The Love Trap by Nicole French

6

2009

It was only four in the afternoon when I walked into Cleo’s that Friday. Skylar was gone to New York for the weekend, leaving me to celebrate our first round of midterms on my own. The bar was still quiet. A few students hovered around the shuffleboard table, maybe two others munched on a basket of fries by the jukebox. Another by the windows was bent over a very old book.

I approached the bar and set my messenger bag on a stool. “PBR, please.”

“Long week, huh?” the bartender replied.

I shoved my red cat-eyed glasses up my nose. “Midterms are over. It’s time to drink.”

“I can help with that,” said the bartender as he left to get my beer.

“It’s purple now, huh?”

I turned to find Eric Stallsmith (or de Vries, whichever it was) standing next to me. A quick glance at the now-empty table by the windows told me he was the bookworm. Huh. That was…unexpected. I would have expected someone like him to use his extra time to, I don’t know, pretend to be on a crew team or something.

The bartender brought my beer, but before I could fish a crumpled five dollar bill out of my bag, Eric had already flipped the guy a crisp twenty.

“I’ll get this round,” he said. “Double Belvedere on the rocks, please.”

I whistled as the bartender pulled a bottle off the actual top shelf.

“That’s an awfully nice vodka for a poor law student,” I said, though if Eric was poor, I was the Queen of Sheba.

“I don’t drink crap,” he replied. “Belvedere’s not my favorite, but it’s the best they have at Cleo’s.” He accepted the drink and pushed the change back at the bartender, along with a credit card. “Keep it open, Scott.”

The bartender nodded and shuffled away.

“On a first-name basis? Smart,” I said.

“I’m surprised you’re not. You come here a lot, don’t you?”

“Only when I’m too lazy to get the hell out of Cambridge. It’s a little, well, square for my tastes.”

Eric quirked another smile, and I was pleased when he looked up and down my outfit, which currently consisted of a pair of black skinny jeans, combat boots I’d picked up at an army surplus store just a few weeks ago, a gray and red bowling shirt tied at my midriff, and my favorite vintage biker jacket. I tipped my glasses—new frames I’d found at a local flea market—and tossed my jacket over my bag.

“You’re just unique, Stan,” he said, gesturing to the name stitched over my heart. “That’s a good thing. Certainly not worth sacrificing for the assholes at Harvard.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised more by how flattered I was than because I disagreed with him. “Well, thank you. And thank you for the beer. It’s delicious.”

“PBR is delicious?”

I smacked my lips. “It hits the damn spot. Especially after we’ve been doing nothing but studying our asses off for the last eight weeks. We deserve a break and a lot of alcohol.”

“Is that why I haven’t seen you much? Too cool for Cleo’s, too busy studying?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t exactly true. Eric and I were in the same Torts and Constitutional Law classes. We just sat at opposite sides of the classroom, and I tried not to watch with too much admiration whenever he answered questions. The kid was smarter than your average trust fund baby. Really smart, in fact. And articulate. And thoughtful. Not that I had any regrets about turning him down, of course.

“Are you going home this weekend too?” I asked instead. “Seems like everyone somewhat local is taking a few days to see family with the extra day off. Yours must be missing you.”

Eric just shuddered, like I’d suggested he jump into a vat of flaming acid instead of visiting the people who raised him. “No,” he said a little too vehemently. Then, a bit lighter: “We don’t exactly get along.”

I considered the stout ball of Asian guilt that awaited every one of my calls home with the sixth sense of a fortune teller. I did wonder sometimes if she had some kind of radar for when exactly I felt just guilty enough to want to call the house line instead of my dad’s cell.

“Understood,” I replied. “Home isn’t for everyone.”

“Home is where you make it, right?”

I shrugged. “It’s not the places you go, but the people you meet?”

“Something like that.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Is that why you gave me a fake name? Because you don’t get along with your family?”

Eric had the grace to look a little bit ashamed. “Shit. You caught that?”

I turned toward him. “Skylar did, actually. She overheard the name ‘de Vries’ at orientation. Which, by the way, you use in class. What’s going on with that?”

