Nerdy Little Secret Read online

  “All right, go on in. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? By the way, are you—”

  I jet off before he can get his question out, which I know will definitely have something to do with my relationship status or openness to hookups.

  “Now I see how you get yourself through life,” a voice mumbles just as I’m about to dump my books on a table near the banks of computers on the first floor, and I spin to see who it is.

  Mick is walking past me as he plucks something off the reference desk, not bothering to turn around and say much else. That note of disappointment, the same one I saw in his expression the other day, is clear in his tone.

  “What?” I cock my head to the side, because this is a strange greeting.

  And if I’m not mistaken, he’s clearly judging me.

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head, chuckling to himself, and then attempts to walk away.

  “Really? Hi to you, too.” I raise an eyebrow, annoyed.

  “Hi, Jolie. Have a nice study session.” And with that, he walks off, planting himself at a table piled high with books, on the other side of the first floor.

  I glare at him, hoping that my attitude pierces his ridiculously large brain, because how dare he. He was definitely just making a comment about how I flirted with the clerk to get in, and I’m pissed. Yes, I did flirt to get in, but Mick is making a judgment about how I live my life.

  With my temper flaring, I march across the library, studying be damned.

  “What are you trying to insinuate?” I practically stamp my foot as I stop in front of his table, crossing my arms over my chest like a child about to throw a temper tantrum.

  Mick sighs, saving something on his laptop, and then sweeping those rainforest-colored eyes up. “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything. Just forget it. Truly, I hope you get your work done. Now, I have some I need to get done.”

  But the annoyance doesn’t simmer down in my chest. “Why are you being so weird?”

  I actually sound like a five-year-old, but I can’t help it. I’ve never cared what anyone thought of me, though I know some of the things they call me. Spoiled, rich girl, bratty, entitled. That’s fine. If they don’t want to get to know the person I am on the inside, I’ve never really minded.

  But something about Mick, a guy who knows me more than maybe anyone ever has for the short period of time we’ve spent together, judging me ignites my blood.

  Maybe it’s the fact that he’s never acted this cold toward me. This summer, we not only formed an intimate attraction, but we had a friendship. Mick was always there for some fun banter or to listen to me vent about my bitchy campers. He was never once cold or dismissive, not like he’d just been a minute ago.

  He just smirks. “I’m being weird? Come on, Jolie, let’s not get into this. We had a good summer, and we both go to school here now. We don’t have to do this awkward, let’s-be-friends or let’s-figure-things-out deal. You made your feelings known in the Pub the other day, I’m okay with that.”

  God, I hate that he’s the most honest, level-headed person I’ve ever met. The dramatic part of me wants so badly to make him blow up, to trigger something that sets him off. But everything I’m trying isn’t working.

  “You’re seriously mad about that?” I try putting words in his mouth.

  Someone down the row of tables shushes us, and Mick shoots me a dirty look. Oh, my bad, I’m getting him in trouble in his kingdom.

  Mick is still seated, which is pissing me off further. I’m used to guys tripping over themselves for me, and the one that I want attention from can barely rise to his feet to have a conversation with me.

  “Jolie, what do you want? You balked the other day when your friends saw what I looked like, though I have a feeling they don’t even know who I am to you. And after basically dismissing me from your table, you decided to text me like I was your partner from study group who came down with the flu who needed well wishes. As if we don’t even know each other. I’m just following your lead, so if you don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll be happy to sit on another floor of the library and do my work.”

  Gah, he’s maddening! I loathe his rationality at this moment.

  “Why didn’t you answer my text?” I ask, having nothing to lose.

  He runs a hand through his auburn hair, and I’m annoyed at how much I want that to be my hand. “Did you really want me to? We agreed to end this. Plus, what was I supposed to say to that?”

  I shrug, not wanting to admit that he’s right and I’m wrong.

  “Why doesn’t your ID work?” Mick asks, and I know his obnoxious intelligence is trying to sniff me out.

  I’m asking him annoying questions, so now he’s going to try to push my buttons.

  “You heard what I told the kid at the desk, the strip keeps deactivating.”

  Mick looks skeptical. “Yeah, how many times has it done that?”

  “Four.” I make up a number on the spot.

  “Why wouldn’t they just give you a new ID card?” He knows that we both know I’m lying.

  Mick sniffing around in my business has all of my walls flying up. It was a stupid mistake coming over, trying to instigate him. It was never going to work. And now he’s just trying to get under my skin, discover what I’m hiding.

  Without another word, I turn on my heel, taking my secrets with me. He’s right, after all.

  We don’t have to talk about all of this. The less I talk to anyone I don’t absolutely have to, the lower the risk of having to spill all of the bad behavior that led me to this point.

  Plus, I have enough studying to shut me up for a year.

  7

  Mick

  Two hours of studying later, and I’m ready to pack it in.

  It is a Saturday night, and I think I’ve earned a little fun, even if it’s just a small gathering at Paul’s friend’s house. I’ll go for a drink or two, and then it’ll be back to my dorm room. Tomorrow, I have a full docket of programs and trials I want to try to get Dad into, and a bunch of emails to write to internship programs.

