Page 31 of Whispers of Wisteria (The Garden of Eternal Flowers #5)

Anthony walked one step ahead of me as we made our way to the indoor gymnasium.

“Someone saw Miles on campus earlier,” Anthony explained as we approached the building. He touched the silver door. “So we’re going to see if we can catch him.”

I spotted Miles as soon as I stepped through the entrance.

The shirtless witch was running, gracefully weaving through the other players as he took control of the field with effortless movements. He was sweaty and a flush crawled over the base of his neck, creeping toward his face.

My breath caught in my throat—it felt like ages since I’d last seen him. He was, as always, delicious to look at, and that warm feeling was back.

But… should I be happy when he’d been getting up to some shady nonsense?

I clenched my fist. I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or annoyed.

He shouted at another player as he passed the ball, then stopped. The air stilled as he wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, and my attention wandered to the still-pink scar on his left cheek.

Guilt replaced my growing trepidation.

“Oh?” Anthony mused. His hands were linked behind his head as he peered down at me, and his grin made my hackles rise. “You like that? Don’t let your brothers know; they’ll never let you leave the house. They don’t believe you could have a serious sex drive.”

“What?” I pulled back, dizzy. “I do not!”

Have a sex drive, I meant.

I liked ‘that’ though—if ‘that’ referred to Miles.

“It’s okay.” Anthony was still smiling in that annoying way.

He inclined his head in Miles’s direction.

“Most people find Miles irresistible—it’s part of his nature.

He’s just so…” He pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes.

It seemed he was trying to come up with an apt description.

Finally, he decided on, “Good. He’s the most innocent of you five. ”

I opened my mouth to protest—because, really, what was that supposed to mean?—before I dropped my finger back to my side.

I studied the witch, who, at that moment, was making a rude gesture at another player.

It was true that sometimes he had his not-so-innocent moments, but Miles was quite good, wasn’t he?

He was much better than me, at any rate.

“Miles!” A piercing shriek cut through the rest of the chirping cheers, and—although they’d barely registered as more than a passing annoyance when we’d first arrived—the large gathering of Miles’s fans had finally become too obnoxious to ignore.

Around a dozen of them—both male and female—loomed behind a white card table topped with two orange Gatorade dispensers. For some reason that completely bypassed my understanding, some people were trying to hand him clothing. In fact, the offering appeared to be ritualistic.

While it was true that he should cover himself, I didn’t particularly like the idea of him wearing some peasant’s sullied linens.

I narrowed my eyes at Miles, who was—in my opinion—taking an obscene amount of time to wipe his face with a tiny towel and drape it over his shoulder. As he preened, a lost-looking woman stumbled from the crowd. She held a bundled-up cloth to her chest and hesitantly moved towards him.

He paused as she approached.

What was this? What was he doing?

My mood darkened further when she blinked at him with wide, innocent eyes and offered him the package that now appeared to be a blue garment.

The little fool. Any true admirer would know that his favorite color was brown. If you were going to approach someone inappropriately, at least have the decency to do it right.

She was about to have her heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

“Is your eyebrow twitching?” Anthony chirped from beside me. “Oh my God, it is! You’re angry! What are you going to do?”

I didn’t even waste my attention on the necromancer. There was no time to address the vast depths of his wrongness.

“Hold this.” I didn’t look at him as I pushed my bag into his arms, and I ignored him as he fumbled not to drop it on the dirty floor.

I could not allow this to stand. If anyone needed to bring Miles clothing, it would be me.

I strode through the gymnasium, cutting through the practice. This was more important. Urgent, even. My thoughts roared as she threw the shirt at his face, then giggled as she twirled a lock of her hair around her finger.

Why would you throw it? Now it was just going to get dirty with face sweat.

The incompetence was astounding.

I’d rolled my sleeves past my elbows before I was even halfway across the room.

Perhaps this was the fabled Heather. The stalker with a restraining order.

The one he’d once had sexual relations with.

I’d be sorely disappointed if it were. Miles seemed only mildly put out, not cowering in fear, as he tried to push the clothing back at her. It was not the look of a man terrified of an ex-lover.

But if it wasn’t Heather, then who?

“Miles.” I moved to his side. I crossed my arms as I glared at the other woman. “Who’s your friend?”

