20: A Juicy Steak

Quincy St. Martin

“So, Quincy St. Martin,” he says softly as if testing the sound of it. The way my name rolls off his tongue sends shivers down my spine.

I just signed the attendance sheet that’s been passed around, and it sounds like he has just discovered my name.

“Quincy…” I hear him mutter to himself, and then he chuckles. “The fucking irony,” he says. “Perfect.”

What the hell does that mean? God, he’s so annoying! Is he making fun of my name now? If he is, I’ll gladly poke his eyes out with this pen. I swear. I swivel around to give him a threatening look. I hold my pen up and make a stabbing motion as a warning.

He lets out a quiet laugh as if he finds me highly amusing.

“Oh, stop with the suggestive gesture, sweetheart,” he whispers loud enough for me and my nosy neighbors to hear. “You’re just putting things in my head. Giving me a hard-on. Making me horny. Giving me ideas…”

Oh, my God! A tiny half-squeak, half-whimper sound escapes my lips before I clamp my mouth shut. I hold my pen tighter in case I give in to my temptation and commit murder right this minute.

I force myself to turn back to face the front of the class without saying anything. It’s a good thing we’re way back up here.

I’m pissed off.

Let’s be clear. I am not pissed off because he has offended my delicate sense of decency. Oh, no, that’s not it at all. I’m pissed at him because he makes me laugh and tempts me to say something as equally, if not more, moronic and crude than what he has just said.

I’m tempted to shock the people around us with more stupid stuff because, essentially, that’s what he’s doing, shocking those people who are too eager to listen in to our conversation.

Most importantly, we want to shock each other with the crude things we say, and that is not something that I should be tempted to do...and I ~am~ so very tempted.

I don’t know what it is with him that makes me want to act so violently. It’s either killing him or joining in his stupid stunt... Or jumping his bones. Nothing in between.

He’s also easily the most annoying person I’ve ever met, apart from myself, and I get it. I understand him that much. It pisses me off that I understand him at all.

I have never thought of myself as a homicidal person before. I never wanted to harm anyone, no matter how annoying the other person is. Oh, wait, I’m that annoying person, usually, but I’m also sweet. So, sweet and the annoying part balance out. Right?

Unless it doesn’t and the universe is really trying to teach me a lesson.

All day today, I’ve been trying my hardest to ignore him and to avoid him at all costs, but he’s in all of my classes. If he’s not bugging me, I can still feel his eyes on me. There’s no escaping him. By the time I get home, I feel exhausted. Avoiding him has become a full-time job.

***

I hug my raggedy teddy bear, Oliver, closer and sigh as I roll to lie on my side. Here I am in my bed after 11:00 p.m., still thinking about him. Ugghh!!!

I can’t get him out of my mind. I’ve been thinking about him the whole day today and tonight. Non-stop. The whole fucking day! That’s a whole sixteen hours of his stupidly gorgeous face in my head.

I sit up and fluff the pillow before I drop my head back down on top of it. I can’t sleep from thinking about him. When I finally fall asleep tonight, I’ve no doubt that I’ll have a dream about him, or a nightmare, depending on how you look at it.

“Is it a boy problem?” asks Layla, peering owlishly at me from her bed.

She’s sitting cross-legged on top of her bed with a laptop in front of her and notes and several books all around her. Her laptop and a little study lamp on her small desk are the only sources of light in our room right now.

“How do you know I have a problem?” I ask my roommate.

“You’ve been tossing and turning for almost fifteen minutes now, mumbling to yourself, and you’ve been walking around with your head in a cloud for over a week. Not to mention that big hickey on your neck,” says Layla.

Then she adds sternly, “That’s right, girl, don’t think I didn’t notice. I’ve been trying hard not to be nosy. Lost cause.”

“Try harder,” I tell her.

“Oh, come on, I deserve a medal for keeping my mouth shut for that long,” she says. “So, boy problem? You know you can talk to Layla.”

