Parker tucked her curly brown hair behind her ear, and she grabbed my arm, spinning me around to walk back in the direction of the group. Addison took my other arm and walked with me, smooshed in the middle.
“Lance was so excited when he saw you. I think he wants to ask you out,” Parker said.
“Yes! You should have seen the way his eye widened. They literally lit up,” Addison exclaimed, holding me tighter.
I rolled my eyes, dismissing their interest in my and Lance’s personal lives.
Since my first day on campus, Lance and I have been friends. And he was super cute, so I could see why they’d get all excited about us dating.
But I couldn’t date.
It was one of the rules of my employment. Weird as it may seem, I understood his reasoning behind it, but I didn’t know how to explain that to my newfound friends. On top of not being able to date, I realized that I didn’t really want to date either. Steve had done a number on me. When I thought about him, mychest ached from the nights we’d spent together—all the times that I thought I was falling in love. It also made my stomach clench in anger from being screwed over by my boyfriend and so-called best friend. No way was I looking to get involved in something like that again. Not so soon anyway. Maybe not ever… I hadn’t decided.
I had more than enough going on to keep me busy, and I didn’t need some guy coming along and complicating that.
“Hey, I didn’t think you were coming tonight,” Lance said when the girls released me, and I was able to walk over to the high-top table where he was sitting.
I climbed up into the chair and sat across from him.
“Changed my mind.” I smiled nervously.
“Whose car are you driving?” He turned to look out the window from over his shoulder.
Even though I knew my car was parked there, I couldn’t help but follow his gaze. “Oh, that’s my car.”
“You have two?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I only have one. That’s mine. The one I usually drive belongs to my boss. He thinks my car is a deathtrap on wheels and won’t allow his daughter inside it. So I drive the nanny-mobile to school because I drop her off at daycare on my way.”
“Wow. I need an employer like that,” he said, grinning.
I snorted. “Trust me, no, you don’t. He’s a total asshole.”
“Lance, it’s your turn,” Trevor said, motioning over his shoulder toward the dartboard that was hanging on the wall. He plopped down at the table across from us, and Addison took her place on his lap. She wrapped her arm around his neck and instantly pulled him in for a kiss.
I quickly diverted my eyes to give them some privacy, not that they felt they needed any, since they were making out in a bar.
Parker rolled her eyes at them before grabbing her glass of beer from the table and coming to stand beside me. “I heard that Phillips is going to push our exam back this week.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? Why?”
She shrugged, taking a sip of her beer. “Some family emergency that he had to leave town for. He doesn’t trust anyone else to administer the exam.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Only proving my point that he is a control freak in every sense of the word.”
“I haven’t noticed anything.” I wanted to hold back my grin, so I bit my lower lip.
She took a gasping breath. “Are you blind? Man is a classic control freak in every sense of the word. On the first day of class, he refused to start class until I got up and removed the black pen that I put in the holder of blue pens.”
“Maybe it’s OCD,” I suggested.
She rolled her eyes. “Call it what you want to call it. I, for one, am glad we’ll get a break from him tomorrow.”
“I don’t think he’s that bad.”
“Who?” Lance asked as he took his seat.
“Professor Phillips,” I replied.
Lance rolled his eyes as he poured more beer into his glass. “I had him last year, and I was glad when I passed his class.”