The witch yelped as he jumped and tossed the offending garment into the air. “Bianca!” He turned towards me, his face paling. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh…” My short burst of confidence faltered. I stepped back, hurt.

Did he not want me here?

“Don’t misunderstand!” Miles’s panic faded, and he grasped my hands. “I’m happy to see you. I’m just surprised. How did you…” He looked past me, and his fingers tightened over mine. “Oh, Anthony.”

“Hello to you too.” Anthony joined our circle, looking relaxed with my purse thrown over his shoulder. “Looks like you need some help.”

“What are you talking about?” Miles’s voice took on a strange, high-pitched tenor. “I do not need—”

“Who is she, Miles?” The now offering-less woman eyed me in suspicion. But this time, she was no longer alone. A fellow fan joined her for moral support.

Miles’s face turned bright red, and after shooting one last glare at Anthony, he grabbed my elbow and pulled me to his side. It was a good thing too, because now that the adrenaline had faded, the crippling grip of terror was beginning to take shape in my thoughts.

What had I done? I’d been so blinded by emotion that I’d thrown myself into the spotlight.

“Hello…” Miles addressed the rabble. “Everyone. This is Bianca Dubois.”

“Dubois!” Someone gasped, and I stared as the twittering started.

“I knew I recognized her.”

“That explains why she’s been drinking all the coffee; they must have a lot of late-night study sessions,” someone off to the right said.

And the last, a woman on the left: “She’s so lucky to be married to Professor Dubois. I’d love for him to tutor me every night, all night.”

The bile was thick in my throat—if I didn’t escape soon, I was going to throw up in front of all these people. I wasn’t sure what was worse: their envious looks or the super-gross rumors.

And who would want to study anything with Bryce? I might not loathe him anymore, but his performance in the classroom had been lackluster.

How was it possible for a room to be both hot and cold?

“So, please, be nice to her,” Miles said, and my face grew even warmer.

Why did this feel so wrong?

What was I doing here again?

“Right, cool. Whatever.” The shirt girl had picked up the garment from the dirty floor and held it back out. “Anyway, will you accept this? I’m free tonight. Don’t worry, I know the rules: no strings attached.”

The heat fled from my face. Oh… right.

Tonight? No strings?

I knew exactly what was going on. I’d read about situations like this. Humans and penguins were not so different, after all, and our feathered cold-weather friends frequently exchanged rocks—since they didn’t wear shirts—for future sexual entanglements.

The correlation was not lost on me.

“No.” I stepped in front of Miles and smacked her hands. “Miles will not be getting laid tonight.” Or ever.

Not so long as I could help it.

She pulled her hand to her chest, holding it, as she shot me a disbelieving look. “Who are you to—”

“This goes for all of you.” I pointed at her first, then waved my hand in a circle to include the now-staring mass. The crowd seemed to grow larger, but that was unimportant. “You claim to love Miles, but how can you call yourselves his fans when acting like this?”

The shirt girl lowered her arms, eyebrows drawing together as her bright blue eyes flashed with annoyance. “What do you mean?”

I stepped back and pressed my hand over Miles’s chest. His heart was racing, and his breath tight, but he made no move to help me.

I took his silence as acceptance.

“If you truly cared about him,”—like me, I thought, but didn’t add—“you’d consider how your constant hovering can make it hard for a man to succeed.”

Their cluelessness strengthened my ire. Stalkers haunted him. Probably more than we even knew, since he was generally too kind to complain. How could anyone concentrate on competitive sports while people were screaming at them?

It required great focus to defeat the enemy. Every shout was a strike that marred his performance. How could their presence not be anything but distracting?

There was so much on his plate already. He had to attend class and study. Sports were also an essential part of academic achievement for some. Not for me, perhaps, but other people who liked such things might find them fulfilling.

Indeed, this was a part of his dream.

“Hey, Bianca.” Miles pressed against my back as he leaned into me. “It’s okay. I don’t need—”

I shook my head. I refused to allow anyone to stand in the way of his ambition.

Besides, no one else was allowed to blush when they looked at him.

“Do we… bother you?” Shirt girl stepped forward. She was watching Miles with her innocent, wide, watery eyes. “But… I thought you belonged to everyone?”

My eyebrow twitched. My violent daydreams were becoming more alarming. Right now, for example, I wanted to rip off her head. It’d been a somewhat familiar feeling as of late.

But…