“Editor, for a publishing house,” I told him as I felt my body slide lower in my seat. I could feel every pair of eyes on me as the professor zeroed in on me.
“Bookeditor?” he asked with such skepticism. I heard a few answering titters in the class. At my feeble nod, he seemed to positively radiate with glee. “Tell me, Ms. Bryant, as a potential editor, does the opening line of this . . .storythat you have produced make you quiver with excitement?”
“My role as editor is not to be excited by a book but to know whether it would be a good fit for my publishing house, if it would sell.” Fuck you, asshole, you don’t scare me.
“Wrong,” Leitch spat as he spun on his heel and marched to his whiteboard. In the day and age of laptops and online classes, Leitch was old school and liked whiteboards, paper submissions, and red pens. Heespeciallyloved red pens. “As an editor,youare the reader. If that book does not grip you, why would it grip others? How can you market and promote a book that you do not believe in?” He held up my submission with his fingertips. “Ifthisdoes not excite you,” he shook the paper lightly, causing more snickering in the class, “tell me, why would you think it would therefore exciteme?”
My mouth opened to snap at him when the doors to the lecture room were swung open, the looser one on the right flying back wildly and bouncing off the wall. The guy stood there, looking at the wall and the door, and then at Leitch.
Ash Santo. The third God of the football triad.
He smiled widely at Leitch, completely oblivious that the look he was receiving from the professor made us mortals run and cower in fear.
“Am I late?” Ash asked casually as he closed the door behind him. “Like a little bit late or so late I shouldn’t have bothered?” It was quite clear he didn’t care what the answer was as he made his way into the lecture hall. He was so tall and broad that I doubted even Leitch would challenge him.
“You shouldn’t have bothered,” Leitch drawled. “Who are you, and why are you,” he glanced at his watch, “fifteen minutes late for this class?”
“Ash Santo. Practice ran late; therefore, lunch ran late, hence . . . I’m late.”
I looked between the two of them. Ash was solid-looking. He had to be; he was the team’s tight end. Leitch was average height, potbellied, with old man stubble and gray hair. Ash, with his light brown hair, clean-shaven jaw, stunning good looks, and his arms bare, showing his biceps, stood out for all the wrong reasons for Professor Leitch. Quite simply, Ash did not look like he belonged in this class.
“I told administration to stop sending me jocks,” Leitch muttered loudly as he motioned for Ash to come further into the class.
“Pretty tough to do in a varsity college with sixteen sports represented,” Ash retorted with a snort as his eyes ran over the class, making me suddenly very conscious of the empty seat beside me. “Anyway, I opted for this class, I’m not looking foreasy credit.” Ash walked past Leitch, whose face was turning purple. “I was told you were good, was I misinformed?”
Ash ignored the swell of laughter as he made his way to my end of the row. He dumped his bag on the floor at my feet as he somehow crammed his massive frame into the seat beside me.
I watched the professor open his mouth and then close it again. I almost felt sorry for him. Here he was being upstaged by a football player who didn’t appear to know Leitch’s fearsome reputation. What could he say, his classwasn’teasy credit? By doing so, he would be acknowledging Ash’s intelligence for opting for this class. If he said it was easy credit, easy for jocks, then he was saying theclasswas easy. This class was anything but easy, and I knew this as I had already had a year of Leitch in the introductory class in freshman year.
“Don’t be late again” was all the professor had as a comeback.
Ash shrugged, and again I felt myself staring at him out of the corner of my eye in awe as he sat there unfazed. That he was being so nonchalant to the meanest man I had ever met made me almost admire him.
I think Ash Santo just became my hero.
“Yo, blondie,” Ash whispered when Leitch turned and decided to demoralize another victim and their writing. “Got a pen?”
Glancing at him, I met his wide, dark blue eyes, and my throat closed up. With horror, I recognized the whispered voice. Ash was the other person in Jett’s bedroom on Saturday morning.
He had seen me naked.
Throwing up.
Naked.
My butt facing them as I threw up.
Naked.
“Wow, I’m not used to being propositioned so early,” Ash told me with a wink. “A pen will do for now, if you can?”
What? Oh my God, I had totally blurted out the wordnakedto him. I was going to die. This was the worst afternoon of my life. Wordlessly, I handed him my pen. He looked at it and then at me and my now-empty hand.
“What will you use?” he asked curiously.
Shaking my head so my hair surrounded my face, I shrugged slightly.
“Okay, thanks.” I heard him give a low whistle as he sat back in his chair, the creaking noise telling me the chair was also regretting him sitting beside me. “Weird girl,” he muttered.
