He treated me like a person to be respected, like a thing to be worshipped and handled as gently as precious glass.
He kissed the most frightened part of me, and it isn’t so scared anymore.
He’s here. And I can hardly believe it.
I can hardly believe a boy so handsome, so regal and smart and kind and interesting wanted to—burned to—sleep with me.
No one else is going to want you.
Jack wants me, for who I am.
And it’s even more amazing he stayed after, that he’s still here, that he didn’t change his mind and leave. He’s not a figment of my imagination. He’s here and he’s real, and he smells the same as his room smells, and I wallow in it, try to drag out every second of the luxurious golden haze that is this warm disheveled bed with this warm disheveled boy in it whom I happen to like an annoyingly huge amount.
Finally, Jack cracks one sleepy blue eye open, sees me staring, and laughs hoarsely.
“Good morning, you creepy, beautiful thing.”
“I was plotting,” I say. “How best to murder you in your sleep.”
Jack leans in, planting a soft kiss on my palm. “Make it long and drawn out. I love suffering.”
“Exactly why I’m making it short and snappy. Neck-snappy, to be precise.”
He pokes at my forearm. “You couldn’t snap my neck if you tried.”
I scramble up and sit on him, trying to wrap my arms around his neck. He fights me off weakly and finally pulls me down into him, laughing.
“You are vicious.”
“I believe the term you used was ‘hellion,’” I correct in his ear.
He runs his hand lazily up and down my spine. “How are you doing? Pain-wise?”
“I’m broken in two and will never walk again,” I deadpan.
“Yes,” he hisses, tightening his hug. “Now you can never escape.”
I roll my eyes and roll off. “Let’s go. The day awaits, glorious and full of future disappointment. And food.”
He doesn’t get up, watching me pull on shorts and a T-shirt instead. He groans and shoves his face in the pillow.
“I don’t want to go. I hate it out there. I want to stay here forever.”
“I don’t have enough Doritos in this room for ‘forever,’” I insist, and wince when an ache shoots through my pelvis. Jack jumps out of bed, balancing me on his arm.
“Are you all right?”
“Everything is sore and I’m dying.”
“I warned you.”
“No, you didn’t! There was no warning involved! Just a lot of gross dirty talk!”
“And laughing. A lot of good laughing.”
I blush, and he wraps his arms around me and pulls me back down onto the bed. He sighs into my hair.
“It’s been years since I’ve laughed like that. Thank you.”
“Tsk, tsk, what kind of escort are you? I’m supposed to thank you for sex. Or pay you.” I lean over the side of the bed and fumble around for anything other than dust. My hand finds the bra dime Yvette gave me, and I press it into his palm. “Here. For your services.”
Jack growls and bites my neck. “I think I’m worth a little more than that.”
“I don’t know,” I singsong. “You gotta prove it first.”
He flips me on my back, and I squeal. He leans his forehead against mine.
“Prove it? Then what was last night?”
“A warm-up,” I decide. “Appetizer. Except ew, let’s not bring weird food analogies into this please. I don’t want to be compared to a restaurant.”
“You’re the best restaurant ever. Three Michelin stars,” Jack asserts. I push him off and he laughs, pulling his boxers on. Yvette chooses that exact moment to walk in the door and get a face full of Jack-dick. She stares at it, then at me, then at Jack’s face, and nods like a candid art appreciator as she proclaims, “Nine out of ten.”
I, Isis Blake, have decided sex is okay.
I have a little large mental library of what is okay and what is not okay, and sex gets lifted from the not-okay book and slapped into the okay book over the course of two weeks. Jack and I shuttle back and forth from my dorm to his, alternating when our roommates are out and stealing quiet moments and making them not so quiet. I learn his every mole, every tiny scar from his childhood, every weak spot. There are so many huge, dumb problems looming, like the tape Nameless has, but I shove them and Nameless aside and bask in my newfound Jack obsession. The former Ice Prince is ticklish behind his ears and his knees and his hips (his sharp, delicious hips), and also he is still very much the Ice Prince—cool and collected and logical. Nailing each other hasn’t changed that. In fact, nothing about us has really changed. I thought sex would break us apart or change us into a formless sappy mush. But that’s not the case at all. I retort something, he snaps something back. I force gummy bears into his begrudging mouth, he holds me back from tackling the idiot who ran over my shoe with a skateboard. We fight. We fence. We argue the finer points of the most complex debates in human history.
