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Before I can even break down what happened, Flora snickers. I turn to her, cringing.
“You’ve got it bad. It’s a shame he takes advantage of you.”
I recoil. “What? No.” My brain flicks to my erotic image, but I force it away.That’s not the kind of scenario she’s talking about.
Flora gives me a look, her fingers still moving over the keyboard. It’s a trick of all reporters to be able to type while carrying on detailed conversations, yet Flora has also added a pointed look that says “Sure, you keep thinking that.”
My entire being balks. “Clark is smart and talented. Plus, he’s the editor.”
She continues to work but lowers her voice. “Clark wouldn’t be so smart or so talented if he wasn’t over here asking what you would do all the time.”
“We bounce ideas off each other.”
“If by ‘bounce ideas off each other,’ you mean you give him the ideas that make him look good, then sure, that’s exactly what you do.”
I roll my eyes. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She hasn’t worked as closely with Clark as I have. He’s a genius. His words are like crack. In a time when people could get all their news from television or a Google search, our college-run newspaper is thriving. It’s amazing, and no one will be able to convince me that it’s not in part due to Clark Davis. My pre-Superman.
Sigh.
Flora shrugs, as if she can hear the inner workings of my mind and is brushing them off. I like the girl, but yeesh. She’ll see next year when some other editor takes over and this place isn’t run nearly as well. I’ve worked side by side with Clark for four years. I think I know.
“See you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here,” she says, gaze focusing on her screen.
I give her a wave that she doesn’t see, and then I skirt around the long table and exit out the glass double doors. While walking away, I stare inside the newsroom for one last glance at Clark. It’s easy to do since the entire wall of the hallway is glass so the student body walking by can see us working inside.
Being on display was a little unnerving at first, but I don’t even notice it now. Plus, it’s smart. As reporters, we have to be in the midst of things. We can’t sequester ourselves away from the world with our narrow focus on the blinking cursor mocking us. No, we have to go out there,beout there.
Also, it’s nice to sneak glances at Clark.
His brow furrows while he stares at his screen. That look of concentration is sexy as hell. He’s—
I slam into something large and solid. My feet freeze in place, and I peer up at a towering body, an apology on the tip of my tongue. However, it dies in my throat when I meet familiar eyes. Isaiah. Isaiah James. I swallow the sudden dryness, a whirlwind of memories washing over me.
Even though I haven’t seen him in a while, his smile still disarms me. “Hey, Nor.”
He’s still broad shouldered and effortlessly good looking with soft-brown eyes and caramel-colored hair. Plus, the charm. It oozes off him even when he doesn’t talk.
For a moment, I get caught up in him, but then his words chisel past the initial shock and right into my brain. No one has called me Nor sinceher—and only ever her…and by extension,him. She thought Len sounded too masculine, and I despise my full name, so we compromised on Nor.
Well, actually, the one doing the compromising was me. I understand that now.
But the worst part is the memories that claw to the surface from the hollow dip in my stomach that I tried so hard to forget. He opens his mouth to say something again, but I cut him off. “Hi, I’m actually going somewhere.” I maneuver around him and start walking once more, trying to steady my feet underneath me.
Instead of leaving it at that, he steps in line with me, keeping pace. “I was hoping to talk to you about something.”
Yes, and I’m sure thatsomethingis a five-foot-seven, leggy blonde who I used to call a best friend. “Listen, I don’t know where Trish is, okay?”
Images flit through my mind, and every one of them makes me feel small. Like my world is turning in on itself.
“Trish?”
Oh, please. Why the feigned shock? What else would he want to talk to me about except his ex-girlfriend who’s also my ex-best friend?
Isaiah James and I are not friends. We’re barely acquaintances. We were tethered together by an unfortunate excuse for a human being, and we have the scars to prove it.
I pick up the pace, and it takes me a few moments to realize he’s not walking next to me anymore. A sigh punctuates the relief that brings me. The last thing I need to worry about when I just told my editor I’d have my article done by next week is old feelings popping up.