But I’m not sure she did. I understood. Logan was her friend first, long before me. She was looking out for him.
I had to look out for myself.
“Yeah,” Becca said, “right before you sat your ass back down and completely ignored him. And then at the table just now, why? Listen, we all talked back in the fall, made sure that everyone was OK with Logan moving in, and you were. It wouldn’t be fair if you’ve gone and changed your mind now, Ava, not fair to him at all.”
Leaning forward, I wrapped my arms around my legs and laid my forehead against my knees. She wouldn’t understand if I told her everything right now. No, she would. I just didn’t want to tell her everything right now. Instead, I would lie.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
CHAPTER 5
Logan
“Listen, folks,” said Professor Lynch of my marketing class. He seemed like he was an OK guy until the very end of class. “You either know someone in here or you don’t. And either scenario makes group work hard. So I’m making the groups for you.” He pulled up what I had to assume was the roster on his computer and started rattling off two names at a time. As he did, each person stood and paired off to share their information. Reluctantly.
“Eve Miller and Tommy West.”
“Lizzie Singer and Avi Singh.”
“Logan Somers and Ava Kennedy.”
Wait, what? It couldn’t be. What were the chances? We were in a lecture hall, so the class was kind of large. I looked around the room to see if the “Ava” who stood up was a short, green-eyed monster who was going to give me a murderous glare.
And lo and behold, it was my fucking roommate.
My first instinct was to march straight to our professor and demand a new partner. Because I knew full well this was going to be a nightmare. But as she made her way toward me, I wasn’t going to be the one who bailed on us.
“Hey, asshole,” she said as she fell into the seat next to mine. Ava dropped her backpack at her feet and refused to look at me. “Even our professor has it out for us, it would seem.”
I remained standing. We didn’t need to trade information, so I was heading out.
“Where ya going?” she yelled.
“Home.”
She fell into step behind me as I walked up the stairs and into the hall. As I threw my beanie on my head, she bundled up as well before we made our way outside.
Spring semester was no joke in Virginia. See, it runs from January through May, so even though it’s called spring semester, most of it takes place during the winter. And winters at Blue Ridge University, walking across the drillfield, were brutal. Especially on the windy days.
Which, of course, the first day of classes was one.
Wicked wind.
I swear the wind chill was close to zero degrees. The parking lots for students who lived off campus were nowhere near any of the class buildings. The trek to my car felt like it was a trek over the frozen tundra of Alaska.
Once we made it outside, I turned toward her. Her parka was zipped up to her neck, the hood pulled over a hat with one of those pom-pom things on top. She had a scarf wrapped in there somehow and big woolen mittens.
She looked adorable. And I hated that I even noticed that she looked cute. I hid my smile by looking away. She definitely couldn’t see that.
“Are you headed home, too? Where ya parked?” It would be rude to not continue walking with her if we were headed in the same direction.
“I don’t have a car, I’m heading to the bus stop.”
So of course, the question arose within my brain. Do I do what Iwant, and continue walking to my car, alone? Or do I do whatshould? Becca told me that Ava was going to try to make this work between us, so I guess I had to as well.
I stopped walking but kept my head facing forward, refusing to look at her.
“You wanna ride?”
