O 1 O
SKYE
As I hurried across the quad, I checked the time on the great big clock on the Lincoln Building.
“Shit. Five minutes late,” I muttered to myself, gripping my books tighter, prepared to run if I had to. And I was going to have to.
All around me was the bustle of Chester University. Students lounging, playing, relaxing, waltzing carefree to their next class or the café or library, enjoying the rare bit of sun at the beginning of Winter or, like me, desperately trying to make it to their next class on time and wishing they hadn’t picked subjects that were on the opposite ends of the campus.
Then something hit me in the back of the head, my arms opened so they could catch me if I fell, my books dropped to the pavement, and I managed to catch myself from tumbling forwards. I closed my eyes and tilted my face to the sun to pray for patience.
It was Friday. Just a few more classes until I could pretend that I was going to take a break for the weekend. In my defence, I did have a small break planned. I had an actual date and I’d promised my older brother that I’d make an appearance at his party for a few minutes. All that should take me a few hours, then I could get my essay finished.
But to get to that, I had to collect my books off the ground, find a paracetamol or two for my burgeoning headache, and make it through Richard’s English Literary Studies lecture and following tute.
I heard familiar laughter as someone jogged up behind me, and I was in even more desperate need of that patience.
“I called ‘heads’. Didn’t you hear me?” the familiar voice asked.
I picked up my last book and turned to find him checking out where my arse had been moments before. He was in a baggy green tank top and grey track pants with grass-stained trainers. His patented cocky smirk travelled up my body to meet my eyes as he tucked the offending soccer ball under his arm. I kept one eye on it. Just because he was holding it didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hit me in the head again.
“Gaol-bait,” he said with a nod.
“Pond Scum,” I replied with a nod of my own, figuring the deployment of one insulting nickname deserved another. “Don’t you have classes to get to?”
“Unlike you, mine are optional.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yours aren’t optional,” I reminded him. “You just don’t have to be in the
lecture theatre.”
He shrugged. “Same difference. That’s what little children get.”
Ugh. I wanted to thump him.
Yes, strictly speaking, I was still in high school, and he was at university. Big freaking whoop.
Chester University ran a pre-entry program for Year 11 and 12 students as Chester University Senior College. We lived, half-boarding school/half-college dorm style, in the Chester township about an hour out of Adelaide and took our classes on the university campus. As minors, we were given a very long leash.
However, given that every student who passed through the CUSC doors had to be unreasonably excellent in a chosen field – academia, sports, music, arts – we weren’t what our parents considered normal teenagers, and were somehow therefore more trustworthy? Honestly, you’d have thought that parents had forgotten what it was like to be in your late teens. Still, as a student of CUSC, I would have automatic entrance to the course of my choice at Chester University proper. As long as I continued getting a Distinction average or higher.
“Aren’t you late?” he asked, his eyes leaving my chest for long enough to look at the Lincoln clock.
“Yeah. No thanks to you. Richard’s going to give me hell.”
He snorted. “You’ve got Richard now? Fucking luck, then.”
“Why don’t you just go and dick over yet another girl?” I snapped at him.
His eyes sparkled nothing good but everything enticing. “Offering?”
I gave him my most withering glare. It had been known to scare even Taylor, my older brother who, as a soccer goalie, was used to throwing himself behind fast-paced balls and hoping he didn’t bleed. Unfortunately, my impressive glare didn’t have the same effect on said older brother’s best friend.
“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” he teased and actually booped me on the nose.
I spluttered and swatted his hand away. “I will bite that the next time it comes close en
ough, River,” I warned him, my voice dropping dangerously low.
He took a step towards me. “In my dreams, Gaol-bait.” He gnashed his teeth playfully and gave me a wink.
Okay. So what if River Torres was over six foot of taut muscles, unnecessary tattoos, gorgeous pale brown hair, mesmerising chocolate brown eyes, and a mischievously sinful smirk that I’m sure had literally melted the pants off someone at least once? He was a grad-A hole. Arrogant. Conceited. Superior. Condescending. And only one new girl a night was considered pathetic.
Shame then that Taylor had adopted him as his best friend something like seven years earlier and River was, therefore, a permanent and annoying fixture in my life.
“So cute,” he chuckled as he shrugged his shoulders and wrinkled his nose, then tossed his ball in the air and turned back to whoever he was playing with.
