The Weight of Words (The WORDS Series) Read online

  “I know, right?” she said. “Super attractive. Look, let’s grab a coffee or something after we sign up for the tutorial tomorrow.”

  “For sure.”

  She smiled and squeezed my arm before pulling on a striped toque and racing out the door. I gathered my belongings and made my way out into the corridor in time to see Daniel heading down the stairs. It was the second time in as many hours that I’d seen him walking away from me, and this time I checked out his ass. I cursed the wrinkly untucked shirt, but I must say, from what I could see—it was a very fine ass indeed.

  At the bottom of the stairs, his phone rang. He fumbled in his pocket, answering as he walked.

  “Penny!” he exclaimed. “What a coincidence. I was about to call you. How are you, love?”

  Love? Damn it!

  I clenched my teeth in disappointment, but really, what the hell was I thinking? I’d been aware of his existence for all of two hours and somehow I felt as if I had some claim? I scoffed at how ridiculous I was being. But did that stop me from following him?

  Hell no.

  On the contrary, I found myself listening in on yet another one of Daniel’s private conversations, but whereas the first time I’d tried to remove myself, this time I did the opposite, picking up my pace so I could stay close behind him and eavesdrop. Though I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, I could guess what the girl had told him based on his reply.

  “Miss you? Ha! Completely inconsolable is more like it,” he said.

  We were almost at the exit when he stopped and leaned against the wall near the large double doors. Worried he’d turn and see me following him, I spun around to face the giant bulletin board on the wall, feigning interest in the flyers and ads attached to it as I listened.

  “Well, rest assured, I’ll be taking you out for a lovely meal on Valentine’s Day, so prepare to be wined and dined,” he said, laughing gently. “All right…I love you, too, Penn. Okay, I have a ton of shit to get done. I’ll call you later?” After a brief pause he added, “Will do, love. Bye for now.”

  He hung up, quickly punched a number into his phone and waited. I stood, rooted to the spot, and listened to yet another one-sided conversation during which he spoke to someone named Geoffrey and made a dinner reservation for two for seven thirty on February fourteenth. The boy wasted no time.

  At the end of the call, he jammed his phone into his pocket and strode toward the doors, completely oblivious to my existence.

  After he left the building, I opened the door a crack. He was crossing King’s College circle near a row of cars parked bumper to bumper on the other side of the street. I leaned against the building’s stone entryway as he approached a spotless black BMW, unlocked the car, and threw his bag in the trunk. Within moments, he’d hopped in and was off toward University Avenue.

  I let out a shaky breath which became a snort as I got a sudden objective view of my behavior. What in the living hell was I doing? I was like a junior high student following around my latest crush like a puppy dog, trying to figure out his class schedule so I could conveniently appear out of nowhere at the most opportune moment.

  I’m not sure why I found him so fascinating, but one thing was certain: Any hope of a romantic liaison with Daniel Grant was futile. He had a girlfriend. Her name was Penny, he called her “love,” and he missed her. No, scratch that—he was completely inconsolable without her.

  And he was the TA of the course I was taking. Definitely a no-touching zone.

  Period.

  I shook my head, appalled by my invasion of his privacy. I’d had the gall to be all holier than thou while Cara was flirting shamelessly with Daniel, only to turn around and engage in creepy stalker-like behavior myself. Hypocrite.

  I rested my head on the stone wall in front of me.

  “You stupid fool,” I sighed.

  Chapter 3

  True Love

  The course of true love never did run smooth…

  (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 1)

  A BLAST OF WINTER WIND brought me back to my senses. I was standing outdoors in sub-zero temperatures, holding my coat in my hands. I dashed inside to bundle up before making the journey back across campus. I sniffed and gasped as the wind rushed at my face and into my mouth. Spring really couldn’t come soon enough.

  Inside the apartment, I quickly dropped my bag and coat, my runny nose sending me on a wild goose chase in search of tissues. With none to be found, I ended up in the bathroom, blowing my nose with toilet paper.

