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“The area I grew up in is pretty much like that. And yes, I like being outdoors. Does that qualify as outdoorsy?”
He chuckled, nudging my shoulder with his. “I don’t know. Does liking to surf and golf make me outdoorsy?”
I snorted a soft laugh. “Who’s to say?”
Deacon held the door for me. Outside, I planned to continue on my way, but he said my name and I stopped, peering over my shoulder.
“Are you with that guy?” He caught up to me. “The scary one?”
“I don’t know any scary guys, so I don’t know what you mean.” I bit my bottom lip, refusing to rise to his bait. He didn’t know anything about Amir, so calling him scary rubbed me the wrong way. Even though he wasn’t wrong. “I have to go. I’ll see you next time.”
He reached out, but only grazed his finger on my arm before I yanked it away. “Hey, would you—?”
“Did you send me notes and flowers?” The question was blurted out before I even knew it was coming, but once it was out there, I wondered why I’d waited so long to ask.
Deacon's mouth flapped open and closed, then he nodded. “Uh…yeah.”
“Why didn’t you sign your name?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean? I did.”
“No. You signed ‘D.’ Why?”
“Uh…” he rubbed his crinkled brow, “I didn’t think I had to, not after the first one I dropped in your bag. I assumed you would know they were from me.”
“In my bag? What do you mean?” I hadn’t gotten a note from him in my bag, and I’d certainly never seen one with his full name on it.
His eyes drifted to the side then snapped back to me. “It was like two months ago? Beginning of the semester. I didn’t really think you’d want to talk to me, but I wanted to talk to you. My boys convinced me to leave an apology note. I don’t know, you got up to talk to the prof, I think, so I dropped it in.” His head cocked. “You really didn’t get it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I dropped my bag to the ground, taking my computer and notebooks out. I had a tendency to throw everything in there, including receipts and random jots, so the bottom was lined with a mess of wrinkled papers. In that, since I knew what I was looking for, I spotted a folded paper, the same kind the poems had been written on, and pulled it out. I unfolded it, read Deacon’s short and pompous apology, and there was the bottom. Instead of a ‘D’ like he signed his poems, he had written ‘Deacon Forrestor.’
I nearly fell back on my butt. Pulling myself together, I tucked everything away and stood, waving the note at Deacon.
“I never saw this.”
If I had…god, if I had, I never would have gone to Amir. Everything between us wouldn’t have happened. I would have pined from afar for who knew how long. That would have hurt, but nowhere near the constant ache I was carrying now.
His shoulders slumped. “Fuck. No wonder you’ve been looking at me like a serial killer.”
Like a stalker.
“I don’t think that, but the seemingly anonymous poems on my doorstep were creepy. And the library…”
“The library. Yeah, I got out of there as soon as your scary dude appeared.” He groaned. “Let me take you out for a drink to apologize. Or dinner. Or coffee.”
“You know, you really scared me.”
He made a sound at the back of his throat like a creaky door. “I’m…did I? Fuck. You kind of ran away in the library, and I guess…Iscaredyou?”
“You terrified me.”
Deacon actually flinched. He stared at me like I was speaking a language where he only understood every third word. Was I the first person to call him out on his behavior? Perhaps other girls—less traumatized girls—found his relentless pursuit charming.
“Zadie!”
My head whipped around at the bark of my name, knowing exactly who I’d find. Amir was marching toward me, hands fisted at his side, eyebrows pulled into furious slashes over his eyes.
“That’s the scary guy,” Deacon mumbled.
