“What?” She asked, the surprise in her voice.
“Yeah, what?” Racer said, and there was clear amusement in his voice despite not looking over at him.
He was already opening the front door and gesturing for her to go out first. “There are a lot of drunk assholes out there tonight.” She seemed a little taken back by his offer and hadn’t moved from her position.
“Okay,” she said softly, and dug in her purse for her keys before heading out, glancing up at Alex on her way past. “Thank you.”
She unlocked her car doors with a click of the button on her keyring. A beep sounded and her headlights flared to life. Alex trailed behind her as she made her way to a sporty little BMW sitting at the curb. He whistled low.
“Tutoring pays well.” He immediately noticed a scowl on her face, but she did mutter a thank you.
“Thanks for walking me to my car,” she said as she stopped by the driver’s side door.
She smiled once more, and Alex realized he liked it. He really fucking liked it.
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “No problem.” Shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he asked himself what it was about this girl that got under his skin and made him itch from the inside out.
He stood there like an asshole as she climbed in her car, and still stood there as he watched her car disappear down the street and around the corner. It was another long moment before he shook his head to clear it, and head back into the house. Racer still leaned against the banister and Alex scowled at the smirk on his roommate’s face.
“What?”
Racer shook his head and pushed away from the stairs. “Nothing. I do just want to say that if you think you’re going to get an easy piece of ass from Mary, you should just give up right now.”
He glowered at that. “Fuck you, Racer.”
“I ain’t trying to be a cockblock, but Mary is a good girl.”
“Then why the hell are you trying to get in her pants?” His voice sounded pretty fucking annoyed at that but hoped Racer didn’t pick up on it.
“She’s too good for both of us, that’s fucking true as shit. But you can’t blame a man for trying.”
Alex didn’t bother responding, just flipped Racer off and headed to his room to sleep off the booze.
Hopefully tomorrow he’d realize his instant attraction and seemingly infatuation with the gorgeous little brunette was nothing but a side effect of too much alcohol.
2
Mary shouldn’t have been thinking about Alex Sheppard and the way he’d watched her with predatory eyes. It was a feeling that he’d seen this weakness in her and was about to pounce.
She tightened her hands on the steering wheel, the small side streets around Black Mountain University congested with drunks and partiers.
You had to be living under a rock not to know who Alex was. Although she didn’t run in his circles, he was pretty notorious on campus as not only the hotshot quarterback of the football team, but also a wild child. That was a recipe for disaster for Mary’s composed, organized life. She didn’t want nor need someone like Alex taking an interest in her.
Or maybe it was all in my head. Maybe all that booze I smelled pouring from his pores had his beer goggles on and that’s the only reason he paid me any mind.
That certainly sounded more apt than Alex actually taking any kind of non-academic interest in her. And wasn’t that one hell of a depressing thought.
Tutoring on the side had given Mary an opportunity to earn her own money and meet a plethora of interesting individuals. Despite her family being wealthy, Mary wanted to do things on her own. She took out student loans to pay for her own schooling, and bought her own food and other supplies she needed to get by.
The car, unfortunately, had been a gift from her parents and one they’d insisted on, which was why it pissed her off and made her uncomfortable when Alex had mentioned it.
When she wasn’t tutoring she worked a few hours on the weekends at a coffee shop right off campus. She was exhausted the majority of the time, but it was a hell of a lot better than depending on her parents to fund her way. She was too stubborn.
Her family came from old money, or so her mother liked to call it, and because of that there had always been a stuffy, almost aristocratic vibe to them and the people they hung around.
Or maybe it’s because I’m adopted and that’s why I’d never felt like they were really part of my family, not when they always made me feel like they’d done me a favor… been charitable.
So yeah, she’d never really felt like she was part of the Trellis family, never felt like the daughter to Stephen and Marsha, or the younger sister to Margo.