Chapter Two
If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, and talks like a rat, it’s probably a freaking rat.
Kiersten
“Name?” The guy at Registration didn’t look up, merely paused as his fingers hovered over the iPad. I’d woken up at seven so I could make early registration at eight. Tables were lined outside the Student Center in prison-like fashion. At least twenty upperclassman stood in front of the tables with packets and bored expressions.
“Kiersten,” I answered.
He let out an irritated sigh. “There are over thirty-five thousand students on this campus, and you want me to look you up by your first name, Kiersten?”
“Sorry. Uh… Rowe. Kiersten Rowe.”
He typed away. “Well, Rowe Kiersten Rowe, it looks like you’re registered for nineteen credits and have yet to decide on a major.”
What was he? A profiler? “That’s right.” I leaned back on my heels and cleared my throat. He still didn’t look up.
“Hmm…” His hands moved fluidly over the screen. “Alright, I’m sending your schedule to your school email.” He set the iPad down and grabbed a packet. “Campus map, mailbox number, student email, everything you need is in this package. If you have any questions, you can ask your RA.”
I hoped he meant resident advisor, because if he meant something else I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Okay.” I took the packet he thrust in my face. “What about my student ID card?”
“Next!” He lifted his head and shot me another irritated glance.
“Excuse me.” I stood my ground. “Where do I get my student ID card?”
His shoulders slumped. “Look, Kiersten, I have a line of a few hundred students, I said everything you need to know is in your packet, so look in your packet. If you have questions, ask your RA. We…” He pointed at himself then at me. “…are finished here.”
What the hell was his problem?
I wasn’t sure if I was embarrassed or just irritated. Cursing, I held the packet to my chest and stomped off. I turned around to send him one last seething glare and ran smack dab into a tree.
Or at least it felt like a tree.
But trees weren’t warm.
And they didn’t have one, two, three, four, six, Good Lord, eight? Eight packs? Furthermore, had I actually been feeling said person’s eight pack? And, dear God, I was counting. I had touched each muscle. And great, my hand was still firmly placed against the guy’s stomach.
I jerked my hand back and closed my eyes.
“Were you just counting my abs?” His voice sounded amused. It also sounded like a movie star voice, the type that makes you want to jump into the TV screen. It was deep, strong, and had a slight accent I couldn’t place. British? Scottish?
I took my lower lip between my teeth and thought about what to say. Well, there really was no way out of it. I nodded. “Sorry, I just…” I shouldn’t have looked. If I could go back in time, I would have. I had no idea that one look would devastate me. Weeks from now I would regret that one look, for one reason and one reason only.
His eyes held my ruin.
“Weston.” He held out his hand. “And you are?”
Screwed. “Kiersten.” I clutched the packet tighter against my chest. He squinted at my hands then looked at his.
“You have a germ thing?”
“Huh? What? No?”
“You have a disease?” His hand was still between us, it was getting more awkward by the minute. Just put it away!
“Um, no.”
“Good.” He moved his hand from safe territory, and suddenly he was touching me, well, touching my packet, but I could have sworn I felt every bit of his heat as he slowly peeled it from my grip and freed up my hands. “Now,” he held out his hand again, “where were we?”
What the heck was wrong with me? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to shake his hand. It was just that I was embarrassed and I wanted to leave, and I wasn’t sure if he was just being nice to me to be nice or — wow, I needed therapy.
Clearing my throat, I reached over and shook his hand. At his smirk, I panicked. He clenched my hand within his and looked down at our joining, then mumbled something under his breath. I felt the loss when he finally released my fingers.
“See?” He handed back my packet. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
“No.” I swallowed and my eyes darted across the crowded lawn. I seriously couldn’t stare at him in the face; that was how gorgeous he was. I’d never seen such a good-looking guy in real life before. Sure, I’d seen them on magazines and movies, but this guy… He was living, breathing, walking sex. And considering I had no experience in that department, I was putting up every wall I could think of in order to remember to breathe.
