The Studying Hours(37)

“Stop talking.”

Suddenly I’m up on my tiptoes, silencing him with the crush of my mouth. Crush—what a cliché, and yet I’m shoving him against the house, kissing the dickens out of him with my hand twisted unexpectedly in the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer, kissing the words off his lips, downing them like a thirst-quenching drink to my soul. Kissing him like he’s a deployed soldier I won’t see for months. Years.

Hints of delectable tongue.

Bodies flush.

Sounds I didn’t know people made while kissing.

We kiss and kiss until a light goes on inside the living room, the soft glow from the flimsy curtains catching my eye and giving me pause. Allison pulls back the curtain to glance outside, visibly startled to see us making out on the porch.

Quickly closes the curtains, but rips them back open seconds later to get another look. Begins fist pumping in the air, leaping and jumping around the room in a silent victory dance until my making out with Oz turns to giggle fits and he pulls away, confused.

Allison’s eyes get guiltily wide and she lunges toward the curtains, whipping them closed, but we can hear her hysterical laughter.

“She’s a goddam delight.” Oz laughs, planting another firm kiss on my lips.

I perk up. “You think so?”

“No. She’s a boner killer.”

Oh god.

One date down.

Four to go.





Jameson





If you would have told me a few weeks ago I’d be watching a wrestling match on a Wednesday night in a packed campus stadium, I would never have believed you.

Not in a million years.

But I’m here, Allison beside me for support, because no way was I coming alone. Not when the two tickets handed to me last night were front row floor seats.

Freaking front row. On the floor.

“We get these to give our families but I want you to have them,” Oz had said as he slid them into the pocket of my backpack, landing a sloppy kiss to the center of my surprised mouth; I still cannot get past his unencumbered displays of PDA.

“You still plan on coming, right?”

I gave a shaky nod, fingertips touching the spot on my mouth where his lips had just been. “Yes. Allison’s coming with me.”

“Good. I don’t want you to be alone on our second date.” His pencil had tapped the edge of the hard, wooden table.

“How is this considered a date if you’re not even going to be there?”

“What do you mean, not going to be there? You’re going to be watching me in action. And then afterward…” He’d hesitated. “Maybe we could celebrate the big W with dinner.”

I’d scrunched up my forehead, confused. “Big W?”

My mind had gone immediately into the gutter: Big O.

Orgasm.

Big D.

Dick.

Oh god, it was official: I had sex on the brain twenty-four-seven, and there was only one person to blame.

“Big W stands for win.” He’d laughed. “What were you thinking it stood for?”

“Definitely not that?”

“What then?”

“Big big things.”

“Oh my god,” Oz howled. “I can’t believe what a pervert you are.”

“I’m not a pervert just because it made me think of sex!”

“Busted!” He’d laughed again, harder, head thrown back against the leather desk chair in the study room. “I never said that’s what you were thinking about.”

“James. James, are you paying attention? You’re in that guy’s seat.”

Huh?

“You have to scooch over a seat James. Earth to James. James?”

“Oh crap, sorry!” I hustle to move over, shooting an apologetic smile at the man waiting patiently for his stadium seat. Grabbing my jacket and the giant Iowa foam finger Allison bought me, I scooch.

“I cannot believe these seats!” Allison squeals beside me, chatting me out of a daydream. “They are amaze-balls, James.” She digs for her phone, taps open SnapChat, and takes a selfie with the wrestling mats in the background. Her finger flies through the filters. “Sweet, there’s an Iowa wrestling geofilter!”

I smile at her enthusiasm and try on the foam finger, giving it a few waves before setting it back on the ground in front of me.

The butterflies in my stomach multiply by the hundreds when the lights in the stadium suddenly flicker and go black. Our Iowa mascot appears on the jumbotron and a single spotlight appears in the center of the huge, hardwood court that’s been converted into a wrestling stadium.

The light shines on the center mat as the broadcaster’s baritone voice booms. The marching band begins the fight song and the cheers from the packed house are so deafeningly loud I resist the urge to cover my ears.

