Toxic

Chapter Ten

Ashton freaking Hyde, how I loathe you! My roommate had found out about my obsession and littered my walls with his sexy face. I guess there were worse things to stare at. Damn his blue eyes. —Saylor

Saylor

By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was dragging my feet. All the late night practices were getting to me and I still couldn’t get Sexy Stranger out of my mind. Yes, I’d officially resorted to calling him Sexy Stranger.

Ugh.

I walked back toward the dorms. I’d promised my study partner I’d stop by and go over our plans for our freshman project. I’d only met her once, but she seemed really nice. Added bonus, she seemed like the type of girl who didn’t make the other person do all the work.

I kept my head down as people walked by me. Being a social butterfly was never high on my priority list. Plus, I never really knew what to do when people looked at me. Was I supposed to smile? Wave? I always felt awkward and uncomfortable and then there was that whole long hallway scenario. Seriously. What are you supposed to do when you and one other person are on opposite ends of the hall walking by one another? Five minutes into walking and it’s like, okay, let’s just acknowledge that each of us are attempting to pay attention to everything but each other and then, boom, at the last minute, “Oh hey I didn’t see you there, what’s up?” Lame.

I reached for the door to the building and stumbled backward into something hard. “Whoa there,” an amused voice said from behind me bracing my shoulders. “You okay?”

I nodded and turned to face whoever saved me from a concussion. Of course, as luck would have it, Football God, also known as the great Wes Michels, was my savior.

Naturally, because life was just that cruel. And I clearly hadn’t had enough embarrassing moments in the past three days to last me a lifetime.

Unable to find my voice, I lifted my hands to my temples, faking the whole dizzy thing, buying me enough time to say in a voice that sounded like a three year old, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He shrugged then opened the door for me. I walked past him, straight toward the elevator.

He followed.

I pressed up.

He stepped in with me.

I moved to the farthest corner of the tiny box and waited for the floor to ding. The minute the doors open, I nearly collided with another person getting in, but was able to sidestep the harried genderless student who was hidden behind an armload of textbooks and make my way down to Room 226.

Balancing my bag in one arm, I lifted my hand to knock when that same voice said from behind me.

“You a friend of Gabe’s?”

“Who?” I whipped around. “Is that who lives here?” With shaking hands I gripped the piece of paper with Lisa’s contact information. “I was actually looking for Lisa. We’re in the same business seminar class and we’re doing a project together, but I can be super forgetful, so I’ll just text her and see if I wrote down the wrong number and—”

“Whoa.” Weston held up his hands. “Totally wasn’t meaning to scare you shitless… Lisa lives here, and she probably won’t hear you knock on account that on Taco Tuesday she turns up Mexican music so loud the rest of the building complains.”

“Taco Tuesday?” I repeated.

“You’ll see.” He sighed and reached behind me, pushing the door open. “Lisa!”

He yelled like a football player. I winced as my ears started ringing.

“What!” Lisa yelled from somewhere in the apartment.

And he was right, the music was crazy loud. I couldn’t even hear myself think, thanks to both the mariachi notes and the fact that Weston had just yelled in my right ear.

“Someone’s here to see you!” he yelled back just as a girl walked out of one of the bedrooms. I recognized her immediately — Kiersten, Football God’s fiancée. You’d have to be living on a different planet not to know their story.

He fights cancer, she fights for him, they fight together, he proposes during football game and what do ya know? He’s miraculously healed! They were a living, walking, breathing Hallmark Movie.

“Oooo, are you a friend of Gabe’s?” Kiersten’s eyes widened with amusement as she stepped into Weston’s arms. He kissed her on the head, and started toying with a piece of her dark red hair.

“Who’s Gabe?” I said for a second time.

“Stupid dry spell!” Lisa yelled again from somewhere in the kitchen. At this point I still hadn’t seen her.

“Am I missing something?” I said as loud as my voice was capable of going, which wasn’t very loud.

“It’s a damn choice!” An even louder male voice said behind me. I could have sworn the hair on my arms stood on end as I slowly turned to face the owner of the voice, hoping, praying that I was wrong.

“You!” We shouted in unison. I dropped my bag to the floor and held my hands in the air like I’d just gotten mugged and was about to drop his ass, when really every meeting with him had gone far, far differently.

Gabe grabbed my wrists and grinned. “Back for more.”

The darkness was gone.

Who was this imposter? He seemed… happy. But every time I’d seen him he may as well be wearing a sign that read: Chip on shoulder, beware.

Confused, I shook my head. His smile grew as his fingers tapped playfully across my wrists.

