Millie set the milkshakes down. Skye wrapped both hands around hers immediately, took a long pull through the straw, and closed her eyes for half a second.
“Good?” I asked.
“Perfect,” she said without opening her eyes.
I took her in. The white streak wasn’t the only thing; it just made it easier to find her in a room. A pale patch swept from her temple down across her cheek, standing out against her deep brown skin. Her face was all clean lines and soft curves. High cheekbones. A small nose. Thick brows. Long lashes.
Her eyes were probably my second favorite thing. Dark and almond-shaped, they seemed permanently narrowed in suspicion.
Then there was her mouth.
Full lips that looked better suited for arguments than apologies. I knew that much already.
Dark curls spilled over her shoulders, and even sitting across from me in an oversized university sweatshirt, she was hard to ignore.
“So,” she said, opening her eyes and bringing me out of my thoughts. “Ducane Simmons. Pre-law. Still may be stranger danger. What else?”
“What do you want to know?”
She considered that. “Why did you follow me out of class?”
I looked at her across that table and told her the truth.
“Outside of just wanting to, I guess I’m waiting to find out.”
She swallowed and sat back.
The conversation shifted after that. She talked about her sister, Airalynn, who had everything figured out since birth. She dropped more random facts, hated peas since she was four, loved thunderstorms, and had strong opinions about things that had nothing to do with anything. She was funny without trying to be, and I let her run because she clearly needed somewhere to put it all.
Then, as the dinner crowd replaced the lunch crowd, she spoke quietly.
“I lost my parents when I was sixteen.” The slight guard she had been carrying lowered just a bit. “A car accident. Today’s the anniversary.”
I didn’t say I’m sorry because “sorry” never feels like enough, and she didn’t look like a woman who needed to be handled carefully.
“My auntie raised me after—Silverrun born and raised, both of us. But Airalynn is here, and I got tired of loving my sister through a phone. So I transferred. New school, no friends, and a date circled on the calendar.”
She turned her glass in a slow circle, eyes on the table.
“And my sister thinks I should just have it all figured out like she does. Which is insane, and therefore why I don’t have time for a professor that opens class so damn rudely.”
“Am I talking too much? Now that you’ve gotten me started, I’ll never stop. Oh, and thanks for the milkshake, too. I did need it.”
“Glad to hear I succeeded in making your day a little better. Talk all you want, I’m all ears.”
She stopped moving and looked at me, deciding if she could trust me.
“You aren’t one of those jock types that will tell all my business in front of your friends? Or worse, the campus hoe hellbent on fucking all the virgins are you?”
I didn’t even acknowledge that shit with a response.
“Why you keep changing the subject? Every time I get close to what fucked your day up, you clam up.”
A sigh slipped out of her lips as she looked out of the diner window.
“Being a flight attendant was my mother’s dream for me. She flew for twenty years, and she swore I was built for it. I believed her until I had to bury her. Now every plan she made for me feels like a grave I’m supposed to lie down in. I know I have to do something. Life is coming at me fast; that’s all.”
The diner felt quieter.
