In spite of my mood, the corner of my mouth twitched upward. She sure had a thing for mountains. I wished they inspired me even a fraction as much as they inspired her.
“How’d you find this place?” she asked, still mesmerized by the view.
“The leader of my cohort showed me last year. Because I was in a cohort that actually did something, unlike the one you’re in.”
That made her turn around. “I’m sorry you heard that.”
“Why? It’s true what she said.” I slammed my hands down at my sides. “I’m supposed to be helping that girl and I don’t even know her name.”
“Paige,” she supplied.
“I’m supposed to be helping you, too.”
“I know.”
“So are you asking to be put in a new group?” My voice was harsher than I meant it to be.
“No.” She took a step closer, but I moved away—or at least as far as I could get in the small space.
“You should,” I said. “You’ve already said you’re struggling with your courses. That’s what the cohorts are for.”
“I know. And I still believe I’m in a good one with a leader that can help me.”
That pissed me off. “So you’re risking your grades on what you think I should be like instead of what I’m actually like?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s stupid of you.” I didn’t look at her when I said it.
“Probably. But the thing is, I know you, and Paige doesn’t. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“When?” I looked out the window with my back to her. “When the semester’s over and it’s too late?”
“No. You’ve already helped me.”
I snorted, turning to face her. “I’ve probably answered maybe five questions for you all semester. Which is five more than I have for the others.”
“It’s been more than that,” she insisted. “And that wasn’t the only thing you helped me with.”
Leaning against the windowsill, I looked down at her. She was delusional if she thought I was any good to anybody this year. “What else did I help you with?”
“There was that time the woman from the housing office caught me going into the room and you pretended to be my boyfriend.”
That caught me by surprise. I hadn’t thought about it in a while, but I remembered how her body felt nested against mine with my arm around her.
“You rose to the occasion, and I don’t mean that in a dirty way like Mason would,” she said. “You kissed me, and you flirted with a woman twice your age and made her blush. You made her so flustered, she forgot to check my ID. You saved me.” Kylie looked down for a minute, shaking her head. “Not you, exactly. Not the quiet, brooding guy I know. The man who saved me was the old you.”
I hated this conversation, but I was trapped in it because I didn’t hate Kylie. Not by a longshot.
“And then it happened again at that bar when Jude’s band played. When that guy came at me and Mason shoved me behind him, you came to get me. You led me off to a safer spot. That was the old you, too, wasn’t it?”
I frowned. “No. That man is gone.” Aubrey had made sure of it.
“Well, then, that was you pretending to be the old you.”
My eyebrow cocked as I stared at her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yes, it does,” she insisted. “It’s—can we sit?”
Her change of topic caught me off guard. “Here?” There weren’t any chairs in here, just an old table and a few boxes.
“Yeah.” She sat down and leaned against the wall, her bare legs out in front of her. “You know me, if there are beautiful mountains to look at, I’ll tune everything else out, and this is important.”
Important.
Before she arrived, I was only important to two people in the entire university. Now the count was up to three. I sat down next to her, stretching my legs out next to hers.
“I’m sorry I said you weren’t a good mentor,” she said.
“I’m not,” I shrugged.
“It was disloyal.”
I looked down at her, momentarily distracted by the green and blue orbs staring back at me. From that close, I saw the flecks of gold in the green eye and gray in the other one. They were like precious gems. But it wasn’t what I needed to focus on. There were some things she needed to hear. “You can’t think like that. Not in the world of business. Friendships are fine, but blind loyalty isn’t. If an employee isn’t doing the job well enough, you’ve got to get his ass out of there and hire someone who can. Doesn’t matter if you like him or not. What matters is the bottom line and what’s best for your business, because that’s what's best for you.”
Kylie was silent for a moment, her mesmerizing eyes still on me. “That sounds like something a mentor would say.”