The Culture of Hooking Up

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jack's back at it again. More specifically, Jack's eyes are back at it again, staring at me nonstop. I'm not usually one to squirm, but somehow, for some reason, today they are making me itch.

     It's not like when you're standing alone at the edge of the bar, and it feels like everyone's passing glances back at you as if you're a waste of space. Or you can feel someone's eyes all over you, tracing every inch of you, picking you apart because they either have nothing better to do, or because they want something from you. Or they're the vultures under the night club stairs, and they want you.

     No, Jack's eyes are not like that. They've never been like that.

     It doesn't help that I raked my hair up into a high ponytail a few minutes ago, no longer in the mood to deal with the weight of it, because now there's no longer a reason to keep messing with it. There's also no hiding every fly-away piece of hair around my ear no matter how many times I shove it back, or every clench of my jaw when someone accidentally bumps into my shoulder, or when the beat of the music is a little too loud. I'm afraid even my swallows look as loud as they are starting to feel.

     It also doesn't help that my throat's getting dry because he's staring at me the same way he did last weekend in the bathroom of his apartment. The only difference is I finally turn my head to the left and stare right back.

     Everything comes to a standstill. The people and bumping of shoulders, the music and pulse of the DJ, the strobing lights and the way certain colors are more blinding, the conversations and the squeals, the dancing and sweat on alcohol on sweat. Everything that is usually part of the club scene thrill. Everything that is currently making me so rottenly irritable.

     It all goes right over my head because Jack's leaning against the bar the same way he did when we first met, forearms down, hips slightly pushed out, and hair falling every which way on the top of his head. It doesn't help that he's wearing the same navy blue thermal. My fingers itch to touch the thin, but warm-looking material the same way they did that day. But instead, I pull the sides of my, you guessed it, light pink cardigan tighter around the black and white striped tank top I have tucked into my light-washed jeans.

     If only I knew what I was getting myself into that night as I ripped feathers out of a plastic princess tiara.

     But that's the problem.

     I did know.

     I knew damn well.

     Because he's looking at me the way he did that day. He's always staring at me like that—like he can understand every little thing that goes on in my head, and yet still can't seem to figure me out.

     The only difference is, unlike that day and the other day in his apartment, there is a foot of space between us, and I plan to keep it that way.

     "What are you drinking?" he nods his head towards the bar behind my back.

     It's not the best question, and it's not the worse question. But there goes that hand again—correction—those hands, both hands, that go squeezing the life out of my stomach and my heart at the exact same time as my mind transforms the shiny glasses lining the shelves behind the bartender into red plastic cups filled with lukewarm beer.

     "What are you drinking?" he hummed as he loomed over me with his own red plastic cup.

     My fingers stretched out behind my back to feel the cold cement of the dorm building basement wall. The cold was the only thing grounding me in the heat of the crowded room. Each dorm building is built three stories high and two rooms deep with the hallway in between, turning the basements into football fields only with washing machines and dryers lining the endzones. I barely made it through the doors without being squished into the sidelines like the standing room of a concert hall with the music too loud and the air too warm to breathe.