Ain't Like It

Foreword

Hey! I'm a bit late for this, but it's my first time to self-publish anything, so it felt like a beginner, haha. Just to say, if you find certain things are off, I'll ask for pardon ahead, as English is not my first language and it's set mainly at an American college inspired by a story here in Lit. Its culture and vibe are limited to my research and imaginings as I'm not an American myself and have never been there, yet (xoxo lol).

If you find this to want some improvement, I'm open to your constructive feedback.

This story is in part of Interracial Love and Romance subgenre since MC is a POC (Person of Color). If it's not your preference, this is the disclosure.

TW: Elements of its non-consent/reluctance subgenre such as coercion, and depiction of physical assault like choking occur in this chapter. It also contains strong--if not violent-- language and/or expressions that may elicit discomfort to some readers.

***

Nobody in the whole wide earth would want this.

Nobody wants to get ugly with a man you just met. But it just did. Its impression has completely seared its way into my mind. Eyes warning, jaws and lips stiff telling me to back off. And as if pissed, I handled my reaction all too badly.

I remember, I wasn't into that party right now and then. I'm not in the mood for it.

Not with some dirty blonde and ocean eyes looking at me like he's CCTV will have me lap dancing to Britney's Slave 4 U hoe vibe.

Pfft.

Cheeky.

It may have something to do with this punch-saturated Greek house (or is it just me complaining?). Rows of red cups are scattered everywhere! Piled, ignored, rolling their asses all over. And then, you get to be surrounded by party people, who were somewhere last Tuesday at another party, or yesterday to some homecoming booze, and reeked of pot perfume.

Well...

Guess this party ain't for me.

Sorry. I'm out.

I pulled myself from that bustle and started walking along these cobbled pavements while their speaker volume faded out from the distance.

I'm more spaced out before I begin minding footsteps behind me. Both of us tap in sync while we pass through streetlight after streetlight, in every movement, my ears perked for their timing, the consistency becoming clearer as we walked on.

My heart momentarily stopped. My head alerted me that I must be paranoid, and started reeling heavy thoughts.

Keep it cool, Bea. It's not that he walks in the same direction. No, don't turn around ---shit! That could be your last.

My heart began pounding, pumping the rush of blood into my veins and putting my adrenaline on deck. Heavy thoughts became untamable; they tumbled into a race of dominoes picturing the worst case possible.

Fuck it!

I dashed.

Sprinting my legs hereon with one goal in mind: get back to our dorm.

ASAP.

The wind came to my face as if greeting me a the-hell's-wrong-with-you blast. When I was in the midst of it, my brain, however--thank god--began sorting the muddle. Synapses pointed out that I still have to go off-campus. And that I'd pass a dim-lit street like a fucking end of a tunnel. I groaned.

Lord, save me. I still have a student loan to clear.

In a swallow, I dared to swing my head, to glimpse who's behind my back, and for better guess, is after me.

It was him. Dirty blonde and ocean eyes shadowed into the darkness while luminating focus to my every movement. "Perez!" he shouts.

Oh...

Him.

Ugh.

That stopped me to say, "Boy, what the--" in disbelief as I threw my arms in the open. "You creep the shit out of me!"

"Wait up. I need to talk to you," he continued.

My spot was nowhere near the good lighting that I had to reach into the nearest lamp post while I busy myself breathing oxygen from the exertion. His silhouette becomes clearer as he approaches me at his leisurely pace.

Hands under his varsity jacket, his walk swaggered the usual jock vibe. He stopped when he found me in my relaxed heaving, sitting by the sidewalk to look him up at arm's length.

He didn't say anything for a bit, while I took the chance to check him out.

His unreadable face has a strong and defined jawline. It didn't tick or try to swallow right now like how my dorm mate would describe as the road to temptation when led to his bobbing Adam's apple, and sinning by the wish to bite it. Instead, he has his lips constrained into some sort of disapproval.

He was a masculine sharpness and symmetry, cheeks naturally contoured by planes until it smoothened into the hollows and curves that held those eyes, currently examining me with the expressionless gaze of a cow. His body does not need any introduction. Except, perhaps, that lean torso with a chiseled stomach sticking out from his shirt.

Benedict Carson is not a street-style icon, if you ask me. Under that jacket, he wore boring athletic clothes. Yeah. The only one that he can get away with would be his AF1 low since that shit's classic.

