Bedhead: A Romance Read online

  That’s enough! There’s no room in my life for that fantasy man. I’ve already got one of those. And he lives in Ames. Nope, I need to get my head out of the clouds and into class.

  I pat myself on my back for keeping it real.

  Snort. God, I’m such a dork.

  Chapter Three

  The second I step into the house, I’m swarmed. Not by locusts, even though it feels a little like that. No, this is a swarm of roommates. Roommates who got wind of a certain late-night call.

  Thanks, Patsy.

  “Quinn,” someone yells from the living room. “Get your ass in here and tell us about the hot Brits.”

  Placing my bookbag on the floor, I walk slowly down the short hallway into the main living space. It’s like walking into a living room from a 60s sitcom. There’s an ancient stereo cabinet circa 1965, two old sofas, and three chairs from the same era. The only oddball is the flat screen TV. When I turn my head, I see Patsy point to the seat next to her on the long olive-green couch. “Sit here,” she says.

  I blow a gust of air out of my mouth and walk, shoulders slumped, over to the seat. I’m starving. All I want to do is make some ramen and get mentally prepared to study for my art history class. That class is all memorization of art, artists, dates, and genres. This could be a good way to bond with the other women in the house.

  Once I’m seated, I look at the ladies. I quickly count six. There’s one extra person in attendance. “Hey,” I say to everyone.

  “Quinn,” says Patsy in an extra-perky voice. “Start at the very beginning.” She turns to the rest of the girls. “Everyone keep your trap shut until she’s done. Then she’ll take questions. Got it?”

  I want to laugh at the way she’s taken control of this… whatever this is. Interrogation? Inquisition? Yeah, that sounds about right.

  “Well, I was in my room.” Duh. “I’d been watching something on Netflix, so—”

  “What were you watching?” That question came from Susanna, Patsy’s little sister.

  “I said no questions until she’s done,” snaps Patsy.

  Susanna must be used to her sister’s ways, because she snaps right back, “Jesus. Who died and made you boss?”

  “Me,” Patsy retorts.

  Okay, then.

  “I was watching Dead to Me.”

  Before I can get another word out, Kat, another roommate interrupts. “Oh my God. Isn’t that show great?”

  I chuckle because this is going to take fucking forever if they keep interrupting me, but I find it funny nonetheless. “It is.”

  “What’s it about?” asks Susanna.

  “For crying out loud,” shouts Patsy. “Shut the hell up and let her tell the frigging story.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh, loudly. It must be contagious, because when I look at the other ladies, everyone is laughing—even Pats.

  Without being told, I keep going. “I must have fallen asleep because—”

  “The show must not have been that good.” I’m not sure who said it because it sounds like it was mumbled.

  “I swear on all that is holy, I will punch the next person who interrupts in the tit. Hard. You hear me?” Patsy huffs.

  That’s all it takes for the laughs to start again. I’m laughing so hard that tears are running down my face, and I may have peed a little bit. When I get myself under control, I start again, but faster this time. “Ifellasleepwhilewatchingtheshow.” Breathe. “Theringingwokemeup.” Breathe. When no one says a word, I slow it down. “I assumed it was my best friend, Tayler.” Even though she just lives across town, she calls me at all hours of the night. “I reached out and tapped the Answer icon, and they appeared.”

  I watch as Susanna and Robbi, my fourth roommate, scoot closer. They’re getting into this.

  “It took a second for the screen to open up, but when it did, I had to blink a million times.”

  “Why?” Robbi asks.

  “Well, I thought I was dreaming.”

  Susanna is next. “Why?”

  “For cripes’ sake. Shut the hell up.” I can tell Patsy’s on her last nerve.

  “Fuck you, Pats,” growls Susanna.

  Attempting to stop the sister fight that’s about to erupt, I keep going. “When he came into view, I know I must have gasped, because on my laptop was the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen.”

