to the back of the crowded noisy bar of our campus pizza joint.

Holding her injured hand up as we move, I feel the blood dripping and my gut roils. I keep my eyes averted and meet her eyes instead, resentful and fighting against her pain, like she’s licking her chops and getting ready to bite into me, chew, and spit out a chunk when she’s done.

“This is your fault,” she bites out.

“I’m sorry, Jazzy. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix you.”

She snorts a half-hearted laugh and I can feel her energy flagging, the anger that sustains her ebbing away.

Looking toward the back of the bar, I lead her that way.

“Let’s get you cleaned up before you catch e coli from the germs on the floor of this shit-hole.”

“Fuck you if you’re too good for this place. You don’t have to come here with your hockey friends to drink.”