AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah?”
The tension around them thinned as he whispered the word. It was as if they’d found the threads that held them at bay and had snipped them clean in two.
Setting down his knife, Colin moved in front of her. His hands smeared wet dough across her shirt as they slipped around her waist. Allison’s knees fell open to draw him closer.
“I’ll need to do some research.” The words were in his throat. Graveled with want.
Allison’s legs hooked to his hips. “Consider me an open book.”
Chapter 29
With only two weeks until their big presentations in Wendy’s class and her regular coursework getting more demanding than ever, there’d been little time for Allison to hang out with Colin or her Claymore cohort. They’d even had to cancel Saturday’s compulsory bonding at Ethan’s (a fact about which no one was complaining) because of a big annotated bibliography due in Victorian Families.
A handful of them were currently sitting around Colin’s giant dining room table putting a dent in that assignment.
Allison’s phone beeped. It took her five minutes to find it under all the articles she’d spread out before her.
“You should really invest in a laptop,” Ethan said.
“I prefer my desktop, thanks,” she ground out. Her fingers strangled her phone, yet another text from her mother staring back at her.
MOM: Your father said you haven’t checked in on him once. He’s been home for almost two weeks.
Allison was tired of the guilt. And of her mother not respecting her decisions regarding her father. She jabbed out a response soviolently that two of her pens rolled off the side of the table from the movement. Then she silenced her phone and threw it in her purse.
Colin arched an eyebrow from the seat beside her.
“Maybe I should have applied to schools a little farther away from Maine than Rhode Island,” she muttered. Over his shoulder, she could see Ned the suit of armor, the empty gaze of his faceguard surveilling them like a medieval version of Big Brother.
“Your mom again?”
Allison nodded. “I bet Stanford’s nice this time of year.” Or Siberia. Or Narnia. Maybe Middle Earth or Wonderland. Camelot. Anywhere that wasn’t within cell tower service.
“I got in there,” Ethan announced to no one. He didn’t bother to look up from his laptop.
Link stopped typing long enough to glance at him. “For undergrad?”
Windbag shook his head. “Grad program. I was accepted to all eight schools I applied to: Harvard, Brown, UCal Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Claymore, Northwestern.” He ticked each one off on his fingers.
Colin flinched and began to rustle through his notes, his hands restless and jerky.
Allison couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling, given that Ethan’s list had her questioning the validity of her own small set of acceptances from Claymore, Tufts, and Boston College.
Reaching under the table, she gave his knee a squeeze. She would have preferred a soft kiss to his temple (forehead kisses were the height of reassuring gestures), but they hadn’t told anyone in their cohort they were dating. They hadn’t even said those words out loud to each other.
He kept his gaze locked on whatever article he was pretending to read, oblivious to her touch.
“I chose Claymore because of Isha Behi. Though UCal Berkeley was practically begging me to join them.” Ethan spoke with the plainness of reading a grocery list, prompting Allison to glance around for a proper projectile. This guy had a superiority complex the size of Texas.
As if Ethan’s gloating had summoned him, Captain Pepper Jack materialized onto the table. Swaying his large orange haunches, he meandered across, stopping to knock each piece of paper or pen he passed out of his way. When he reached Ethan, the cat plopped down on his copy ofNicholas Nicklebyand began to lazily gnaw on a corner. His one eye tracked Windbag, challenging him to say more as the tip of his tail wicked the tabletop.
Colin shoved up from his seat. The legs squealed loudly against the floor. “Here, let me get him. He was supposed to be locked in my bedroom.”
Hoisting the cat under his arm (and deliberately, Allison guessed, knocking Ethan’s book to the floor in the process), he headed, not toward his room, but to the kitchen.
Allison made an excuse about refreshing her already full glass of water and hurried after him. She forgot her drink on the table.
Colin stood staring out the window, his fingers gripping the edge of the large farmer’s sink. At his feet, Captain Pepper Jack wrestled with a pouch of catnip.
