BULLY ROOMATE

There she stood. All five foot three inches of the girl I remembered from high school. The girl that scared me beyond all the beautiful eighteen-year-olds that fallen into my bed over the last two years.The only difference with Josie Lee was that she wasn’t standardly beautiful, but quirky and shy, which made it hard to hate her. But—oh, did I hate her. And she had no idea why.I watched her small frame walk toward the front door of our apartment and fear laced its fingers around my neck as I grabbed her wrist in my grasp. She swung around to face me, meeting me with a look that I didn’t remember from before. The side of her lip rose, and damn myself to Hell, if it didn’t send heat through my veins.“You don’t want to be my roommate, Lee? You afraid?” I asked, knowing she didn’t. Knowing she hated me, and knowing I wanted her there more than anything else in the world.Her gaze jumped over my shoulder to Jordan, who I assumed was confused with our exchange, and I wouldn’t tell him. I

I’m fuming. The urge to run after Josie, carry her off caveman style fueled me. I don’t, because people are around, and they wouldn’t understand, I don’t understand.Things are different here. We’re not in high school anymore, and I don’t have a band of loyal followers that thought whatever I did was okay. It wasn’t. I knew deep down it wasn’t. The torment I put Josie through was not okay.Regardless, every time I looked into her doe eyes, I felt anger, frustration and the over-conflicting emotion to kiss her or shove her down. Let her know how much she torments my nightmares.Fighting the urge to chase her, I walked toward my next class and tried to cool my head. Football helped at first, at least it took the edge off for me, but now, having her at LSU forced all those unwanted feelings into overdrive.My phone vibrated in my jeans. I answered with a sharp, “What?”“Ouch,” Jordan said. “Are we on our period?”I sighed, running my palm down my face. “What do you need?”The sound of ke

The blindingly bright stadium lights drew sweat against my forehead, and soaked the white midriff I wore underneath my LSU jersey. It became one of the things I became accustomed to while living and playing football in Louisiana.The heat.The murmurs of my out-of-state teammates always made me laugh. Nothing compared to the humidity of the southern states—maybe Hell, but that ranked the closest.Our game against Vanderbilt left us in a win that erupted our bleachers into an array of flaming purple and gold celebration. All my bad energy I’d carried around for the past two days sank away beneath the 100 yards that our cleats smashed into for a grueling two and a half hours.Playing cornerback gave me plenty of running time, along with the ability to release my anger onto the other team with bone shattering tackles and gut wrenching blocks. It drowned out the images and frustration that lingered in the back halls of my mind. The ones I tried so hard to keep away—the staunch smell of al

Her blush drove me crazy. It trumped over all of the angry reasons I held for hating her, and made me feel warm on the inside. No other girl I’d dated—slept with—whatever, made me feel like Josie.Even with the knowledge that she stood in her room getting ready to go out with another guy. I knew Keith King wouldn’t make her feel like me, even if she didn’t want to admit it, the sparks I felt with her couldn’t be one-sided.Jordan tossed a pillow at my face, knocking my game controller from my hand. “What are you doing? We lost! Are you paying attention?”“It’s just a dumb game,” I said, tossing the pillow back at him.Jordan grumbled when someone knocked on the door. The sun sank low in the sky, which told me it was time for the crawfish broil. Josie spent most of the day locked in her room. It’d been torture waiting on her to come out to pee, just so I could get a glance at her. Jordan stood up to get the door, but I beat him to it.The irrational part of me wanted King to see me, ev

I won. It felt hard to believe I’d won against experienced students. The card Professor Mark Duke gave me sat heavily in my pocket. When he asked my major, and I replied with undecided, he smirked, saying, “I think you’ve decided.”I bit my lip on the way to my Honda, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride. Not only for winning, but also standing up to Maverick. Even when his breath hit my mouth and the thought of a talented set of lips driving me up the wall lingered, I didn’t let it.Too many questions remained for me to give into him. Besides the obvious, why did you torment me for four years, but why would Frankie turn out so much different from you, and why does my feelings not matter when it comes to treating girls with respect?Maverick wouldn’t tell me, but Frankie would, if he knew, which I wasn’t sure if he knew or not, but he could help me figure it out.I sank into the driver’s seat of my car, putting my canvas in the passenger seat carefully. My hands shook with excitement