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As if Professor Frances hadn’t done enough by drawing everyone’s gaze to them, she then upped the ante. “Why don’t you both introduce yourselves briefly?”
Allison almost choked swallowing back a laugh. Clearly, their professor had not spent any amount of time with Colin. If she had, she’d know his version of “brief” included a PowerPoint presentation and a ten-minute break for everyone to stretch their legs.
Allison had done a pretty stellar job over the last hour and eight minutes pretending he wasn’t sitting beside her, but now his hazel gaze slid to her face, and he arched an eyebrow, asking who would go first.
“Go ahead,” she mouthed. Let him set the stage so she could follow and trounce his ass (apparently, when it came to Colin Benjamin, introducing yourself was a competitive sport).
All six feet, three inches of him rose from his chair. “Hey, all,” he said, his voice obnoxiously calm. He rounded the table they shared and leaned against the edge.
Directly in front of Allison.
Every pointy, lanky piece of him blocked her view: his razor-edged shoulders, and bony elbows, and straight spine. His flat ass. All places on him she’d touched a million times before.
All places on him she now wanted to stab with something sharp.
“Let’s see. What’s worth knowing about me?”
“Nothing,” Allison mumbled under her breath. Not quietly enough, though, because Colin cast her a glance. The glare of the fluorescent lights obscured the look in his eyes, but that grin of his, the one that promised an anthology full of delicious secrets, spread across his face.
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “My friend here says nothing.” He chuckled along with the rest of the class.
Friend!? Who was he kidding? That was most assuredlynotanaccurate way to describe how they’d ended things, and anyway, hadn’t theyjustdiscussed that they were going to forget their history?
“Anyyyy-way,” he dragged out the word for the extra cute factor.
Allison was in desperate need of a barf bag.
“I got my BA in literature from Brown, and spent the last two years traveling, gaining life experience, figuring things out.” As he spoke, he leaned deeper into the table, shoving it against Allison’s stomach. “I think my favorite part was my time in London.”
With a little hop, he set himself on the tabletop. His ass rested at the edge of her notebook. His whole upper half was in her breathing space, filling her nostrils with the scent of coffee and hair gel andColin.
She coughed loudly.
“I visited Chaucer at Westminster every morning.” Except for the slight rise in the volume of his voice, you’d think he hadn’t heard her. “Though I haven’t decided exactly what my focus will be, I’m definitely going to be a medievalist, which is why I’m so excited to be a part of this course.”
Allison had to cough again to cover a squawk of surprise. What the hell?
Colin was a theory bro. When she’d last seen him, he’d beenobsessedwith Lacanian psychoanalysis and Slavoj Žižek, though neither were the trend in lit theory these days. He’d never shown any interest in the medieval period beyond half-heartedly listening to her recount some of the things she’d read for class.
This had to be some kind of ploy. A way to make sure he caught Professor Frances’s notice. And their professor was eating it up. Smiling and nodding at every disingenuous word.
Frustration searing her skin, Allison scratched out some ideas in the corner of her notebook, a few tidbits to swing their teacher’s attention back her way. Maybe something about the connection between medieval and modern romance to show she was familiar with Professor Frances’s research interests?
In front of her, Colin continued to drone on about his favorite texts, all of which (of course) appeared on the syllabus. The guy was the ultimate suck-up. When he started talking about “The Miller’s Tale” like he was the Wikipedia page, Allison poked her pen into his spine.
He didn’t react, so she jabbed his back harder and more incessantly. They were out of time, and she still hadn’t been able to say anything. Normally, that would be fine, but not if it meant she’d be overshadowed by him.
He shimmied his shoulders, finally annoyed enough to acknowledge her. As he shifted, the pen moved with him, sketching a series of erratic black lines over the back of his blue sweater.
Her mouth dropping open, Allison released her pen hastily. It bounced off her open notebook and rolled over the edge of the table. In her irritation, she hadn’t realized she’d never retracted the tip. The ink was so dark, and his cardigan so light, it was impossible not to see the scribbles that circled the small of his back. It looked like when Allison’s next-door neighbor had written all over the white walls of her house with marker.
But Hannah had been three.
Allison bit her lip to keep from laughing and dug deep inside of herself, searching for the appropriate level of guilt. She’d probably ruined his sweater and it looked expensive.
Yet she only found vindication. It served him right—for not leaving her time to speak, for blocking her from the class, for everything he’d done since the night of that party sophomore year when their paths first crossed. If you really thought about it, every choice Colin had made these past few years had led him to this moment, to this well-earned damage to his wardrobe.
Allison sat back in her chair, satisfaction warming her insides like a shot of whiskey.
