Chapter Eight
I delicately opened the lecture hall door barely wide enough so that I could squeeze my body through, then quietly shut it behind me. To avoid being noticed, my eyes would dart around the room, looking for the most inconspicuous place to sit in the very back of the auditorium.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, tapping the shoulder of a student sitting in the aisle seat of the last row whose body was built like a man who had five years on him.
He didn’t look up. I spied his pen gripped tightly, forcing his forearm to flex as he took notes with an intensity that led me to believe I could be standing next to him naked and he wouldn’t notice.
“Excuse me,” I murmured slightly louder, growing increasingly self-conscious that I was the only one standing up in a full classroom.
His right index finger shot up, telling me to hold on while his left hand continued to scribble.
Finally, shaking out his wrist, he moved his legs to the right to allow me to pass.
His eyes stayed singularly glued to the professor.
Slowly taking my own notebook out of my backpack, I stole a lingering glance at the chiseled form of my classmate’s high cheekbones and distinct jawline.
I was pretty sure it was the guy I’d seen lugging a box of books under my dorm-room window on move-in day.
Bent over and pretending to search for a pen, I noticed that in a room filled with boot-clad students, his pant legs and sneakers were sopping wet from the six inches of snow that had fallen overnight.
Without a break in concentration, he subtly drew both of his feet under his chair, sensing my appraisal of him.
As he put his hands behind his head and leaned back to stretch, I snuck a look at his notes to figure out what I missed from the beginning of class.
His penmanship was one of all caps and baffling precision, more akin to that of an architect or engineering student than an English buff prone to persuasive prose.
And then there was his startlingly taut lower stomach that peeked out between the hem of his T-shirt and the waist of his jeans, causing me to catch my breath.
It took every ounce of willpower for my tired eyes to avert my gaze.
When the class ended, I was sure my last-row partner was going to say hello and introduce himself; we had obviously shared a moment. But he packed up his notebook, pulled out his copy of Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and left with the same precision with which he took his notes.
Intrigued by the brusque bookworm, I purposely showed up late for class on Monday.
My understanding from high school AP Psychology was that adhering to habits is a predictable pattern of human nature; therefore, my mystery lit classmate should be in the same seat, in the last aisle, and he would, once more, have to make room for me.
Yep, there Mr. Box of Books was again. He was hunched over the flip-out armrest desk, hanging on every word the professor uttered, while other students yawned and shifted, trying to shake their minds and bodies free of the weekend.
Today, however, while he was again sitting in the last row, he was one seat over from the end.
A heavy winter jacket I assumed was his, lay draped over the back of the aisle seat.
Was he saving the spot for a friend? Drying out his coat?
Had he scooted over for a slight change of perspective?
For a guy so into the class, I wondered why he was all the way in the back when it seemed to me his people would be the studious folks in the front row.
Or was this his indirect way of letting other students know he wanted to be left alone?
Though I couldn’t help myself in the moment, I did recognize I was most definitely overanalyzing this guy’s seating preferences.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked, clearing my throat, before I chickened out.
Last night over lasagna at Mathey Dining Hall, Quinn and I had played out multiple possible scenarios for when I entered the classroom.
My having to announce my presence and ask if I could sit down didn’t enter Quinn’s mind.
She encouraged me when I sidestepped in front of him to find a seat, to go slowly so he could admire my backside, which she was convinced was the best view in the room.
“No, ma’am” was his response, along with a swift removal of his jacket from his right to his left. I blew out a chuckle between my closed lips. I was nineteen, with one pair of clean underwear shoved into a drawer of mismatched socks; I was far from a ma’am.
As the professor launched into Plato’s beliefs that well-being, happiness, and virtue are the epitome of ethical practices and a moral life, I sat trying to figure out how to trick this human statue into talking to me after class.
I would have taken any acknowledgment of my presence as a win.
Standoffish wasn’t my type, but here I was, drawn to figuring out how to get this seemingly lone wolf among the pack of assembled scholars to notice me.
The second the professor ended his fifty-minute lecture, I pounced with a proclamation that I was hungry and issued an apology for my stomach growling throughout class.
Quinn and I predicted that this planned admission, whether true or not, would result in an invitation to buy me a bagel at the Rotunda, the café in the student center.
It was a scheme we both were sure would work because boys are always hungry and searching for something to eat.
Plus, Charles had bought Quinn every bagel she had hinted at.
“The dining halls are open until 10:00 a.m. If you hurry, you have time to grab something there,” was the rational response I got to my feigned girl-in-starvation distress.
“Oh, yeah, of course,” was all I could think of to answer as my pale winter complexion turned sunburn red at the failure of Quinn’s and my scheme. I gave it one last shot. “Did you maybe wanna grab a bite with me?”
“Nah. But we can head over to Rocky, and I could sit with you while you eat. I need to pick up some things from my room for my next class and get a head start on the reading for Wednesday.” This was clearly a guy who preferred words on the page to those spoken out loud, but there was something intriguing about his thick, slow voice and rich brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when he talked.
And then there were those abs I was dying to see again.
“Are you sure?” I was now acutely aware of coming across as desperate. I wanted him to want to join me, not feel an obligation to escort me through the dining-hall doors.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Maybe you could call me by my name, rather than ma’am?” I invited, not wanting to embarrass him but hoping to distinguish myself as being younger than his mother. “I’m Callie Steele.”
His full lips parted, revealing perfect, even white teeth. “Nice to meet you, Callie Steele,” my fellow literature lover drawled. “I’m Porter Beaumont.”