Ruthless Heart Read online

  “You creepy fucker!”

  I grinned at her as she stood hastily and looked around uncertainly. “Not creepy, just out walking.”

  “It’s after three in the morning,” she hissed at me as she looked around again.

  “I know, why are you out here? Can’t sleep?” I leaned against the wall of her building. At least, I assumed it was her building.

  She watched me for a moment before she looked around again. “No, it’s too hot.”

  I looked at the AC units on the side of the building and looked back at her in question.

  “They broke, they break regularly.”

  “Housing will fix it if you ask them.”

  She rolled her eyes at me as if I had just told her water was wet. “Yeah, I know. Only they don’t seem to fix them for long.”

  “Why do you hate me?” My question surprised me as much as it did her. I had no idea why she disliked me so much, and for the life of me, I didn’t understand why. But she was not shy in hiding her aversion to me, even though I was fairly confident I’d never met her before.

  My question obviously flustered her as she was putting her hair up again. Gray did the same thing, fidgeted when he was agitated or nervous. I was guessing she was nervous. Because of me? It didn’t make sense.

  “How’s your ankle?” she asked me instead of answering. “Should you be walking so far on it?” When I raised an eyebrow, she lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “Students talk.”

  “You’re concerned for me?” I heard her huff of derision, and for some reason, this made me grin wider.

  “No, not at all.” She glanced over her shoulder to the door. “I better go inside.”

  “I make you nervous.” She had turned to leave, but she hesitated at my question. “Why?”

  “You don’t make me nervous,” she answered as she looked over at me. “It’s late, I’m tired.”

  “You tell yourself that.” I smirked at her as I resumed my walk.

  “You don’t affect me at all,” came her angry hiss, and I smiled wider. I knew I was getting to her, but I didn’t know why. I just knew it pleased me in some way.

  “As I said, keep telling yourself that,” I called softly over my shoulder. I laughed when I heard her door slam in response. With a smile and a lighter step, I headed back home.

  I had a lot of shit to sort, but now I was ready for sleep.

  In the morning, I was cranky, and I knew exactly who I was pissed off at. Jett Santo. Every single time I tried to get rid of him from my brain, he turned up, like some form of narcissistic junkie who sensed I was moving on from Friday, so he popped back into the forefront of my awareness in case I could forget him.

  He was like a freaking whack-a-mole just waiting to be swatted.

  I would quite happily swat the fucker with a baseball bat if I could.

  Sleep had not come to visit me last night. I had gotten up and done some course work, hoping it would help me sleep. Then I had merely lain in bed and watched my alarm clock move ever closer to getting up time. An hour before I was due to wake up, I was using a washcloth to give myself a sink bath since the generator was still out, which meant no shower, and at the stroke of eight thirty, I was arriving at the housing administration building with a vengeance.

  Much to my annoyance, there was already a line forming, and I was eyeing the guy-in-front-of-me’s coffee with rabid want. Was it assault if I tackled him to the ground for his coffee? On top of theft? My crazy inner ramblings made me giggle and caused the carrier of the object of my desire to turn and look at me quizzically.

  Lame hand wave later, and he had not only turned back, facing front, but also moved a step further away from me. It did not lessen the soft sultry smell of caffeine though, and I was almost salivating by the time he was called forward.

  My horror as he casually tossed the three-quarter full cup into the trash was only surmounted when Jett came out of the side office, looking impeccable and well-rested, wearing a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans with ripped out knees.

  Hiding behind my hair so he wouldn’t see me, I studied my scuffed white Chucks. Even had I not known he was in the same room as me, I would have felt his presence as he came and stood casually beside me.

  “Morning,” he greeted cheerfully.

  I hate you.

  Looking up and pretending I hadn’t seen him before he was beside me, I forced a carefree smile. When his head tilted slightly to the side and his beautiful blue eyes narrowed infinitesimally, I can only imagine what my face must have looked like.

