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“Professor. My name is Professor Heartland, Mr. Reed.” She paused and took another step toward him. “In the sixteenth century, things were vastly different, and women felt like they didn’t have a voice. Do you think women have a voice now?”
“I guess?” Elijah answered, but he was squirming in his seat now, and watching how uncomfortable he was made a smile spread on my face.
Professor Heartland made a noise in the back of her throat and spun around. “Maybe we should get a woman’s opinion on this?” My eyes widened, and I hoped she didn’t— “Rose? What do you think? Do you think women are represented in literature the same way they were when in the sixteenth century?”
“I think it’s different,” the girl next to me said. Rose. Her name was Rose. I should have remembered that because I was obsessed with the movie Titanic.
“In what way?”
“I think prejudice is still rife in America. Whether it be gender, skin color, sexuality. There will always be someone who doesn’t like something, but the difference is freedom. We now have the freedom to reply back and tell them it’s not right. We have the freedom to speak out grievances, whereas in the sixteenth century, it was white men who controlled what was said in the media and what wasn’t said.”
“Well said, Rose. Well said.”
“Thank you,
Professor,” she replied with a huge smile on her face.
“Your assignment this week is to research a sixteenth-century piece of literature and rewrite it in a modern-day language. Change it around, have fun with it. Speak from the heart.” Professor Heartland clapped her hands. “That’s today’s class over. See you all next week.” She didn’t wait as she grabbed her bag and then sauntered out of the class, not another word spoken, and I kind of lived for it.
I packed my things away, and shuffled out of the row of seats, only to be met with Elijah’s scowling face. “Thanks, Tinker Bell.”
“Move along,” a deep voice said from beside us. “Now.”
Elijah turned his head and chuckled. “This your bodyguard, Tinker Bell?” He stepped closer to me, but I just stared up at him with a raised brow. Elijah loved to provoke me, but I never bit, and I think he hated that about me. “He know you like to fuck frat boys on the daily?”
I shrugged. “It’s a shame you’re not one of those frat boys, huh?”
A muscle ticked in Elijah’s jaw, and I smiled sweetly up at him. He knew for a fact I hadn’t slept with any frat boys, but he enjoyed making out that I did. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“I’m gonna tell you once more, move the fuck along,” Ford growled. He stepped between us, completely blocking my view of Elijah.
Elijah grumbled something and then moved back, but his gaze met mine, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I heard from him. Not that I cared one bit. He was just a sore loser who held a grudge.
“You know you didn’t have to do that,” I told Ford, slipping past him and moving down the steps toward the lecture hall door.
“I know,” he grunted. “It was either that or lay him out. Fuck, Belle, why’d you let him talk to you like that?”
I halted at the door, my hand on the knob, and turned my head to look at him. I could see the anger and frustration on his face, but he needed to understand I wasn’t the same person I was when I left for college all that time ago. I didn’t feel the need to fight fire with fire.
“I’m used to it,” I told him. “When people aren’t scared what your dad will do to them, they tend to not give a shit what they say to you.”
“That don’t mean you gotta put up with that shit, Baby Belle.” My skin buzzed at his nickname, but goose bumps spread everywhere when he stepped closer to me. He towered over me, just like he always had, and made me feel safe in the cocoon of his body. “You hear me?”
I let out a breath, feeling my shoulders sag. “Yeah, Ford, I hear you. But he’s just bitter because I refused to fuck him.”
A beat of silence stretched between us, and Ford’s eyes swirled with something I couldn’t quite understand. I’d never seen that look in his eyes before. “And the other frat boys?”
I knew what he was asking, but there was no way I was going to tell him I’d only slept with one guy since I’d been away at college, and that one guy had been the nerdy TA in my freshman year. So instead of telling him my entire history, I just shrugged and opened the door, leaving him wondering. Maybe he’d stop seeing me as Brody’s daughter if he believed it, or maybe he’d just think I was a skank.
I was kind of okay with either one.
Chapter Seven
FORD
You didn’t realize how important your privacy was until it was taken away from you. Sleeping on someone’s sofa meant your bed was constantly in use during the day, and the small open-plan room was the hub of the apartment when both Belle and Stella were home.
Part of me wanted to tell Stella it was late and to turn off the goddamn TV so I could get some sleep. Belle had a packed day of classes and a shift at the coffee shop tomorrow, so in turn I had a jam-packed day too. But apparently, Stella was unaware that she was overstaying her welcome on my bed, otherwise known as her sofa.
