“Just show me,” I urge again, and he pulls something out of his pocket. It takes a couple seconds for me to realize he’sholding a cassette player attached to a pair of headphones and I burst out laughing. “Of course.”
His eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“Of course you play music from a cassette.”
“It’s the way music was intended to be listened to, beside live music, of course,” he says sincerely. If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it. I just shake my head as he holds up a cassette tape of Frank Sinatra’s20 Golden Greats. “This is the only album I brought with me.”
“So, you’re just going to listen to that on repeat until we get to Denver?”
“Pretty much.”
I scoff. “You’re so boring.”
“No,” he says, putting the headphones over his ears. “I just know what I like.”
He turns the other way, and I don’t know why Iwanthim to keep talking to me. I want to know how he can manage to stomach the same songs on repeat for the next six hours. I can only listen to playlists because of the variety of music, and it would have to take a really good album for me to listen to it on a loop.
I shouldn’t be interested in anything to do with Evan, but I can’t ignore the part of me that is.
When we get to Denver, we hardly have enough time to settle in before we have to get ready and meet the rest of our cohort in the ballroom downstairs. The room is full of students from the West Coast, popular business owners and leaders of graduate programs across the country.
Evan and I speak to some of the sponsors together about our project, and after we’ve wrapped up a few conversations we continue walking around together. Neither of us has said much to the other over the last hour besides going over our notes,and it’s nice. We get on with what we need to do while being in each other’s company, and there’s a real lack of arguing going on between us.
Are we . . . friends now? Acquaintances? Partners?
All those options make me queasy.
We stop by the table of hors d’oeuvres, and I pick up my second chicken, bacon and ranch wonton cup, satisfied that it tastes just as good as the first. I pick up another, catching Evan’s stern gaze as I do.
“Are you not going to get anything?” I ask, taking a bite.
He shakes his head. “The idea of shared food makes me sick.”
I swallow. “Seriously?”
“They’re quite literally covered in bacteria. I’d rather die than eat food left out in open spaces,” he says seriously, and I swear he even shivers at the thought.
“Have you never been to a restaurant?” I ask, half-joking.
“Not many.” I’m about to say something, find out more about his hatred toward hors d’oeuvres, but he nods at someone in the distance. “Do you know who that is?” he asks, voice low.
I follow his gaze to a short, bubbly looking man talking to Professor Lawrence. He looks slightly familiar, but I can’t put a name to the face. “No,” I say to Evan. “Who is it?”
“That’s Howard Han’s brother, Richard. He owns the partner company to Howard’s.”
I nod in understanding. I catch Evan adjusting the cufflinks on his shirtsleeves before straightening out his blazer. “Are you going to talk to him?”
“Yeah. We both should.” He runs a hand through his hair quickly, grinning at me. “It could be worth getting our names out there for the SEI.”
I swallow another bite of my appetizer. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”
“You’ve got . . .” Evan points at the corner of his mouth and I lift my finger, pointing at my own. I wipe a drip of ranch from mymouth with my thumb and push it between my lips to lick it off. I watch Evan’s own lips curl up into smile. It’s not mocking like usual. It seems weirdly genuine, and it makes my breath hitch.
It’s rare I see Evan smiling at something without the teasing undertones and I’m only just realizing how beautiful his smile is. His teeth are white and perfect, a sharp jawline and smile lines that appear sort of like dimples on his cheeks. His eyes look brighter too, slightly creased in the corner like he smiles like this a lot and I just don’t see it.
“Thanks,” I mumble, clearing my throat. He jerks his head in the direction of Richard Han, and we turn, making our way over there. He stands tall beside me, his hand casually landing on the small of my back like it’s just something we’ve always done. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“We’ve got to be civil, or at least pretend to be,” Evan murmurs out of the side of his mouth, flashing a charming smile to everyone in the room. “We’re representing NU tonight, remember? Surely you can put aside your hatred for me for a couple of hours.”
