Thankfully, both Brodie and Andrew seemed to take the hint that I was trying to concentrate and stayed mostly quiet for the rest of class. My notes on Ethan’s lecture were a goddamn tragedy, though, making very little sense thanks to how scattered my mind was for the whole hour. The only small mercy was that I didn’t get called on to answer any deeply thought-provoking questions, as I would have one hundred percent embarrassed myself.
When the class finished, I packed up my stuff at lightningspeed, intending to escape the class before I could do or say anything stupid.
“Miss Lewis,” Ethan said as I impatiently waited for Brodie to get out of my way so I couldflee. “Can you stay behind for a moment?”
Ohgod. I knew I’d avoided this confrontation for far too long, and it was bound to happen sooner or later. Butfuck, couldn’t we just pretend it’d never happened and move on with our lives?
Probably not, considering how I keptthinking about it. Damn him for being so hot andsucha great kisser. It’s like I’d formed an addiction in just the brief time our lips had locked, and now I was forcing myself through a cold-turkey withdrawal. Weird.
“Um.” I wet my lips, unable to just ignore him entirely as he waited by the door while students filed out. “No.”
His brows hitched as I descended the stairs toward where he stood. “No?”
I shook my head, searching for a plausible excuse. “No. Sorry. I have…a thing. I can’t be late. Sorry.”
“A…thing?” he repeated, seeming equally confused and amused.
I nodded, sticking with my lame excuse. “Yeah.” Sometimes the best lies had the least details. Less to pick apart.
Ethan’s jaw tightened like he wanted to call bullshit, and maybe flex his authority to force me to stay. But then his lips twitched in a ghost of a smile and he sighed. “All right then. Have a good day, Miss Lewis. I’m sure we can speak another time…in the library perhaps?”
Fuck a goddamn duck, is he flirting?
Panicked, I just nodded. “I do like libraries.”
Ethan’s smile spread wider and became somewhat wicked. “As do I.”
“Ahem.” Andrew fake coughed beside me. “Eve, didn’t you have a thing to get to?”
I jerked a little, realizing I was getting a little lost in Ethan’s gaze and glanced around. The class had almost entirely emptied in those few moments, and I was very close to having that private chat with the teacher after all.
“Yep!” I squeaked, hugging my bag to my chest. “See ya next week, Professor Sullivan.” Academic distance. That’s what we needed.
“Or in the library,” Ethan murmured as I hurried past, and it took a lot of concentration not to trip over my own feet.
Andrew kept pace with me as I hauled ass out of the building; Brodie had disappeared already. At least that was one less thing to stress me out. I never thought I’d be the fan-girling type, but I also never thought I’d be meetingBrodie freaking Kellerin real life.
“So where’s the thing you need to get to?” Andrew asked when we started down the cobblestone path.
The imaginary thing that I absolutely did not have on my schedule? I only had one other class on Mondays, and it wasn’t until later in the afternoon so my only plan was to meet Nina and her friends for lunch.
Thankfully I was saved making up a lie when Andrew’s girlfriend called out from across the immaculate lawn. “Andrew! Over here!” She waved at him, her expression pinched even at a distance, and I bit back a smile. Shereallydidn’t like me.
“You better go,” I said, gesturing. “Bye.”
Andrew frowned but murmured a farewell and started across the grass to where his friends all sat under an old oak tree.
As pretty as he was, I wasn’t interested in breaking up the future of American politics. No fucking thank you. The Sandiconte family was likely to put a hit out on me if Ithreatened their little girl’s perfect relationship, and I’d already survived one near-death experience. Which was more than enough.
A shiver ran through me as my mind skipped back six months to the attack…to the utter terror I’d experienced while hiding from a gun-wielding psychopath. The pain that had ripped through me when his bullet found my back as I tried to run…
“Stop it,” I hissed to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose in an attempt to keep the waking nightmares at bay. Beneath my shirt, my scar itched. “You’re alive. You’re safe.”
That was the whole point of transferring to Meadowridge after all. For safety…because although I’d survived the attack, the gunman wasn’t caught, and his motives remained a myster?—
Boom!
The sound came just a split second before the impact, which knocked the air from my lungs and my feet from the ground. A forceful blast tossed me through the air moments before my tense body smacked into the grass so hard it rattled my brain inside my skull.
