Does she know she’s torturing me with the dollop of custard from the cream-filled one at the corner of her mouth? The way she wipes it with her finger and licks it off has my throat going dry.
The crisp morning breeze catches her wavy brown hair and sends a flutter of orange leaves to the ground around our table. My donut hangs from my fingertips, partially forgotten in favor of studying her while she eats. This is nice. We’re not talking, but I don’t mind the quiet. I might barely know her yet, but this has the makings of the same type of comfortable silence I have with Cameron and the guys.
It goes hand in hand with an instinctive sense of trust. I don’t get to have that with a lot of people. Definitely not with most of the girls I know, except for Reagan at The Landmark. For that reason alone, I know I have to get to know her more.
She pulls me out of my trance when she checks her phone and mutters a reluctant curse. “Thanks for the donuts. I’d better run.”
I watch her fold up her napkins into tiny squares and stand, gathering her things. “You’re leaving?”
“If I don’t go now, I’ll be more than ten minutes late for class. Luckily for me, the professor doesn’t show up until twenty minutes into the lecture. The TA is more lenient on attendance.”
“That is lucky. Can’t say the same. All of my professors go hard on us, even the student athletes.”
I shove the rest of my donut in my mouth before getting up to take her little origami trash collection. I dump it with mine, then walk with her in the direction she starts off in.
“Were you hoping for an easy ride?” she taunts.
“Nah. I don’t mind the hard work. It keeps me focused.” I stretch my arms overhead, noticing that the move draws her gaze to my biceps. Her eyes dart away when she realizes I caught her checking me out. “I’m not about slacking or cutting corners.”
“Spoken like any good captain,” she says.
Pride swells in my chest. I want to be a man Dad would be proud of. Someone capable of taking care of others, and for me that includes leading my team as captain.
“Come to more of the games. You’ll see my work ethic in action.”
She plays with the strap of her purse. “I don’t think so.”
“Then let me take you out.”
“Not happening.” She takes the steps of a building that I think I had a sociology class in last year. A few steps up puts her level with my height when she turns around to face me. “You’ll have to try harder. Bye, hotshot.”
I grin like an idiot. “I guess I will. Later, Maya.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket a couple of times. Probably the guys in our group text wondering where the hell I am sincewe all left the weight room around the same time. I’m too busy enjoying the view until Maya disappears inside the building.
FIVE
MAYA
It’s earlyon Friday when I poke my head into Reagan’s room. She’s still passed out in a cocoon of covers. Between the two of us, I’m the early riser.
“It’s almost nine.”
She groans faintly. “Unfairly early.”
“I’m going to Clocktower. Do you want coffee?”
Her sleep-mussed strawberry blonde bun pokes further out of the mound of covers as she wakes up more. “Coffee? Okay, those are the magic words.”
“Mhm. That’s what I thought. I’m on it.”
It’s about to get busy in there and I want coffee before my only class today. I push off her door frame and grab my purse from the counter in the kitchenette attached to the living area.
Our apartment is what Reagan likes to call dainty. Off-campus apartments are bigger, but neither of us can afford it. At least the two-bedroom apartment suite is larger than our shoebox dorm from freshman year. We could easily fit that room inside one of our bedrooms and still have some space left over for Reagan’s music equipment.
“Have I told you lately I love you?” she calls groggily.
“Back at you.” My phone rings right on schedule as I exit the building. “Hey, Mom. How was the appointment today?”
