How was he supposed to concentrate? How was anybody supposed to concentrate for that matter? At the front of the lecture hall, Professor Clark carried on in his monotone, pacing from one side of the room to the other, lulling the class further and further into a quiet stupor.
The absentminded doodles Jason had been making in his notebook for the better part of an hour had started to take on a distinct form: a sketch of Claire. She was sitting in the fourth row and was maybe the last student still paying close attention. But it wasn't her work ethic that had his rapt attention -- it was her natural beauty and her carefully curated style that stood out against the sea of sweatpants and collegiate sweatshirts.
His pencil started to drift, finishing its work on her ponytail, now outlining the soft features of her face and then moving down, arriving at her blouse. Vaguely, he poked at the buttons with his pencil, imagining them coming loose one-by-one. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to reality.
"...And that will be essential to final," the professor finished. Jason whipped his head back and forth to see the class nodding their understanding. "Shit," he muttered under his breath, looking to the fourth row to see Claire making a note of the professor's last remarks in her agenda.
He leaned back in his chair, and an idea occurred to him -- a good one. One that would mean the last hour of his life wouldn't have to have been a complete waste. A few minutes later, outside the lecture hall, Jason parked in the corner and waited, but he didn't have to wait for long. About a foot shorter than the rest of the class, Claire was nevertheless easy to spot because the bustling crowd left space all around her, as though they understood she was somehow different -- more akin to a professor than a fellow student.
"Claire!" he shouted. He saw her standing up on her tippytoes to search over the heads in the crowd, and his heart leapt when her eyes met his and she smiled. She changed course.
"Hey! Been a minute," she said.
"Yeah well, I've been waiting to bump into you, but I got tired of waiting."
Claire laughed. The sight of it gave him the hit of confidence he needed for what came next.
"Listen," he said, "I don't know about you, but I'd say I only caught about five percent of what happened in there."
"I'd say I'm closer to two," Claire said. It was clearly bullshit, but he appreciated her saying so all the same.
"Well, how about this?" he said. Claire hugged the books she was carrying to her chest and leaned forward. "How about you come over to my place later and we study? Between my five percent and your two, we'd be about seven percent covered for the final."
Claire smiled, her gaze wandering through the surrounding crowd. "I don't know," she said. "I should stay in and do some reading." Beneath the doubt, he sensed that she had no desire to spend Friday night alone in her room studying. She just needed a little encouraging, and he was only too happy to oblige.
"You can always read at mine. I have a light, a chair. Everything you might need."
She smiled again, considering. "Fine," she said after an agonizing pause.
"Fine?"
"Fine," she said, laughing
"Then it's a date."
~
That evening, standing in front of the full-length mirror in her room, Claire let her hair down for the third time. Her short, unfussy haircut fell to her shoulders and she sighed. Up or down, no matter what she did, she looked more prepared for a board meeting than a date. And was it really even a date? She considered as she put her hair back up in a ponytail and turned her attention to her clothes. Yes, Jason had used the word "date," but it was a common turn of phrase -- it meant nothing.
She was still wearing the clothes she'd worn to class: a white blouse tucked into brown slacks. There might not be much she could do about her hair, but there was still time to fix her outfit. She needed something different. Something that suggested she was more than a bookworm. Something that was, in no way, recognizable as being "Claire."
She didn't want to examine this need feel like someone else too closely. Obviously, it was more than her attraction to Jason. It probably had something to do with there being only a few short weeks until graduation. And what did she have to show for her time here? Sure, she'd have the degree -- a piece of paper to show perspective employers -- but did she have any real experience? Any adventures should could look back on when she bored, stuck in an office counting down the minutes until five?
No. Not yet, anyway.
She crossed the room and opened her bureau. Searching through the neat stacks of clothing, her frustration grew. There was nothing... No short skirt, not a single stitch of clothing that would feel more at home in a nightclub than a library. Closing the second drawer, she opened the top.
Again, nothing. Not a thong, not a single piece of lace. Even her bras were dull -- all supportive practical, and padded. Her eyes settled on a stack of white undershirts. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she considered a possibility. She returned to the mirror, slowly unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it off the show the beige version of the bras she'd just been rummaging through in her bureau.
Reaching back, she undid the clasp and let the bra fall to the floor. Her breasts weren't large, but they were always her favorite part of her body. She pulled on the undershirt, and sure enough, you could make out the faint outline of her nipples. Growing hard, they poked out against the sheer fabric.
But did she dare?
"I'm going out!" Claire shouted as she passed her roommate and the group of friends that sat around their kitchen table, enjoying a bottle of wine.
Her roommate turned, surprised. "Where are you headed?"