  I’m eyeing one with Dr. Francis Richards, the foremost expert on Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. He runs one of the most high-tech, innovative laboratories in the country, and it just so happens to operate out of the Salem Walsh University Hospital.

  There was a reason I picked Salem as the college I wanted to transfer to. Aside from its stellar biology program, it has one of the best medical schools on the East Coast. And Dr. Richards is just the cherry on top. I know I’m only a junior, and it’s difficult for even third-year medical students to get onto his rotation, or shadow him period, but it’s worth a shot. I’m hoping that if I can convince him to look at some of the research I’ve been working on, on the side, he’ll be interested enough to let me intern for him even if that means simply fetching his coffee.

  I pack up my last book, relinquishing my table, though there is barely anyone else here on a Saturday night.

  Even though I try my hardest not to, my eyes float to the other side of the library. There sits Jolie, gnawing on the end of a pen cap in frustration. Her hair is tossed this way and that, there are crumpled sheets of paper littering the floor under her feet, and she looks nearly on the verge of tears.

  Damn, maybe I was too harsh before.

  I couldn’t help it, when she came over, trying to start something with me. She was the one who had all but shunned me in the Pub days ago, and now she had a bone to pick because of some offhanded comment and my view of her was twisting into something uglier than before.

  Before I got to Salem, I had never viewed her in the way others had at camp. There were whisperings that her father owned the place, or she was there as some kind of penance. I never asked because it wasn’t my business. Others thought she was snooty and privileged, but I got to know the real Jolie. The hilarious, intelligent, vulnerable side of her. She wasn’t the bratty, spoiled rich girl everyone assumed she was. I’d seen her get down in the mud during tug-of-war, stack supplie
s in the lakeside dock rooms, and get up every day before dawn with one of her campers who had an especially bad time of the month.

  She has a heart, one I don’t think she lets a lot of people see. And for that reason, I wander over to her table to apologize.

  “Tough study session, huh?” I peer down at her, trying to ignore the familiar scent of her hair wafting up at me.

  That citrusy vanilla, like she’s been bathing in orange-flavored cupcakes. The smell used to cling to my clothing long after I’d returned to my own cabin, and it’s intoxicating now.

  “As if you’d know what that’s like.” Her tone is pouty, and she doesn’t look up.

  “Actually, this Metabolic Disease course I’m taking is giving me a run for my money.” I chuckle, trying to make light of my own intelligence.

  It doesn’t work, and Jolie still stares down at her paper, scribbling notes in the margin.

  “Listen, Jolie, I was—” I’m about to say harsh when she interrupts me.

  “Why the hell do I need to take biology to work in makeup anyway?” She practically breaks her pencil in two with how hard she throws it down at the table.

  There is no one to shush us now, with everyone all but gone and getting ready for their wild Saturday nights. Without her permission, I pull out the chair across from her and take a seat.

  “Well, I guess it would have to do with the product makeup. The different elements of the makeup, what it does to human skin or lips, that sort of thing, right?”

  Jolie finally looks at me, those inky brown eyes rolling in my direction. “I wasn’t looking for an actual answer, Boy Genius. It’s fucking stupid is what it is. I know how to get women to wear makeup, I know good makeup. That should be enough. This study guide doesn’t even make sense, it could be in Mandarin and I would be able to read it more clearly.”

  “Let me see that.” I pull her study guide from her hands and look to see what she’s completed thus far.

  And that’s when I see it. The Salem Community College logo stamped at the top of her work packet.

  “No, give that back.” Panic is written all over Jolie’s face as she tries to snatch it back.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask, holding it on the other side of my body where she can’t get it.

  There is a beat that passes, one of her looking at me with so much panic and emotion in her eyes. I see it all so clearly now. The way she didn’t introduce me to her friends. The “broken” ID and flirting her way into the library. Her near hysteria over a study guide.

  I know this feeling all too well, because having been a student at community college, when you could be attending a university deemed way more publicly acceptable, brings a certain level of shame. Even if there shouldn’t be one.

  “You’re not … you go to a community college?” I whisper, as if someone might hear us.

  “No.” Jolie cuts me with her eyes, her mouth an angry slash to match.

  I level with her, giving her an earnest look and handing the study guide back. My silence causes her to break.

  She lowers her head, moving her face closer to mine. “Fine. Yes. But if you tell anyone, I’ll cut your goddamn balls off.”

  I almost bring my hands down to my crotch, because the threat makes me wince. I know Jolie isn’t joking at this moment.

  “Why would I tell anyone? And who would I even tell? I was your friend, or so I thought. I wouldn’t do that.” The thought that I’d even consider it in her mind kind of hurts.

  A flash of guilt passes through Jolie’s eyes, but then it’s gone. “It’s not something I’m broadcasting, and I’d appreciate it being kept a secret. And no, I don’t go to community college. I’m just … temporarily a student there.”

  “I’m not sure those things aren’t the same thing.” I tilt my head to the side.

  She lets out an annoyed huff, like I’m making her spill the beans even though she’s being purposefully evasive.

  “I … got into some trouble. And was given the option to rejoin the Salem Walsh student community during my senior year if I complete and receive As during my junior year at a community college.”