Eric shifted uneasily. “I…well, Stallsmith isn’t a fake name. It’s just not one I use a lot. It’s my mother’s name. Sometimes it makes certain things easier.”

“Like what things?”

He swallowed and peered at me, levelling me again with that curious intensity I hadn’t forgotten. Good lord, I hoped the boy was planning to be a litigator. He’d get any confession he wanted with that stare.

“Things I generally keep to myself,” he said finally. “Things I’d probably need a lot more vodka to discuss.”

“Well, that could be arranged,” I said. “If I thought you would actually tell me the truth anyway. Maybe you’ll just give me another alias.”

“Is that why you left the coaster on the bar?” He grinned with the change of subject, and that curiously transformative smile lit up the bar. I grabbed the wood to steady myself. “Don’t worry, Lefferts. I rescued it.”

Then where is it? I wanted to ask. But I didn’t. Because that, of course, would sound like I actually wanted it.

“What were you doing over there?” I asked, nodding at the window. “That book looked too old even for the used books.”

“Come see.”

As if it was the most natural thing in the world, Eric picked up my bag, then guided me off my stool and to his table with a gentle, yet firm touch at the small of my back. I ignored the clear admiration on his face when he noticed my bared midriff. Lord, men were all alike, weren’t they? The only difference was that for some reason, this one’s gaze burned a bit hotter than others.

We sat down, and I examined the book on the table. It wasn’t actually as ancient as the nearly ripped cover made it seem—just a used copy of Leaflets, a collection of Adrienne Rich poetry.

“Well, what do you know,” I murmured as I flipped through the book. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the queer feminist poetry type.”

“Are you a poetry reader?” He almost sounded eager.

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. But she came to speak at Northwestern once, and she’s kind of a badass. I liked what I heard. I take it you’re a fan.”

“I like her stuff pretty well. I think she’s ripping off the modernists a little with her formal structure, but her words are…moving. They pretty much embody perfect catharsis, in my opinion.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You know your stuff, huh?”

This time he shrugged. “I majored in English at Dartmouth. Wrote my honors thesis on Yeats. But I’m no professor.”

“Do you write it too?” I prodded, unable to help myself. Lord, if this boy was a poet, no wonder he had half our classes, female and male, tongue-tied during lectures. From what I could tell, he left nearly every class with a different girl trailing after him.

Eric took a measured sip. “I do.”

“Can I read it?” The request toppled out before I could stop it. This was a game, of course. He was giving me his best dating pedigree right now, the poetry-loving garbage that probably lured every woman under thirty in the Boston metropolitan area into bed with him with a single verse.

I still wanted to know, though. I couldn’t help it.

Eric just fixed me with a gaze that was maybe a little harder than before. “Maybe.”

“Come on,” I pushed.

“Tell you what,” he said, tucking the copy of Leaflets away. “Let’s write one together. Right now.”

“Ah…I’m not really the poetry type,” I said. “Give me a sewing machine, and I’m all over it. But me and words? I can write papers, but that’s about it.”

A sly, yet sweet smile emerged. “I bet you could handle it, Lefferts. Come on, we’ll just do a quick limerick. Five lines. First, second, and fifth rhyme with each other. Third and fourth together. Easy.”

I looked at him with obvious disbelief, and he started to laugh. The sound made my whole body feel about twenty pounds lighter. Damn. How could I say no to that?

“All right,” I said. “You start.”

Eric grabbed a napkin from the center of the table and pulled a pen from his coat pocket. A small black book stuck out of that same pocket. I wondered if that’s where he kept those poems I was suddenly desperate to read.

“Eric and Jane’s poem,” he said before writing the date next to it on the napkin. He gave me another sly smile that made my knees feel like water. “We’re making history right here, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just get on with it.”

“All right, all right. How about…” He tapped his mouth—which was distractingly full—with his pencil. “Okay, I got it:

Jane wished to take on the world.

I smirked. “Okay, okay. Um…put down: ‘With looks that were purely absurd.’”

“Looks?” Eric questioned. “No, I don’t think so. First of all, it’s patently false, and I don’t believe in writing bullshit. Poetry is the truest form of art. And secondly, what do your looks have to do with your goals?”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Taking over the world is absurd too. So we’ll write that.”

