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“I like proving people wrong about me.” Deus smiled down at me. “Just like you. You think I want to spend all my time playing frisbee golf and tanning by the lake. Turns out I’m into narwhals, too. If I want to be.”
“Youdospend all your time on frisbee golf.” I tried to distract myself from the mental image of a shirtless Deus lying on the grass by a sparkling lake.
“I do not.” Deus bumped his shoulder playfully against mine.
He had no way of knowing that the simple touch had turned my insides to jelly or the way my skin begged for him to touch me again. What was wrong with me?
“Hey! Deus!” A gorgeous blonde waved from across the lawn, where she sat in a group of equally stunning females and circled by twice as many guys.
She flipped her bleach-blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled coyly. “Frisbee golf later?”
“Can’t,” Deus called back. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he grinned. “Anyway, frisbee golf is a great way to relax. If you spend all your time hunched over a desk, you’ll get a backache.”
He paused, thinking his own words over, then turned back toward the group. “How about four?”
“Deal.” The girl turned back to her group, and a wave of giggles and high-fives broke out.
My stomach soured at the sound.No nonsense,I reminded myself. Deus could spend his time doing whatever he wanted with anyone he liked.
And honestly, anyone seemed to beeveryone.
I’d never seen him alone with any of the female students, though. Which surprised me. We were all in our early twenties now, and I’d overheard enough bathroom and dining hall conversations to know many of the female students were here specifically to find a mate.
Shouldn’t a hot catch like Deus have a girlfriend? Or maybe even a harem?
Mine.
I ignored the insistent inner voice that was growing possessive of Amadeus.
As we had settled into the semester and I started working on the narwhal shifter project with Deus in earnest, I’d seen just how many people liked to hang out with him. He was on a first-name basis with the whole academy. The student on the morning shift at the café gave him a latte on the house each morning, and Deus was on the automatic ‘cool’ list for every party, no matter how VIP.
Aside from the coffee—a landlocked thing I’d quickly come to love—the whole arrangement sounded horrific to me. I might long to be part of a small group of close friends, but the thought of everyone knowing my name was enough to make my tentacles curl.
Although, if the academy students ever realized what I truly was, I’d become as infamous as Deus was famous.
I had to admit, Deus took the attention with grace, and he gave as good as he got. When the coffee guy had flunked his Advanced Alchemy quiz, Deus had sat him down and listened patiently.
When his friend Ezric had been ghosted by the mermaid he’d been into, Deus had taken his phone and deleted her number. “You know it’s for the best,” he’d said gently and even gave Ezric a hug.
Deus was always inviting people to hang out with him. And honestly, it was exhausting. People stopped by every five minutes, whether we were in the dining hall, on the lawn, or in the library.
But I couldn’t really blame them—Deus’s aura was a cozy, glowing blanket, and the temptation to stop and snuggle was real.
Except I wasn’t the snuggling type.
Or at least I haven’t been in the past…
Eventually, I’d resorted to putting my headphones in whenever someone new popped by during our study sessions and drowned out their conversations.
Which is exactly what I’d been doing when Amadeus had plucked the headphones from my ears one day. We’d been seated in the library, and he’d just finished a lengthy chat with a girl who’d given him the tearful rundown of her grandmother’s failing health.
I’d swiped out, trying to snag my headphones back, but Deus had dangled them out of my reach. “What are you always listening to, anyway?”
“Nothing.” It had come out more defensive than I’d intended, so I’d added, “Ocean sounds.”
“Really?” Deus had put the headphones on and listened for a few moments. He then popped one ear off. “It’s really nice. Is it good for concentration?”
“It helps me relax.” And reminded me of home and why I’d come all this way to do what I was doing. But I wasn’t going to tell him all that.
