Taken aback, I snorted a laugh. “No.”
“Why not?” He sounded so offended.
“Uh, I’m not enrolled,” I said. Was he serious?
“No one will mind if we sit in the back row. You can do something quiet during the lecture portion. Besides, don’t you want to see your old friends?”
I shook my head and scrunched under the covers to make myself small. What would I tell them? That I’d dropped out, was selling underwear, not driving, and had a falling out with my family? It wasn’t exactly a good update. Except for the part where I found my potential soulmate.
“It might be good to walk those halls again,” he urged me. “Cathartic.”
“Why do you want me to go back so badly?” I asked him.
He looked away, a tendon in his neck flexing. “I want to be with you as much as I can.”
Guilt twisted in my side like a scalpel.
“I want to be with you too. It’s just hard and awkward and…I don’t want to feel like a failure again,” I said.
“You’re not a failure.” Angel sat beside me on the bed and wrapped his arms around me. “You know that, right?”
My insides twisted tighter. “I almost failed a class.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He peppered my face with kisses and tickled my sides until I giggled and jerked away.
“Don’t you have to get to class?” I teased.
“Fine. Cold shower it is.” He pecked my cheek, then hopped off the bed.
“Wait, Angel. I can still lend a hand.” I laughed, chasing after him on wobbly legs.
***
After our shower, Angel clothed me in his bathrobe and gave me a brief tour of the spots I might want to hang out when not sleeping, hot-tubbing, or watching TV.
“This is the study, if you feel like some light reading.” He opened the door to a room with a laptop and lots of angled lamps. The bookshelf mostly contained self-help manuals, celebrity biographies, and photography compilations.
“Where are all your textbooks?” I asked, cognizant of the few I’d taken from my parents’ house and the extra-clean desk in his bedroom.
He cracked his neck. “Out of the way. C’mon, the workout room is next door.”
“You have a gym?” It had wooden floors and a mirrored wall on one side, white panels on the other. But there wasn’t a bar for ballet. Just a couple of stands for phones, I guessed.
“I don’t see any machines. Do you mostly come here to flex in the mirror?” I joked.
“There’s a storage closet behind that panel with dumbbells and mats, if you want ‘em.” He pulled my robe ties. “But I prefer to keep my workouts to the bedroom, pidge.”
I rolled my eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck to slow-dance with him. “I’m sure we can sneak in another session when you get back.” Though I wasn’t sure how he had the energy for all this.
“Sounds perfect. Try to stay out of trouble until I get back,” he said, holding me flush against him. “Unless you want me to stay?”
I couldn’t ask him to skip class. Even if I was tempted.
“Go on. You won’t be missing much here,” I joked.
“Yes, I will,” he said, his gaze soft.
My legs wobbled. Probably still shaky from those multiple orgasms.
