Page 27

Tobie

In class, I’m Tobie Myers. Quiet. Studious. One hundred percent focused on getting my work done.

I’m that outside of class as well. But ever since I agreed to this fake-date thing with Reid, Caleb, and Javier, people notice me.

I thought class would function as a sanctuary for me in the midst of all this un-Tobie-like behavior. From the stares I get during class, my two worlds are colliding.

Maybe I didn’t notice the attention before, or the rumor mill hadn’t yet kicked in about me dating three hockey players, but now I do.

Usually, I’m the first to arrive at class so it’s only when I’m leaving that I spot eyes fixated on me and people whispering as I pass them.

As I leave the classroom and walk down the hallway, Sasha Hall steps in front of me.

The McAllister building is one of the biggest on campus. There are dozens of classrooms and meeting rooms where most of the teaching happens. When I can’t get a meeting room to study in the library, I use one in McAllister.

I don’t know what Sasha is majoring in, but I know of her. I doubt there’s a student on campus who doesn’t know one of the most popular girls in school.

Naturally, her attention toward me makes other people in the hallway stop.

“So you’re with the Magic Three,” Sasha announces in a voice she doesn’t even try to keep down.

She’s a cheerleader dating the star quarterback, the leader of her sorority, and she’s always around the campus hosting some charity event or surrounded by a big circle of friends.

She’s on a million committees, apparently attends every party, is the perfect girlfriend, and must never sleep or even sit down to keep up with all the above.

There’s popular, then there’s Sasha Hall.

Again, I feel like I’ve entered a new world that isn’t mine.

She shouldn’t know I exist.

And yet, the statuesque blonde is gripping her bag in her navy blue and silver cheerleader’s uniform, eyes filled with interest as she blocks my path out of the building.

I don’t want her interest.

Sasha Hall will eat me up and spit me out.

“Kind of,” I say vaguely.

Her blue eyes narrow. “Reid Graves took you for coffee.”

“He did.” I try to ignore the students filling the hallway. Their eyes bounce from Sasha to me. All they lack is a tub of popcorn and a couch, and they’ll have everything they need.

“Marta Shaw said she saw Javier Duarte take you shopping at the nice mall.”

I have no clue who Marta Shaw is, but she must be as rich as Sasha, whose mom is a famous interior designer who decorated one of the Desperate Housewives of Somewhere’s six bathrooms.

“He might have,” I admit.

I’m really shit at this fake-date business. I should be flaunting it loud and proud, all so it gets back to Marc.

Maybe I would have done that a few days ago before things between the guys and me started to feel real.

I find myself wanting to protect those moments, like a squirrel hoarding its nuts for winter. I want them to be just ours. Not something gossiped about, texted over, or shared with everyone.

“And Caleb Boucher,” she says, eyeing me closely.

“What about him?”

“He was in your dorm.”

Should I lie and say we slept together? Would she laugh in my face and ask for proof?

Someone steps out of the building, and I spot a familiar face standing outside. “Uh, I have to go,” I tell Sasha, ducking around her.

Javier is leaning on a wall three feet from the building entrance, holding two coffee cups that smell delicious but cannot taste as good as he looks.

A slow, pleased smile pulls the corners of his lips when he sees me. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

I stand there, not sure what comes next.

His eyes flick over my shoulder, and his smile grows. “I think you’re causing a blockage.”

A blockage?

I twist around. I’m blocking the entrance. Sasha trailed behind me, probably wanting to see if this relationship is real or fake. She seemed suspicious enough before to make me think she’s not buying it.

Blushing, I walk out, and even though I’ve gotten out of everyone’s way, no one moves. They’re looking at Javier and me. And no one’s eyes are sharper than Sasha Hall’s.

“You didn’t have to come meet me,” I tell him.

“Yes, I did.” He’s holding a coffee in each hand. That doesn’t stop him from looping his arms around me and stepping in close to touch his lips to mine. “How was class, Gatinha ?” his voice is so intimate I hide an involuntary shiver.

Someone behind me sighs. Could be Sasha, but no way in hell am I twisting around to confirm it. He really is determined to play the perfect fake boyfriend, and hell, if I saw all this, I’d buy it.

Pretend , I remind myself. This is just pretend, so stop thinking there is more to this than there is.

