Chapter 9 #2
The reply was almost instant.
QB10: You suck at subterfuge. I told you to lie better
I licked my lips as I walked to my class.
Me: I don’t know when you’re pretending to be a dick, or when you are an actual dick
QB10: Funny, I always know when you’re being savage
Asshole.
By the time I left my last lecture, I’d convinced myself I wasn’t going.
Not because I was scared of him — please — but because I had better things to do than sit across from a quarterback with the emotional range of a brick wall and the ego of a small country.
Like work on my sculpture. Or binge a documentary. Or just lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling until the tight coil of irritation in my chest loosens.
But every time I tried to focus on something else, my mind kept circling back to the text thread, to his stupid casual wave, to the way he’d said “you tutor me tonight” like it was a fact, not an invitation.
If I were honest, I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to be here. He’d said subterfuge, so was it an act? Or would he actually be there? I didn’t know, and I’d be damned if I texted and asked for clarification.
Which was how I found myself walking along the hallway to meeting room C, at six fifty-nine, muttering curses under my breath like I was preparing for battle.
Part of me hoped he wouldn’t be here — I could just take the win, put in an hour with my own work, and call it a night.
The other part . . . Well, that was another problem for another day.
When I pushed the door open, he was already there, hoodie pulled up, laptop open, but — of course — dark. No work in sight. The lazy sprawl of his frame made the oversized chair look too small.
His eyes flicked up as I walked in, and one corner of his mouth curled like he’d just been handed proof of a bet he’d won.
“Hey, Sav.” He smirked, like the morning hadn’t happened.
“Don’t call me that,” I said automatically, sliding into the seat across from him.
“You came,” he said, leaning back in his seat like he’d known I would all along.
I dropped my bag onto the chair opposite. “Don’t sound so smug. I wasn’t sure you’d bother.”
His grin widened. “I always bother when it’s you.”
I rolled my eyes, but my pulse quickened anyway. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I pulled out my notebook and a pen, mostly for show, since we both knew I wasn’t here to drill him on governance structures.
He didn’t even pretend — with his laptop in sleep mode, no books in sight, just that steady, assessing stare like he was trying to figure out which version of me had walked in tonight.
“Where’s your reading list?” I asked.
He reached into his bag, handed over the piece of paper I gave him, without breaking eye contact. “Right here. Signed, sealed, delivered.”
I glanced at it. The thing was pristine — no dog-eared corners, no highlighting. “So you haven’t even cracked the spine of a book, have you?”
“You saw the one I sent last night. I skimmed it,” he said, leaning forward like it was a confession. “Enough to know I could ace the class if I wanted to.”
My eyebrows shot up. “And yet here you are, close to failing.”
He smirked. “Some of us like a challenge.”
I snapped my notebook shut. “Good. Here’s mine — stop making me look like an idiot to the academic board, and I won’t mention that the quarterback of Wrighton U thinks ‘skimming’ is a study method.”
“We agreed that you don’t need to waste your nights on me.
And I don’t need to sit here pretending I’m interested in policy and governance when I’d rather take a hit from Noah than read one more paragraph about educational oversight committees.
” His look drilled into me. “But you made a show about a text you got from Daddy Dean, and now here we are. Bored and pissed off.”
I tapped my fingers against the desk. “I know why we’re here, and I gave you the reading list, but as the text from ‘Daddy Dean’ points out, we need to make sure you actually do the work. We still need check-ins, public ones because I don’t mean selfies in your PJs.”
“You liked it didn’t you? You hate that you did, am I right?” He grinned when I rolled my eyes. “Keep a hold of that, it’ll be worth something one day.”
“Your arrogance is outstanding.” I shoved a book across the desk. “Read this.”
He tilted his head, amused. “So . . . we’re doing this?”
“Call it professional preservation.”
We stared each other down, neither of us blinking first. How could one man be so alluring and infuriating at the same time?
Finally, he sat back, hands up in mock surrender. “This is fucking pointless.”
I gave him the flattest look I could muster. “Trust me, the feeling is mutual.”
He stretched out like he owned the table. “So what do we do now? Just . . . sit here and pretend?”
“Yes. Exactly that. Or you could actually read. And I . . . take notes.”
“About what?”
“None of your business.”
His grin was slow, infuriating. “You always take notes in an artist sketch pad?”
I froze just long enough for him to notice.
“Relax, Cole,” he said, flipping open to a random page in the book I’d shoved at him. “I’m not asking for details.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Yet.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Make sure you don’t. Because I’d hate to be arrested for murder before midterms.”
Dante snorted. “Cute.” His gaze dropped to my sketchpad. “Just make sure you get my good side, yeah?”
I didn’t know whether I admired him for his confidence or hated him for it.
I bent over and took my sketchpad out — notes, for anyone passing by — and told myself I was focusing on the curve of copper wire I wanted to bend next, not the weight of his gaze on me from across the table.
We didn’t speak for the next fifteen minutes, but it wasn’t quiet. Not really. The air between us was its own conversation — one neither of us wanted to admit we were having.
“Quit staring at me,” I muttered, glancing up and seeing his sharp smirk.
“Why?” Dante pushed his chair back so that it balanced on two legs. “Maybe I find you more interesting than this book.”
“I’m not playing this game,” I warned him.
“What game?” He sat back down with a thump. “The simple art of conversation?”
“Nothing is ever simple with you, though, is it, Ten?”
He shrugged. “I’m really not that complicated. Ask me anything.”
Soooo tempting. But I knew better than anyone not to get tangled up in ‘simple’ conversation — I’d attended enough benefits and dinners with my father to hear the subtext in every conversation.
I also knew when to change the subject. “So, what I think would be best is if we do a token twenty minutes here, and then I do my thing, while you do . . . whatever it is you actually do when you’re not here.”
“You sound jealous again.”
Again?
“I sound efficient because I am.” I kept my tone airy, but my heart was pounding. Jealous? Was he serious? “Unless, of course, you’d rather explain to the Academic Committee why you’re suddenly refusing help in the one class you’re failing, too busy making shady phone calls.”
For the first time, Dante looked at me like I might actually be dangerous.
He leaned back slowly, eyes narrowing. “You’ve got teeth, Savage.”
“And you,” I said sweetly, “have more to lose than I do.” It was a complete bluff and a risky gamble.
His smile was tight, but it was there. “Do I? Does Daddy know about the art shed?”
My stomach dipped when he spoke, his eyes hard and cold. But the look was gone as quickly as it came, and the media playboy was back. “If you’re going to play this game, Sav, remember — I’m better at it than you are.”
“Guess we’ll see.”
He gathered his stuff, but before he left, he stopped beside my chair, leaning over, his breath on my ear, the heat from his body warming me, he was so close. “You’ve got a cut from the glass on your hand,” he said quietly.
I glanced down. A thin red line stretched across my knuckle — a slip from the glass cutter earlier. I hadn’t even noticed.
His gaze lingered a moment longer than necessary, something unreadable in it, before he finally walked away.
It was only when I packed up my own things that I realized I’d never told him I worked with glass.