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“It’s the sign that falls in the middle of the season. It means we’re… focused. We know what we want, we follow our goals, we see things through.”
“We?”
“Scorpio’s the fixed water sign.”
“No wonder we got on so badly,” he observed. He’d intended it as a joke, but Morgan didn’t smile, and he frowned down at the page, suddenly annoyed. “See, this is what I mean. None of that applies to me.”
“You don’t think you have a fixed way of looking at the world? Nobody’s ever called you determined, or hardworking?” A flash of his father, and he fought the urge to laugh as he shook his head. “What about stubborn?”
Well, she had him there. He grimaced. “Whatever. You can make anything fit if you look hard enough.”
“You should write that for the essay portion,” Morgan said drily, tapping on the last section of the assignment. “I bet the professor would love to hear about how the topic he’s dedicated decades of study to is nonsense.” Her eyes flicked up to the ornate clock on the wall, and he felt an odd sinking in his stomach as she started gathering her books. “It’s getting late. I’m happy to leave the books with you, if you’ll make sure to return them once you’re done?”
“Sure thing.” Why did he feel so reluctant to let her go? “Morgan—wait.”
She turned back, her bag over her shoulder and a faint frown on her face. “Yes?”
What he wanted to do was thank her for not taking the opportunity to belittle him in the moment of weakness she’d witnessed. What he wanted to do was apologize again for not being as kind a person as she clearly was, whatever she said about her astrological sign. What he wanted to do was ask if they could start again, maybe even be friends. But even as those ideas rose to the surface of his mind, he found himself forcing them back down again. What was he going to do, make friends with some random woman nobody had ever heard of? What would the guys think?
“Archer, what?” Impatience there, and he cleared his throat awkwardly, realizing he’d been staring at her as his mind raced.
“Just—there’s a party this weekend. Full moon, some kind of school tradition, apparently. I’m helping out. Making it a bit more special than that snooze extravaganza on the first night.” Chill out, Archer, you’re not pitching the event to investors here... “Anyway, everyone’s invited, obviously, but I don’t know how in touch you are with school social life, so… consider this a personal invitation. We’ll be down on the beach.”
“What if there’s a storm?” Morgan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Then we’ll learn to dance in the rain, baby.” He spread his hands and gave her his cheesiest, most exaggerated grin… and felt a burst of warmth explode in his chest as he caught the unmistakable flash of amusement on her face. That had been… well, if not a laugh, then damn close to it.
“Alright,” she said drily. “If the weather’s not awful, I might see you there.”
“The weather will be perfect. I guarantee it.”
She gave him another of those cryptic little half-smiles… and then she was gone, the library doors slowly closing behind her. Crowded with bookshelves as it was, the space suddenly felt empty without her. Archer looked down at his half-finished assignment with a sigh, jotting down a few half-hearted notes about what his chart said about his personality. He’d heard it all before, that was the thing. His mother had spent much of his childhood telling him that Leos were natural leaders, that everyone who met him would love him, that he had a natural warmth and charm that he could use to move mountains… and then, once he’d been blown so full of hot air he could barely move, in had come his father to tell him he was stubborn, that his vanity would be his downfall, that his arrogance and lack of humility made him a liability and not an asset in running a company like theirs.
Exhaling hard, he got to his feet and started packing up his things. That was quite enough study for one day. For one lifetime, as far as he was concerned. He remembered to drop Morgan’s books back in the return chute, trying not to let the icy look from the librarian he’d yelled at freeze him to the spot again. Then he headed for his dorm. He was tired and his eyes hurt from straining over the ridiculously small font in those stupid books, but somehow, a part of him still felt good about how the afternoon had gone. Bad sign, Archer. Don’t let this place turn you into a nerd.
“Hey, the boss is back! Where’ve you been all afternoon, Archer?”
He was a little surprised by the intensity of their curiosity until he realized how late it was. The afternoon had come and gone in what felt like no time flat, and he shrugged a little as he shut the front door behind him.
“Are those books? Were youstudying?” Zack was pointing at the notebook under his arm, and his tone would hardly have been more surprised if Archer had come in stark naked and covered in glue and feathers. “Who’s this guy? What’s he done with Archer?”
“Oh, you know. Just smashing out this dumb project, keeping the professor off my back. Don’t want to get expelled before the party this weekend, do I, lads?”
That won him a chorus of whoops, and Archer relaxed a little. Why had he let Zack’s mocking tone worry him like that? It didn’t matter what these guys thought of him. He headed for his room, keen to get the rest of the stupid project finished before dinner so he could stop thinking about it, but Brody called after him.
“What project?”
“Astrology. Had to do my chart.” That won him some sympathetic groans, but one of the guys frowned a little.
“That’s not due til like, the end of the week, dude. And Rowton’s soft, you could’ve put it off for weeks without getting in any kind of trouble.” He chuckled, eyes flashing. “Maybe youareturning into a nerd.”
“It’s called working smart, not hard, loser,” Archer snapped, careful not to let too much real anger show in his tone. “You can screw around getting things in at the last minute all you like. Meanwhile, I’ll be using my charm to get all the work done for me.” That caught their attention, and he grinned. “One of the girls from class saw me in the library. Couldn’t resist these sad, beautiful eyes—basically begged me to let her do all the work for me.”
“Which girl?”
“The redhead,” he said. Something about the idea of using her name made him feel conflicted… especially given how much creative license he was using in the telling of the story. “She’s weird, but anything’s better than actually working, right?”
“You know what they say about those weird, uptight chicks, right?” That was Zack, his eyes glinting. Archer privately suspected that his almost compulsive tendency to talk about sex was a way of hiding the fact that he’d never had it. “They’re crazy in bed. Like—crazy.”