  When I retraced my steps to the hallway to hang up my coat, I noticed Matt’s jacket and boots lying right where I’d seen them earlier. His door was still closed. This wasn’t like him. Even after a major booze fest, he rarely stayed in bed past noon, and it was almost one thirty—a perfectly logical scenario if his girlfriend had stayed over, but there was no sign of Sarah’s stuff in the hallway and no Do Not Disturb sign on his door. I thought of the stories I’d heard about people choking on their own vomit and dying before anyone could help them. I pressed my ear to Matt’s door. I couldn’t hear anything so I tapped lightly. Still nothing.

  I slowly turned the knob and squinted into the dimly lit room. He was lying on his side with his knees curled up, still wearing the clothes he’d gone out in the night before, and staring at the wall. He looked like hell, but he was alive. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Matt?” I said. “Can I get you something? Water? Tylenol? A bucket?” I added, laughing gently.

  His eyes made a lifeless sweep across the room. “I’m not hung over, Aub,” he answered flatly.

  He turned back to the wall, and my smile receded. Stepping into the room, I noticed balled up Kleenex all over the floor, the box clutched to his chest.

  “Are you sick, dude? Do you want me to make you some chicken soup or something?”

  He groaned and rolled onto his back. “Sarah dumped me,” he said, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes.

  “Oh, shit, Matt. I’m so sorry.” I sat down beside him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  His tone was curt, but I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me. I started to swing my legs back to the floor, figuring I’d leave him alone to marinate in his misery for a while, when he moved his arm away from his eyes.

  “I thought she was the one, you know?” he said softly.

  His expression was pained, his eyelids puffy. He’d been hardcore crying over this girl. Hell, he was working his way through a whole box of tissues over her.

  “I didn’t know you guys were headed in that direction,” I said. “I knew you liked each other. Some nights I could tell you really liked each other.” I rattled the headboard, and he shot me a poisonous glare. Okay, I totally deserved that. “I guess I didn’t know things had gotten so serious.”

  He snorted cynically. “Yeah, she had no idea either. Or at least she pretended not to.” He sat up and hugged his knees. “I don’t know. When she invited me to her place in October to spend Thanksgiving with her family, I thought that seemed like a pretty solid sign. Maybe she was trying to be nice, knowing I couldn’t exactly head to Vancouver for the weekend.” He exhaled heavily again. “But we’d been getting along so great. Well, I thought so, anyway. Stupid, right?”

  He paused to blow his nose, tossing the tissue on the floor with the others. I leaned over, resting my head on his shoulder and rubbing his back. “She doesn’t deserve you, sweet cheeks.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You’re right.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “I wish you and I weren’t so grossed out by each other. We could’ve been great.”

  I smiled, remembering the night back in first year about two months after we’d met. We’d become fast friends during frosh week, and Matt was protective of me right out of the gate, but one night at a party, each of us having drunk our fair share of a keg, we found ourselves dancing among a group of gyrating freshmen. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were kissin
g up against a wall and then recoiling in horror, wiping our mouths off frantically. Even with our beer goggles on, we both felt like something akin to incest had occurred. It never happened again, and we remained the best of friends.

  He’d become increasingly like a brother as the months went by. We often laughed about that fateful frat party, but whereas I’d always felt we could never be more than great friends, I’d caught him looking at me wistfully from time to time, as if he wished things could be different. That had all ended when he’d started dating Sarah the previous April. He’d fallen for her quickly. And hard.

  “Believe me, Matt, there’s someone wonderful out there who deserves you.” I patted his back. “Shit, that sounds so trite. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s okay, Aubs. Thanks for trying. You’re an amazing friend.” He took my hand and squeezed it.

  “Ew, keep your snotty hands to yourself there, cowboy.” I pushed myself off the bed and rubbed my stomach. “I’m starved. You interested in eating?”