“It was okay,” I mumble, aware none of my classmates are leaving. “Everyone is staring,” I whisper, blushing.

He dips his head and whispers back. “Do you think they want me to kiss you again?”

I look from his eyes to his mouth, and frankly, I don’t care what they want. I just know what I want.

Javier must know it too.

And Javier, in full view of my class, lowers his head and kisses me again, long and deep, toe-curling perfect, and everything a kiss should be. With his hips flush against me, it’s clear this kiss is having as much of an effect on him as it is on my pebbled nipples.

“You’re really good at that,” I breathe out, fluttering my eyes open when he breaks the kiss.

“Of all the women in the world, I’m glad you think so. Now…” the corners of his eyes crease when he smiles, “… can I give you this coffee before I fling it to the floor and grab you instead?”

I’m not even joking when I ask, “What coffee?”

He laughs as he leads the way from my building.

When I peer over my shoulder, Sasha has her phone to her ear, mouth moving a million miles a minute.

I hope whatever she says finds its way to Marc because I haven’t seen him since the frat party, but everyone he knows has to be telling him about his ex-girlfriend dating three hockey players.

Javier holds out the two paper cups. “You decide. I got a couple of the fancy lattes. Salted caramel and?—”

“Salted caramel.” I make grabby hands.

He laughs. “You don’t even want to hear the other one?”

“There is no other one.” Then I freeze, fingers wrapped around the paper cup I’ve lifted to my mouth. “Unless this was the one you wanted?”

“And if I were to say yes?” His eyes sparkle with amusement.

I hand him the cup. “Here. I’ll take the other one. The…” I read the printed label on the other paper cup. Who the hell likes hazelnut ? I swallow my disgust and mask it with a smile. “Hazelnut sounds nice.”

He laughs. “So, you’re a terrible liar, and you love salted caramel lattes. What else don’t I know about you?”

“I’m not that bad,” I deny.

He takes the hazelnut coffee I don’t want and hands me the salted caramel latte that I would inject into my bloodstream if I could. “You are worse than my little sister, and I thought no one could lie as badly as her.”

“You have a sister?” I ask.

His expression softens into one that is nothing less than love.

“I do. Nessa is the unwanted little sister I was determined to put on the doorstep the second my parents turned their backs.”

“But she won you over?”

He returns my smile. “She did.”

“You’re so lucky. I’m an only child, but I’d have killed to have a brother or sister. Does she go here?”

His smile fades, and I kick myself for asking. “No. She’s finishing up high school in Boston.”

I take a sip from my coffee, relieved it’s not burning hot. “But you miss her?”

“I do. My parents are not the biggest fans of my giving up medicine to play hockey. In their eyes, I can do better. Nessa cares more about whether it’s something that makes me happy than what it is I do.”

“They care,” I reassure him. “My dad was the same when I said I wanted to work in a chocolate factory when I was a kid.”

He raises an eyebrow.

I shake my head. “He worried about me making the wrong choice and living with regret. After my mom died, he told me if I choose the wrong thing, who cares? I have a lifetime to try something else. The important thing is I do whatever makes me happy. You should tell them how you feel about hockey. They’d understand. ”

He takes a sip from his cup and makes a face. “Wow, is this pure sugar?”

“Yup. So is this one.” I take another big sip, sigh happily, then continue, “Do they know you love it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve actually told them?”

He slows our pace. “Not exactly.”

“You should tell them. My dad wants me to stay safe. If I told him I wanted to join a circus and be a trapeze artist, he would obviously worry, but if he knew I loved it, he’d be sitting front row, praying I wouldn’t fall on my head.”

“A trapeze artist?”

I wince. “It was the first thing I could think of.”

He considers me for a beat and sighs. “I shouldn’t be boring you with this.”

I scrunch my nose, surprised. “Why would I be bored?”

“It’s not something I talk much about with anyone.”

“Even Reid and Caleb?”

“Even them. I did before, but it’s been years, and nothing has changed. There’s only so much you can complain and bitch about something before you feel like you should drop it.”

“If you want to talk, I don’t mind listening.”

A soft, small smile lifts one corner of his mouth. “You are very sweet, Gatinha .”

I look away, blushing. “No, I’m not.”

“You say what’s on your mind, and your feelings are right there in your eyes.”

