Suddenly Booked

Chapter 4.

While I hadn’t gotten a full tour of this new house just yet, I had become a little too well acquainted with the gods' forsaken stairs.

If I had thought that coming down them was hard, I had not anticipated going back up them. After the third time that the crutch slipped out from under my arm, I ended up giving in and sitting my a** on the stairs and pushing myself up one stair at a time.

By the time I had gotten myself to the top step, I was tired, sweaty, and more annoyed than ever. Mom had offered to help me, but I wanted to be alone.

Even though I had picked at Bastian a bit at dinner, I could feel the way that his father kept looking between the two of us, as if he was trying to figure out why things seemed too tense.

Bastian had left the table way before I had, but I hadn’t asked where he was going to, nor did I care.

As the door to the bathroom opened, I had finally gotten myself up on my feet and both the crutches nestled under my arms, when I realized that I really should have asked.

Bastian stepped out into the small hallway in a pair of gray sweat shorts and a towel draped over his still damp hair.

Steam was wafting out into the hall from the bathroom he had been walking out of and all I could do was stand there and stare.

I noticed that there had been three doors on this floor as mom helped me make my way to the bathroom and then downstairs. One room was mine, one was the bathroom, but I had honestly assumed that my mom and Mik were in the other one.

How had I not considered that they would put Bastian up here? Which means that they probably have a room on the first floor.

While it makes sense since they probably want privacy so that neither of us have to hear when they are getting all hot and heavy. Uh, that thought literally made me cringe and want to vomit in my mouth.

But right now, my mind seemed solely focused on the image in front of me. The upstairs led to a small hallway with the bathroom at the far end of the hallway and the two bedroom doors on each wall facing each other.

My room was the closest to the stairs, so I was standing mere feet from my bedroom door, but my body wouldn’t move. Or should I say, that my brain was busy trying to explain to the rest of my body that this was Bastian, and he was off limits.

Bastian’s hair was longer now that it was wet and thick wet strands fell over his ears, down the back of his neck, and down on his forehead and eyes.

He was long and lean, and while his stomach was not all ripped and cut with a chiseled six-pack, he had full broad shoulders and a flat stomach that led to a slight v right where his shorts sat low on his hips.

The white towel fell over the sides of his head and looked almost like a veil. Bastian was reaching back with one hand into the bathroom to turn off the light switch, and used his other hand to rub the towel over his damp hair.

It was then that I realized that he was going to be walking right towards me in a matter of seconds, and I was not about to let him find me gawking at him.

Practically jumping at the door, I grabbed the handle, threw the crutches in with both hands, and stumbled inside and kicked the door behind me.

“F*ck,” I whispered as I lay there on my belly panting and trying to calm my nerves and my f*cking traitorous hormones. How dare they get confused and think that Bastian of all people deserves to turn us on.

In my rush to get out of the hall, get into the room, and falling flat on my chest, I hadn’t paid much attention to my foot, but as the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain from falling was beginning to build.

“Damn that f*cking hurts,” I mumbled as I pushed myself up on my hands and knees. As if whatever deity I should belive in didn’t think this situation was funny enough, I heard the door of my room open.

“Umm, are you okay in here,” came from Bastian’s voice, but there was no way that I was about to turn my head and look towards the door.

‘Yup, doing great, and I would be doing even better if someone knew how to knock.”

With my a** up in the air, I could feel the heat coming from the hall and the cool air touching the back of my legs where my dress had completely risen up. Heat was rushing to my face and my whole body felt like it was on fire.

Bastian didn’t say another word, he just closed the door after a few seconds and I heard him walk down across the hall, open, and then close the door to the other room.

“I hope you had a good laugh up there you a**hole!”

Slowly, I crawled over to the small table that held the diffuser that was still blowing little puffs of that peppermint scent into the air, and used it to help stand up without putting too much pressure on my leg.

The back of my dress flapped down and it ws then that I realized that it must have gone up when I either fell into the room or when I was trying to hoist myself up.

Sh*t, that means that Bastian got a nice view of my a** covered in hot pink boy shorts when he came in earlier. Well f*ck, that’s what he gets for coming in someone’s room without knocking.

I wanted to shake it off as nothing, an accident that we would brush off and never talk about because he would probably be too embarrassed to bring it up, but a part of me, a very small part, worried that he might think I did that on purpose and use it to reinforce those same things he thought about me back then.

