I’d had my eye on Rick Hunter ever since we sat next to each other in my World History class a semester ago. Tall and tempting, his sandy close-cropped hair, stunning blue eyes and generous mouth featured heavily – very heavily – in quite a lot of my nighttime fantasies. And even some of my daytime ones too. I kid you not when I say that World History was the best part of my week simply because of the prospect of smelling him. (And it was a nice scent too, whatever his aftershave or cologne was.)
Look, I know that crushes of this sort are the stuff that fuel high school dramas. They’re hardly viable in a university; at best, a smitten Social Studies major is good for a laugh. I knew that if I wanted to get to know Rick better – and in the sense that involved hastily shed clothes and shared bodily fluids – I couldn’t wait for Fate or Destiny to do things for me.
But the fact was that Rick and I moved in very different circles. When the class ended, I rarely saw him beyond randomly running into him on campus, and that caused me no end of frustration. It might have been easier if he’d forgotten that I existed, but each time we saw each other he gave me a smile and a greeting that bordered on being flirtatious, and that fueled hope and a number of not entirely unpleasant sleepless nights. They would have been more pleasant for a warm body, preferably Rick’s, in bed with me, but a girl can take care of herself.
My best friend Stacey knew how I felt, and she despaired of me.
“There are other fish in the sea,” she told me pointedly, one afternoon. We were having coffee on the steps of the library.
I took a sip from my insulated paper cup. It was vending machine stuff, but it was good enough for a quick pick-me-up. “But I don’t want a fish,” I said. “I want a man. Specifically, I want Rick.”
Stacey was unsympathetic. “Well, all you do is moon after him. It’s not healthy.”
“I’d do more than moon given half the chance.”
“Sure. Tell you what, my boyfriend’s frat is having a party tonight. Why don’t you come? You might meet someone.”
It took a little more wheedling on her part to get me to agree, but I wasn’t hard to convince. I like a party as much as the next girl, or possibly even more than the next girl. Besides, I thought, Rick might be there. You never knew.