“Isn’t that the whole point of college? To find new worlds?”
“You’re not freakin’ Columbus,” Jane muttered from my other side, but continued to keep her eyes glued to her phone, her fingers tapping furiously.
“Yes,” Syd said. “That is what college is about. Butgoodnew worlds. Challenging new worlds. Worlds that help you grow. This…” She waved her hand absently at me. “This is not the kind of new worlds you should be exploring. That world will only hold you back.” She said the last bit softly, and I knew she was speaking from experience.
I laid a hand on her arm, gave her a squeeze, then took it away. Neither Syd nor Jane were big on touching. “I’m not planning on immersing myself in Lucas’s world. Hell, I don’t even know what his world is. We did meet on campus.”
“Because he’s ajanitor,” Syd said, sounding more like Jane.
A snort from Jane confirmed that comparison.
“Actually, I think he’s more than that. I think he does…like…specialty tiling or something.”
Another snort from Jane. “And that’s supposed to make it better.”
Syd was opening her mouth, and I put my hand out to stop her. “Look. Both of you,” I said, and waited until Jane’s fingers stilled and she looked my way. “I appreciate the concern. But…and I say this with love…back the hell off.”
Jane smiled, returned to her phone, and said softly, “Well, well, Lilydoeshave a backbone.”
I should have been pissed at what she said, but I was, in a small way, kind of proud of it. And, in a larger way, I kind of agreed.
Syd looked like she wanted to say something, but just gave me a nod and turned to her laptop.
“Morning, all,” William Montrose said as he entered the small classroom. No explanation or apology for being late. And just barely under the wire of the time when we could have called “no class” and left.
“Nice of you to show up,” Jane muttered under her breath, as she put her phone away and pulled out her laptop.
“Always nice to see you too, Miss Winters,” he replied as he dumped a messenger bag on the desk next to the lectern, then sat on the front of the desk, facing the small class. “Always a pleasure,” he drawled in Jane’s direction, giving her a “yeah, I heard you, bitch,” look, which Jane laughed at.
I don’t know what she was like in other classes, but Jane liked to yank Montrose’s chain, and openly flirted with him. “I’d climb him like a tree in a second,” she’d said after our first day of the Monday-Wednesday-Friday class.
He gave it right back to Jane, but never reciprocated in the flirting. Which just made her try all the harder. He was a good-looking guy, probably in his late twenties. Apparently he’d been some kind of big deal a few years back when he’d published a book that was at the time considered his generation’sOn The Road. I don’t think he’d done much since. And if he was down to guest teaching Intro to Creative Writing at Bribury College, then my guess was his literary star had fallen hard.
“So. Let’s talk about omniscient point of view, shall we?” he said, launching into a discussion I barely heard. I’d have to look at Jane’s or Syd’s notes later, because as much as Montrose was older-man eye candy, my mind could not stay on him today.
No, my mind was firmly back in front of that tagged-up wall, with my hands in Lucas’s hair and his hips grinding into mine.
* * *
I googled him.Of course I googled him. But there wasn’t much. Apparently he’d been a big deal football player in high school (which explained the rockin’ bod and skyscraper height). He’d even gone to USC on a scholarship, but apparently had torn something in his shoulder, or elbow, and couldn’t catch the ball anymore. Which, as a wide receiver, was pretty much his entire job. Obviously he wasn’t still at USC. So he had come back east, back home. And was tiling Bribury’s steam room.
There was a story there, for sure, but it didn’t show up online.
He wasn’t on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the other social media sites. I even did a search for “Stick” in conjunction with Lucas Kade. Nada.
Then I googled myself to see what would show up, just in case, on the crazy off chance that Lucas would google me.
Not surprisingly, it was all stuff about my dad, where I would be mentioned in the last line, as part of his bio.
Yep, my entire online footprint was as an afterthought to my father’s many political king-making coups. There were a few mentions of me winning swim meets. But that was it. So I would remain as much a mystery to Lucas as he was to me.
Except there wasn’t much more to me.
And I knew there was much, much more to Lucas.
I waited until the last possible moment on Friday night to go out with Syd and Jane. Lucas hadn’t called or texted and I didn’t want to call him. I’d called guys before, and had nothing against it. But those were with guys whom I was sure wanted to hear from me. And although I knew Lucas was attracted to me—he couldn’t hide that big erection while he was pressed up against me—I wasn’t totally convinced he wanted to see me again so soon.
Or ever.
