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Landon,
What’s stopping me? Well, I’ve blown the chance to go to a serious music school. And I’m stuck in a state that doesn’t always foster the arts (something I’ll probably spend my entire teaching career fighting). It seems impossible to go out now and “do.” I guess I should rethink that.
Your secret geniality is safe. My lips are sealed.
JW
PS – I’m DOING the worksheet, but I’m giving you a very petulant look through my screen. Slave driver. Sheesh.
I was grinning when I clicked send. Maybe I was playing an entirely different game of chase, and Lucas and his infuriatingly enigmatic smile could take a flying leap. Erin and Maggie could keep their make-him-chase-you advice and use it themselves, because I, apparently, sucked at it in real life. Through email, though… My happy expression slid away as I realized the stark truth—I was flirting with someone online. I had no idea what he looked like, or what type of person he was.
That wasn’t exactly true. I knew exactly what type of person he was, even though I’d never laid eyes on him. He was kind. And intelligent. And straightforward.
Of course, he hadn’t beaten a would-be ra**st to a bloody pulp for me. Or made my insides melt when he put his hands on my waist. He probably didn’t have tattoos on his arms or glacier-gray-blue eyes and a liquefying stare.
At 10:00 pm, my phone trilled a text alert.
Lucas: Hi :)
Me: Hi :)
Lucas: What’s up?
Me: Nothing. Homework.
Lucas: I wanted to talk to you after class, but you disappeared.
Me: I have another class right after. One of those profs who stops talking, stares at you and waits until you get to your seat if you’re late.
Lucas: I would probably just walk to my seat even slower. ;)
Lucas: You should come by the SB Friday. It’s usually dead. Americano, on the house?
Me: Free coffee? I can’t pass that up. I’ll try to stop by. When do you work?
Lucas: All afternoon. Til 5.
Me: K
Lucas: See you Friday, Jacqueline
Chapter 7
Lucas was fifteen minutes late to class on Friday, and we had a pop quiz first thing—which he missed. My first thought was how irresponsible it was to miss a quiz… and then I remembered that I missed the midterm. I couldn’t exactly point any fingers.
He slipped through the back door as Dr. Heller walked up the center aisle, collecting quizzes. He took the stacks from the left row and then turned to the right, where Lucas sat. “I need to see you after class,” he said, his voice low.
Inclining his head once, Lucas pulled his text from his backpack and replied in the same subdued tone. “Yes, sir.”
I didn’t look back at him during the remainder of class, and when it was over, he packed up his backpack and walked down the outside aisle to the front. While waiting for Dr. Heller to finish his conversation with another student, Lucas’s eyes lifted and found me. His smile was as unreadable as always, scarcely there at all. But his gaze was focused, pegging me like a dart to a board.
Turning his attention to our professor, he broke the stare. I released the breath I’d not realized I was holding and escaped the classroom, undecided on whether or not to follow through with stopping by Starbucks that afternoon.
I considered the quiz I’d just aced, thanks to Landon’s insistence that I complete the worksheet he sent two nights ago. Doing that worksheet had been all sorts of help—on a quiz he must have known about. I didn’t think he’d crossed a line and told me something he shouldn’t have, but his toe was definitely on the line. For me. Swept along and invisible among thousands of other students on this enormous campus, I was struck by the fact that for some reason, he’d gone out of his way to help me. For some reason, I mattered to him.
Erin: Chaz and I are leaving soon. You gonna be ok this weekend? You’re going to SB this afternoon, RIGHT? If he asks you out, GO FOR IT. Clear the palate! Don’t forget you’ll have the room to yourself all weekend. WINK WINK.
Me: You kids have fun. I’ll be fine! I’ll keep you posted.
Erin: You’d better! I’ll be back Sunday afternoon. Or evening, depending on the level of hangover Sunday morning. Heh heh. TEXT ME LATER.
I’d forgotten Erin’s road trip with Chaz was this weekend. His brother was in a band, and they were playing at a festival tomorrow near Shreveport, so they had reservations at a bed and breakfast for the weekend. Erin told Maggie and me about it last month while we waited to look at Mercury and Venus through a telescope during an evening astronomy lab.
“A bed and breakfast?” Maggie arched a brow. “What’s next, monogrammed towels?”
Erin scowled. “It’s romantic!”
“Exactly,” Maggie laughed. “And you’re going with Chaz. How’d you even talk Mr. Sports Stats into that, anyway?”
Erin’s full lips made a prim little bow and she combed a hand through hair so red I could tell its color even while standing in this dark field on the outskirts of town. “I told him that bed-and-breakfasts have ginormous whirlpool tubs, and that I’d be willing to do unspeakably sinful things to him in it.”
A strangled sound came from one of the two nerdy guys behind us in line, both wearing tortured expressions and staring at Erin. We stifled laughs.
Maggie sighed. “Poor Chaz. He never had a chance… he’s gonna be standing in front of a bunch of people saying ‘I do’ someday without knowing how it happened.”
“Ugh! I don’t think so. When it’s time to settle down, I’m getting somebody like…” Erin looked over her shoulder at the eavesdroppers behind us, “like one of them.”
The boys looked at each other and stood up a little straighter. With a smirk in Erin’s direction, one of them fist-bumped the other.
***
I doubted Erin would give me a second thought during her romantic weekend. I was on my own. I deliberated, finally turning toward the student union while pulling my jacket tighter against the sudden November chill. Frat parties held this weekend wouldn’t be open-window, not that I’d know firsthand. There was no way in hell I was going anywhere Kennedy might be. Or Buck.
The coffee smell invaded my senses before the Starbucks came into view. Rounding the corner, my eyes went to the counter, where two employees stood talking. When I didn’t see Lucas, I wondered if he’d switched shifts and forgot to text me.
There were only a handful of customers—one of whom was Dr. Heller, reading the paper in the corner. I had nothing against my professor, but I didn’t exactly want him witnessing my attempts to flirt with the guy who skipped the quiz and got called out for it just this morning. I stood just behind a display of coffee mugs and travel cups.
