CHARLOTTE: THEN

Seven years ago

Pittsburgh

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THERE HAD TO BE A SPECIAL place reserved in hell for advisors who steered you on the wrong path during your college career. At least, I was hoping that was the case so my clueless advisor would know what it felt like to have his future in the wrong hands.

“Well, this is quite a problem, Charlotte.” He tapped his fingers against the desk. “Even with all the advanced classes you’ve taken, you’re still missing six of the credits you need for your Political Science degree. I can’t believe that you, of all people, didn’t catch this before now. You’re supposed to be one of my smartest students.”

“Are you seriously blaming me for this?”

"I'm not blaming you, per se," he said. "I'm just saying that for someone who cares so much about your education, you should've known that you hadn’t taken all of your Ethics courses. Hell, I was a Poli-Sci major decades ago, and even I know Ethics III and IV are necessary."

I bit my tongue, resisting the urge to scream.

“On the plus side,” he said, smiling, “You’ve completed everything you need for your Art major, so you’ll at least get that. Who needs two degrees anyway?”

"Mr. Henderson." I took a deep breath. "With all due respect, if I'm only six credits short, it doesn't make sense if I don't graduate with two degrees. Are you sure there aren't any alternative courses I could take in place of Ethics III and IV?"

"Dr. Bradshaw is offering an internship at her firm this year. You're a perfect candidate, and I'm sure she'd love to sign off on having you there."

"I can't." I shook my head. "I'm already taking eighteen credits this semester, and I'm a resident assistant at a freshman dorm. An internship like that would be complete and utter suicide.”

“Well, there’s always the summer semester.” He smiled. “You’ll still walk with your class. You’ll just take those six credits, then.”

“Ten seconds ago, you said that Ethics courses are never offered in the summer. You literally just said that.”

“Oh, right.” He blew out a breath and looked at his screen. “Okay, look. I need you to give me a few minutes alone so I can figure this out.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes.” He pointed to the door. “Step outside so I can be alone with my thoughts. And while you’re out there, go get me a coffee.”

Ugh! I grabbed my backpack and stepped outside his office, walking over to the study room. As I poured him a cup of coffee, I overheard him saying, “Shit, shit, shit!” and calling for his secretary.

I was tempted to add salt to his drink instead of sugar, but I decided to wait until he came up with an actual action plan. It never ceased to amaze me how nonchalant he was about being an advisor, how there was always a “minor problem” at the start of every semester. If it wasn’t for the fact that one of the university’s deans had encouraged me to double major in Art, I might not have a completed degree at all.

I leaned against one of the bay windows and looked down at the campus below. No matter how many times I attempted to describe it to my friends back home or paint it on my canvases, it still managed to look different every time.

The “campus” at the University of Pittsburgh wasn’t anything like other college campuses. Instead of acres of lush green lawns with complementing blond brick buildings and dining halls, Pitt was more like a miniature city with university and dorm buildings artfully placed wherever a corporate business, restaurant, or hospital couldn’t fit. The Cathedral of Learning, the massive beige monolith that towered over the skyscraper dorms and student unions, was the only building that made it clear that the twenty blocks that stretched across the Oakland neighborhood were part of a school.

In every promotional booklet, the university captured at least twenty pictures of students studying beneath the sun on the Soldiers and Sailors lawn or throwing frisbees across the student union park. They just conveniently failed to mention the fact that those places were only usable for two months out of the year because Pittsburgh was second only to Seattle when it came to dreary gray skies.

As I was watching a child run across the street with a balloon, I felt my phone buzzing against my pocket. A phone call from my best friend, Nadira.

“Hello?” I answered, whispering.

“Hey! Where are you?”

“I’m at the Honors College with my advisor. Can I call you back?”

“This will only take five seconds,” she said. “I just want to make sure that you’re coming to the ice cream social later tonight.”

“I can’t. Tonight’s the night we’re throwing the welcome party for our dorm, remember?”

“No, no, no. We are not throwing anything. We're setting up the snacks, and then we are going to the ice cream social because no one ever comes to university-sponsored dorm parties, Charlotte. You know this."

“People will come because I’m hosting,” I said. “I hand-made the invitations and I even painted a new banner.”

“Jesus." She groaned. "Look, I'm your best friend and your co-RA, and even I'm not going. I told you that last week."

“You told me it was because you had a date.”

“I lied.” She laughed. "I'm not taking no for an answer on this. It's your senior year, and you're finally going to enjoy the social part of college. You're partying every weekend, going to at least four football games with me, and in addition to all the random and reckless shit you'll never get the chance to do again in your life, you're going to this ice cream social tonight."

“The only point of going to the ice cream social is to stare at the football players while they take their shirts off and run around the lawn.”

“Okay, and? I’ll see you there.” She ended the call, and I sent her a text message.