“This is crazy!” I shout to Allison, truly astonished. The number of people filling the seats is incredible; the stands are lost in a sea of black and yellow. Banners, signs, and flags fly. Across the gleaming hardwood, a hand-painted poster announces, ZEKE DANIELS! I WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH YOUUU, one boldly sparkles, OZZY 4 THE PIN in gold glitter, and another next to it begs, OZ OZBORN, PIN US WITH YOUR BIG D***! WE DO 3SUMS!

I cringe at that one.

One by one, the wrestlers from the visiting team are announced and their stats pronounced as they run from the locker room and take the floor. Jog around the perimeter. Drop to the ground and do pushups.

Strip off their warm-up suits.

And holy sweet Jesus…

“Dear. God. You can see—everything,” Allison shouts over the band when they begin a bleat of chants to fire up the crowd while our cheerleaders twirl their metallic yellow pompons and—wait.

“Since when does wrestling have cheerleaders? Is that a thing?” I yell to my roommate.

“Oh, it’s a thing all right.” She laughs loudly. “You really don’t get into sports much, do you?”

I shake my head.

The overzealous crowd around us goes wild when strobe lights flash, the faces of our team appearing on the giant screens of the scoreboards and jumbotron high above our heads. First some kid named Rex Gunderson jogs out. Another named Jonathan Powell. Monaghan. Lewis. Fairchild. Pittwell. Bower. Rodriguez. Ebert. Schultz.

That giant douchebag Zeke Daniels.

Sebastian Osborne strolls out last—every masculine, muscular inch of him. Reaching the edge of the mat, he bounces in place on the balls of his feet, covered from head to toe in a black tracksuit with his last name screen-printed in bold yellow across the back.

I stare, transfixed as he unzips the jacket and slides it down past his shoulders. The straps of his tight singlet are not yet pulled over his defined pecs; rather, they hang down at his sides. He’s naked from the waist up, tattoo sleeve expanding as he warms up with the team. Skin already damp with perspiration, he’s the epitome of rock hard, unyielding, sexy—

“Sweet. Baby. Jesus!” Allison shouts with an elbow to my ribcage so hard it hurts. Her arms go out, widespread, beseeching. “Why have I never paid more attention to the wrestling team? Why, god, why! This is…this is…”

“Amaze-balls?” I tease.

“No. It’s better. It’s majestic. It’s the eighth wonder of the freaking world is what this shit is.” She shoots me a look. “Would it be weird if I took pictures for my spank bank?”

“Girls have those?” I refuse to say the words ‘spank’ and ‘bank’ together in a sentence.

“This girl does. I mean, Jesus, James. Look at all the poly-covered c-o-c-k in this room.” She covers her mouth. “Shit, sorry. I just... It’s just that you can literally see everything. I mean, that guy from Wisconsin looks like he stuffed an entire eggplant emoji down his—”

“I’m well aware.” But thanks for mentioning it.

Allison stares pointedly across the room at the female fans in the student section. With their lewd signs and skimpy outfits, their objectives are evident to anyone with a set of functioning optical senses.

My roomie states the obvious with a hair flip. “You don’t honestly think they’re here to actually watch wrestling, do you? Bitches, please.”

“Remind me again why I brought you?”

“Because after this meet is over, you’re gonna have to elbow your way through that crowd of hoes to properly congratulate bae on his v-i-c-t-o-r-y and I’m going to help you do it.”

Hoes?

I sputter on the pink water bottle poised at my lips. “There were so many things wrong with that run-on sentence.”

“Shhh, shhh, they’re starting.” Allison hops up and down on the balls of her feet. “Oh em gee, I’m going to have a million pictures on my Snap story. Everyone is going to be so jelly.”

I roll my eyes, but my face lights up with a smile. “Whatever you do, do not tag me in those. I’m not kidding this time Allison—those pictures you posted on Instagram last week weren’t funny.”

She snaps a selfie and shoots me a sidelong glance. “But you were wearing a puffy coat.”

“So?”

“It was forty-five degrees!”

“Some people get cold, Allison.”

“Stop being so huffy, hardly anyone saw it.”

Deep breath, James.

“Allison,” I reason with her calmly. “Two hundred and sixty-seven people double-tapped to heart it.”

She disregards my annoyance with a flippant, “Are you going to watch your wrestler or start an argument?”