Page 21 of The Play Maker

She doesn’t look up. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.

I grin anyway. “You always this friendly, or am I just getting the VIP treatment?”

Still nothing. Her fingers are flying across the keyboard like I don’t exist, like my presence doesn’t even register.

I lean in a little closer, enough that her scent hits me—vanilla. Warm, sweet, and stupidly distracting. Like she showered in a bakery this morning.

“Not even a glance? That hurts, Maisie.”

That gets her. Barely. Her fingers pause just long enough for her to turn her head and hit me with a single raised brow. Her eyes are glacier blue and sharp as hell, knocking me in the chest and making me forget what I just said.

“What are you doing here?” she grits out.

I shrug, throwing her my best grin. “Saw you sitting all alone. Thought I’d keep you company.”

Not even a twitch of a smile. No eye roll, no smirk. Nothing.

“Lucky me,” she mutters, already turning back to her screen like I’m not even here.

I chuckle under my breath, settling into the chair and leaning back. “There’s the warm welcome I was hoping for.”

She keeps typing, her focus locked in on whatever’s on her screen.

Honestly, it’s kind of impressive.

Most people fake a little interest. A laugh, a compliment,something. But Maisie? She’s not faking a damn thing.

I rest my chin on my hand and watch her fingers move. There’s something hypnotic about the way she types, like her fingers are dancing over the keys.

I glance at her screen with no clue what I’m actually looking at. Whatever it is, it looks like a foreign language. I let my eyes drift to the weird-ass frog sticker on her laptop instead.

I huff a laugh under my breath. “What’s with the frog?” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer.

Of course she doesn’t.

I don’t even know why I’m still trying. She’s clearly not in the mood for conversation.

But there’s something about how focused she is. Like the rest of the world’s background noise and she’s just tuned it all out.

She’s different. Definitely not like anyone else I’ve met.

“You know…” I murmur, leaning in a bit closer, just to test her limits, “you’re really quiet.”

Her fingers hover above the keys for half a second. Then she turns, lifts one perfectly arched brow at me.

“You should try it sometime.”

I can’t help but laugh. “What, being quiet?”

“No. Being tolerable.”

A grin tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Damn, Maisie. You got jokes.”

Her eyes snap to the professor, who starts speaking again.

I try to follow her lead and focus on the lesson. Really, I do.