"'Bout what?" I asked.

He didn't speak immediately. He kept his gaze, coursing through every detail of what was in front of him. That penetrating look made me conscious.

"You're not hot as a Sport's cover you know, Perez. And prolly not my type," he muttered.

Both Carson and I are sophomores. Both Carson and I are strangers. We may go to this same university, but we are nothing more than coexisting people in a definite space.

He and the rest of us are a one-sided story: known by everybody, knows nobody--well, maybe, some people here and there, but not like he goes out his way for it.

What the hell?

He could make the women drop their panties, but he's the male equivalent of a basic bitch in fashion taste.

"Did I ask?" I said. "'Cause trust me on this, Carson: I couldn't give a fuck. The hell do you want?"

None of us moved for a minute. I watched him, recalling last year how he became the object of my hyperactive imagination, as if I sprang out from high school romance, up to the point that I had to grapple with the erratic reality. The air breeze cut me off from this reverie though, as I felt the cold seeping through my skin on this dead quiet of a night.

To make me force feed myself a dose of disillusionment.

He watched me back.

His cheeks moved, lifting along the sides of his lips into something enigmatic, "What do you think?" he coaxed like I'm a mind reader, "Bea," his voice almost sneering.

I am startled hearing him call my name used by the people of my circle. For a second, I stiffened and hairs around my neck rose as intuition tells me an answer. Which was soon followed by thoughts and logic trickling their way into a conclusion.

But, I was skeptical.

"I have nothing in mind, none at all," shaking my head, "care to tell?" This time, my agitation made me play nonchalant and talked to him like he wasn't any better than a toddler.

"Bea," he coos, teasing, "don't play dumb."

I know what my assumptions are, but as long as I'm not so sure of what he meant, I'm not laying my cards open.

"You don't know how much my mind runs right now thinking of ways to make you pay," dropping his voice to an octave. My head shot up only to be met by a hard stare.

There came a dark yet searing gleam to his eyes. His smile? It was cool--cynical even. At the base of his throat it moved as if it was restrained, flexing right through it, and swallowing into a crescendo. "Some penny of my thoughts, you want?"

"Hard pass. You can't make me spend money on a disposable--much that a penny."

"Bitchy, I see," he stepped back and gave a scornful look. Not losing the air that speaks mischief and an alarm to my gut.

I had my fair share of fantasies. I may have regretted that now. Life brought the bitter pill that in every bunch of privileged 19-year-old young men, living into the bubble of tolerance, a Benedict Carson will come out of it thinking himself a god with questionable views validated by an inflatable ego.

"To hell with it. Bea..." he pondered in an exaggerated wonder, "pretty name," before showing a wolfish grin. "Beatrice Perez," he repeated, "a troll."

That snapped me. I may not be the same IMG models who threw themselves at him, not a six foot three female that could stand shoulder to shoulder beside him, looking like Barbie on one side or looking like the Kardashians on the other side, but I don't put up with cockiness.

I stood up, even if I knew his build crunched me back into a minuscule. By physicality alone, he can swallow me by his mere presence, but I'd be damned if he's the last man on earth talking shit to me. An eye for an eye, if they are unremarkably brown meeting against that ocean sight of arrogance, fuck him.

"What is it, Carson?"

"Have we met before? Have I stolen some of your candy back in elementary? Or high school, maybe? To make yourself a troll throwing shades at me."

"No, as far as my memory can gather, you don't ring a bell. I'll have you informed when your imaginary existence finds itself surfacing in my yearbook."

"I wouldn't dream of it. Perhaps you want to catch my attention this way, then? Ain't it, Bea? Congratulations, you've succeeded," he paused, "what a clever bitch."

He is as he has been since last year. He's a person I couldn't give, any longer, a damn.

"I would rather die to catch the attention of a goldfish. Not some talking shit of a mammal," I spit at him without reserve.

To Carson's male gaze and his disappointment, I'm not his type, aka Carson's superficial/basic bitch tendency to measure me up to that unattainable beauty standards.

Broad cheeks added by a not-so-pert nose, my face is that smiling moon emoji sprinkled with acne break-outs. My body is anywhere near meaty palms, hip dip, and the beauty of normal stretch marks.

I'm also not white to be fair, well, yeah, pun intended. My parents passed me down a clay brown skin, and am comfortable with it--obviously.