  Susanna raises her hand, waving it about like she’s in third grade and she’s got the right answer. “Wait. I thought you said there were two guys?”

  “There were, but at first it was just the one guy.” The hottest one. “It took the other one a minute or two to get into the frame.”

  “What’d they look like?” asks Robbi.

  “They were both shirtless,” Patsy whispers.

  “Hey!” Susanna protests. “You—”

  “Nope. Not a shirt in sight. I could really only see from their faces to about here.” I place my hand right under my breasts so they can get a visual. “They were both good-looking. The one in the back, the one who came onto the screen second, had short dark hair and eyes. He seemed smaller than the main guy but still muscled.”

  I look around the group. None of them are speaking, so I continue. “The guy in front was big, blond, and beautiful.”

  “You make him sound like a girl,” snarls the only person I don’t know in the room. I ignore her.

  “He was definitely not a girl. He had tattoos on both arms. I couldn’t tell what they were, but they came up over his shoulders.” I stare at the faces around me. They’re all rapt with attention. “So anyway, the guy said, ‘Oy, he’s got a bird.’”

  “Oy?” Susanna giggles. “Did he really say that?”

  I nod.

  “I love it when British guys call girls ‘birds.’ So cute,” sighs Lindsay—our resident romantic, apparently.

  “I do too. So, I just stared at the screen until the one in front said, ‘Get our mate for us, will you, love?’ or something along those lines.”

  I choose to leave out the part about my bedhead, and I still don’t know what baps are. That’s unimportant.

  “Oh, I love it when British guys call girls ‘love.’ So romantic.” Lindsay again.

  “Yeah, that’s cute. So, I just stared at the screen because I had no idea what was happening. I was half asleep. So then the one in front, the hot one, asked me again, ‘Love. Can you wake our mate?’ Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I asked, ‘Your mate? Your girlfriend or wife’s not here.’”

  “Yes. ‘Mate’ means ‘friend’ in British,” Lindsay says with a nod.

  “You didn’t figure that out before then?” I look to my left at the girl I’ve never seen before. “Everyone knows what that means.” I stare at the girl and do my best to hold my tongue. It doesn’t pay to argue with someone like her. Though I should have, because she’s not done. “Like you’d just get some random call from two hot guys.”

  Patsy steps in. “Don’t, Kara.”

  “Yeah, don’t be that way.” That came from Susanna. I still don’t know who Kara is.

  “You invited me over here, Sus. You told me you wanted me to vet the new roomie. Well, I’m here vetting and she”—Kara points to me—“thinks she’s hot shit.”

  I feel my face burn. I know it’s got to be red as a tomato. It always does that when I’m embarrassed. Thank you, Irish ancestry. “I do not.”

  “Just ignore those two,” Patsy says, patting my knee. “Finish the story.”

  It’s not a story. It really happened. I just want to go to my room, so I choose to swallow all of my emotions and finish it up lickety-split. Nodding to Pats, I finish. “They asked for Maxwell Quinn, so I told them my name was Quinn Maxwell and that they had the wrong number. They said good night, and that was it.” I pause, hoping that can be the end of it. The mean girl, Kara, is glaring at me.

  “Well, that’s rather anticlimactic,” says Robbi. “Are they in the States? Are they coming to visit?”

  I blink at her but keep m
y mouth shut. Okay, I guess I can’t do that, so I shrug and say, “It was a wrong number.”

  “Yeah.” Kara snorts, pointing at me. “And I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that they won’t be calling her back.”

  “You really are a bitch, Kara,” Robbi snaps.

  “Whatevs.” Kara rolls her eyes. “I’m out of here.”

  The only positive part about Kara? She doesn’t live here. Thank God.

  Chapter Four

  What’s that noise?

  I blink and see my room is filled with mostly darkness except for the screen on my laptop. It’s glowing brightly. It’s also where the noise is coming from. My FaceChat app is dinging repeatedly.

