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One, two, three... Four, five, six... Seven, eight, nine...

I’m frozen to the spot, not able to form any words or even step away from him.

Ten, eleven, twelve... Thirteen, fourteen, Fift-

“Ava, I know-”

“Hey, baby.” An arm comes around me from behind and I’m pulled into a hard chest. I close my eyes briefly at the sound of his voice and take a deep breath, just breathing him in. “Hey, man.” I feel him nod at Thomas and for a second, I imagine what it would be like to be greeted like this every day by Corey.

Then my mind catches up with my body and I try to pull away.

“Don’t,” he whispers in my ear, his lips skimming my skin causes me to shiver. I keep still and look back at the lecturer.

Clearing my throat, I say. “Thanks for the information, I’ll erm... see you next Monday?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, his eyes flicking to Corey before he walks away, leaving us stood here.

“Is he your lecturer?” he asks when I pull away. I’m glad his arms aren’t around me anymore but I still miss the way they make me feel.

“Yes,” I whisper, looking around. “What was-”

“He was about to ask you out,” he grits out between clenched teeth, his eyes burning with anger but he’s not looking at me, he’s watching Thomas as he walks through the campus.

My mouth snaps shut at the way he speaks to me and the way he’s standing. His jaw ticks as he clenches it and his eyes shift to mine, boring all the way through me.

“So?” I ask and spin around, walking off in a huff.

“What do you mean... so?” he asks, catching up to me as I walk through the quad.

“What’s that got to do with you?” I roll my eyes and walk through the parking lot, spotting his car and walking towards it. “Whether he was or wasn’t, it really has nothing to do with you,” I throw over my shoulder to him.

“Ava,” he pleads. Ignoring him, I shake my head and wave to his car.

“If that’s all you came for then you can be on your way.” My breathing picks up as I look at him, I can’t believe he did that. Who does he think he is showing up like this?

“Birdie-”

“No!” I shout then slam my hand over my mouth, my eyes widening at how I’m reacting. I take a deep breath, then say, “You can’t do things like that, you can’t step in to save me all the time.” I keep my eyes on him and watch as they flash with so many different emotions that it’s hard to keep up.

Frowning, we stand and stare at each other, neither of us saying a word.

After a few silent minutes, I huff and turn around, walking back to my apartment. There’s no reason for him to have done that. He insinuated things that aren’t there and not only that, now I can only imagine what the lecturer thinks of me too.

It’s beside the point that, as my teacher, he shouldn’t have been asking me out on a date but he never did say anything. Yeah, so he touched my arm, that doesn’t mean he was going to ask me out.

Pushing through the apartment building door, I let the door swing back and start to climb up the stairs.

“Ava! Wait!” Ignoring Corey, I turn my key in the door and push it open. “Please, don’t be like this. I was only trying to help.”

I have no idea why I’m so angry with him. If I’m really honest about it, it’s probably nothing to do with what just happened and more to do with the fact that he never called after the bar incident and then just chooses to show up out of nowhere on campus and act like he owns me.

“Go away,” I whisper as I’m closing the door, averting my eyes, not wanting to look at him right now.

“Please,” he begs, making it to the door just before it closes all the way. “I’m sorry, I don’t...”

I wait for him to finish but when he doesn’t say anything else, I huff and go to close the door the last couple of inches, but his hand comes out to stop me. “Can I come in?” I look up into eyes as they plead with me to let him in. Giving in, I nod and turn around, letting him follow me inside.

I don’t have the energy to fight, not with Corey.