Chapter 2
Josephine
My anxiety notches up the moment I step into the lecture hall. I inhale for four counts before exhaling and surveying my seating choices.
The back row is already filled, but I wouldn’t have wanted to sit there anyway. The front row is also unavailable, as are all the aisle seats.
Shit on a crumbly cracker.
I tried to get here early. Had I not been held up in the parking lot, I would have had prime selection. Now I’m going to be wedged into a spot smack-dab in the middle of class.
I home in on a single seat situated between a pretty blonde and a dude with headphones securely in place. Beelining for the seat, I slide my backpack off my shoulders and finally let out another long breath, then pull myself together mentally and ease into the swivel chair.
The blonde acknowledges me before I’m even fully seated.
“You’re new.”
It’s not a question.
I remind myself once again that I’m safe and that no one here knows me. Then I angle the seat and face the girl on my left.
“Is it that obvious?” I ask, wrinkling my nose.
“It shouldn’t be,” she admits, flicking a lock of her curled golden hair over one shoulder. “But at least half the students on campus grew up in Lake Chapel, so we tend to notice when a fresh face arrives in town.” She cocks one brow and gives me a knowing look.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to hide my grimace and pull out a notebook, then swivel back toward the front of the hall, anxious for the professor to get started.
“I’m Hunter, by the way.”
I glance over at the girl again—Hunter—and eye her outstretched arm.
“Joey,” I supply with a cool smile as I shake her hand.
“Joey?”
“It’s short for Josephine,” I clarify, batting down the panic clawing its way out of my chest.
Joey. Josephine. Jo. It doesn’t matter what I call myself. None of it fits.
Hunter smiles like the Cheshire cat. “Now I understand why Crusade had his gilded underwear in a bunch in the parking lot this morning.”
“Crusade?”
Hunter’s perfectly arched eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “Decker Crusade? The leader of the four-man welcome committee who greeted you the second you pulled in?”
Crusade. As in the Crusade Scholarship? The one covering my tuition for the next four years? Good grief.
“You saw that, huh?”
“Everyone saw it, girl. Decker and his boys were probably the first people on campus this morning, just waiting for you. But now it makes sense.”
“Not to me,” I mutter.
“You go by Joey?”
“Yes.”
Hunter grins, using her toes to spin her chair one way, then the other with so much giddiness I’m surprised she’s not clapping excitedly like a little kid.
“I guarantee Decker thought you were a guy.”
Obsidian black eyes and the prettiest scowl come to mind, along with the first words he uttered. “You’re a girl.”
“That tracks,” I confirm. “But why would he care?”
Hunter rolls her eyes and snickers. “Because he’s Decker Crusade. QB1. The big man on campus, and a control freak to boot.” She purses her lips and gives me a quick once-over. “I assume you’re the recipient of the Crusade Scholarship?”
“Yeah, but…” I frown.
Hunter scoots her chair a little closer and leans in. “Crusade always makes a big deal about welcoming the scholarship recipient to campus. If all he had to go on was that your name is Joey, I’m sure he was expecting a guy.”
Huh. I guess I assumed the scholarship was named after a dead person, not the quarterback of the football team.
“Are you a freshman?” I ask, more than ready to divert the attention away from myself.
Hunter plays with the jewel-encrusted H charm on the end of her necklace. “Technically, yes. I grew up in Lake Chapel. Graduated with Decker and the guys. They’re all seniors this year, but I tried to take a gap year after high school.”
“Tried?”
She grimaces. “It sort of turned into a never-ending adventure. I’m still questioning why I left Lake Como for this,” she admits. “Now I’m the only twenty-one-year-old freshman on campus.”
I scoff. “You’re not the only one, actually.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes widen.
“According to the admissions office, I’m a nontraditional student because of my age and circumstances.”
Hunter leans forward, wearing a bright smile. “Nontraditional? That sounds like a fancy word to distinguish that you aren’t from around here,” she hedges.
She’s not wrong. She’s friendly and seems genuinely interested, but not in the nosy, holier-than-thou sort of way.
Her questions have all been straightforward.
Her smile is genuine and kind. And considering my last friend was a ninety-six-year-old woman with dementia who’s now dead, I could stand to make a friend my own age.