  “What?” I asked him rather forcibly, and my good Southern manners internally balked at me. “Sorry, morning.”

  “Are you always this uptight?” Jett asked me with a casual sweep over me, and I remembered that I was practically unwashed, my hair probably looked like I’d been on the back of a hay cart, and I was pretty confident this was yesterday’s T-shirt.

  “I’m not uptight, I’m just not a morning person,” I explained patiently.

  “You were like this yesterday, and it was the afternoon. You were like this last night, or should I say earlier this morning.” He looked me over again critically. “I think you’re just uptight.”

  “Well, thank goodness I don’t really care what you think.” Again the tight smile, but this time I wasn’t forcing myself to be nice to him.

  “I knew I’d regret doing this, but yeah, you can come out of the line. You’re holding everyone up.”

  “Huh?”

  Jett looked at me with that damn smirk on his face. “Your generator will be fixed this morning.”

  “Huh?”

  “How quickly you go from hostile to speechless.” His lip curled up in a smile at the corner, and I was torn between wanting to lick it or smack it off his face. “I think I like it.”

  “You don’t even know my name.” I looked around as I stepped out of the line. “I was next, so you better not have been fucking with me.”

  Again the cool appraisal, and again I felt like an uncouth bug. “I’m not fucking with you. I don’t know your name, but I know the building.”

  “Oh.” I glanced around again, and when Coffee Abuser left the counter at that very moment, I darted into the open space before the guy behind me could take my place. “Hi,” I greeted the lady behind the counter. “I live at the suites off of Blossom Parade, and our generator is down.”

  The admin woman clicked on her computer. All the while, he stood beside me, casually leaning his back on the counter, his elbows propping him up, with his head turned towards me. I could feel his smugness, and I desperately didn’t want what he had said to me to be true, because I genuinely couldn’t cope with the thought that I would be indebted to him.

  “Yes, this is already listed as a repair. We’ll have someone out there this morning, probably after ten,” she said as she looked at me, and I felt the weight of weary resignation hanging around my neck. Like a noose.

  “Oh, um, thanks,” I mumbled as I went to turn away. “Do I need to be there?” I added as I half-turned back.

  “No, it’s an old fault outside,” she told me with a firm but polite “move along” smile, and with heavy feet, I walked away from the counter.

  I didn’t look at him until we were outside the admin building, and he seemed content to wait for it. Biting my tongue from any harsh words escaping, I wrapped my arms across my chest, gripping my elbows as I stared over the quad. “Thanks.”

  “Physically hurts you, doesn’t it,” Jett said, humour thick in his voice.

  “No.” It really did. “Why?” I dared a glance at him, and when I saw that self-satisfied smirk, I knew I would punch him.

  “Figured I owed you after yesterday,” he told me with a casual shrug. “Even though it’s a closed campus, girls shouldn’t be sitting out in their PJ’s at three in the morning to cool down because their housing facilities are screwed.”

  I huffed out a laugh despite myself. “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” I uttered
the well-known saying, and he gave a low rumble of laughter.

  “Exactly.” Jett still sounded amused. “Call us even?”

  “I wasn’t aware I owed you anything.” Why did my mouth have to speak without my brain intervening?

  “I told you that you owed me a finish.” His slow smile was almost my undoing. No one, I mean no one, should be able to look like that before nine in the morning.

  “Right, you did. I ignored you then too.” Too bad my tummy was fluttering like it was full of butterflies. My body was not on my side when it came to Jett Santo. Jett laughed out loud, causing a few people to turn and look at us, which made me tilt my head down so my hair covered my face, hiding me from curious eyes.

  He noticed. “You ashamed to be seen with me?” he asked me curiously.

  “No, I don’t know you to be ashamed of you.” Lie, I know you better than I should.

  “You’re a smartass.”

  “You’re a dick.”

  “You enjoyed looking at my dick.” He leaned against the wall, completely at ease.

  “When?” I gasped in horror as I finally made proper eye contact with him. Had he remembered who I was?

