Next Man Up (Making the Score #2) - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,43

blame Eli for what he’d done that night. He hadn’t forced me, and he hadn’t intentionally gotten me drunk in order to lower my inhibitions. Or at least, I didn’t think he had. His biggest sin had been in using me and leaving me. But he’d also opened a door for me, setting me free to live an entirely new life without the boundaries that had held me back.

It was true that I’d had to tread carefully. Our community wasn’t that large, and I knew that if I were too outrageous, word would get back to my grandparents. I had a dread of disappointing them, so I was careful to have my fun with guys who had something to lose, too, if they blabbed about our one-time fuck. I was discreet, and even if the whole school knew on some level that Zelda Porter fucked random boys often, no one made a big deal about it.

It didn’t hurt that I began taking classes at the community college as well as the high school during my junior year. Those two days a week at the college three towns away had offered me a wider pool of potentials, and I’d taken advantage of that. Sometimes I didn’t even tell them my last name, just to be safe.

I sighed now, standing in front of our window and looking out onto the campus, gray in the gathering twilight. As careful as I’d been back home, it had been a huge relief to come to college last year and know a sense of freedom. It had been so easy here, too. There were parties every weekend, and college boys had dorm rooms with beds we could use. They weren’t shy about telling their roommates to stay gone for a few hours, either.

I had a strict rule about not bringing guys back to my own place. My room was sacrosanct. It was my safe and peaceful place, where I didn’t have to juggle the Zelda the world saw with the real me. Plus, last year I’d never wanted to make Quinn uncomfortable, and having a parade of strangers traipsing in and out of our room would’ve done just that.

This year, though, since I had my own private room within the suite, I might have a little more flexibility. However, the thought of bringing men here—it made me feel slightly nauseated. I wasn’t going to do it. I’d stick to my routine—fuck away from home.

I knew tonight would be the perfect time to jump back onto the horse, so to speak. I should go find a guy and let him help me forget whatever it was I feeling about Eli Tucker. It would mean nothing, but then, it never did.

For some reason, I didn’t move. I stood at the window, staring through the glass, until twilight turned to darkness, hiding the outside world from my eyes.

And then I went to bed, alone.

One of the best parts of having completed my associates’ degree before high school graduation was that almost all of my classes at Birch were upper level courses, with juniors and seniors. After this year, I’d be in some graduate level classes, too. The work was hard and demanding, but it was a hell of a lot better than dealing with huge classrooms filled with clueless eighteen- and nineteen-year olds. I appreciated the level of our discussions and how seriously my fellow students took the coursework.

I stuck mostly to courses within my major, which meant that the majority were agriculture, science and business. But every now and then, I had space and time for something a little more fun, something that let me fulfill the elective requirement without bogging myself down with busy work. This semester, I was taking an upper-level English course on Shakespeare, and I was honestly more excited about it than I’d expected.

Some of that excitement morphed to shock when I walked into the classroom on the first day and spied a wheelchair in the first row. I didn’t need to see his face to recognize that Eli Tucker was occupying the chair.

For a moment, I vacillated, seriously considering whether I should just drop the course now. The idea of seeing Eli on a regular basis made me unreasonably nervous, and since I hated any feeling of being out of control, I was also annoyed with myself for letting him get to me.

That was the deciding factor in the end. I’d let Eli Tucker affect too much of my life already, and damned