Chapter Two #2
I’m early. Not because I give a shit about English or suddenly want to improve myself. I’m early because I want to see Lola walk in. I want to watch her notice me sitting here and realize she’s stuck with me for the next hour.
The library is completely silent. A couple of kids hunched over textbooks, with highlighters out, probably living their lives exactly as planned.
The librarian sits at the front desk with her glasses halfway down her nose, stamping returns without even looking up.
I drop into the chair and lean back, stretching my legs out.
My fingers drum against the tabletop before I can stop them. I scan the entrance, pretending I’m bored when really I’m wired as hell.
I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s three fifty-seven. Then I shift my eyes back to the glass doors.
I saw her earlier today.
In the hallway between second and third period, she thought no one was looking, smiling at something on her phone. Bag slipping off one shoulder, with that little bounce in her step, like she’s carrying sunshine in her pocket and doesn’t even realize it.
Yesterday, I watched her from a distance in the cafeteria. She looked sad, quieter, and folded in on herself in a way that didn’t suit her. Not the Lola I know, not the one who used to stand her ground and throw shit right back at me without blinking.
I fucking hated that.
I fucking hate that I miss her too. The sound of her voice. The way she rolled her eyes at my bullshit. The way she never let me get away with half the crap everyone else did.
And I fucking hate that I miss her more than I miss the group.
The doors swing open and there she is. My pulse jumps as she walks in.
Goddamn.
Same jeans she always wears, frayed at the knees.
White sneakers with Sharpie doodles on the sides.
A hoodie two sizes too big. Phone in hand and a bottle of iced tea in the other.
She’s got highlighter on her fingertips and one of those big-ass tote bags slung over her shoulder, filled with books that probably have color-coded sticky tabs and neat little annotations.
She hasn’t seen me yet.
She’s too busy scrolling through her phone, pausing to swipe a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She’s focused. Then she looks up and freezes.
Just for a beat.
Long enough for me to catch it.
Long enough to know I still get to her, even if she’d rather pretend I don’t.
I give her a slow grin. The familiar kind.
“Hey, Bells.”
Her lips press together as she walks toward the table and drops her bag with a dull thud.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” I lean back in my chair, hands laced behind my head. “You used to love it.”
“That was before you turned into a dick.”
I chuckle softly. “Pretty sure I’ve always been a dick. You just stopped pretending I wasn’t.”
Her eyes flick up, blue and pissed, and for a second, there it is. That old spark. The one that used to crackle between us before everything went to shit.
She pulls out the chair across from me and sits, with her spine straight and all business now.
“We’re here to study. Not to flirt or whatever the hell it is we usually do. Got it!”
“Relax,” I say. “My cock’s already been used today. This is strictly books and bullshit.”
She gives me a glare sharp enough to draw blood, the kind that used to make me laugh harder because I knew I’d earned it.
“God, you’re unbearable.”
“And yet,” I tilt my head, eyes locked on hers, holding the stare just a second longer than necessary, “here you are.”
She exhales sharply through her nose, then reaches into her bag and pulls out her notebook. Calm and in control. She flips it open, clicks her pen, and finally glances back at me with that no-nonsense look she reserves for when she’s finished indulging my nonsense.
“Four to five. Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she says. “No excuses. You show up, we get through what Ms. Mallory assigned, and then we’re done.”
Straightforward and blunt. No warmth or ambiguity.
“Missed you too, Bells,” I murmur, quieter now. Softer. On purpose.
Her hand stills.
The page pauses mid-turn, just for a beat. That small hitch reveals everything. She looks up at me.
The room falls silent in a way that has nothing to do with the library rules.
“Just because I’m here,” she says flatly, voice steady but eyes sharp, “doesn’t mean anything.”
I hold her gaze, then shrug one shoulder casually. The way I always act like nothing gets under my skin.
“Didn’t say it did,” I say with a grin.
Because even with the walls up and the rules written in ink, she’s sitting across from me. Because something is still there whether she wants it to be or not.
And for now, that’s enough.
“You look different,” I say.
“Yeah, well,” she fires back, “no longer being publicly associated with assholes tends to change a girl.”
There it is. That spark—sharp, lively, and directed right at me.
She rolls her eyes and opens a packet of Oreos, already done with this conversation. I reach for one, but she slaps my hand away without even looking.
I lift a brow. “You brought them.”
“For me.”
“You gonna eat them all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
I pluck one anyway, feeling smug. I hold her gaze as I twist it open, splitting the cookie just to annoy her.
She narrows her eyes, prepared to kill me just for the principle, but then her lips twitch.
There it is.
That almost-smile she never intends to give me—the one she fights to keep and loses every damn time. It hits something deep in my chest I didn’t realize was still there, something I thought I’d burned out weeks ago.
“Are you gonna open that textbook today,” she says, “or just sit there stroking your ego and talking shit?”
I lean forward, elbows on the table, invading her space the way I know gets under her skin. “Depends. You gonna bend over that desk and whisper literary terms while you do it?”
She doesn’t hesitate. She grabs a pen and throws it straight at my face. It hits me in the chest instead.
“No.”
I laugh, the sound too loud for a library. “Is that a yes in nerd?”
“That’s a “fuck off” in every language.”
Fuck.
It’s been weeks since we’ve experienced this. This rhythm. This sharp back-and-forth that feels ingrained in my bones. The way she responds without hesitation. The way she doesn’t soften for me or pretend I’m something I’m not.
She never has.
Every other girl desires to be wanted.
Lola wants me to work for it.
And sitting across from her now, Oreo in my mouth, pen still in my lap from where it hit me, I realize how much I’ve missed this.
I swallow the cookie, grin slowly, and finally crack open the textbook.
“Fine,” I say. “Teach me something, Bells.”