  “Yesterday, in class?” Jett had lost his smile and was looking me over with more interest. “Or…do we already know each other?”

  I did not like the way his eyes suddenly narrowed as if he was trying to place me. “Absolutely not,” I told him hurriedly. “We’ve never spoken.”

  “You really are very uptight.”

  “Yeah, you said.” Looking around at the grounds filling with students, all of whom knew exactly who he was, I knew I needed away from here. “Look, it was kind of you to use your connections, I guess, in helping me. The suite is a shit place to be in the heat, so thanks. But if you wanted anything else...”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jett snapped to attention, and I took a hesitant step backwards. The irritation was clear on his face, and this time when he looked me over, it was less complimentary.

  “Wh-what?”

  “I was messing with you earlier, I didn’t help you so I could fuck you.”

  “Whoa, that is not cool to say out loud, dude!” My look around us now was more frantic, and I hoped to God the guy walking past within three feet of me hadn’t heard.

  “Not cool to say out loud, but okay to think?”

  “I didn’t know what you meant; if I thought wrong, well, can you blame me?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Jett demanded.

  “Well, you’re, you know...you.”

  “No. I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Could you die on the spot from mortification? I didn’t know if there were actual cases of it, but I was possibly close to being the first one recorded on campus.

  “I didn’t mean to cause offence.” Tucking my hair behind my ears, I refused to look at him. “I said thanks, we’re even as you said. Can I go now?”

  “I wasn’t aware I was keeping you.” Jett’s tone was no longer friendly. His look was hard, and I was more than ready to leave.

  “Okay, um, have a nice day.” I turned and quickly left him standing there. Have a nice day? Seriously, after telling him he was basically a manwhore? Well done, Ava. I didn’t look back, but I could feel his heavy stare on me, and I had to stop myself from running, anything to put distance between us. He didn’t remember me. He didn’t remember Friday. Or I was just one of so many, he couldn’t remember me even if he wanted to. If that wasn’t a slap in the face, I didn’t know what was. I was grateful that he got the generator fixed, but I didn’t think we would ever be even.

  Not by a long shot.

  I made it to my first class by the skin of my teeth, and I heard nothing that the professor said in the fifty-minute lecture. Not one word. I was the same in the next class, my attention focused inwards rather than outwards. What I did hear was my conversation with Jett on a constant loop. I told him I didn’t know him, and then I told him he was a slut. Wonderful.

  My fingers continuously threaded through my hair as I wondered for the hundredth time how the hell I had met him on Friday. I was at the party. He was not. I had too many drinks. I knew that my stomach had been tender right into Sunday night. Even drunk off my ass, I would know if Jett was at the party. I would know if any of the football guys were there, but it was the night before a game. They shouldn’t have been out. He shouldn’t have been out. I would remember if they were there.

  Wouldn’t I?

  “Ms Bryant, are you listening?”

  My head shot up, and my mouth dropped open. “Huh?”

  “I’ll take the lack of articulation as a no, shall I?” Professor Windsor asked me with an easy grin.

  “Sorry.” I knew I was turning red, but the professor was now openly laughing at me. “Didn’t sleep last night.” I immediately regretted my words, because the catcalls and whistles were expected even if they were juvenile.

  “What kept our Ava Bryant awake?” Professor Windsor asked me. His name was Joe, and he encouraged us to use it, but it felt odd, and I hadn’t managed it yet. Not even in my head.

  “Generator broke, no AC.”

  “Ouch, and we’re not even in the first week of September,” he said with a shake of his head. “Southern heat is a killer.”

  “I did spend about three hours during the night going over the assignment,” I told him as I hoped that this would distract him from the fact that I hadn’t been paying attention.

  “In the Southern heat, whilst overheating, you thought of Blanche?” The professor gave a cheerful laugh as he turned to the whiteboard. “Okay, Ava. Tell me how A Streetcar Named Desire reflects your inner turmoil in a hot room in the middle of the night, with no air.”

