Over the Phone

Chapter Five

As soon as Chloe opened the door, she got a face full of Beck. She was nearly naked sitting on the couch and she could hear the shower running.

"Where have you been," Beck asked accusingly. Chloe just rolled her eyes and headed toward her room when the bathroom door swung wide open and a naked man walked out, not even bothering to hide his nakedness. In fact, he smirked at her. The look gave her chills; not the kind that she got from Adam, either.

"Hey there, virgin," he said, his tone lewd. Chloe was mortified, but she started to wonder just how long ago it was that Beck had turned on her.

"No thanks," she said politely, feeling her face flame red as she looked anywhere but at him. He was the first naked man she had ever seen... and it had been a total stranger.

"Aww, come on, don't be like that, sugar. You never know if you like it until you try it," he said with a wink. She felt blood in her cheeks again, but now she was also very angry. Her hands started to shake.

"Yeah, that line's not going to work on me. You should put on some clothes, though; Junior looks cold," she said with a sarcastic smile, hoping the insult came across right.

"Ouch," he said as she slammed the door behind her once safely inside her room.

Ohmigod, I was just scammed on! By a naked guy! Then it occurred to her... he was in the shower.

"Eww!" she yelled, feeling tears spring to her eyes. She hadn’t only been hit on, she had been hit on a guy who'd just had sex with her roommate. Chloe felt nauseous; it was just too much. She had to get out of there, but just as she turned the doorknob, she heard Beck giggling from the living room...

Adam heard his phone vibrated quietly on the bedside table. He looked at the caller ID and smiled. Snatching the phone off the table, he put it quickly to his ear.

"Hey, pretty girl," he said, but the smile died when he heard her draw a shaky breath... she was crying.

"Adam, I need to get out of the house, but Beck is in the living room with some guy..." she stopped. He hadn’t gotten to tell her he wasn’t dating Beck in the quad earlier before she'd run off.

"I'm sorry," she said in a whisper, her voice wavering. He fought the urge to smile; she thought she'd just told him his girlfriend was cheating. It really wasn't funny, but she was so concerned about giving him the news that he was touched.

"I'm on my way. Watch for me out your window, I'll help you get out." He heard her sigh softly and he felt that weird feeling in his gut again. He could easily find himself addicted to that sound. He smiled to himself, remembering seeing a ladder leaning behind her building when he'd been there. He pulled on a jacket and headed out the door.

Adam’s apartment was across campus from hers, so he hurried to his car. Knowing she was locked in her bedroom, essentially trapped, alone, and crying made him angry; That didn’t explain why it'd made her cry, though, that Beck had a guy in there? His heart stuttered to a stop when the thought occurred to her that maybe she liked the guy Beck had over. He pushed the thought aside and pulled away from the curb. Pulling up out front of her building, he saw her tear stained face in the second story window, looking nearly panicked. He got out of the car quickly, gave her the universal symbol for 'one minute' and disappeared around the edge of the three-story brick building. Sure enough, the rickety old wooden ladder was still there.

Now that Adam was here and had seen her beautiful face streaked with tears, he was not only mad, but he just wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

Yeah, I get it, in two weeks I had fallen for a girl I had never really met until tonight, he said to himself. But he liked the way she spoke to him and he loved the way she'd looked at him tonight. He liked the way she saw me. The person she saw was whole and well and he loved that; he hadn't felt whole in a long time...