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Hannah Dorsey could tell he was going to talk to her even before he got close.

Her mid-morning Brain Dysfunction and Repair course had just come to a close and she was packing up her laptop when the guy stopped nervously in front of her chair. At first he didn’t speak.

“You’re blocking me,” she told him, not in the mood to be accommodating.

“Sorry,” he said, taking a step back. “I wasn’t sure how best to do this.”

“What’s this ?” Hannah asked, eyebrows raised skeptically.

She was used to guys hitting on her, even in class. She wasn’t arrogant, but she knew that her slender but curvy five-foot-nine frame, blonde hair, and flashing green eyes—the same shade as her sister Jessie’s—were a magnet for college boys.

But something told her that wasn’t what this one was up to. She couldn’t put her finger on why but was projecting a different kind of nervous that didn’t feel date-y in nature.

She knew who the guy was. His name was Dallas something. The last name escaped her. They’d been in this class together for almost a month now, but he’d never made any attempt to talk to her before. Usually, he just did his work, maybe asked an occasional question of the professor, or answered one when called on. He seemed smart enough, though he didn’t speak with any regularity, so she couldn’t be sure.

“I know we don’t know each other,” he said, “but I was hoping you could help me out with an assignment.”

Hannah stood up and threw her backpack over her shoulder. In her seven months as a student at UC Irvine, she’d learned to be cautious when it came to any kinds of requests for help, especially from those of the opposite sex. Not every guy who made one was a scumbag potential assaulter, but at least one had been and that was one too many for her taste.

“You don’t know how to do an assignment?” she asked with an arched eyebrow, not wanting to be outright rude but brushing him back a little.

“I do, but it just, well, you probably didn’t notice but I wasn’t here on Monday,” he said.

“You’re right. I didn’t.”

"Fair enough," he continued, looking at his shoes more than her, "but I was out sick, and I asked Professor Wallace for the work before class today. I glanced at it, and I'm a little lost. I just figured that someone who was here that day might be able to coach me through the rough parts until I got my bearings."

“Why me?” Hannah asked as she started for the door. He fell into step beside her. She noted that he was a good four inches taller than her, and she was five foot ten. She also noted, despite her best efforts, that he was muscular, with wavy back hair and blue eyes.

“Because you clearly know this stuff,” he replied. “You’ve never given an answer that Wallace didn’t like. She loves your questions. She clearly loves you . So I thought, who better to get me up to speed than the girl the professor respects most?”

He’d gotten less nervous as he explained himself and was actually looking her in the eye now. Hannah chose to ignore the fact that those big blue eyes were awfully doe-like and that his sheepish smile oozed charm. She didn’t need any of that.

“What exactly are you asking of me?” she wanted to know as they wandered through the hall to the front door of the building.

“Maybe ten minutes of your time to review this stuff sometime between now and the next class. It’d be better if it was today or tomorrow, so I have time to finish the assignment before class on Friday.”

The guy seemed sincere enough, but Hannah knew better than to make decisions based on how people seemed. She was inclined to help him out, but not until she could do a little checking to make sure he was a regular student and not some psycho-killer in waiting. That ruled out today.

Once they reached the steps outside the building, she pulled out her phone and pretended to study her schedule for the next couple days. It wasn’t necessary. She knew everything on her agenda without looking, but this guy didn’t need to know that.

"I'm full up today," she said, "but I could meet you for ten minutes before lunch tomorrow. I'll be at the Green Room Café next to the Campus Art Gallery at 11:45."

She wanted any meeting to be in a public place with lots of people around. One could never be too careful, a lesson she’d learned the hard way. Besides, that was where she was meeting Finn tomorrow at noon to help him with his baby Psych class. She could kill two birds with that stone.

“That would be great,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”

He was just starting down the stairs when she called after him.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“You don’t know my name?” he said, surprised.

“Why would I?”

He looked slightly offended, as if he was used to coeds knowing his name without him having to say it. Of course, she kind of did, but that wasn’t something she cared to share.

“I’m Dallas Henry,” he said. “And you’re Ms. Dorsey.”