I paused for just a moment longer. The threat of Richard’s apathetic reprimand wasn’t even enough to stop me waiting to watch the way River’s arse moved under his shorts as he kicked the ball back to the others hovering on the grass. River was a jerk, but his arse was the stuff of legends in the halls of Chester University. So was his cock apparently, but thinking about that was veering into the danger zone.
Putting all of River’s anatomy firmly out of my head, I ran to class and tried to slink into the room undetected. I failed.
“Ah, Miss Devereux,” Richard drawled.
Let it not be said that the man didn’t love to use embarrassment as a form of punishment and deterrent.
“The class was just speculating whether you had been struck immobile by some horrendous ailment,” he continued, and my cheeks heated horribly.
Despite my firm belief that I was a strong modern woman, Richard had the unfailing ability to make anyone feel small. River could laugh all he wanted, but I knew for a fact that Richard had almost made him cry once.
“Sorry, Richard,” I said as I found a seat at the back and tried to make myself as invisible
as possible.
Richard nodded. “Let it be the last time this semester, Miss Devereux. Academia is but a siren call to those who refuse to strive for greatness.”
There would be zero point reminding him that I was the top student in his class. A grade I fought hard not only to get but to keep. Richard didn’t care that I hadn’t been on a third date in my whole life. He didn’t care that I had a better relationship with a guy I despised than I did with any of the guys I’d hooked up with in the last two years. None of the lecturers did. As long as we got the grades or won the games, they didn’t care how we did it.
And all of us coped in different ways.
I pretended to have a healthy and active dating life.
Taylor lived, ate and breathed soccer, night and day.
My best friend Tansy mainlined coffee and made her way through sport teams.
River was somehow still enrolled despite a near-daily two-bottles-of-whiskey hangover. Or lack thereof.
Chester University was competitive and a cesspool of terrible habits and expectations, but it was the best school in the country and opened doors that very few other places in the world could open.
Richard thankfully took his focus off me and went on with the class. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and my chat with Tansy was the first thing that popped up.
Tansy Ho-Silver-Away
I’ve just come up with the best hypothetical!
Sky’mDevestated
Looking forward to it.
I’m going to need it after Pond Scum made me late.
Tansy Ho-Silver-Away
Something you need to tell me? ;-p
I rolled my eyes.
Sky’mDevestated
When will you believe I’ll never sleep with him?
Tansy Ho-Silver-Away
When you’re dead.
Sky’mDevestated
You have a very long wait ahead of you.
Tansy Ho-Silver-Away
You hope.
Sky’mDevestated
Morbid much?
Another message interrupted us.
Riv.Torn
Did you get detention?
Sky’mDevestated
Get out of my DMs.
Riv.Torn
Once I’m in, Gaol-bait, there’s no getting me out.
*sexy winking GIF*
How had he managed to find a GIF that looked so much like him when he winked like that? Ugh.
I ignored any reply from Tansy and closed my chats. The last thing I needed was River getting me in trouble while I was in class. So Ta
nsy had to wait to tell me her hypothetical until we were sitting on our little couch in our apartment that afternoon, catching up before my date.
“Okay, you’re doing seven minutes in heaven–” she started.
“How old am I?” I teased, opening one eye.
Tansy smirked. “Shut up. It’s my hypothetical. Seven minutes in heaven.” She looked at me pointedly and I dutifully closed my eyes again. “Good. Now. It’s dark. You’re both blindfolded–”
“Oo, kinky,” I laughed.
“Shut up and just enjoy. You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you. He is hands down the best kiss of your life. Toes curling. Stomach fluttering. Clit throbbing. It’s the kind of kiss to leave you weak in the knees and begging to know his name. Then, the lights go on and it’s…River Torres! What do you do?”
I felt myself smile, then realised who the hell she was talking about and slammed down a frown. I opened my eyes and mouth to protest, but she was grinning like the cat that ate all the cream.
“Aha!” she cried victoriously.
“No,” I told her firmly. “No. That’s not fair! You can’t tell me he was the best kiss of my life then claim it means something when it turns out to be Senor Pond Scum.”
“I can, did, and do,” she laughed.
I grabbed my tea off the coffee table. “Shut up,” I grumbled.
“Just admit you’ve thought about it once,” she begged, as though it would be the first time we’d had a very similar conversation.
I levelled a glare on her. “Of course, I’ve thought about it. More than once. He’s a freaking Adonis. He’s sinfully delicious, wickedly cocky, and pushes every single one of my buttons. Good and bad.”
