Chapter 3 – Josie
chapter
three
Josie
Fuck, I was late.
I had eleven minutes to get from my apartment to the Mercer building—my workbag strap was tangled in the shirt I had just yanked over my head, and my pens, planner, water bottle, and phone were spilled across the kitchen counter where I’d dumped my bag out ten minutes ago while looking for my keys.
My hair was coming out of the bun I’d thrown it into.
My shoes were on the wrong feet. I was a disaster.
Somebody knocked.
Are you serious right now?
I yanked the door open, already half irritated, half still-tucking-in-my-shirt, and found a redhead with a ponytail slightly askew, holding a plate of brownies and grinning.
“Hi. I’m Kimmy. I live next door. I’ve been trying to catch you for three days. Heard the boxes coming in.” She thrust the plate at me. “Brownies. Peace offering for the fact that I play music at eleven at night and have never once successfully turned it down when asked politely.”
I took the plate. “Josie.”
“I know. I saw your name on the mailbox. Lena, get out here. Our new neighbor is gorgeous.”
A second girl appeared in the doorway behind Kimmy. Coppery skin and long box braids with curly tendrils framing her face. She had a textbook tucked under her arm and a wide smile that crinkled the corners of her dark eyes.
“Hi. I’m in your sports marketing cohort, by the way. Saw your name on the roster.”
“Tonight,” Kimmy said before I could respond. “Wine, takeout, no boys. Our place. Seven. You’re coming.”
The old answer almost came out, the polite no, the “I should get settled.” Fuck that.
“Yes,” I said. “A hundred percent yes. I’ll bring the wine.”
Kimmy made a small triumphant noise and skipped backward toward her apartment.
I shut my door, glanced at my phone, and the grin dropped right off my face.
3:53.
I had seven minutes to get across campus.
Shit.
The Mercer building was past the athletic complex, all brick facade and glass doors. I cut across the quad at something I was technically going to call a jog and not a sprint, my workbag bouncing against my hip, my hair pulling out of the bun.
I came around the corner into the lobby at a clip and walked directly into a chest.
The impact was solid and immediate. My bag swung forward off my shoulder and hit the floor, and everything in it scattered: pens, planner, lip balm.
My water bottle rolled halfway across the lobby.
The breath went out of me in one undignified sound, and I stumbled back, and two large warm hands shot out and caught me by the shoulders before I could go down.
“Whoa. Easy, Flash.”
His low voice was warm right at my ear, and I felt the heat all the way to my bones before I even realized who I was looking at.
Then he let go of me and was already moving, crouching to scoop up my water bottle where it had rolled toward the front desk and jogging two steps to catch my pen before it disappeared under a chair. By the time he turned back to me, he had my pens in one hand and my water bottle in the other.
Green eyes, russet hair, the dimple on the left side of his mouth. Of fucking course.
“You have got to be kidding me.” I stepped back, heart slamming, hand pressed to my sternum.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” His mouth tipped into something between a grin and an apology, and he held out the water bottle for me to take.
“That would be ideal.” I made my voice cool, took the bottle, and did not look at him longer than I had to.
“On second thought, no.” The grin won. “Keep doing it. I kind of like it.”
Heat slammed up the back of my neck. My nipples went tight under the shirt I’d thrown on twenty minutes ago without thinking about who might see me in it.
My shoulders still tingled where his hands had landed.
And my skin lit up like he’d plugged me into a wall.
My stomach went hot and tight in a way it never did with Marcus… my actual boyfriend.
I hated him for it.
Pussy - Who is it we hate now. I’m confused.
“You should watch where you’re going.” It came out colder than I meant it.
“You walked into me.” He hadn’t moved his eyes off my face since I’d looked up.
“That’s not the point,” I muttered, completely flustered.
“What’s is the point then?” It sounded like a real question, soft, like he actually wanted to know.
“I don’t —” I crouched to pick up my planner because looking at him was a problem and looking at the floor was at least a neutral activity. “I’m sorry. I’m late. I’m really late.”
He crouched with me then nudged my lip balm toward my hand with one finger, slow. His stupid dimple still winked at me, making me tingle in places I had no business tingling.
“I realize,” he said, picking up my last pen and holding it out to me, “that I’ve given you a whole nickname and haven’t actually introduced myself. I’m Waylon.”
