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Chapter 2:

As soon as classes started up Elizabeth pretty much forgot all about her little encounter with Spike. When Cordelia invited her to another party at the same frat house at the end of the week Elizabeth declined. She came up with an excuse about doing homework and a lot of laundry. And after that Cordelia dropped the subject.

So when Friday night rolled around Elizabeth was alone in her room writing in her journal with nothing but instrumental soothing music playing in the background on her computer. The hot summer night forced her to have three fans blowing in her dorm. Elizabeth sat in her shorts and tank top on her bed, trying to stay as cool as possible. With the window open she could hear all the college kids celebrating the beginning of the weekend in the street as they walked downtown to all the parties.

When Elizabeth’s cell phone rang on her desk she almost missed the call with all her distractions, but lucky she picked up on the last ring.

”Hello?” Elizabeth mumbled, kind of annoyed that she was distracted from her writing.

“How’s my college gal?” an excited voice asked on the receiving end of the phone, “How’s the old professor?”

Elizabeth smiled and almost laughed at her grandfather’s voice.

”Hi grandpa.” She said.

“Did I catch you in a big party?” he asked, Elizabeth could almost see his teasing smile on his face back across the country in California.

”No, no…I’m in my room…just hanging out.” Elizabeth said.

“Well that doesn’t sound too fun.” He said in a sort of disappointed.

Elizabeth sighed, “You know me. I’d rather be doing my stories and writing something up….”

”Yes we all know.” Her grandpa muttered, knowing that his granddaughter could have plenty fun with a piece of paper and pen. “But you should hang out with some of your new friends; show them you aren’t the party pooper.”

”Thanks for the advice.” Elizabeth smiled as went over to her desk and clicked the stop button of her music playing on her computer, “But I did go to a party before classes started, last Saturday with my roommate, Cordelia.”

”And how was that? Attract any of those college boys?” he asked, prying her for information.

“Grandpa! I’m not going to talk to you about that.” Elizabeth exclaimed, she was completely embarrassed at how this conversation was turning out.

”Well I talked with your mother the other day---she wanted to know.” Elizabeth’s grandpa explained.

”Oh…” Elizabeth frowned at the mention of her mother.

”You talk to her?”

”No.” Elizabeth mumbled and bit her lip, “I will though…”

”She wished she was there on your big move in day she—“

”Grandpa please…” Elizabeth said in a plea to stop him from talking any farther.

“Sorry honey…” he said in a sympathetic tone.

“I should go…” Elizabeth said, “I got laundry to do and should maybe do my reading assignment.” She made up an excuse, trying to make an attempt to get out something she didn’t want to go through—it seemed this conservation was taking a downward spiral.
Elizabeth hated to lie the sweet old man but sometimes her grandfather went off talking about subjects that were too sensitive to her liking.

“Well alright.” He sighed, “Love you honey.”

”Love you. Bye.” Elizabeth said quickly and flipped her cell phone closed. Then after that she turned off her cell, not wanting to be bothered by anyone else for the rest of the night.

She glanced down at her journal on her bed and decided that she was no longer in the creative mood to write. For some reason her hands would rather hit something than use a pen at the moment.

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The college gym was only a five minute walk from Elizabeth’s dorm. And when she entered she was surprised to see that the place was nearly empty. A few boys were near the weights and pretty much spotting one another as they bench pressed. In a separate room there were stationary bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills that were facing a bunch on television sets that hung from the ceiling.

Elizabeth headed into the room with all the cardo equipment and got up onto a treadmill. She placed her water bottle in the drink slot provided and started to unravel her earphones when she heard to her surprise the sound of the Mr. Cocky-British-Frat-Boy.

“Hello again.” Spike said from behind her.

Elizabeth frozen in place on the treadmill she was standing on. ‘Oh god no…’ was her first thought when she heard his voice. ‘Maybe it’s just my imagination…maybe he’s an illusion or something…’ she hoped to herself, ‘And if I close my eyes he’ll go away.’

