Professor Bryant's Second Chance

Chapter Four

Riley



A lot of emotions were running through me after seeing Dylan again. I didn’t really believe the part about it being a complete coincidence that he happened to run into me, but I couldn’t say that I was upset to see him. Yes, it was obvious that I was upset over the things he lied to me about, but I missed him. I would be lying to myself if I said otherwise.

When Justin walked into the dorm, my heart sank. He wasn’t out there for long at all, but I instantly knew he said something to protect me. Even though I wasn’t still with Dylan, I still had this need to want to protect him. After all the s**t he has put me through, I know how horrible that sounds, but it was the truth.

“Do you want to have a chat about it?” Justin asked, so calmy, but I knew better.

In these last few months, I’ve grown to know Justin more than ever before, and the look that he had right now meant only one thing. He was pissed. This could go one of two ways for me. I could be true to him and myself and tell him that, of course, I wanted to know what they talked about, or I could push it to the back of my mind and act like it wasn’t bothering me as bad as it was. Option two would leave me curious but make Justin happy. This is where I always seem to find myself, right in the middle between what I want and what others want.

Deciding to not risk the chance of stirring up those buried emotions, I shook my head. “No, not unless you want to.”

Justin smiled, his white teeth shining across the room, and I couldn’t help but be happy that I decided on option two as much as it killed me to know what was said. “Good. It was a boring little chat anyway.”

Nora came rushing out of her room, fully clothed this time. Thank goodness. “Riley. Justin! I’m so f*****g sorry that you had to see that.”

We laughed it off, seeing as how it was the best way to get past all the tension in the air. Honestly, I was a little jealous of Nora and her relationship with Mikey. They have been hot and heavy since the first time they laid eyes on each other. I could tell that Nora had been smitten with him for a while now.

“Nora, it’s actually okay,” I soothed her.

“So, where have you two been?”

Justin and I looked at one another, seemingly trying to keep our cool about this. I knew Nora would freak once she found out.

“Um. Don’t get mad, but Justin and I were just at the police station.”

“What?!” She screamed. For a minute there, I swear I could see the steam rolling out of her ears. “Why in the hell were you at the police station?”

Thankfully, Justin was there to support me all the way, stepping in for me when I couldn’t find the courage to do it myself. “Riley may have gotten arrested, but don’t worry, the charges have been dropped for now. That is unless the asshole media douche decides to press charges.”

Nora looked at me as if she was still waiting for an appropriate answer. “This guy that said he was a media reporter came up to me, wanting to get a statement like all the others. Well, that’s what I thought anyway, but he hit on me. If I recall, he said, ‘If you’re willing to have s*x with a married man, I guess that you wouldn’t mind having s*x with just about anyone.’ He touched me, so I kicked him in the balls.”

“This is such bullshit. He laid his hands on you, and they had the right to arrest you! I hate the superficial world that we live in where men think that they are at the center of it all. No offense,” she said, staring directly at Justin, who just shrugged. “If anything, you should be pressing charges for him sexually assaulting you!”

If only it was that easy. Nothing in life ever is. “I just want to move past it. We talked about this, remember? I just want to work on getting past all of this. Eventually, all of this will die down. For me, the important thing is coming out on the other end of this thing, Nora. You know that.”

Mikey walked out of the bedroom, his hair in curls, wet from the shower he just had. Thankfully, he came at the perfect time. This was too much of an intense conversation for me right now. “Hey, guys. Did I walk in at a bad time? It’s a little tense in here, no?”

While Justin took Mikey off to the side to have a little boy chat, Nora and I stood in the kitchen. There was no way that I was sitting on that couch ever again.

“I just want you to be happy, Riley. You deserve so much better than what has been thrown at you. We need to get you out and have some fun, like a distraction from all of this. Ever since this all happened, it’s been nothing, but people taking shots at you left and right. Maybe taking a mini-vacation is just the thing you need. That we all need.”

A mini-vacation sounded amazing, but I didn’t know that I had the time for all that. It was almost impossible for me to slip away between my classes and all the drama of my life now. “That sounds great, but I don’t see how.”

That smile that let me know she was up to no good flashed across her face. “Since vacations can be expensive, I propose that we call into one of those radio stations and test our luck a little. If we don’t win, no harm done.”

“I don’t know,” I drew out.