What colorism gives, anyway? Appoint sessions for glutathione drip? Hell, I told you: I couldn't even settle my bills. I have a common hair: straight black. There y'all go.

I'd be the last girl on earth to be made to feel down I flunked his type, when he, himself, was an accident of that beauty standard in the first place, not putting on the work for the rest of it. Like personal growth, maybe?

My mouth gave a disdained sound before rolling my eyes at him. If the girls can see him now, it'll make them run in the opposite direction. But again, perhaps they didn't mind.

After I had to put him down from the pedestal and start seeing him as a real person--his displeasing warts and all, I lost interest.

I am more concerned with my existence that all I want right now is to sink into my bed as my drained social battery tries to forget the hoe-mode I attempted at a frat party. I'm not feeling my outfit anyway. It was the typical tee and jeans, not the hoe-tight body-con. Who knows what October brings?

"Boy, if you couldn't make sense, bye," blowing him off--FOR. FAIR. REASONS.

Before I find myself losing it, I'd rather turn my back and walk.

Really, why does this have to ruin the plans I have for tonight? Encroaching his ass in.

It didn't take a minute when a hand snaked my arm in a vice-like grip swerving me to meet those sapphires simmering in fiery.

"You damn knew what I meant," came his quick rasps, "You know what you wrote in that fucking Op-Ed after we lost Rose Bowl. Don't play fucking dumb, Perez--don't. It doesn't suit your tiny little ass humiliating and rubbing salt into a hard-fought wound."

It's not that this doesn't put me in an agitating jitter. The moment I saw him at the party, something in me drained. I just have to keep going. Of course, I know. But I also wanted to be spared from a Southern dude's drama when all I did is to give a say to our university.

"Let go of me," pulling away immediately, "don't put that performative indignation just because I submitted analyses to the school papers. My commentary was grounded by statistics, cold hard fucking facts, Carson, verified by the student committee before it was even issued.

He approached closer, and in measured steps, he gave a slight crouch to look at me with his back engulfing the light. He grabbed one of my shoulders and dug his palm into it as his bicep rippled to suppress my resistance.

I didn't tear away from his stare-off, even if my core started to feel some tremors. "Don't come off as some butthurt in a frenzy. If this is what's this all about your borderline stalking, cornering me right at this god-forsaken street, then I'm leaving. There are things that are more worth it," removing his hold as I continue walking.

"Damn if you do," he swore, catching back my arm, "let's talk," dragging and maneuvering me with him.

It was in every clinical way possible when I wrote that Op-Ed. It was more than the universe likes to play bad coincidence, between him and their Rose Bowl upset defeat and me dealing with my son-of-a-gun professor who required an output for our Econ course in whatever medium it could be applied into.

They are suppose to make history. I'm not exactly sure who read when I submitted that Op-Ed, but along the line, I wrote that our talents' funds were misappropriated if they are mid-tiers.

Benedict Carson's stat became a frequent reference when I compared it to his Division IV counterparts coming from my sample of colleges, stating that the latter was better off if I were to speculate their analytics, and it's a material opportunity cost.

It has been clinical where there is a Benedict Carson who plays and a Benedict Carson who, right at this moment, is an asshole.

I treated them as two entities, and that Op-Ed corresponds to where it is appropriate. So, what is he mad for? Beats me. I did what I must.

He led me into a building, released my arm while warning that I'm no more than an exercise should I plan on running away. Please, he doesn't need to flatter himself.

There is no occasion for it.

We got up into the elevator, and while waiting for its destination, the thick atmosphere was drowning us in silence that I couldn't help but to swim out of it, "there's no need to feel like an injured party, Carson. It's not like I committed you a libel."

He didn't say anything. So, we let the silence wrap itself again before we were blessed by the elevator stop.

"Here," he finally uttered and proceeded walking. I followed, my eyes roaming over the place.

This ain't for students. Are we in a 5-star hotel or somethin'?

He tapped a card on one of the doors before a beep was heard. He then turned its handle and opened it before he gestures his head to come inside.

What greeted me was a minimalistic Scandinavian interior. It's a marble to ash palette and--goddamn, he lives here?

"Where are we?"

He followed, clicked the door and gave me a faint shrug. "Some friend's place."

I choked a laugh, "And?" Then checked myself.

Checked myself before blurting out some And-I-suppose-this-is-where-you-bring-your-girls remark more connotative of a pick me bitch rather than a snark that I intended. The hell do I have to do with that.

