Текст книги "The Singles"
Автор книги: Emily Snow
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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 45 страниц)
Chapter Four
I should’ve known the silence was too good to be true. Positive that I’ll have to come up with a fib so Corinne won’t go digging around, I glance over only to find her darting her gaze everywhere but on me. It’s obvious that she’s trying to find Hollister in the crowd. She’ll probably forget the name of the school as soon as I say it, but that’s still not enough for me to tell her.
I’m an idiot for opening this conversation in the first place.
So, I do what I do best. I change the subject. It takes me five seconds to spot Daniel. “Look.” I point across the room to where he’s standing in front of a closed door with an oversized Keep Calm and Play Baseball poster hanging lopsided on it. He’s busy talking to two girls—the same who were smoking on the front porch when Corinne and I arrived.
They seem to be hanging on to his every word.
What the hell was the appeal with this guy?
“We should go over and say hi,” Corinne says, unable to keep the eagerness out of her voice.
I decline quickly. “You go ahead. I need to use the bathroom, but I’ll catch up in a few.”
Before she can offer to tag along, I take off in the other direction. When I reach the nearby hallway and glance back, I’m relieved to see that she’s made her way over to Daniel and is beaming up at him as he teases one of her springy curls.
Although every door is closed, the bathroom is easy to find—there’s a sloppily written sign that reads Don’t Piss in the Garbage Can taped to the center. Glancing down at the penmanship on the back of my hand, I’m 99.9 percent sure the guy guarding the front door made this sign, too.
When the door opens, a face I’ve seen before stumbles into the hallway. It’s the blond girl who came out of Professor Cameron’s office earlier this afternoon. She gives me a friendly smile and a nod before rushing away, leaving behind the scent of vanilla-scented body spray. Before I have a chance to go inside, a guy with shaggy brown hair and a giant grin comes out behind her. He doesn’t spare me a second glance before he takes off in the direction the girl went.
I’ve seen this so many times before that I don’t blink an eye. As soon as I’m finished, I adjust my hat in the fingerprint-smudged mirror. Behind me, there’s a frayed The Hangover poster and a wastebasket overfilled with crushed beer cans, paper towels, and God knows what else.
“Just like every other damn party,” I say.
Grabbing my untouched can of warm beer from the back of the sink, I follow the sound of music, which is louder than when I arrived, back to the party. Krewella booms from the sound system plugged in by the couch, and the musician in me feels every beat vibrating off the beer-soaked floor as I make my way over to Corinne and Daniel.
While I try not to run into anyone or anything, something hits me: This is the first time in the history of Evie vs. Parties that I’m not the cliché drunk—the one stumbling around, breathing beer breath in everyone’s face. Of course, the night is so young that nobody is at this point, but it’s bound to happen.
It always happens.
It just won’t be me.
The blond girl I’d seen in the music building and then in the hallway here a few minutes ago walks past me, but instead of continuing on, she freezes and faces me.
“You look totally bored.” She holds her cup to her lips, smiling over the rim as she inches closer to me. “I’m Mac, by the way.”
“Evie.”
Nodding, she mouths my name, committing it to memory as she races her hand through her chin-length hair. “Look, Evie ... what you saw back there—”
I shake my head quickly. “You don’t even have to explain.”
“—was my boyfriend, Eli,” she continues. “I was trying to talk him into coming back to my apartment with me tonight, but he thinks he’s got to be here with his team.” Rolling her eyes, she tilts her cup back. As soon as she’s finished chugging her drink at record speed, she crumbles the plastic in her hand.
“You can close your mouth now; it’s just water. Professor Cameron seems to know exactly when I drink because she swears she can hear it in my voice. Says it makes me sound like a drunken lounge singer.”
“Wow.”
With a giant grin, she shrugs. “She doesn’t hold anything back.”
“So I take it you’re a voice major, too?”
“It’s my minor, actually. I switched majors at the beginning of my sophomore year.” Mac gives me a shrug before adding, “Minor or major?”
“Major. First year.”
She grins. “Welcome to the jungle. Get ready for life with the mega bitch.” The last two words are sung in a soft high soprano. “Don’t get me wrong—Cameron’s good, insanely good, but she’s also tough. She was my advisor freshman year but now she just does my voice lessons. Still ... she just keeps offering me advice. No matter how much I tell her I’m A-okay without it.”
“Thanks for making me feel better.”
“You’ll be alright,” Mac promises. “Plus, her grad student this year is hot. His body is in-cre-di-ble.”
