A Deal With The College Playboy

ELLIE

"I'm so sorry, Miss Carter. But I'm afraid your cancer is back. And from the looks of it, I would say you only have about six months left."

That's what all Dr Brandon said, like he was telling me the wifi was down or the vending machine was out of my favorite chips. He acted like this wasn't the end of my life as I knew it, and I just sat there in silence, blinking at him and wondering why the hell the walls weren't shaking, or an asteroid wasn't falling out of the sky to wipe us all off the face of the earth. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I was going to die.

I think I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because I didn't know what else to do. Dr Brandon looked at me like he'd seen this kind of reaction before, like people in shock were just part of the job. I wanted to scream until my throat felt raw and shattered beyond repair. I wanted to ask him to take it all back, since the months of chemo had apparently done fuck all to actually help me. I wanted to punch something until my knuckles bruised and I couldn't even lift my hand properly.

Instead, I just shifted in my seat and said, "Okay."

Let me back up a bit. My name is Ellie Carter, and I'm a twenty one year old premed with a minor in anxiety and coffee addiction. I live with my Aunt Carol in Maplewood, since both my parents died in a car crash seventeen years ago while coming back from a high school reunion (I still despise them to this day for dying over something so stupid. Until about ten minutes ago, I thought the worst thing that could possibly happen to me this semester was flunking out of Organic Chem. But now, Professor Lambert can kiss my ass for all I care.

I'm not one of those girls with a huge following on Instagram or a highlight reel of them at a party with their underwear so fucking tight that you can basically see everything trying to spill out. I've never even dyed my hair, unless you count that one time in eighth grade when I tried to turn my hair blonde because Stacy Withmore (the most popular girl in eighth grade) had blonde hair, and I ended up looking like a pumpkin because I left the dye in too long. I've played it safe my whole life, because I believed that if I was careful enough and responsible enough, then nothing bad would happen to me.

Well, guess what?

Cancer doesn't give a fuck about how careful you are. It's like the ultimate mean girl in school, who will kick you even when you're down and spit in your face as you try to hide from her wrath. And unfortunately for me, I wasn't good enough at hiding.

I was diagnosed about a year ago, and my life has never been the same after that. I started chemo a few months after that, and Aunt Carol and I really thought that this would work out. We'd caught the cancer early, after all. So I should be fine, right?

Someone forgot to tell that to the fucking cancer cells that were floating around in my bloodstream.

"Miss Carter, I will be referring you to a specialist who will prepare you for situations like this," Dr Lambert said. "We can keep you on the chemo to give you more time, but that's the best we can do."

I glanced over at the clock, and saw that it was nearly midday. I was supposed to be in my Bioethics class in about an hour. And even though every fibre in my body wanted to curl up in bed and pretend none of this was real, I couldn't afford to miss more classes. I didn't miss the irony of still caring about my attendance record, even though it wouldn't matter in the next few months.

Nothing is going to matter once I'm gone.

I left the hospital with a numb face and a long prescription for drugs that wouldn't save me, and they would probably just make dying a little less painful. The nurse had handed me the drugs with a solemn smile, and I tried to smile back at her but all I could manage was a tight grimace. When you're so close to dying, you don't really worry about being seen as polite anymore.

The walk back to campus took longer than usual. I hated how the sky looked so blue and beautiful, I hated the sound of birds chirping, and when someone laughed behind me, I wanted to turn around and punch him in the fucking throat. How could everyone just keep living their lives so peacefully as if my whole world hadn't been shattered today? How could they go on when I was on the brink of losing my mind?

I got to class five minutes too late. Professor Daniels glared at me as I walked in, and I gave him a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. I took my seat at the back, then I opened my laptop and tried to pretend I was still one of them. I tried to pay attention to the slides, but I couldn't focus. All I could think about was how ridiculous it was that I was still here, pretending everything was normal. I was still taking notes I wouldn't need in six months, and highlighting lines in a textbook that wouldn't matter once I'm six feet under.

And there was still so much I wished I could do.

All my life, I'd always wanted to travel. I've always dreamed of backpacking through Europe, visiting small towns and ancient cities. I dreamt of sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower with Aunt Carol, or eating cheesecakes on the gondola in Italy. But all of that seemed like a distant dream now. Maybe in another lifetime, I would get the opportunity to do that. But I highly doubted I would be allowed to travel in my current condition. Who would let me across their body with an IV bag strapped to my back?

Maybe Switzerland, but I did not want to find out.