Layla loves talking about herself in the third person sometimes. Yeah, she’s weird like that.

“What makes you think that it has anything to do with a boy?” I say.

“It doesn’t?” She raises one eyebrow.

“Errr…” I sit up and scratch my head.

Oh, God, I have no problem lying to complete strangers, but I can’t even think about lying to a friend or people I care about without my head getting itchy.

It’s not that I want to lie to Layla, but I’m not sure if I should share my problem with her. The only person I’d ever confided in when I had boy problems was my Nana. My Nana was ~that~ awesome, and also, I was a pathetic loser with no girlfriends.

Back when I was still in school, I didn’t have any human friends because I was considered one of ‘them’ even when humans didn’t really know what ‘them’ were.

“Them,” the werewolves, especially the girls, didn’t like me because I was a human. I didn’t belong anywhere, so I ended up with no one. Good times.

It suddenly occurs to me that, now, I have a girlfriend. I mean a friend who is a girl. Layla is my friend, right? Two if I count Evelyn. Wow, I’m on fire!

Why not talk to Layla about it?

“Well?” says Layla, pushing her papers aside so she can move closer to me and dangle her feet on the side of her bed.

“So, there is this guy,” I begin.

A big knowing smile starts to spread on Layla’s face. “So, there ~is~ a guy.”

“Shut up and listen!” I tell her, and she makes a zipping motion to her lips.

“Anyway, this guy, he is just so annoying. So very annoying. Every time he opens his mouth I feel like clobbering him on the head.”

~Or kissing him to death~.

“He is just… Ugghh!!! I want to…oh, God, I don’t know what to do with him, and he just won’t leave me alone! He’s everywhere I go.”

“Is he cute at least?” Layla asks.

“Cute? Oh, Layla…” I sigh and let myself fall back onto my pillow. “He’s gorgeous! He’s super hot!”

“I see. Is he also the one who gave you that hickey?”

My hand quickly goes up to cover the big bruise on my neck, and my cheeks feel heated. I guess that’s answer enough for Layla because her smile grows even wider.

“Wow! A super hot gorgeous guy is into you and won’t leave you alone,” she says.

“I know, right?”

“Probably has a hard time keeping his mouth off you too. I can see how that is a big problem,” Layla says, tapping a finger to her chin, nodding her head, looking very serious and wise.

I sit up, hugging Oliver close to my chest, waiting for her sage advice and intelligent solution to my problem.

“I’d say hump him,” she deadpans. “Go ahead and hump him good.”

“What???” I squeak. “Layla!” I grab a pillow and throw it at her head.

Layla is beside herself, laughing. “All right, all right. Sorry. Just teasing you, but really, would it be so bad? Okay, I mean, seriously bad advice. Bad Layla,” she says. “Or is it?”

“You are ~so~ not helping!” I exclaim. “Besides, he’s a manwhore, maybe worse than Jonah.”

“Okay. I can see a slight problem there.”

“You think?”

“How do you know he’s a manwhore?” she asks.

“Well, he’s always surrounded by women.”

“He’s always walking around with women hanging onto his arms, huh?”

“Well, not really. They just constantly surround him, you know?”

“O-kay. Is he with them? Are they his friends? Or are they all seeing him? I mean, he must be a complete jerk if he’s asking you out when he’s seeing any of those girls, right?”

“I don’t know, Layla. You’re asking too many questions!” I say, frustrated.

Ugghh. All I know is I start having violent thoughts when I see other girls around him, which is very often. This jealousy better go away, especially since he’s not mine.

“Besides, he’s not even human,” I tell Layla.

I found out not long ago that Layla’s mother is a human, mated to a werewolf. For some reason, Layla’s the only one out of her four siblings who doesn’t have a wolf.

“What is he? A werewolf? A faery? If he’s one of those, then you’d better stay away. You don’t want to get hurt when he eventually finds his mate,” says Layla.

