Chapter Fourteen
I wrapped the book in plain brown paper. One, because it was not his birthday, and two, because I wanted to be as discreet as possible. I tucked it into my messenger bag and headed to class. I was so excited to see him and give him the gift I practically skipped out the door.
As I walked to my usual seat, Julie rolled her eyes at me. I really wasn’t sure what I did to this girl to make her dislike me so much, but I was really considering moving to a desk across the room just to get away from her.
I sat down after hanging my bag off the corner of my chair and got ready for class.
Normally, I felt like these class periods were never long enough, but today was dragging on. Finally, Tobias wrote the next assignment on the board.
“Next week, Dr. Kiuchi will be returning,” he said. We briefly made eye contact, and he smiled before continuing, “I’ll still be around, of course, to assist if anyone needs help. Alright, see you next week.”
I took my time gathering up all of my things after class like I usually did, and I hoped the room would clear out quickly so I could give Tobias the book. Of course, Julie seemed to be dawdling as well, so I dropped my notebook, scattering papers everywhere.
“Oh shoot,” I said as I bent down to start picking everything back up as slowly as possible within reason. Finally, she left, and I beamed up at Tobias who was sitting on top of his desk watching me in complete amusement.
“You are a terrible actress,” he said, shaking his head.
“She was taking too long, and I didn’t want to make it obvious. I got you something,” I said, grinning as I pulled the book out of my bag.
He seemed surprised as he took it from me and unwrapped it. His eyes brightened when he read the title. “Where did you find this?”
“Downtown at one of the flea markets. I figured it was about time you read it.”
“Thank you, Tamsin.” He hopped off of the desk and pulled me in for a hug.
We held on probably too long for ‘just friends,’ but as we stood there, wrapped around each other, I realized I wasn’t ready to let go, and it didn’t seem like he was either.
He pulled back just enough to look down at my face, but he kept his arms wrapped around my waist, his head tilted, just slightly, as if asking me an unspoken question.
I knew he wanted to kiss me, and I wanted him to. My breath caught in my chest as he leaned closer.
But before anything could happen, the heavy wooden door swung open and I jumped back so fast, I hit one of the desks behind me, hitting my hip hard enough I was definitely going to have a bruise.
“Ow!” I exclaimed, rubbing my hip.
Julie appeared in the doorway. She pushed up her glasses, her brow furrowed in confusion as her eyes darted from where Tobias still stood by his desk and me leaning against the desk in front of him, rubbing my now very sore hip.
“Did I interrupt something?” she asked in her obnoxious, nasally voice.
“Nothing at all. Tamsin was just asking a question about the assignment,” Tobias lied smoothly.
“What did you do to your hip?” she asked me, almost mockingly.
“I ran into the desk,” I said with a casual shrug.
“How?” she inquired. Why is she so nosy?
“Just clumsy, I guess,” I said, straightening up and smoothing out my hair. “Anyway, thanks for the help. See you next week. In class. Um, okay, bye.” I scattered as quickly as possible.
Julie followed me out. “You aren’t fooling anyone.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, my heart pounding loudly in my ears.
“Hmph,” she sneered before strutting off, leaving me with a very bad taste in my mouth.
How much did she see? What did she think she saw? If Tobias and I were going to continue this… whatever this was …we were going to need to be more careful.