My Favorite Mistake(8)

Who is this?

The guy u slept with last night. One of them at least.

Bite me.

Saw u walking across campus today.

U stalking me now?

I was minding my own business and u crossed MY path. Who's stalking who now?

This is harassment. I'm going to report you.

Do whatever you want, Missy. You still haven't given me an answer on our bet.

Me kicking u in the nuts wasn't enough of an answer?

In most societies, a handshake usually symbolizes the making of a contract.

Whatever. I'm shutting my phone off.

I waited for a reply, but it didn't come. I shook my head and turned the phone off. I still had some time to kill before class, but nothing better to do so I went to get a good seat. Somehow I'd managed to weasel my way into human sexuality. It was the most popular class on campus, and most people couldn't get in until their senior year. Maybe I'd just gotten lucky. Haha.

The class was located in what people called DPC 100. The DPC stood for David P. Corbett Hall. It was the largest classroom on campus and could hold up to 350 people. It was this crazy dome shape, with the seats stacked like a 3D movie theater. It was always a thousand degrees in there from all the people, and you never knew if you were going to trip on a half-empty Starbucks cup.

Despite being nearly a half-hour early, there were already at least a hundred people in the room. I walked down the sloped side, trying not to trip and also trying to find a seat that wasn't close to anyone else. I liked my personal space, thank you very much.

Most of the seats on the outer edges were taken, but I found one near the front that had a buffer. The desk next to me was broken, so I was pretty sure no one else was going to sit there. I pulled out my e-reader so I could finish the story that had made me late driving up yesterday. It was the latest in a paranormal series I'd gotten addicted to this summer. I was fully engrossed when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Is this seat taken?”

I had to blink a few times before my brain registered that Hunter was standing next to me and he was asking if he could sit next to me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Learning about human sexuality. Isn't that what you're here for?”

I glanced down and then back up at him. Maybe he was a mirage. He smirked, clearly delighted.

Nope.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Granted, I don't have much to learn, but I figured I could use my knowledge and get an easy A.” He slid by me and took the seat with the broken desk, setting his bag down by my feet.

“You are not in this class.”

“I am. You want to see my schedule? I'll prove it.”

“Whatever,” I said, going back to my book and turning so that my back was as much toward him as I could make it in the small space.

“You know, if you ever want to practice any of the techniques we're going to discuss, I'd be happy to be your study partner,” he said in a low voice. For some reason, his quiet voice made the proposition even more seductive. Not that I fell for it.

“Screw you,” I said before I realized I'd walked right into that one.

“I'd like to.”

“I thought you didn't screw people you like.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He stretched his arms over his head, his shirt riding up and showing just the tiniest bit of lean stomach. I snapped my eyes away quickly. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it the night before.

“For you, Missy, I'd make an exception.”

I glanced at my phone, but we still had at least fifteen more minutes until class started. The room was nearly full, and the chatter echoed in the acoustically tuned space.

“I was thinking about making dinner tonight. You in?”

What was wrong with him? Seriously, he had to be bipolar. Or he just really, really liked messing with me. Or maybe it was a little of both. I shouldn't respond.

“What are you making?”

“You tell me what you like and I'll make it.” His face was set in a smile, but it was different than his cocky smirk. This was more genuine. The smile you'd give a friend if you hadn't seen them in a while. Open, honest.

“You'd really make what I wanted?”

“Why not?”

There had to be a catch.

“You made me pay for a song, what do I have to do for dinner?”

“Sit next to me while we eat.”

“That's it?” That couldn't be it.

“That's it,” he said, opening his hands.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to root out the catch I knew was there. He just looked at me innocently, which made me want to laugh. I was interrupted by a teaching assistant shoving a stack of syllabi in my hands and telling me to pass them down. I took one and handed the stack to Hunter. Our hands brushed briefly, and I pulled away as fast as I could, grabbing my notebook and writing the date neatly in the corner.