I took the lip balm. “Josie.”
“I know.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, you know?”
“I mean, I know.”
“How?” I asked, glancing back up at him.
“I was at the party last night.”
Suddenly the lobby felt very small.
Kappa Nu was the hockey house, which made him a hockey player, which made him Marcus’s teammate. He had been in the room when Marcus pulled me against his hip and told the whole party I was his.
He had seen all of it, and he was still standing here calling me Flash. He’d known exactly whose girl I was since last night, and it hadn’t changed a thing.
Maybe you are the only one feeling the pants feelings, girl. He might just flirt like this for sport.
My stomach dropped out, and the heat that had been crawling up my neck went cold.
He watched me like he already knew where my head had gone.
“Right,” I said. “Well.”
“Josie.”
“I have to go,” I murmured.
“Josie.” His voice was low when he spoke.
“I’m late,” I said. “I’m late for —”
“Work?” he offered.
“Yes.”
“Tutoring center?”
“Yes,” I said again.
“Same.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“Excuse me?”
“I tutor here.” He shrugged.
“Of course you do,” I muttered under my breath. Because I’d pissed somebody upstairs off, because why on earth wouldn’t this guy also work here?
His grin widened.
He held the door open for me into the tutoring center proper, and I went past him without looking up, my bag clutched against my hip. The director, a grad student in glasses with a clipboard, took one look at me and pointed at an empty table by the window.
“Josie, you’re with Caleb Whitford. You’ll work with him on Stats. Waylon, you’re at the same table, your same student from last week. She’s got some Chem homework I think.”
I walked over to table six and set my bag down, then took the chair and made myself breathe.
Of course it was the same table.
The universe had a sense of humor, and I was going to have words with it later.
I looked up, and Waylon was sliding into the chair next to mine, all six-foot-three of him, the jaw and the shoulders and the russet hair and the dimple and the grin that had not left his face since he’d said the word Flash.
“Stop smiling,” I said, and hated how much work it took not to smile back.
“Make me.” He leaned back in his chair, easy, like he had all day.
“Stop.”
“Sure, Flash.” He didn’t even pretend to mean it.
“Stop calling me that.” I meant it. Mostly.
“Give me something else then.” He leaned in on his forearms and took back half the table.
“I gave you Josie.” I scootched to the side and put the distance right back where it was.
“Doesn’t count. You gave me Josie under duress.” He tilted his head. “You owe me a nickname. Fair’s fair.”
“I owe you nothing.” It came out with less bite than I wanted.
“Pick one.” He said it like the outcome was already decided.
I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. “Klutz.”
He choked back an incredulous laugh. “Klutz? Might I remind you again that you walked into me.”
I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath, “You walked into me first.”
“No. I think you can do better on a nickname. Let’s workshop this.”
“Fine. Thor,” I said, crossing my arms.
His hand went to his heart like I’d shot him. “Thor?”
“You called me Flash. Twice. You’ll take what I give you.”
“Thor is Marvel. I am not a Marvel guy.” The real pain in his voice was extremely satisfying.
“I know,” I said, and let him see how much I was enjoying it.
“Why are you doing this to me?” He dragged a hand down his face, but his eyes were bright over the top of it.
“Because you walked into me.”
“Counter — Batman.” He held up one finger, a man negotiating for his life.
“No.”
“Superman, then. Superman is right there.” He was fighting for a straight face and losing.
“I’m aware.”
“Wonder Woman. I’ll take Wonder Woman.” Desperation looked good on him, which was its own problem.
“Thor.”
“Aquaman. Aquaman, Flash. Even Aquaman.”
“Thor,” I said, and that was final.
“Dammit.” He was laughing, low and pleased, and the sound did things to me that I was going to have to address later.
“It’s locked in. You’re Thor.” I’d given up on not smiling.
“I will earn my way back to DC.” He said it like he meant it, and my stomach dipped, because I believed him.
“You won’t.”
“I will.”
The door of the tutoring center opened, breaking the spell between us. The director pointed somebody toward our table — a nervous sophomore in a backward cap, clutching a textbook like a shield.
Waylon laced his fingers together on the table and looked across at me, the dimple up, the grin slow.
“We’re going to have so much fun, you and me.”