Chapter Two
Severine stood in the middle of the doorway to her class. There were more chairs open than usual, maybe that’s because Severine had arrived earlier than everyone else. Today was different from every other day because now she knew who else was hearing the same lecture as her and who had been in her view the entire time without her knowing.
Since yesterday, her mind kept replaying her encounter with the Sloan brothers. She wasn’t going to encourage a conversation with Thayer Sloan. She knew his game and had no interest in playing it. But Macsen Sloan, he might be a different story.
Her eyes scanned the room, and she wasn’t surprised to find a large body hunched over, reading a book. Confidently, Severine walked down the steps toward the front of the room. Around Macsen all the chairs were open. Severine could’ve chosen a seat a few chairs away from him, but she picked the one closest to him, on his right.
When she dropped her bag onto the floor, Macsen looked sharply at her. Finally, see could see his eyes. Everyone in the world had something special about his or her eyes. Everyone.
Macsen’s eyes were unrivaled. They reminded her of chartreuse. The rare times she saw her dad, he would have a bottle of French liqueur that was almost identical in color. Until now, it annoyed the hell out of her when he sat around drinking like a connoisseur of alcohol.
Looking straight at Macsen, she’d buy ten cases of that damn liqueur, just because.
Severine shifted in her seat to face him. “I’m Severine.” She used the introduction as an excuse to stare him in the eyes.
“I know.” His eyes zeroed on her face. Severine swore she was getting a slight buzz.
“So you know me, and I don’t even know your name. Why is that?”
He gave her the same dull expression as before. “We’ve had this class together for the last eight weeks. You’re just now magically noticing who I am?”
Severine smirked. He looked down at her lips and swallowed. In reaction to his reaction, her pulse started to race. “You seem really upset about that.”
His lips fought to stay in a firm line, and those damn chartreuse eyes twisted with amusement. They were going to kill her before this class was over.
When he grabbed his book and went back to reading, Severine flicked an annoyed glance at the paperback in his hand. “Who’s Terry Goodkind?”
Macsen pushed his face away from the book, his expression annoyed. Even as he tried to look put off, a small smirk formed on his lips. Now Severine knew why she couldn’t stop thinking about Macsen Sloan last night. The reason was clear.
People like Severine—the restless kind—couldn’t help but gravitate near the composed and peaceful. He placed his book—face down—and folded his arms in front of him. “He’s an author.”
She nodded her head, ready to say more, but their professor walked into the room. Severine looked around and finally realized the seats were filled around them.
Before she could respond to Macsen, his focal point went from her and to the front of the room.
Severine tried to focus on the lecture, but her thoughts were off in all directions. Basically, skipping this class would’ve been more beneficial. She could’ve gotten a good nap, at least.
Class wrapped up and she watched Macsen grab his backpack, shoving all his belongings inside. He was in a rush. Severine couldn’t help but think she was the reason for his quick pace. Did she make him nervous?
No matter what he was feeling, she was still going to talk to him. Of course she was. It made complete sense, considering the intelligent part of her brain had skipped town and left her all alone. Severine was impulsive all the time but this was more—it was spontaneous and hurried. She wanted to know more about this person that was so categorically her opposite.
“Do you go the coffee shop with your brother a lot?” Severine blurted out.
He rolled back on his heels and slowly smiled. “So that’s why you’re talking to me.”
Severine frowned and grabbed her bag off the table. It was her turn to look at him skeptically. “You saw me with Thayer and thought I’d somehow lead the magical way into my brother’s bed.” Macsen provided with the same smile on his face.
She hated assumptions, especially when they were directed at her.
Pushing her hair over her shoulder, Severine grabbed her bag and moved toward the door, knowing full well that Macsen was behind her, hot on her heels. “Why is it your first assumption— that I’m trying to get with your brother?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Severine shot back and quickly sighed. “Listen, if I’d wanted to talk to your brother, I would’ve yesterday.”
He stared at her with confusion, as if she was an impossible equation he could never figure out. People pushed around them and a guy bumped into Macsen, jerking him out of staring at Severine. With his hands in his jeans, he finally spoke. “I’m Macsen. But just call me Mac.”
It was all wrong. Severine could never call him by this nickname. “You don’t look like a Mac,” Severine admitted as they started walking with the students around them.
He glanced at her as they stepped out of the building. The sunlight glinted onto his hair and his eyes. They now looked yellow as he smiled at her. Skip the slight buzz; she was full on drunk from those irises. “And you really don’t keep your thoughts to yourself, do you?”
Severine shrugged, but a smile started to form on her face. “It’s one of my many charms.”
