Chapter 11 #3
“You corrected my citations before taking off your coat.”
“They were terrible.”
I open the Cal game.
“Ten minutes.”
“No.”
“Five.”
“You’re accustomed to bargaining with people who want something from you.”
“You want to be right.”
Her pencil snaps.
She stares at the broken wood in her hand.
I lean closer. “There she is.”
“Who?”
“The girl who hates being challenged.”
“I hate arrogance.”
“You should avoid mirrors.”
She drops the broken pencil onto the table.
“One possession.”
I turn the tablet toward her.
The clip begins with me coming off a high screen. I reject it, drive left, then pull up from the elbow and score.
“Good shot,” I say.
“Bad possession.”
“I scored.”
“You missed the weak-side cutter.”
“He was covered.”
“He cleared the defender before you gathered.”
She rewinds the clip.
There.
Half a second before I rise, our wing cuts behind the defense.
“You stared at the hedge,” Hannah says. “The corner defender followed your eyes. One bounce pass and it’s a layup.”
“It was still three points.”
“In March, it’s a charge.”
She advances to the next possession, then freezes the screen before I enter the lane.
“Your feet.”
“They’re moving.”
“Too close together. You protect the ball before the defender commits. It shortens your stride and forces you upright.”
She moves the footage frame by frame.
My right shoulder turns.
The weak-side guard shifts before I bring the ball across my body.
Hannah taps the screen.
“He knows where you’re going.”
“Because of my shoulder.”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“You stop seeing the floor.”
“I don’t.”
“You do when you’re frustrated.”
Her certainty irritates me more than the criticism.
“What does frustration have to do with footwork?”
“Everything. You rush after a missed call. The next possession becomes personal.”
I stare at her.
She doesn’t blink.
“You decide you’re reaching the rim,” she continues, “then stop reading what’s in front of you. The defense takes away your first option, and instead of trusting the play, you fight the trap.”
Coach has told me I force possessions.
No one connected it to the missed calls.
Hannah rewinds three clips. Each begins after I argue with an official or take a hard hit.
My stomach tightens.
“How did you see that?”
“You repeat yourself.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It’s enough.”
“Hannah.”
She reaches for her Twizzlers.
I catch the bag first.
Her eyes flash.
“Give those back.”
“Tell me where you learned basketball.”
“No.”
“Someone taught you.”
“That isn’t a question.”
“Your father?”
The reaction is small.
A tightening around her mouth. Her fingers close harder around the candy bag.
“You need to stop digging.”
“I asked one question.”
“You’ve asked it six different ways.”
“Because you keep dodging it.”
“Take the hint.”
“Why don’t you play?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m vertically challenged with poor eyesight.”
“You miss nothing.”
She pulls the Twizzlers from my hand and shoves them into her bag, followed by her notebook and pencils.
“Study session’s over.”
“Because I asked you hard questions?”
“Because our two hours are up.”
She checks her phone, and whatever she sees adds urgency to her movements.
“I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere you weren’t invited.”
She shoulders her bag, rolls her neck, then stretches both arms overhead. The hem of her sweater lifts, exposing a narrow strip of skin above her leggings.
I look away too late.
Hannah catches me.
“Did you need something?”
“Your explanation.”
“You’ll survive without it.”
She glances toward the reserve shelves.
“I need Aldridge’s book before I leave.”
We cross the reading room together. She tries to pretend I’m not following, which only makes me follow closer.
The reserve section sits between two rows of shelves tall enough to hide us from the rest of the library. Hannah scans the spines, then grabs the rolling ladder.
“You’re not climbing that.”
She steps onto the first rung. “I wasn’t asking.”
“The wheels aren’t locked.”
“I can see that.”
“Your record with stationary objects isn’t strong.”
She climbs higher.
I brace one hand against the ladder.
“I have it.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re welcome.”
She stretches toward the top shelf.
The ladder shifts.
“Hannah.”
“I’m fine.”
It jerks sideways.
Her hand slips from the shelf.
I catch her around the waist.
Her body drops against mine. One hand lands on my shoulder. The other grips the back of my neck.
For a second, neither of us moves.
Her glasses sit crooked across her face.
My hands span her waist beneath the sweater. She’s smaller than the loose clothes suggest, warm and soft where I expected angles.
Her breath catches.
So does mine.
“You can put me down,” she whispers.
“You’re holding my neck.”
Her fingers loosen but don’t leave.
I lower her slowly.
Too slowly.
Her body slides against mine until her boots meet the floor.
We remain inches apart.
The shelves block us from the reading room. All I can hear is rain tapping the windows and Hannah’s uneven breathing.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
Heat punches through me.
I want to kiss her.
Not tease her. Not wonder how she’d react.