  He sighed in defeat. “Yeah, I guess so. I should shower, too. I’ve been lying here since midnight. I might need to burn these.” He gestured to his rumpled clothes.

  “You grab a shower, and I’ll make some English muffin pizzas,” I offered. “Pepperoni and tomato sound okay?”

  “Perfect.” He stood up and peeled off his long-sleeved T-shirt. “Now scram, before you get more than you bargained for,” he threatened, pulling the top button of his jeans undone. “’Cause by the looks of things, you’re finding my ripped abs mighty enticing.”

  He looked at my chest, cocking an eyebrow. I followed his gaze downward. The headlights were on full-beam.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” I laughed. “It’s cold enough out there to freeze the brass nuts off a monkey. I’m still defrosting.”

  He snorted and mumbled something about my “sad state of denial” while I headed for the door, carefully navigating around the balled up Kleenex.

  Two hours later, Matt was clean and almost human again. While we ate lunch, I’d offered to watch a pretentious film of his choice with him, and we were now curled on the couch watching Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potempkin. As a film major, Matt was a huge cinema buff. I’d learned a lot about film from him over the last few years, but sometimes I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. This was one of those times. I found myself stifling yawns throughout most of the movie.

  About half-way in, Matt paused the film. “Can I run something by you?” he asked solemnly.

  “Of course.” I shifted to face him.

  “After I spent Thanksgiving at Sarah’s, I guess I kinda got ahead of myself, thinking things were getting serious, and I made a reservation for Valentine’s Day for Sarah and me at this restaurant downtown. It’s called Canoe—ever heard of it?”

  “Dude, are you kidding me? The owners are Oliver and Bonacini, right? They own Auberge du Pommier, too. Their menus are phenomenal. I can’t believe you got a reservation!”

  “Well, I made it four months in advance. Now I guess it was wasted effort. Unless…” He looked at me expectantly.

  “Unless…?” Could he possibly be suggesting what I hoped to God he was suggesting?

  “Would you want to come with me?” he blurted. “I know it’ll be expensive, and I’ll pay. I was going to treat Sarah anyway and, I don’t know, maybe you’ve got plans with someone else, ’cause I don’t know what’s going on with you and stuff, but I’d love to do this for you, I mean with you…” He ran out of steam, trailing off.

  I was touched by the sentiment and frankly pretty damn excited about the prospect of eating at Canoe, regardless of the circumstances. I’d always dreaded Valentine’s Day and the way popular culture made single people feel crappy—as if we didn’t already feel like losers every other day of the year.

  “I would love to join you for dinner on Valentine’s Day. I’ll gladly pay for my own dinner, but promise me if you and Sarah get back together, or if you meet someone else you’d rather take, you won’t be all freak show about it. Give it to me straight, okay?”

  “It’s only two weeks away. I think the odds of me meeting the girl of my dreams between now and then are slim to none. As for Sarah, well, she was very, um…decisive.” His face twisted as he spoke, the previous night’s events still too raw.

  “You know what I mean,” I said, squeezing his hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, I hate to pull the rip cord on our film festival, but I need to get some reading done before tomorrow. You gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. You go ahead,” he said. “I might bail on the rest of the movie and take a nap anyway. I’m friggin’ exhausted.” He punctuated his words with a huge yawn and stretch.

  Satisfied that he was all right, I grabbed my backpack, snagged some munchies from the kitchen, and retreated to my room where a giant pile of homework awaited me.

  I changed into some cozy clothes and flopped onto my bed. I knew I should do some reading for my children’s lit course, but I didn’t. Instead, I found some mellow tunes on my iPod and flipped through my Norton Anthology of Shakespeare until I found Hamlet. I scanned the play, contemplating some of the important themes that might come up in the tutorial.

