“You hinted. How?”
Hmmm. I pushed her up against the wall of a coatroom and pounded her. “You may have a point.”
Lisa cackles. “Yeah? Go figure. So now you need to be straight with her. How’s she gonna give you what you want if she doesn’t know what that is? Oh, and if you’re the kind of guy who likes to make a grand gesture, now would be a good time to do that. You strike me as a grand-gesture kind of guy.”
“I do?” Granted, I make some very grand gestures with the Blake Snake. But I’m getting the feeling that Lisa might not be talking about sex right now.
“Yeah. You’re a go-big-or-go-home guy, right? Think of something she really needs, and then give it to her. A girl would have to sit up and notice something like that.”
“She would, right?”
“Of course.”
I think this through a little more. “But if I make a grand gesture, she might still turn me down.”
“It could happen,” Lisa admits, wiping down the bar. “But then you’d know how it was.”
Fuck. My neck gives a big twinge, and I feel like I already know how it is.
22 I Can Do This. I Can’t Do This.
Jess
“Rise and shine!”
The loud and cheery voice jolts me from not-so-peaceful slumber, and before I can blink, the whole world tips over and I’m slamming down onto the floor. What the hell…?
I groan and rub my arm where it smacked the hardwood, realizing I’d fallen out of my chair. Was I sleeping at my desk? I groggily scrub both hands over my face. Yep, I totally fell asleep mid-cramming last night. There’s a drool spot and a cheek impression on the pages of the textbook that had served as my pillow.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Violet is tugging me to my feet, her eyes wide with concern behind her glasses. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” I rub my tired eyes. “What time is it?”
“Eight thirty.”
I gasp. “Are you serious?” Crap. Crap. Our final exam for pathophysiology and pharmaco-therapeutics (two words I never knew existed before I started this nursing program) is in thirty minutes. I don’t even have time to shower, damn it.
“Why didn’t you wake me earlier?” I ask my roommate.
She wrinkles her forehead. “I did. You said I’m up! and then kept reading.”
I did? Great. Some people sleepwalk. I, apparently, sleep-study. Except…oh God, I can’t remember a word of that textbook. Same with all the notes I took at the lectures. Panic coats my throat as I struggle to recall even a shred of information from my study sessions. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. I’m going to fail this final.
Violet is oblivious to my internal anxiety attack. “You should get dressed,” she informs me.
No shit. I fly around the room snatching up pieces of clothing, then strip out of yesterday’s wrinkled jeans and sweater while Violet leans against the door, watching me.
“Are you leaving now or do you want to wait so we can walk to class together?”
“I can wait,” she says graciously.
I yank a pair of clean yoga pants up my legs. Ugh. I can’t believe I fell asleep in jeans. I have red lines all over my thighs from where the denim dug into my skin all night.
“You want me to quiz you while you get ready?” she asks.
If it had come from anyone else, the offer might have been construed as considerate. But there’s a hint of smugness in Violet’s tone. Sure, we’ve been getting along better since the icebreaker at Sticks & Stones, but that doesn’t change the fact that Violet is super competitive. She crows every time she does better than me on a quiz, gloats whenever our clinical instructors give her any praise, and constantly makes sure to remind me that she’s at the top of our class.
I’m nowhere near the top. I’m not on the bottom, either. More like middle of the pack, which is a frustrating place to be. I’m killing it in the practical stuff (I secretly do some gloating of my own every time our instructor tells me how wonderful I am with patients), but the academic part is more difficult than I’d expected. Of course, that’s the part that Violet excels in, and she never lets me forget it.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” I answer as I slip into a V-neck T-shirt. “I don’t like to go over the material right before a test. It clouds up my brain.”
She shrugs. “Cool. I don’t need any last-minute prep, either. I had that textbook memorized before school even started.”
Of course she did.
I duck into the common bathroom on our floor, Violet trailing behind me. After some hurried teeth-and hair-brushing, I shove a stick of deodorant underneath my shirt and swipe it over my underarms, then zip up my toiletry case.