It felt silly to see Noah lying on my light-pink comforter. The color didn’t really match his personality, but it did wonders for his eyes. He moved compliantly, following my nudging until he was lying longways on my bed. I placed a fuzzy pink blanket over his front.
“I’m not an invalid,” Noah said as I moved on to fluffing up the pillow beneath his head. “You don’t need to fuss over me.”
He also sounded super cute when his nose was all stuffed with blood. At least the bleeding had stopped.
“Hush,” I said. He reached for the blanket, but I swatted his hand away.
Maybe I liked the way he looked in my bed a little too much.
“Do you sleep on something hard?” Noah leaned up and frowned at the pillows.
I mirrored his frown. What was hard about a mountain of pillows? But realization hit at the same moment Noah stuck his hand into the pile and pulled out a battered pink book.
“What’s this?” he asked, and I moved before I could think—leaping forward and snatching my diary from his hand.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” I said, not wanting a repeat of the photo album.
Especially since I was pretty sure I’d written a limerick about how beautiful Noah’s eyes were in my latest entry.
His brow arched. “That’s quite a reaction for nothing.”
I swallowed and hid the diary behind my back before tacking on a smile. “It’s just a journal. You know, private thoughts. Dreams. Hit lists. That sort of silly stuff.”
“You keep a journal?” Noah asked with interest as he shifted the paper towels against his nose. “Is a certain redhead featured on these lists?”
My smile flattened as I recalled a few colorful entries with Blaise’s name. “You could say she has a recurring role on them.”
He chuckled, the sound coming out stuffy with his nose blocked. He eyed the mountain of pillows closely before switching out one in the back with a bigger pink one in front. I had to admit it actually made a lot more sense after he swapped them.
… Until I noticed a very suspicious grey stuffed elephant foot sticking out from underneath the pillow he’d just moved.
Noah had a similar moment of awareness as my heart seized. But before I could leap forward to hide the evidence, he tugged Mr. Elephant out from his hiding place and regarded the plushie cautiously.
As he should; elephants were very dangerous creatures.
My guest sent me a questioning look before glancing back at Mr. Elephant. I sent back my own questioning look, as if wondering what his look could’ve possibly meant. Noah responded with an eyebrow raise, and I tried to respond back with my own, but it failed miserably as both brows rose and my nose itched.
Noah’s stare remained firm, and I feared this one was already a lost cause as I spared another anxious look at Mr. Elephant.
“Um… I have no clue how that got there,” I lied through my teeth, trying to play the dumb blonde card as I gave my favorite stuffed elephant the best bewildered look I could manage.Please forgive me, Mr. Elephant. “That’s so strange. Maybe there’s some sort of elephant fairy who leaves them under unsuspecting college students’ pillows? Was there any cash with it?”
Mr. Elephant’s googly eyes stared back at me from Noah’s hold, and I could’ve sworn he looked betrayed.
“This isn’t yours?” Noah sounded a little too surprised for my liking. But I couldn’t tell if that was because the plushie was indeed in my bed—so it made sense to be mine—or because he’d already determined that I was the type of college girl to have stuffed animals.
I bit down on my tongue and shook my head as Idenied, denied, denied. Noah’s eyes narrowed before he regarded the plushie again.
“If this isn’t yours and Teresa didn’t put it here, then I suppose we’ll need to involve campus security.” Noah’s eyebrow rose again in challenge as I tugged lightly on the hem of my shorts. “After all, it means someone was in your room without your knowledge, which is against the dorm codes. They’ll need to collect this as evidence.”
That did it. I grabbed Mr. Elephant from Noah and hugged him tightly to my chest. “Over my dead body will they take Mr. Elephant from me!”
Noah’s smile was far too self-satisfied, despite the blotches of blood under his nose.
“That’s what I thought,” he murmured victoriously.
My eyes narrowed on his smile as I clutched Mr. Elephant tighter. “You play dirty.”
“I simply play to win.” Noah leaned back against the pillows and did some weird origami twisting with the paper towel. I watched, unsure what to do now that Noah was comfortable on my bed and wasn’t spouting blood out of his nose like a fountain.
