Page 38 of Beyond the Lines (Pine Barren University #1)

twenty-two

LEA

The pencil lead digs into the paper as I shade the contours of his jawline for what must be the hundredth time.

There’s something about the angle that still isn’t right.

Too sharp, maybe? Or not sharp enough? I lean closer, my nose nearly touching the page as I carefully smudge the edge with my finger, trying to?—

“Living statue spotted in its natural habitat!”

I jump so violently my coffee mug teeters, tipping over and sending a wave of lukewarm brew cascading across my desk.

Cursing in panic, I scramble to rescue my sketchbook, lifting it high as dark liquid seeps into my economics textbook, a small price to pay versus the risk of losing my irreplaceable sketches.

Em stands in the doorway, grinning. “That’s what happens when you become one with the furniture.

” She tosses her backpack onto her bed and crosses to my desk, grabbing an old T-shirt to blot the spreading coffee stain.

“Dude, you didn’t even hear me stomping around.

I could’ve been a campus serial killer. ”

“There is no campus serial killer,” I mutter, carefully setting my sketchbook face-down on my bed.

“Not yet,” Em says cheerfully. “But when there is, you’ll be the girl in the horror movie who gets taken out in the first fifteen minutes…”

I glare at her, then I smirk. “Thanks for that comforting thought.”

“Here to serve.” She tosses the coffee-soaked notes into our tiny trash can. “So what masterpiece has you so hypnotized you’ve forgotten the outside world?”

My pulse quickens as I casually flip through my sketchbook to a different page. “Just working on some stuff for life drawing.”

I land on the sketch of Linc’s leg with its web of surgical scars—thankfully not the obsessively detailed drawing of Declan’s face I’d just spent two hours perfecting.

Em leans over my shoulder, her coconut-scented shampoo tickling my nose. “Hey, isn’t that Linc’s knee? The hockey guy with the red hair?”

I blink up at her. “How can you possibly recognize someone’s knee from all the other knees in the world?”

“You’re a good artist?” She says with a dismissive wave, then shrugs when it’s clear I don’t believe her. “He’s always at the gym in those tiny shorts, and the scar pattern is pretty distinctive. Plus, I happen to appreciate legs in general. How long have you been working on this, anyway?”

I glance at my phone and wince when I see the time. “Oh. Um… about four hours?”

“Four hours?” Em sits bolt upright. “You’ve been drawing Linc’s knee for four hours?”

“The texture of the scars is fascinating,” I say defensively, which isn’t entirely a lie, although I hadn’t been working on it—on Linc—for long at all.

“Sure,” she says, drawing out the word until it has at least seven syllables. “Wrong hockey player, I think…”

The words land like a cannon shot.

And she’s right.

Linc is not what I’ve been obsessing over.

This is exactly what I used to do in high school—get fixated on perfecting some tiny detail of a drawing until I could barely see straight. It’s part of why I burned out so badly before graduation. Why I had to take that semester off to travel and reset my brain before starting college.

But this time, I’m not obsessing over the art, I’m obsessing over the subject.

Em’s phone buzzes, and she glances down at it. “Marnie wants us to meet her at The Bean in twenty minutes for a life-or-death. Apparently Trevor smiled at her from across the cafeteria today, and this requires immediate dissection by the whole squad over overpriced lattes.”

“I don’t think I can?—”

“Nope, this isn’t optional, this is an intervention.” Em cuts me off, tossing a clean shirt in my direction. “You’re not spending another four hours on Knee-mageddon. Fresh air. Human interaction. Caffeine that isn’t spilled all over your desk.”

I catch the shirt, conflicted.

Part of me wants to stay here with my sketches.

With Declan, even if it’s just graphite on paper.

Something flutters in my stomach at the thought of him.

Not that it matters.

It’s not like Declan’s shown any interest in seeing me again after… that .

Just once , I’d told him. To fuck it out .

And apparently that’s exactly what he did. One night, then back to strictly professional art partners. No texts except about the project. No lingering looks in class. He sits as far away from me as physically possible now, like I have some contagious disease he’s desperately avoiding.

And instead of drawing me—my one invitation to show I might still have interest in something more—he chose his hockey buddy.

“We need to talk about this,” Em says, interrupting my Declan spiral again.

“Talk about what?” I ask, feigning innocence.

She gives me a look so flat I could serve drinks on it, gesturing at the dark circles under my eyes and my pile of rumpled clothes. “The way you’ve barely left this room in days unless it’s for class. The way you stare at your phone when it buzzes, then look disappointed when it’s not him.”

