AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He grins as he puts them on. “Handsome is kinda my thing.”
“You wish,” I tell him… though the dark-rimmed glasses do look nice on his face. He can pull them off. He looks intelligent.
Maybe he is.
At least he hasn’t asked me where the closest keg is. And he’s keeping up his half of this conversation even though he’s about two minutes out of a deep sleep. Plus, that stack of books is huge.
I yank my laptop out of my bag. Then I eye his pile of reading material while I slide one of my textbooks off the top of my stack and lay it out in front of me.
He catches the look. “You want to do some of my reading for me? You can.”
“No way. I have my own work to do.”
“You sure?” He pushes the open book toward me and wiggles it a little. “Human Evolutionary Biology… Sure I can’t tempt you? If you read this chapter so I can continue my nap, I’ll let you have some of my ramen.”
So that’s why it smells yummy in here. “Is it weird that I’m actually tempted by that offer?”
He leans back in his chair and studies me again—like I’m some fascinating fact he has to memorize for an upcoming quiz. “Ramen fan, hm?”
“I was weaned on instant ramen. Sort of my comfort food. I probably got hooked the first time my grandma served it to me.She wasn’t big on cooking on her days off… but that’s a long story. I’d pick ramen over an ice cream sundae any day. But only the good kinds.”
“Like the chicken flavor.”
“Or beef. Not?—”
“Shrimp,” he finishes.
I wrinkle my nose. “Exactly. And the noodles have to be cooked right. Not?—”
“Mushy,” he finishes for me again.
“Right. There’s an art to it.”
He snorts again, and I shake a finger at him. “That snort you do makes me believe you might just be a snorer.”
“You really think there’s a connection? Snorting, snoring?”
I nod. “Sure. It’s a windpipe thing, probably. But at this point it’s only a hypothesis.”
He feigns studious approval. “I see. A working hypothesis, not quite a theory. The Bradshaw Windpipe Theory. Not a great term, by the way… windpipe. Trachea is more accurate.”
“I’m not a science major.”
He gestures to my books. “English Lit?”
“I’m going after a double major. English Literature and Communications. I want to be a film writer. But back up. How do you know my last name?”
He leans in to tap my notebook with the eraser on his mechanical pencil. “It says so right there. You labeled your notebook on the front, in Sharpie.”
“I label most of my stuff. In high school, it was so my little sister couldn’t get away with stealing from me.”
He swivels his eyeglass case so I can see the block writing along the side:LANDRYis printed in perfect penmanship.
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re a serial labeler, too?”
“I have two little brothers. I started permanent-markering everything from sweatshirts to my bed sheets. It’s a bad habit. Hard to break it. Like you said, a girl can get stuck in a rut.”
“You’re a guy.”