Our teacher was a woman with gray hair, who wore a long purple, gauzy top and matching purple pants. She reminded me of someone who had been a hippie and had never really gotten over it. There were a lot of those at UMaine.

She called us to order as the TAs collected the last of the extra syllabi. There were four TAs for such a large class.

Marjorie, she introduced herself as, got her Powerpoint up and running, and took us through her extensive lesson plan, including her personal history and educational credentials, the papers she'd published and the degrees she held. For someone who looked airy fairy, she certainly had a lot of degrees and accolades. I'd heard nothing but amazing things from other people who had taken the class and I had to admit the subject matter interested me. How could it not? Sex was interesting.

“I'll bet you already cracked the textbook open and took copious notes.”

So sue me, I'd skimmed it before class. I was curious about how graphic the diagrams would be. Turned out pretty graphic.

“I'll bet you're going to rip the pages out and plaster them on the ceiling,” I whispered back as Marjorie walked back and forth, using one arm to gesture and the other to click through the Powerpoint slides.

“It's all up here,” he said, tapping his head.

I was facing forward, pretending to be engrossed in the slides. He grinned at me and pulled out a pen, tapping it on his knee one, two, three, four, five times before he paused and started again.

I stole the quickest of quick glances and noticed something else behind his left ear when he moved his head. Looked like another tattoo, but it was so small I couldn't tell what it was.

The girls behind me yapped the entire class, and I wanted to tell them to shut up, but didn't want to start anything. The room buzzed with the hum of chatter the entire hour and a half. Granted, it would have been impossible to keep that many college students quiet for that long.

Hunter was fidgety the entire class. Whether it was pen tapping or knee jiggling or stretching or twitching. He was like a five-year-old high on cotton candy. I hadn't noticed him twitching so much the day before, but maybe I just hadn't been paying attention. But I thought I would have seen him vibrating like he'd had twelve cups of coffee. It was very distracting.

“Are you on speed?” I whispered as Marjorie was going through the grading scale for our homework assignments.

“Huh?”

“Are you on speed? Your knee is going a mile a minute.”

“I'm fine,” he said, leaning over and putting his ankle on his jiggling knee.

He started pen tapping again, and I reached out so he'd stop. My hand connected with his. It was the first time I'd really touched him. My fingers closed over his fist and the tapping stopped. I removed my hand without looking at him.

“Thank you,” I said.

He didn't respond, but his hand stayed still the rest of the class. When it was time to leave, I was hoping he'd just get up and go, but that didn't happen, of course. He packed up his things slowly, as if he was waiting for me. I took my sweet time.

“Do you have another class, or is this it for you?”

“I'm done for the day,” I said, standing up.

He followed suit and walked behind me as we left the room. I hated the fact that he was behind me, because he had full view of my ass as I walked up the stairs. I half-expected him to grab it, but he didn't.

We walked side by side out into the bright sunshine. It was blinding after being in the dark lecture hall.

“Mind if I walk back with you? I don't have class again until four, so I figured I'd crash for a little while.”

“It's not like I can stop you. It's a free sidewalk,” I said, looking left and right before crossing the road. He walked beside me, shortening his stride so he could match my stubby legs.

“True, but if I ask it makes me seem like a nice person.”

“You're not a nice person,” I said.

He laughed. “You're right, I'm not.”

He shook his head as if it was the funniest thing ever. It wasn't, really. Most people wanted other people to like them so they tried and were overly nice. Hunter wasn't like that. He was what he was and didn't give a shit if people liked it or not. No matter how crazy he drove me, I had to admire that about him. Sometimes I cared too much what other people thought of me. It must have been freeing to go through life like that.

We didn't talk much as we walked. At first it was strange, but the more we walked, the easier it was. It was the longest I'd heard Hunter go without a sarcastic comment or sexual innuendo. It was kind of nice.

“So, about dinner,” he said when we walked into the apartment, “what do you want me to make?”