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I feel awful and torn and tragic, already missing this person I hardly know. I shake my head, looking down at my shoes. “I have to go.”
He calls after me when I’m just a few steps away, “What’s your major, Grace?”
“Biology, why?”
He shrugs. “I’ll see you around.”
Chapter Three
Damien
She’s going to think I’m a psycho.
This is day three of my mission. I’m sitting on a bench that’s situated between Redman Hall and Wilson Hall, reading a book that I’m not actually reading, trying to look like I’m minding my own business as I conduct surveillance.
I usually have way more intel at my fingertips when I’m trying to track someone down. All I’ve got right now is a first name and the location of the biology department. I could press Gianna to find out her last name, but even though the clock is tick, tick, ticking, I’m not that desperate—yet.
She looked like the cat that got the cream Sunday night when she spotted Grace walking out of the bar and away from me. When Eli asked, “Where’s your girl going?” she could barely contain her smile.
Eli and I have weathered the kind of shitstorms together that either bind you to someone for life, or make it so that you never want to lay eyes on them again. Eli and I are brothers. His family has welcomed me in, let me stay at their home more times than I can count on both hands. So it should be, and Isowish that Gianna looked at me like a brother, but that’s not the case. And I’ve got no one to blame for that but myself.
For the next six weeks I’m crashing at Eli’s apartment, so I’ll be seeing her more regularly, I suppose. I plan on doing everything I can to make things cordial while not putting myself in the position of having any sort of alone time with her. I don’t want to confront her about her behavior, don’t want to fight with her—I just don’t want. It’s bad enough that Eli thinks she has a massive crush on me. I mean, it wouldn’t end our friendship or anything, but he’d be ticked off if he knew I kissed her once upon a time when I was drunk.
She was eighteen. I don’t blame her. I was twenty-two and should have known better. I felt bad for her when she got dumped by her boyfriend the day after prom. I never got the details—as I said, I was pretty drunk—so I just assumed she’d been wronged. That maybe the kid was some asshole who broke it off because G didn’t put out. I still don’t know what happened, but now that I’ve gotten to know Gianna better, I’m thinking it’s more likely that she drove that poor kid to kick her to the curb.
She’s not nice to people she doesn’t know. It’s almost like she has to size someone up and see what they bring to the table before she decides whether or not she likes them.
Lucky me, I’ve been deemed worthy, but I’ve seen her dismiss people based on their looks, their social standing or their parents’ line of work. I saw her look at a guy’s shoes once and smirk. She’s a snob with no reason to be one. Gianna is what my mother—God rest her soul—would have called afive and dime millionaire. I can picture my mother rolling her eyes, chiming in with another one of her favorites:That one, she’s a real Bronx debutante.
Gianna sized Grace up on Sunday night. I watched her. Watched as she got that superior look on her face. Probably told herself she was better than Grace, when in my eyes nothing could be further from the truth.
I was like a heat seeking missile when I spotted Grace from across the bar. Long brown hair, curvy little figure, kind eyes. Yeah, I saw her turn down a guy or two, and saw the way it pained her to do it. It’s like she was unaccustomed to attention, which doesn’t make any sense, or maybe she was used to it but it still made her uncomfortable.
I did feel like I was setting myself up to be turned down, but the life I’ve led so far has me giving absolutely zero fucks. Life is short, so you best get busy living or get busy dying. And Grace set something off inside of me, like a promise of something good to come. Three days later and I’m still thanking God she didn’t send me off with my tail between my legs. And even though she did ultimately turn me down and walk away, I could see the indecision in her eyes, the disappointment when I told her I’d be gone in six weeks.
Take a chance, I wanted to tell her.So much can happen in six weeks.And now I’m down to five weeks and four days, growing impatient as I turn into another piece of furniture dotting the campus green. Gotta come up with a new plan. Improvise, adapt and overcome.
“Damien?”
“Hey, Grace.” I close the book, stand up and try to play off the wholefunny running into you herething, but I’m not really concerned about blowing my cover. Like I said, no time to waste.
“Are you waiting for Eli? Is he a science major, too?”
“Close, he’s an engineering major, but I was actually hoping to run into you.”
“Oh.” She looks away but can’t hide her smile. She’s pleased, which pleases me to no end.
“Are you on your way to class or do you have time to grab lunch?”
“I have an hour before my next class.”
“Can I take you to lunch?”
She looks up at the clock tower. “It’s ten-thirty.”
“Early lunch, late breakfast, whatever.”
She tugs her bag higher up onto her shoulder. “Sure.” She gestures to the left and starts walking. “I know a place.”