“You know it’s polite to acknowledge someone when they politely greet you a hello, pet.” Spike said as he walked around the treadmill so he was standing right in front of it.

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say; her heart was pounding like a hammer in her chest. ‘Funny, I go to the gym and the first thing that gets my heart pumping is bleached blonde idiot.’ She thought to herself as she stared at him.

After Spike noticed that Elizabeth was clearly not going to speak to him he decided to go on and talk. He leaned both of his hand on either side of the control panel of her treadmill and smirked a little smile, “It’s funny how I ran into you…” he said, “I wasn’t even on planning on coming to the gym tonight.”

“So your unplanned decision to come to the gym is going to cause me to beat you over the head with my water bottle?” Elizabeth asked as she tilted her head to the side. ‘I’ll do it…I’m not kidding…all I want to do workout and if he’s going to be the obstacle then I may just have to result to violence.’ She told herself.

Spike smirked and asked, “Do I bug you that much?”

“Go away please.” She muttered and looked down at her ipod. She started to shuttle through her list of songs with hope that when she finally selected one that she would look up and he would be gone.

“Free gym…” Spike said in his defense. “Well…actually not really free…you have either be a student or a faculty member to join…” he started to babble.

“Look…” Elizabeth scrunched up her face in frustration when realized that his name slipped from her mind at the moment. “Whoever you are!”

“Spike.” He reminded her.

“Whatever…look, if you really have some little decent bone still left in your body I’d really appreciate it if you put it to use and do me the favor of leaving me alone.” Elizabeth said.

Spike’s smirk left his face and replaced it with little embarrassed and considerate face. He took his hands off her machine and started out of the room. Elizabeth watched him go way across the other side of the gym and nearly out of her site. ‘Huh…’ she thought to herself. “I didn’t really think he’d listen.” She muttered to herself. And with a shrugged and sigh Elizabeth set up the machine to speed and incline of her taste and started to run.

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‘God I really needed that…’ Elizabeth thought to herself after an hour later working her muscles down to the point of near exhaustion. She wiped the remainder of the sweat that was coming from her forehead with her towel and emptied the rest of water bottle before tossing it in the trash.

She was about to exit the fitness part of the gym and go into the locker room and gather her things when she looked over to the weight room and saw Spike bench pressing in the room alone. His body was facing the opposite direction so he couldn’t really notice that Elizabeth was watching him….watching his arms lift the weight up and down…up and down…

‘He has nice arms.’ She thought to herself as her moment of looking into him turned into pure memorization of his body.

‘What the hell am I doing?!’ Elizabeth thought to herself as she shook her head and looked away from him for the first time. ‘You can’t be ogling the enemy!’ she told herself, ‘Because he’s…well, the enemy!’

Elizabeth took another glance at Spike and watched him do his last pushing up of the weights before he set it down and got up off the bench. ‘Uh-oh…go, go before he sees you.’ She told herself and made her feet move.

“Hey pretty thing.” A husky voice of different guy said to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth wiped her head around to find two of the guys that were weight lifting and joking around earlier when she entered the gym standing behind her. It was kind of creepy how their eyes were lingering all over her body.

“Do you need a hand walking to the locker room showers?” the guy asked as his friend just smiled and laughed.

“No…” Elizabeth said and gave them both a disgusting looks and turned to continue to walk out.

“Hey…” the guy ran up and stood in front of her, “If you got some energy left in you, you’d maybe want to come back to my room?” he laughed.

Elizabeth glanced behind her and saw that the insensitive jerk’s friend was right behind her; she was sort of sandwich between them both.

“Look guys…I’m tired…I’m not in the mood for games.” She said as she took a step around the guy that was two times her size.

“Who said I was into games...?” he asked and stepped a little closer to her face.

