The Studying Hours

Yes, hell yes, yes, fuck yeah, and no.

“Since we’re being honest, it seems extremely over the top to come on a trip with a girl you just met to escape the reality you created for yourself. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘you made your bed, now you have to lie in it’?”

I giggle like a teenage boy at the word bed.

Jameson throws a yellow number two pencil at me. “You are so immature.”

Immature.

Horny.

Itching for a challenge, and she’s just given me one.

Jameson

“What the heck are you and your crap doing on my stoop?”

The wind blows, sending snow and frigid cold air whipping past me and into my hotel room.

He’s standing in front of my door, letting his red duffle drop to the frozen, snowy ground. A bright lime green snowboard leans against the doorjamb, along with a black boot bag. “My new pal Chad said your roommate bailed on you,” he says with a casual shrug of his wide shoulders. Over his tall frame, I see sophomore snowboard club member Beth Lauer staring holes into his ass. Hard.

I don’t even want to know what thoughts are running through Beth’s head right now and silently will the powdery pile of white snow on the roof to slide down and bury me whole.

Or better yet, bury him whole.

Oz chatters on, oblivious to Beth’s ogling. “I told Chad we were cousins, remember? So he didn’t see a problem with us rooming together. Congrats, Jim! It looks like we’re going to be roommates.”

“Don’t you mean cellmates?” I groan, glancing over my shoulder at the empty bedroom, at the one queen sized bed with its one threadbare coverlet, the single dresser, and the tiny bathroom with one tiny shower.

The Bellagio it is not. It might be a pit, but it was my pit—and mine alone—until thirty-seven blissful seconds ago.

I glance toward Beth as she shuffles past us through the snow; our eyes connect when she lifts her gaze from Oz’s fantastic ass. Even in the cold winter weather, embarrassment floods her and she turns, scuttling off hurriedly in the opposite direction like a little pervy rat.

Speaking of pervs…

Having Oz shacked up with me for the weekend is the opposite of what I want. I paid the same six hundred dollars he paid; the last thing I need is my friends gossiping about me while he weasels his way in and out of my room.

A groan escapes my lips. “And stop telling everyone we’re cousins.”

“Come on, what’s the big deal?”

“Cousins? Come on, seriously?”

“Should I have told him we were kissing cousins?” He gives me a wide, toothy grin. “Unlatch the chain, James, and let me in. My testes just crawled inside my scrot to hide.”

Another groan and I’m unchaining the door, grabbing him by his muscular forearm to haul him—along with all his crap—into the recesses of my hotel room. The heavy door slams behind us, the lock automatically clicking into place.

I slide the latch over before turning on him, hands on my hips, sullenly eyeballing him. “First you crash my trip, now you’re crashing my room. You can take the floor.”

“The floor?” He picks up his duffle bag and suitcase, shouldering past me. Surrendering, I let him pass without an argument, trailing after him. “No can do, Jim. This body is a temple.”

“We are not sharing the bed.”

“Is it because you don’t trust yourself with me?”

“No. It’s because I don’t trust you.”

Oz snickers. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“I honestly am going to kill you.”

“Why do you keep saying that? Oz, I’m going to kill you,” he mimics in a feminine voice. It’s actually somewhat disconcerting. “That’s the second time you’ve threatened my life; I’m beginning to think you mean it.”

I grin. “What can I say? You make me want to strangle you.”

He ignores me, instead hoisting his suitcase to the top of the dresser on the far side of the room and unzipping it. “I’ve decided if we’re not going to be fuck buddies—a bad decision on your part, I might add—then we can be friends of the non-fucking variety. The boring variety.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

He gives me a sidelong glance. “I know, right? I thought so, too.”

“That was sarcasm, Oz.”

“Sarcasm or not, Jimbo, you’ll soon realize the benefits of having me as your friend.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” I cross my arms. “Enlighten me.”

“For example, I’m an awesome wingman. I’ll have the ladies beating down our door in no time.”

“It was my door,” I hiss. “And I’m not a lesbian.”

“You’re not?” He looks dubious.

“No.”

“Then why do you keep resisting all my advances?” Oz sits on the foot of the bed, kicking off his shoes. They hit the wall and land with a thud.

His socks follow.

“Uh, because you haven’t made any?”

“Wait.” He spins around. “Was that an invitation?”

Kind of? “No!”

“See?” He shuffles back to the door barefoot then lugs my suitcase farther into the room and places it on the dresser next to his. “Anyway, as I was saying—the guys will be beating down your cobweb-covered door in no time—or in this case, your cobweb-covered vagina.”