"Sit down for a minute, will ya?" directing me to an anachronistic canary yellow sofa. Okay?...

If there is a scant amount of his positives, it's probably that he got interviewed a lot and charismatic when he does it. He might not be the quarterback, but he is ESPN's fresh-face of a white wide receiver. When I lost track of his celebrity-status social life, he was still out there making the most of college.

Good for him, I guess.

When I sat down, he disappeared into a direction the dining hall couldn't see. I waited like a stone for the minutes to pass before he brought with him a tray.

My face furrowed, "all right, Carson. What's with all this?" With this gesture is as good as learning Cantonese.

"Some fuckin' hangover. But do help yourself if you want something to drink, I made lemonade."

He then sat in the opposite chair. Sipping on the cup he held leaning forward as he observed me in a hawk-like concentration.

"Are you sure it's a hangover not inebriation? 'Cause just so you know, we can do this tomorrow."

A smile crept to his face. "Not in a million chance, Perez," and turned it smug, "Try the lemonade," he suggests, "then we'll get right into it."

I let out a frustrated exhale, leaning back to the cushion, I watched him on his chair that's doing a considerable amount of work to have him seated comfortably.

He'll fucking see.

"What are the chances of you not putting some party-drug in it," tipping my chin into a taunt. He gave a soft scoff, bowed his head and then shook, "As if you can tempt me enough."

"Try me."

Right when I said it, he stood, grabbed the glass of lemonade, drank half of it, and put it back down. "There. You'll be sure I'm wasted before you are."

It got me thinking...

It would be a waste if I couldn't get something out of it. This is a modern luxury. I, therefore, ended up giving in to his whim and drank what he offered.

This bastard.

With all his fishy accommodation and that AC in full blast, how am I supposed to know if I don't end up a frozen body?

He gave a brief pat to both of his thighs, "So for our business," he breathed out,

"Let's put it like this, Bea: you started it, you finished it."

My attention has been on the lemonade and the cookies that's stuffed to my mouth. I wasn't able to speak, so I cast a questioning glance instead.

"Here's what you'll do, you take responsibility for my PR. Manage the damage control you, yourself, drag me into."

I crossed my eyebrows and, in a rush, quickly chewed and swallowed what was left of the cookies. "The fuck you talking about?"

"Have you ever had any idea what your trolling put me into, Bea?" rounded his voice. I shrugged, "Not that I'm verified of. And it's not trolling, you social media zombie, it's an Op-Ed."

"Those were my endorsement deals, my scholarship, and my chances for professionals."

"Oh," I took a moment to stand up and had the chance that he, too, could look me up.

It hits me.

"So, this is what it's all about," I muttered more to myself than to him. "You and your unwarranted rage. Do you plan on attacking every person that puts you in an unflattering light?"

He brought back that gleam in those ocean eyes before he became a smiling Joker. "No, not really. This is the first time. It includes a hag and her unsolicited opinion."

I tipped him a nod. Stoking coals to his fuckery.

Go to hell, Carson.

"Those are grounded by facts though. Is that all?" I throwed back, "'If so, I'm going. Thanks for the cookies and lemonade by the way."

And started to stroll as I took my leave.

Before I knew it, there was a sudden clutch to my waist. My feet staggered to walk backward until I felt them hung to the air as I am thrown and slumped to sit hard on a tabletop. Immediately, a strong slam came to both of my sides, caging me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" I shrieked, "You prick--"

"Think you're any better than that, you selfish cunt?! I've tried to play nice--"

"Play nice?! You're not even to basics, you fuckin' bastard! Get your weaning balls out of my way, 'cause I don't put up with this--" I was cut off instantly when a hand was wrapped around my neck.

"Look here," clenches his teeth, then jerked my head up at him, "Let me put it in your indifferent head the aftermath of your opinion and what it costs me--"

Not for his intimidation tactics, and definitely not for his pussy ego.

"You think I'd fucking agree to it?" I'd spat in his face, "Does intimidation and coercion create miracles now?" Regardless of how ragged it sounds, the venom there is clear. It's my turn to be smug, "Unlike you, I'd rather have my ass bowled from criticisms."

It's my turn to watch those eyes, recording his every reaction. Was he mad? I don't care. Was he confused? Oh, he is now, wouldn't he?