Is it alarming that I’m hitting on her with zero emotion? A little bit. I blame Staten. She’s blocking my cock with some weird, nerdy electromagnetic waves.
“Can’t wait,” Blondie drawls, doing a little bounce on hertoes so that her sinfully exposed cleavage takes center stage. You couldn’t pay me to look down. We’re in unprecedented times, folks.
I dismiss her with a flutter of my fingers, and she walks back to her throng of girlfriends with an overly sensual sway in her hips, squealing and whispering in frenzied excitement. I mean, she did just meettheKnox Mulligan. Squealing is an expected aftereffect.
I turn back to Staten—whose jaw is wrenched all the way open—and shrug my shoulders nonchalantly. “See? Easy.”
The soft underbelly of her neck turns pink, and that badass attitude of hers takes an unforeseen hike. “Yeah, maybe for you,” she whispers dejectedly, staring longingly at the back of Leif’s head.
It’s as if her flimsy confidence has been crushed under a hovering boot sole, soft bits embedded in rubber ridges that drag against a rain-blasted real estate of coarse aggregate. Destroyed in the blink of an eye.
There’s a weird feeling in my two-sizes-too-small Grinch heart, and I can’t determine its genesis. It kind of feels like…sadness? Sympathy? Definitely nothing that I’ve had to familiarize myself with before, and certainly not when it comes to the feelings of others.
“The offer still stands. I can teach you.”
What am I doing? Is this all just some ulterior motive to get her to tutor me? Or to get closer to her? Is it because I still secretly feel guilty for hospitalizing her?
She snorts, and my God, it’s one of the best noises I’ve ever heard—a noise I shouldn’t have theprivilegeof knowing. Not unlike a honeyed tone whispering in the dark of a bed chamber, under the silk of sheets, cocooned in a duvet of illicit infidelity. A microcosm where undesirable emotions lay to rest.
“Never in a million years.”
I start to head back to my friends—whom I’m assuminghave been watching this entire interaction with bated breath—and shove my hands into my pockets. “Uh-huh. Tell me when you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“If you say so.”
She’s so going to change her mind.
6
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
STATEN
Knox Mulligan. The hockey horror that’s been plaguing the subconscious cornerstones of my mind. Not only has he coincidentally shown up wherever I am, but he and his iron-wrought ego have metastasized inside of my bone marrow like cancer. I can’t evade him.
After he showed me up at the bar three days ago and swung his big dick around to impress me—which did not work, by the way—I went back home to do some much-needed recon on the dark horse of Minnesota University. I’ve had plenty of experience cyberstalking my past crushes, so digging up dirt on Knox was child’s play. (And no, I’m not insinuating that he would ever be good enough to make it onto Staten’s Wall of Fangirl Fame.)
He’s the local troublemaker, but he’s also one of the most eligible bachelors at this college according to Mustang Mania, the biggest news outlet to grace the forgotten, fog-swept town of Maple Grove. And judging by the way that girl practically drooled over him at Dusky’s, his reputation precedes him.
I can’t believe he thinks that I need help in the flirting department. I was doing just fine on my own! Plus, his whole spiel was totally wrong. Guys appreciate it when you showinterest in them. Why would I want to make someone chase after me? That seems so redundant, especially if I want to be with them. I want to increase my chances of being noticed,notrun the risk of coming off uninterested.
Even if what Knox was saying was true, I’d never take the advice of some narcissistic imbecile over cold, hard facts. Everything in life has an equation: success, love. There’s a certain order in which things should be done to guarantee the best outcome, and assuming that the first warm-blooded person to glance your way is hankering for a quick fuck is absurd. It’s an outlier, if anything—a once-in-a-lifetime mutation in intimacy’s genome sequence. Perhaps it’s becoming more common in this generation’s hookup culture, but Leif Kennedy isn’t some lustful fuckboy just trying to get his dick wet.
Leif Kennedy is a god.
A god with golden morals, a laugh that could end long-term loneliness, and talent that this side of Minnesota has never seen before. Leif has no trouble scoring on and off the basketball court, especially with that million-dollar smile of his that could melt even the coldest of hearts—mine included. But despite all his record-breaking achievements and flawless grades, it’s his kindness that sets him apart from the greater population. He’s everything that Knox isn’t: selfless, understanding, compassionate,my friend.
I’ve never despised a word more in my entire life.
Leif and I have been buddies since freshman year, when we were crane-lifted and dropped into the same orientation group. He’s…magnetic. People are drawn to him instantly, as if he has some high-frequency aura that promises kindness in a world strife with pain. Not to mention he’s drop-dead gorgeous with the looks of a high-brow model. Caramel skin, dark-brown curls, Aegean-colored eyes, and a bone structure that could put a Michelangelo sculpture to shame.
Every second with him is inebriating. I have a pretty low tolerance for socializing, but I’ve never gotten tired of Leif’s presence. I’d trust this man to cure the chemistry imbalance in my brain better than my own antidepressants. The only downside to this otherwise perfect human being?
He has no idea that I’m secretly obsessed with him.
Hell, I wouldn’t classify myself as a hopeless romantic, and yet he has me doodling his name in my notebook whenever I can’t concentrate in class. With hearts. HEARTS, PEOPLE. That’s sociopathic behavior.
