Page 2 of Forbidden Heroes

“You know what. This is ridiculous. You, Emberly Kennedy, the most outgoing, fun-loving chick I know can’t get up enough courage to ask her hunky professors for a one-night stand? I can’t believe it. Come on, for Christ’s sake. I see the way they look at you. Don’t tell me you don’t see that fierce, hungry look in Professor Elliot’s eyes right now.” Rosalee turns a hot grin on me and raises a brow in challenge. “You know I’m right.”

I wag a finger in defiance at her. “I know nothing of the sort, Rosalee Johnson. You’re a bad influence for your encouragement.”

Rosalee shrugs with the wickedest grin on her face this side of Hell. Hand to heart, I swear, she’s the devil on my shoulder when a bad idea strikes. “Hey, you know me. I live by one rule.”

I knew the answer. I just liked hearing it so I ask, “What’s that?”

“Fuck ’em. Rules that is, buuuuuuut,” she dragged out with dramatic exasperation, “in this case, it can’t be more literal.” Rosalee waggles her perfectly trimmed brows at me and her pink lips peel back in a saucy smile.

I lean forward and lower my voice. “And I love you for that, but it’s just not me. This scholarship came at a high price. I can’t go back to living the way I did. My mother...” I shudder and it’s not the sexy kind from a minute ago. This one dredges up negative memories that make me see red.

No. It’s the utter disgust of the thought that comes to mind if I have to return to my mother’s way of life while I try to get my life together. She’s the only family I have left, which I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad, honestly.

“BU is run by some of the sourest board members this town has. They catch me going down on my professors I’m out and if that were not enough, where would that leave the Professors? Without a job? Ruined reputations. What kind of person would that make me if I let that happen?”

“You’re assuming you get caught. Plus, who said you had to do anything on school property? What you do off campus grounds is your business alone.”

“I wish it worked that way, Rosa. I really do.”

I swirl my drink with the tip of my finger. “I’ll stick to my fantasies. I can’t do that to them and I definitely can’t lose this scholarship.” But how I wish things were different. I raise my finger and slip it between my lips, pulling it out slowly as I look up to see dark eyes caressing my heart-shaped face and following the smooth line of my jaw to my mouth.

We’ve done this before. Our little game of cat and mouse. They look, I fantasize. But that is as far as anything ever goes.

I bite my lip and let my gaze linger. No harm in that, right?

“I dare you.”

What? I tear my gaze away from the other side of the bar and nail my friend with a pointed look. My mouth hinges open. “I'm sorry, are we in high school again? That’s not working on me.”

Not many people could say they managed to keep a friend from grade school through high school and into college, but we were one of the few friends that really clicked over cookies and milk back in third grade. We’ve created havoc up and down the East Coast during spring breaks, Christmas breaks and every holiday in between ever since. Rosalee is the one constant in my life and there is nothing in this world I would not do for her.

Except this.

Cool air from the front door drifts over my bare shoulders and my skin tingles. I can’t help but wonder as I watch a group of jocks walk in why I had to go the hard route. My mother always said I was too much like my father. Stubborn, hard-headed, with a wild streak. The worst of combinations in her eyes.

I wouldn’t know. He died when I was five and ever since my mother’s rotating bedsheets kept her too busy to fill me in on the missing gaps of my dad and the man that he was.

I can say this, my stubbornness and determination landed me the best damn chance I have at making something of myself. In some slim way, that idea comforts me and makes me feel connected to a man that is more fantasy than real in my memories.

One thing I did know was his adoration for my mother. My mother apparently did not share the same feelings. Two months after putting my father in the ground strange men starting sharing her bed in our plush Manhattan apartment. To a five-year-old’s eyes the world shifted in a way that took me years to understand.

And accept.

My mother only cares about the size of her bank account and it didn’t take me long to learn she would do whatever it took to make sure it stayed plump after my dad’s checks from his law firm stopped rolling in.

It takes a special kind of someone to be that cold, and I refuse to adopt her way of life. But a part of me, the little girl that always wanted to play dress up, wishes for a connection with my mother. But that little girl grew up and saw the real world for what it truly is. A colorless shell with nothing to offer unless you’re willing to fight for it.

Maybe I need to fight for that connection but it’s kind of hard when the other half is busy chasing the money.

Maybe now that she has finally remarried, that has changed. All I know is that when I marry it will be for love. Call it clichéd or old-fashioned but using people just isn’t my style. Plus, I remember one thing about my father and that is it takes hard work to cut a place out in this world.

Throwing away what I’ve worked so hard for doesn’t sound ludicrous—it is ludicrous.

The music track blaring across the pub from the jukebox dwindles into a mellow tune and we sit there for a few seconds before the next song in silence as my heart sinks to the floor.

“Rose, dare or not, I’m not going to confess my undying love to my professor and his best friend. Not happening. And my mother and her new husband are coming to town to visit. Plus, you know how they are about the rules between any relationships with teachers and students. No, I’ll graduate, get a job teaching history somewhere, maybe Alaska, but in the end, it is best I move on and?—”

“And in the meantime, I get to hear you masturbate while you listen to class notes in your room and if that isn’t enough, you cry out their names when you’re having sticky, sweaty wet dreams. I know because I see you dash to the bathroom when you wake up and take a cold shower.”

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