“Santa is real,” I say as I pick up my burrito from the food counter.
“He’s not,” Jack corrects, sidestepping a cafeteria worker with a full stack of dishes.
“Two words have never convinced anyone ever of anything.”
“Yes, they have. It’s shit,” Jack says.
“What’s shit?”
“The prequel Star Wars films.”
“Oh, see, now you’re right, and I have to take back what I said because I was wrong and you’ve convinced me utterly with only two words. Ugh. I hate being wrong.”
“I love being right.” He sighs, and I kick him under the table, except he is too fast, so all I kick is wood. With my shinbone.
“Ow.”
He kisses my head. “You brought this on yourself.”
I throw my face on the table and fake-sob. “I have bruises everywhere. I’m a bruise farm. Magnet. Bragnet. One day the future people of the world—who won’t know what bruises are because technology will be so advanced no one ever gets one—will come to me, and I will show them my skin, and it will be the greatest contribution to human civilization.”
This impresses Jack so much he takes a sip of soda.
Sometimes I catch him smiling at me when I’m jabbering on about stupid shit. But that’s the only thing that’s really changed.
Sex used to be this weird, scary blob of lace panties and ladies who scream like they’re being hurt in porn all the time and what if I smell funny; what if my chin looks fat from any angle ever during it. It used to be me thinking I’d have to shave everything smooth like a dolphin every single day of my life for a guy to not be grossed out by me. It used to be me, angry at sex and hating it, and bitter because the only person I thought I loved used it to hurt me. Sex was a sword I didn’t want to be cut by again, a tiger that mauled me once before, and I’d gladly walk into a pit of corrosive tar before I’d go in that tiger’s pen again.
So I suppose Jack Hunter is a pit of corrosive tar. But we already knew that.
“Objection, your honor,” Jack contributes. “I am not a pool of base acid.”
I kiss him on the cheek and stand. “I’m going to the library to taunt an animal dumber than me. Boys count.”
“Don’t encourage them.” He rolls his eyes. “They might develop a crush on you and then I’d have to end them.”
I stare pointedly. He sighs.
“Gently. And in accordance with UN humane procedure.”
Jack leans up for a kiss, and I lean down. He nibbles playfully at my bottom lip before he pulls away.
“I’ll see you later, then.”
“Your room or mine?” I ask. He smirks knowingly.
“I was thinking something a little different tonight.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I have to report to my superior,” he says. “But we’re trying to make it look as casual as possible. So she’s put me on a dinner reservation with her. If you came, I’m thin
king it would look even more natural.”
“See, hell no, I’ve watched enough movies to know this is where you bring me to the CIA and they kidnap me for experimentation.”
“There’ll be no kidnapping. But there will be crème brûlée.”
I consider this proposal for an astonishingly lengthy two point five seconds.
“Yes.”
“Meet me in my room at eight, and wear a dress.”
“You just want to see me in a dress, perv.”
He smirks. “I want to see you in everything. And nothing.”
The library is much quieter and contains less sexiness than wherever Jack is currently, but I’ll live with it. For now, I have someone decidedly less sexy to bother.
Nameless has been on my list for so long, but only now do I have the strength to start plotting his ultimate demise. Only now do I have the courage to point all my dire expertise and rage at his throat. Now that I know for sure Nameless is wrong—that I’ve always been perfect and worth loving—I can fight him instead of run from him. Jack must be rubbing off on me in more ways than one; the fact that I haven’t busted down Nameless’s door and shanked him yet is a clear sign I’ve learned to control my anger like a true Ice Prince. Gasp. The horror!
