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“Ugh, bring her down.” Adalee blows out an exaggerated breath.
This time I pick Erika up, honeymoon style, and carry her down the steps as I wait for Adalee to unlock the door. She holds the door open wide to let us in.
“Just put her on the couch.” She slams down her wristlet on the bar.
“I can put her in Ginger’s room. Joe said Ginger was sick and staying the night at his place.”
She thinks about it for a minute and then says, “Her room is on the right.”
I go in and lay her down on the bed, take off her shoes, and set them beside the bed. Adalee peers in through the doorway. I walk toward her, and she doesn’t step aside. “Thanks for letting her stay.”
She lets me pass and then follows me to her front door. “I guess neither of us got what we wanted tonight.”
She has no idea what I want, and it’s certainly not Erika. “Nope I didn’t. Maybe you did. I can’t compete with Logan Warren.”
Adalee bites back a smile at my admission that I want to compete for her attention. “Logan and I are just friends. You’ve probably never been just friends with a girl.”
“Is that what you want us to be?Just friends?” I take two strides and our chests are mere inches apart. I purposefully talk soft and low because it turned her on, earlier tonight. “One thing I don’t understand is why you love being friends with a notorious playboy like Logan, but it’s like pulling teeth for me to get a smile from you. I promise you, Logan’s been with more women in the three months I’ve known him than most guys in three or four lifetimes.”
I run my knuckle over her lip. “But maybe you’re biding your time, hoping you’ll be the last woman standing in Logan’s eyes. The one that let him sew his oats then tamed him. His friend turned wife.”
The result of my comment is a stare off. She shivers with a sound rumbling from her chest. Her eyes widen as she looks at me through her lashes. I kiss her on the corner of her mouth. My lips touch just enough of hers to know that I want more, but I’m the one that needs to bide my time. Deep in my bones I feel how much she wants me to claim her, I’ll wait her out. This may or may not be love, but it’s something. And like the preacher said at all my siblings’ weddings, “Love is patient.” I’ve waited my turn my whole life, being the youngest in a large family, stuck somewhere between much older siblings and grandkids.
So, dear Adalee, I’ll happily play the waiting game.
I grab the knob and walk out. I faintly hear my name, but she needs to understand how this waiting game works. I have a strange thump inside my chest, and with every single beat, it tells me she’s worth the wait.
ChapterEleven
Adalee
The lecture hallis humming today. The professor made attendance ten percent of our grade, so it’s packed with students. I’m still sitting in the cheap seats. It’s easier with the brace not to do steps. Joe stops and talks for a few minutes before heading down to sit with Hagan and a few other friends. Erika sits in the same row, although this time, Hagan’s on the other end sandwiched between a football player and blonde from the Kappa Delta sorority. Judging from the way he’s ignoring Erika, he’s tired of being her caretaker.
When Erika woke up in Ginger’s room Sunday morning, she didn’t remember even seeing Hagan Saturday night. She said he called and told her he would meet her, but then never showed up. I filled in the facts about how he brought her home and waited for her roommates to come home. She was embarrassed and apologized repeatedly. Hagan was telling the truth about just bringing her home.
Saturday, Hagan proved to me, beyond a doubt, that I want him to kiss me. He left me so hot and bothered that I needed relief. His dimples kept appearing in my head—and so did the way he took care of someone that isn’t his girlfriend.
The professor hits his palm against the lectern two times, and the loud chatter slows to a few murmurs. He fingers the microphone on his button-down and says, “Thanks for showing up today. Scan this QR code for your attendance.” A huge QR code flashes up on the smart board. “The company the university is partnering with is ready for the student infusion. You’ll be working with a partner of my choosing.”
The class lets out a universal sigh. People like me want to make sure I’m getting a student that will pull their weight.
“I’ve taken an extensive look at each of your strengths and weaknesses and have put together teams that will complement each other,” the professor claims.
He goes on to explain the project and how each pairing will have a different problem to solve is a required to give a minimum of two solutions. Our assignment is to give solutions to a specific problem the design team has encountered. The company already has the answers but it’s a way of testing our intuition, current knowledge, and our critical thinking skills. At the end of the class, he asks us to check our class app for details.
I scroll through my phone on our university app to find this class. There are approximately one hundred people, so that’s fifty pairings. Before I’ve located my partner, Hagan knocks on my desk twice.
“Looks like it’s me and you, kid,” he says while grinning, and I get caught up in his golden flecked eyes, charming little dimple and teeth that make would make a toothpaste model jealous.
He shows me his phone, showing me proof that we’re partners. “Great. With our schedules, he should have paired us with students that have less hectic lives.”
The guy sitting beside me chimes in, “Just because we’re not athletes doesn’t mean we’re not busy. I work two jobs and go to school full time.”
Hagan jumps in to defend me. “She didn’t mean it like that. Adalee just doesn’t want me as her partner. Sorry man.”
The tall, lanky guy purses his lips as he scans the room for his partner saunters off. Hagan slips into his seat and his clean, fresh scent wafts through the air. He has a white Stallions baseball cap on today and his brown hair curls up under the edge. Sometimes he’s boyish like today, and other times, like after the game—he’s all man.
Hagan snaps his fingers, which startles me. “Earth to Adalee.” Then he starts singing Frank Sinatra’s, “Fly Me to the Moon.” Geez, is there anything this guy can’t do?