ME: I’ll go, but I’m only staying for thirty minutes. (Are we really starting our senior year off like this? O_o)

NADIRA: You’re staying the whole time. (What better way to start the year than seeing Grayson Connors with his shirt off? :-) ) #GoPanthersGO

I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to respond to that.

"You can come back into my office now, Charlotte!" Mr. Henderson called my name a few minutes later, and I returned to his office, handing him his coffee before taking a seat.

"I made a few calls around, and you're in luck." He slid a sheet of paper toward me. "The dean is going to allow you to earn those credits over the next two semesters via a peer-tutoring program."

“So, it’s like another job?”

"A super easy job," he said. "You'll only have to tutor someone once a week. You'll do it on your own schedule, —and you’ll receive credit for doing so. I personally think this is a pretty sweet alternative to taking two ethics courses. This coffee is a bit tart, by the way. You should probably remake me a cup on your way out later.”

Please let there be a space in hell for him. “The tutoring thing would be ‘pretty sweet’ if I wasn’t worried about getting a good score on the LSAT.”

“You’re joking, right?” He laughed. “You almost made a perfect score on your first try. Getting a few extra points on it won’t change the fact that you can get into any law school you want.” He leaned back in his chair. “Besides, once the dean realized I was talking about you, he insisted that we come up with something simple so you could try to enjoy your senior year. You’ll be fine.”

Right ... “Well, which subject will I need to tutor?”

“English Literature,” he said, handing me another sheet. “I’ll call the dean again to make sure I’m not missing anything, but I’ll forward you more information later this week so you can go ahead and set up a meeting time with the other student.”

“Thank you, Mr. Henderson.”

“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“Not at all.” I stood to my feet.

“Okay, great! Well, if you wouldn’t mind remaking my coffee before you—”

I left his office before he could finish that sentence, heading straight for the elevators. The second the doors glided open, I stepped inside and punched the button for the ground floor.

The only other things I needed to do this afternoon were buy a new set of paint brushes and attempt to get through the rest of the day without hearing the words, “Go, Panthers! Go!”

The elevator stopped on the second floor, and a group of girls piled on with bouquets of blue and gold balloons.

“Hey, there!” One of them handed me a balloon. “Go, Panthers! Go!”

I sighed. “Thank you.”

“No, no, no! You’re supposed to say, ‘Go, Panthers! Go!’ right back to me!” She smiled.

I blinked.

“Go, Panthers! Go!” She repeated it, as if that would make me say it. “Go, Panthers! Go!”

Then, like the contagious virus that school spirit was, the rest of the girls in the elevator began chanting the words louder and louder.

The elevator doors sprung open at the lobby level and I quickly stepped off, finding myself in a glittering sea of blue and gold decorations. Every column, counter, and wall was draped in Pitt’s trademark colors, primed and ready for the number one thing that everyone cared about this time of year: Football.

Saturdays were game days, and every other day of the week was simply a warm up to game-day. The frenzy was established right before my freshman year, right when they landed a cocky, high school phenom named Grayson Connors. A phenom who’d now led them to three national titles in a row, and made it so that the football team was all there was to talk about in this city.

Well, it was for everyone except me. Even though I loved the game of football itself, I avoided their games like the plague—giving up my discounted season passes to my mom and dad instead. I never went to their larger than life parties and I did my best not to buy into the hype. My Saturdays were reserved for art, coffee, and endless reruns of Friends.

And regardless of what Nadira said, I was going to make sure that most of my Saturdays this year were spent the exact same way.

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LATER THAT NIGHT, I took my time walking to the student union for the ice cream social. It only took my freshman year to realize that this was the first place where upperclassmen preyed upon the freshmen girls, and my sophomore year to realize that it was best attended in transit: Grab the ice cream, say hello to the people I know, leave. As long as I was gone before the football players arrived to take off their shirts and challenge each other to chug the remaining vats of ice cream, I was in the clear.

“Charlotte!” Nadira waved at me from the line. “Over here!”

I cut in front of a few people, ignoring their groans, and she handed me a cup of cherry ice cream.

“Well, don’t you look stunning today.” She smiled and tugged at my bright blue summer dress. “I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. You don’t deserve your fashion sense. It’s just not fair.”

“Thank you.” I laughed. “I was checking our final dorm numbers earlier and there are going to be twenty more freshmen on our floor this year. That’s a good thing, right?”

“That’s a terrible thing,” she said. “That means more rooms to check for random alcohol violations and more guys sneaking up to our floor after hours. On the plus side, since the room next to us is going to remain empty, whenever I need to get laid, it’ll be nice to have a room to use instead of asking you to leave.”

“How convenient for you.” I laughed and slipped my matching shades over my face. I started to ask her which shift she preferred this week, but the telltale sound of the football team arriving interrupted my thoughts.

