His blush was back in full force and I had to mash my lips together to keep from grinning. He ran a hand through his naturally auburn-highlighted hair and cut a look to me out of the corner of his eyes.
On a frustrated whisper he said, “I’m on the track team, it’s not like I’m invisible.”
“I’m sure you’re not,” I agreed sympathetically.
He let out a nervous burst of laughter and shook his head. “Fin is in so much trouble with you.”
Gah! It was my turn to blush. “Don’t say things like that,” I snapped. “I’m just trying to get out of this situation that he put me in. Nothing more.”
“That’s what I’m saying; he’s not used to girls like you. He’s used to girls that get close to me and Charlie just to get close to him. Most girls remember my name because I’m named after whiskey or they think of me like a hurdle on the way to Fin the finish line.”
I snorted a laugh. “Fin the finish line.”
“Tara the Taker?” he grinned down at me.
“Well, trust me, I fully plan on leaving Fin’s finish line and your hurdles completely alone,” I assured him. Which earned me some muffled laughter. “And whiskey? Really?”
He winked at me so I didn’t know if he was serious or not, but I didn’t get a chance to find out. “So you know Ty?”
“He’s my boss,” I explained, although I felt like it should have been obvious since he was at Bailey’s last night with Fin.
“Ty likes you,” Jameson stated as if that were a really important fact.
“Of course he does!” I defended myself, but inside I kept hearing his weird comment about Fin being like his son, and me being like his daughter and how that would be oh, so wrong. I shuddered against the memory. There wasn’t anything between us, but if there was even the smallest chance of a relationship with Fin the last thing I wanted to associate him with was another brother.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said seriously and in my opinion, out of the freaking blue!
“What does that mean?” I demanded but our professor had just entered the room and was already opening his book to launch into his horribly monotone monologue.
“Hey are you still failing this class?” Jameson whispered. He pulled out a thick notebook filled with handwritten notes and for some reason that endeared him to me.
I grunted some kind of affirmative noise, not willing to actually put words to the fact that I was actually failing at something.
“Are you going to get a chance to make up any work you missed?”
The professor cut his eyes to us; clearly we were disrupting his speech. He gave Jameson an intense look that would have had me trembling with remorse, but Jameson just shrugged one shoulder. Eventually the prof got back to price theory.
As soon as his attention was diverted off us, I whispered, “as long as I get all the remaining attendance points, homework points and ace the midterm and final.”
Jameson snickered at that. “Sounds easy enough.”
I turned to face him and gave him a pointed eye roll.
“Well, do you want my notes for the weeks you missed, then?” he dropped his eyes to his notes and scribbled something down from the lecture.
I let that slide. Normally it annoyed me to no end when people could simultaneously talk in classandlisten to a teacher at the same time. I could only do one or the other. So getting caught up in an in-class conversation meant I had no idea what the teacher was saying. I usually chose listening to the teacher.
“Really?” I hedged, feeling like this was too good to be true, like maybe there was another hidden fee attached to this.
“Sure,” Jameson grinned over at me. “As long as you can read my writing.”
“That would be fantastic, thank you!” Maybe imminent failure in this class wasn’t so imminent after all!
He leafed through his notebook and then gathered together some more loose papers tucked inside his text book. I would probably have to spend some time sorting through all this, and his handwriting would definitely be a problem, but these notes were invaluable to my grade.
“Do you want them back next class or sooner? I want to give you enough time to study for midterms.” We didn’t have class until Wednesday and our midterm was a week after that.
“Are you going to Fin’s this weekend?” Jameson asked casually, glossing over the entire reason Fin and I spent time together to begin with. Fin called me his “slave” in his text message.
“Not till Monday,” I admitted with a shrug.
“I’ll just pick them up then.” Jameson shot me another look out of the corner of his eye. “You’re not going to his Grandma’s Sunday dinner?”
“Uh, no.” Weird question, right? “Why would you think that?”
He shot me a slow grin and shook his head a little. “It’s a coveted invitation. But it’s probably too early for that. You seem like the kind of girl that scares easily.”
“Omg,” I whispered, feeling like there was no other word or phrase that could sum up all of this building frustration. “I’m going to stop talking to you now and start paying attention.”
Jameson laughed at me one more time, softly, casually, familiarly, like we were old friends. It kind of freaked me out. But he didn’t say anything more and let me tune back into Professor Boring so I could take my own notes instead of stealing all his.
