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I clear my throat. “Okay, that’s a good point. Why don’t you look for papers online while I check out business books?”
Despite bracing myself the entire day for this, I’m still not ready for when his eyes meet mine.
My brain’s a little shit. It plucks the memory of his eyes at half-mast from the back of my mind, of how he looked up at me while my legs were wrapped around his hips, one of his hands grabbing my thigh and the other one traveling up the skin of my back.
The intensity of his eyes right now is just like that. It’s as if he’s remembering too. My clothes feel simultaneously too hot and too cold.
With a shaky breath I can’t hide, I get up from my seat. “Yeah. So. Be back when I find something.”
I hope to find nothing but a black hole I can disappear into.
This is too much. I’m out of my depth here. I’ve flirted with guys before, kissed a few, but none of them felt like this. Like each one could’ve been the brink of disaster.
I hide in the economics and business section of the library. It’s not far enough from him, but at least there’s an AC vent pointed directly at my steaming face.
Here’s the thing: after this class ends, I’ll only see glimpses of him in the sports facilities. We may run into each other at a few parties, but the more time that passes, the more I’ll get busy with hockey and school. The odds that he gets a girlfriend will get higher as well. The time from now until then will suck, as if every day is Monday, but I’ve survived much worse.
“Yo puedo,” I tell myself, pumping my fists a little.
The first step is to actually follow his lead and work. My heart rate starts calming the heck down while I check out the spines on the nearest shelf. What the hell am I even doing here?
I run a hand through my hair, clearing it away from my face. Right, business plan stuff. The basics for how to make a business case to pitch to investors. Something that is actually helpful since sooner or later—hopefully later—I’ll be looking for capital to open my own business.
With that reminder, I finally start paying attention. I find a couple of books I can check out and put them on the carpet for later. I browse through the shelves, find a thick tome that looks promising, and put it on the pile. Rinse and repeat a couple more times until I find a book that looks exactly like what we need.
I try to reach for it, but it’s on a shelf too high for me. There isn’t a step stool in this aisle, but what if I use the pile of books on the floor?
Coach Young would murder me if I got injured this way, though. I stretch myself all the way, and the tip of my finger graces the spine, nowhere near where I can get a decent grasp. A jolt of pain shoots from my back up to my brain, and I freeze. This is a bad idea. I need to find a step stool.
A shadow descends over me. A hand above me easily plucks the book from its place. I recognize the sleeve of a denim shirt. When I turn around, Max Cassiano will be standing in front of me.
I take a deep breath, which doesn’t help at all with the way my nose soaks up the warm sandalwood scent in the air around me.
When I turn around, he offers me the book in silence. I use it as a shield between us, and as much as I wish to run away, I can’t. His eyes have me rooted to the spot.
“We need to talk,” he finally says.
I give a weak smile. “Nothing good ever comes after that sentence.”
“Can we just forget what happened?” Max bites his lip while running a hand through his hair, both of which I now know to be silky soft. “I shouldn’t have made the bet in the first place, especially not without giving you a chance to not accept it. That was a dick move, and I’m sorry.”
I… shit. I hadn’t thought about that.
But he’s right. I walked into it blind. If it had been any other guy, if I hadn’t already had a bit of a thing for him before the pool game, I’d be fuming. Absolutely ready to rampage. In fact, I’d have reneged on the whole thing, damn my pride or the supposed eternal glory for my team.
Pretending to be angry would be a lie, though. Saying I’m not would be an admission that I wanted to kiss him all along. I don’t want to do either.
I stare at him, unable to pry my mouth open and spew out a single word.
“Look.” He cringes and takes a step back. “It’s obviously made everything weird between us, and we still have to work on this project together. So can we just pretend it never happened?”
Oh, but it happened, all right. I can pretend, yeah, but I’ll never forget.
He must’ve seen me sneaking glances at him in class. He definitely saw me freak out when he arrived at the library. I’m not known for my poker face. Right now, I am the definition of weird. Because of him.
Accepting his proposal is the easiest path. The best. The only option. The one that leads exactly to the plan I created for myself: keep my head in the game and in school, gradually drift apart from this guy.
The fact that he’s offering it himself, as a sort of olive branch, is a blessing in disguise. It means I don’t have to lie to him. He’s doing it all for me.
