Chapter Twenty-Eight Keely
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Keely
Over the past forty-eight hours, Keely had gotten very good at the one thing she’d never quite mastered: lying.
By some miracle, she’d managed to muscle her way through the rest of classes and make it to her newest favorite part of the week.
Reading to the kids gave her the same sense of accomplishment as checking something off her lists early.
As getting the lab results she’d expected on the first pass and all subsequent ones.
The same burst of endorphins she got from besting Max.
Or kissing him.
It was about the only thing going right for her lately.
Every time she’d bumped into Zoey in their apartment or on campus this week, Keely had plastered on a giant smile, waved her hands in dismissal, and said she had the auction items handled. That all Zoey needed to do was handle the other admin tasks and show up.
All lies. The too-big smile didn’t fit right on Keely’s face and made her cheeks hurt. Her hands were boneless to match the rest of her spineless body, and she absolutely did not have the auction items handled.
“We need to leave in ten,” Zoey said, banging on the wall.
Keely jumped, then jumped again when her hot curling iron touched her neck.
Now she had a burn mark in the shape of a hickey, but she Still. Didn’t. Have. Auction. Prizes.
“I’ll be ready!” she called back.
She quickly wrapped another piece of hair around the barrel and swiped her email to refresh it again.
She’d called in favors from everyone she’d interacted with during her college career, and all she’d received in turn was a coupon for a year’s worth of free Cookout shakes.
It would fetch a hefty price at the auction, but one prize alone wouldn’t be enough to float WIS.
Their guest list was a mix of students, faculty, and AMU alumni, but this was a small Virginia town, not Wall Street or Silicon Valley.
If all else failed—meaning, if a miracle didn’t fall from the sky in the next two hours—Keely was planning to offer individualized finals study guides. Or maybe her soul.
“Three minutes.” The walls between them didn’t dull Zoey’s sharp words, and Keely flinched, dabbing mascara on the eyelid she’d just swiped shimmery brown eyeshadow across.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her olive-green slip dress wasn’t anything fancy, but she liked the way it hugged her figure (and namely, her nonexistent chest).
The hem hit at her knees, so she’d be able to run around, putting out fires wherever they popped up.
Her mental checklist was already a million miles long, and they hadn’t even arrived at the venue.
This time, when Zoey rapped a fist against Keely’s door, she almost re-pierced her ear trying to slide in her dangling gold earrings, shaped like DNA helixes.
They drove in stilted silence to the alumni center, half a mile west of campus, and Keely’s pulse ratcheted up.
“It’s going to be great,” Keely said through another fake smile as they walked in. She hoped Zoey was still mad enough not to pick up on the uncertainty, the wobble of her words or her ankles.
Failure wasn’t an option.
It never was for Keely.
A few of the WIS council members were setting up.
The entire room screamed classy, sophisticated, while still paying homage to AMU’s green-and-gold color scheme.
Maya laid steam-straightened emerald tablecloths over the round tables.
Jeremy, ever a faithful tag along, tidied matching bows on the chairs.
Lori, dressed in a killer black pantsuit, lit candles in golden votives centered in each table.
It looked great—no thanks to Keely. Guilt shredded her already nervous stomach to confetti, and she pressed a palm there. She could throw up later, after she’d faked her way through having a plan.
“I need to meet the caterer,” Zoey said, pushing a gift basket into Keely’s arms. “Get the auction table set up.” After a second, she tacked on a half-hearted, “Please.”
“Absolutely.” Keely nodded so aggressively, one of the curls she’d pinned back popped free and landed in her eye.
Twenty minutes later, after multiple trips to the car because she couldn’t find a trolley, Keely set the last cellophane basket and wiped gingerly along her hairline, flicking away the beaded sweat.
Then she leaned forward, arranging the gifts on the table to make it look fuller than it was.
The crinkling was brain-deep, staticky, and too-loud inside her head.
It was no use. Five auction items sat on the table, and one of them was the Cookout coupon. Then again, Jeremy was already eyeing it, and she’d seen him demolish a double quesadilla more than once. Nobody sat close to him when they went as a group, for fear of losing a finger.
