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“Bystander effect. Everyone else probably thinks the same thing,” I insist.
Plus, since the guy in the video was quite hot, half of the comments are things like, “Does the guy need adopting because I’ll take him” but I don’t mention that.
“He’s also located in California. Maybe your geography skills are a little lax, but that’s on the other side of the country.”
“Road trip!”
I can see him shaking his head in my mind’s eye, and the visual makes me smile. “Close that app before it gets you in trouble,” he commands.
“So bossy.” On impulse, I pull up my maps app and type in the route from Calhoun University to Baymont, California. The app processes my request for a second, then the map pulls back to show an entire portion of a globe with a blue map indicating our projected route across the entire width of North America. I’m only teasing him at this point, but I screenshot that and send it, too. “You mean to tell me you wouldn’t travel 3,000 miles for that squishy little face?”
“Correct,” he texts back promptly.
“How dare you. What if I got kidnapped and hauled to the other side of the country? I guess you’d just say, ‘well, it was nice knowing her.’”
“You are not a random dog in a random animal shelter on the other side of the country. I’d make the trip for you.”
This is a ridiculous thing to make my heart flutter, but it does.
Smiling, I text back, “Aww, my hero.” But then I add, “In that case, Aiden just showed up. He’s kidnapping me, but he said to make your life easier, he’ll tell you where he’s taking me. It’s here,” I state, attaching a cropped screenshot of the shelter’s address in California.
“Nice try.”
“I’ll see you in two days!”
“It won’t take two days. If I’m going to California, I’m flying,” he assures me.
“Ok, but don’t forget to bring a cage. It’s totally not for a dog. Aiden is making me get in a cage right now, and I have a feeling my mind will splinter and I will adapt quickly to this new environment, so we’ll need it to transport me back.”
“If you keep texting me about that asshole, I’M gonna put you in a cage to make sure you never talk to him again.”
I grin at the screen. “Sorry!” I type back, but I’m not sorry at all. It’s probably weird, but I get a little kick out of him getting jealous every time I mention that jerk.
Chapter Nineteen
Brynn
My tummy is rumbling by the time I get to the student lounge outside the auditorium for coffee, cookies, and doughnuts before the seminar.
“Ugh, I want all of it,” I mutter to myself as I look at all the offerings.
“Right?” says a dark-haired girl next to me with a faint smile. “They could have put out some apples or something. They set us up for failure,” she says as she reaches for a cookie.
I recognize her from one of my classes, but not physics. “Aren’t you in my cellular biology and molecular medicine class?”
She nods, eyeing the cookie before she takes a bite. “Yep. I’m pre-med.”
This seminar is open to all Calhoun students, but it’s unusual for off-major students to attend a lecture like today’s. If you’re not already pretty familiar with the subject matter, it would be difficult to follow, and there’s no medicinal application whatsoever. This is strictly for space geeks.
“Annabel, right?”
She nods. “Annabel Lee. And you’re Brynn Blakely.”
I’m mildly surprised that she knows my name. Honestly, I don’t know the names of most of my classmates. I only remembered Annabel’s because I also saw her during rush week at the Zeta house.
She made the cut. I didn’t.
Smiling prettily, she says, “I remember you from rushing Zeta together.”