“Gabe!” Lisa yelled. “Release my partner or I’ll put Pepto in your tacos!”

“What would that even do?” asked Weston from behind me.

The music was turned down and then Lisa was prying me away from Gabe.

“So…” Lisa’s grin grew to epic proportions, as her eyes seemed to calculate our acquaintance. “I take it you know each other.”

I yelled, “He assaulted me!”

At the same time, Gabe winked and countered with, “She’s a damn spy!”

“Forget the movie,” Wes said in an amused voice. “Gabe drama? Way better.” He took a seat on an arm of the couch and smirked.

My eyes narrowed into slits as my hands twitched at my side. The guy needed to be punched. This time Lisa put a calming hand on my arm, while Gabe threw his head back and laughed.

Again with the laughing? Did he have multiple personality disorder? Were they aware he was mentally unstable? And if they weren’t, wasn’t it my duty to say something? So he didn’t knife them in their sleep when he decided to take the train from happy land back into hell?

“Classic,” he said, his stupidly long eyelashes mocking me with every damn blink. “You Lisa’s new tutor too? Tell me, piano star, does the world ever tire of your Mother Theresa ways?”

Ah, there he is. To be honest, I had been getting slightly worried.

“That’s it.” Lisa grabbed Gabe by the ear and tugged.

“What the hell, Lisa!” Gabe whined as he stumbled toward her tiny body.

She released his ear and stomped her foot. “New leaf. You stopped being an ass remember?”

“He was never really an ass,” Kiersten said coming to his defense.

I turned my head slowly to catch her expression. But she looked completely serious as if he wasn’t a complete and total loser. He was talented and hot, but still a loser. Okay, so he had skills but… Wow, I needed to stop the arguing in my head before I got a headache.

Gabe formed his hands into a heart and pressed it against his chest. “Love you, Kiersten.”

“Not your girl,” Wes fired back.

“Is this getting filmed or something?” I threw my hands up in the air. “You guys are all crazy. You know that right? I’m here for Lisa, not Gabe. I barely even know him outside of the practice rooms.

“Oh my gosh! You’re trying out for the spring musical?” Kiersten asked.

“Uh…” Gabe licked his lips.

“Wait, practice rooms,” Lisa repeated. “Gabe, are you playing again?”

“Again?” Kiersten looked between the two of them. “What do you mean again?”

“Wow, thanks, band geek, seriously. Awesome. I guess I was right before. You are a tattletale. Oh, look at the time,” he said, checking his watch. “Better hurry home so you can get in bed before seven and have your roomie braid your hair. Oh, and don’t forget to brush your teeth and say those prayers.”

“Don’t you have an STD to spread?” I tilted my head with cool indifference.

He pushed away from the wall. “Why, you open for business?”

“Turtle!” Lisa shouted and stomped her foot.

The room fell silent.

I burst into a fit of laughter. “Turtle? Seriously?”

Gabe rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if every word out of my mouth was causing his head to pound.

“Sorry, Gabe,” Lisa whispered and wiped her hands on her crazy looking Jalapeño apron. “I had a virgin margarita.”

“Sugar makes you crazy,” Gabe said, crossing his arms over his chest, “And yeah, it’s my nickname. Why? You into nicknames and role play? Shit like that get your engine going?”

“Ew, Gabe.” Kiersten walked over to us and put her hands up n the air. “I’m just going to stop you now before both feet end up in your mouth and you lose the ability to walk. Repeat after me, Hi…” She paused and looked at me. “What’s your name?”

“Saylor.”

“Hi, Saylor. Nice to meet you. I’m Gabe, and I promise I’m not as big of an asshole as you think I am. I promise to keep all parts in my pants, and I swear that if I attack you one more time, Kiersten has full permission to castrate me in my sleep.”

Gabe glared and held out his hand. “Saylor, it’s a pleasure meeting you.” His teeth were clenched so tight his jaw flexed. I’d never seen a guy with so many tattoos and piercings… never in my life would I ever imagine it would look so damn hot, but on him it did. And I wanted to hate him for it.

Because the opposite meant I liked it.

His face had just enough of a five o’clock shadow to be dangerous for any female with a pair of good working eyes. His dark as sin hair hung almost to his chin but had a slight curl to it, making him look like a damn pirate. A tattoo snaked around his neck, diving into the front of his shirt, and his arm muscles seemed to swell as I tentatively watched the swirl of tattoos almost move across his forearm. He was covered in what looked like lyrics on his right arm, and on his left, he had a few birds, more music notes, and a cross, everything was linked together. It should have looked stupid. But instead of looking stupid — like he was some sort of mismatched first grader — it looked sexy. Damn, damn, damn. I didn’t swear often, but Gabe made me want to live up to my name. Swear like a sailor? Um yeah, it was happening.

