“He’s a zombie if you haven’t noticed. He probably didn’t even see you walk in here. Chip’s the one I have to worry about it and he’s at his girlfriend’s house.” He assaulted my stomach with his fingers. “I didn’t know you were so ticklish.”
I was almost in tears. “Ok. Stop. Stop.”
He sat up, straddling my hips. If he started undressing me with his eyes, I knew I would forget my whole mission in the surprise visit. I needed to stay on target. His eyes flared with mischief.
“All right, go ahead. What do we need to talk about?” He reached backward and caught my thigh with his hand.
“Uh-uh. I can’t talk to you like this. Go. Sit at the desk.” I tried to wiggle out from under him.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, go.” I shooed him to the other side of the room so I could breathe again.
“I’m ready. Lay it on me.” He motioned toward his chest.
Being in the same room with him made my freak out seem silly. I wanted him closer, back on the bed, but Professor Garcia wasn’t going to forget about the research request. We needed to come up with a better plan.
“Ok, on Tuesday, the day you drank your way out of coming to class, Professor Garcia pulled me aside after the lecture. She said that our project is getting lots of attention among her professional colleagues.”
“So?” Beau was wheeling his chair across the room, inching closer to the bed.
“So, she asked me if she could publish our research. She wants to present it at a conference in Orlando this summer.”
“Oh.” He was halfway across the room. “Not good.”
“Exactly. We can’t give her fake research to present at a conference. This is turning into an ethical nightmare.”
“Then, let’s tell her the truth.” His wheels hit the corner of the bed. “We’ll tell her the hypothesis failed.”
“What? Are you crazy? We have lied all semester. We’ll get an honor code violation and we’ll fail. I can’t fail the class. I need this A.”
He had climbed on the bed next to me. “Would it be so bad if you didn’t get an A? Let’s just tell her and then I can do this anytime I want.” He reached for the side of my face, and I swerved to avoid his kiss. “I would risk standing in front of the stupid honor court to be with you.”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying right now. Not get an A? I’m a straight A student. And go in front of the honor court? Oh my God, this is getting worse.” I wish I had paused long enough to listen to what he was saying to me, but the panic I felt was spiraling me into a tailspin.
Beau’s expression changed from playful come hither to cool and distant. “Right. You need the A so you can go to L.A. Movie star dreams.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I didn’t like what he was implying and I regretted not letting him kiss me.
He exhaled. “London, you’re so focused on getting out of here. Why are we even doing this?”
My heart landed in my stomach. I scrambled for a way to turn the conversation in a different direction.
“I needed to ask you about the research. We have to give her an answer in two days.” I had no intention of going near his question. Maybe I could steer him back to the kissing or his feelings.
He had stopped inching toward me. “You’ve been running the show since the beginning. What do you want me to say? You can’t have it both ways.”
Why was he so annoyed all of a sudden? I wanted him to keep moving closer. The two feet between us felt as big as the football stadium.
“Beau, what is going on? You’re making me nervous.”
He sighed. “There is a way out of your moral dilemma.”
My stomach flipped again. This couldn’t be happening. “You’re not serious.” Tears were pushing their way to the corners of my eyes.
“Let’s go back to being group partners. It makes it simple. Take me out of the equation. You don’t have to worry about lying anymore, we hand over real research, and then you get your damn A. Win-win.”
It felt like he had punched me. No. No. No. “That’s not win-win. How can you say that? That’s not what you really want to do.” The room was spinning. My eyes burned.