5. Holly
FIVE
HOLLY
“Lambda Nu Chi.” Tracey pointed to the girl who’d stepped in front of me earlier in line outside Starbuck’s in our school student union building. She was flanked by two other busty blonds, all of them looking like they were on their way to a shopping spree at Nordstrom and not their next class.
“That explains it,” I muttered. The sorority was known for welcoming only the richest girls and called themselves the Ladies of North Carolina , regardless that it was an international sorority and originated at a California school. Usually I paid no attention to the Greek system on campus, social or otherwise, but I’d spilled what happened with Tracey as soon as I saw her.
“Did you ask him?”
“Pfft. No. Why would I do that?”
“Um, because you like him, and that girl was rude?”
“So?” I scoffed and stabbed my homemade Caesar salad with my fork. “Haven’t you learned yet how normal that is for me?”
I took a bite, and when I glanced at Tracey, she was scowling at me.
For as wild as she was, her middle name should have been Sweet. I hated that the reminder of how I was treated bothered her. Possibly more than it bothered me. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”
“What else is going on? Any more phone calls?”
“No, thank goodness. But that can mean anything.”
Dad was given a certain number of minutes every month for calling, and those could be decreased by his behavior or restricted altogether. He could also call me without calling collect, but then that cost would be taken out of the money I sent him. So really, he screwed me over every time he made a collect call, and I was dumb enough to answer.
I’d written to him frequently and asked him to stop and to use the money I gave him to call and ask for more or write a letter and ask instead. The fact he continued to ignore my wishes showed how little my father respected and cared about me.
The man stopped caring about anything and anyone but himself the day Mom left. Some days I wondered if all of my “happy” family memories before the age of seven were a lie in the first place. A fantasy I’d made up for my own survival.
“Tell me something good and fun,” I told Tracey. “It was kind of a crummy weekend, and I need to hear something good.”
“I met a guy at the SigEp party on Saturday night.”
“Of course you did,” I teased. “Remember this one’s name?”
“Asher and be nice. He’s cute.”
“Cute?” My brows rose, and my next bite of salad on my fork froze halfway to my mouth. “How cute?”
“I dunno, cute-cute. And he was cool. We talked for quite a while.”
“Huh.” I shoved my fork into my mouth and chewed my salad. It was drenched in dressing, the only way I could eat a salad, but I kept forcing my body to believe salads and vegetables were good for me.
So far, I was sure my body only believed me when I used enough dip or dressing to counteract the health effects.
“You’re making a face,” Tracey said and pointed at me before taking a bite of her meat-covered, grease factory pizza.
“What face?”
“The face you make when you think I’m weird, but you’re too nice to say anything.”
“I don’t think you’re weird.” I was definitely making that face. “I think it’s weird you said you spent the night talking to a boy.”
She rolled her eyes, but a pale pink crept up her neck. “Maybe I finally found someone worth talking to.”
“Hearing this feels like I should go buy a lottery ticket,” I teased.
Tracey laughed, and then a voice next to us said, “Why? Feeling lucky you get to see me twice in one day?”
We both jumped and spun, taken off guard by Graham’s arrival. My hand flew to my chest as I huffed out a laugh. “You scared me.”
He slid into the chair next to me like he’d been invited and dropped his backpack on the floor. “What’s this about a lottery ticket?”
I glanced at Tracey. “Nothing,” we both said, staring at each other.
She gave me wide eyes. I rolled mine before turning back to Graham. “What are you doing here?”
“Stalking the most gorgeous girl at NC Western in hopes of getting another date.”
He plopped his forearms onto the table and clasped his hands together, looking so disarmingly sweet. But there was nothing sweet about the look in his eyes. Or the strength in his body.
“Oh, look at that,” Tracey sang. “I’m late for class.”
“You don’t have another class,” I drawled.
“Right. Vet appointment. For my cat.” She glanced at Graham. “Not me. My cat.”
She grabbed her tray and backpack and hurried out of there like I’d told her it was going to blow up in less than ten seconds.
When we were alone, Graham tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “I don’t really believe she has a vet appointment.”
“You shouldn’t. She doesn’t have a cat.” I stabbed the last crouton in my salad, frowning when I learned it was more soggy than crunchy. I chomped on it anyway.
He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, draping one of his arms over the back of it. The move stretched out his chest, and as he tilted his head, that same lock of hair fell over his forehead. Did he style it like that? Or was he just inept at doing his hair?
“So, I guess I’m not going to hear about your lucky day, huh?”
“She spent the night talking to a guy.”
“And that’s worthy of a lottery ticket because…?”
“Because she doesn’t usually do a lot of talking.”
“Ah.” Graham laughed, shaking his head. “I get it. And you? Do you like…talking?”
“No, actually. I prefer being alone.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “Wanna know how I know?”
This should be good. Let the gorgeous man who knew half of campus read me like a tarot card. I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Sure. Go for it.”
One edge of his lips curled up. “You think you like being alone because you spent a lot of time that way. But you don’t like it because if you did, you wouldn’t have texted me so late on a Friday. You wouldn’t have even still been thinking of our date.”
He let that linger, and I couldn’t argue. I had still been thinking of our date hours after it was over, and I didn’t even realize I’d showed my hand then.
Not that I’d let him know that.
“It was impossible not to think about it when the roses took up my entire kitchen.”
“Besides,” he continued, like I hadn’t made a halfhearted attempt to prove him wrong. “I’m still not blocked, which tells me you hope to hear from me again. And you could have thrown away the flowers.”
Man, this guy was smooth.
“Maybe I’m saving the texts for the police when I decide to get a restraining order.”
His laugh boomed throughout the café, causing dozens of students to glance in our direction.
“You’re something else, Spitfire. Are you going to tell me how close I was to the truth?”
“Not particularly.” But he was close. Walking the edge of it, anyway.
He slid off the chair and reached for his backpack. “Want to know how I know and can read you so well?”
As he asked, he leaned down, setting his hand at the back of my chair. His thumb brushed against my sweater, and as I glanced up at him, our gazes met.
Mine froze on him. Gone was the teasing and the flirting in his eyes. Something else had replaced it. Something that looked familiar. “I’m not sure,” I admitted.
“You’re not the only one with a closet full of secrets you’d prefer to keep locked up.” He blinked, and all the brightness returned to his eyes, and I was still frozen, stuck on what I swore I’d seen.
The haunted look of someone who had a past that could only be similar to mine. But that couldn’t be…
“Come on,” he said. “You have class.”
I shook the surprise off me and woodenly stacked my containers back into my lunch bag. When I reached for my backpack, it wasn’t on the floor next to me.
“Here.” Graham handed it out to me, holding it in his hand, the top unzipped so I could easily drop my lunch bag into it.
I did it without thought and then got to my feet.
“Wait a second.” I reached for my backpack and took it from him. “Are you ever going to tell me how you know my schedule?”
He tipped his head toward the door, giving me that smirk I knew so well I could probably draw it in my sleep.
“Are you going to block me today?”
“Haven’t decided.” I slipped my coat on, dragged my bag’s straps over my shoulders, and followed him out of the union.
“Well, when you make a decision on that one, then I’ll clue you in.”
And yet somehow, I still ended up following him, walking out of the student union where his name was called a dozen times. Where even more people seemed to know him.
He waved or smiled or said hello to most, but through it all, kept pace with me, asking about my class. If I had to work later.
He rarely took his eyes off me when someone called his name.
And for the first time in my life, I felt seen. I wasn’t an afterthought, or someone to pity, or someone to ignore. I actually felt wanted.
What in the world was I supposed to do with that ?