  Tapping my chin, I consider something. “And the time as a camp counselor this summer? That was punishment, too?”

  “Punishment is a harsh word.” She waves her hand as if I’m putting too much of a spin on something that is clearly a punishment.

  “You were given community service?” I guess, trying to make her tell me the whole story.

  I don’t like dishonesty, and right now it’s starting to piss me off. I’m a straight-forward, rational guy. Always have been. I don’t like drama and I don’t like lies. Jolie seems to come chock full of both of those, and it’s temporary insanity that must be keeping me sitting at this table.

  “No, I never went to court.” More swerving my questions.

  “What did you do?” I fire back.

  Jolie looks away, fidgeting with her hands. “I don’t want to talk about it. Didn’t you need to study on your own, anyway?”

  “I’m done. Anyways, guess I’ll leave you to it.” I shrug, not feeling the urge to do what I came over here for.

  Why should I apologize now, if she’s being this evasive? I don’t put up with any of these personality traits for any other person, so why should I for Jolie? She’s been nothing but callous and unnerving since I discovered we both go to Salem Walsh—well, at least one of us does. I’m not going to give her a pass just because we have a history and she’s the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  I begin to walk away until I hear her small voice.

  “I’m probably going to fail.”

  The sadness and despair in that one sentence has me turning around. Because even though it’s against everything I’ve just convinced myself of, Jolie Kenner is apparently my kryptonite.

  She’s wallowing in her study guide, and I swear she might just cry. So I utter the words that I swore I wouldn’t from the minute she showed me that biology study guide.

  “I’m a biology major. I could tutor you.”

  8

  Jolie

  To this day, that night is blur.

  Well, not all of it.

  When I sat in the dean’s office in nothing more than an oversize Salem Walsh University T-shirt with dripping wet hair—that part was completely sobering.

  I’m not sure who thought we should do the dare, or who proposed it. At some point during one of the most epic fraternity parties I’d ever been to, someone had suggested we go alter the statues in the iconic fountain on campus. Naked.

  Of course, I was six tequila shots in and thought this was the funniest idea ever proposed on earth. Plus, I’m known to shed clothes when the drinks come out, so a romp in the cool fountain on a hot fall night sounded like the best thing ever.

  I don’t even know how many of us took the hike to campus, stripped down, and climbed into the fountain. There are four statues installed in the large fountain, which is more like an Olympic lap pool than the kind of fountain you see in someone’s backyard. They are of the Greek gods for music, science, and two more that I forget. And they all have anatomy that is very visible.

  So it was only natural for drunk, moronic college kids to bring cans of spray paint, naked, into the fountains, as we sprayed their boobs, cocks, and vaginas with all the colors of the rainbow. In the moment, it was the most hilarious thing I’d ever done. We were cackling our heads off, and the others must have run off when they heard the sound of the sirens.

  But stupid me, I was either too drunk or too wrapped up in my art project to hear them. Until campus police were shining their headlights on my bare, wet ass.

  Which is why I ended up in the dean’s office, at midnight on a Saturday, with no underwear or bra and my eyeliner running down my face. In all my life, I’d never been in so much trouble.

  As far as my friends were concerned, my father had handled it all. There was nothing, according to them, that Mitchell Kenner couldn’t handle.
Especially if it was a measly thing like tampering and nudity on a college campus. He’d fixed tabloid scandals, gotten murderers off charges, made millions for companies who definitely didn’t need it and had escaped apologizing to the middle-class workers they’d fucked over.

  My father was the highest-paid lawyer on the eastern seaboard, and normally, he’d always fixed every problem in my life. If I needed a wheel greased with a teacher, or a better part in the school play. The time I had a bad time slot for school pictures, or when my friends and I got caught in tenth grade smoking pot at a local park. He fixed it all. I was his baby girl, his only child, and he wouldn’t let any shit stick to me.

  But this … this he could not fix. People saw the spray paint the next morning, and rumors began to fly. Professors were offended, and donors were furious. They had to blame someone, even if the dean announced that a student had been accordingly punished in a private manner and didn’t announce a name.

  So it fell to me. Of course, I was no snitch, I would never rat anyone else out. Though they tried, they tried like hell. The dean—who was friends with my dad—and my own father tried to bully a list of names out of me. They didn’t want me to go down for this. But I was already there, campus police had already found me and no one else. No sense in getting someone else in trouble.

  My grades were also less than stellar, a fact the dean kept highlighting. Both of them agreed that I could use a little tough love, that I was taking things for granted, and so, I would have to pay for that. My father was the one who offered up the idea of a summer job, any cause that was close to the dean’s heart.

  His brother-in-law is the one who owns Camp Woodwin, and so I would work there for three months as a camp counselor. For free. Fine, that didn’t seem so bad. I could get through the bugs and lack of reasonable outlets for hair tools.

  But the dean wasn’t happy enough with that. So he proposed a year of academic probation, and a stint at the community college. If I passed with flying colors, I’d be admitted back into Salem Walsh for my senior year, with no mention of the punishment on my permanent record at the college. My degree would come from Salem Walsh, and no one would be the wiser.