AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glanced down at her bag. “These totally look like study snacks. And this is the part of the city where most of the students come to shop. Just an educated guess. Have you been at the university for long? I haven’t seen you around before.”
She laughed again, a little more relaxed this time. “I don’t leave the campus all that often. My roommate says I study too much. And I only transferred here a few months ago.”
“I hear it’s a good university,” I said. Always good to lead with reasonably innocuous but friendly small talk. “I’m glad you got in. I’m Beckett, by the way.”
“Madelyn,” the girl said automatically, and then clamped her mouth as if she was thinking better of having given her name that freely. “I guessyou’renot a student,” she ventured after a moment.
I’d already given that away with my comment about having simply heard the university was good. At twenty-three, I could have claimed to be a grad-student, but there was no point in lying about things so easily exposed.
I didn’t have to be specific about the truth either, though. She might not be a typical college girl, but I doubted she’d have a high opinion of the ways I’d gotten the most important parts of my education.
“Not at the moment,” I said. “My school days are behind me. What are you studying, Madelyn?”
“Biology. Maybe a second major in microbiology if the classes line up with my schedule, but I’m not sure about that yet.”
She rattled off those facts so easily that I could let out an impressed whistle without needing to fake my reaction at all. She was definitely a smarter cookie than I’d have given her credit for at a glance. Not just a science major, but considering a double major? I might not have ever attended university here, but I knew the place had a reputation for its science program. She’d have needed excellent grades to get in, and it’d be a challenging program to keep up with.
Maybe she wasn’t going to be the weak link I’d needed after all.
But school smarts were a very different thing from street smarts, as I should know. “You must be awfully busy,” I said. “I can see why you’d need to spend a lot of time studying. It mustn’t leave much room for enjoying the rest of the college experience.”
“Oh, I get out enough to stop me from going bonkers. I’ve never been a party animal anyway.”
I could easily believe that now. “Fair enough. I was just thinking, it must be hard to even socialize much—keeping up with friends, relationships.”
“To be honest, I don’t have a whole lot of those,” Madelyn said with another laugh, this one slightly embarrassed.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, no? Pretty girl like you?” Then I knit my brow as if I’d just remembered something. “You know, I think I have seen you in town before, from a distance, with some guy… Dark hair, maybe Latino? That’s probably why I assumed. It might not have been you at all.”
The guy she’d been dancing with at the club had certainlylookedlike he wanted to get a whole lot more than friendly with her. He’d been a few beats from fucking her right there on the dance floor, as far as I’d been able to tell. Maybe it’d just been a fling, but Madelyn wasn’t striking me as the kind of girl who went for friends-with-benefits or one-night stands.
“Oh,” she said, and her cheeks flushed a deeper pink that told me the interest between the two of them wasn’t all on his side.
The sight brought an unexpected flare of annoyance into my chest. I should have wanted her to be invested in the trio so that she’d have information to share, but some part of me wanted to growl at the thought of him putting his hands on her again.
“The only guys I’ve gone anywhere with recently are just friends,” she went on. “Well, maybe only acquaintances—I don’t know how to label them exactly…” She trailed off, looking even more flustered. Interesting, even though it provoked another jab of jealousy.
“Sounds a bit complicated,” I said in a gently teasing tone meant to set her back at ease, and then added more seriously, “I hope they’re not jerking you around.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” she said, a bit too quickly I thought. “They just—they’re helping me with a sort of project, that’s all. We’ve only met up a couple of times.”
There was more to it than she was saying, I could tell. I couldn’t discern whether she was involved with them enough that she’d know anything about the activities I was curious about, though.
But maybe it didn’t matter, because the more I’d talked to her, the more she’d intriguedme. A biology major who didn’t socialize much but was perfectly gracious when I’d gotten her into a jam, who’d somehow gotten entangled with three guys who were delving into the city’s criminal underworld?
I had the feeling there was so much more to her than I’d uncovered yet. But we’d just reached the edge of campus. She stopped and turned to me, and my heart sank more than I was prepared for, especially as I took in her apologetic smile that nonetheless brightened her pretty face.
“Well, this is me. Thank you for your help with the bag, and sorry again about your shirt. I promise I’m not usually that clumsy.”
I doubted she was, not when she wasn’t being set up. I handed the bag over to alleviate any worries she might have had that I was going to draw out the conversation by holding her belongings hostage.
Should I ask for her phone number? No, she’d probably find that too forward. I was still essentially a stranger to her, and she obviously wasn’t the type to collect potential boyfriends. Anyway, I didn’t want her mentioning anything about me to her friends—maybe acquaintances, maybe something more—which meant keeping this meeting low key.
“It was my pleasure,” I said smoothly. “And I swear the spill was no big deal. I hope I’ll see you around again, Madelyn. In the meantime, good luck with your studies.”
Her shoulders relaxed when I didn’t push for anything else, and I knew I’d made the right call. “Thanks, Beckett. Maybe we will run into each other again.”
She gave a little wave with the hand holding her now-half-empty coffee cup and walked off toward the university buildings. I watched her for a few seconds, admiring the resoluteness in her stride that I hadn’t registered before, and then strolled away.
Oh, she would be seeing me again. Before very long, too. I didn’t need her phone number to ensure that. I could arrange another ‘coincidental’ meet-up as easy as snapping my fingers.
It was only a matter of time until I found out what I needed—and satisfied all my newfound curiosity abouthertoo.
