Page 16 of Fall From Grace
So, yeah. I only have Sloane. She has a crazy backstory, but besides that, she’s not so bad.
Walking down the hallway in the darkness, my goal is to get downstairs, slip on my shoes, and leave all without making a sound. I don’t intend to linger, but I pass a room that makes me stop and backpedal. I step back once, then twice, and lean into the room.
The lights are off, but my eyes are well enough adjusted to the darkness that I’m able to see multiple guitars and notebooks strewn about. My stomach clenches as I picture Mike holding onto a guitar, strumming along while I sing.
It’s how we met. We were both band geeks. Well, he was, anyway. I was in choir. After we were dating for a while, we recorded videos and even made our own channel together. We never got many views—we were nobodies—but that never stopped us.
I loved to sing, but now… every time I think about singing, I think about my ex. I don’t know if the association will ever disappear.
I stand there for a few moments in the darkness, staring at the messy room, at the variety of guitars. Of course this guy is a guitarist. That’s just how it goes, isn’t it? The random guy I pick has a literal room full of stuff I’d rather not think about, ever. Murphy’s freaking Law.
With a shake of my head, I pull away from the room and hurry down the hall. Down the stairs I go, straight to the front door, where I slip on my flats and exit the house.
Whoever Logan is, I don’t want to see him. I don’t need to, just like I don’t need to think about guitars or singing or anything like that.
I make it to the sidewalk and use my phone’s directions app to guide my walk home. Probably not the smartest thing to be walking around by myself so late at night—or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it—but I’m so depressed I don’t even care.
I just slept with a stranger. A mean, rude, hot stranger. If that isn’t me starting the next chapter of my life, I don’t know what is.
Chapter Eight – Logan
I groan when I wake up the next morning. I’m a little sore in strange places, and it takes me a moment to remember why: I brought that cute little nerd home and fucked her brains out. Right. I yawn and reach for her, expecting to feel her warmth beside me, but my hand finds nothing but an empty bed.
My eyelids fly open, and I turn my head to look at the empty bed beside me. Nobody else is here. She’s gone.
Did she… holy hell. The little nerd snuck out in the middle of the night, like I was some dirty little secret she didn’t want anyone to know about. Waking up with me, in my bed this morning, must’ve been something she wanted to avoid at all costs.
I’m insulted. I am. I’m rightfully insulted. No other girl had ever wanted to race out of my bed. I’m pissed she thought she was so much better than me that she didn’t even need to say goodbye.
But, at the same time, I literally can’t believe she had the guts to sneak out like that, and I find myself grinning as I laugh. Wow. The little nerd is full of surprises, isn’t she? She gave me a first, a first I never thought I’d have.
I drag myself out of bed, take a shower, and then clean up the used condoms off the floor of my room. I hate cleaning, but if I don’t do it, no one else will, and then I’ll be living in filth—and no girl is impressed by a messy house.
I fart around most of the day. It doesn’t take me long to decide I want to go out again tonight. Last night was fun. I could go for another random girl. Another deep workout. Once night falls, I end up at the same club, sipping the same beer. I dance with some girls, think about taking some home, think about railing them into oblivion…
…but I don’t. For some stupid reason, when it comes time to make the call and suggest me and the girl leave the club together, I just can’t fucking do it. The words don’t come out, and I abruptly leave the damn club alone.
Alone. I never leave clubs alone. It’s an unwritten rule.
Honestly? As much as I want to deny it, I was kind of hoping I’d run into Wren again. That fucking look she gave me on the dance floor is still in my head, and it just refuses to leave. That look, something about it, I can’t explain it.
So the rest of my week and the last weekend before classes start is pussy-less after that night with Wren. How boring.
You know what else sucks? Classes. I hated high school and was thankful when we got to switch to online classes so we could focus on Black Sacrament. But here… I’m Logan Crew, and classes are in-person at MSU. The ones I’m in, anyway.
Monday rolls around before I know it, and I’m lugging a bookbag around like I’m a nerd myself. Though I’m twenty-three, I was forced to take a lot of intro classes since this is my first year of college. Intro to Sociology, Intro to Business Economics, blah, blah, blah. I tried taking what I assumed would be easy to pass classes; my head was never good for books and learning.
At one-thirty in the afternoon, it’s time for my Intro to Psych class. So far, they all seem pretty easy, and I have no reason to think this psychology class is going to be any different. I get there five minutes early, and when I walk into the large lecture hall, I find a smattering of people in random seats. The back row, the row I prefer, is already completely taken.
Figures.
The way this lecture hall is set up, on the second floor of the building, you walk into the back of the classroom, at its highest point, looking down to the front of the class, where the professor will be teaching. With a frown, I walk past the back row, down tothe next, and I’m about to choose an end seat when I happen to glance at the front row, where the teacher’s pets sit.
And what would you know? I see the little nerd herself, the book I let her have sitting on the small desk surface that each seat has.
No fucking way. What are the odds?
I shouldn’t go down there. I should sit right where I planned on sitting before I noticed her, but you know what? It might be fun to freak her out. I doubt she thought she’d ever see me again.
