“Observant,” she replies.
“I can be.”
She lifts a brow. “So what does it matter to you?”
I should smile. I do anyway, because if I don’t, I’m going to drag my hand down my face and swear until the drywall cracks.
“You gonna pretend last night didn’t happen?” I ask.
Her eyes flash. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t.”
She makes a soft, irritated sound and shifts her weight. “It was a mistake.”
“Didn’t feel like one.”
Her gaze flicks to my mouth like it betrayed her all over again. Then she looks away, too quickly. “I don’t have time for this.”
“For what? Talking in a hallway?”
“For… you.” She says it like the word tastes bad.
I push off the frame just enough to stand straight, but I don’t step closer. “You’re replaying it too.”
Her laugh is short and humorless. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Molly.”
She lifts her chin, eyes sharp. “Evan.”
My name in her voice hits different than it should.
I hold up my hands, palms out, like I’m surrendering. “Okay. Fine. No flirting. No pressure.”
She exhales, slow. “I have somewhere to be.”
“Where?”
She hesitates like I’ve just asked for her social security number. Her eyes narrow, cheeks hollowing. “Studying,” she mutters, barely audible above the hum of the hallway’s fluorescent lights. The word comes out like an insult, something she’d scrape off her shoe before admitting to.
“Studying,” I echo, not even bothering to hide my skepticism. Maybe I’m hoping it will get a rise out of her. It does, but she’s not so easy, not now. Not since last night.
She says, “Don’t,” like she’s warning me off a live wire.
“Homework?” I ask, deadpan, and she actually bares her teeth. It’s not a grin.
“If you say that word again, I’ll break your nose.” She says it like she means it.
I shouldn’t enjoy that. But I do.
I nod like she just gave me a weather report. “Accounting test?”
That actually stops her. Not that she freezes — she’d never do anything so obvious — but the hitch in her step is so perfectly brief that if I didn’t already know her, I’d have missed it. Her gaze flickers, not at me but past me, down the dim, apartment corridor, like she’s calculating angles of escape, like I’m the last question on an exam and she’s already used all her scratch paper.
“How do you know that?”
“The gym, remember? You said it and then ran like someone pulled the fire alarm.” I shrug, keeping my voice bland. “Hard to forget.”
