AllFreeNovel
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Just like I suspected, thoughts of my mother kill any lingering arousal pulsing through me.
After the morning spent with Ford, this is the last place I want to be. But I also can’t sit around and fret about her intentions. I’d rather hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Then I can figure out a game plan. Maybe run interference if it becomes necessary.
I straighten my shoulders and force myself to exit the BMW before heading inside the restaurant. Once through the double glass doors, I stop in the entryway, recognizing the inky-haired girl who loiters at the hostess stand. We had a class together last year.
Lola.
As soon as I flash a smile, recognition dawns and her expression warms. “Hey, how are you?”
“Good. I haven’t seen you around campus very much. Everything going well this semester?”
“I’m taking an eighteen credit course load and working here, so I pretty much have no life outside of that.”
“Ugh. That sucks. But this is it, right? Then you graduate in the spring?”
Relief flickers across her face. “Yup. Can’t wait. I’m more than ready to move on.”
Most of the people I know aren’t in any real hurry to leave college. They’re too busy enjoying all the parties and being responsibility free. Well…as much as any twenty-one or two-year old can be. From the little that she’s shared, it’s not the same for Lola.
Upon closer inspection, she looks tired. There are faint circles under her eyes as if she’s burning the candle at both ends. My heart goes out to her. I work at On Pointe studio a handful of hours each week because I genuinely like it and enjoy having my own pocket money. But there’s no way I could afford to pay rent and tuition with my paycheck.
“Are you meeting someone for lunch?” she asks, drawing the conversation back to the reason I’m here.
My gaze reluctantly flickers to the dining area behind her. “Yeah, my mother.”
“Oh, I think I just seated her.” She tilts her head and studies me more carefully. “You two are carbon copies of each other.”
I force a smile. “Yeah, we get that a lot.”
When I was younger, I used to take it as a compliment. That’s no longer the case. I don’t want to be anything like Pamela.
She pulls a menu from the stack. “Follow me and I’ll show you to your table.”
Just as we step into the spacious room with colorful streamers strung across the wooden beams above us, someone shoves through the glass doors into the front entry. Lola throws a glance over her shoulder at the newcomer and her face contorts into a scowl. The irritation is like a crack of lightning.
Curious to see who’s put that expression on her face, I glance behind me only to find Asher Stevens, one of the high-profile football players at Western. If the gossip that floats around campus is true, he’ll enter the draft this spring. There are always a couple girls tucked beneath his brawny arms and this occasion isn’t any different.
The females that cling to him look eerily similar to each other with long blonde hair, big boobs, and nipped-in waists.
Lola bares her teeth. It’s almost a surprise when she doesn’t snap them. Animosity pours off her in heavy, suffocating waves.
When he advances a step, she stabs a finger in his direction. “Stay right there. I’ll be back to seat you in a minute.”
A slow grin lights up his face as humor sparks to life in his bright blue eyes. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
When her darker ones thin in response, his grin only widens.
She huffs out an aggravated breath before stalking into the dining area and muttering, “That guy is such an ass.”
“I heard that,” he calls after her.
“You were meant to,” she snaps, raising her voice to be heard over the festive Tejano music that drifts through the sound system.
When we’re a handful of feet away from the hostess stand, I clear my throat. “I take it you and Asher are good friends?”
She glances at me with narrowed eyes. When a smile quirks my lips, she snorts and the tension filling her muscles dissolves.
“Hell, no. He’s just another conceited manwhore at Western who thinks he’s God’s gift to the female species.”
