Chapter Twenty
Twenty
I WAKE DISORIENTED, MY CHEEK resting against something warm but solid, my eyes sticky with sleep.
I lift my head, searching for the source of the dim blue light illuminating the room.
My gaze lands first on the desk shoved in the corner, the unfamiliar setup, the window in the wrong place—and then I tip my chin up.
It scrapes along soft fabric, and I gasp.
My hand lands on Jamie’s stomach, earning a surprised “Oof!” as I sit up.
He’s propped against two pillows, laptop resting on his legs. He lifts his left arm, shaking it out a little, and I realize belatedly that it must have been around me. That the warmth lingering along my back is from him.
“Sorry,” I say, my voice a sleep-rough whisper. “I didn’t mean to.”
Jamie’s gaze slides to me, one brow arching. “Didn’t mean to what?”
“Fall asleep,” I answer automatically, even though what I really mean is drape myself across you like a cat. I swipe a hand over my mouth, swallowing down the delayed rush of mortification.
He clears his throat, the whole of his focus on the computer in his lap.
My computer, I realize belatedly. When I got up earlier to make myself a quick dinner, I grabbed my bag on my way back to his room, intending to work.
Instead we started Star Wars: Episode II, and sometime after that I must have drifted off.
“I didn’t mind.” He doesn’t look at me, but his fingers are still on the keyboard. “I’m just worried—”
A high-pitched laugh skitters out of me. “You made it pretty clear—”
“—that you’ll catch whatever I have,” he says at the same time.
We both freeze.
“What did I make clear?” he asks.
I scrub my hands over my face, sitting up beside him.
That anything between us would be a bad idea.
But instead I say, “Is that my computer?” I pray he’ll let me change the subject, and when he glances down, distracted, I add, “Looking for my super smutty Star Wars fanfic? I keep that on an external hard drive.”
That seems to do it. He laughs. “No, you little freak. I was looking at your APM modules.”
I suck in a breath, slapping a hand over the screen. “Stop.”
“I just wanted to see—”
“No, I’m serious.” I grab the laptop, snapping it shut.
“Why?”
“It’s embarrassing.” I hug my laptop to my chest, sliding down until I’m staring up at his ceiling. “You already get to see how bad I am working on Cram Session. I don’t want you to see how completely unprepared I was for this.”
“Blair, I don’t think you’re bad. I told you the APM is designed to break you.”
“It didn’t break you.” I turn my head to look at him, and he shifts until we’re lying side by side.
“It almost did,” he says. “I had a really hard time last summer. You can ask Andres and Felicity. They were living here at the time—they saw me. ROTC hadn’t started yet, and I spent basically every waking hour I wasn’t in class holed up in my room, working on practice modules.”
“So I’m just not working hard enough.”
“No, I’m—” He breaks off with a heavy sigh. “That’s not what I’m saying. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your mental health just to pass a class they’ve literally designed for you to fail.”
I sit up again, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “I can’t talk about this.”
“We don’t have to,” he says quickly. “Where are you going?”
There’s a note of panic in his voice that makes me pause, and the bed shifts as Jamie slides closer, pulling the laptop from my hands.
“Look.” He sets it on the bed and opens it, closing out the APM portal and pulling up Star Wars again. He clicks through until he lands on a scene I don’t recognize. “I think this is where you fell asleep. We can keep watching.”
“I don’t think this would be a Sawyer-approved activity.”
“I don’t care.”
I stare at him, rendered speechless.
Jamie looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just—stay.”
And because he’s looking at me like that again, open and earnest, I can’t find it in me to do the smart thing.
When I settle in beside him, Jamie puts the laptop between us and presses play.
“So who’s your favorite?” I ask, nodding at the screen.
“Hard to say. Probably Chewy or Han, but you haven’t met them yet.
” He yawns, sliding down beside me. There’s a safe distance between us now, both on our separate sides and separate pillows, not touching, but it feels distinctly intimate to share such a small space with him and whisper in the dark like we’re sharing secrets.
Almost as intimate as kissing. The thought sends a flush across my cheeks.
“I wanted to be Han. This, like, charismatic, brave, funny guy everyone loves.”
“Is that not you?”
He laughs. “Obviously not, Blair. I’m more like C-3PO. An anxious, pessimistic downer.”
“You are not.”
“I am, at my core.” He taps his chest with a self-deprecating grin. “Sawyer’s more like Han.”
“No. He’s for sure that guy.” I point at the screen.
Jamie snorts. “Jar Jar Binks?”
“Yeah—fucking annoying and kind of a dumbass.”
Jamie turns his face into his pillow as he laughs. “Sawyer isn’t a dumbass.”
“But he is annoying.”
“To you. Everyone else loves him.”
“And no one loves you? Poor Jamie.”
He rolls his eyes, nudging me with his elbow.
I grin. “Maybe people would feel comfortable being a little more open with you if you weren’t completely unreadable.”
He turns his head to look at me. “This again?”
“I told you people thought you were a mystery.”
“And here I was, afraid I was an open book all this time.”
“Not even a little.”
He shifts closer, his gaze dropping to the space between us. “I don’t want to be a mystery to you.”
My heart taps out a frantic beat as his fingers brush along the side of my hand and then slot through mine.
“If there’s something you want to know, just ask me. Please.” He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “I won’t lie to you.”
There is one thing, I think. Did I misunderstand him? Is there something happening between us that’s more than kissing in the dark? Something we could never, ever keep a secret?
But I’m not brave enough to say it aloud. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.