Page 2 of Ruthless Edge

"You always come in late," I said.

He grinned. "But I'm here, aren't I?"

That was the whole exchange. Nothing. But he came back to that seat next class. And the one after. At some point it just became where he sat, the same way that row became where I sat. We had class together Tuesdays and Thursdays, and by October I knew his footsteps in the hallway before he got there.

That's how bad it had gotten. I could identify Knox Carter by the sound of his shoes on linoleum. I was nineteen years old and completely, ridiculously obsessed.

We exchanged numbers, and he started texting about studying together the week before midterms. I said yes because I was organized and he needed help, that much was obvious. He asked good questions. He seemed to actually retain things about statistics when we went through them together. I was useful to him academically, and that made sense, and I understood that dynamic completely.

He kept showing up. I kept helping, because the class wasn’t all that challenging for me. Sometime in November I stopped pretending I was doing it for the academic partnership and just admitted, quietly and only to myself, that I liked seeing him outside of class.

I told myself he needs the study sessions. He's just friendly. He's Knox Carter, he's friendly with everyone, that's just who he is. There's a girl three rows back who's been trying to catch his eye since September and he's never once looked at her other than to give a polite smile. He shows up because I help him pass his tests, and that is the complete and total explanation for all of this, and I should not read anything else into it.

What I refused to think about directly is that he showed up to a study session once with coffee already made exactly the way I drank it, with cream and sugar. I'd mentioned it once, offhandedly, weeks earlier. He hadn't asked. He just remembered and arrived with it. He also texted me about a movie I'd mentioned once in passing, just a link with no explanation, and when I asked what it was for he said you said you wanted to see it. I'd mentioned it once. In a conversation that had been about something else entirely.

He laughed at things I said that weren't that funny. Not politely. He actually laughed, the real kind that changed his whole face, where it reached his eyes and stayed there.

He stayed after every study session. Always. I'd start packing up and he'd still be sitting there, finding something to talk about. His last game. Something his brother Noah had done that he was still annoyed about three days later. Whether I'd tried the new place on Calder Street yet. He was never in a hurry to leave.

I knew exactly what this looked like from the outside. I also knew what Knox Carter's options were, and I was not on that list, and I was not going to humiliate myself by believing I was when I wasn't. Guys who are tens don’t go out with fives unless they’re drunk, and then they regret it the next day. I wouldn’t be anyone’s regret.

So I kept showing up to study sessions. I kept drinking the coffee he brought. I kept laughing, and letting him make me laugh, and I told myself that I know exactly what this is. Just studying. Nothing more. Knowing what it is means it can't hurt me.

Then the auction announcement went up.

The Student Activities Board, SAB, was hosting a charity Bachelor Auction to raise money for the hockey team, like they do every year. Hockey players were among the participants. Knox's name was on the list.

That day three years ago, I talked myself out of bidding approximately forty times between the announcement and the day it happened. The reasons were long and thorough. I wasn't the kind of girl who did things like this. I couldn't afford to be embarrassed. He'd think I was delusional. He'd think I'd gotten the wrong idea about our study sessions. I'd lose the study sessions, and the coffee, and the way he laughed at my jokes, and even the stupid specific sound of his footsteps in the hallway.

I bid anyway.

My hand went up before I finished making the decision and the six hundred dollar bid came out of my mouth and then I was the winner of Knox Carter's charity auction date, sitting in my seat with my heart going at twice its normal speed, thinking, okay. Now we see.

I spent three hours getting ready the night of the gala.

Not just a long shower and some mascara. It took me three full hours. Four dress options. My hair done twice. A very long time standing in front of the mirror working out what I actually wanted to look like versus what I thought I was supposed to look like, and then arriving at something that felt close to the best version of myself I had access to at nineteen. I still almost didn't go. I was standing in my apartment with my coat on and my bag over my shoulder, running the full logical case for why I was an idiot who should stay home, and then I thought, I already paid for the date. The gala with all the winners of the auction and their hockey players would be there.

I went.

The gala where all the winning bidders got to spend the evening was beautiful, which makes it worse. Soft lighting, round tables with white linens, centerpieces that gave it all a dreamy feeling. I found my table. I sat down and ordered water, then I watched the door.

The other hockey players arrived over the first twenty minutes. I watched each one come in and get claimed by their date. The room filled around me. Couples ordered food. Someone laughed loudly near the front.

I ordered another water.

Knox didn't come.

I checked the time and told myself not to check it again, and then checked it again. I looked at the door. I kept looking at the door.

By eight o'clock I was trying to convince myself that he was just late. He had a genuinely bad sense of time management, something I actually knew about him, he'd mentioned it himself, and this is a completely plausible explanation for what was currently happening.

By eight-thirty I'd stopped building explanations.

Laura slid into the seat across from me at a quarter to nine.

She already had the look she’s so good at, the sympathetic one, mouth turned down slightly, eyes soft. It was a convincing look. I'd seen her aim it at other people and thought it was real. She set her clutch purse on the table and looked at me and I knew before she opened her mouth what she was going to say.

"He's not coming," she said.