True (True Believers #1)(38)
Author: Erin McCarthy

When my mother died, my father stopped drinking coffee.

Maybe he had never really liked it. Maybe he had only drunk it because it was her addiction and it was there in front of him, but he didn’t like it enough to pursue it. Maybe it reminded him of her. I didn’t know. I never asked and he never said.

We had left a lot unsaid.

But as Tyler and I studied in the coffee shop, I breathed deep and inhaled the rich aroma of the beans, knowing that when I got back to the dorm, my hair, my coat, my backpack would all carry the slight hint of coffee.

I supposed that was the same with my mother. A slight hint of her still clung to me.

It was a reassuring thought.

“There’s only two weeks left of classes, then finals,” I told Tyler. “But if you ace your final, you can still get a B in Anatomy.”

“And you can get an A in lit if you really want to,” he told me, his notebook open to the page where he had scribbled notes to himself in an extremely slanted hand. He also tended to doodle, inking skulls and funny faces all around the margins of the paper.

“I want to,” I protested. “That’s not the issue. It’s if I can.”

“Don’t be defeatist. It doesn’t fit your personality.” He tapped my book. “Read two chapters and we’ll discuss it.”

I made a face. “I should probably do my calculus instead.”

“You can do calculus in your sleep.”

“Is that why I wake up so tired sometimes? I’m doing calculus in my sleep? Have you seen me do that?” I ignored the novel about horses and the Great Depression and who knew what else in front of me.

He shook his head with a smile. “You’re a little punk sometimes. How come I’m the only one who sees that?”

Because no one else ever bothered to look. “Maybe you’re wrong,” I told him, tilting my head and smiling so he would know I was teasing.

“Nope. Maybe sometimes, but not about this.” Tyler pulled his phone out and held it up. “Smile for me.”

Oh, yikes. He wanted to take my picture. For the first time. I sat up straighter, aware that my lip gloss was totally gone and my nose was probably shiny. Plus I hadn’t brushed my hair since that morning, and it was so thick and wavy it probably looked like a mophead.

“No, stop worrying. Just smile, like you were.”

“I can’t now. I’m too aware.” I tried to relax again, but I couldn’t quite recapture the feeling of easiness.

Tyler was still staring at the screen of his phone, held in front of him. “You know why we get along, Rory?”

“Why?” This could be very, very interesting. Or it could be nothing. I sat, tense, waiting to hear his thoughts.

“Because we both see beyond what other people see about us. We both know that sometimes the best things are below the surface. When I look at you, I see this amazingly smart, funny, generous, and beautiful girl. Did you know that?”

“No,” I whispered, my heart swelling.

“It’s true.”

The flash on his camera phone went off.

And I knew that I had fallen completely and totally in love with him.

Chapter Thirteen

It snowed that night for the first time, blanketing campus in the dewy softness of wet flakes, drifting down to land without a sound, fresh and pure. We walked from the visitors’ parking lot, where Tyler had left his car, to my dorm, me shivering but lifting my head to the sky, appreciating the beauty of nature. It was light outside from the snow, deceptively so, given it was nine o’clock, the air still and hushed.

Flakes fell on Tyler’s hair and his eyelashes, and I thought he was so gorgeous when he turned and smiled at me. “This will melt by morning,” he said.

“Probably,” I agreed. “But for right now it’s awesome.”

Like us.

My roommates were gone. Jessica had left for the weekend. Her cousin was getting married and she was a bridesmaid. Kylie was tucked up in Nathan’s bed, where she had been nonstop since Sunday.

Tyler and I were alone.

And I had condoms. I had bought them that afternoon, as an insurance policy, knowing we were going to be alone. They were sitting in my top desk drawer, and I had opened it to stare at them about five times, anticipation swirling through me in the form of both giddy excitement and arousal.

Tyler kicked off his damp boots by the door and shook his hair so that the snowflakes scattered. “Damn. Even I have to admit it’s cold out there. Come here and warm me up.”

He pulled me close to him and we kissed, the familiar feel of his lips pressed against mine tugging at my insides. I knew I was in love with him, and I knew that I wanted to feel him completely, intimately. I wanted to share with him what I hadn’t ever shared with anyone else. The mood felt right. We were in sync, our talk at the coffee shop giving me the confidence to show my hand—or at least the condoms.

So when he peeled my coat off and dumped it on the floor, I kissed him eagerly, running my hands down over his chest, and yanking his shirt up to feel the smooth hardness of his muscular body.

“Rory,” he murmured after we had stood there making out, our hips bumping into each other, breathing getting louder, lips moist and swollen. “Are you sure no one is coming back here?”

“Positive.”

“Come lay down.” He led me to my bed, and he yanked his shirt off over his head before he pulled my comforter back and nudged me down onto the mattress.

“Wait,” I whispered. “In my desk drawer.”

“What?”

“Go in my desk drawer,” I repeated, pointing past my head as he hovered over me.

He did, and he made a small sound in the back of his throat. “Shit, Rory. Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I had never been more sure.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the box of condoms out and set them on the bed next to my head. Then he kissed me, hard, with an intensity that almost swallowed me. We had never been naked together, Tyler always staying in his jeans, me almost always completely dressed, his hands infiltrating from necklines and waistbands and under hems to touch me. But now he dragged my shirt up and off over my head, my hair spilling out across the pillow. As he kissed me, he undid my bra and slipped it off with an ease that surprised me. No fumbling. But I didn’t have time to worry about the implications of that because when his bare chest touched mine for the first time, I gasped, amazed that the simple brush of his warm flesh against my ni**les could be so stimulating, so tingly.