Page 10

“Especially when you’re standing right outside the room. Then it’s probably impossible.”
“Yeah, that might’ve helped.” His lips start to upturn, and I really don’t think this guy knows I don’t like him. He thinksno onedislikes him. How weird is that? His brown eyes light up. “How else was I supposed to show you what I’ve got going on if I didn’t make myself known?”
His hand comes to rest on his abs, and I can’t shake the picture of him in a towel from my head. I blink, and it’s as if I have X-ray vision. Delectable dips on his stomach, the hard curve of his pecs… It was something out of a magazine. But the real question is why he cares to show it off tome.
“And yet, I’m unfazed.”
He clasps his heart. “You wound me.”
His feigning to be hurt nearly makes me smile. Nearly.
I turn and walk away, and he follows. “Come on, a name? How else am I supposed to know who’s about to fall in love with me?”
I snort at that, remembering what he said on the sidelines. “You must mean lust.”
“So, you are in lust with me?”
The dip in my stomach says maybe, but I can’t say that aloud. “Please,” I argue. “You’re the one pimping out your body to grab my attention. Newsflash: it isn’t working.”
He stops following, and a pang of regret rings through me. That was a tad harsh. He was trying to be nice. Flirty, even. If he was being sincere, though, I can’t give him any reason to think I would be interested. I’m way too preoccupied with Dad. Not to mention that meeting anyone would come with a whole host of issues I’d have to address, and honestly, I don’t have the strength.
I just want to be left alone.
Maybe I can think about relationships when I have my own place. When I’m free.
“Well, joke’s on you Charley-not-Charlotte. I overheard your name. I was just being polite.”
I shrug, continuing to walk away. This guy must always get everything he wants. For whatever reason, he might think it’s some sort of weird conquest to get the outcast to like him. Joke’s on him.
I live in armor, Pretty Boy. Nothing penetrates this.
Despite that, when he gets in his car and drives past me, a hollow ache rears its head. I can’t have friends because they’ll ask too many questions, but the human interaction was kind of nice.
He gives me a little wave, and I peer away like I didn’t see it. Why? I don’t know. A wave isn’t a marriage proposal or all that friendly. People wave to each other all the time.
It’s easier to keep my walls up.
I hike my bag up my shoulders again and trudge on, fantasizing about what it would be like if Mom never died. It would probably be so easy to have a guy like Cade Farmer give me a ride home. My parents would tease me or do what they do on TV and pretend they never saw, even though they’re squealing on the inside.
My dad… Well, he wouldn’t be morbidly obese and miserable. If a guy brought me home now and came into the house, my dad would blow a gasket.
A dark cloud settles across my shoulders, and I shake my head. There’s no sense in wallowing about what isn’t reality, but as I do so, a glint of sunlight catches my eye, and I turn toward a car idling on the street. A small black SUV. Shiny. Familiar.
I swallow, my heart rate picking up before I turn down the next block, leaving that person behind.
5
Cade
Dempsey is kicking my ass.
I wait for most every other student to leave before making my way down the steps of the class. He must hear my footsteps coming because he turns. “Mr. Farmer, hey.”
He’s a young professor, not like a lot of the others on campus. All the female students whisper about how hot he is, but right now, he’s my nemesis. “Mr. Dempsey.” I wave my C paper, which totally should have been a solid B.
“That was a tough one there. I don’t think you quite grasped the material.”
The material? The material is hundreds-of-years-old literature that barely makes sense anymore. “I thought the meaning of a story was subjective to the reader. Everyone has their own interpretation.”