Even though I’dput Chessly on notice we were going on an official date, two weeks passed before I had a chance to run into her again. We’d started DMing each other on social media, but she’d kept it light and hadn’t given me an opening to ask her out. I had a bad feeling it had something to do with the fact that a certain group of jersey chasers who’d been walking toward her dorm when I dropped her off after our impromptu dinner. They’d glared at her, she’d glared back at them, and then she’d said good night without giving me even half a chance to steal a kiss.
Which I’d totally been planning to do.
I’d stopped by the Union on multiple afternoons, hoping to catch her and coming up empty. I’d checked her favorite study carrel in Hillman enough times that Ichabod, who usually had it, had started to smirk at me with something like pity in his eyes.
It was coming up on Valentine’s Day, and I’d decided to ask her to join the gang for a sledding party on the old ski runs outside of town on the mountainside below the Mountain State “M.” Callahan and Jamaica were going. I’d heard a rumor in the house that Bax had asked Chessly’s other friend Piper, so I thought I had a better than even chance of success for making the sledding party our first official date. Asking her in person rather than over Instagram would only help ensure that success.
When I saw her in line for coffee at the Union a couple of days before Valentine’s Day, I knew the gods were smiling on me. I stood at the end of the counter where she had to wait for her drink and studied her. Damn, would I ever get over how pretty she was? Today she was wearing some kind of lavender wool hat with a crocheted flower pinned to one side of it. It looked cute as hell. Something on her phone quirked up the corner of her lush mouth, and I wanted to know what put that expression on her face. Her smooth skin held a faint hint of pink, which said she’d recently come in from outside. The hem of her pink puffy coat grazed the tops of her thighs, hiding her pretty curves, yet accentuating her long legs dressed in skinny jeans.
When she glanced up from her phone, I smiled my winningest smile. “Hello, gorgeous. Long time, no see.”
“Finn! You surprised me,” she gasped.
“Got a minute?” I asked as we stepped away from the counter.
“Um, I’m actually on my way to class,” she said. She sipped from her brew and momentarily closed her eyes in bliss.
“I’m between classes. I’ll walk you.”
For a second, she seemed to have to think it over—which, combined with this being the first in-person conversation we’d had for so long, worried me.
“Okay.”
She started walking, and I fell into step beside her.
“I’ve looked for you here—and in Hillman—but you haven’t been around much these past few weeks.” I did my damnedest not to sound pouty, but from the side-eye she shot me, some of my frustration at not seeing her leaked into my tone.
“That quantum physics project I was working on that day—”
“Yeah?”
“It’s due next week.” She blew out a sigh. “Honestly, it’s kicking my ass. My partners and I have been burning all the midnight oil, and the morning oil, and the afternoon oil...” She trailed off. “Plus, I was on deck for dorm programming for the past two weeks, which was such sucky timing with classes. I’ve barely had a chance to breathe.” The look in her eyes when she glanced up at me willed me to believe her.
“I get it. I’ve had a few projects like that, especially in organic chemistry last year.”
Tension melted out of her shoulders as she sipped her coffee. “After this weekend I might be able to snag a few minutes to do something fun.”
“This weekend is Valentine’s Day.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“You know the old ski hill out by the ‘M?’”
“What about it?”
I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. “A few times a year the old guy who owns the land lets people come out and sled the big hill the trees haven’t overgrown yet. It’s lit up and everything.”
“Uh-huh.”
Damn. She wasn’t making this easy. Why I was so nervous to ask her out was an entirely different mystery.
“Valentine’s Day is one of the days he opens it up. A bunch of us are heading up there to play, and I thought maybe you’d like to go with me.”Jesus, I sound like a sixteen-year-old.
Chess stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to look me in the face. “You know what, Finn? That sounds like a blast.”
The expression in those stunning sapphire eyes was sincerity itself, and a smile leaped to my face.
“But half the RAs on staff have dates already, which means the rest of us are on call.” She started walking again, and it took me a few steps to catch up—literally and figuratively.
