Ash looked me over and shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s not a hardship. C’mon.”
We walked across campus in silence, and I noticed we very rarely spoke to each other. Was that weird? That I’d had sex with him more than once, but not an actual conversation?
“My mom wants me to get a job,” I blurted out halfway to the music theater.
Ash looked down at me, and I waited. His dark navy jacket was open, with a white T-shirt under it, and in his dark jeans, he looked nice. Well, he always looked good, but he was wearing smart casual well.
“I mean, I know you don’t care, but you know, she promised me that I wouldn’t incur any student debt, and now she’s all, ‘Mia, you need to get a job.’”
I heard him grunt beside me, but something had been opened in my head, and I wasn’t stopping. “I mean, what can I even do? It’s November, we break in a few weeks for winter break, so does she mean now? Or when I’m back in Knoxville? And how much can I really earn in the three weeks before I’m back here, and who’s even employing right now?” My outburst over, I chanced a look up at him and saw that he was staring right ahead. Had he even heard me? “Anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to offload onto you.”
“Did you get your assignment back?” Ash asked me finally.
“Um, yeah, thanks for that.”
“No worries.”
I saw the theater at the bottom of the path, and I looked around the campus grounds. “I still get antsy when I come here after the whole thing with Quinn.”
Ash met my look with a raised eyebrow. “Dude’s gone, you’re fine.”
“I know.” Why was I bothering to talk to him? He obviously wasn’t interested in having a conversation.
“You’ll be okay from here?” Ash asked me as he shifted his backpack off his shoulder onto his other one.
“Will I manage to walk from here to the auditorium by myself, do you mean?” Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. “Yeah, dad, I’ll be fine.”
Ash’s look was sharp. “You mentioned mom, where’s dad?”
“Not important.”
He hesitated and then seemed to accept it. With a thumb tucked under the strap of his backpack, he raised his fingers in a lame wave. “Okay, I need to move, you’ll be okay?”
“Yes, I can walk down a path unaided,” I griped as I turned from him and started walking away from him.
“Yo, Red?” he called after me, and I turned in exasperation. “Fifty minutes?” Knowing he was referring to the length of my class, I nodded. “Okay, I’ll be here, but if I’m not, wait for me.”
I could have told him not to bother, but I simply turned and headed into the theater. I held back the groan as I saw Mindy and a handful of her friends all in one corner of the entrance.
“Took my advice?” Mindy called as her friends snickered.
Ignore her, I told myself.You don’t need to rise to it.
“I mean, I told you to bite me, but maybe you prefer a Devil’s bite?”
Whirling, I turned to look at them all. I should have thought about what it looked like for Ash to be escorting me everywhere. No one else knew he was doing it because he had to; they thought we had hooked up. “I do. He does it so well.”
When their faces mirrored their shock at my snappy retort, I spun away from them in case they saw my anger at myself for snapping.
Me:I think I just outed me and Ash
Ava:How?
Me:Mindy riled me
Ava:You didn’t tell anyone what’s happening?
Me:No!
