Outside the Box Read online

  Outside the Box

  Rochelle Paige

  Copyright © 2014 Rochelle Paige

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Mickey Reed

  Cover designed by Melissa Gill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locals are entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ Use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  Yolanda –

  True friendship isn’t about being inseperable.

  It’s being separated and nothing changes.

  prologue

  LUKA

  As I rolled over in bed, I reached out for Kat and came up empty. The room was dark, but something had woken me up from a deep sleep. I was exhausted from the trip to her school straight on the heels of packing up my dorm room and heading home for the summer. We’d gotten out a week before she did, so I’d decided to surprise my girl by coming down to help her pack her things. I felt like it was the least I could do because the strain in our relationship was entirely my fault.

  Kat and I started dating our junior year of high school. It shocked the shit out of everyone at first since we’d known each other all our lives because our parents were close friends. She was the girl next door for me, so we’d grown up together and never really thought of each other that way until one day when she’d run into me in the hallway at school. Her body slammed into mine and my dick finally took notice of her. She’d grown up from the little girl I’d played with as a child.

  Things were great between us in part because we knew each other so well. I didn’t put up with any of her bullshit like her other boyfriends had done, and eventually everyone realized that we were solid. We applied to the same schools, and then all our plans flew out the window when I was offered a full ride to Blythe College. I’d lucked out when their hockey coach caught one of my games at a local tournament and was impressed with my skills. He’d come to see one of my teammates who wasn’t interested because he had plans to play in the juniors first since he really wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps and make it to the NHL. As long as he was there, Blythe’s coach talked to my coach, who arranged a sit-down with him and my parents. I liked what he had to say, so we took a trip to the school to check it out. The guys on the team had good things to say about Coach, which impressed me. He’d earned their respect, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do with hockey players.

  The campus was cool. The school was smaller than the ones Kat and I had already applied to. She was looking forward to the big-university experience, but it just kinda seemed like an extension of high school to me because so many of our classmates would be there too. When they offered me the scholarship, it was impossible to say no.

  My parents had immigrated to Chicago from Russia before I was born because they wanted their children to have the American dream. I was the first to attend college in my family, and if I could do it for free and leave the money my parents had scrimped and saved for me to attend for my brothers to use, then hell yes I would do it. Unfortunately, that meant that Kat and I had been doing the long-distance relationship thing for the last three years since she refused to even consider coming to Blythe with me.

  So here I was, in her sorority house, in her bed, with no idea where she’d wandered off to. I pulled my phone off the bedside table and realized that it was barely past three o’clock in the morning. Where the hell is Kat?

  I rolled out of her bed and yanked my jeans up. No way was I going to leave her room in my boxers with her friends around. As I walked to the door, I noticed that the window was open. Maybe she got warm since she isn’t used to sleeping with me?

  I walked over and was about to pull it down because it wasn’t safe for her to keep it open when her room was on the ground floor of the house when I noticed that her screen was popped out. And then I heard her giggle coming from outside followed by a moan that I was intimately familiar with. One that should be reserved for me and only me because it meant that she was turned on. What the fuck is going on here?

  I leaned closer so I could peek outside. Her room faced the small parking lot where I had parked my car. There was a red Mustang parked next to it now with the engine running. The windows were fogged and cracked open. I heard a grunt and Kat’s low moans again as the car began to rock. And then it dawned on me—my girlfriend was in that car, having sex with another guy, knowing that I was right inside her room, asleep in her bed. How fucked up is our relationship that she would pull something like this?

  I grabbed my shirt from the floor and shoved my phone into my pocket. I glanced around the room to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind before heading to the door—which I found locked. My head swiveled to the window as I realized that the screen was popped out because Kat had climbed out the fucking window for her hook-up. I guess my impromptu visit had put a crimp in her plans for the evening and the surprise was on me instead.

  I walked over and put the screen back in, pulled the window closed, and locked it. I made sure the front door to the house was locked too before I walked to the parking lot. Kat’s cell phone was still in the room, so she was going to have to wake the house up in order to get back inside. Let her explain what the fuck she was doing outside in the middle of the night with no way to get back in.

  As I stalked over to the Mustang, I could hear the change in Kat’s breathy moans that signaled she was close to coming. I figured I might as well put a stop to that too, so I banged on the car door to interrupt them.

  “Oh, God!” she gasped as her eyes locked with mine through the cracked window.

  The guy who was fucking her must not have heard me because he thought that meant she was even closer. “That’s right, my naughty kitty Kat. Come for me,” he groaned.

  She pushed on his shoulders, trying to get his attention. “Luka,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears. “No. No. No, it’s not what you think.”

