Her Rustanov Bully: the (possibly romantic?) tale of how I pucked around and found out
Her Rustanov Bully: Chapter 3

Library Girl was here. Here in Berlin. Walking into his hotel room at the Tourmaline, as if she had stepped out of the thousands of moments he’d spent watching her and into his life.

The sight of her back lit by the city lights felt surreal, like she belonged to another reality, a better one that didn’t include him. And yet, she was standing there, close enough to touch. His chest tightened with something between joy and panic.

It was all Yom could do not to stare, or track her like he usually did when he spied her from afar at the campus library.

All the carrels at U of M-Gemidgee had been named for Minnesota celebrities. The most prominent one was the Prince Rogers Nelson carrel, which had been painted in the artist’s signature shade of purple. That one had a waiting list a kilometer long. Yom had witnessed students nearly coming to blows over it when the person who’d reserved it failed to show up, leaving it open for the taking.

But Library Girl always bypassed it, heading straight for the Anne Tyler carrel at the far end of the row pressed against the library’s only windowless wall.

At the beginning of each semester, all the Gemidgee Yolks players on Division 1 athletic teams were given their choice of dedicated carrels on the much quieter second floor of the open-plan Joseph Carrington Library. Yom’s freshman year, he’d chosen the Richard Dean Anderson carrel simply because it had a great window view of the campus while being hidden from the rest of the building. Unless someone was truly dying to read a physical book about the natural history of microorganisms, fungi, and algae, no one ever bothered him there.

But then, one spring day, he saw her walking up to the front doors—a mesmerizing beauty in a pale blue dress and cardigan. That first year, she’d worn her hair in shoulder-length extensions.

Her weave framed her face in soft black waves, held back by a wide headband. As she glided up the stairs, her cardigan had slipped slightly off one shoulder, exposing smooth dark brown skin.

Large doe eyes. A sweet, heart-shaped face. She had an awkward manner that somehow came off as true grace. She was unlike anyone or anything Yom had ever seen in the small Midwestern town where he had chosen to go to university. Even then, she’d looked like someone who didn’t belong in his world but had somehow wandered into it anyway.

Yom had left his hidden carrel to visually track her all the way to the Anne Tyler one on the first floor. Then the next day, when he arrived to study for Statistics, he’d checked the printed reservation list on the carrel’s side. There was only one name on it for every 6 -10 pm slot that month: Lydia C.

But in his mind, he continued to call her Library Girl as he switched his dedicated study space to the Kelly Lynch carrel, which gave him a direct sightline to the wall-facing carrels but kept him hidden in the shadows of the “Cold-Blooded Vertebrates” section.

Now Library Girl was actually standing in his hotel room in Berlin.

She wasn’t supposed to be here—not yet. He’d planned it all out so carefully. She was to be his reward for a perfect last university season, the prize he’d finally deserve after leading the Yolks to a USCA Hockey Championship win. But she was here. Thousands of kilometers away from that library. Standing in front of him. Months ahead of schedule.

“Everything okay?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him with a worried look.

Her voice was even better than he’d imagined it would be without the musical interference from the nightclub. Like drinking a cup of hot chocolate instead of smelling it at the next table.

“I am fine,” he said, hastily uncurling his hands. “Happy you are agreeing to come here with me.”

He fed her these half-truths while trying not to stare.

Do not stare.

Do not say any of the creepy thoughts in your head out loud.

Do not ruin this dream.

He sternly instructed himself… while trying to figure out what to do with his hands.

“Sparkling water is okay for you?” he asked, wishing his English sounded better. Even three years at a small-town American university had not erased his heavy accent like his Uncle Alexei had advised.

She hesitated, and he held his breath, knowing that if she asked for something stronger, he’d break the contract’s no-alcohol rule and offer her something from the room’s minibar. Just as he’d broken his one rule about letting women return to his room on game nights.

But no other woman was her.

“Sparkling water is great,” she said eventually. “Thanks.”

Willing his hands not to shake, Yom grabbed a bottle of Edelbrun Mineralwasser from the mini-fridge’s door.

“Oh, wow, this is a coincidence” Lydia said. “My friend Merry just visited me here in Berlin. She was doing this semester abroad program, but now I guess it’s like a year abroad because she met this guy. I guess you’d call him the scion of the family that owns that mineral water brand, actually. That’s why I’m bringing it up. Anyway, they’re dating, and she decided to delay graduating in order to stay for another semester. But I’m babbling again. I’m going to stop. Yeah, here’s me stopping.”

Yom poured out two glasses of bubbling water. “You can talk as much as you are wishing to me.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t.” She clamped her lips and looked around the room, as if really seeing it for the first time. “Your accommodations are way more lux than ours. Me and my—I mean, I’m staying at the Benton down the street. They’re the official tournament sponsor, but still….” She glanced around the large suite. “This is so much nicer.”

“You will stay with me here for rest of games, then.” The words spilled out of his mouth before Yom could stop them.

“What?” She widened her eyes at the offer. “No! You can’t do that.”

She didn’t understand.

“I want to do that,” Yom explained. “You are deserving nice things.”

“I don’t. I really don’t.” She ducked her head and pressed a hand into her cheek. “Besides, you only just met me. I could snore. Or be really terrible in bed.”

Yom wondered if she knew how adorable she looked as she tried to talk him out of his offer.

“Are you snoring every night in bed?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “Well, no. I don’t think so. I mean, my housemate never complained. But then she’s always over at her girlfriend’s place. So maybe I do?” She broke off and waved her hands in front of her face. “Oh, I’m rambling again. Sorry! Sorry! I do that when I’m nervous.”

Yom handed her the glass of bubbling water. “Do not be nervous.”

“That’s not exactly something you can command,” she answered with a polite grimace. “I mean, surely, this kind of reaction from the girls you bring home is something you’ve dealt with before.”

Library Girl was a gentle soul who deserved gentle words. But Yom did not know how to softly say that the kind of women he usually fucked had forgotten long ago how to be nervous.

So, he shrugged. “Okay, you are allowed to be nervous if you wish to be.”

“It’s not that I wish to be. It’s more like it’s impossible not to be. At least for me.” She visibly swallowed. “The part about me maybe being terrible in bed…”

“That is not possible,” Yom informed her before she could finish that silly sentence.

“Actually, it so is possible because the thing is…” She raised her eyes to the ceiling for some reason, then covered them with one hand. “Imabearsin!”

“You are a sinful bear?” Yom asked, frowning. “Is this another social media phrase? Because most of them, I do not know.”

“No!” She lowered her hand from her pretty face. But still refused to look him in the eye as she confessed, “I’m a virgin. A twenty-two-year-old virgin.”