“I’ve never conducted interviews before.”
“I have. I’ll show you.” Her tone was casual, but something about the certainty in it made my pulse jump. “It’s not that complicated. You just need to know how to ask the right questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
She smiled, and it was the first genuine smile I’d seen from her. It transformed her entire face, softening the sharp edges and revealing something almost tender underneath.
My breath caught at the sight.
“The type that makes people want to tell you their secrets.”
I stared at her, wondering if she was still talking about research methodology, and trying very hard to ignore the way that smile made my stomach knot.
I wanted to see it again.
“Oh,” I breathed, the word barely a whisper as my thoughts scattered.
“Yes,” she said, her voice lowering, turning intimate.
Our eyes met and held, and suddenly I couldn’t remember how to breathe properly.
Her gaze was intense, almost searching. Those pale green eyes made me feel exposed in a way that should have been uncomfortable, but instead warmth spread slowly through me, settling somewhere low and unfamiliar.
Was this how admiration felt? This strange pull, this sense that the air between us was brimmed with things I didn’t have words for?
But I had admired people in the past. My high school teacher, whose classes I loved. My cousins, excelling in their own fields. People I respected.
But this wasn’t that.
So… was this?
Attraction?
The jarring sound of a ringtone sliced through the moment.
I gasped, my body jerking as if I’d been struck by lightning, and my hands flew to my bag in panic.
“It’s mine,” Marley said, her voice slightly rougher than before. She held up her iPhone and answered without looking away from me. “What’s up, Atlas?”
A tiny, loud female voice burst through the speaker. Marley held the phone slightly away from her ear, her lips quirked in what might have been annoyance or amusement.
I should have been irritated—taking calls in the library was rude, but when I glanced around, the philosophy section was empty.
It was just the two of us.
I dropped my gaze to my hands, fidgeting with the straps of my bag, pretending not to listen.
“Take a chill pill, Atlas,” Marley said, leaning back in her chair. “The date at Roxie’s was exhausting. She was boring and spent the whole evening talking about her job and checking her phone instead of paying attention to our date, so I bailed.”
My stomach tightened at the casual dismissal in her voice.
So she had been on a date that day.
With a woman.
Oh.
Atlas’s voice crackled again, and I caught fragments of something about being too picky.
