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Epilogue - Josie
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BULLY ROOMATE Josie
The fresh smell of baked croissants, and brewed coffee wafted through the Highland Coffee’s shop as I stared down at my lukewarm caramel macchiato. You’d think someone basking in the scent of coffee and the sugary equivalent to crack would be happier.Wishful thinking.Tomorrow started my first day of college at LSU, and I was technically homeless. My roommate I’d scored through a friend of a friend bailed the morning of my arrival. Something about her older boyfriend lost his job and needed a place to crash. Hence my homeliness.With it being too late to snag a dorm room, and me being too prideful to go back home, the only plan I’d conjured up included sleeping in the backseat of my 2000 Honda Civic in Wal-Mart’s parking lot. I could only afford a couple of nights at a cheap fleabag motel, because I hadn't landed an on-campus job yet as I planned.Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned back in the cool metal seat, stretching out my legs while logging into my laptop.I ha
BULLY ROOMATE Maverick
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
BULLY ROOMATE Josie
The dreams were all the same. Unburied from one of my four years of Hell, tormenting me even after it ended as I accepted my high school diploma and walked off the Zachary High School’s football field to my folded white chair.As if entering ninth grade hadn’t been scary enough, my torment started that year. Everything changed over the summer, I went from being invisible, to the new guy—Maverick Booker’s—tormented. It’d never made any sense to me, but I’d also never mustered the guts to ask why.I was sure it’d end in a shove into the cool metal of my locker.The buzz in the hallway felt electric as I walked toward my first period class. I picked up bits and pieces of gossip about a new guy and how he made all the other boys in our class look like B list actors.Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but want to snag a peek.It didn’t last long.Mr. Matthews taught English, my favorite subject, and I felt thrilled to have read his summer reading list. The buzz of the hallways halted
BULLY ROOMATE Maverick
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
BULLY ROOMATE Josie
My fingers clutched around the to-go coffee as I paced myself through campus toward my first lab class. I’d hardly slept through the night after what happened with Maverick.The fine line between hate and want taunted me. It never had before. Our relationship stood far from what happened in the kitchen the night before. Maverick’s bullying had always been just that. I almost felt delusional to think that it could be anything else.We weren’t in third grade when a guy pulled your hair because he liked you.I hadn’t met Maverick until ninth grade, fourteen-years-old, when guys normally pulled your ponytail and smirked, not tripped you or shoved you into lockers. Sighing, I took another long sip of my macchiato. Both Jordan and Maverick had been gone when I got up. Not that I’d actually slept well in the first place. The only sign Maverick had been there was the scent of his soap he left behind in the shower.My computer lab sat in a three-story building that the technology classes shar
BULLY ROOMATE Maverick
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
BULLY ROOMATE Josie
King dropped me off at my apartment, and left a lingering kiss against my cheek. I was thankful for the streetlight that’d burned out above us to hide the blush it left against my skin.The only kiss I’d ever had with a boy was in sixth grade, and it was for a gifted and talented play. In other words, no guy ever bothered giving me one that mattered. I prayed, even though King was a gentleman the entire night, that we could branch out on a limb and he might be my first.He left me with a promise to take me out again over the weekend, and watched until I made it into the apartment. The quiet sent goosebumps against my skin as I gave my eyes time to adjust to the darkness.Jordan’s room looked empty as I passed by toward the hallway. My foot snagged on something and I stumbled toward the carpeted floor with a heavy thud. “Oh!”A pair of cleats sat in the middle of the living room, the spike on the bottom dug into my ankle on the way down.Stupid boys. Always leaving things around.I cli
BULLY ROOMATE Maverick
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
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