Read James: A College Girl Romance for Free Online Page B

had been too “stressed out” to handle school. In reality, she’d had a massive fucking breakdown when some guy she was obsessed with never noticed her. Finally, her doctor had put her on happy pills, but instead of getting better, she had just gotten angrier at everybody, including me. Eventually, she had gone completely psycho on me—accusing me of all kinds of bizarre shit when I had just been trying to stay out of her way. At that point, I had just checked out. If I’d had enough money to move out and pay first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit, I would have done it by now.
    Now all I wanted was to make enough cash to finish my last year of school and apply to graduate programs—that, or at least find a job that didn’t involve naughty-schoolgirl outfits.
    “I live off Cowell,” I said, pointing.
    Ignoring me, he kept driving toward the alphabet streets.
    “Where are you taking me?”
    He reached for his phone and handed it to me.
    “Call someone at the club and tell them you’re sick. Better yet, tell them you’re quitting.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Would you like me to do it?” he asked in a supercilious tone.
    “Why? So you can bury my body somewhere?”
    “Exactly. That’s why I saved you from BTK back there.”
    I shivered involuntarily. I had read about Dennis Rader in my abnormal psych class. Serial killer from Kansas who had murdered ten people.
    “Thanks for that image,” I mumbled, sinking lower in the seat. “Definitely not sleeping tonight.”
    “Really? I’m the reason you’re not going to sleep tonight? Not the guy who was about to leave your dead body somewhere off the freeway? Now—call the club. Before I do it.”
    He reached over, unlocked his phone, and handed it back to me. I found the club’s number online and placed the call. When Jerry picked up at the bar, I exhaled. At least it hadn’t been Bob.
    “Hey, Jerry. It’s Cass. I was feeling sick, so I had to take off. Can you ask Jenna to take my section and keep my tips?”
    “You okay, Cass?”
    “Yeah. I think I’ve just got really bad food poisoning or something. Tell Jenna I’ll make it up to her.”
    “Bob’s not going to be too happy you took off in the middle of your shift.”
    “Yeah. I know. I’ll see you tomorrow night if he doesn’t fire me.”
    I forced a laugh, but Jerry had already hung up.
    “Great,” I muttered. “I probably don’t have a job now. Shit! And the keys to my apartment are in my locker.”
    I looked around and saw that we were parked in the driveway of a modest one-story house with white trim and a neat lawn out front. A second later, my door opened. I looked up at James McDevitt as he offered his hand.
    “You live here ?” I asked, taking his hand.
    He pulled me up, and in a daze, I followed him to the front door and watched as he retrieved a nondescript box. He looked back at me.
    “I own the house; it doesn’t mean I live here.”
    “Oh god. You’re not a professor, are you?”
    He laughed, like I had just told him the punch line to the greatest joke.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Another long story.”
    “Right,” I muttered. “You’re full of those. Why are we here?”
    “You said your keys are at the club, so—”
    “Whoa! I can’t stay here .”
    “Why not? I promise to be on my best behavior,” he said as he opened the front door.
    “Why does that not inspire confidence?”
    “Are you saying I get no credit for saving you?”
    He entered a code into a keypad and turned on a light as I stopped to look around the living room. Distressed hardwood floors, a large chocolate-colored leather sofa in front of a stone fireplace. Expensive looking art on the walls. An antique liquor cabinet with a display of alcohol bottles—whisky or bourbon from the looks of it. All of it expensive.
    Everything here looked like it belonged in a penthouse in San Francisco or New York. Not some Podunk college town where the big joke was that all the girls looked