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A smile spreads across his face. “Really? Do tell.”
His grin is genuine and even as I want to curl up and die, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve ever seen him happy before. I don’t think I have.
“Yes, now if you don’t mind,” I turn on my heel intending to walk away.
“Weren’t you coming over here to sit?” he says.
“That was before I saw who else was here. I’ll find somewhere else to sit.”
Much to my horror he stands up and follows me. “I’d hate to think I’m hindering your, er, academic success?” Again, it’s posed like a question, but also a joke.
He’s fucking with me. Well, fuck him right back.
“Go away,” I demand, still marching across the library, no idea where I’m headed.
I need to escape him. There are more chairs upstairs, but he easily keeps pace with me as I dart toward the stairs.
“Are you still in school?”he asks pleasantly.
It’s a sore subject, whether or not he realizes it. “Yes. Of course, I am.”
“Studying what?”
“Why do you care?”
He’s obviously trying not to laugh now. “Honestly, I’m wondering if I should take whatever class that book is for. Is there a practical element?”
“You’re finished with school,” I grumble.
“Nope,” he pops the P. “I’m still here.”
I stop walking and turn to face him. “What? You’re kidding. You dropped out?”
“Why do you care?” he mimics my words, still smiling, like this is all fun for him.
Why do I care? An interesting question.
The fact that Roman is indisputably intelligent is one of the great injustices of my life. It would be so much easier to dismiss him if he was stupid. If he was a run-of-the-mill village idiot I could write off so many of his confusing mixed signals and the way he flip-flops between cruel and flirtatious. I could disregard his enigmatic comments as accidental rather than calculated. But, no. He had the audacity to be born gifted, and then prove it by graduating from Elsinore an entire year early.Just thinking about it makes me furious.
At least, I thought he graduated early. That was what I was told—what everyone was talking about last spring. But if he really left. If he dropped out and wasted his opportunity, while I would rake myself across hot coals just to come back next semester. I have no words. “I’m just surprised,” I say diplomatically. “You always liked school.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t drop out. I’m doing my master’s now.”
He frowns slightly as he speaks, but I’m too distracted to think much of it. I feel my eye twitch and pray it wasn’t as obvious as it appeared. “Whatever. I doubt you’re getting a master’s in sexual expression.”
I feel as though I can see him having an actual battle with his inner demons. Like the slight widening of his eyes, the way he almost swallows, and the muscle ticking in his neck. He wants so badly to say: “Why would I, when I already eat pussy at a doctorate level,” or something absurd like that.
Damn, now I’m blushing. I back away toward the stairs.
“No,” he says. “It’s in British and European occult literature through an Elizabethan lens.”
“Right.” I wave him off as I start climbing the stairs to the second floor, but then I process what he said. “Wait, really?”
He jogs after me. “Yes? Is that a problem.”
I lick my lips. Gods, why is that hot?
“No.” My tone is short. “It’s just, that’s almost what I’m studying. Or will be, I guess. After I finish my undergrad. I want to do Arthurian, though, not Elizabethan.”