Rhys Delane. Even at a party that has nothing to do with music, he still manages to affect me. God, I can’t imagine the carnage that’ll be my mind and heart if I go through an entire semester working side by side with him.
I force a smile. “Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Who’s hot, babe?” Her bathroom partner from earlier comes up behind her, wrapping his arms Mac’s tiny waist and resting his chin on the top of her head.
“Eli, this is Evie.” After her boyfriend and I exchange pleasantries, she twists her head back to stare at him. “And we’re talking about that guy I introduced you to at the Red Denial show.” When he doesn’t immediately grasp whom she’s referring to, she lets out a little huff, blowing up a few unruly wisps of golden hair. “Your memory blows. Glee on the juice?”
Recognition dawning on his expression, Eli grins. “Ah, yeah. That guy.” Before I can ask if Glee on the juice is a reference to Rhys’ physique—which, even knowing who he is, I can’t help but echo Mac’s sentiments that it’s killer—Eli says, “Listen, I’m thinking about cutting out of here in a few minutes ...”
“Uh huh,” she says dryly, and he lifts his shoulders sheepishly before offering her a promising look and backing away. He grants me a smile as he immerses himself in the crowd of gyrating bodies.
“It never fails, he always waits until I find someone I really want to talk to and then decides he’s tired.” She starts digging around in the big purse slung over her shoulder. “Ah ... there they go.” When she pulls her hand out, she’s holding an enormous set of keys and her phone, which is enshrouded by a bright pink case. She hands the phone to me.
“Add your number. We can do lunch or something and talk about how batshit insane Cameron is after she makes you sing “Sento Nel Core” eighty million times because she doesn’t think you quite grasp what pianissimo stands for.”
Arching my eyebrow, I work my fingers over the smooth screen, typing my number quickly. “You have officially made me not want to go to class on Monday. Thanks a million.”
“Tell her you saw her on Broadway sixteen years ago and that she was brilliant. Cameron’s a compliment whore—she eats that shit up.” As I make a mental note to research musicals my professor performed in while I was still in Pull-ups, Mac takes her phone back. She makes a few strokes across the screen, and a second later my own phone vibrates within my pocket. “There, you’ve got my number.” Boosting herself up on her tiptoes, she glances across the room to the front door where her boyfriend is talking to the stamper and rolls her brown eyes before taking off toward him. “Text me!”
Nobody else stops me as I return to my roommate, and the moment Corinne sees me, she throws her arm around me, causing me to go completely still. “God, you disappear too much,” she laughs when she lets go of me.
Automatically, my shoulders relax. “I met a girl who knows my advisor.”
“A good thing?” Daniel questions, and I shrug.
“We’ll see on Monday.”
Corinne shoots a look between us, and then finally heaves an exaggerated sigh. “Come on, let’s play beer pong.”
For someone whom I’m pretty sure never had a drink before tonight, she doesn’t show any hesitation as she drags me off to one of the adjoining rooms where several people are taking turns playing on a makeshift table—an old door lying across what looks like two dressers. I’ve never been very good at beer pong because my aim sucks. Last year all I wanted to do was get right to the drinking, but I make an effort when Corinne and I play against Daniel and his roommate Elliot. By the time our second rotation to play rolls around, and Corinne starts to slur, I decide to call it a night.
“I’ve got to get up at seven to call my dad,” I lie, prying away her beer and tossing it in the nearest trashcan. “Walk back with me?”
“You go ahead, I’ll walk back with Daniel, and—”
“I’m leaving, too.” He yawns, and I glance over my shoulder and shoot him an appreciative smile. He winks at me before telling her, “I’ll walk you both back.”
The ten blocks back to our dorm is traveled in awkward silence, besides Corinne who returns a call she missed while we were at the party. She immediately darts in our room the moment we reach our hall, but Daniel stops me at our door, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“What?” As I turn around, I maneuver away from his touch. “Do you—”
“You’re not really tired, are you?” He gives me a smile that’s meant to impress. “Because I’ve got a movie that—”
Oh, hell no.
“Can Corinne come?” I interrupt. He blinks a few times, and then I add, “Because, you know, you just spent most of the night talking to her. Plus, the only time you and I’ve really said anything was when your ass was parked on my bed.”
Smiling sheepishly, he runs his palm over his face and shrugs. “Guess she’s just not my type.”