His eyes were a pale blue, his hair a golden blond that was a little too long and curled by his ears. And his smile. Well, his smile would probably haunt me for the rest of my life. It was easy, and his dimples only made it worse. And then there was his smell. A mixture of some sort of cinnamon and something else I couldn’t really put my finger on. It irritated me how easy it seemed for him to smile, as if nothing was wrong in the world when everything felt like it inside. He wanted to shake my hand and know my name and I wanted to get the hell out of there and sit in my room, preferably rocking back and forth in a corner until my anti-depressants decided to kick in to high gear.
“So,” he said with a chuckle. “We go from you touching my abs, straight to insulting me by not shaking my hand, and then to daydreaming. That sound about right?”
“Oh my gosh.” I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s my first day, and I’m just… nervous.” There, that sounded good, not at all like I was seconds away from having a minor freak out.
“Let me help?”
“But I don’t know you,” I blurted.
“Sure you do.” Somehow he maneuvered himself around me so that his arm was resting on my shoulder and we were walking back toward my dorm. Holy crap. This is how girls were taken advantage of. Panicking, I searched the lawn for Lisa, but she was nowhere to be found.
“No.” I dug my heels into the ground. “I, uh, I need to find my roommate and my ID card! I have to grab my ID card. Well, first I need to find my RA…” I sounded like a lost kid at the park. Funny, because most of the time I felt that way, lost, like a missing puzzle piece that forgot it was a part of the rest of the puzzle. The outcast, the loner the—
“—I believe,” he said, smirking, “that I said I’d help you.”
“I don’t need that kind of help,” I whispered.
“Huh?” He stopped walking and then burst out laughing. “Holy shit, I think I may love you.”
Heart meet stomach.
He kept laughing and pulled me tighter to him. Well, at least my uncle wouldn’t have to worry about paying for college. I was like ten minutes away from being taken. Like in the movie, Taken, only I didn’t have a bad ass dad to come save me. My heart clenched again.
“I’m not going to take advantage of you,” Weston said. “No offense, but you look way too innocent for my tastes, which you again proved when you wrongfully assumed I wanted to help myself into your pants.”
My face erupted in flames.
“Also…” We kept walking. “You’re a freshman. I don’t do freshmen, as in, I don’t date them. Hell, I don’t usually even help them, but you did almost knock me over, and regardless of how much you deny it, you were counting my abs—”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.” He sighed wistfully. “I watched your mouth move, one, two, three. It’s eight by the way, an eight-pack. I work out a lot.”
“Great,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Aw, Lamb, don’t be embarrassed.” He stopped and released me.
“Lamb?”
“Pure.” He smiled. “And lost.” Shrugging, he pointed to my dorm. “Like a little lamb.”
“Well, thanks for the walk back to my dorm.” I brushed past him, but he grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t you want to talk to the RA about the ID card?”
“Yeah, I’m going to go get her right now.” I jerked free. “So, thanks for… everything.” I was redefining the meaning of socially awkward.
He licked his full lips and smiled again. “Okay, you go ask her.”
“Okay.” I stumbled backward, almost tripping on my own feet, and made my way up the stairs to the dorm.
Once inside, I could feel him still staring at me.
I turned around.
He was grinning.
I waved.
He waved back.
Seriously? What kind of sick game was this?
Muttering a curse, I read through the different floors and located the RA’s room. Sixth floor. Of course. I went to the stairs and slowly made my way up.
By the time I reached the sixth floor I was ready to forgo the entire ID card in favor of a nap. One of the side effects of my medicine. Sometimes they made me sleepy. Other times I had such vivid dreams it was like starring in Alice in Wonderland
With a groan, I forced my feet to take me to the end of the hall. Room 666. That had to be a joke, right? I knocked twice on the door.
It swung open, revealing my tree… “Weston?”
“Lamb.” He opened his door wider. “How can I help you?”