“So, remind me why you haven’t scaled that man mountain?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of even guessing he has any effect on me whatsoever.”
Which was ridiculous because River and I both knew we had an effect on each other, but denial was a beautiful thing.
She nodded knowingly. “No. Much better that the two of you hate each other.”
I nodded in agreement. “Much better.”
“The way you two fight, you just know the sex would be off the charts.”
I did know that. At least, I suspected it. It wasn’t like my life was lacking in good sex, but there was this…vibe between River and I that made me know, with absolute certainty, that any sex we had wouldn’t just be great, it would be phenomenal.
“The point is moot,” I reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. “Hate sex is better than regular sex.”
I looked at her because she knew that wasn’t the reason River and I would never be more than enemies without benefits.
Tansy huffed and sat back against the couch. “He’s still fucking you over.”
That was also not the reason. There were many reasons. Of which the ones she’d mentioned were but two.
I shrugged. “He never fucked me over,” I disagreed. “It was mutual.”
She rolled her eyes, and I knew any sort of championing my ex was going to get us nowhere. Tansy had never really liked Jax, for no other reason than he wasn’t River and it was my best friend’s firm belief that River and I were written in the stars. We weren’t, and no amount of me reminding her we hated each other was going to change her mind.
“Jackson Gerralt can die in a fire for all I care,” she huffed.
I smiled. “He’s not that bad.”
“He took one look at you and ensured that you’d never have a chance with another player.”
“So?” I shrugged. “I’m not the one who wants a whole set before graduation.”
Tansy slunk back on our couch and sighed. “And I was so close with the lacrosse team.”
“Clearly they don’t suffer from the bro code.”
Tansy smirked. “Their code doesn’t apply as long as you keep it casual.”
I smiled at the audacity of this fabulous bitch. “You are incorrigible.”
“I just think it’s fun to sleep with guys a little more physically active than the chess team.”
“I take exception
to that. It’s not all about muscles.”
“Yeah? Remind your libido of that next time it’s fantasising about River.”
Which it would do now. Vividly. “Thanks, Tanz,” I said sardonically.
She gave me a cheerful grin. “You’re welcome. Now, when’s Mr Grand Master 2038 picking you up?”
“About an hour. From the Chasers’ Mansion.”
“Do you need to…like shower and shit?” she asked, hinting maybe I did need to do just that.
I threw back the rest of my tea and stood up. “I’ll see you at the McMansion about nine?” I said and she nodded.
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
I didn’t doubt it. “Just promise you’ll be wearing something else as well.”
She gave me a grin and shrugged. “I make no such promises.”
I snorted and went to get ready for my date. It wasn’t all that taxing. I didn’t agonise over my outfit. I very nearly didn’t shave, but I was a little prickly and didn’t like being felt up over my stubble.
The benefit to being what River liked to call ‘Miss Future Librarian’ was that, when a guy asked me out, I was never looking my best. I was in a bra, but more than likely in a slouchy cardigan and my ugg boots. So, who was I trying to impress by dressing up for a date? If they were interested in me enough to ask me out in my natural state, then I wasn’t going to waste time on crafting an image that would be impossible to maintain if I did ever get to that third date, or further. I liked dressing up as much as the next person, but I was also very lazy.
Once I was somewhat more presentable than usual, I headed over to my brother’s place.
Where Tansy and I lived in what was generously described as a two-bedroom apartment, my brother and the rest of the Chester University Chasers – the multi-trophy-winning soccer team – lived US college frat-style in a McMansion with something like twenty bedrooms. Most of t
hem had their own rooms, their kitchen was massive and had three fridges, and the whole place was designed for fun, frolicking and deflowering.
As I walked up to the front door, it wasn’t the first time I wished I could be on the soccer team and live there. But then I wouldn’t live with Tansy and that wasn’t really what I wanted. Besides, I could live with Tanz and be treated like I lived in the Chasers’ Mansion anyway. Best of both worlds.
“Mini Dev in the house!” Hank called to the place at large when he opened the door and saw me there.
“Hank.” I nodded to him as I walked into the hallway.
Taylor and I were Devereuxs. This led to him being called Devo or Dev in the same way Australians had been shortening people’s names for forever. This also made me, in the eyes of the soccer team, Mini Dev or Little Dev. ...
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