-

It was my freshman year in college and since I had just move to the city a few days before college started, I didn’t have any friends.

Mom was going to be living one city away so that she would be close to me.

Somehow, I had managed to not only get a scholarship to cover most of my classes, I also got a huge reduction on my dorm room since I was volunteering at the business center.

During freshman orientation, I had managed to make friends with Jessica because we had both been so lost that we found each other under the bleachers where we had both gone to try to collect ourselves.

After those first few fateful days, things started to progressively get better. I had signed up for five classes that semester, and I was doing well in all of them except my college algebra.

Since I didn’t want to fall too far behind, by the fourth week of school I began to look for tutoring. Since I worked on campus I had a chance to meet a lot of TA’s and student tutors.

That was how I ended up getting help to find a math tutor. One of the student tutors I met in the business office gave me the contact information for a Bastian Marquez.

Apparently, he was one of the most sought after tutors, but he was only taking a few people to tutor this semester since he had started working part-time.

I had reached out to him immediately, but he had responded to my email saying that he had no available spots left. Too bad for him, I was not one to take no without putting up a fight.

One of the admins in the business office recommended that I try to switch spots with one of his current students. It took a little bit of begging and pleading on my end, but eventually I had been able to convince one of them to switch spots with me.

Well, it helped that the guy was a huge fan of the vintage sweatshirt I had been wearing when we met up in the library. So, all in all, it only cost me a sweatshirt to get in as one of Bastian’s tutees.

Unfortunately, the guy had forgotten to tell me that he was scheduled to meet with Bastian every Friday evening at seven in the school library. If I would have known that little fact sooner, I would have focused on switching with someone else, but I couldn’t say no, since I had gone that far.

On the day of our first meeting, I had gone to the library to meet the famous Bastian. I had gotten there early, picked the best table and even gotten us quiet snacks to eat while studying.

Being a Friday evening, there were not many students in the library. Actually, in the area I was sitting at, there was only one other guy. I kept staring at my emails since that was my only point of contact for Bastian and at five after seven, I asked him where he was.

I got a reply almost instantly, and he told me that he was wondering the same thing about me. Switching to my cell, I sent him a photo of the library from where I was sitting with the number of the table I was sitting at.

Unsure if we would be sending a few more emails back and forth before we ended up finding each other, I was already typing out a quick message, but then I heard the scrape of the wooden chair that was right across from me.

When I looked up to see who was trying to sit at my table, there was a tall handsome man holding a laptop in one hand with a large book bag slung across his side.

I was about to tell damn Clark Kent wanna be to take a hike that the seat was being saved for my tutor, when I noticed his shirt. In big white letters it read, ‘tutoring is my cardio.’

“Blayke,” the guy said my name as a question, and it took me a couple blinks and maybe just as many breaths to put the pieces together.

“Uh, yes?”

The man in front of me smiled as he extended his free hand, “Hi Blayke, I’m Bastian, I believe I’m going to be your math tutor.”

Bastian, I mean Bash, he was, well damn, he was something. He had the build of a jock, but the appearance of a guy who loved Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons, and I was, well, confused, did not describe it.

“Uh, are you okay,” he asked with his hand still outstretched. Quickly, I jumped up and grabbed his. I had no idea why I was acting like this, but I think it’s because I had not expected, well, him.

Men don’t usually surprise me. Essentially, they were all the same. They did things with all the same motives in mind, some were just easier to read, more obvious, and easier to manipulate than others.

The blame for this one was totally on me because not once had I pictured Bastian to be anything other than any of the other tutors I had seen come and go around campus.

Being unsettled was not a feeling that I enjoyed or was used to, so I couldn’t keep the small hint of annoyance out of my response.

“Maybe you should send a photo of yourself or walk round with a name tag on so that your tutoring students can find you easier.”

He shook my hand firmly and smiled as he looked down at his shirt. “I thought that this was better than a name tag, but I guess you’re right. I will start sending head shots to all the people I tutor.”

Bastian winked at me before he turned to start putting his stuff down and settling himself in the seat across from me. Once he had gotten settled, he asked me a few questions and gave me a practice sheet with four equations.

After he went over them, he picked a starting point on what to work on first, and before I knew it, two hours had flown by. When we left, he took me to the end of the library parking lot, and we parted ways.