He chuckled. “How about this?”

Jane wished to take on the world

though her high hopes were maybe absurd.

I shrugged after another long drink of my beer. “Works for me.”

“Now, a transition.” Eric scratched the next line:

Eric saw her one night,

“And she put up a fight,” I continued, enjoying myself now.

“But he only thought, what an intriguing girl.”

I stilled as he wrote down the remainder of the poem, polished the language a little, scratched out a few words, then turned the napkin to me to review the final product:

Jane sought to take on the world.

Still, she thought her high hopes absurd.

Eric saw her one night.

Though she put up a fight,

He only thought, what a pretty girl.

Pretty girl? I had been called a lot of things in my short twenty-one, almost twenty-two years on this planet. Some names not so nice by people who didn’t care to see an ambiguously raced female with a penchant for speaking her opinions aloud (such as my mother). Some other names from people—mostly men—who wanted to see what was under the glasses and leather. Some of them were even nice.

“Fairly cute.”

“Interesting.”

“Unique.”

But even my father, with his penchant for rhyming nicknames, called me “Plain Jane.” I could gussy up my face with eyeliner and red lips all I liked, but beauty was something I never aspired to.

“You thought I was pretty, huh?” I tried to make it a joke, but my voice broke a little. Ugh, what was wrong with me? Where was my bravado when I needed it?

Eric leaned across the table to study me with interest that, well, if it wasn’t genuine, would have been damn hard to fake. “I’m thinking it now.”

Oh, he was good.

Too good.

This guy had heartbreak written all over him. He’d probably already cut a path of it clear across Harvard Square.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.

Slowly, he reached out and touched a loose piece of purple hair that had drifted down around my face. “Pretty,” he murmured as he tucked the strand behind my ear. “Girl.”

Before I could stop myself, I batted his hand away. “You know what? You don’t need to throw lines at me.”

Eric frowned. “What? Who said it was a line?” That dreamy look that had been in his eyes two seconds ago was gone. The one that replaced it was much more familiar—annoyed. Turned on, still, but mostly annoyed.

Because, of course, I’d said what I was thinking. Just like the rest of them, he couldn’t fucking handle it.

That was fine, I decided. Much easier to negotiate than this poetry crap.

“Do me a favor, will you? I think we both know what you’re doing. Because you’re not Prince Charming any more than I’m a Disney princess. You don’t need to charm me, so let’s stop the games.”

“Would you rather I get you sloppy drunk and tow you across the yard to my room?” he said, unable to keep the disdain out of his voice completely, though his eyes clearly sparked at the idea. “I could put a sock on the door, if you want. Let my roommate know to clear the fuck out for the evening.”

I tossed back about half my drink. Don’t let him see you crack. “Well, at least then you’d be honest, my preppy little crew captain. I don’t know what you’re playing at with this poetry crap, but without it, we can just get down to business. Fucking, I mean. After all, that is what you want, right?”

“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “You’re very direct, aren’t you?”

Ah, here it was. The moment of truth. Some men could handle it, others couldn’t. Just call me the Colonel Jessup of dating.

“Do you have a problem with that?” I asked.

Eric threw back the rest of his vodka and set the glass down on the table with unnecessary force. “Not in the fucking slightest.”

Sudden, unexpected relief flooded through me. I had my defenses up, sure, but I hadn’t realized until right then how disappointed I would have been if this strange, unreadable boy’s interest broke from just a bit of challenge. The fact that it didn’t—the fact that he actually seemed more determined to be around me after I pushed his limits—was incredibly satisfying.

“Hey, preppy,” I said, grabbing the edges of Eric’s chambray shirt and appreciating the way the color brought out a tiny bit of blue in those gray eyes.

He looked down at my hands, then back at me with a hard, electric gaze. “What’s that, gorgeous?”

I smacked my lips and batted my eyelashes with my very best Betty Boop impression. “Time’s a tickin’. You want to get out of here or not?”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just engaged in a stare-off that would have put any tomcat to shame. Then, finally, he leaned toward me, brushing his cheek against mine, and growled in my ear: “Grab your bag and get moving, pretty girl. Or else I’m carrying you out of here myself.”