As I sat there staring at my laptop, I started writing out all the things I still wanted to do, but I probably wouldn't get to do them now. Most of them were stupid (actually all of them were stupid), but I still wanted to do them. When I finished, I stared at them and read the list with a small smile on my face:

Ellie's Bucket List:

1. Visit Disneyland and go on every single ride.

2. Go to New York, jump in front of a taxi and say "Hey! I'm walkin' over here!"

3. Spend a weekend skiing in the Alps.

4. Get drunk on a rooftop in Paris and slow dance under the stars.

5. Eat a cheesecake on the gondola in Italy.

6. Learn to salsa.

7. Crash a wedding and pretend to be someone's date.

8. Go skinny dipping (preferably not alone, or in freezing water).

9. Meet an actual celebrity, not a TikTok influencer.

10. Tell Aunt Carol I'm sorry for every time I rolled my eyes at her.

11. Write a letter to my future self, and one to the people I'll leave behind.

12. Forgive my parents for abandoning me.

13. Lose my virginity.

I stared at the last one in silence, barely even seeing what I'd written properly. And I know what you're thinking. I'm twenty one, and still holding onto it like it's something sacred. But the truth is, I was just scared. I was scared of it not meaning anything, or meaning too much. I was scared of being vulnerable in front of someone who could laugh at me if I told him what I wanted. So I just waited and waited. And now, I'm out of time.

I closed my laptop and looked up slowly. The class was still going on, but I needed some air. I couldn't stand being there for one more second, watching Salma Gonzalez flip her perfectly straight hair over her shoulder and making all the boys swoon like lovesick puppies. I shoved everything into my bag and walked out, ignoring the looks I got and the way Professor Daniels was looking at me. What were they going to do? Expel me? Joke's on them, I'm already on my way out.

Unsurprisingly, campus was crowded. I wasn't paying attention though. My mind was all over the place, and I was halfway across the quad when suddenly...

WHAM!

My shoulder smacked into someone's chest so hard that my bag dropped, and my laptop nearly cracked open on the sidewalk. I stumbled back as I fell flat on my butt, and I was just getting ready to apologize when I looked up and saw him.

Beck fucking Ryder.

(Fucking isn't actually his middle name, but it might as well be).

Of course it was him. The annoyingly tall, tanned and tattooed Greek God of a man who looked like exactly what you imagine a frat boy to look like. He was wearing a black wifebeater that clung to his arms like it had a personal vendetta against my self-control. His jaw was sharp enough to slice through steel. His eyes? Dark, unreadable, and laced with something halfway between amusement and irritation.

"Watch where you're going, Buzzkill," he said without missing a beat.

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

He scoffed, stepped around me, and kept walking like I wasn't even worth a second glance.

Rude. Entitled. Arrogant. A walking cliché with a face that could start wars and an ego to match. I should've hated him. I did hate him.

But as I watched him walk away-broad shoulders, cocky stride, the faintest hint of a smirk playing on his stupid perfect mouth-a new thought lodged itself in my brain.

Him. It has to be him.

If I was going to do this... if I was going to live recklessly, take what I wanted, make a memory so big it burned even as I disappeared... it had to be with someone like him.

Someone who wouldn't ask questions.

Someone who didn't know how to care.

Someone who wouldn't remember me after it was over.

Or at least, that's what I thought.

ELLIE

Now, before you say anything, hear me out.

I knew how crazy it sounds to even consider something like this. I mean who in their right mind would want to lose their virginity to the biggest asshole on campus? No matter how you look at it, it was bound to be a terrible situation.

But here's the thing:

BECK IS SO FUCKING HOT!

I knew I hate him with every piece of hair that still remained on my head, but I can't turn a blind eye to the stories I'd heard. I couldn't deny the fact that everyone knew he was amazing on bed. I'd heard it enough times that I could pretty much paint a perfect picture of what he was capable of in the bedroom. Everyone knew the 'Beck glow', which every girl seemed to have after sleeping with him. Maybe that was the reason Salma was considered the hottest girl on campus, because she was always in an on-again-off-again relationship with him. Even though they weren't exclusive, she'd made it very obvious that Beck was hers, and no one could have him for longer than she deemed fit.

I'd always turned blind and deaf whenever someone started talking about Beck's escapades around me. One girl (I think her name was Stacy Dumont) said after she hooked up with Beck, she couldn't walk properly for three whole days. Apparently he had this magical dick that could probably cure my cancer if I got lucky.