Oh, God, I had never thought of that. What if he has a mate out there somewhere? For some reason, that thought bothers me. A lot. For a while, both of us stay silent.

“Was it hard for you when you discovered that you don’t have a wolf?” I ask Layla, trying not to think about Caspian with a mate. Another woman. That thought hurts.

Unlike me, Layla’s family loves her. Also unlike me, Layla wishes that she had a werewolf mate out there somewhere. She stays silent a bit longer, and I think she’s not going to answer my question.

“People told me that some werewolves get their wolf late. Some get it when they turn sixteen, so I kept hoping that I would have a wolf one day. When I turned sixteen, and it didn’t happen, I was devastated. I was miserable for a long time.” She sighs. “When I turned eighteen, I was hoping that I’d have a mate anyway, but that never happened either. My family tried to make me feel better about it, especially my mom. She’s human, so she said that she understood. She said that we’re the same, but she has a mate, my father, so we’re not the same.”

Poor Layla. She looks so sad.

“When my younger sister found her mate, I couldn’t take it. I was happy for her, but it reminded me of something I’d never have for myself. I decided that I wasn’t going to be in the pack anymore, so I came here. My family wasn’t too happy about it, but our pack isn’t that far away so I can visit them whenever I want. Truth is, a big part of me is always hoping that I’ll find a mate one day.”

I leap out of my bed and give her a big hug. We both tumble over, and Layla starts to laugh again.

“But now you get to date human men!” I tell her, squeezing her harder. “So many choices, Layla. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet! Yummy!”

“Oh, Quincy, one day you are going to learn. An à la carte tender juicy steak is all you need, even when you’re surrounded by an all-you-can-eat buffet. Especially when it’s a filet mignon, the best you could ever have, all you ever dream of, because the buffet is a big spread of crappy food.”

I consider this.

“So, tell me, Quincy, if he wasn’t a player, and if he was human, would you go out with him? Or are there more reasons you’ll invent for not wanting to go out with him?”

“Ughh, but he is, Layla. A player, I mean. Isn’t he? Don’t forget. I don’t want to be involved with the non-human variety.”

Do I?

“And I don’t want a juicy steak if it’s not ~my~ juicy steak.”

The question is, how do I get him to leave me alone? But the bigger question is, do I really want him to leave me alone?

***

My first class this morning and he’s sitting right beside me. Watching me. I try to ignore him, but it’s not really working. The morning sunshine pours in through the windows, and his golden hair glints. His green eyes, vivid and brilliant, focus solely on me. He’s so beautiful it hurts.

“Why are you doing this?” I finally ask him.

“I’m trying to get you to go out with me, my princess.”

“Why are you calling me your princess?”

“Because you ~are~ my princess.”

“Do you call all the girls you try to bang, my princess? Does that line always work for you?”

“Okay, stop,” he says. “First off…bang? Really? Secondly, I never call any other girl ~my princess~. Ever. Third, I’m not trying to bang you, I’m trying to get you to go out with me. Banging can come later. Much later…well, anytime you want to, really, so it doesn’t have to be that much later.”

I give him a dirty look.

“Sorry, I got sidetracked,” he says, ducking his head.

His hand comes up to massage the back of his neck. He has the grace to have that bashful look on his face. It bothers me that I find it adorable.

“My point is, sweetheart, I want us to get to know each other. So, have dinner with me? Anytime you want. Or I can come and fix the roof with you.”

“No!” I squeak. There’s really no roof to fix.

“Ouch! Again, a shot through the heart,” he says.

He’s smiling again now, but his lips are thinning over his straight white teeth. If I didn’t know any better, I would think I’ve hurt his feelings and he’s losing his patience with me.

“Now will you please leave me alone?” I ask him.

“Is that what you really want, princess?” His smile is gone now. His eyes are intense on my face. “Do you really want me to leave you alone?”

Do I? I try to remind myself again that he’s not human and that he might have a mate out there and that he’s a player. I might just be another notch on his bedpost.