She consulted her to-do list, the box in bright red ink next to AUCTION PRIZES??? still overwhelmingly empty. The auction started in an hour; they were going to open the doors to guests in fifteen minutes, and Keely had—
She’d failed. Let down her friends. Her best friend, in many more ways than this. Heaviness made a home in her chest as she refreshed her email again. Other than a response from Dr. Goff about Keely’s most recent essay draft, sent early yesterday morning after a sleepless night, there was nothing.
And she was out of time.
Zoey approached a few minutes before the doors were scheduled to open. A hum of conversational noises filtered in from the lobby now, so they couldn’t delay any longer.
“I have a plan,” Keeley said, heading off any questions.
“And what is it?” Zoey handed her a name tag, then crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Her own tag was already pinned to her fuchsia dress. Zoey Lamb, Vice President.
Keely ran her thumb over the President on her own badge. This had meant so much to her. What had happened? Where had she gone wrong?
She owed Zoey honesty, even if it was like ripping out her heart and presenting it alongside the other measly offerings on the table. “Listen. I—”
Noise swelled as the doors burst open.
Not the lobby doors, but the side doors Keely had made sure to close after her last trip to the parking lot.
Nearly a dozen attractive men, all dressed in suits and bowties, filed through.
She recognized a few of them: Nolan, with a light blue tux stretching across his chest and thighs.
Alex, Keely remembered from the party, with a bright pink pocket square peeking out from the chest of his pristine black tux.
And front and center, wearing a smile only for her—
Max.
His suit was so dark blue it looked black, his shirt bright white and freshly pressed underneath.
He’d slicked back his hair, and the lights caught on the waves.
She wanted her hands in them again, to see if they were still as soft as she remembered.
His smile, too. Her pulse banged an unsteady rhythm against her ribs.
Zoey shifted on her heels as Max made his way over. “What is he doing here?” she grumbled.
Keely didn’t know, other than making breathing difficult.
Max jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “We’re your auction prizes. Ten of us. Figure we can fetch a few hundred each for a glorified errand boy or personal trainer.”
Keely’s jaw unhinged. When Keely had imagined what Max would come up with, if anything, she’d never pictured something so perfect.
Suspicion narrowed Zoey’s kohl-rimmed eyes before giving way to excitement. “This is what you were planning?” She nudged Keely in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Keely dared a glance at Max, her teeth sunk in her lip.
She didn’t have instructions for this. How to act around him when there was so much more than gratitude swelling in her heart.
She wanted to throttle him for making her think he wouldn’t follow through, then shove him to the ground and hike up her dress and thank him—thoroughly—for following through so spectacularly.
“She wanted it to be a surprise,” Max jumped in again, holding her eye contact. “For you, Zoey. Since you’ve worked so hard on everything else.”
What the hell? “That’s not—” His hand landed on Keely’s lower back, and she forgot how to speak for a second.
“Not enough to tell you how sorry I am,” she finished, trying to concentrate on her words instead of Max’s warmth through too-thin silk.
“But we can talk more after tonight’s over.
We’ll go to Cookout as a team. My treat. ”
Zoey’s mouth quirked, gaze trailing over the other track and field members hanging out near the doors. She blinked rapidly.
“Um, you can—get the team set up in the back room, and I’ll open the doors.” Zoey started walking away, then turned back and threw her arms around Keely in a tight hug that nearly knocked them both over. “We’re still fighting, by the way.”
Keely’s knees wobbled, but Max’s hand found her lower back again, a steadying presence, reminding her of all he’d done.
Over and over, he kept showing up in her life when she least expected him, pulling her out of her head, her textbooks, her comfort zone.
Keely needed to touch him, to know this was real and he was real. Keely smoothed the lapel of his jacket. In turn, he took her hips in his hands.
“You did this.” For her. He’d done this for her.
How was she ever going to get even with him now?
She couldn’t repay this. She’d covered for him at the shelter, given him some help on his assignments, but she hadn’t reciprocated on an equal level yet.
She owed him so much. “I can’t. . . can’t tell you how much this means to me. ”
He cleared his throat, thumb rubbing the ridge of her hip through her dress. It sent sparks and gooseflesh skittering over her skin, and she would have kissed him again, right here for the whole room to see, if Zoey hadn’t let out a warning call that the doors were opening in a minute.
Keely may or may not have whined.
Max laughed under his breath, husky and deep. He squeezed her one last, delicious time before ushering her toward the rest of the group. “Lead the way, boss lady.”