That weekend was full of studying and hanging out with Jessica. I went through the rest of the following week just as I had the previous one until Friday came. This time our tutoring session ran twice as long as the first one, and we spent our few breaks getting to know about each other.

Bastian was very calm and quiet, and I found that spending time with him was easy. The next few Fridays were just the same, but my weekends had started to involve going out with Jessica and her current boyfriend to parties.

I danced my weekends away, met a few guys, hooked up once or twice, but I made sure not to let my studies or my job get lost in the new bustle.

Things seemed to be working out well. I had passed my practice midterms in all of my classes and I had come to enjoy spending my Friday nights in the library. Hell, I even made friends with the little old librarian who had gone to college here forty years ago.

But good things can’t last forever, I guess. It had been a long week and Jessica had been MIA for most of it, which was unusual for her. So when I got a text from her on Friday right after my last class asking me to meet her in her dorm room, I had rushed over.

When I first arrived, her roommate, who truly hates her, didn’t want to let me in, but after some sweetly whispered threats, she let me in. Jess had not been answering my calls since sending the text, so I was getting a bit worried.

By six thirty, she still hadn’t returned, and I had to text Bastian that I had to cancel our session. Instead of explaining the situation, I just told him that I was sick and would make sure to study the handouts if he emailed them to me.

In all the time that we had been meeting, we had become pretty good friends, but I just wasn’t someone to ask others for help easily. I reached out to everyone that Jess and I mutually knew and no one had seen her.

Thankfully, Jess’s roommate finally left with her friends, and I was able to go through her laptop. It was linked to her phone, and I was able to use the “find my device” app to track her to Delta Chi fraternity house.

With no hesitation, I ran back to my room, grabbed my pepper spray, pocket knife, and taser. I hated to think the worst, but I had to be prepared. I practically ran to the dorm, which was thankfully close to my dorm.

Of course, there had been a party in full swing. If it was any other day, I would probably have been there dancing and drinking with all the others, but today had been different.

Since I couldn’t carry Jess’s laptop around with me to track her like the psycho I was being, I did the next best thing. I went up to everyone and showed her picture on my phone as I asked, “have you seen this girl.”

Eventually, some girls took me to a room on the second floor where Jessica was. None of them stayed with me one I got there, but I knew something was wrong. Jess looked off, her clothes were messed up, and she seemed way too drunk.

I knew I would have to help her out of here, but not the way she looked, so since I had little choice. I gave her my sweatshirt, and put on her half-torn top. Since I had jeans, it didn’t make me look like a total slut, but it covered very little.

Thankfully, my sweatshirt hit her mid-thigh, so I was able to leave her in her skirt, but I had to put my shoes on her feet since I couldn’t find her, and she felt like she was already freezing.

Getting her out of the frat house was surprisingly easy. No one questioned me carrying a half-conscious woman and while that helped me in this situation, it hadn’t made me feel too good about what goes on in this place.

It wasn’t until we were outside and headed to my dorm room that I finally realized how cool it was outside. We were almost to my building when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“So you not only cancel on me, you flat out lie about why your doing it. I see how it is. Girls like you are all the same. Can’t miss out on a party. Being a party girl and hooking up with the next hot guy is more important than your responsibilities. You take what you want from everyone around you and have no qualms about how it affects anyone else. Good job at fooling me for so long, I gotta give it to you, you almost had me fooled!”

Holding Jess up was getting tiring, and I could barely turn to see Bastian fully, but it was obvious that he had clearly just left the library. But instead of offering him an excuse, I just stared at him.

For some time, I had thought that he was different from everyone else. I thought that he hadn’t looked at me and jumped to conclusions about what type of person I was. That maybe, just maybe he saw the real me.

Yeah, I like tight clothes sometimes and I like getting attention. I also like to drink, dance, and keep myself from becoming sexually frustrated, but that didn’t define who I truly was, but right now, he had not only assumed the worst about me, he was making me feel bad about myself.

Instead, I turned on my cold, bare feet, picked Jess’s sliding body up and kept walking towards my building. But as I walked away and the tears had filled my eyes, I made sure to keep the quiver out of my voice when I replied with as much venom as I could.

“I’m glad that I was able to live up to your expectations. And if you’re gonna call me a sl*t, just say it, you don’t have to beat around the bush. If you’re ever looking for a good time, call me. If not, f*ck off!”