I panic slightly at that. I’ve always been an open book. It’s something I got from my dad. So, to hear Javier say something like that when I’m struggling to hold onto the fact that our relationship is fake worries me.

“Tobie?”

I try to wipe all expression from my face so I’m no longer so easy to read. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to sit for a bit?” He nods at a bench.

“Sure.”

We take a seat, clasping our coffees and watching other students.

“Why did you transfer here?” I ask.

He blinks, and I continue, “I don’t mean to say you should leave or anything.”

A dimple forms on his right cheek. “I hope not.”

“Just that moving schools had to have been a big deal, and you’re still majoring in biology, right? Couldn’t you have played hockey at Harvard? Don’t they have a team?”

“They do.” He nods. “And I could have.”

“But?”

“I needed to be somewhere new. In Harvard, I was pre-med, Javier Duarte, and…”

“And?” I prompt.

“I was a little too close to my parents, not ideal when I was turning my back on everything they wanted for me.”

“Reid was telling me about his brother and the draft.”

He flashes me a smile. “And it didn’t put you to sleep?”

“Surprisingly, no,” I admit, which makes him laugh. “Why didn’t you go in the draft if it’s what you wanted to do?”

“I guess I could have or played in a minor league,” he admits.

“But?”

He takes a sip of his coffee. “I needed to know if hockey was what I wanted before I went pro.”

“And is it?”

He nods. “It is.”

“And here you get to be who you want to be instead of pre-med Javier Duarte,” I say, reading between the lines.

“Exactly.” He gives me a long look. “Not many people get that.”

I shrug, looking away as I lift my cup to take a sip. “I’m from a small town in Nebraska, and I love the people in Lawrenceburg, but I will never be anything other than the Tobie everyone knows.”

“Marc was from there?”

My fingers curl around my warm cup. I hadn’t believed that Caleb, Reid, or Javier would want to talk about anything that wasn’t to do with hockey, least of all about my ex-boyfriend.

“Sorry, you don’t want to talk about him,” he apologizes.

I aim a small smile his way. “I was being judgmental, and I didn’t even realize until now.”

“About?”

“You. Jocks, in general, I guess. We were high school sweethearts and everyone expected us to move back home, get married, have kids, you know?”

He listens with his entire body. Someone yells something across the quad, and he doesn’t even turn to see what the screaming is about. “What did you expect?”

I shrug. “I guess I wanted the same. You should tell your parents how you feel about hockey.”

“It wouldn’t change anything.”

“It might if they knew you loved it.”

“What makes you think I love it?”

“You changed your whole life for it. You don’t see your sister enough and miss her badly. That makes me think it’s more than something you don’t just like to do. It’s something you need to do.”

He bumps his shoulder against mine. “You’re perceptive.”

I shake my head. “Not really. I learned to listen from my dad.” I sip from my coffee. “After my mom died in eighth grade, my dad tried really hard to love me extra hard so I wouldn’t miss out on love.”

“That sounds tough,” he says.

“It was. It could have been harder, but I still had my dad.” Reid lost both his parents, and I couldn’t imagine how hard that would have been. I smile. “My dad still has a closet full of Beanie Babies from when I went through a phase.”

A smile creases his eyes. “A closet?”

I nod. “It was an obsession. Tell your parents. They’ll want you to be happy.”

“You really listen, don’t you?”

I glance at him. “What?”

He’s staring across the quad, brow furrowed. “All girls care about is hearing me say something sexy.” He looks at me. “Because of my accent.”

“Well, it is a nice accent,” I say. “I’m not exactly immune to it either, you know.”

He laughs. “Well, I appreciate the honesty.”

We sit together for the next several minutes, saying nothing. Neither of us moves, even after we’ve finished our drinks.

It’s nice.

Being with Javier isn’t the same as being with Caleb or Reid, but I still feel this connection with him, like he’s always been a part of my life. It is surreal.

“You ready for me to walk you to your dorm?” he finally asks.

“You don’t have to do that. Marc is probably back in his dorm now.”

Javier gets to his feet and holds his hand out for mine. “I’m not doing it for Marc. I’m doing it for you. And a little for me as well. I like talking with you, Tobie Myers.”

I place my hand in his large, strong one, and he pulls me to my feet with painful ease. “Me too.”