“Taking care of you is my job. Has been since I first laid eyes on you.”
His certainty in the way everything is supposed to be starts to rub off, because I don’t question him. Or it’s possible that with each sweep of his hand, I lose brain cells to his comfort. “Speaking of Jack, how is he?”
Frustrated, I think. To Knox, I say, “Fine. He’s not happy with the poli sci course, but I don’t know who in that class is.” It’s hard for me too. It’s even harder to write two papers for that darn thing. “There’s no attendance policy, because if you don’t show up for even one class, you’re lost.”
“Is that what Jack says?” Knox murmurs against the back of my neck.
My brain feels scrambled by his nearness, but I manage to eke out a half truth. “That’s what everyone says.”
The post class complaining is enormous. One girl I sit near writes about a book worth of notes, but at the end of class she looks defeated. Jack hasn’t taken a single note. He sits about twenty rows below me, his hands folded together, staring straight at the teacher. I can’t see his eyes, but my guess is that defeat is too mild of an emotion for what he feels, as the teacher drones on about Bayesian and Nash equilibrium and Pareto efficiencies.
I used Jack’s password to login to his account this week, and had to change at least half of his answers to a worksheet. The worksheets are designed to help us formulate our end of the semester papers and aren’t graded, but I didn’t want the professor to look back and wonder why there’s such a disparity between Jack’s paper and his semester coursework.
“What about his tutor?”
“He says she’s too busy trying to sleep with him, and since he turned her down, she’s not been very helpful.”
“Hmm.” His chest rumbles against my back. “He should bring that up to Brian Newsome. He’s the associate director for football student services. Brian would find Jack a different tutor.”
“No,” I twist in his arms. Jack would not want anyone in the program to know he’s struggling. “And don’t you say anything either.” He’s silent too long. “Please, Knox.”
“All right, baby. I won’t, but just because he’s having problems with class doesn’t mean he’s getting kicked off the team.”
“He’s new. Let him get this one semester under his belt.”
Knox turns me back over, tucking his large knees behind mine and resting his chin on the top of my head. “I won’t say anything. Now, why don’t you get some sleep?”
That sounds like the best suggestion ever.
•••
I wake up with his dick nestled against my ass and his big hand around my waist. One jerk of his thumb and he’d be touching my breast. His hand is so freaking large and there’s a tree trunk shoving its way into my panties. I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t pushed back against the rod of steel or exhaled extra hard to see if I could move his fingers closer to my aching nipple.
“You need to get out of this bed within five minutes, or you’ll be breaking the seal,” he growls in my ear. “That time of the month or not.”
It takes all my will, but I manage to scramble out of the bed. Somewhere in the middle of the night, we moved so that he leaned against the wall and I faced the door.
“Where’s Riley? What time is it?” I scoop my wayward hair out of my face and grope around for my phone to check the time.
“Riley is in her room, and it’s about ten.”
“Ten!” I yelp. “We’ve slept for like five hours.”
“Yup,” he says with a complete lack of concern.
“I’m hungry.” I try to smooth down my hair. Knox’s smile tells me I’m not doing a very good job of it. He rolls out of bed, a lithe mountain lion. His muscles flex and extend as he stalks toward me.
“You look beautiful.” He pulls me against him and nuzzles his face into the side of my neck. Predictably, I want to melt.
I shove away from him. “I need to use the bathroom.” I need some distance.
“Me, too.” There’s a naughty look in his eyes.
“Alone.”
He puts on a fake pout as I push away.
“I’ll order some food. What are you interested in?”
I rub my empty stomach. “Anything,” I say truthfully. “As long as there’s a lot of it.”
On my way to the bathroom, I knock on Riley’s door. The humming stops. I still think it sounds like a big old vibrator. I wonder if she needs one given that she hasn’t hooked up with anyone since we’ve lived together, not even cute Facebook boy, who apparently doesn’t understand that Riley is the best thing he could ever hope to have.
“Knox is ordering food. Do you want any?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“His treat,” I add.
“Um, okay, yeah, I could use something.”
Sometimes I forget that Riley’s a scholarship student, and truth be told, it’s not like I have a lot of extra cash lying around. My mom sends me money monthly, but it’s just enough for food and laundry. I should get a job, but between my course load and Jack’s extra classes, I’m not sure where I’d find the time.
After I’m done taking care of my business in the bathroom, I set out plates and glasses while Knox goes down to the front of the apartment to pay the delivery guy.
“Food’s here.” He sets two large plastic bags on the table and unpacks about ten boxes. At my raised eyebrows, he shrugs. “I was hungry. You’re hungry. You can’t ever have too much Chinese.”
“God, late night egg rolls. You are the bomb dot com.” Riley comes streaking out of the bedroom. Her hair is tied up on the top of her head like a kewpie doll, but I don’t look much better with my five-hour bedhead, my comfy pajama bottoms, and Jack’s old T-shirt from high school.
“You need a new shirt.” Knox hooks his finger into my collar and pulls me to him.
“A Warriors shirt?” I press my lips together to suppress a smile.
“A specific Warriors shirt.”
“Why don’t you take yours off right now and give it to her,” Riley suggests and waggles her eyebrows.
“Good idea.” He whips it off and hands it to me. Riley gives a wolf whistle. Knox sits at the table and starts shoveling food onto his plate.
It takes me a while to stop drooling, and I have to kick Riley under the table to get her to tear her eyes away from Knox’s perfectly sculpted chest.
Sorry she mouths at me, but I can’t really be mad. His body is a work of art.
“You’re right about never having too much Chinese,” Riley says between bites of Kung Pao chicken. “Once, my mom made this huge dish of Singapore noodles, and my dad teased her that we had enough to feed the entire city of Singapore. But she had the last laugh when the next day we had a terrible storm and it knocked out our power. We still had enough Singapore noodles to last us the entire day.”
“There’s no such thing as too much food,” Knox agrees. “My brother and I ate enough that my mom had to go to the grocery store twice a week to buy milk. We’d drink a gallon every couple of days.”
“You have a brother?” Riley asks.
“Twin,” I interject. “Knox says they’re identical.”
“Everyone says we’re identical because we are.” Knox pulls out his phone and flips open his photo album. “See.”
Riley’s mouth drops open a little. “God, there are two of you? How is that at all fair? And which one is you?”
“He’s the one in the red board shorts.” I point to Knox in the picture. “His brother is the one with the soft chin.”
“Soft chin? They have the same chin. They’re i-den-ti-cal,” Riley scoffs.
Knox shakes his head and turns to me. “It’s freaky how you can tell.”
I don’t get how it’s so weird. They’re clearly two different people. Riley scrolls through more photos. There are dozens of shots with Knox and his brother—smiling, goofing around, play fighting. Several with their parents. It’s clear their family is a loving one. At Knox’s urging, Riley pulls out her phone and shows us pictures of her two younger brothers and her parents, who look almost young enough to be her siblings.