14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Margot
Professor Walker opens up her powerpoint and I sigh in relief that she’s only planning to lecture today instead of having us make speeches again. Class started ten minutes ago, but Alex hasn’t shown up. I don’t know him well enough to know his punctuality habits, but he’s never been late for anything that’s included me. Self-centered, much ? I focus on the professor’s voice to drown out my ridiculous thoughts.
“Got a pen?” I jolt in my chair at the sound of the familiar, unexpected voice in my ear. I’m so enraptured by my own thoughts I didn’t notice as Alex slid into the seat next to me. Alex lets out a breathy laugh, “Jumpy today, huh?”
Sighing, I roll my eyes as I hand him the pen I have in my hand and dig in my backpack for another.
“Thanks, sunshine.” I’m sure he’s trying to hit me with that megawatt smile but I don’t give him the satisfaction of looking in his direction. He pulls a notebook out of his bag and opens to a fresh page. For a moment, he’s quiet, seemingly focused on the front of the room and I’m actually shocked that he’s going to pay attention and leave me alone.
“Don’t you want to know why I was late?”
Shock over.
“No,” I reply, copying Professor Walker’s notes on “looney tune endings.”
“This prank is becoming more elaborate than I thought it would be,” he muses.
“And I didn’t ask.”
My inattention hardly deters Alex from continuing. “Devon and Kai think we should move in a different direction, but I think the plan we have now is going to work. Anyway, we were meeting about it. Lost track of time.”
I keep my eyes focused on the front of the room and try my hardest to pay attention but the overpowering annoyance next to me is making it difficult.
“Devon says it’s too risky putting you in the DE house next week. Says they might catch on to what we’re doing and hold you hostage.”
I draw a breath. How did I not think of that?
“Don’t worry,” Alex says, giving the top of my thigh a slight pinch before pulling his hand back. “I’ve got a plan.” I finally meet his eyes and there is a deep earnestness settled there. And again, for some completely unknown reason, I trust him. “We’ll talk about it more later.” I nod, giving him a slight grin before turning back to the lecture.
Alex doesn’t interrupt for the rest of the class time, but he also does absolutely nothing productive. The few times I glanced down at his notes, he’d doodled, “Eat my shorts” next to a terribly drawn picture of a clown. When Professor Walker dismisses us, Alex keeps stride with me toward the library where I’ve scheduled a study room for our podcast meeting.
“Okay so about this hostage thing?” I ask, my tone of voice slightly higher than normal.
“Would you relax,” he says, giving Edith a smile as we walk in. She hands me the key, giving me a look I don’t want to even try to decipher, and we head downstairs. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“But how are you going to prevent that? You’re not even going to be there,” I rib him a bit, opening the door to Study Room G6.
“Where am I going to be?”
“I don’t know!” We take the same seats we adopted last time we were in this room together.
“You think I would just throw you to the wolves and not be there to back you up?”
“Well, you can’t come inside with me, obviously.”
Alex shakes his head. “Obviously not inside. But I’ll be right outside and I already talked to the guys, we can set up a code word if you start to get freaked out.”
I pause for a minute. “You’ve really thought this through.”
Alex looks at me like I have twelve heads. “Of course I have.”
Rolling my eyes, something I feel like I’ve been doing so much more since I met Alex, I grab my notebook and laptop from the bag and open to the Ask Alex website page I made a week ago.
“We should get started, there’s a lot to sift through here,” I say, pushing the screen toward Alex and letting him scroll through the hundreds of responses we’ve gotten in just a week’s time. I can’t even imagine the responses we’ll get once the show goes live.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research about podcasts—”
“Of course you have.”
I continue, ignoring his rude interjection, “And I think we need to establish a rapport that we’ll use when communicating and answering questions on air.”
Alex looks over at me. “Why can’t we just let that happen naturally? I mean, we seem to have a pretty easy rapport going as it is, sunshine.”
“Yeah, frat boy?” I cock my head to the side. “You want to just bully each other relentlessly on camera?”
Alex laughs and it loosens something in my chest. “I guess not, although I do enjoy it.”
Ignoring that comment too, I continue on. “I just think it’s best that we establish our roles early. Like I’ll be reading the questions that people send in and, obviously, you’ll be answering them.”
“Well, yeah, but there has to be some conversation afterward, right? No one is going to tune into me just spewing nonsense the whole time.”
“You clearly underestimate the female student body of TU,” I mutter and immediately regret it when that shit-eating grin transforms Alex’s face. But he doesn’t say anything, just looks at me with that expression until I give in from stress.
After thirty seconds, I’ve had it with the loud silence. “What?”