“I don’t?—”

“The way you’ve been drawing the same guy for weeks, and don’t bother to deny it, because I’ve conducted several recon missions in the name of roommate wellbeing.” She reaches past me and flips open my sketchbook to another page before I can stop her. “See? And this is just from—what—Tuesday?”

My face burns as she flips through page after page of Declan.

Declan smiling.

Declan with his brow furrowed in concentration.

Declan’s hands wrapped around a pencil.

Declan looking away, his profile cut sharp against a window .

“How did you?—”

“Please!” She scoffs. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing when you stare into space and keep hitting ‘next episode’ on Netflix without even watching?”

I bury my face in my hands, mortified. “I hate you.”

“You love me.” She sits on her bed, patting the spot beside her. “Look, I know you’re trying to outrun these feelings, but maybe it’s time you dealt with them?”

“I dealt with them,” I say, a bit too loudly, a bit too defensively, not meeting her eyes. “I fucked it out!”

“Yeah, but the thing with fucking it out is forgetting about it,” Em says. “And he’s still got you hooked , girl…”

“He does not?—”

She taps the sketchbook. “You fucked him and then ghosted him, even though you want more of it and more of him.”

My head snaps up. “I didn’t ghost him! He ghosted me!

“Did he though?” Em cocks her head. “Or did you create this whole one-time-only rule and then follow it so religiously he thinks that’s what you want?”

“It is what I want,” I insist, my voice ringing hollow even to my ears. “He’s Mike’s teammate. Mike would kill him. And probably me.”

“So it’s really about Mike? That’s the reason—the only reason—you’re avoiding happiness? Because I have to say, Lea, that’s a shitty reason to deny yourself joy.”

“I—”

“Nope, my turn to talk,” she cuts me off. Mike would understand if you told him you genuinely care about Declan. Even if he had a tantrum first, which—let’s be honest—is practically guaranteed, he’d get over it. And even if I’m wrong, if he tries to kill either of you, he’ll need to deal with me …”

“Terrifying,” I smirk, the fight already draining out of me. “It’s just that… Mike’s been off lately… he’s playing like crap and something’s wrong…”

Em’s eyebrows lift. “Off how?”

“I don’t know exactly. He won’t tell me. But…” I hesitate, then reach for my laptop, flipping it open. “This came out last week.”

Em leans in, squinting at the headline on the sports blog I opened: ALTMAN’S FALL FROM GRACE: IS PINE BARREN’S STAR DEFENSEMAN LOSING HIS EDGE?

“Ouch,” she says.

“Yeah.” I close the laptop. “I know he’s read it.

When I went to his apartment, it was open on his computer.

Hockey is everything to him, Em. So even if there was something with Declan—even if he wanted it, and he doesn’t—I can’t be the reason Mike goes off the rails after he supported me last summer… ”

“Wow, that’s a lot of responsibility you’re taking for someone else’s emotional wellbeing,” Em says, her tone deceptively light.

“Maybe if Mike’s so easily affected by other people, he should choose a more solitary sport.

Like golf. Or fly-fishing. Do you think Mike would look cute in those little wading pants? ”

Despite myself, I snort. “They’re called waders.”

“My point is,” Em continues, ignoring my correction, “you’re an adult. Not Mike’s emotional support animal. If you like Declan—and honey, those drawings suggest you’re well past ‘like’ and cruising straight into heart-eyes emoji territory—then maybe you should explore that…”

“But Mike?—”

“Nope.” She shakes her head. “If Mike needs support with whatever he’s dealing with, you can support him, independent of your love life. Because you’ll be much happier in that case, which your brother should want, and you can stop drawing the same scarred knee for four?—”

My eyes narrow at her sudden silence. “What?”

Em looks at my sketchbook. Before I can protest, she’s flipping back to the drawing of Linc’s leg. She studies it for a moment, head tilted. “Huh.”

“What?”

“This…” She traces her finger along the curved line of what’s supposed to be Linc’s surgical scar. “This doesn’t look like his scar at all. It looks like…”

My stomach drops as I look at the page with fresh eyes. The supposedly anatomical drawing has morphed during my hours of work. The curve of that scar now perfectly matches the line of Declan’s jaw, the one that leads down to his neck, to the pulse point that thrummed under my lips when I?—

“Oh my god.” I slam the sketchbook shut, mortified.

Em bursts into laughter. “Girl, you’ve got it bad. Like, terminal-case bad.”

I groan. “I’m losing my mind.”

“No, you’re just in?—”

“Don’t say it,” I cut her off. “I’m not. I barely know him.”

“Fine. But whatever this is, it’s not going away.”

“You don’t know that,” I say. “If I ignore it, I?—”

“I’ve tried that strategy with homework. Zero success.”

There’s silence for a moment.