  As soon as the idea of the impending tutorial began swirling in my mind, I completely lost focus. I saw Daniel holding court at the head of the table. I imagined him gazing at me in admiration, oblivious to the other students, as I made one incredibly insightful observation after another. Then the tutorial ended and the room emptied, leaving us alone. He closed the door and swept the table clear of all books and papers so he could lean me over it and have his way with me right then and there—

  Crap! What was it about this man that had me feeling like a high school girl with her first crush? Here I was, twenty-three years old and mere months away from graduating from university. I normally wasn’t prone to such idle daydreams. But as much as I tried to stop thinking about him and focus on reading, my mind continued to wander, replaying the events of the day.

  What had he been arguing with his dad about? What had he been thinking about when he’d looked at me after the lecture? Was his relationship with this Penny woman serious? And did the man really not have access to an iron, razor, or hairbrush? I smiled against my hand.

  Feeling more and more like an infatuated, hormone-riddled teenager with every passing moment, I balled up my fists and rubbed them against my eyes. My reading of Hamlet wasn’t going well.

  I slammed my anthology shut and crawled into bed with my copy of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, yet another book I was supposed to have finished reading by now. I struggled along for about an hour, but my bed was so comfy and warm and the music from my iPod dock so soothing that soon my eyes began to close.

  My last thought before drifting into unconsciousness was the look on Daniel’s face as he’d nodded at me, giving me silent kudos for identifying Professor Brown’s Hamlet passage. I’d probably never know what he’d been thinking, but at least he’d noticed me. That was something, wasn’t it?

  Chapter 4

  Some Must Watch

  For some must watch, while some must sleep:

  Thus runs the world away.

  (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2)

  YOU KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE a hot dream about a guy, and then you see him, and the dream rushes back to you and it feels so real—more like a memory than a dream? That’s what happened when I walked toward the tutorial room at eight forty-five the next morning. Daniel was standing in the open doorway, and the most amazing series of risqué images flashed before my eyes. I quickly ducked into an alcove to collect my thoughts or, more accurately, to eagerly sift through the details of the dream.

  Daniel had been watching me scan a bookshelf full of Shakespeare’s works. One minute he’d been suggesting books that I might like to borrow, and the next thing I knew, he was coming up behind me and pushing me up against the bookcase, his hand in my hair, his lips brushing my
neck. I wasn’t sure if I’d said anything, but his voice had been hot and insistent at my ear as he slowly undressed me.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Your skin is so soft.”

  “Please tell me you want me as much as I want you…”

  The memories sparked a hot flush. How could I walk down the hall and greet him without betraying my thoughts? On the other hand, how could I leave without seeing him? I was damned if I was going to pass up the opportunity to talk to him one on one.

  I fanned my warm cheeks, took a quick cleansing breath, and then put my game face on, resuming my journey down the hall toward the seminar room. Daniel looked hotter than hell, still sporting yesterday’s five o’clock shadow, but somehow he was even more gorgeous than the day before. He was leaning casually against the doorway, one hand propped against the frame, the other stuffed in the front pocket of an ancient-looking leather jacket.

  Holy hell, man. Could you be any more stunning?

  Three other students from the class were standing in front of the bulletin board, pens in hand, hemming and hawing, weighing their tutorial time options. Daniel watched them impassively. Was he always so miserable? Would it kill him to smile?

  I bet Penny makes him smile, I thought dismally.

  I stood behind my three indecisive classmates, waiting for them to finish and move the hell out of the way. As I peered impatiently over their shoulders, I noticed Daniel had taken the time to make new sign-up sheets. All three pages were crisp and clean, pinned to the cork board in a neat row.

  The three stooges in front of me finally got their shit together, signed up for the Wednesday time slot, and moved away down the hall. I stepped forward, finding all fourteen spots on Friday available. A few keen people had already signed up for the Monday and Wednesday tutorials. I was beginning to wonder where Julie was and whether I should call or text her when Daniel moved from his post at the door, taking a few slow steps toward me.