Her lips curve into a smile, but she pulls them together to try and hide it.
“Ha!” I shout, calling her out, but then I stumble over a curb she didn’t warn me was coming and fall onto my ass. And it’s not because of my semi sort of buzz I’ve got going on.
Now, though, there’s no denying.
The girl’s laughing at me.
Full-on laughing and you know what?
I ain’t mad about it.
She’s cute when she laughs.
I stretch my arms over my bent knees, playing cool for a second before I hop to my feet.
“You chose not to warn me, didn’t you?”
Her shrug is coy, but she drops her eyes to the grass soon after and when she looks back up, a hint of dejection creeps over her.
She straightens, switches the bags from one hand to the next, and starts walking again.
We walk in silence for a solid two minutes before her eyes flick to mine. “You should go back to your friends—”
“Look, Tutor Girl,” I cut her off with a grin. “It’s late, it’s dark, you’re not walking by yourself.”
She’s quiet a moment before she speaks again.
“I don’t want to walk with you,” she whispers, her frown is focused forward.
Just like that, the bit of fun is fucked off into the night.
“Yeah, well. Too bad.” I don’t look her way, unsure why a flare of disappointment washes over me. “I’m walking home just the same now, so only makes sense I walk with you. Which dorm do you live in?”
“I don’t live in the dorms.”
“Okay, what housing are you in?” I take off ahead of her this time, ignoring the small huff she lets out. “Front side or back side?”
“I’m not in housing either.”
I glance back. “All right, so then where do you live?”
“Let’s not talk, okay?”
Man, I don’t get this chick.
I offer to walk her home and she basically tells me to fuck right off, or that’s what I heard anyway.
How does one even respond to that?
I have no fucking clue, so all she gets is a mumbled ‘whatever’ and we walk the last few blocks in silence. I continue past campus, and she pauses to ask the security patrol what I’m assuming is something random for the sole purpose of breaking away from me, so I leave her to him.
Home now, I take a quick shower, and flop onto my bed in nothing but my birthday suit, my sleepwear of choice.
That’s when it hits me and I chuckle to myself.
Of course.
It’s obvious now.
Tutor Girl got upset, maybe even insulted, at my offer to walk her home because I didn’t offer to take her back to mine.
Maybe the poor girl felt rejected.
Yeah, that could be it.
Maybe.
It’s also the reason I text her an hour later to make sure she got home safe.
When she doesn’t respond, I decide I don’t give a shit.
I frown at the spackled ceiling.
Sleep can take over anytime now.
CHAPTER 10
Tobias
“I don’t know how you guys get up before the roosters every day.” Vivian drops into the booth across from us, having spotted Echo and me when she drug her hungover ass through the doors.
“Cruz is the only fucker up before the sun, and I hate to break it to you girl, but it’s almost eleven.” Echo looks up from his textbook, teasing her.
She stares at the barista, making her drink with stars in her eyes. “And somehow it still feels too early.”
“That’s ‘cause you have no routine.” I shrug. “Get up at the same time every day and after a while, it’ll be nothing.”
She rolls her head my way, last night’s makeup smeared beneath her eyes. “You’re like my dad. He’s been retired for like ten years and he still gets up at the ass crack of dawn every day, makes his coffee, watches the news, listens to birds, and for what? To play old westerns or reruns of CSI?”
I laugh, bringing my protein shake to my lips. “Sounds like the good life.”
She scoffs. “Yeah, except for when you’re trying to sneak back in the house at four in the morning and he’s sitting on your bed.”
My head snaps her way and I grin, but the chick behind the counter calls out her name and she hops up, flipping us a peace sign as she grabs her coffee. Out the door she goes.
The second she’s gone; I turn to Echo. “See, told you she’s chill.”
“You know she’s fucking Neo now, right?”
“You know I don’t give two fucks, right?” I grin.
Echo chuckles, pushing to his feet. “Let’s get out of here, man, I need to run into the student center for some graph sheets.”
We head over to the center, but before we reach it, a familiar ball of hair catches my eye.
Tutor Girl and my boy Coop’s ex-girl, Bianca, are walking up the steps to the math building, laughing about something on their phones.