“You think I’m pretty.” His smile continues to engulf his face and I would never admit it to him but it’s an amazing sight. He is an incredibly attractive man and honestly, his personality doesn’t suck either, but I would never tell him that.
“Can we get back to work, please?”
“That’s not a denial.” Alex kicks back in his chair, putting his feet up on the table and his arms behind his head. Okay, maybe his personality can use some work after all.
Taking the computer back with a huff, I click open a document I created with submissions that I thought were actually worthwhile. “How willing are you to give out your phone number on the air? There were dozens of responses requesting it.”
“Not happening,” he says casually, as if he’s asked that every day. “What else you got?” He reaches into his backpack to grab his water, taking a sip.
Oh, what else do I got? Buckle up, pretty boy. Laughing, I leave my document and click back into the submissions page on the website. “Well, one girl named Kittyxo wants to know if you’ll come over and ‘stroke her’.” Alex chokes on his water and the sound of his reaction has me pulling up more of the ridiculous requests. “There’s a comment here just referring to you as ‘hot butt’ oh, and someone named Sexy69 is asking if you’ll let her use her toys on you, specifically her ten-inch dild–”
“Okay, okay, enough!” Alex sputters, dropping his legs and sitting up in his seat. I get an immense amount of pleasure at watching his discomfort grow. The usually cocky and confident Alex Prescott reduced to a stammering fool. I could get used to this. “Please read some of the real submissions before I completely regret this decision.”
“Whatever you want, hot butt,” I giggle, pulling my document back up.
Alex leans his elbows on the table across from me. “I do not accept that as a new nickname,” he mutters, his fingers slowly rubbing his eyes and his chin resting on his palms.
I laugh again, “Fair enough.” Alex sighs in relief.
“I went through all the submissions and categorized them. The completely outlandish ones I didn’t even include and then the rest are categorized by topic, relatability, and significance.” I pause, giving him a minute to make fun of my category system but he doesn’t. He just sits there, listening to me. I clear my throat as I continue, “With attention spans being what they are these days, I think we should keep each episode to about thirty minutes and that should give us time to discuss at least three questions with some banter before and after.”
Alex is looking at me and I can tell he’s actually listening to what I’m saying, instead of just feigning interest like Danika does when I talk to her about the books I read. He nods his head but still doesn’t say anything, as if he’s just waiting patiently for me to continue. So I do.
“In the first episode, we’ll have to establish our brand, our conversation style and let the audience know what they’re in for by jumping straight into the deep end. We need to make it clear that this is an advice podcast and not a free-for-all about Alex Prescott, but it’s important to know…how much information are you willing to give?”
“What do you need?” He asks earnestly.
“Well, based on the types of questions we’ve been getting, I think it would really help our listenership if they can get a glimpse into your personal life if they listen to our show. But, of course, only what you’re comfortable disclosing.”
Alex thinks for a minute before responding. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. We’ll keep things light and I’ll sprinkle in some seeds of interest about my life throughout the show. Whatever will keep them coming back for more, right?” He gives me a smile and I return it with my own relieved expression.
“Right.”
For the rest of the hour, Alex and I parse through the categorized submissions and decide which questions will be best to answer in our first episode. We banter back and forth about what we might say and it’s already like a glimpse of how the show will be. For a minute, I delude myself into thinking it might actually be fun, but then I think back to public speaking class and my excitement dwindles.
When the time is up, Alex and I pack up our things and head out of the library. Sydney and Danika are both waiting for me this time and it’s apparent who’s driving by the emphatic honks that keep sounding from the car.
“I’ll see you Saturday, then,” I say, giving Alex a wave as I head toward the car.
Alex’s voice stops me. “You’re not gonna come to the party Friday?”
I turn to face him but continue backing toward my impatient roommates. “Can’t. Gotta prepare for recording on Saturday.”
“We just did that!” Alex shouts, sounding exasperated. The farther I walk away, the louder his voice becomes. “Plus we’re not filming until the afternoon. Come on, sunshine. Just come!” His voice is loud enough that people passing by look over in his direction.
Without responding, I give him a shrug that hopefully says, sorry, not sorry and I climb into the backseat without another word in his direction. The truth is, Danika is probably going to drag us to that party anyway, for some reason, I like the idea of making him sweat about it.
“Not a peep,” I say to the girls as soon as my butt hits the seat. Danika mimes zipping her lips and throwing the key, then Sydney mimes catching the key and unlocking Danika’s lips.
“Margot and Alex sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i—”
“Children. You are both children.” I buckle my seat belt and listen to Dani and Sydney sing for the entire ride home.