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“What’d you do?” I leaned against the cart. “Flirt with the boys?”
“Flirt with them? Oh, sweetheart, we were wilder than that. My father caught us both in the back of the quarterback’s car and dragged us back to our house by the hair. Oh, the times. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
A giggle escaped my throat. “Sue! In the back of the quarterback’s car—together?!”
“He was a hunk.” She giggled. And if an old lady giggling wasn’t the cutest fucking thing in the world, I didn’t know what was. “Ahh, anyway, enough about me. More than once, I’ve seen you hanging out with that bad boy who comes around here.”
Now, my cheeks flushed. “Yeah, we’re kinda … a thing.”
Kinda a thing?! If Blaise had heard me say that, he’d have been pissed. We were definitely more than a thing. Hell, we had even said those three magical little words to each other that every girl ever dreamed of.
“Have you gotten caught in the back of his car yet?” Sue asked playfully.
“Surprisingly, no.” I giggled, chest fluttering as I thought back to all those times that we should’ve definitely been caught in the middle of Redwood Academy. I was surprised that not even the cameras had seen us. We hadn’t even … hidden it at all.
After laughing again, Sue shook her head and waggled her finger at me. “Oh, I know it’s more than that. Your smile is wider, and your eyes are brighter, more excited now than they’ve ever been.”
My cheeks burned even hotter. “Maybe …”
“Dear, I know—”
“Excuse me,” someone said from the counter. Holding two books against his chest, Jim from CVS stood at the counter and stared at me. “Uh, I … wanted to see if I could get these books scanned out and”—he looked down, then back up at me—“talk to you?”
Fuck.
Not that I didn’t want to talk to the kid—scratch that. I definitely didn’t want to talk to him—but I was at work and had a good-girl reputation to hold up with Sue. If I said something in front of her, her whole perception of me might change.
“I’m going to put some books away.” I pushed the cart from behind the counter and hurried through the library. “Sue can scan you out.”
Hopefully, I could put many of these books away before he had the chance to walk through the library, find me, and begin chatting with me. I glanced behind me to see him chatting with Sue and thrust the books into their designated spots as quickly as I could.
I tucked some hair behind my ear and pushed the cart to the next aisle of books, searching through the romance books to put back a book with a hot, shirtless guy plastered across the cover.
Before I pushed it into the bookcase, I stared down at it for a few moments. When I published a book officially, I would have so much to think about. Who I wanted on the cover. What kind of cover I wanted—sexy man’s chest or a pretty object cover. Who’d edit it.
Literally everything.
“Hey, can we talk?” Jim asked.
After shoving the book into the bookcase, I grumbled to myself and took the next book from the cart. “I’m busy,” I mumbled, hoping that he’d go away and never find me ever, ever again. I hadn’t liked him from the moment he was basically staring me down in the Plan B aisle.
“It’ll be quick,” he said, leaning against the bookcase where I needed to put the last book back. When he realized, he shuffled back to a standing position and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sorry. I just wanted to see if you wanted to”—he scratched the back of his head—“go out with me tonight to get Italian ice.”
“I have a boy—”
“As friends,” he clarified.
“No.”
“Come on, Vera.”
“No.”
“You’re really not even going to give me a chance? Blaise Harleen could never—”
“You don’t know the first thing about Blaise Harleen,” I snapped, glaring up at him. “I’m not going out with you. Not only do I have a boyfriend who would kick your ass for talking to me, but I don’t want to go out with you. I never did.”
“What about in the library, when you told me to stay so we could …you know… during your break?”