  “Who the hell is calling me at”—I lean in to read the time on my computer—“three o’clock in the freaking morning?” At least this time I wasn’t quite asleep yet. Studying for my art history class took me twice as long thanks to the fact that I’m not great at memorization. That and my roommates kept popping into my room last night to ask me more questions, and then Susanna came to apologize for Kara. It was a nice gesture, but I really hope I never see that woman again. She’s got “mean girl” written all over her. I don’t need that. I had that in high school, and I’d hoped it’d be different in college.

  Somewhat irritated, I reach out and press the icon on the touch screen. When it opens, I see him. The guy from last night. The hot one.

  Because I’ve got manners, I say, “Um, yeah?”

  “Evening, love.”

  I stare for a second, waiting for the second man to appear. When he doesn’t, I focus my attention on the blond Adonis on the screen. “Hi.”

  “You’re awake?”

  “I’ve been studying.”

  “Studying? You’re a student?”

  I nod. “Junior at Iowa State University.”

  “Iowa State? You’re at uni?”

  Uni? I think about that a sec. Oh… university. “Yes, in the state of Iowa. The midwestern United States.”

  “I’ve been to the States, love. New York and Boston.”

  “Cool.” I nod again. I’ve never been to either of those places. The farthest east I’ve traveled is Chicago.

  “Listen.” I watch as he raises his arm so he can run his fingers through his hair. God, I wish I was taping this, because I think I could watch him do that a million more times. His arms are insane. Patsy would die. And his hair? It looks wet, and it’s longish on the top. Long enough for him to run his fingers through it and mess it up but in a very sexy way. “My apologies for last evening.”

  “It was the middle of the night.”

  “Indeed. I believe we’re six hours ahead of you.”

  I attempt to do the math, but as I’ve said, it’s not my thing. “So, what time is it there?”

  “Nine.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes. Just had a workout. I’m a bit knackered.”

  “Knackered?”

  “Tired. Like you must be. I just wanted to apologize for waking you up last evening.”

  “So you decided to do it again?” I deadpan.

  He looks at me and smiles rather shyly. It makes him better-looking, if that’s possible. “Barmy, eh?”

  I stare at him for a second, wondering if that’s good or bad. When he says nothing more, I do what I’ve always done in awkward situations—I smile like a damn fool and say, “Sure.”

  “You’ve a lovely smile, Quinn Maxwell.”

  Oh shit. I know I’m blushing like a crazy person. “Thanks. What’s your… uh…” Wow, I don’t even know his name.

  “Cooke. Cooke Thompson.”

  “Ah, that’s why the other guy called you Cooker.”

  “My mate. Ian. He’s a daft git.”

  I blink again, wishing I had an American-to-British translator app handy. So, what did I do? You guessed it, I smiled like a fool and said, “Sure.”

  That must have been the wrong thing to say, or maybe the right thing, because Cooke Thompson throws his head back and laughs heartily. He’s got a contagious laugh. So much so that my own laugh starts off as a giggle but quickly devolves into a cackle and a snort. Not the prettiest laugh, ladies and gents. He must enjoy it, though, because before I know it, he’s backed up a bit with his hand on his flat-as-sin stomach as he slowly bends forward. His phone isn’t moving, so I assume he’s got it on a table or something, because I get to watch the whole thing without interruption. It’s a sight to behold, let me tell you. Not only do I get to see two-thirds of Cooke, but I get to see where he is—in some kind of workout room. There are weight machines to his left and other things like treadmills and ellipticals to his right.

  By the time he’s calmed down, I’ve checked out most of Cooke and his surroundings. From the looks of his amazing body, I’d say he’s an athlete of some sort. The large logo of a rose on a shield painted on the wall behind him is a clue too, but I’ve never seen it before, so I’m only guessing.

  “What is that sign behind you?” I ask.

  He’s stopped laughing enough to tell me, “Team logo.”

  “Team? What kind of team?”

  “Rugby, love.”