“How did you know that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Because that’s how Professor Wallace always refers to you,” he reminded her. “Excellent answer, Ms. Dorsey!”

"Oh, right," she said. "Well, outside of class, I usually go by Hannah."

“Nice to officially meet you,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat before turning and heading down the stairs.

She watched him go, taking note of the fact that his jeans perfectly hugged his muscled lower half. His top half looked pretty good too. When she got the chance, she’d do some online sleuthing to see if he was what he seemed.

That was the type of sleuthing Hannah preferred this days. She was on hiatus from the more formal kind. Somehow, over the course of the school year, she’d gotten roped into helping several students with issues that they didn’t feel comfortable taking to campus police.

She’d helped out her roommate, Lizzie Dempsey, who was being anonymously harassed, as well as a basketball player who was falsely accused of cheating on a test. Most recently, she found a missing fraternity pledge, who’d gotten lost and disoriented after suffering an epileptic seizure during a hazing incident.

But after a dude who falsely claimed that another student was stalking him ended up cornering her in a library study room, she’d been much more cautious about helping out. It helped that her older sister, Jessie, and her husband, Ryan, had both strongly requested that she pause that kind of stuff. She didn’t want to worry them. Besides, while she’d breezed through the fall and winter quarters, this spring one had proven more challenging. She didn’t have time to play campus detective.

She barely had time for the unpaid tutoring she’d agreed to. As she made her way down the stairs, she borderline regretted that not only had she committed to this mini-session with Dallas Henry, but she was also helping Finn. That would be Finn Anderton, the cute but problematic boy she met last fall. After inappropriately accusing him of being her roommate’s harasser, they’d mended fences, become friendly, then friends, and then maybe something more.

But when she’d helped Finn search for the pledge in his fraternity, she’d found him as concerned with protecting the frat’s reputation as finding the kid. Since then, she’d taken a step back, not cutting the guy out entirely, but curtailing any romance potential.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw the devil himself. Finn was walking toward her, and he had a frown on his face. She doubted it was because he’d been hard at work on his baby Psych homework.

“What’s up?” she asked when he got close.

“I knew you were getting out of class, so I wanted to see if you wanted company for a mid-morning coffee run?”

“I’m actually running a little late so I’ll skip the coffee,” she told him, “but you can walk me halfway to my next class if you want.”

“Sure,” he replied and joined her on the path that cut across the quad.

They were quiet for a few seconds, but Hannah could tell he was itching to say something. She wasn't sure why, but there was something about the tension he carried in his posture as he moved that suggested he was holding something back. He finally let it out halfway across the quad.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Who was who?” she countered, playing dumb to see how he reacted.

“That guy you were talking to on the steps,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice even. “I didn’t recognize him.”

“Some guy from my Brain Dysfunction and Repair class,” she answered noncommittally.

“He seemed friendly,” Finn noted, pushing his blond her out of his gray eyes, which looked uncharacteristically stormy.

“I guess,” she said. She owed him nothing.

“You’re not going to tell me his name?”

“It’s not really your business, is it Finn?” she replied spikily. “You almost sound jealous. But that can’t be the case, because we agreed that we’re just friends.”

“I’m not jealous,” he said way too defensively. “I just hope you haven’t forgotten the lesson about taking strange guys at face value.”

“You mean when that guy tried to trap me in a study room to assault me and I had to teach him a lesson?" she mused. "No, I haven't forgotten. But are you forgetting that every new male I meet is a strange guy at first. This one is. Even you were."

“You knew all about me the first time you approached me, remember,” he shot back, “because you thought I was terrorizing Lizzie.”

“Apparently I didn’t know everything about you,” she needled without specifically referencing his slavish protection of his fraternity. It looked like he was about to take the bait and defend himself, but she was too annoyed to let him go there. “Anyway, don’t you think I can handle myself? Do you really still consider me some damsel in distress who just can’t help myself from falling for this guy?”

He stopped walking.

“I have news for you, Hannah. I never considered you a damsel in distress.”

“Thanks,” she said irritably. “And for the record, this non-damsel can make it the rest of the way to class on her own.”

She spun on her heel and strode off, leaving him there to stew in the mess he’d created.