“Come on, Riley! What do we have to lose? I know that you aren’t big on taking chances, but radio stations do giveaways like this all the time. Just this morning, I heard one of the radio stations doing a romantic getaway to Key West, Florida, for two. How exciting would that be? If we don’t somehow win with that, I have some cash saved up that we can use to get away for a weekend. It won’t be anything fancy like Key West, but it will be some much-needed time away.”

Nora stuck out her bottom lip, pouting. Damn. She could always get me with that look. “Fine,” I said while rolling my eyes.

“Ekkk!” Nora jumped up and down. She ran into the living room and snatched her cell phone out of her bag, and returned, already dialing the number. “Turn it on,” she said, pointing to the radio.

It seemed like Nora was on hold forever before a guy’s voice announced that he would be taking the next callers.

After what seemed like forever, Nora’s call finally got answered. “Thank you for calling lucky caller number seven! If you can answer this next question successfully, we have a surprise lined up for you! What city in Europe is located in two countries?”

Nora looked at me, panicked. Of course, she wouldn’t know this answer. Rarely did she ever pay attention to geography at all.

“What is it?” She whispered while holding the receiver down so they couldn’t hear her, or at least she hoped.

“I’m thinking.” I briefly remember in my geography class discussing fascinating facts about foreign countries. Trevor, one of the more intelligent guys in the class, talked about how cool it was for there to be one city located in two completely different countries. It started a bet about how wrong he was, and it turned out that he was right. I just can’t remember the damn city! It obviously wasn’t Paris. I’m sure that was a given.

“Thirty seconds left!” The guy came through the speaker.

“Madrid!” Nora blurted out. No, that wasn’t right. I’m sure of it. If I recall, I believe it was somewhere different. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

There was a long pause that had my heart beating out of my chest. “Give me one minute to review with my team.” It seemed like forever had gone by before he finally got back on the line. “It seems like we are having a little malfunction in our system. Just another moment.”

That was weird. If he was asking the question, surely, he would have the answer. Why would he feel the need to drag this out?

“Congratulations,” he said a moment later. “You are the winners of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Please wait on hold where we can get your information.”

Nora and I were jumping up and down, excitement all around, even though I had a feeling our answer wasn’t correct at all. Something was a little fishy about the whole thing, but who was I to question it? I wasn’t the host. I was more curious to find out what it was that we had won now. Maybe it was that getaway that we had discussed or possibly something different. It didn’t matter, though, because I was just excited to win something.

The station took down Nora’s phone number and let her know they would be calling her back with the details. We were more than excited to find out what it was, and they were doing everything they could to keep us on the edge of our seats.

“What are you two going on in here about?” Mikey said as he and Justin strolled back into the room.

“You will never believe it! Riley and I called a radio station and actually won something! They are going to call us back with the details.”

“That’s awesome, love! I hope it is something grand. You two deserve a bit of a break. Speaking of break, I’ve got to run. My break with you is over. I got to head over to the gym to meet the guys.” He leaned in and kissed Nora so sweetly and passionately that it caused me to turn pink. “Fill me in later?”

Nora nodded and smacked his ass as she watched him walk out of our dorm. Mikey was the perfect guy for Nora. She was feisty and found it hard to find a guy that could keep up with her energy. It seemed as if Mikey was more than up for the challenge, which was great.

It wasn’t too long after that when Nora excused herself into her room while Justin and I skipped off to mine. Luckily, we were on two different sides of the dorm. I couldn’t take listening to her having yet another phone s*x conversation with Mikey. The temptation from hearing the two of them was enough already.

“What are you thinking about?” Justin asked, tilting my chin so that he could stare into my eyes.

Oh. He didn’t want to know what I was thinking about. I was sort of sexually charged after seeing Nora and Mikey screwing in the living room and seeing Dylan again for the first time in months. As great as it would be to share this with Justin, I knew it wasn’t the right time. Justin has let me know that he isn’t ready for that yet, knowing my feelings for Dylan were still very much there.

“Thinking about what our prize for winning could be. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea, and we actually won. Nora mentioned getting away for a little bit and what good that would do me. I think she is right.”

He laughed and rested his head on my chest as I ran my fingers through his thick hair. “Yeah, I agree with her. Getting you away from here for even a little bit would do you some good.”

“But what about my classes?”

Justin chuckled again. “We both know how ahead in all your classes that you are. It wouldn’t kill you to take some time off. I’d miss you like crazy, but sometimes stepping back from things is exactly what one needs.”

The more that I thought about that, the more appeasing getting away sounded. Hopefully, our surprise would be one to the beach. Soaking out in the nice sun would make all my problems melt away. Temporarily, at least.