So maybe I was curious. Maybe I wanted to know what it would feel like to have his lips all over me, his fingers in my hair and his weight pressing down on me. Maybe I wanted to know what it would feel like to be turned inside out by the star quarterback of Westbridge. And maybe I wanted to know what it would feel like waking up beside him.

No! Absolutely not!

I couldn't get ahead of myself. This wasn't about wanting to know what it would feel like to be with someone like him. I just wanted to have sex, and I wanted it to be with someone who actually knew what he was doing, and not someone who would fumble with my bra and ask me for my permission before he flipped me over. I wanted one wild, steamy and freaky night, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Beck Ryder could give me that.

Besides, I wouldn't be here to face the consequences of my actions. By the time anyone found out I'd slept with him, I would be long gone. No one would be there to call me a slut. No one would lump me up with the rest of his 'conquests', and they wouldn't even think about it at all.

To be fair though, I don't look at all like the kind of girl Beck would go for. He's more likely to go for the hot blonde with a cleavage that's just magnetic to everyone around, and the kind of 'fuck-me eyes' you'll only find on an OF model. Those are the kind of girls he is usually seen with, and I've always been among the people who talk shit about these girls and call them hoes/gold-diggers.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Beck is loaded?

Beck is an actual billionaire, which I still cannot wrap my head around because how on earth does someone that stupid and irresponsible have so much money? The rumors were that his dad (who had been a major business tycoon before he tragically passed away in a car accident a few years ago) had left him the entirety of his company, making him the richest guy in his twenties. And if his Ferrari was anything to go by, he absolutely loves being rich.

Overall, Beck Ryder is your standard grade asshole, with an ego the size of Texas and a body count that would give a nun a heart attack. He's everything I despise in a guy, he's rude, conceited, overly-social, uninteresting and just so fucking annoying that it's a wonder I haven't put a bullet in my head since I knew him.

But I couldn't deny the fact that he's a sex god, and I couldn't think of any other man I would rather have take my virginity than him.

It wasn't going to be easy though. It would mean having to find a way to convince him to sleep with a dying girl. It would mean having to surrender the one thing I'd treasured for so long, and hand it over to the biggest asshole I'd ever met in my entire life. And it would mean having to accept the fact that I was only going to be another score for him. I would only be another conquest, and another chapter in his book of sexual escapades.

But I could live with that.

Or rather, I could die with that. Because if you really think about it, who is really conquering who?

And so, the decision was made. I was going to find a way to convince Beck Ryder to sleep with me. That shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Right?

For something so simple, it seemed like a monumental effort. Alta through the ride back home, I was completely stumped as I kept thinking about what I had to do. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't figure out the right way to do this. Should I just walk up to him and tell him I needed him to sleep with me? Should I create a PowerPoint presentation and explain to him why the weird girl on campus who always seemed to despise him was actually interested in having sex? Wouldn't he just laugh at me and tell me to fuck off?

But I wasn't going to back down from this. I needed to feel something before I died. Anything. I needed to know what it meant to be alive, to experience what other people easily took for granted. It would be such a tragic thing if I dropped dead, and all anyone would say about me was that I was a good girl. Why should girls like Salma experience everything they wanted, while I had to make sod with scraps? It wasn't fair, and I just needed to have this one thing that I could hold for the rest of my life (what little of it remained anyway).

The cab soon pulled over by the curb, and I looked up to find Aunt Carol's window open upstairs. That was odd, since she usually came back from the convenience store around eight. Surely even the manager couldn't just up and leave whenever they wanted.

I paused and stared down the street, where a moving truck was parked and Mrs Hendrick's house was being emptied out. Ever since she passed away, her daughter had been meaning to clean out the house and put it on the market. Mangrove Street was a typical suburban street, but the houses here were highly sought after because it was close to everything. Whatever you needed was exactly five minutes away, and that was something Aunt Carol and every other house owner was highly proud of.

I made my way towards the front door, and the first thing that seemed odd to me when I walked in was the music blasting from upstairs. Aunt Carol always preferred soft classical music, so why on earth was she blasting Michael Jackson's Beat It from her room?

I dropped my bag and headed upstairs, imagining that someone had broken into the house and decided to leave the speakers on in her bedroom. Just to be safe, I checked to make sure my room was still locked before I made my way over to her bedroom at the end of the hall, where the door was slightly ajar and I could hear voices coming from inside. I inched closer, trying to hear what they were saying. But when I finally figured out what they were saying, I wanted to bang my head against a wall:

"Fuck yeah! Who's your daddy?" a man's voice grunted.

