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No matter how much I kept thinking about her.
I swallowed, my friends’ laughter dying around me. I shifted the conversation to food, and Knight gratefully moved on. The guy could eat an entire restaurant, and after all this shit, I was ready for a damn beer to go with it too.
Chapter Eleven
Billie
Professor Douglas drowned me in course work for his classes over the next few weeks. Between grading exams and essays for him and my own school work, I was basically buried, but I didn’t complain because all the work kept my mind busy. I didn’t have to think about anything else, LJ and what happened in particular. Funny enough, I didn’t even think I’d ever see any recourse for what happened between him and me. At least, when it came to Professor Douglas. LJ obviously had the guy by the balls in some way, none of my business. What truly bothered me was not only that his touches had happened, but that I had let them happen.
I’d begged for it.
I’d sat in the back of that classroom, quivering in my seat, and asked him to fuck me with his fingers. The whole thing was horrifying, and I could only blame myself. I rationalized perhaps the breakup with Sinclair had been harder on me than I’d believed. I’d been freshly coming off it and given in to a need to feel good. That had been my excuse, but LJ hadn’t had one at all. He didn’t know I’d broken up with Sinclair and definitely hadn’t cared that I had a boyfriend. He’d just wanted to win. He’d wanted to break me, and I’d basically handed that triumph to him on a silver platter.
My only saving grace as the term continued on was that LJ didn’t show up for recitation at all after that, clearly forfeiting that part of his grade. Honestly, it didn’t matter considering how much his extra credit assignment bumped his scores up. He’d surprisingly aced the paper, and I wondered why he’d crashed and burned so badly on his initial exam in the first place. He clearly understood the material once he actually put some effort into it. I didn’t think long about that since I just wanted to rid my thoughts of him and everything that surrounded him. I rarely saw him in lecture either, outside of test and quiz days that is. But each time he showed up and his examination managed to make it into my hands, his scores were always on the up. I assumed he was renting the films at home and watching them outside of class. Whatever he was doing, it was working for him and him not being in class at all was working for me. It kept my nose in the books and reaching toward the end of my first year as a graduate student, which was what was most important to me anyway.
I visited with my mom a lot after the “incident in question” with LJ, and oddly enough, she asked about him on occasion. I guessed he’d told her we went to the same school at some point, and eventually, I did admit to her that he was in one of my classes. I passed it off, of course. That I hadn’t realized he’d been the one I caught her with that day. She only asked about him in passing because like he said, they’d just had a good time together, and at least, I didn’t have to worry about coming home over the weekends and finding him naked in her bed again. I wanted my mom to have a social life but definitely not with the guy who finger-fucked me in the back of my classroom.
Obviously, I left that bit out during my visits with mom.
There were a few things I had to tiptoe around. Obviously, my drunken night was one of embarrassment and had totally confused my mom until I explained what happened with Sinclair. She let me hear it for that since she always loved him, and I rolled my eyes because I think she liked the idea of him more than actually adoring him. She liked his upbringing, who he was and what he came from. She liked his status and that, maybe, I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes she had. She’d wanted me to make my marriage last. Not let the guy throw me away and basically outcast us from many sides of our family. We’d basically been shunned after the divorce, our dirty laundry out there. A scandal.
“Would have been a smart match,” she’d said one day over her margarita. Once again, day drinking while she made me pancakes. She’d sighed. “There’s nothing you can do about it, darling? He’s such a fine boy.”
Honestly, the whole conversation had made me sick. Sick that was all she thought I needed for myself to succeed, a man to carry me through life when clearly that hadn’t worked out for her. I only kept my opinions to myself during our visits because I loved her and I knew, despite what she allowed me to believe with her active social lifestyle, that she was hurting. I called so I knew at least she’d been going to her therapy visits, and after that night she’d had to come get my butt at the club, she hadn’t brought up my drunk escapade anymore. That’d be the last one as far as I was concerned, no time for it. I put my head where it needed to be.
Right back in the books.
After bringing my mom some groceries one day, I took the rest back home. I tended to shop for her too when I thought about it, getting her something better than booze and grapefruit. I tried to stuff her cabinets with essential food groups, and even though she gave me hell about it since she had “a girl” to do that, she took the food because she got to visit with me too. My mom held a strong upper lip after her divorce with Daddy, but she needed me. We needed each other. We always had the other, and that wouldn’t change just because I was in school. She was the reason I’d moved home in the first place after all. I’d had a full ride to my alma mater on the coast, but I’d wanted to be home, be close to her. It was the only way I’d know she was okay, and knowing that kept me okay too.
I juggled the rest of my groceries with my key, closing the door of my Land Rover with my hip. It was gratefully not raining today since we were well into spring, and I was happy to see such sun shining days aft
er such a cold and slushy winter. Another good thing about going to school on the coast was I didn’t have to deal with the Midwest’s sometimes temperamental weather. One day, it could be blistering hot, the next, snow, and that was all in the same season. Today, we’d gratefully had sun as it set, and I prepared for a long night of studying and I Love Lucy episodes.
Oddly enough, the classic playing in the background helped me focus, and I planned on making a homemade meal of fettuccine Alfredo to go with it. Sorting through my keys, I found the right one around my groceries, jumping as I approached the front door and noticed a man sitting on my stoop. He had his head down, playing with his fingers, but as soon as he heard me approach, he stopped.
I froze at the sight of my ex, still in his business suit from the day. Standing, he tugged at his suit, and despite wearing it and looking professional, he appeared too worse for wear. For starters, he had bags under his eyes, his cheeks hallow and his hair messy like he hadn’t been sleeping or eating well. He approached, lifting a hand. “Hey, Bill.”
Hey… Bill? I’d neither seen nor heard from the guy since he’d broken up with me toward the middle of the semester and he was here now?
Curious, I stayed put, and he noticed. He stopped right there in the middle of the walk, waiting for me. I hugged my grocery sacks. “Hi.”
“Hey,” he repeated, dragging seemingly restless fingers through his hair. He put a hand out. “Eh, uh. Let me help you with those—”
“Oh. You don’t have to.” To make the point, I waltzed right passed him, a visible drop to his shoulders. Finding all this fucking weird, I scaled the steps, and while I wrestled with my keys, a soft heat lingered behind me. He hovered close, and I shut my eyes. “What are you doing?”
Almost instantly, he backed off, and though he started to reach for my groceries again, he stopped. “Can I just help you with your stuff? I want to talk… please?”
“You want to talk?” I shifted around, completely forgetting about my keys and the door. “You want to talk now? What could you possibly have to say to me? I think you let me know exactly what your thoughts were when you tossed me on my ass.”
Which still hadn’t made sense to me. I literally played that conversation over and over again in my head, and I definitely should have been the one upset. For so many reasons.
He visibly tensed. “I know, and I know I don’t deserve your attention, but I am asking for it. Two seconds. Won’t take me long.”
He was still terribly handsome despite how God awfully worn-out he looked, and I hated I still had a soft spot for him. We had a history, one where I did think that one day we may be end game. That all had come crashing down when he’d broken up with me out of nowhere, but nodding, I did let him help me by taking the groceries.
I was completely frazzled as I let him into my home, a place literally no one else had been inside but me the passing months. I had friends here, but they were all involved with other things, their own lives.
With Sinclair handling the groceries, I took off my jacket at the door. He knew right were to go, of course, heading in the direction of the kitchen, and sighing, I followed him after hooking my coat. I found him putting everything away in its proper places. Everything but the bread, and I stopped him. “I keep that in the fridge now.”