And you’re definitely not mine, I add silently. Giving him a little wave, I open my door. “Goodnight, Daniel.” Before he can protest, I’m already in our room with the door securely closed and locked behind me.
I stop short when I see Corinne lying on her bed with her forearm resting over her eyes. “Are you alright?” I ask, and she comes to a slight sitting position and nods.
“Tired.”
And drunk. Very, very drunk. Grabbing two bottles of water from the mini-fridge, I start to toss one to her, but then I think better of it. The last thing I need to complete this epic suck of a day is to knock her in the head with a full bottle of water. I cross the room and place it beside her.
When she gives me a quizzical look, I open my own and take a drink. “Trust me, you’ll thank me in the morning.”
She scoots all the way up and rests her back against the plain wood headboard as she takes slow sips. “So ...”
I lift an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Do you miss the school you went to last year?”
Instead of getting exasperated that we’re back on this subject, I think of Kendra. I haven’t checked my messages in the last hour or so, but I can almost guarantee she’s sent me another word of encouragement.
Turning my back to Corinne, I slide off my shoes and kick them under my bed. “I miss some things,” I say as I start rummaging through my top dresser drawer for my shower supplies. “But mostly it doesn’t bother me being somewhere new.”
As drunk as she is, the slight shake in my voice must give me away. “That bad, huh? I might talk a lot but I’m a really good listener, too.” She releases a hiccup. “If you ever want to talk, that is.”
Clutching my towel close to my chest, I shake my head. “Like I said, I screwed up last year. Time to make things right. But before all that, you should get some rest.” I dip my head to the nearly full bottle of water she’s nursing. “Try to drink that so you don’t feel like crap tomorrow morning.”
When I return from my shower twenty minutes later, I’m grateful Corinne is already asleep.
***
Aside from exploring Richmond with our suitemates, Hannah and Lara, who are both from Charlottesville, the rest of my weekend is, thankfully, uneventful. Of course, that’s also a bit of a curse. It gives me plenty of time to go to battle with myself about the Rhys Delane situation.
And this is one of those situations where there are only two actual solutions. Either I can go directly to Professor Cameron—who’s already let me know she doesn’t think I deserve to be in her program—and tell her I’m unable to work with her trusted assistant. Or I can suck up all my apprehension about Rhys, try my hardest to overlook our mutual connection, and get the hell through this semester.
Both solutions royally suck.
After spending most of Sunday driving Corinne to the nearest Ikea and helping her put together a small bookshelf, and then getting all my stuff prepared for the upcoming week—printing out my schedule and tracking down a book that I didn’t order along with the rest of my course materials—I’ve almost convinced myself to take the more difficult road.
Almost.
Then again, that may be the exhaustion screwing with me. It’s nearly eleven-thirty. Corinne’s been asleep for almost an hour, and Facebook has sucked me in for the last twenty minutes. I’d stupidly reactivated the account I cancelled last spring, only to get an eyeful of all the dumb crap my ex-boyfriend James is doing already on his first weekend back to school. The sentimental fool in me wants to feel some type of emotion—anger or longing or even a desire to send him a message. I can see that he’s logged on, and despite the rocky way our relationship had ended, I know he’ll respond quickly if I contact him—but I don’t feel any of that.
As I scroll past a picture of James giving a thumbs up as he and one of his frat brothers hoist up a skinny girl for a keg stand, my phone rings. Startled, I nearly drop my laptop in my effort to grab it before the noise wakes up Corinne. Once it’s silenced, I flip it over to see my mother’s name. Mom’s old school—she holds fast to the belief that after nine, you don’t call people unless it’s an absolute emergency.
I quickly accept the call.
“Mom? Are you okay?” I breathe into the receiver.
The voice that greets me, however, doesn’t belong to my mother but to my father. Shit. Yesterday morning I’d sent him a message to let him know that I’d call him soon to catch up, but I never heard back from him. I assumed he was pleased that I even responded.
"A call would’ve been nice," he tells me in a tight voice. “But I’m glad to hear you’re alive and kicking.”
The exact wording he uses sends a jolt through my body but I shake it off as I quietly come to my feet and tiptoe out my bedroom. My suitemate, Hannah, is coming out of our shared bathroom as I head inside to talk, and she gives me a sleepy smile, murmuring, “’Night, Evie.”
When I tell her the same, Dad releases a breath. “Oh no, not yet you’re not.”
