Innocence Page 6

Chapter 6

  We were complete then, the five of us, right there on that first day. Sure, there would be other friends, acquaintances, you name it. But none would elevate to the inner circle of The Five, formed on that first day. It was magic, really. Because as members of that group, we became more than the collective sum of ourselves. Yet, we wouldn’t discover these things until put to the test.

  And our first test walked through our dorm room door later that very day.

  The messenger was a most unremarkable herald, Corey Stills. We’d later learn that the diminutive but muscled wrestler was a resident of our floor. Corey, who all five of us would find unattractive, was a hanger-on in the group of guys that really counted in the dorm. So this bestowed him with status, and obnoxious Corey took full advantage, lording his superior sophomore confidence over the five freshmen women he had been sent to summon.

  He was but a gopher for the more popular and attractive upperclassmen of our residence hall. Nothing more than an errand boy, really. But through his connection, he would have access to the women the others would cast off. He was a class bottom feeder. And he recognized and completely accepted his status. This made him dangerous because he didn’t care about feelings. He knew he would get his share of sex simply based on the college formula of hormones, stress, alcohol and naïve, unsuspecting freshmen coeds.

  In other words, us.

  Now, here he was with a message and a mission. And that was to summon me.

  Me?

  And the unlikely person who had dispatched Corey to our dorm room? None other than Josh Elliot, he of the sandy, surfer hair, the ocean-blue eyes and the long, lanky body that coeds could only dream about. Only for some, that dream would come true.

  Would I be the lucky lady, new to the sexual freedoms of a college freshman?

  The very thought made my heart clench, my pulse quicken and my throat tighten so that it was hard to breathe. It also sent tingles south. Down there. But I didn’t want to acknowledge this, any of this.

  It was all too much, too fast. Yet, how can we ignore our own bodies? Truth is, we can’t. Yet at nearly 18, I hadn’t gotten through the owner’s manual, yet. I had all the equipment, all the urges, all the sensations -- but not the knowhow. Only experience can teach us. Only the men we bring into our beds can instruct us. Only the young women with whom we share our deepest secrets and suppressed intimacies can advise us. And what better place than college for all this learning?

  Yeah, it all sounds great. Perfectly natural, in fact. But there are some lessons you’re just not ready for. There are some lessons you are never ready for. In a way, my path to this most unwanted lesson began with Corey Stills’ rap on our open dorm door. With that, and a long and winding series of events -- many good, but some bad, some very bad – that would lead The Five to its ultimate test.

  And none of us would ever be the same.

  Our faces turned in unison toward the door – five freshmen women looking up expectantly at a uniquely unremarkable upperclassman guy.

  Oh, Corey wasn’t that bad. Just a little too short and a little too cocky, as height-challenged guys often are. He had the tightly muscled body of wrestler, and he was decent-looking, save for the cauliflower ears from his chosen sport. His face was scrunched into a permanent scowl, as if mad at the world. Some athletes believe that going through life with a chip on their shoulders gives them an edge. Maybe it does. But it also must consume a lot of energy. And it can transform one’s face into an unappealing mask -- eyes sharpened to pinpointed hot coals, brows sloped, forehead wrinkled, jaw set.

  I often wondered if the fires of resentment that Corey Stills stoked in his guts didn’t burn brighter because he was overlooked by so many women, as well. I wondered what this did to him, being overlooked by so many women, being the guy of last resort at the end of the night.

  More troublingly, I wondered what Corey did about it? Later, after everything happened, I would wonder about this a lot.

  “Hey, is there a Monica here?” Corey spoke, even as he must have seen the disappointment overtaking our faces at his mere, unremarkable presence. It was a woman’s instinctive disappointment that our unannounced visitor wasn’t more gallant, more handsome, more open in his features and personality.

  I’m thinking, Corey probably got this a lot. He probably hated it, too. But if he read it in our slackening expressions, which I’m sure now that he did, he didn’t let it show. He refused to allow it to trip him up. We were mere freshmen women. A dime a dozen in his book. Maybe in the books of most guys on campus, especially the upperclassmen.

  Through it all, Corey’s intense, sharp, angry-at-the-world gaze never altered. Why would it? It was this short, not-quite-good-enough athlete’s armor against life’s unfairness -- and women’s fickle sexual attractions.

  I was lost in thought, considering these things, as the faces of my fellow Five swung to me. I felt their gaze and my own face heating up. I didn’t know what Corey might want. Hell, at that moment, I didn’t even know his name. I only knew -- and this was pure instinct -- that I wanted no part of this person.

  “I-I-I’m Monica,” I stammered in a low voice. “Who wants to know?”

  “Oh, so you’re the one,” Corey said, stepping deeper into our dorm room, totally uninvited.

