‘And your daddy says hi.’
I frown at myself, wondering if that’s true.
‘Tell him I said hi back.’
‘Okay, baby, call me before you go to bed, I want to hear all about your evening. And honey,tryto have fun.’
Mom ends the call before I can tell her that’s exactly what I’m attempting to do, and the screen of my phone changes from a heavily filtered portrait of my mother, back to a photo of the whole family: me, Mom and Dad, my older brother, Kane, and our little brother, Hudson. A collage of strained smiles and Sunday best, taken last Christmas. I slip the phone into the pocket of my dress, fully anticipating another call within the hour, and check my reflection one more time. Just in case anything has changed in the last two minutes but nope, still the same. For better or worse, nothing about my appearance has altered since I was sixteen. Same five feet and five inches tall, same storm in a B cup, and the same boring blue eyes and brown fishtail braid and bangs. I shake my arm to bring the heart-shaped clasp of my bracelet to the inside of my wrist then wipe away a speck of crumbled mascara, practising my personal pep talk one more time. I’m ready. It’s time to go.
But when I open my door, instead of taking the first step into my new life, I slam face first into what feels like a refrigerator. Staggering backwards, hands cupped over my stinging nose, my teary eyes flutter open to see the immoveable object in the middle of the hallway is not a kitchen appliance. It is in fact a person. And not just any person.
Ethan Taylor, captain of the Marshall College soccer team, is standing right in front of me.
Only he can’t be. Ethan Taylor, captain of the Marshall College soccer team, is supposed to be at Marshall College, not Hemden University. I scrunch my eyes tightly shut then open them again and hope against hope that I’m either mistaken or lightly concussed. I don’t care which, as long as I’m wrong. But no, he’s still there.
‘What the hell?’ I exclaim, nose throbbing worse than my knee and my mind racing.
‘Yeah, apology accepted,’ Ethan grunts, dusting off his arm as though I could’ve caused him some kind of damage. Hardly. I bounced off his body like a butterfly off a bison and it’s a wonder I don’t have a broken nose to show for it. Two almost-injuries in one afternoon? Must be a day with a Y in it.
After examining his crisp white T-shirt for possible damage, he turns his attention back to me and I suck in a sharp breath. Even if he wasn’t campus-famous for his skills with a soccer ball, Ethan would still be One Of Those Guys. Up this close, he’s gorgeous. Not beautiful like Oliver, but there’s no disputing the fact that he’s very handsome, in a more obvious, conventional kind of a way. Easily over six feet tall with broad shoulders and emerald-green eyes that zero in on me like I’m the only girl in the world, and when his full lips break into a beaming grin, I damn near fall down on the spot.
Again.
‘Wait a second,’ he says, those green eyes narrowing with recognition. ‘Don’t I know you?’
Pinching the bridge of my smarting nose, I shake my head.
‘No, you don’t.’
And it’s the truth. He doesn’t know me. I’m one hundred percent certain he couldn’t guess the first letter of my first name, not even for one million dollars with a flame thrower pressed against his temple.
‘Pretty sure I do.’
He’s still staring, biting his bottom lip like he’s trying to place me, and I feel heat rushing to my cheeks. What is happening? How is it possible that he’s here?
‘Shit! I do know you!’ Ethan declares cheerfully. ‘You’re the librarian!’
And with that, all the blood drains out of my body.
Besides arriving at Hemden and finding out the campus had been overrun with giant, man-eating alien capybaras, this is the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. ‘The librarian’ is exactly why I’m here. I thought I’d put an entire ocean between myself and that nickname but here’s Ethan Taylor, come to hand-deliver it to a whole new student body. Which makes sense since it was his girlfriend who came up with it in the first place. The memory of the moment still makes me shudder, when I walked into Renaissance Poetry 201, first day of sophomore year, wearing a cute new outfit I’d agonized over – a plaid mini skirt and oversized wool sweater combo I loved so much – only for Breanna Kershaw to ask if I was cosplaying as a librarian. And like all unwelcome nicknames, it spread like wildfire, stuck like glue, and I’ve been ‘the librarian’ ever since.
This cannot be happening.
‘You’re the librarian,’ Ethan says again with way too much enthusiasm. ‘From Marshall. You used to tutor my buddy, Gabe? In English?’
‘Nope, not me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He snaps his fingers and points at me, laughing.
‘Nah, if I wasn’t sure before, I am now I’ve clocked the accent. That’s pure South Cackalacky, baby.’
He sticks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, still yapping at me like he isn’t the enemy. Or at least sleeping with the enemy.
‘So, what are you doing here?’ He leans against the wall, casual and comfortable, two concepts I haven’t experienced for at least the last seven years.
‘Talking to you?’ I press a hand against my forehead to test my temperature. No fever, I’m not delirious, this isn’t some horrifying hallucination. It’s actually happening. What is he doing here?
‘Well, yeah, I figured that much out on my own. I mean why are you in the guys’ dorms?’