  I chuckled darkly because it was pretty damn difficult for this to be anything else but what I was thinking it was. “Really, Kat? So you didn’t climb out the fucking window to meet up with this guy for sex in a car in the goddamn parking lot?”

  She was still pulling her clothes back on as she climbed out of the car. The dude she was just banging didn’t even need to bother since he still had his jeans on and had only bothered to unzip so he could pull his cock out to fuck my girlfriend.

  “Who the fuck is this, Kat?” he asked, looking confused.

  “If you’d asked me last night, I would have said her boyfriend from back home. Now? Well now I think it’s safe to say I’m her ex-boyfriend,” I answered for her seeing that Kat was just standing there with a blank look on her face.

  “How long have you had a boyfriend?” the guy asked. “I thought you didn’t do boyfriends—only friends with benefits and one-night stands?”

  And my heart plummeted even further. Because, apparently, my faithful girlfriend, who was completely devoted to me whenever we were together, was the campus slut when we were apart.

  "Four years," I growled out. "She's been my girlfriend for four fucking years."

  "Shit, man," the guy sa
id, holding his hands up. "I swear to God I didn't know she had a boyfriend."

  "Yeah, that's pretty damn clear," I muttered, clenching my fists.

  I wanted to beat the shit out of this guy for fucking my girlfriend, but it wasn't his fault. It was hers. And I couldn't hit her, so there wasn't really anything I could do except leave.

  As I peeled out of the parking lot, the only thought in my head was that I was lucky as shit that we hadn’t had sex last night because I probably would’ve been puking my guts out right about now. This situation was totally fucked up, but I felt some relief knowing that we hadn’t been together since we’d seen each other at spring break.

  chapter 1

  AUBREY

  Moving into the dorm for my senior year didn’t hold the same excitement as it had twelve short months ago. Things had changed incredibly over the last year. Lexi wasn’t going to be my roommate because she was moving into an off-campus apartment with Drake. Somehow, he’d convinced both her and her dad that it was the best idea since sliced bread. I had no idea how he’d managed that feat except that he loved my best friend something fierce and wasn’t afraid to show it. Once he’d put his ring on her finger this summer after all that craziness with her ex, he’d told her that there was no way in hell they were going to live apart from each other during the school year. So here I was, moving into a single so that I didn’t have to worry about who I’d get paired up with at the last minute because I’d found myself without a roommate.

  Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t throwing myself a big pity party, and I was really happy for my bestie. Drake and Lexi had even offered to let me stay in their spare bedroom instead of in the dorm by myself, but I would rather be on my own than listen to them screw like bunnies all year when I was well into a very long dry spell myself. It was a self-imposed one, but I still didn’t need that in my face day in and day out. It was super weird to find myself firmly single when Lexi was all loved up and Jackson was so committed to Kaylie that he’d moved to New York so she could chase her dreams. My whole college life before last year had been spent with me having boyfriends, Lexi completely oblivious to guys, and Jackson banging his way through campus with one-night stands. It’s amazing how quickly things can change, especially when your heart is involved.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if my own heart would ever get involved. I’d had my fair share of relationships in high school and here at college—and then some. But if I was being honest with myself, I’d admit that I don’t think I’d ever truly engaged my heart in a single one of them. Which is a little odd when you think about it since I had the very best example of what a loving relationship looked like in my parents. They were undoubtedly head over heels in love with each other even after all these years. So why hadn’t I ever gotten further than a schoolgirl crush or some serious lust with the guys I’d dated?

  “Quit your daydreaming and get moving, Aubrey,” my dad growled from behind me as he lugged in some more boxes, knocking me back into reality.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” I replied, flashing him a big grin as I started to empty out clothes into the closet.

  “Do you think you packed enough stuff?” my mom worried aloud as she walked in behind my dad.

  “Enough stuff?” he muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that,” my mom replied in a singsong voice.

  “I’m sure you did,” he grumbled back as he walked back out the door to grab the rest of my things.

  I busted up laughing and couldn’t stop my giggles even when my mom turned to level me with a lethal glare.

  “What? I worry about you, my baby girl,” she said defensively.

  “And I love you for it,” I reassured her, speaking the absolute truth.

  I’d grown up with no doubt about how much I was loved by my mom, dad, and three older brothers. I had been showered with love my whole life, and I was smart enough to know how lucky I was to have been blessed with an amazing family.

  “Awww, now you’re gonna make me cry,” my mom wailed as she pulled me in for a hug. “I can’t believe my baby is going to graduate from school soon.”

  “Mom,” I sighed. “I have a whole school year to finish before graduation.”

  “All my boys have left home, and here you are, growing up so fast. And living alone this year,” she carried on as though she hadn’t heard me. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I answered.