One of his hands reached out and stopped her from moving. His grip was gentle, but it got Severine’s attention. The lust running rampant through her veins told her she liked his hands on her. She knew for a fact it would happen again. “How many charms do you have?”
“Is this like my online dating profile, and I have to lure you in with eight attributes that make me, me?”
His head kicked back and he laughed. It was raw. It completely saturated the air around them and made Severine smile in return. “It is,” he finally said. Severine shrugged her shoulder and tried to appear elusive. “Oh, so now you’re suddenly shy?”
Her mouth opened up to respond but someone else beat her to it.
“Macsen!”
Severine turned at the same time as Macsen and watched a girl come running toward them. When she stopped in front of them, Severine took her in. Her hair ended at her jaw. Severine could catch a fellow hair dyer instantly, and it was clear that the girl standing inches from her loved to dye her hair four shades darker than her natural shade. The blonde shade peeking around the roots made it obvious. Dyed hair girl was slightly interesting, but it had nothing to do with her choice of blue jeans and plain black, long sleeved shirt. It was the quirky glasses that made her seem perky and bright. But as she narrowed her eyes at Severine’s presence, Severine knew she was far from optimistic. Lord. Not one of those girls.
“Haley, I just got out of class.” Macsen said as he leaned down to quickly hug her. He towered over Haley’s medium sized frame. It was like watching a poodle beg his or her owner for a treat. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she answered back. I’m-so-different-than-the-rest-of-you girl pointedly glared in Severine’s direction.
He laughed with enjoyment and patted her arm. Severine watched every touch and action closely.
“You wanna get some lunch?” Haley asked.
If Haley were an animal, this would be about the time she’d start peeing around Macsen to claim her territory. Severine wasn’t going to stick around for her second act of tricks.
Macsen looked over at Severine with uncertainty in his eyes. Severine’s eyes gleamed as he looked over Haley’s head and held her stare. “See ya later, Macsen,” Severine called out as she slowly walked away.
Her smile was attractive—a smile that could slay a guy—and walked away. Severine didn’t look back. She already knew Macsen would be staring, and Haley would be launching invisible switchblades her way.
Her conversation with Macsen answered the question her mind had been asking the minute she saw him. There was something to Macsen Sloan. Severine wanted to know more than something, though, she wanted to know everything.
* * * * *
“So it’s been a whole week, eh?” Lily ripped open a package of chips and leaned back in her chair with a smug grin.
Severine stabbed her fork at a large chunk of lettuce. Her salad was far from healthy. The cafe they went to for lunch had a salad buffet, and Severine always piled the pieces of lettuce with cheese, bacon bits, an unhealthy amount of ranch and anything else available. “You make it seem like I’m marking every day not spent talking to Macsen on a calendar.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Lily muttered.
A week, a whole week and Macsen still hadn’t said more than a few words to her. Last week, when they talked, she was assured that it wouldn’t be the last time. She worked her anger away by stabbing a tomato with her fork.
“What are you thinking about?” Lily asked cautiously.
Severine answered as she reached for her drink, “Nothing. Why?”
“You look like you’re constipated,” Lily blurted out. “So that shows me you’re thinking about something that you shouldn’t.”
Lily knew Severine almost too well. “I’m good.”
“So,” Lily said in between chews, “you’re telling me that you’re gonna leave this dude alone?”
“What? I can’t make a friend?” Severine asked innocently.
“Have you had a ‘guy’ friend? Ever?” The skeptical look on Lily’s face made Severine laugh.
“Yes! There’s Benji. He’s cool.”
“Well, he’s not the norm,” Lily said sternly and looked away with a blush on her cheeks.
Severine threw her hands up in the air. “Whoa. Are you kidding me—do you like him?”
The look Lily gave her was enough to know she was right. She squirmed slightly in her chair and finally responded, “Is this grade school?”
“Yes,” Severine said deadpan.
“In that case, yes, I do. I was playing a mean game of M.A.S.H., and well, his name came up last. He had the mansion. We had two kids and a pet lizard. It seemed like the most viable option.”
Severine smiled across the table at Lily. “You’re so lucky.”
Lily picked up the lone piece of lettuce sitting on the table and threw it at Severine. While Severine picked the piece out of her hair, she saw the object of Lily’s affection looking for a place to sit. “Hey there, Benji!” Severine called out loudly.
“Sever-ineeee!” Lily whined out and gripped the sides of the table in a panic.
