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By the look of his palish complexion, it was clear he spent his days indoors. I could see his dark eyes as they peered out from under his curly black hair. His shirt hung off his frame, almost scrawny, and he stood only a few inches taller than Kat and me. I could faintly hear the music playing from an earbud stuck in one of his ears, the cord trailing down into his pocket.
“Wow, you’re a real person. I was beginning to worry that she might have obsessive issues with an imaginary dream boy the way she talks about you.”
Kat’s cheeks flushed red at my statement. Cody chuckled, glancing her way as she tried to hide her fluster. The warmth of his gaze left a pang of envy in my chest, which melted into guilt.
“Which room is this morning’s class in?” I diverted, trying to distract myself.
Kat reached into her messenger bag and pulled her schedule free to look for the details of our first class. When she started to recite the class and room number, the words flowed into one ear and spilled out the other.
Over Kats shoulder, I saw him, the guy from the mall, walking at the far end of the courtyard toward the library. A sense of panic and butterflies assaulted me as I tried to make it not so obvious that I was watching him. But I couldn’t help but stare in my disbelief.
“Earth to Cas, did you hear me?” Kat waved her hand in front of my face, waking me from my daze.
I blinked, her words drawing me back to our conversation. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
Her coppery brows narrowed, and she looked back over her shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, just a guy I met at The Galleria yesterday.”
She glanced back at me, an excited light in her eyes before she scanned the crowds, trying to figure out who I was talking about. “Which one?”
I observed him as he greeted a group of students, smiling as he spoke with them, the group returning that smile. “The one with the long dark hair.”
When her eyes found him, she frowned. “You probably shouldn’t get mixed up with them. They don’t have the best reputation.”
I tried to keep myself from sounding too eager for an answer, but the words fell out of my mouth. “What’s so bad about them?” I’ll admit, I knew I was a little naive, but he’d been so kind to me. Despite my need to avoid him, he’d plagued my thoughts since we’d met last night.
“I hear they get into a lot of trouble. I’ve never had classes with any of them, but I’ve seen them get into a couple fights with one of my classmates, Marcus. On campus, too. They aren’t the sort of company you want to keep.”
I couldn’t pull my attention away from them to spare her a glance. So, he did have classes here. Something built up in my chest, this strange tugging feeling. It was a feeling new to me, so foreign, like the gravity that tethered me to the earth, it was as if I were being pulled toward him.
Something about him intrigued me, and I didn’t know what it was. From the way Kat described him and his friends, it was probably the same thing that should make me want to steer clear of them.
I didn’t bother Kat about it anymore, though; she’d made it clear she didn’t see them as anyone I should associate myself with. It would be for the best if I did as she suggested and avoided him.
For his sake.
* * *
“I didn’t think I’d run into you here.”
I froze at the familiar purr of his voice from behind me. The dining hall was flooded with students eating lunch between classes. Conversations and voices flooded the large room, but his voice pierced through it all like a knife.
“Oh! Hi.” My voice cracked in my surprise, but I cleared my throat, composing myself as best I could.
“I didn’t know you went here. I’ve never seen you around before.” He reached past me, grabbing a sandwich off the rack. There was a unique lull in his voice, like an accent different from our area, but it was subtle. I couldn’t place where it was from.
His words processed in my mind a few seconds later, and I pulled myself out of my trance. “This is actually my second year here. You probably never saw me because I didn’t have many classes last year, just a few afternoon classes. It’s kind of complicated.”
Oh my God. I had to stop myself from rambling.
He smiled, noticing my obvious fluster and I averted my eyes, my face hot. At some point, without my realizing, we’d begun to move outside where it was quieter.
“Man, Damien, why you holdin’ out on us? You gonna share or what?” The tall blond friend of his called out to us from where he sat on the lawn nearby. Others sat with him, all eyes on us. They were the same guys from the mall.
He groaned, his hand coming over his eyes as he rubbed his temples. The group started laughing and cutting jokes, teasing us both. “Don’t mind them; they’re just jerks.”
“It’s ok,” I chuckled, fidgeting with the hem of my sleeve. I never had issues talking around guys before—what few guys I’d ever spoken too in my life, that is. Yet with him it was like I had no vocabulary, and I stumbled over my own tongue as if I were only beginning to learn to speak English.
