Page 33 of Look Again

“You are completely unbelievable.” A huff of breath is not enough to rid myself of this annoyance. Seriously? Who talks like that?

He stops and looks at me. “What?”

“You are so full of yourself.”

Shaking his head, he says, “No. Not me. I mean, I should know because I let you get away with being a slacker. In our partnership. Because you’re pretty.”

He did not just say that.

Oh, but he did.

“I keep thinking you’re saying the worst thing ever, and then you prove me wrong. It really does keep getting worse.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “I am carrying every part of this partnership. All you did is pull out a couple of old files from your computer.”

Now he looks offended. “Is that what you think?”

Okay, really? It’s not. I know how hard he worked on the scripts, this one especially. And he brought some great kids to the Harvest Ball planning team. I shake my head. “I know the script is really good. And that couldn’t have come easily. But you are so . . . self-important.”

He gives me a look and a slow chuckle. Every inch of me warms as if the sun was shining full on me.

“Self-importance is a survival strategy.”

I shake my head. He is unbelievable. How long must I listen to this kind of self-love pseudo-psych nonsense? This might be my burden to bear all year.

“You know, you’re kind of the worst,” I say, but I hear the amusement in my voice.

He hears is too. “I might grow on you.”

“Don’t count on it,” I say. I try to sound serious, but I don’t think I’m fooling either of us.

“You really have to give me a chance. After all, I’m going to be your faculty chair representative.”

I groan. If I were the kind of person who hit people playfully, he’d be a walking bruise.

“Are you going home?” I consider myself generous for not continuing this line of conversation.

“I am. Want to come in?”

To his apartment?

This is escalating quickly.

I make a little “ahem” sound in my throat. But yeah, I do want to go in. “Sure,” I say.

“Really?” He sounds surprised. And excited. Like my yes was a gift.

We walk across campus, lobbing ideas back and forth about our projects. It’s the most comfortable I’ve been with him since I made such a fool of myself missing almost every catch in our frisbee game. No competition. No pressure.

His rooms are in the building across the quad from mine. He unlocks the door and holds it open for me. My experience of single guys’ apartments runs to the Goodwill couches facing as large a TV as will fit in the room, vague scents of unwashedness, and partially consumed Gatorades and empty pizza boxes.

Good heavens, this is not that.

His entry is spotless and elegant. A brass coat rack stands beside the door, and if I am not mistaken, that is a leather umbrella stand. A small table stands under a massive mirror. His living room, filled with expensive-looking leather chairs and a sofa, reminds me of rooms in old films, where wealthy old men smoke cigars and drink brown beverages out of heavy tumblers.

There are glass-fronted bookshelves. Full of books.

This is not what I expected.

I like it. A lot.

Hello, Dexter Kaplan.