Severine was an only child. While she grew up creating imaginary friends to stay entertained, Lily had four other siblings to drive her insane. Lily was the only person close enough to her, Severine considered her to be a sister. All she wanted was for someone to see how amazing Lily was on sight.
But expressing her feelings wasn’t exactly Severine’s strongest suit. Most times things just burst out of her mouth without thought. With a shrug, Severine dropped her fork and leaned closer. “Lily, I’m just trying to nudge you toward him. I’m helping you get someone, someone you know you’ll probably never talk to otherwise!”
“Hey, what the hell? I’m not mute, you know!”
Lifting an eyebrow, Severine looked doubtfully at her best friend. “To me, or anyone else close to you, you’re not. But come on, you turn mute around any dude you’ve ever salivated over!”
Lily slouched forward and rubbed her forehead. “I know,” she groaned loudly. “That’s never gonna change, is it?”
Severine shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? That’s like asking if I’ll ever stop being a serial dater. Doubtful, but you never know. Things could always change for us.”
Lily snorted and took a long gulp of her Coke. “Why? Because we’re in college and this is the time for self-discovery and liberation?”
“Sure...why not. Now shut it, Ben’s close.” She scooted over and allowed him to take her chair. “Hey.”
Severine glanced at her best guy friend—maybe her only guy friend—and all but did a happy dance at the thought of him getting together with Lily.
Ben sat loudly and ripped the wrapping around his burger. He slid a glance at Severine. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
He answered her as he attacked the fries on his tray. “You look like you’re thinking something.”
“He’s right. You’re thinking something,” Melissa confirmed next to Lily.
Melissa shared a class with Lily and with her glasses and preppy outfits that consisted of peach cardigans, layered with a white polo, Melissa looked like she belonged on a debate team. Severine thought she had her pegged, but she was completely wrong. When they’d go out, Melissa would show a different side outside of school. The girl could drink with the best of them and didn’t vomit all over the place. Severine was a guarded person, but she let Melissa in instantly.
“Melissa! You’re too sweet to be agreeing with Ben!”
Melissa shrugged and adjusted her glasses. She glanced up at Ben and quickly blushed. She turned red at the sight of anyone she didn’t know.
“He’s right. What are you thinking?” Melissa asked.
“I was thinking,” Severine said slowly, “that we should do something tonight.”
Across from them a dude belched loudly. Severine looked up at the noise and crinkled her nose. Ben followed her gaze with a frown. “Tim? Are you interested in him?”
Severine gave Ben a look and slowly shook her head no. “Did you see my face? That wasn’t an ‘Oh my gosh, I need to be near that dude’ face. No, my face was, ‘Ugh. I can smell his lunch from here.’”
“I’m not deaf, Blake!” Tim called out.
Severine gave him a short wave. “Don’t belch like a sumo wrestler then.”
He had a good sense of humor and laughed loudly as he moved his chair closer to their table and smiled at Lily and Severine. “There’s a party this weekend. Are you girls going?”
Severine glanced at Lily and shrugged her shoulder. When she looked across the table at Ben, an idea started to slowly form. “Depends...are you going, Benji?”
“Stop calling me that,” Ben gritted out.
Honestly, she couldn’t help it. She took one look at him during freshman orientation and knew that with his low-key demeanor, he’d be an instant friend. With his blonde hair and blue eyes, he looked like an All-American boy. After that, Benji just kind of stuck.
“Fine, Benjamin,” Severine pronounced slowly. “Are you going to the party? Lily, Melissa and I might go.”
“I’m not going,” Melissa put into the conversation quietly.
Severine pointed the tip of her fork in Melissa’s direction. “Yes, you are.”
“Do you remember what happened the last time we went to a party? I kept giggling at some dude because he was brooding. I kept calling him Gabriel.”
“Why did you call him that?” Lily asked.
She shook her head. “Because he looked like one? I don’t know, I can’t remember.”
“Oh yeah!” Severine snapped her fingers and leaned across the table. “Didn’t you tell him he looked like the guys on the romance novels you read?”
“Okay. Don’t make it sound like I’m the only one who reads them. They’re underneath your bed just like they are for me.”
“Not really. When the eReader came into my life, my books were hidden from sight. Literally.”
“Yo!” Tim waved his hand in the air. All three girls looked at him, forgetting he was still waiting for an answer. “You ladies coming?”
“Just sit there and look pretty, will ya?” Severine patted his arm and focused on her food. Her fork was inches away from her mouth when she heard a voice behind her.
“Does she always snap out orders to you, Tim?”
Severine’s sat up straight. The low-toned voice came from behind her, but close enough that Severine knew whomever it was, they were sitting close by. Close enough to hear everything she was saying. She turned around quickly, partially out of fear that it was Macsen.
