Shaking my head, I said, “Not close enough.”
“Finn,” she hissed, her eyes darting from side to side. “We’re in public.”
“People sit next to each other in public all the time, Chess. Especially people who like each other.” Taking a chance, I whispered, “I like you a lot.”
For a second she blinked those beautiful blue eyes at me. Then she pushed herself up off the cushion to slide herself over, but she got a bit carried away and almost landed on my lap. A tiny puff of air escaped her lips as her body collided with mine, and she stared up at me with a combination of surprise and something else—something dark and interested. It was all I could do not to swoop in and steal a kiss, but the loud conversation of some people walking through the lounge at that precise second preempted me.
With all the fanfare of a professional chef presenting his masterpiece, I pulled a scone from the bag and handed it to her. Her snorted laughter at my antics warmed my chest as she plucked the treat from my fingers. When she settled in tight against my arm to nibble at her pastry, I had no choice but to wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her in close to my side. A happy sigh escaped her—one I hoped had more to do with me snuggling her and less to do with how much she was enjoying the scone.
“How did your class with Professor Ego go today?” she asked between bites.
“Everyone—I meaneveryone—finished all the problems he assigned for the day. Which from the way he acted, kind of irritated him.” I grinned at the memory of his sour grimace in class. “So he was kind of at a loss as to what the day’s lesson was since we’d all also pretty much aced the quiz.”
“How do you know you aced it?”
“His program grades everything in real time. I always know my quiz scores before I leave class.” I chowed down half a tangy, buttery scone, swallowed, and said, “One of his pets in the front row requested he lecture on anatomical physics because they had a question from the reading. Since learning about anatomical physics is the reason we all signed up for the class, they kind of stuck him. Of course, our dear old prof has decided he’s made his point, so there won’t be any more quizzes this week.” I rolled my eyes. “I did all those extra problems for nothing.”
Twinkling up at me, she grabbed the bag from my hand and extracted her second scone. “I don’t think you wasted your time. If he throws another tantrum, you’re ahead. If not, you know more now than you did before the weekend.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, Miss Suzy Sunshine.”
With a playful little nudge, she said, “You’re welcome.”
A familiar voice I hadn’t heard in two years and had hoped never to hear again floated through the lounge. I couldn’t help the way my body tensed as that voice drew nearer, and Chess glanced up at me with a question in her eyes. With any luck, the owner of that voice wouldn’t notice us here and would keep walking.
Nope. The sound stopped directly behind our couch.
“Finn? Is that you?”
Surely only the top of my head was visible above the back of the cushions. How could she recognize me from that? Then I remembered which ball cap I’d tugged on this morning.Fuck.
Hannah stepped around the end of the couch. “It is you.”
Lifting my eyes to her, I tried not to cringe when I caught her catty smile. “Hello, Hannah,” I said with exactly zero expression.
Dialing up the wattage of that vicious smile, she asked, “Who’s your friend?”
“No one you need to poison,” I mumbled.
Beside me Chessly stiffened.
“What was that?” Hannah asked with a smirk directed at the friend I hadn’t noticed standing slightly behind her. Returning her attention to Chess, she said, “She’s cute. You must have managed to figure out how not to be awkward—or how to hide it better.” She laughed derisively then directed a conspiratorial comment at Chess. “He’s a farm boy, you know. They can’t help their lack of sophistication—or finesse.”
“Don’t you have somewhere important to be?” I fought a losing battle with keeping the irritation out of my question.
“Always. But I had a minute to say hello to an old friend.” Waving a languid hand in Chessly’s direction, she said, “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
Hannah waited a couple more seconds, but when I didn’t rise to the bait, she turned to her friend and moved on. Of course, she pitched her voice for our ears as she moved through the lounge. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I dated him freshman year. He was totally clueless in the...”
Mercifully, the rest of her words faded into the hallway on the other end of the lounge. But it didn’t take a genius to know what she’d told her friend.
Resting my elbows on my thighs, my hands clasped between my knees, I stared unseeingly out the window. It had taken three years after the disaster of dating Hannah Stowell to gather up the courage to ask someone else out rather than just hook up with a willing jersey chaser. Her words—herpronouncements—about my lack of finesse, my awkwardness, my size, explained why I went for the jersey chasers who didn’t dwell on those things. Their focus was my spot in the starting lineup—and my proximity to pretty boys like Callahan O’Reilly and our previous roommate Deshaun Green, to be honest. But the jersey chasers’ attention made me feel special, like I could maybe still attract a woman.
Hannah was the reason it had taken so long and why I was trying so hard to do things right with Chess. I’d managed to avoid my ex for years, yet only one day—one fucking day—after the most glorious weekend of my life—she’d showed up out of nowhere to shit on everything.
The pressure of a hand on my bicep and a soft voice calling “Finn?” dragged me up from the depths of my dark thoughts. I reached for my coffee, stalling the inevitable with a long drink.
“Finn? Who was that girl?”