Elizabeth’s heart started to race in fear. Any remarks that Spike would ever make she knew on some level were harmless and that he would never do anything like physically attack her…but with these guys…

“I was watching you on the treadmill a little while ago…your legs seem nice and tone…bet you can sure gallop a ride in bed.” The guy whispered into her ear.

Before the guy could even lean back to see Elizabeth’s face for her reaction and laugh like a stupid idiot he felt her two hands on his chest. All the strength that she could find deep down in her body was put into that shove and Elizabeth just hoped it was enough to push him down to the ground.

However, it wasn’t exactly Elizabeth lucky day today since she only watched the jerk step a few feet back. The two guys laughed at her display of courage and the guy behind her patted her head like a dog.

“She’s cute…” he laughed and watched as Elizabeth smacked his sweaty hands away from her.

“Hey!!!” a call from across the room sent both the idiots and Elizabeth looking over to find Spike standing outside the door of the weight room.

Spike’s face was set on tense; his cheekbones were sharp as a blade and his eyes sparkled like a lit fire. He didn’t seem very keen at the display of rough playfulness that he saw moments ago performed by the two muscle men.

“Lady seems to look like she wants to be left alone.” Spike said as he slowly walked toward the group.

Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief as Spike came to her rescue.

“We were only kidding…” the guy who had first initiated the taunting from the beginning said.

“Didn’t look like kidding to me…” Spike said as he stepped in the fellow’s face, “Apologize to her.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in surprise at what Spike said before looking back and forth between the two jerks.

The one guy rolled his eyes and gave Spike a disbelieved look. However, that just put more fire in the belly for the bleached blonde’s because the jerk was soon found in a tight headlock.

Elizabeth gasped and took a few steps back with her hand over her mouth. The friend of the jerk also took a few steps back and didn’t even bother to defend his buddy, he just watched with a nervous face.

“Say you’re sorry.” Spike growled as he turned the guys head to Buffy so he could hear him say the words to her face.

“Sorry! Sorry!” the guy yelled in pain.

Seconds later Spike let go of the guy and pushed him back toward his friend. Both of the guys ran out of the fitness center like two scared rabbits but also giving Spike dirty looks from afar. Both Elizabeth and Spike watched them until they ran around the corner and were out of sight.

“Thanks.” Elizabeth spoke up immediately and turned to face Spike.

“So that’s all I have to do for you to be nice to me?” Spike asked and shook his head as he started to walk away from her.

“Hey you’re the one who started all this!” she yelled at him, causing Spike to stop in his place and turn back around to her.

“What? I didn’t start anything….” Spike defended himself.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and crossed her hands over her chest, “I have a good memory…and I know what you said.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Spike stepped closer to her and gave Elizabeth a confused look.

‘How could he forget so easily…?’ Elizabeth thought to herself, ‘Does he honestly think he can categorize me as a non-pretty girl and hit myself in the head and forget?’

“Please tell me what I did because I really have no clue why you hate me.” Spike pleaded.

“Guess your memories of meeting a non-pretty girl like me would make you easily forget the moment huh?” Elizabeth whispered.

“What are--?” Spike shook his head in denial.

“I got to go…” Elizabeth interrupted and step around Spike and started to leave the gym.

“No! Hey wait a minute…” Spike jumped in front of her path to keep her from leaving. “Look, I have no idea what you are talking about pet…really…I mean…did I insult you?”

“Insult me? No, Spike…you didn’t…” she shook her head and stared at him for a few moments, “I mean at the moment I felt like something have stuck under your shoe, sure, but in the long run…I just made me realize that you’re a sad sad man…and in the end I just pity you.”

Elizabeth stared back at Spike, watching him eat her words and digest them. She thought she would get the satisfaction of seeing him speechless but for some reason it didn’t feel as good as she thought it would.

“And what about just now?” Spike asked, “I saved you from those two assholes…”

“I didn’t ask for your help…” Elizabeth muttered and turned around to start walking away. And this time Spike let her go without a fight.

TBC…I know Elizabeth is being all proud…but she’s just protecting herself. You’ll see why.





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