Everyone was suddenly clapping and chanting—calling out ‘Hail to Pitt!’ and that other slogan I’d escaped earlier. And then, as usual, the “OMG! OMG!” screaming began. As if we were at a real game and these football players wouldn’t be sitting right next to us in some of our classes tomorrow.

“Well, that’s my cue,” I said, looking at one of the servers. “I’ll take two peanut fudge scoops to go.”

“Oh, come on!” Nadira grabbed my ice cream cup and pulled me onto the lawn. “One hour. Stay for me.”

“Fine.” I took my cup back and shook my head as our star quarterback, Mr. Cocky himself, took off his shirt and tossed a football made of ice cream to one of his friends.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I couldn’t deny that Grayson Connors was sexy as hell. He was honestly beyond that, and he turned heads everywhere he went. His eyes were a stunning shade of ocean blue. His pearly, white smile with complementing dimples was the type that could make any woman’s panties wet, and everything about his body—his six-pack of rock-hard abs, his black-ink tattoos that snaked up his left arm, and his rumored "huge cock" were enough to make any girl do a double-take.

His reputation, though, was the complete opposite. In all my years here, I’d only had one encounter with him, a brief “Hey” while we were on a late night Safe-Rider bus, but I’d heard plenty of stories that made me want to keep my distance. Everything from, “He fucks a different girl after every game,” “He’s been inside more pussies than the doctors at the campus women’s health department,” and my personal favorite, “He’s nine inches and he knows it.”

“God, he makes my ovaries burst every time I look at him!” Nadira fawned over him. “Like how can one guy be so perfect?”

“He’s not perfect.” I stuffed a spoonful of sprinkles into my mouth. “He’s a man-whore.”

“No, he’s rumored to be man-whore. He’s probably the ‘walk you to your car,’ ‘kiss you on your cheek,’ and ‘soft making love’ type of guy.”

I gave her a blank stare.

“I’m kidding!” She laughed. “Well, if it wasn’t for his reputation, would you ever sleep with him if you knew no one else would find out? Be honest.”

“I can be more than honest.” I scoffed. “No, I would never sleep with him.”

“Charlotte will never sleep with anyone.” Our mutual guy friend, Eric, stepped between us. “She’ll die with cobwebs in her pussy and I’m willing to bet a thousand on it.”

Nadira burst into laughter and I punched him in the shoulder.

“So, Eric,” I said. “Would you like to be a mature senior, unlike Nadira, and join me at the freshmen dorm party that I’m throwing tonight?”

He looked at me as if I was speaking another language.

“You’re not coming either?”

“Charlotte ...” He sighed and placed his hands on my shoulders. “No one is coming to your freshman dorm party—not even the freshmen. Please join the rest of us normal college students in the real world. Everyone is going partying tonight. You included."

“Well, could we at least—” My sentence was cut short as something hit me right in my face. Something cold, yet soft.

I felt Eric’s hands wrap around my waist and hold me steady, felt him adjusting my sunglasses. Then I looked down and realized what had assaulted me: An ice cream football.

What the hell?

I stooped down to pick it up and was instantly met with the sight of Grayson Connor’s stunning blue eyes.

“Sorry about that,” he said, looking genuine as he took it from my hands. “Are you okay?”

“I’d be a lot better if you actually learned how to throw.”

“That’s a joke, right?”

“Does it look like I’m laughing?”

“I’ve got it!” He yelled over to his teammates, and then smiled at me, extending his hand. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious with me since you’re wearing shades, but I’m glad you’re not hurt. I’m Grayson Connors.”

“I’m unimpressed.”

He laughed and took a step back. “Well, you’re clearly just a freshman, so by the end of this semester, I think you’ll be more than impressed with me.”

“I doubt it.”

“Oh, really?”

Before I could respond to that, one of his teammates ran behind him and snatched the ball from his hands.

“You’re taking too long, Connors!” The guy returned to the middle of the lawn, but Grayson kept his eyes on me. He looked me up and down, but he didn’t say anything else. He simply winked at me and walked away.

“I swear that I hate you sometimes,” Nadira said, lowering her voice. “Like, only you would find a way to mess that up.”

“Was I supposed to kiss up to him because everyone else does?”

“No, you were supposed to introduce me to him, so that way, I could do it.” She laughed. “You could’ve at least looked like you were attracted to him or flirted back. He was clearly flirting with you.”

He flirts with everyone. “I’ll be sure to remember that next time.”

“You should.” She looked at her phone and groaned. “Looks like there’s only going to be valet parking at the club tonight. You two want to head back and get ready?”

“Absolutely,” me and Eric said in unison.

We stepped off the lawn and onto the sidewalk that lined Fifth Avenue, and while the two of them debated who was going to drive later, I pinched myself twice to make sure that I was still standing firmly in reality. That I hadn’t felt my heart beating a little faster when Grayson looked at me, and that I didn’t almost say, “Yes, I’d sleep with him in that scenario,” when Nadira asked me.

It must be the heat.