“So…” Gabe eyed me up and down.

I backed up until my legs touched the couch.

“You gonna just stand there all day staring at me, or are you and Lisa actually going to do homework?”

“Homework.” An arm looped within mine, and I looked up into Lisa’s amused gaze. “But first, we eat!”

“Olé!” Wes clapped and smacked Kiersten on the rear, while Lisa kept her arm firmly tucked in mine.

Gabe continued to stare, as if it was some sort of weird stare off where if I backed off first, I’d be the loser and have to do something really embarrassing, like admit he had a physical effect on my body.

“Shh,” Lisa said in a low voice. “No sudden movements. He’ll take it as a challenge and start chasing.”

“Me thinks she wants to be chased.” Gabe licked his lips.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah well me thinks the ink on your body has started seeping into that brain of yours… Tell me, do you enjoy harassing young women in order to get them into bed with you?”

Gabe tilted his head in thought, then raised an eyebrow as if the thought actually had merit.

“Come on.” Lisa tugged my arm. “You can help me set the table. I hope you don’t mind that we eat first. It’s my turn to cook and if I punk out, Gabe throws a fit.”

“Likes his food?” I asked, following her into the kitchen.

“No.” Lisa pulled out some taco shells. “He’s just really OCD about the dinner schedule.”

“Odd,” I admitted.

“Thank you.” Gabe’s breath was on my neck as he answered and then side-stepped me and started pulling salsa and sour cream out of the fridge, “Being called odd’s almost as great as being called sexy.”

“How do you figure?” I snorted, trying to ignore what his nearness was doing to my body at that moment. My breath hitched as another wave of desire hit me. Swear, it was like he was physically willing himself on me without even touching me.

Gabe’s hand paused on the ketchup as he ducked out from behind the fridge door and sneered at me; his mouth curved silkily around his white teeth, sending an involuntary shudder through me. “Odd can mean any number of things.” He closed the fridge.

There wasn’t anything I could put between us, no counter, no ketchup, nothing.

“Odd means I stand out. It’s an unintelligent way of saying I’m unique, different, special, one of a kind. Odd means in a lineup of twenty guys, your eyes would still find mine.” He thumped the block of cheese onto the counter. “Every.” Followed it with a jar of chopped tomatoes. “Damn.” And then the salsa. “Time.” Then he turned to face me, a smirk on his face so cocky that I wanted to launch myself at him. “So do I take it as a compliment that you call me odd? Hell yeah, I do. It means tonight when you close your eyes, you won’t be thinking about all those cookie cutter all-American guys with clean skin and baby blue eyes. But you will be thinking of me.” His grin turned predatory. “All me. And that—” He took two more steps toward me. I couldn’t back up. It was impossible to move. “—makes me happier than you’ll ever know.”

My breathing was ragged. I was an idiot. Plain and simple. I was allowing the bad boy with no future to play with my feelings, but it was unintentional. Everything about my reaction to him was uncontrollable. I couldn’t help but feel drawn, I couldn’t help but feel irritated, and I couldn’t help but want him to touch me one more time, even though it pissed me off as much as it turned me on.

“Move,” he whispered.

“Huh?” I shook the cobwebs of lust from my head.

He tapped my shoulder and gently pushed me to the side. “I gotta set the table. I wasn’t trying to be rude. Oh, and close your mouth. Gaping makes you look desperate.”

I stepped out of the way, basically clattering my body against the oven hard enough to cause a permanent bruise on my hip.

“Don’t mind him,” Lisa said from behind me. “One day, he’ll get his.”

“Don’t worry.” Gabe poked his head around the corner and winked. “I already got mine.” He disappeared then came back again just as I opened my mouth to speak. “Oh, and by the way, it was awesome.”

“Pig,” Lisa muttered.

“Aw, cousin.” Gabe blew a kiss and this time disappeared for good.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until Lisa tapped me on the shoulder, making me almost choke to death.

“Sorry about him. Sometimes I wonder how we’re related.” Her blue eyes twinkled briefly before she shrugged and returned to the cupboard to pull out plates. “Grab the salsa and we can put the tacos on the table. Homework second, food first.” For some reason I felt the need to it — maybe it was because of Gabe, or maybe it was because of me. Yeah, on second thought, it was me, because he made me feel out of control.