Decidedly, I tell her the truth.
“I didn’t graduate from high school. I got my GED, then went on to cosmetology school. My uncle lives down here, just across the lake. He told me about the scholarship a few years ago and offered me a place to stay if I applied. I was finally ready for a change, so here I am.”
It’s the thinnest version of the truth. But it’s the most honest I’ve been with anyone in a long time.
“Wow. Good for you. Are you prelaw?” she asks, perking up.
I shake my head. “No. This class was one of the few still open that satisfied the math gen ed credit.” Logic 200 would not have been my first choice.
“Fair enough. So what is your major?”
Great question. I hadn’t even considered going to college until a few months ago. It’s probably going to take a little time to figure out what I want to study.
“I’m undecided right now. I might want to go into social work? Or geriatric care?”
Hunter wrinkles her nose but doesn’t comment beyond that.
“Here.” She hands me her phone. “This is my schedule for the week. Do we have any other classes together?”
On her device’s screen is a color-coded schedule. She’s got two more classes than I do—political science and American history—for a total of twenty-one credit hours. That’s intense. We don’t have any other classes together, but we’re both off on Fridays.
“So you’re prelaw?” I confirm.
She shrugs one shoulder and flips her hair. “What? Like it’s hard?”
I grin at the Elle Woods reference. I really do like this girl. I hope the feeling’s mutual, and that we might grow to be friends.
The thought hasn’t even faded from my mind before Hunter speaks again.
“Put your number in my phone,” she instructs.
Apparently, they grow them assertive in Lake Chapel.
“Let’s do lunch tomorrow. We can go to my favorite sandwich shop. It’s right on the water. Do you like seafood? They’ve got the best crab dip.”
I nod in agreement and add my cell phone number.
I may be focused on her phone, but that doesn’t prevent me from sensing him the moment he enters the room.
Snapping my head up, I fight back a grin as the hot punk rocker from the parking lot saunters into the lecture hall. He has this lazy, relaxed vibe about him. He’s in no rush. Totally at ease.
He climbs the stairs slowly as people around the room call out to him. I barely hear them. I can’t stop staring at his neck. I want to study his tattoo. Learn it. Trace it. Follow the lines all the way down—
“Hot Girl.”
I startle when he stops at our row.
He rests a hand on my desk, drawing my attention. I start at his fingertips and drag my gaze up his bicep and over his inked shoulder.
When I finally take in his face, he smirks. He obviously doesn’t mind the shameless ogling.
“Are you a philosophy major, too?”
Huh?
“Pretty sure you’re the only philosophy major on campus, Locke,” Hunter teases.
He tilts his head and looks past me to my new friend. “Hunter. Hey. Haven’t seen you around for a hot minute.”
She blows out a breath. “Here I am,” she declares half-heartedly.
“Welcome home,” Locke says with a quick smile. Then he sets his sights back on me. “You got your phone on you?”
I nod in a way that’s no doubt reminiscent of a bobblehead, forgetting where I am and why I’m here. All I see is him.
With a lift of his chin, he says, “Unlock it and give it here.”
I reach into my back pocket and hand it over without taking my eyes off him.
“What do you need her phone for?” Hunter scoffs. “You can’t just demand she give it to you. You’ve been hanging out with Crusade too much.”
Locke arches his pierced eyebrow in amusement and studies Hunter. But then his sole attention is on me again, and a salacious smile takes over his face as he holds my device in front of him and inspects it. “She knows what I need her phone for.”
Good grief. He may as well have just whispered the filthiest dirty talk in my ear with the way my body tingles in response to his words.
The magnetism between us is twice as strong now that he’s standing over me, invading my space in the best possible way.
His tatted fingers fly over the screen, then he sets my phone on my desk in front of me with a satisfied smirk.
I don’t even have to glance at it to know he texted himself and saved his number for me.
“I’ll text you later,” he promises. Then he’s gone, turning to head to a seat somewhere behind me.
“Oh my gosh. What just happened? Joey!” Hunter chirps in my ear.
The professor flies into the lecture hall, a mess of papers tucked under one arm.
I’m still grinning as he calls the class to order.
A new friend. A potential hookup. The morning didn’t start as planned, but things are already looking up.