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She laughed, loving how he made things so easy when she would only have made it awkward. She told him her number and he typed it into his phone, then called her so that she had his number, too.
"By the way," he said after he'd slipped his phone back into his pocket, "have you ever thought about embracing the digital age and losing some of these hardcovers you carry around all the time? It'll save your back."
"Or yours," she said with a grin, "since you're the one carrying my bag everywhere lately."
"So, what's your meeting about?"
She'd been so nervous about this meeting with her professor, but being with Sean helped keep those nerves at bay. "I'm giving my professor feedback on some new material he's put together for my class on novels. I pored over everything he sent me to look at this weekend and I'm hoping I can deliver whatever it is he's looking for."
"I'm sure you'll do great."
She knew Sean probably didn't want to talk about his mother any more than he already had, but she needed him to know, "The archives were really great. Thank you for taking me down there. I loved learning more about photography." And about you.
"Given what you've done your entire life, I can't imagine there's much you don't already know about the subject."
"The pictures people took of me were meant to sell things," she explained. "But what you showed me today--that was magic." She now realized she'd never truly appreciated the magic of photography, not until today, when she didn't have to be or do or act like anything for the pictures. All Sean had wanted her to do was appreciate their beauty.
She could tell from the way he was looking at her that he wanted to ask something more about her comment, but they were already at her professor's door. She knocked, but there was no answer.
"Maybe he forgot about our meeting." Honestly, though it was an amazing opportunity to get to work with Professor Fairworth, she was more relieved than anything. Perhaps he'd changed his mind about working with her and had chosen one of the upperclassmen instead?
"Serena." Her relief was short-lived as she turned to see the professor walking toward them. "My last class ran long. I apologize for keeping you waiting."
She was surprised when Sean stiffened beside her as the other man approached. "Professor Fairworth, this is my friend Sean Morrison."
"Yes," the older man said as they shook hands, "the brilliant first baseman. And your hitting has been off the charts, too. I thought last year might have been your last playing for us."
Everything he said was complimentary, yet Serena couldn't help but feel that he didn't particularly care to see Sean with her.
"There were a lot of reasons to stay," Sean told him.
Professor Fairworth opened up his office door and when Sean took a look inside the room with the small leather couch and one tiny window, he turned to Serena and said in a low voice, "I'd be happy to stick around until you're done."
Incredibly tempted, she made herself shake her head. "Thanks, but you've got a class to go to, and I don't know how long we're going to be."
While her professor was booting up his computer, Sean leaned even closer and said, "Call me if you need me."
Could he see how much she did? And not just because her professor gave her the creeps?
With obvious reluctance, he put her bag down on the couch. She hadn't been able to give in to kissing him outside the library, but now she had to press a kiss to his cheek in a silent thank you.
As soon as the door closed behind Sean, her professor said, "Your boyfriend is very protective of you, isn't he?"
"He--" She stopped herself a beat before she could deny that she and Sean were dating. Because if her professor was actually having creepy thoughts about her, might it help for him to think she was already taken? Besides, the whole world already thought she and Sean were an item based on the tabloid story. "He's great."
An expression she couldn't quite read flashed across her professor's face. But then, amazingly, for the next hour that they reviewed the proposed class notes he'd sent her, he remained perfectly professional. So much so that she found herself wondering if she had, in fact, manufactured his predatory interest in her in her head simply because her mother had trained her to look for the bad in every man.
Or...could it be that seeing her with Sean had deterred Professor Fairworth from trying something?
Either way, despite the tabloid pictures and knowing her day wouldn't end until she'd dealt with her mother, Sean had turned what might have been a really terrible day into one that was at least a thousand times better just for getting to see him smile and hold her hand.
*
Serena got to the dining hall right before they closed for the night. She'd been so busy with her two back-to-back late afternoon classes that she'd forgotten about the tabloid story, but when the guy at the cash register looked at her a little funny as he scanned her meal card--as if he now knew precisely how easy she was since she was spreading it for a horny baseball player--it came crashing back to her.
Where other freshmen could have a crush that only their close friends knew about, her crush on Sean was a wide-open target for the whole world to gossip about. But as she carried her tray over to one of the dining tables, she knew it was a battle she needed to stop trying to fight because she would never, ever win it. All she'd do was keep frustrating herself.
"Who cares what everybody thinks?"
Sean's voice echoed in her head as she began to cut the rubbery piece of chicken on her plate. And he was right--coming to Stanford had been a step in the right direction, but she needed to stop worrying and truly start living her life and following her dreams.
At the same time, after all the years she'd spent trying to be perfect for agents and photographers and fashion designers and her mother, she wasn't foolish enough to think that she could just shake off the weight of everyone's expectations in one night. Change--real change--took time. Maybe, she thought for the first time, she needed to give herself some room, some space, a little leeway, to make those changes. Not all at once, perhaps, but as she felt ready to tackle them one at a time.
By the time she got back to her room, Abi was sitting with her feet up on her desk, slicking on a layer of bright blue nail polish. "Hey, I'm glad you're back earlier than usual! Guess you didn't get my text about grabbing dinner together tonight?"
Serena shook her head. "Sorry, my phone is buried somewhere at the bottom of my bag and I didn't hear it going off." She'd left it there on purpose because she wasn't yet ready to deal with listening to her mother's message. Or messages, as the case probably was all these hours later. "Is something wrong?"
Abi put down the nail polish and turned to face Serena with a clearly concerned look on her face. "I was kind of worried about you."
"You were?"
"I know we haven't gotten to know each other that well yet--" Abi looked a little uncertain. "--but when I saw those pictures of you and your walking orgasm of a boyfriend online today, I realized I should have thought more about how hard it must be for you to deal with that kind of stuff all the time. It's just that I've never known anyone famous like you before. I guess I've kind of been afraid to say the wrong thing."
Serena was floored by what Abi had just said. Plus, she knew she was doing a terrible job of trying to hide her flushed cheeks at her roommate's "walking orgasm" comment. Especially when the vision of Sean kissing her came so suddenly--and so clearly--that she didn't have a prayer of containing her reaction to it.
"Sean and I, we're just friends," she tried to clarified.
But Abi reminded her, "I saw you two kissing at the frat party. It was hot. And FYI, I have no problem if he wants to stay the night with you in here."
"Don't worry," she told Abi, "he won't be staying over here." In fact, she was sure her roommate would be shocked if she knew just how far they were from sleeping together, considering she wouldn't even let him kiss her again.
Feeling awkward, she said, "I know it's not the easiest thing in
the world rooming with me. And you haven't said anything even remotely wrong to me."
"But I might have thought it...because I kind of hated you at first for being so much prettier than me," Abi admitted.
"I'm not prettier than you," Serena said earnestly. She'd never be the all-American beauty that her roommate was. "And you're so much fun. Everybody likes you."
Abi smiled at her, obviously thrilled by the compliments. But then she asked again, "Are you okay? You know, about that story that came out today?"
Serena had risked being open with Sean and so far he'd proven to be a really amazing guy. What if Abi turned out to be just as great? Could the two of them become friends? Real friends instead of just roommates who did their best to stay out of each other's way?
Taking a deep breath, Serena admitted, "Showing up in those pictures with Sean...well, it wasn't the best thing that ever happened."
"Why, was he mad that you guys had been outed?"
"No." He'd only been worried about her, and how she'd react to the story and pictures. He hadn't, she now realized, seemed to give one thought to how the article would impact him. "I think it's more that if Sean and I were starting something, we would both want it to be just between us."