  She leaned back to peer in my face. “Because you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know it would be a pain, but you could just stay at home. Or take Lexi up on her offer to move into the apartment with her and Drake. Or I’m sure the school could find you a lovely roommate. Maybe with one of your other friends? I could make some calls and—”

  “Mom,” I growled, interrupting her before she could carry on anymore. “There’s no way in hell I’m living at home for my senior year. No. Way. And I’m not going to move in with Lexi and Drake right after they got engaged. They need their space and I don’t want to be a third wheel all the time. And you absolutely will not make any calls to anyone at the school to pull strings or bully your way into getting me the perfect roommate.”

  “But, darling,” she argued, “I just want you to be happy.”

  I took a deep breath before responding. “I’m actually looking forward to living on my own this year,” I said, lying my ass off.

  “Stop pestering Aubrey and help me with this stuff,” my dad huffed at my mom as he walked back into the room carrying the last two boxes and a shopping bag.

  Oddly enough, I would have fully expected it to be my dad having a conniption fit over the idea of me living by myself instead of my mom. He’d started to treat me differently ever since I’d started working at the bank this summer. Every once in a while, I’d catch him looking at me with a question in his eyes like he was trying to figure something out about me. As long as it wasn’t what had finally motivated me to take life seriously, then it was fine by me.

  The last thing I ever needed in my life was for my dad to know about my pregnancy scare last year. I was his darling girl who could do no wrong, and I was pretty sure that he thought the reason my relationships had short shelf lives was because I wasn’t ready to have sex with anyone and was still a virgin. It wasn’t that I was terribly promiscuous. I hadn’t slept with every guy I’d dated—not even close. Hell, I hadn’t even lost my virginity until my senior year of high school with the boyfriend who’d lasted the longest—a whole nine months. But I definitely played the field. I liked the thrill and excitement at the start of a relationship, but then I always found myself terribly let down when things started to feel mundane and the guy turned out to not be who I thought he was. Bottom line was that I didn’t think I’d ever met the right guy for me. Maybe eventually.

  “Are you absolutely, positively sure you’re okay?” my mom asked again, giving me a worried look. “You’re just so quiet when you’ve usually got so much to say.”

  “It is a big change, Mom. I know that, but I’m ready.”

  My dad pulled my mom into his arms and gave her a big squeeze. “Relax, honey. Our baby girl is growing up. It was bound to happen eventually.”

  “Daddy,” I huffed in exasperation.

  “Hey, all I’m saying is it’s nice to see you taking things so seriously for once,” my dad explained. “You raise your kids so they can stand on their own two feet, but I’ve got to admit that I may have pampered you just a bit and worried a little in the last couple of years if that might have been a disservice to you.”

  My dad’s words stabbed me in the heart. The knowledge that I’d given my parents reason to worry about me so much was saddening. My mom must have recognized the agonized look on my face for what it was since she elbowed him in the side to make him shut up.

  “What your dad means is that we’re just so proud of you, sweetie. It’s always been harder for us with you because you’re our baby girl. But your decision to work with your dad at the bank when you
graduate means the world to both of us,” my mom said, trying to soften the blow.

  I swallowed down the lump that had developed in my throat. “I’m glad,” I whispered into my mom’s ear as I hugged her close.

  She sniffled in response before pulling away. “Well, that’s enough of that. We’re getting way too serious for what should be a happy occasion. How about you let your dad and I take you out to dinner as a celebratory send-off for your last year of school?”

  “I could eat,” my dad piped in.

  “You can always eat, dear. Thank goodness our kids got your metabolism,” she teased him.

  And there you go. They’d managed to lighten the mood completely.

  “Yeah, Dad. Thanks for giving me good genes so I can eat like a horse and still stay skinny,” I joked as we headed out the door.”

  ****

  I quickly learned that my course schedule was going to kick my ass. When I had talked to my guidance counselor about switching the focus of my business administration major from sales and marketing to finance, I had been thrilled to learn that it would be pretty easy since there was enough crossover between the degrees. Unfortunately, it meant that I had a lot of math-based classes on my plate this year. I’d managed to make it through calculus my freshmen year with a B, but math was definitely not my favorite subject.

  With upper-level accounting, business finance, and economics classes at the same time as statistics on my schedule, I figured I was going to lose my mind at some point. So one week into the school year, I’d had the brilliant idea to get myself a math tutor. Only I’d had no idea how hard it was going to be to find a good one. I had already gone through several of them one short month later. Were all math geeks impossible to understand?

  “This is really easy to understand as long as you focus on the variables, Aubrey,” tutor number four droned on, pointing at information on my paper. “These here are discrete because there are a limited number of values. And then the others are continuous because they can take on many different values. All of these are independent, and we use them to observe and measure the dependent variable because it’s not under our control like the independent ones. Simple, right?”