I want those glasses gone and her back against the shelves. I want to find out whether she bites my lip when she’s angry.
My hand tightens at her waist.
She inhales.
“Haverhill.”
My name comes out breathless.
I lift one hand and straighten her glasses with my finger.
“There. Bookworm restored.”
Her expression closes, but her cheeks remain pink.
“Touch my glasses again and lose the hand.”
Her phone buzzes.
The moment breaks.
Hannah slips away and checks the screen.
“My ride’s here.”
“What ride?”
“The kind that takes me places.”
She steps around me, then glances back.
“Study session’s over. It’s been fun, Haverhill.”
“You hate fun.”
“I hated less of that than expected.”
Before I can decide whether that qualifies as a compliment, she disappears between the shelves.
I retrieve the book she nearly fell trying to reach.
Wrong title.
I find the one Aldridge assigned and catch Hannah near the front entrance.
“You grabbed the wrong book.”
She looks at the cover in my hand, then at the one she’s holding.
Her face warms again.
“Distracted?”
“By your refusal to stop talking.”
She exchanges them.
Outside, a black SUV waits beneath the stone archway.
A driver steps into the rain and opens the rear door.
Hannah closes her umbrella, slides inside, and vanishes behind tinted glass.
I stand beneath the awning as the SUV pulls away.
Bookworm lives in one of the oldest dorms on campus and gets collected from the library by a driver?
Another piece that doesn’t fit.
I take out my phone.
Me: Where are you going?
Her answer arrives before the SUV reaches the end of the drive.
Hannah: Away from you.
Me: Helpful.
Hannah: I try.
I watch the taillights disappear.
Then I head for my car.
I’m not following her because of what almost happened between the shelves. Jealousy churns in my gut.
I’m not following her because of what almost happened between the shelves.
Jealousy churns in my gut anyway.
Which is stupid.
I don’t even know who’s driving.
Could be an uncle.
A family friend.
Her seventy-year-old grandfather with a bad hip and excellent credit.
My brain rejects every reasonable option.
Instead, it hands me some silver-haired art dealer with a penthouse in San Francisco and a private collection nobody’s allowed to photograph. The kind of guy who sends a black SUV for a girl instead of picking her up himself.
He’ll have French wine waiting.
A fire crackling.
Music low.
He’ll call her fascinating while staring at her over the rim of a glass that costs more than my monthly rent.
My grip tightens around my keys.
Nope.
Maybe he’s younger.
Thirty-five.
Forty.
Some history professor with wire-rimmed glasses, a sweater collection worth five grand, and loafers handmade in Italy. He noticed her because Hannah’s the only person in his lecture who actually read the footnotes.
Now he’s taking her somewhere quiet to discuss nineteenth-century political theory.
Over dinner.
By candlelight.
While he slowly discovers she’s funny.
And stubborn.
And that when she gets worked up about something, her eyes go bright and she talks faster.
My jaw locks.
Absolutely not.
I cross the lot faster.
Maybe it’s a tech guy.
That’s worse.
Stanford manufactures rich assholes by the thousand.
Some twenty-eight-year-old founder with an app I’ve never heard of and stock options worth enough to buy an island. He spotted Bookworm in a coffee shop, liked the glasses, liked that she didn’t recognize him, and decided she was refreshing.
Now he’s sending cars for her.
Whisking her off to Napa.
Buying out restaurants.
Putting his hand on the small of her back.
I hit the unlock button hard enough to nearly crack it.
This is insane.
She isn’t mine.
The thought lands wrong.
My phone is still in my hand.
No new message.
I type anyway.
Me: Who’s driving?
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Hannah: Why?
Because I’m currently deciding whether I need to fight an imaginary French art dealer.
Me: Curiosity.
Hannah: Sounds painful.
Me: I manage.
Nothing.
I get behind the wheel and start the engine.
Her SUV is long gone.
Good.
Perfect.
Now I can go back to my dorm and forget the entire thing.
Forget her trapped between me and those shelves.
Forget the way her breath caught.
Forget that for one second she looked at my mouth like she wanted exactly what I wanted.
My phone buzzes.
Hannah: Go home, Kane.
I stare at it.
Then type.
Me: Already going.
A lie.
Because I’m pulling out of the lot.
And I know exactly which direction that SUV went.
The SUV leaves campus and heads south. I stay several cars behind, far enough that she won’t notice me through the rear window.
The SUV is slowing.
Not in front of a mansion.
Not a restaurant.
Definitely not some professor’s tasteful mid-century home.
It pulls into a cracked parking lot beside a squat brick building.
I pass the entrance before she can spot my car.
The sign flashes by.
PALO ALTO YOUTH ATHLETICS CENTER
What the hell?
I circle the block.
By the time I come back, the SUV is gone.
Hannah isn’t.