  “Well,” I began, and I was off. It was one of my most favourite plays, and I had been thinking about her last night as I lay and thought about him. A desperate woman confusing illusion with reality. Was I confusing my fragmented memories of Friday with something they weren’t? I was having flashbacks of a hot and heavy sex-a-thon, but what if it wasn’t? What if I had simply passed out and all the sexcapades were in my head? He didn’t even know who I was, for God’s sake. Maybe some small—very small, possibly minute part of me—wanted it to have been a sex session, but in truth, my virgin inexperienced self had actually been so bad in bed, and drunk, he had simply rolled over and gone to sleep?

  Giving the class my attention, as it should have done, and talking about the play lessened my inner ramblings, and I became more focused.

  Packing up my things afterwards, I was pleased that I had started a good discussion in the class, but like so many other times, my mind wandered back to him. Realistically, I knew I had to take the hit. My ego was bruised. I should have meant more than I did to him. But then, truthfully, he should have probably meant more to me than he did.

  So…was I any better than Jett? Really?

  I didn’t remember the night much, and he didn’t seem to remember me…so…maybe he was just as drunk as me? And honestly, did I actually want him to remember? God no. I could quite happily live my life without him having that knowledge.

  He had done a nice thing for me today.

  In return, I’d been a bitch.

  We would never be friends, but I should do the honourable thing and thank him properly. Civilly. I hadn’t been polite with him so far, but maybe me being purposefully nice to him would shock him so much that I could deliver my apology and get out of there before he could reply?

  If unicorns were real, they’d fart rainbows.

  I texted Mia after my third class when I received the email that the AC was fixed. She sent me a trophy emoji for killing it in the admin building. I would tell her later who we should actually be thanking. Or to avoid the conversation, I could keep it to myself. Mia wouldn’t care who really got it done, as long as it was done.

  Heading to the cafeteria, I thought about lunch. I needed carbs and energy. Possibly an energy drink. And coffee. Maybe a burger.
With fries. No, was that too heavy? But if I had a food coma happening in the afternoon, I could snooze through Leitch. No, that would never happen.

  As I debated my food choices, I really should have paid more attention. A sudden whack to my head knocked me flying. My cry of alarm and my arms flailing like a windmill would have been comical if I hadn’t just landed on my ass.

  “Ow! Sonofabitch!” Rubbing my head, I sat up as I realised my book bag was spilled all over the grass too.

  “You okay?”

  I looked up into familiar light blue eyes and a handsome face, only this time it wasn’t the Devil that I was used to. Gray Santo? Seriously? Was someone just fucking bored up above and trying to make me miserable?

  “You hit me?” Shaking my head to clear it from the thumping, I refused his outstretched hand as I stood.

  “Nah, not me, him,” Gray said as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  I half expected Jett, but it was the backup QB, and he was currently heading my way. “His aim’s shit,” I snapped as I rubbed my head again, not too sore. The ache would fade quickly.

  “Yeah, we were trying a new play.”

  “Try your new plays and routes in the stadium,” I growled as I bent down to pick up my belongings and put them back in my bag.

  “Hey, you okay?” The backup quarterback had arrived. I knew him. I knew the whole team on paper, but I wasn’t in the mood to be nice.

  “No, jackass. Be more careful.” With a glare, I stomped angrily away from them. Twice in one day I had been the source of attention from a Santo brother.

  “Yo, chick?”

  I stopped dead and turned back to Gray, who was holding something out to me. “Chick?” I asked him incredulously. “Do I look like poultry?”

  “Whatever, you dropped this.” He tossed it to me with casual indifference and had turned away before I had clumsily caught it, realising it was my wallet.

  “Thanks,” I called out after him, his back broad and straight as he walked away. He flicked his middle finger up at me, and despite myself, I grinned. That was how I expected a Santo to behave. Complete indifference to the lesser minions.

  Maybe the knock on my head was my world shifting back onto its rightful axis.