"You are," Aunt Carol's breathless voice replied, and I swear I could hear the sound of her headboard banging against the wall as whoever it was ploughed into her. "Keep fucking me just like that."

"Fuck, you're so tight," he said. "Turn around, baby girl. I want to fuck you from behind."

I fled down the hallway, covering my ear and shaking my head. Now I realized why she had the music on. It was to drown out all the noise they were making, so the neighbors wouldn't have a stroke if they heard them.

I headed down to the kitchen to make a sandwich, and I focused intensely on my work, while reminding myself to get some new AirPods so I wouldn't have to hear the faint grunts and screams that were coming from upstairs despite the music. Thankfully, just as I was finishing up with my sandwich, the music turned down, and I guessed they'd finished.

Or most likely he'd finished, and he was currently lying beside her and feeling like the most powerful man alive. I could already feel myself blushing at the thought, and I'd just grabbed my sandwich and some orange juice when I looked up to find Aunt Carol and Jason Faber (our next door neighbor) standing in the doorway, both of them looking mortified.

"Ellie!" Aunt Carol gasped, drawing her robe tighter around her. "What are you doing back so early?"

"I'm done with my classes," I said, forcing myself not to point out the fact that she was also back when she wasn't supposed to.

"Um, hi Ellie," Jason said, looking sheepish and staring down at his feet.

"Hi Jason," I said awkwardly, my gaze briefly shifting to his bare chest, with his toned muscles and a little bit of chest hair. He was no Beck Ryder, but you could see the appeal (if it were with anyone else but your aunt).

"Um, Jason was... he was just..." Aunt Carol stuttered, but I shook my head and turned away from them.

"I don't need to know the details please," I said, grabbing my phone. "You can do whatever you want, Aunt Carol."

Her ears turned red as I walked past them, and I'd never felt so mortified in my life as I ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. I just needed to get away from them, and have some sense of normalcy again.

I locked myself in my room with my sandwich, and as I sat by my desk, I wondered if this wasn't the universe sending me a sign. I imagined a man in a white suit holding up a sign from the universe, with a single sentence written boldly on the white sign:

EVERYONE ELSE IS HAVING SEX EXCEPT YOU!!!

If even Aunt Carol was getting down and dirty, then why should I feel guilty about wanting to sleep with Beck Ryder?

I opened up my laptop, and I created a new word document. For the next few weeks, this would be my guideline on how to get in bed with Beck. It wasn't going to be easy, but I was determined to see it through before I kicked the bucket. And so, "How To Get A Guy To Sleep With You In One Month" was created. And tomorrow, I would start with step one:

1. Get to know everything you can about him.

***

ELLIE

The thing is, getting information on Beck Ryder shouldn't be the hardest thing on earth. He's the most popular guy on campus, and he's the star quarterback of a very famous college. Everything should be right at your disposal.

But by the time I settle down at my laptop the next morning and started to dig through his socials, it took only five minutes to realize that I've never met a more private person in my life.

Every single social media account of his was private, which didn't make any sense of me because I assumed that he was a social butterfly who would want everyone watching him. I check his IG, his Twitter, Facebook, and every other social media platform I could think of. I even checked Pinterest, but there was nothing I could work with.

What in God's name was he hiding?

I sank into my seat, realizing that this was going to be more difficult than I initially thought. It shouldn't be this hard though. He's the most popular guy on campus. And yet there's no trace of him anywhere. What could be the reason behind this? Why would Beck want to keep his identity hidden?

Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way. If I couldn't get any information from him directly, then I could look for other sources. I leaned forward once again, and I searched up Salma Gonzalez on IG. I recognized her profile picture immediately, with the luscious hair that could make anyone jealous. As expected, she had over 20,000 followers, which didn't surprise me at all. I wasn't really interested in her followers today. I was more interested on her dating life.

I didn't even have to scroll too far before I got what I needed. Three weeks ago, she posted a picture of her and Beck at a baseball game, with her arm around his shoulder as she kissed him on the cheek, while he stared intently at the game and barely paid her any attention. He looked handsome, if you could ignore the massive douchebag sign on his forehead (surely I couldn't be the only one seeing it, right?). I now knew that he was a Mets fan, and he was very passionate about the team. But that wasn't nearly enough. I couldn't get him to sleep with me by wearing a hat with his favourite team on it.