  He made a show of turning his head and checking the hall, then he kicked the doorstop with his foot, allowing the door to slowly swing shut. He stood there, blocking the entrance with his squat, wrestler’s stance, until it closed completely.

  I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like this.

  “Hey,” Sonya said, rising from a desk chair pulled near my bed, where we all had been huddling and talking. “What gives?”

  Corey looked at her in disdain. Another beautiful woman he could never have.

  “I’m not talking to you,” he grimaced. “I’m here for the other one.” He jerked his head toward me.

  I lowered my eyes against his gaze. Was it fear?

  Perhaps.

  “She asked you who you were,” Sonya pressed, not backing down an inch.

  Corey Stills sucked in a long, exasperated breath, then cocked his head in disgust at the pathetic situation. Here he was in a room full of five women, five freshmen women ripe for the picking, and the only thing that registered on their fine faces was revulsion.

  Why did this always happen to him?

  “If you must know, the name is Corey. Corey Stills. I’m down the hall, and I’m here with an invitation,” he said.

  “We don’t want any,” Amanda Livingston answered in her superior British tone. “So we’ll save you the trouble.”

  “Princess Diana, over here,” Corey cracked. “Why don’t you go back where you came from, ’cause I ain’t talking to you? It’s the Monica chick. And the invitation don’t come from me, neither. I’m the messenger. And they always say, don’t kill the messenger. Am I right, or what?”

  “Okay,” I piped up, finding my voice. “Tell me what you want, but would you mind opening the door?”

  Corey glanced back at the closed wooden door.

  “I just don’t want word getting’ out, is all,” he said, jerking his head. “Lots of ears out there. Then, you have a dorm room full of losers. Or worse. Word gets to some prickish RA or something.”

  “Word?” I asked. “Of what?”

  “That’s what I’m here to tell ya,” Corey said, taking another step in our direction.

  My instincts were to back off, but I didn’t.

  “Your bathroom buddy requests your presence tonight,” Corey said, his lips lifting into a self-satisfied sneer.

  “My what?”

  “Josh,” he said, watching as my face morphed into excitement and anticipation at the mere mention of the dorm’s hottest dude.

  Corey noticed this, too. He would see the same reaction time and again by sticking so close to Josh Elliot. It had to eat at him, the way women reacted so differently for Josh, so open and ready for him. The exact op
posite of the reaction to Corey.

  And it wasn’t just me who reacted this way to the mere mention of Josh’s name. Every woman in that dorm room did the same – all five of us. Josh Elliot’s reputation for hotness preceded the laid-back, languid sophomore.

  Corey cocked his head. “So now you want to hear, all of a sudden,” he smirked ruefully.

  “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” Lauren Marks stated in that brilliant, no-bullshit way of hers.

  “Easy, Butch,” Corey condescended, extending a palm.

  “Hey!” shouted Chelsea Daniels, who seemed surprised at herself for being assertive. “You don’t talk to my roommate that way.”

  “You don’t talk that way, period,” Sonya corrected. “Now deliver your message and get out.”

  “That’s what I been trying to do,” Corey said, actually amused that he had riled us up as he had.

  “Anyway,” he continued, eyeing me directly. “Josh says you should come over to the room tonight. A couple of us guys have some, ah, alcohol, and we’re planning to toast our first day at Old State in style. You made the guest list, girlie, though I’m not sure why. Musta made some kinda impression there in the John. Must really know how to work a bathroom.”

  I blanched red. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to go -- and I didn’t. I surely didn’t want to be in a room with a bunch of older college guys and a keg of beer.

  But my excitement got the better of me.

  “Tell Josh we’ll be there,” I blurted, before rationality could take hold.

  Corey narrowed his beady eyes. “Whaddya mean, we?”

  “The five of us,” I declared, recovering now and recognizing the way to have my cake and eat it, too. I wouldn’t have to go alone. I had The Five.

  “Don’t you know how rude it is to extend an invitation in front of others?” I pressed. “We all go, or none of us does.”

  “Josh didn’t say anything about no one else,” Corey uttered, but his tone was uncertain. His fiery eyes clouded with thought.

  “Then tell him to forget it,” I said.

  “He really wants you to come,” Corey stammered, scratching his head.

  “It’s a package deal,” I insisted. “All or nothing.”

  Corey’s eyes roved over the five of us. I guess he found us acceptable enough. What guy would turn down more women at a party, anyway?

  “What the hell,” he finally relented. “Knock yourselves out. What do I care?”

  I smiled for the first time in the presence of Corey Stills.

  “Okay,” I said. “Invitation accepted. Tell Josh I said thanks.”

  Corey frowned.

  “Tell him yourself,” he said, turning toward the door, then glancing back to deliver his parting shot. “Be there around ten. Corner dorm, end of the hall. Knock twice and wait. And just you five. No more.”

  I shrugged.

  “Just us,” I assured. “Us five.”