  “Oh, right. Rugby,” I repeat.

  The look on his face is one of surprise. “You know rugby?”

  “Well”—I play with my glasses nervously—“I’ve heard of it.”

  For some reason, he thinks that’s funny too, and his laughter starts all over again. “Bloody hell, woman. You’re a cracker.”

  Do I even need to tell you what I did? No? Okay.

  “Sure.”

  And it all begins again. He’s laughing so hard he’s drawn a crowd now. A crowd of men in various stages of undress. So far, no one is completely naked, but they’re pretty close. When one of them sees the phone with me peering back at them, several of them begin to move closer. I spy Ian in the bunch, but it’s still a tad creepy the way they’re staring at me, to be honest. They’re looking at me like they’ve never seen a video phone call before and are trying to figure out if it’s real.

  “Oy, is that the lass from the other night?” Ian must be the one to ask. No one else would know me from Eve.

  “Bugger off, lads,” snaps Cooke from somewhere in the crowd.

  One of the others responds. “We just wanted to see what the fuss was about, Cooker.”

  Cooke suddenly sounds angry. “I said feck off.”

  “Jesus, okay.” And like they’re being scolded, they all move away from the phone quickly.

  Cooke must pick up his device, because now all I see is his pretty face. “Sorry ’bout that, love.”

  “No. It’s okay.” I mean, I just saw twenty or so beautiful British men. Why would I be upset about that? “No worries.”

  We look at one another for a second or two. “Well, I need to get to sleep. I’ve got class in the morning. A quiz, I’m pretty sure.”

  “What course?”

  “Art history. It’s over Gothic architecture.” I roll my eyes. This quiz will be the death of me. Heck, all of Dr. Connolly’s tests are going to kill me.

  “Too bad about the cathedral, eh?”

  Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was damaged by fire recently. Thankfully, the Rose Window appears to have been spared. “I know. I want to see it one day.”

  “At least the Rose Window survived.”

  Wow, he read my mind. “I know.”

  “Well, you best get to sleep. Nighty night, Quinn Maxwell,” he says suddenly.

  “Night, Cooke.”

  When the screen goes blank, I have several weird thoughts rolling around in my head. One, the guy doesn’t really know how to end a phone call. Two, I get the feeling I’m going to hear from him again. And lastly, I know I’m not telling a single soul about this second phone call. Not a soul.

  Five minutes later:

  Me: Yo, Tayler. Meet me at the Hub tomorrow for lunch. I’ve got a story for you!

  What? You don’t expect me to keep my best friend out of the l
oop, do you? Oh, and the Hub is a building smack-dab in the middle of the ISU campus where you can get a decent cup of coffee and lunch, if you so desire. There are also vending machines along with lots of tables, inside and out on a patio, for people to gather. It’s one of my favorite places on campus.

  Tayler: Yep. C U there. Noon?

  I knew my girl would still be up. She’s like a bat. Nocturnal.

  Me: Noon.

  Chapter Five

  “So, who is this bitch Kara?” Leave it to Tayler to pinpoint a problem.

  Taking a bite of my PB&J on stale white bread, I answer, “A friend of Susanna’s. Apparently she invited her over to vet me.”

  “To vet you? Why? Patsy knows you. That’s bullshit.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been there long enough to get to know them.” I shrug. “It makes sense they’d want to know whether or not I’m psycho or whatever.”

  “No, Kara’s job was to gauge whether or not you were cool enough to hang with them.”

  “Well….”

  Setting her coffee cup down, Tayler sighs. I know the sound. It’s one of her ‘let me explain life to you’ kind of sighs. “You always do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “See the best in people when I guarantee they don’t deserve it.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Name one.” I know what’s coming. I shouldn’t have challenged her. We’ve been friends since elementary school. She’s seen it all.

  “Where do I start? I’ll leave middle school and high school out of it and start here”—she points to the ground—“at ISU. Shit, let me just use Bryant.”