"Sorry, I was talking to one of the girls who lives in my suite,” I explain as I sit down on the bench seat right outside the standup shower. It’s wet, and I shift uncomfortably in my now damp pajama pants. “I’ve been busy with settling in, and—.” Something hits me, and I bring my knees up to my chest, wrapping my free arm around them. Dad’s calling me from Mom’s phone. “Wait. Are you back at home?”
"Evelyn,” he groans. I purse my lips, expecting him to start with the evasive maneuvers at any moment. Unfortunately, that particular habit is something we have in common. "I know you have some ... issues with me right now, but at some point you’re going to have to let your mom and I work out our own lives. This has nothing to do with you."
For some reason, I expected a better line of bullshit from him, but maybe he’s losing his touch. "Oh, I’m sorry that you’re a compulsive cheater," I retort sharply. "But she’s my mother. I think that has everything to do with me."
There's a brief moment of silence between us before I say, "So, are you living at home again?" While I was home for summer break, he’d spent maybe a total of seven days at our house. He had girlfriends, and yes, I do mean in the plural sense, and since I’d gone ahead and blown the whistle on his first affair, he didn’t see any point in hiding that truth any longer.
Growing up, it was never a secret that Mom favored Lily and Dad me—my mother and I seemed to clash at every turn—but after the last several months, I couldn’t be in the same room with him without feeling bitter.
“Did I lose you?” I say through clenched teeth, half-hoping that he did hang up on me.
To my disappointment, he says, "Let's talk about you instead. How are you liking the place so far?"
"It’s fine.” When he sighs, frustrated at my short response, I add, “What do you want me to say? That I'm settled in? Or that I'm all ready for my classes tomorrow morning and I have every intention of going this year? Or, even better, that I'm not hung-over?"
"Do you have to be so sarcastic about everything?" he demands.
"But it's all true. Besides, you’ve been quick to remind me about all my shortcomings whenever you want to get your point across.”
"I've apologized to you, Evelyn." As soon as I remind him about the text he sent me not even two days ago, he quickly corrects himself. “I’ve apologized to you about what happened with your mom.”
But you’re still seeing other women behind her back, I want to say. There’s no point in arguing. He’ll just feed me the same lines of crap he’s been doling out to her. I slide off the bench and to my feet. “Look, I’m currently in a bathroom talking to you because everyone in my suite is asleep. I should probably get to bed too because I have a nine AM class, and I really, really don’t want to be late on my first day. If you are with Mom, tell her I said goodnight and I love her.”
As I walk back to my room, the next thing my father says makes me consider turning right back around just to argue with him. “It’s complicated. I know you don’t understand, but it is.”
I've always loathed that word. When I was a kid, and Dad wanted an easy out on something he couldn’t explain or didn’t want to deal with, he was quick to throw it around. Back then I had no problem accepting it, but now not so much. I stop right outside my door, placing my forehead gently against the wood.
“Complicated, huh?”
“When you’re older you’ll understand.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah, sure. Goodnight. I'll call you ... soon, okay?" I don't give him the chance to stop me before I disconnect the call.
After I’ve once again deactivated my Facebook account and put my laptop back on my desk, I lie in bed reflecting on all the things I’ve screwed up over the last year. For starters, there’s my parents’ marriage—but of course, that was broken long before I found out about all the affairs and told my mom. She deserved to know, deserved better. And yet, she would’ve preferred to remain oblivious. I’d seen that much in her eyes as she avoided my gaze all summer long.
And then, I’d wrecked what was left with James. Don’t get me wrong, we were never perfect—we had a relationship that began in high school and was based around too much sex, smoking pot, and drinking ourselves into oblivion—but the end still hurt. When I’d retaliated after our breakup, I only managed to damage myself.
Even if my grades hadn’t gotten me kicked out of school, the slut shaming I faced from James’ fraternity after that “retaliation” probably would have sent me on my own way.
Yawning, I roll over on my side and face the wall.
Screw Dad.
Screw James.
And most of all screw Rhys Delane.
Chapter Five
Last year, I was sure I lucked out with my relatively light class load. During first semester, I only took fourteen credits and second semester, due to my already failing grades, I enrolled in even fewer—twelve in total. Thinking back on that now, as I rush to get ready for my first day, I decide that maybe so few classes was a curse. Maybe if I’d registered for as many courses as I’m taking this year—eighteen credit hours just this semester—I might have had a little less time for messing up.