People say you’re supposed to love yourself on your own. And I tried. God knows I freakin’ tried for four years.
But now that I know someone else loves me, it’s so much easier to grow the courage to start loving myself.
It’s not fast, and it isn’t all happening right away.
But it’s a start.
The only dress I brought with me to Ohio State is a green pleated dress I bought for prom but never wore. Jack’s in a white button-down shirt and slacks, which suddenly makes me paranoid I’m underdressed.
“You look lovely.” He smiles and I curtsy.
“Does this place happen to be enormously fancy?” I ask. We walk to his sedan, and I bunch my skirts up and settle in the passenger seat with the grace of a drunk hen with huge buttocks.
“Not especially.” He pulls out of the parking lot.
“Will I get kicked out for spilling soup on myself? Because I really enjoy spilling soup on myself. It enhances my overall life experience of being a slob.”
“As long as you don’t scream about aliens, you’ll be fine.”
“What! Aliens are included in my traditional prayer to the dessert gods!”
He gives me a long look that basically translates to “please don’t scream about aliens.”
“Ugh, fine,” I huff. “I’ll pretend to be normal. Just don’t act surprised when I keel over and die of a pulmonary embolism. Cause: sheer boredom.”
He pulls my hand up with his free one and kisses it wordlessly.
The restaurant is a small black-glass building wedged in at the end of Main Street. Jack opens the door for me and I slip in, the hostess flashing me a brilliant smile and Jack an even more brilliant one. Jack asks for Vanessa’s table, and the hostess leads us through rows of dark-wood booths lit with candles. A woman with severe, long black hair and wearing a fancy blue silk dress sits there, stirring an iced tea. She gets up and makes a weird forced smile as she leans in to hug me.
“It’s been so long!” She laughs and hugs Jack in turn. We all sit, except my butt is slightly more bewildered than theirs.
“Um. Hello,” I say. “I’m Isis, and also confused.”
“Jack’s told me much about you.” Vanessa smiles. The waiter comes along, and she looks up. “Do you two want something to drink?”
“Water will be fine, thank you,” Jack says, and looks to me. I squirm.
“Um, just a Coke would be good.”
The waiter nods, and Vanessa and Jack watch him retreat with eyes so sharp I’m surprised his back doesn’t start bleeding.
“Is he a threat?” Jack asks in a low voice, perusing the menu without looking at Vanessa.
“No.” Vanessa shakes her head. “But he followed me from the hotel earlier today, so we should stay alert.”
“Whoa, wait, that guy?” I whisper. “He looks way normal.”
Vanessa smiles at me. “The best ones always do. Let’s throw him off with a little boisterous conversation, shall we? How are you doing in school, Isis?”
She raises her voice, and I play along and mimic her, even if I have no idea what’s going on.
“I’m failing chem.” I sigh. “I hate it so much—it’s worse than calc by a thousand times. Also, I farted during the exam, and I’m pretty sure Professor Brown knew it was me because he wrinkled his nose and sniffed a lot and gave me a C-minus for ‘incorrect exposition,’ which is chem teacher speak for fart, I’m pretty sure.”
Vanessa laughs. “Well, at least you know what you’re not going to be majoring in, hmm?” Her eyes stay on me, but she lowers her voice and aims it at Jack all in the same breath. “Have you got the recording?”
“I, on the other hand, enjoy chemistry,” Jack says, his voice louder as well. “But I’d never pursue it as a degree. It gets far more complicated by third year, so I’m thinking of something simpler in the sciences.” His voice lowers again. “It’s on a USB in the napkin.”
Vanessa nods sympathetically. “When I was your age, I switched my major from biology to physics. Less icky cells, more clear numbers. Much easier.”
“Yeah, except biology gets all the cool stuff like wombats,” I say. “Have you seen how cute their ears are? A number could never compete with a wombat. Well, maybe the number eighty-three could.”
Jack and Vanessa give me blank looks.
“Because if you tilt it, it looks like someone making a kitty face!”