If Claire didn't happen to love her roommate, she might've been offended by the shock in her voice. As it stood, there was no getting around the fact that Alison's surprise was genuine, and that her going out on a Friday night was strange, bordering on bizarre.
"I've got a date," Claire said. She watched her roommate's eyes drift down to settle on her chest.
"Enjoy," Alison said, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
Claire rolled her eyes. "Goodnight, be good." With that, she walked out the front door, realizing as the door closed that it was unusually cool. She got an immediate chill, and looking down, realized the cold air would do nothing to ease the self-consciousness she was already starting to feel toward her choice in attire.
Jason's house was no more than a ten-minute walk. Deciding to get it over with as quick as possible, she set off at a pace somewhere between a fast walk and a light jog, arriving six minutes later more than a little out of breath. Steadying herself for a moment, Claire knocked.
Nothing.
Leaning in, she could make out the clear sound of a sports broadcast and chatter. Then, all at once, like the sound car backfiring, the loud sound of cheers, making her take a small step backward. Annoyed, Claire stepped forward and hammered on the front door with her fist.
"Coming!" she heard, followed by the growing sound of heavy footsteps. The door swung open and Claire found herself glaring at a man's chest. Tracing her eyes upward, she found a familiar face. A handsome face that she couldn't quite place. Was he on the football team with Jason? Brady? Bradly?
"Hi, I'm Claire," she said reaching out her hand. Brady or Bradly fixed the annoyed look that he'd worn on his face when he'd opened the door and reached out, taking Claire's hand in his own. It was large and heavily calloused.
"Bruce," he said. "Come on in." His eyes moved shamelessly up and down her body as she walked past. The house was a small step up from a frat house. Movie posters lined the walls, and there wasn't a surface in the place without an empty beer can. Walking into the living room, four guys looked up at her from their seats-- but not one of them was Jason.
Bruce followed Claire into the room. "What, were you guys raised by wolves?" he said to the room. "Introduce yourselves."
The boys grunted their names in turn, most not bothering to take their eyes off the TV, which was hooked up to a laptop and showing an illegal stream of a college football game. Judging by their respective sizes and interest in the game, Claire guessed that all of Jason's roommates were on the football team with him.
"Is Jason upstairs?" she asked, turning to Bruce. The boys behind her all jumped up out of their seats once again, high fiving and yelling.
Bruce offered a wordless apology and once the shouts of let's go! died down, he leaned against the wall to deliver the bad news. "Jason didn't think to get your number or he would've told you himself -- he had to run home. Family emergency. But he should be back in an hour so if you don't mind waiting."
Claire glanced back at the scene in the living room. Bruce let out a low laugh. Obviously, it was plain on her face that she did, in fact, mind.
"If it makes you feel better, it was pretty clear Jason feels like shit about it. I know he was looking forward to uh..." he paused, shamelessly letting his gaze linger on her chest. "Studying."
Left with two equally unappealing possibilities, Claire weighed her options. One, leave Bruce and the bros to their game. But that would mean taking the long, cold walk back home and the humiliation of telling everyone her "date" left her high and dry. Second, finding a place on the couch and praying Jason showed up sooner than later.
"I'll tell you what," Bruce said, taking pity on her. "You don't have to wait down here with all of us. Let me show you up to Jason's room. He won't mind you hanging there until her gets back."
"Let's gooooo!" Another loud burst of cheers. Bruce cocked his eyebrow, gesturing toward the stairs.
Claire sighed. After deciding this plan was the best of the bad options available, she made her way upstairs, Bruce close on her heels. The staircase creaked loudly, and she could practically feel Bruce's gaze on her ass with every step. Somehow it never occurred to her that Jason was, fundamentally, a jock. Why should she be surprised that his roommates were, too?
"Straight ahead, right at the top of the stairs," Bruce said.
Jason's room was in no way discernibly different than the rest of the house. While you couldn't call it "dirty," you certainly couldn't call it clean either. Dirty clothes were piled in the corner of the room. There was the faint smell of weed in the air that Claire attributed to the bong sitting on the desk opposite the unmade bed.
They stopped in the doorway, Claire unsure where to sit given that every surface bore either laundry or some other mess. She leaned against the door frame, eager to dismiss Bruce and maybe do a little tidying up until Jason arrived. After all, wasn't she being a little harsh if he was in the middle of dealing with a family emergency? Maybe he'd be embarrassed about her being there if he had no time to clean.
"Thanks for walking me up," she said.
Bruce leaned against the other side of the door frame. It was weirdly intimate, having him so close. The noise from the game drifted up the stairs, but he gave no indication that he wanted to get back to the action. "So, are you and Jason an item, then?" he said.