“No point in worrying about that right now,” I tell myself as I shimmy into the longest pair of shorts I can find in my wardrobe, which, thanks to my long legs, barely graze my fingertips. Taking a swig of the Red Bull sitting on my desk, I pull my flowy, Bohemian-esque shirt from the back of my computer chair and drag it over my head as I shove my feet into a pair of plain nude flats. Grabbing the same messenger bag I used last year from the center of my bed, I drop my phone and two textbooks inside as I head out the door.
I race across campus to make it to my first class, which to my extreme displeasure is Professor Cameron’s Sight Singing and Dictation course. Although the whole tardy and absent thing is an entirely different ball field in college, I absolutely don’t want to be late to a class that is not only taught by my advisor, but is also my worst subject in my major.
I’m early—the class is only partially full when I walk in—and I let myself relax. I take a seat a couple rows from the front, beside a freckled, shaggy redhead who automatically makes me think of Ed Sheeran, and behind a girl who smells like the perfume department at Sephora threw up on the front of her bright pink hoodie.
Turning his head to look at me, the redhead gives me a smile. “Nathan Stone.”
“Evie Miller, nice to meet you.”
Pulling out his laptop—which I doubt he’ll need in this particular class—he asks, “You liking it so far?”
“Not sure.” Grinning, I lay my hands down flat on my desk, rubbing my thumbs together. “I’ll tell you how I feel about it after this class is over, though.”
Chuckling, he moves his head to either side. “No, I mean the first real weekend back. This place can get a little crazy.”
“Oh ... this isn’t your first year?”
“Nope, I was here last year.” He drags a bottle of green tea out the side of his laptop bag and downs a quarter of the contents before adding, “I decided in the middle of March that I wanted to screw myself and double major, so here I am.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, I—” His gaze leaves my face for a second, looking over my shoulder, and he lifts his eyebrow. “I swear that guy makes the rest of us look like ass. I’m glad my girlfriend doesn’t go here,” he jokes.
Oddly enough, I already know precisely who Nathan is referring to without having to look behind me, and I automatically feel my body go taut as my mind wraps around thoughts of Rhys Delane. Since half those thoughts are the kind that will easily get me in trouble, I squeeze my hands together and give a noncommittal shrug.
“He’s alright, I guess.”
“Well, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that happen,” Nathan mutters, shaking his head incredulously. He looks over my shoulder again, and this time when our eyes meet, he gives me a serious look. “The succubus is here. She’ll go Leonidas on us if we’re talking while she’s explaining the fifty page syllabus.”
Between Mac’s description of Professor Cameron as the mega bitch and Nathan now referring to her as the succubus, I’m seriously ready to pre-empt the pity party for myself for the next several weeks.
Giving me a little wink, Nathan turns forward in his seat. When Professor Cameron starts to talk a moment later, her tone just as crisp and detached as it was during our meeting last week, I have no choice but to follow suit.
I automatically regret it because the moment I do, Rhys passes by my desk, dropping the syllabus on the corner. Our eyes lock, and despite not wanting to show any reaction to him, I swallow hard, causing the corners of his lips to move just enough for me to notice. He probably believes I’m thinking of our brief encounter before formally meeting last week. And while I’m sure there are—judging by the number of female gazes that follow him longer than necessary as he finishes doling out paperwork—plenty of women who would easily react to him, sixty-five percent of my response is rooted in something entirely different.
As both Professor Cameron and Rhys introduce themselves and start to go over the syllabus, Nathan gives me a look from across the aisle. “He’s alright, I guess,” he whispers, mimicking my nonchalant words from a few minutes ago. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see your face light up the second he opened his alright mouth.”
“If she doesn’t Leonidas kick you, I will,” I promise sweetly, and his shoulders shake with silent laughter. He lowers his gaze back down to the bullet point on attendance.
“You’re still leering at him,” Nathan whispers.
With fifteen minutes to spare, we reach the end of the syllabus, which is the section I dread the most—midterms in October and final exams in December. Sitting behind the desk at the front of the room, Professor Cameron slides her glasses up on her nose and looks over to Rhys, who’s on the stool beside the desk.
“Anything you want to add?” she questions him.
Glancing from Cameron out to us, Rhys tilts his head to the side, examining everyone carefully with his piercing blue-green eyes. When they skim over me, I feel a jolt in my chest. I look away just as he clears his throat.
“I know most of you’ve already been fortunate enough to meet Professor Cameron,” he begins, and I bite my lip when Nathan snorts just loud enough for me to hear him, “but since we’ll be together all semester and, hopefully, next, I want to know more about each of you. I’ll start. From the syllabus you already know I’m Rhys Delane. I’ve been a student here for almost five years, since I transferred from Georgetown as a sophomore.”
