Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [4]
I had no trouble finding your dorm because as undeniable luck would have it, you were assigned to Blair Hall—the oldest Collegiate Gothic dorm on campus and the most iconic. With its stone facade, imposing four-corner turrets, and famed archway, it looks like nothing less than a castle. It was impossible for me to miss, even in my somewhat inebriated state. When we’d moved you in earlier that morning, it struck me as absurd that students would actually live there, yet appropriate that one of them was you.
I was drawn to the noise of a volleyball game in progress on a stretch of sand near the castle that served as the campus beach. I envisioned row after row of nubile bodies in bikinis, as if this were a junior college in Fort Lauderdale and not one of the most esteemed and difficult-to-get-into universities in the world. As I made my meandering approach, I spotted you with ball in hand in the serving position—an impressive figure stretching several inches taller than any other player on the court. You were shirtless, as you often were since returning from the desert, and your lean, sinewy muscles were shiny with sweat. You’re the rarest of redheads, unfreckled, with skin that turns red first, then browns in the sun. Your ropy dreads had grown past your shoulders and bounced along with your every move.
And then there was the Beard.
You had all but given up on shaving, and the result was a (forgive me) scuzzy, neck-to-nose beard/sideburns combo. At its best, the Beard was sort of bohemian and Ginsbergian. But it more closely resembled that which is usually seen on the faces of crazy homeless men or even crazier Islamic fundamentalists, or lately, the batshit crazy Mel Gibson. When it got too mangy and unmanageable, even for you, the Beard was attacked with a pair of cuticle scissors. A Weedwacker would’ve been more efficient. The Beard was, without question, aesthetically unappealing and hygienically unsound, two factors that distinguished it from the very deliberate and totally played-out hipster beards that plagued Lower Manhattan and certain Brooklyn neighborhoods in the mid-2000s.
Between the overgrowth of facial hair and the overlong dreads, I estimated that I could see only about one quarter of your face. Your kaleidoscopic eyes—always-shifting patterns of green and brown and hazel—still mesmerized, even from afar. Even when they were focused on the ball and not on me. Patches of sand stuck to your sweaty knees, forearms, and chest. I wanted to slide my body against yours until every grain succumbed to gravity, helpless.
Yes, the sight of you swinging your arm, serving the ball, made me dizzy. Even with the Beard. Even with the words I had just spoken out loud to Dude.
And I wasn’t alone. On the opposite side of the net was a constellation of starry-eyed teenagers in shrunken prepster polos or cleavage-heaving camis, their tawny or milky white legs curled under microscopic denim, each one in full swoon over what it would be like to lose her virginity to you. And that included those who weren’t virgins anymore.
I wanted to end the suspense. “He’ll make you come the first time,” I could’ve said with authority. “And every time thereafter.” This wasn’t exactly true, but it felt true, which was true enough. How many there-afters have there been? I lost count long ago.
(Sometimes when making love, I’d grip your face and force you to look at me just to confirm that you were still there, and I was still there, and that we were still there together. Sometimes I would gasp, “We’re still here.” And you would whisper back, “Yes. We’re still here.” You always knew exactly what I meant.)
Given what I was about to do, it was not unreasonable to think that you would eventually get around to having sex with one of these girls. I wondered if any of them were your type. I wondered if you even had a type. Your number hovers around forty, so I don’t think I’m being an unreasonably jealous