She turns to him. “Roman. I have too much going on in my life right now. It sounds like you do too. I’m not about to have you jeopardize everything that I’m working toward. Put it to rest. It’s not worth it.”
He stares, not saying anything, breathing hard.
Shit. She’s right.
There’s too much at stake. Her eyes are wide and fragile, and he notices something else that he didn’t anticipate—fear. It’ssubtle, layered in between her determination to get her point across, but it’s enough to subdue him. His smile dissipates, like wax dripping from a candle.
“Okay,” he says, his voice cracking. “I’ll stop.”
Her shoulders sag, and it shouldn’t bother him so much, but it does.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “And for added measure, rules would be nice.”
His lips twitch, and he sighs heavily. “Sure, Jahlani. Anything you want.”
Anything at all.
“Rule number one: no staring in class,” she says, glancing up as another bus starts to pull into the loop. Roman sits up, his mouth opening and closing.
“Nostaring?” he says, chuckling. “I have to look at you. Come on, that’s unreasonable.”
She looks to the ground. “Looking is fine, but you stare, Roman. A lot. You … linger. You … watch me. You look at me like you want something from me,” she says, gently meeting his eyes. “Something that I can’t give you.”
Can’t or won’t?
Roman licks his lips, his cheeks flushing becauseshe noticed?He leans forward, scratching the back of his neck. “You know, the fact that you saw that leads me to believe that you were staring too. You also lingered and watched,” he whispers. “You want something from me, and the difference between the two of us is that I’m willing to give it. To give in.”
They hold eye contact, and he leans forward, placing his hand on the bench next to hers, running his index finger along the plane of her wrist, the arch of her knuckles, and he revels in the sight of her shivers.
“You’re already breaking the rules,” she says, her voice cracking as she pulls away.
“You didn’t say anything about touching,” he murmurs. “But I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s out of the question too.”
“That’s my second rule.”
The soft hum of the bus grows closer, a gentle rumble that pulls her from him. As it eases to a stop, there’s a quiet hiss of air as the brakes engage, and the door slides open with a smooth, almost inaudible swoosh. She stands, but he grips her elbow, rendering her still.
“Would you have said yes?” His voice is low in the night air. “If we met again—if you weren’t my GTA—would you have said yes, Jahlani? Did I ever have a chance?”
He isn’t sure why he asks. Why he’s so desperate to know because she’s made it abundantly clear that nothing will happen.
But still.
He can’t help but wonder if their timing had been better, their circumstances different.
Does she feel this too, or is it all in his head?
She turns to face him, and rich brown eyes bore into his. They flicker to his mouth, linger for a few seconds, drift over his countenance, deliberating. His pulse runs from him as she steps away.
“I already told you. I’m not the person you’re looking for.”
CHAPTER 11
BAYES’ THEOREM
JAHLANI
“Alright, so today we’re going to talk about conditional probability and Bayes’ Theorem.”