Rhys starts to say something else, probably something about himself, but then he rubs his hand thoughtfully over his mouth, and points to one of the girls in the very front row. “How about you? Who are you and why’d you pick this place? What’s your goal?”
She giggles—actually giggles—and then says, “I want to teach music.”
After a few more of my classmates have introduced themselves, Rhys focuses his attention on me. Blatantly. I feel every eye in the room turn in my direction. There’s a part of me that wants to pull the woven fedora I put on this morning as far down over my head as it’ll go, but I manage to face his questioning gaze head on.
“And you?” he asks.
“Me,” I breathe. What does he expect me to say? Hell, there’s so much I could say, want to say. But the first thing that comes out is, “I don’t know.”
His eyebrow jerks up. “You don’t know your name? What you did before you came to this program? Or what—”
“My name is Evie Miller, and I wreck things.” Before he can respond, I look around at all the confused faces and immediately add, “But I’m working on fixing everything. Singing has always been something that’s therapeutic for me. It’s what I’m good at, but I know I’ve got a lot of work to do while I’m here.”
“I see,” Rhys says, his stare unwavering, sending fire to scorch my skin.
“Yes.” I try like hell to smile as I look away from him again, coming eye to eye with Professor Cameron. Her chin is propped in her hands, and she’s leaned forward, listening to me intently. I return my gaze to Rhys and tell him confidently, “So my goal is short term: Pass finals this year. I don’t want to be the girl who screws everything up anymore.”
He stares at me for a moment longer before dipping his head into a nod and moving his attention to Nathan, who turns out to be from right outside of Las Vegas and a bit of a piano prodigy, from what I manage to make out from his humble introduction.
As we leave class together, he brushes off the fact that he almost decided to go to Julliard, so I quickly change the subject. “You moved from Vegas to come to Virginia?” He nods, and I snort. “I’m guessing that by now you realize that winter in this place over the last few years made Elsa’s wrath look tame, right?”
“Whatever.” He throws his head back and releases a laugh. “We lived in Michigan until I was five, so this is kid stuff.” Before we reach the steps to go to the exit, a male—and impossibly undeniable—voice calls out my name. I stop in my tracks.
“Not only is he alright, but he’s also personally summoning you,” Nathan teases, lifting his eyebrow. “I’ve got to head to my next class, but I’ll see you around.”
“I’ll be around,” I say a little too brightly. I keep my back turned on Rhys, trying to even out my breathing, to think clearly, before I turn around to face him. When I do, he’s a few feet away from me near a bulletin board. My legs tremble as I walk over to him.
“What do you need?” I ask lamely.
“I sent you a message to your student email about lessons, but I wanted to make sure you received it before this afternoon. Does four o’clock today in Practice Room four on the basement floor work for you?”
I know I should make up my mind, but I’m still wishy washy about Rhys’ role in my future. When I speak, though, I can’t bring myself to tell him that I’m not sure I can work with him and the exact reasons behind my indecision.
Coward.
I’m a big, freaking coward.
“Yeah,” I breathe, “Four o’clock is perfect.”
“Good. See you then.” As he starts to walk off in the opposite direction, he gives me one more look, staring at the top of my head for a long time.
“What?” I demand, causing him to grin. I shouldn’t have said anything because he strides back over to me, leaving only a few inches of space between our bodies. From where I’m standing, I decide that his eyes are definitely more green than blue, and that his lips look entirely too soft. Not only is he gorgeous, but he also smells like trouble—some cologne that’s sexy and exotic and ...
Ugh. What the fuck am I thinking?
“What is it?” I repeat.
“This is the third time I’ve seen you with a hat on. I’m trying to figure out if this is a regular occurrence or if I’ve just been unlucky.”
“Unlucky?”
“I told you—I like seeing your eyes.”
I swallow back the lump forming in my throat. “How many times have you fed that line to girls on campus?”
Shaking his head, he laughs. “Just the one who wore a damn hat around everywhere she went.” Giving me an unapologetic final smile, he adds in a professional voice, “Don’t forget, four o’clock.”
“Sure.”
As I walk down the steps, breathing shallow breaths, I once again try to wrap my head around what twisted stroke of fate brought us to the same place at the same moment in time, knowing I won’t forget our lesson this afternoon even if I spend all day trying to drill it out of my brain.