The dead silence in the face of my utter hilarity makes me squirm. All of a sudden Vanessa lurches, dropping her napkin on the floor and wrinkling her nose.
“Oh, damn.”
“Here.” Jack slides his across to her. “Use mine.”
Vanessa smiles and takes it in her lap. “Thank you. Are you ready for midterms, Isis?” she continues smoothly.
“Honestly I’m more ready for shrimp scampi.” I point at the menu.
“Of course! You two must be starving. Not that your college doesn’t serve good food! On the contrary; I’ve heard they have a wonderful selection.”
“It’s mostly burritos, but I’m not complaining. My intestines do sometimes, though. Speaking of which, I gotta pee. Where’s the—”
Vanessa points toward the back and smiles. “On your left.”
I slide past Jack, who grips my hand and squeezes it.
“You all right?” he asks.
“Uh, I’m about to eat food. I’m all sorts of fine.”
He smiles and lets go, and I start toward the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of our waiter watching me, but when our eyes meet he quickly looks away. Way to be subtle, suspicious guy.
Even the bathrooms are fancy—marble countertops and soap that doesn’t smell like a movie theater’s. I stare at myself in the mirror, my makeup less like a raccoon and more like a cat, and realize I’ve grown up. Not much. But a little.
It’s a start.
When Isis is gone, I turn to Vanessa.
“She’s very pretty.” Vanessa smiles. “Much prettier than I assumed.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. The girl you described on the phone…they normally don’t look like that. Humor comes to the plainer girls easier.”
Her backhanded compliment doesn’t faze me. I clear my throat.
“Terrance’s admission is on that USB I gave you. He says both their names very clearly.”
Vanessa smiles, looking over her menu intently, too, but our focus is everywhere except there.
“An admission from a drug dealer isn’t enough,” she says. “But it helps. This and direct key logs should be enough for our team to work with.”
“How are you going to get a key log on them?” I frown. “Will is wary of me—I’ve tried to approach him multiple times, but he always slips away. Kyle is
less smart, but Will’s warned him. They both avoid me.”
Vanessa stares at me, hard, and I know enough about her body language now to understand it’s an order to change the subject.
“She and I’ve been going out,” I say quickly. “For several weeks now. She’s my first actual girlfriend in a long time.”
“Ah, that’s right.” Vanessa smiles. “You were always the playboy type.”
“May I take your order?” The waiter comes up behind us, and I grin.
“Yes, thank you. I’ll have an order of the shrimp scampi for the missing lady, and the salmon fillet for myself.”
The waiter nods, eyes scanning our table with a too-focused intensity. Looking for us passing evidence, no doubt. Is he a friend of Will’s?
Vanessa taps her finger on the menu. “And I’ll have the lobster rolls. With the salad. Thank you.”
The waiter nods, taking our menus and briskly walking off.
“He’s definitely not subtle, is he?” Vanessa asks, stirring her tea. I nod.
“Will is nothing if not outwardly friendly. He must’ve told his friends in this town to keep a lookout for me.”
“Now how are we going to go about this?” She purses her lips thoughtfully. “He’ll obviously tell Will you’ve met with me, a suspicious not-college student. Will may bolster his defenses, and you’ll never get anywhere near his computer.”
“Then what do I do?” I ask.
Vanessa muses over this. “Isis. You said she knows Will, right? He hurt her once and is tormenting her at school now. If she could act as bait—”
“I’m not going to put her in that position,” I say quickly. “Ever.”
“You’ll be there to protect her, of course.”
“That isn’t enough,” I say. “I’m not going to ask her to do anything she isn’t comfortable with, period.”
“Very well. It’s just that there are few other options, since Will and Kyle are so careful. There may be hope yet if we let her contribute.”
“Let me do what?” Isis is back, sliding past me into her seat. “Were you two gossiping about me while I was gone? Ten million years’ dungeon for the both of you!”
I’m quiet, as is Vanessa. Isis, ever allergic to silence, squirms.
“I’m serious! What were you two talking about with me in it?”