“Hello?” Nathan nudged my chair again, jerking me back to the present.
“Sorry,” I mumbled with a glance at Keating, who still droned on about the graph. “My parents want me focused on this internship thing. I can’t graduate without it.”
Nathan settled back in his chair, his scornful expression identical to the one Coach had given me when I’d trotted out my lame excuse. It was partially true, at least. My parents cared about my internship but only as a means to an end. As in, me ending my stay on their property.
I hunched my shoulders, self-disgust curling through me. With under three thousand students, Hale Valley often felt more like a high school than a college. Like a lot of small schoolsin the middle of nowhere, it struggled to attract students. So when the football team had started snagging championships, the administration had tripped over itself to make Coach Gannon and the rest of the program happy. Sure, we were a DIII school, but those national title trophies looked awfully pretty in the rec center. Half the student body had some role on the team, whether helping out on the sidelines or running concessions. The other half packed the stands every Saturday night during the season.
Nathan was right to be pissed. Everyone was invested in the playoffs, which started this weekend. At six-foot-one, I was short for a tight end. But I was fast, and I was damn good at catching Nathan’s passes. He’d transferred to Hale Valley his sophomore year because he wanted to play quarterback. He’d been second string at Pace, but he was a star at HVCC. I’d bled and sweat alongside him for almost four seasons.
And then I quit the team with a bullshit explanation no one bought for a second. If Nathan didn’t round out his college career with another national title, the blame would lie at my feet.
A tingling awareness pulled me from the downward spiral of my thoughts. As Professor Keating flipped the image on the smartboard to a pie chart, I slowly looked over my shoulder.
In the back row near the lecture hall’s double doors, a student watched me. At least, he looked like a student. Young. Decent looking, but it was hard to know for sure with the ball cap he’d pulled low over his eyes. Dark hair peeked from under the sides. His gray sweatshirt couldn’t hide broad shoulders and what appeared to be an athletic build. But he wasn’t an athlete. I knew everyone who played a sport at Hale Valley, and this guy wasn’t one of them. His expression was stoic, his square, stubbled jaw propped in a large hand. He held a pencil in his other, the eraser resting on a closed notebook. The ball cap shadowed his eyes, but they were fixed on me. His wasn’t theblank stare of someone zoning out, either. No, he was locked on, his gaze traveling the space between us like a pair of high beams.
The hair on my nape lifted. And for some reason, my heart sped up. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, and my palms grew damp. I curled my fingers around the edge of my desk as anxiety twisted in my stomach. Most people avoided intense eye contact. Wasn’t that some kind of unwritten societal rule? Apparently, this guy missed the memo. I’d never seen him before. I would have remembered him. So what the hell was he doing in an upper level business lecture? It wasn’t unheard of for people to audit classes, but they were usually retirees or people who needed extra help with a tough subject. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t elderly.
He continued holding my gaze, his pencil perched between two long fingers.
What the fuck was his problem?
“What’s your problem, Lawson?”
Nathan’s voice yanked my attention to him. He stared at me, his thick brows furrowed and irritation in his blue eyes.
“Mr. Lawson, is there a problem?”
I twisted around so fast my neck twinged. Professor Keating stood at the smartboard, his expression a mirror of Nathan’s.
“Um…” Heat blasted my cheeks.
Keating flung a hand toward the smartboard. “I’m sorry limited liability companies don’t interest you, but the rest of the class is paying to be here. If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish the lesson.”
To my right, a girl smiled and ducked her head. Somewhere in the room, someone snickered.
The fire brewing on my face threatened to become an inferno. I sank lower in my seat. “I don’t mind.”
Keating raised a brow.
More snickering rose around me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
Keating held my gaze for another second, then turned to the board and continued the lecture. After a few minutes, the attention on me dissipated. But the pressure of the stranger’s stare remained.
I clenched my jaw as my heart sped up again.More weird shit.The fallout from August continued. But this wasn’t part of the pattern. This…anxiety was new. As Keating began explaining the benefits of S-corps, I bounced my foot under the desk. My knee jogged up and down, jackhammering like it had suddenly developed its own brain and central nervous system.
Something thumped against my chair leg again, and then Nathan hissed in my ear.
“Will you knock it the fuck off? I need to learn this shit.”
I nodded, and I shoved a hand under the desk and gripped my knee. The tingling awareness persisted, the stranger’s regard like a bullseye in the back of my skull. Sweat beaded my forehead and dampened my collar. As the smartboard blurred and Keating’s voice warred with my heartbeat in my ears, I reached up and loosened my tie. I had to do something. Get up and…move. As soon as the thought landed in my head, it became a galloping chant.Move, move, move.The chant shifted, swelling into something more urgent.
Run.
Without warning, the pressure lifted. Just disappeared like someone flipping off a light switch. The absence of weight was so unexpected that I pitched forward in my chair and caught myself with a clammy palm on the edge of my desk. The anxiety fled like someone opening a door and letting smoke escape from a room.
“All right, folks,” Keating announced, “that’s it for today.” He grabbed a stainless tumbler from his desk and booked it toward the side door, clearly hellbent on leaving before anyone could corner him and ask questions. Chairs scraped as peoplestood and gathered bags and notebooks. No one acted like they’d noticed the awful, unrelenting pressure.
