“You’re commenting about a stalker?” Memphis deadpans to Oswald, but I feel like he’s talking about me.
Crap, does he think I followed them here?
“Hey, you always told me to go after what I want.” Oswald leans back and places his arm on the top of my chair. I can feel his fingers toying with the ends of my hair.
“Why is your tray still full?” Memphis asks, changing the subject. I wait for someone else to answer, and when no one does, I look up. He’s looking at me expectantly, one brow arched in question.
“Oswald hasn’t taken his stuff yet.”
Oswald throws me under the bus. “None of that is mine.”
“You put it there,” I accuse.
“For you.” He looks down at the food, then back at me. I know I’m chunky, but this is way more than I can eat. I don’t say that though. I just sit here. “You barely ate at lunch. Speaking of, you better not have eaten my leftovers.” He directs his attention toward his brother.
“You’re free to go check the teachers’ lounge in the English building,” Memphis tells him, not confirming or denying whether he ate it or not.
“Just eat the food you have and stop worrying about it,” Bates tells him.
“It’s country fried steak from Bricktown,” Oswald explains. Bates makes a grunting noise, which makes me think he understands why Oswald wants it.
“Waylynn.” My eyes leap up to Memphis’. “How was your class?”
“Fine, and yours?” I ask, being polite out of habit.
“I only questioned why the hell I was doing it twice, so…” I smile, and his lip curls up in a grin in response.
“Not so bad then,” I agree.
“She still went to the study group,” Oswald tattles like I did something wrong. “That’s how I found her here, with them.” He makes it seem like I was taking candy from a stranger and about to climb in the back of a white van.
I widen my eyes and peer at Oswald. “They said I only need to bring three friends with me next time to find out about their real mission. Do you have time to learn about your true calling?”
Bates starts to chuckle, while Oswald stares at me for a long second with narrowed eyes. “Not nice, Wavy baby.” I hear Memphis sigh, probably from the silly nickname.
“It’s a study group, not a cult.”
“That guy was certainly doing a lot of studying,” Oswald mutters under his breath and jerks my chair closer. I can feel the heat of his body all along the side of mine.
“You weren’t even there.” I try to sound calm, but I feel like they can hear the sudden shakiness in my tone.
“And I wasn’t talking about math.” He turns his head to look at me. We’re so close, I could count his eyelashes if I tried. “I’m going to have to put my name on you,” he says, but I don’t even really register the meaning of his words. I’m too busy making sure no one else can hear how hard my heart is beating and trying to act unaffected by his nearness.
“It’s our name,” Memphis drawls.
“I know, but I don’t think you’ll have any complaints.” Oz resumes eating, and our arms bump a few times once he removes his hand from the back of my chair. I take a sip of water just to give myself something to do other than focus on his pinkie finger touching my thigh under the table.
“Where did you play this weekend?” Oswald seems completely unaffected as he flips back into chatting with Bates.
“A bar in Chelsea.”
“Good show?” Memphis chimes in.
“Not bad for a Sunday afternoon. They invited me back Thursday.” Bates swirls a hunk of bread around the sauce on his plate and pops the entire thing in his mouth.
“Can you get off work early enough to go?” Memphis sounds intrigued.
“Yeah, it’s not until eight.” Bates stands up abruptly and walks away with his tray in hand. When he returns, he drops down into the same seat between Memphis and me.
