“Then why were you so upset? You were working hard to control your emotions down there.”
Giving in, I leaned against the cold metal again. The small porch we stood on offered no protection from the elements, and it had to be less than twenty degrees out here. Neither of us had more than a sweater on.
“I don’t know. She just gets under my skin with everything she does, you know that.” I hoped that would be enough to satisfy her.
Her eyes studied me as we stood there, almost in a standoff, but then they lit up and went wide.
“You like her, don’t ya?”
I was not going to answer her. There was no way I was going to answer that question.
Suddenly, the door slid open.
“You guys OK out here? You must be freezing?” Lanie came to my rescue.
“Yeah, let’s go inside, Becca, it’s cold out here.”
Becca didn’t protest, but I knew she’d revisit this once we got home.
“I’m going to find Ty,” Becca said. “You good, Logan?”
“Yep,” I said.
“He’s with me, now,” Lanie chimed in.
Looking around the first floor, I realized I knew no one but her and Xander up here. It must be all his fraternity brothers hanging on this floor. It was quieter, more like they were hanging out than the party going on in the basement. Xander was deep in conversation with a few guys near the kitchen, so Lanie and I steered toward the living room.
“I think it’s awesome how everyone in your house chose to not drink tonight,” she said as we took a seat on a couch. “It proves you have some good people in your life.”
Nodding in agreement, I knew she was right, but I wasn’t feeling that way about one of them.
“Hey, Lanie.” A pretty girl sat down next to her. “How’s your night going?”
“Hi, Charlotte. I’m good, but you don’t sound so good. What’s up?”
The two girls spoke quietly, so I decided to get myself another bottle of water. Grabbing two from the cooler along the wall, I was faced with deciding what to do. Should I return to the basement or stay up here? That was when Lanie caught my attention.
“Logan, I want to introduce you to my friend Charlotte. We knew each other a little last year, and now we work together this semester. Charlotte, this is Logan.”
Charlotte stood to greet me, and I noticed how pretty she was. Her light brown hair fell in waves past her shoulders. She pushed those waves behind her shoulder as she put a hand forward.
“Hi,” she said. Her hazel eyes sparkled when she smiled at me. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Apparently, you both have the same major. Finance, right, Logan?” Lanie said. It became all too clear what Lanie was up to.
But then I thought, why the hell not?
As Lanie quietly made her departure, Charlotte and I started talking about some of our classes, discovering we were in one together. We’d found a quiet corner of the room to talk, leaning up against a wall. Quiet was relative; we still had to lean in and almost yell into one another’s ears to hear, but it was better than downstairs.
“Lanie said you took last semester off.”
Her mouth was so close to my ear her lips rubbed against my lobe.
“Was it hard coming back after being home?” she continued.
We kept talking.
And it was easy.
