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Hannah courageously rolled her shoulders back. “So. Um. Where were you last semester?” A few other Scribe students listened in, and my heart steadily pumped aged guilt.
“You know, around.”
She smiled and nodded. “Oh, yeah? Doing what?”
I smoothed on a grin and folded my arms, hoping my shoulders weren’t bunched. “I was aiding some friends in an entrepreneurial fashion.”
“Entrepreneurial?”
I should have guessed a journalist as good as Hannah would ask follow-up questions. “Concocting healing . . . beverages.”
“That sounds . . .” She frowned. “Different. I thought I saw you a few weeks ago, under the Bridge of Sighs?”
The bridge that connected the courthouse to the prison. Yeah, I’d spent countless hours pacing the area, working up the courage to apply for a guest visit.
Everyone’s inquisitive eyes rested on me. They were probably wondering if I was visiting Jack. If I was his henchman on the outside. If I was the same dick I was last year.
They seemed warily afraid of the answer. So was I. “Bridge of Sighs?” I murmured. “Might have been me. Had a few trips downtown with a hypnotist to help unlock the misplaced whereabouts of the final ingredient for those . . . beverages.”
“Hypnotist?”
“Yeah. Quite the mission. But he helped me recall where I’d dried and stashed the mushrooms.”
Hunter snorted and coughed into his elbow, and thankfully Hannah’s phone rang.
I headed for my old desk and stopped—it was littered with rally posters and occupied by a large woman wearing a tight There’s No Planet B T-shirt.
Hunter rolled beside me and slapped the back of my thigh. It tingled long after his hand disappeared. “Your new desk is by the shelves, next to mine.”
“Yours?” My mouth dried and my nape immediately warmed. “Oh. I’ll find somewhere else—”
“The only other free space is adjacent to Liam.”
Red hot shame leaped to my cheeks. I didn’t know what to say to Liam. Couldn’t stand reliving every hurtful word I’d delivered, day in, day out. Even if I deserved it.
I looked from Hunter to Liam bowed over his desk, and back again.
I scoured the Scribe office for a third option. Every desk was crammed with books and laptops. Of course.
I sighed, mumbling to Hunter. “Lead the way.”
Hunter studied me quietly as I arranged my desk, unpacking my dictionary and thesaurus and a folder of my favorite Scribe pieces.
Across the shiny table surface, Hunter’s half of the desk was set up with camera equipment and chargers, printed photos, and a laptop port. For a moment, I wondered if he’d ever played Demon-Slayage here while I played in the basement in my sweatpants . . . or less than my sweatpants.
Fall breezes funneled through a cracked window across the room, reaching my flushed cheeks. I didn’t dare peek at Hunter, but his clean, soapy scent carried toward me.
“Interesting summer you had,” Hunter murmured. “Sounded awfully like our Demon-Slayage mission to concoct a healing potion for Thief Gabriel.”
I fished around my empty bag. “That obvious, huh?”
“What’s up with the lies?”
Oh, come on. It wasn’t obvious?
Hunter folded his arms and waited for my explanation.
I lowered my voice. “I know she asked, but no one really wants to hear how my life has been. I never earned their concern.”
Hunter stilled, blue gaze softening. He leaned back in his wheelchair. “Okay. Ever thought about earning it?”
Every day. Every hour of every day. “After a year acting like a douche? You think—”
Liam approached Hunter, pushing up his glasses, and my skin burned. I frantically eyed escape. “—the vending machine sells gum? Cool. I’m gonna grab some.”
I rushed out of the office.
The frosted glass sliding doors shut behind me and I collapsed for a breather against the wall opposite the elevators.
I ground my palm over my forehead and stopped. Emerging from the elevator was Tyler Bentley, one of the hottest IT nerds around. His golden hair was a ruffled mess and his jaw shimmered with stubble. His thriftshop-meets-catwalk style and bright eyes haunted me.
He’d been in most of my econ classes the last three years, and slinked around some of the best campus parties. But we’d rarely spoken. He tried once, after he caught me watching him on Halloween. He walked over nervously, dressed as Woody from Toy Story, and gave me ideas for the party page. That’s when I’d learned he was deaf. His hands accompanied most of his sentences. I would have encouraged the chat if I hadn’t been stupidly head-over-heels for Jack.
Christ. I shouldn’t have brushed Tyler off. It’d taken guts for him to approach, and I’d gone right back to laughing with Jack.
I froze as his eyes caught on me and his lip hitched into a half-smile.
I managed a pathetic wave—about a second after he’d entered the Scribe offices.
“You are so smooth,” I chastised myself, just as Hunter wheeled out into the hall and gave me a double take.