I kept on scrolling, and there were lots of pictures of the two of them together. In most of them, Salma was basically throwing herself at him. But in others, he seemed genuinely happy. He smiled like I'd never seen him smile before, and he looked exactly how you would imagine a male model would. By the time I reached the bottom of Salma's page (which went all the way back to 2015), I had a decent understanding of Beck Ryder.

First of all, he loved his motorcycle. Salma had a ton of pictures in her highlights where she was sitting on it in a very exaggerated sexual manner, usually with very short skirts that were right on the cusp of showing you her underwear. Beck didn't seem to mind, and it was obvious that he loved that bike more than himself.

Secondly, he loved burgers. I counted six pictures where he was stuffing his face with a double cheeseburger and some fries, and I wasn't surprised since he was such a buff guy.

And lastly (perhaps most importantly), he was really into anime. That would be my ticket in, since I had a little bit of knowledge in that area. There was an anime convention coming up in a few weeks, and there was a high probability that Beck would be attending. Salma had posted two pictures where they were together at the convention for the past two years, and I didn't think the fact that they were currently broken up would stop him from attending.

That would be when I made my move. I had to plan it out perfectly, and get close enough to him that I would have a foot in the door, but not so close that I would creep him out. I just needed him to hear me out. I wasn't going to take advantage of him. I fully intended on letting him know what I wanted, and asking him if he was up for it. Knowing the kind of person he is, there was no universe where Beck Ryder would turn down an opportunity to get his dick wet.

I marked the date of the convention in my calendar, then I headed downstairs for breakfast. Aunt Carol was in the kitchen when I walked in, wearing the same robe from yesterday but with her hair pulled up into a messy bun this time. She turned and smiled at me as I walked in, then she remembered what happened yesterday and she bowed her head in shame.

"Morning sweetie," she said, handing me the plate of pancakes while avoiding eye contact. "Do you have any classes today?"

"Not really," I replied. "Professor Lambert had to cancel due to an emergency, so I'm basically free for the day."

"Oh," she said. "That's... nice."

I set the plate down on the kitchen island, then I took my seat and said, "So are we going to talk about what happened yesterday, or are we going to pretend it didn't happen?"

Her eyes turned bright red, and she turned around slowly and stared at me with pleading eyes.

"Please don't think I'm a slut," she said. "I promise it's not what you think."

"Aunt Carol, it's fine," I said. "You don't need my permission to do... that with anyone."

"I just don't want to spring something like this on you," she said. "Jason is a really nice guy. We're not just fooling around."

I bit back a laugh at the irony of it. Here was my aunt worrying about fooling around with a guy, while that was exactly what I was trying to do. If she knew what was on my laptop right now, she would probably send me straight to the psych ward.

It should be easier to give me my meds if I was living in the hospital, right?

"Do you love him?" I asked, looking up at her.

"I don't think we're there yet," she replied. "He's a nice guy, and I enjoy our time together. But we haven't really spoken about the future that much. We're just... with the flow. It's been so long since I dated anyone, and I don't know if I'm ready for a committed relationship just yet."

"Right," I said, shoving a bite of pancakes into my mouth. "Well, as long as you're happy, I'm happy."

"Thank God!" she exhaled, walking over and hugging me. I melted into her touch, savoring these moments of affection as much as I could. I didn't want to tell her about the doctor right now. It would just make her cry, and she would make me cry as well. I didn't want her to treat me any differently. I wanted this, to just have her hug me and pretend we were a normal family. Any mention of cancer would just destroy these precious moments we had, and I wanted them to be my last memories of her before I go. I don't want my last memories of her to be in sympathy, while she looked at me like I was a fragile piece of art that could break at any second. I wanted her to love me the same way she always did, and the same way I loved her.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked, pulling away from me and holding my shoulders. "You're crying."

"I'm fine," I said, sniffling and wiping the tears with the back of my hand. "It's just allergies."

"I'll pick you up some meds on my way back from the store," she said. "Just stay in bed with the humidifier on."

"Thanks," I said, just as the doorbell rang.

"That must be the paper," she said. "Could you please fetch it for me? I can't leave you unattended in the kitchen while the fire is on."

I rolled my eyes as I slid off my seat, and I headed for the door. Sure enough, it was the paper. I bent down to pick it up, and when I looked up, my heart nearly flew out of my chest when I looked over at Mrs Hendrick's house. The moving truck was gone, and there was a "For Sale" sign on the lawn.

That wasn't the part that made me want to disappear though. It was the fact that there was a woman dressed in a smart suit standing in front of the house and looking exactly like what you'd imagine a realtor to look like.

And beside her was none other than Beck Ryder.

***