Sweet Ache

Get over it, Westin.

Somehow I’ve become a sappy female, and I’m usually so far from sappy it’s ridiculous. I wanted casual. Well, you can’t get any more casual than a guy who rejects you. Besides, if a guy’s not interested, I know how to brush it off and move on. Plenty of fish in the sea—one pectoral fin is the same as the next, just hopefully a little bigger.

I had thought Rick’s irrefutable demonstration of how men are like bras—that they hook up behind your back—had hardened me some and made me not care…. So why are things with Hawkin affecting me so much?

That’s the question I need an answer to but even after moping around like a lost puppy the past few days, I still don’t get it, don’t get him. We flirted, he made the first move when I was trying to show him the PA system, and so how am I left to feel like I’m the one inferring there was something more there than there really was?

He initiated the kiss on the porch. He led me from the kitchen to go upstairs. And then he said see-ya like nothing happened.

Maybe I’m just stressed about the couple of snags I’ve had with my thesis. The writer’s block that’s made a permanent place on my creative doorstep needs to leave sooner rather than later. It has to be the stress contributing to my vulnerable emotional state.

Not Hawkin per se, just the combination of everything all at once.

So when his voice fills the room, I hate that I immediately sit up taller hoping that he looks up and acknowledges me like some road-battered groupie who follows him from city to city wanting any scrap they can get from him.

Pathetic. Yep, that’s what he’s reduced me to and it’s not very attractive.

I keep my head angled down, pissed off at myself for how stupid I’m being. I don’t want to feed the insanity if he does actually look my way. I busy myself with double-checking notes for a different class, purposefully ignoring him. If I could stick my earbuds in and get away with it I would.

Anything to tune him out because all I want to do is let him in.

An hour later I sigh in relief as a few students in the class clap when the lecture finishes. I did it. See, Quin, not a problem, you can be in the same vicinity as him and not fall to his charms. My confidence boost rings false seeing as how in a lecture hall filled with hundreds that feat is a little easier to accomplish, but I’ll take what I can get.

When I rise from my seat I make the fatal error of looking down to the front of the room. And of course he’s talking to some coed but his eyes find mine, causing that punch of carnal lust to hit me hard. I reason that I’m just horny and need to get good and laid. The kind of laid that leaves your knees rubbery and your body feeling like it’s floating on a cloud while you wait to come down from its euphoric high.

The kind that allows you to lose your thoughts for a while.

We stare at each for a beat. Long enough for the jolt of chemistry between us to reach across the distance and attack my senses. That panicked feeling hits me chased by unfettered lust. I force myself to turn abruptly and walk the few steps up to the door and out of the auditorium, feeling like I’ve gained a bit of my good sense in walking away from him on my own accord, this time.

And yes I’m walking away but I do so knowing I’m most likely walking away from that rubbery-knee postorgasmic glow as well. Something tells me that Hawkin screws like his voice sounds, seductive, a little rough, a lot thorough, and with a lot of tongue.

A girl can’t go wrong when there’s a lot of tongue involved.

I groan to myself as I walk across campus to the department offices, the idea of a night with him making me want and need. The image of Hawke and his ice-cream cone returns to me. I chastise myself, tell myself that there are plenty of men out there who are skilled in bed and that I’m just too damn picky. The only conclusion I draw is that the only way to get over the repeated image in my head of sex with Hawkin is to have sex with someone else. Preferably mind-blowing sex with someone else. So I vow that I will accept the next offer made to me for a date—or a fuck—to get over the player that is Hawkin Play.

I welcome the cool air as I enter the department and toss my bag on one of the desks set aside for grad students to catch up on paperwork or miscellaneous tasks for their professors.

I text Layla and tell her to study this afternoon so that we can meet up later for some drinks and some flirting with strangers. I feel a bit more centered when she replies with a hell yeah! because it’s a step toward burying any remnant of Hawkin from my mind, by either alcohol or great sex.

I know I’ll find the first, at least.

Shifting through papers, I work at getting caught up with administrative stuff for Professor Stevens: class requests, grading papers, adjusting syllabi. I’m in the middle of entering grades in the computer when something catches my eye out the window. I glance up and see Hawkin standing a ways away on the grassy area surrounded by a few other students.

Despite telling myself to look away, to ignore the sadness I saw in his eyes after he argued with Vince the other day, I can’t. Even though I know he doesn’t deserve my compassion, a part of me feels for him anyway.

So I watch him make the group around him laugh aloud while they hang on his every word, and I’m sure there are stars in their eyes from getting his attention. I glance to the left to see Axe standing there, attention wandering as he waits for his playboy of a boss to finish making coeds’ panties wet.

I hate the bitterness I feel that he’s giving them attention when he gave me none, least of all any consideration toward me in explaining why he flipped off like a switch after most definitely being turned on. And then of course I’m mad at myself for being upset at him over a situation I clearly didn’t understand.