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Charlie waited on the playful dots, her stomach tight and her heart ready to take a small risk.

Chapter Nine

It was cold outside, but you’d never have known it. With a week left until final exams, which would lead them into the holiday break, Taryn found herself flat on her back, head beside head with Charlie Adler, staring up at the red-leaved branches of two intermingling maples.

“But the thing about studying at the library, specifically, is that I always want to peer over and see what you’re doing.”

“I get that,” Charlie said seriously. “The work I do is highly intriguing. Most people can’t look away.”

Taryn laughed. “You do whip those reference books around with a great deal of flair.”

“That’s my middle name. Charlie Flair Adler.”

Taryn peered over because Charlie delivered the line with such believability. “No, it’s not. The side of your mouth is twitching, which means you’re lying.”

Charlie turned and met her gaze. “You’re already on to my tells?”

“I know. This friendship is getting serious.”

Charlie laughed quietly and dropped her head. “Do you ever notice that when the afternoon edges toward evening, the campus turns copper? Look how everything is lightly touched with the most golden light.”

Taryn took a moment to marinate in the perfectly articulated description. “You even talk like a writer. But yes, I have. I’ve even tried to capture it on film, but it’s an elusive quality. So I try to just enjoy the thirty minutes or so we get of it each day.” A pause. “I’ve never thought of it as copper before, but that’s exactly what it is. This place is copper.”

“So are you.”

“What?” Taryn grinned and her heart squeezed. She had to hear more.

That’s when she noticed Charlie watching her. No, studying her, causing her skin to tingle and her limbs to warm. “You have an adorable dimple on that left cheek. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Absently, she touched her cheek, needing to experience what Charlie was fixated on. “My mother is a big fan. She’s the only one, unfortunately.”

“Not anymore.”

Okay. That sent a potent tingle up her spine. There was a surprising openness to the way Charlie was interacting with her today. It was markedly different and, in all respects, quite wonderful in Taryn’s opinion. “I had no idea you were an admirer of dimples.”

“There are a lot of things you’ve yet to discover about me.” She didn’t look away, and neither did Taryn. If this had been a date, Taryn would have kissed her after that remark without hesitation, hoping to learn one more thing and then another, starting with how Charlie kissed, what she tasted like, and what kinds of things made her murmur in appreciation.

“Did you hear what I said?”

Taryn blinked and rejoined the fold of the conversation. “I drifted away for a second, but I heard you.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Well, I can’t tell you that.”

Charlie offered a half pout. Adorable and sexy, too. Taryn understood that with the right facial expression, Charlie Adler could probably get Taryn to do anything. Not that she was prepared to share that information.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Charlie turned onto her stomach and rested her chin in her hand while improving the pout. Fucking dammit. Charlie was doubling down, and it was doing things to her. As they watched each other, Taryn decided this was another situation where her intuition was completely off when it came to matters of the heart because she would have sworn this was a form of flirting. Why was she bad at identification? Because if Charlie was flirting with her, the world had just exploded into sunshine and lollipops. Her phone buzzed.

“I cannot be swayed,” Taryn said as she checked the readout. Ashley checking to see how Taryn’s lab session had gone. She’d taught her an awesome new way to batch photos to speed up the process and make the most of her lab time. She smiled and typed back.

“Who has you smiling over there?” Charlie asked.

Taryn sighed. She wasn’t sure how to describe what was happening with Ashley. Since the kiss at the church, they texted on occasion, talked technique and style over text, but there was a big question mark around whether there was anything true bubbling between them. “Ashley.”

“The mentor, that’s right. How’s it going?”