Instead of those chartreuse eyes that Severine fell over, it was eyes a shaded color of gray that stared back at her with untamed energy. Thayer waited for her to answer, and when she only gave him a dark look, a smug expression crossed his face.
Sure enough, he sat right behind her. Depending how long he had been there, he had probably heard everything she and Lily talked about. Severine had no time to be embarrassed, she wanted to punch that conceited little grin off his face.
She ignored everyone at his table and placed her elbow on the top of her chair. Her expression was serene as she leaned closer to Thayer. “Tim’s smart. Any brilliant guy knows that the key to success is to always follow my directive.” Her smile brightened her features as Thayer backed further toward his table. She knew he was probably thinking of something biting to say back to her. Severine had thrown a gauntlet his way when she shouldn’t have. “Besides, you’re just pissed that it isn’t you I’m dragging by the shirt.”
She should’ve stopped while she had the chance. She was like a kid near a candy jar. There was no way she was just going to take one piece, she needed more than that. From the slow blaze in Thayer’s eyes, she knew that her jab was completely worth it.
A low whistle came from the guy sitting across from Thayer, and Severine glanced in his direction. Thayer’s gaze was still on Severine, and she felt giddy, like she could do twenty cartwheels in a row, giddy.
“That might be the first time a girl’s ever given you shit, Thayer. I think I’m in love.”
Severine recognized the muscular dude as the same one with Thayer and Macsen at the coffee shop, Lily’s make-out buddy. He grinned deviously at Severine. She smiled back and leaned forward. Her movement caused her shoulder to brush against Thayer’s arm. Energy zinged between the two of them. Ignoring the feeling, she placed her hand out to Chris. “Severine Blake.”
He raised a brow and shook her hand. “Chris.” She moved her hand back, but stayed close to their table.
“So, how do you know my good buddy, Thayer, here?”
Severine glimpsed a look at Thayer’s profile. He sat forward and chewed his food slowly. “I don’t know him.”
Chris slapped his hands together, and his shoulders shook with laughter. “Oh, this is f*cking great! I love you Say-vuh-reen,” he pronounced her name slowly.
Severine cringed. “Not Sayvuhreen, not Sever-reen...it’s Seh-vreen.”
Chris gave her a funny look. “There’s no way I’m gonna remember that.”
“Carry on then,” Severine said dryly. “Everyone says it wrong.”
“So how come I’ve never seen you around?” Chris asked.
Severine took a glance at the girls sitting at their table and raised her eyebrows. “Maybe because you surround yourself in a sea of bleach?” Chris laughed even louder the second time.
He stabbed a finger in the air, right in her direction. “Next party I hear of, you’re coming with us.”
Thayer’s shoulders stiffened slightly over Chris’s declaration, and Severine smiled brightly. “Sounds amazing!” It was doubtful that she would go. Severine just wanted to piss Thayer off.
She turned back toward her table. Melissa had left and now it was only Lily and Ben. Apparently, while she was volleying barbs back and forth with Thayer, Lily had decided that, in fact, she could talk and struck up a conversation with Ben.
“I gotta go to the library. I’ll see you later, Lily.” Her friend barely gave her a glance. “Lily? You there?”
Finally, Lily looked her way, nodded her head and practically shooed her away.
Before she left to go to her next class, Severine glanced at Thayer’s table one last time. The girls she’d insulted earlier were dressed like they were about to catch a flight to Cabo. Severine stopped a groan from emerging from her throat. There should be a shirt for all girls like them. Not even that...maybe a club. Their slogan: Destroying the impression of girls everywhere since the word ‘tramp stamp’ was invented.
Chris called out her name, and she didn’t have to look far to find his wide smile. But from his shout everyone in the room stopped to look in her general direction. This isn’t awkward at all, Severine thought. “Yeah?”
“There’s a party tomorrow. You coming?”
Severine quickly glanced at Thayer. He stared sharply at her and looked her up and down. It wasn’t a leer that creepy dudes always seemed to achieve.
His eyes bore through her in a way that she couldn’t describe, maybe because she had never been looked at that way. Thayer’s eyes connected with the pale pink, sequined cardigan that ended around her knees; she paired it with a skinny belt that was wrapped around her mid-section. He hardly glanced at her jeans before he stared her straight in the face. He looked pissed and frustrated as hell.
“So, you going?” Chris called out again.
Severine nodded her head instantly and kept her gaze connected with Thayer’s. “Lily and I just might have to show up.”
It didn’t surprised her when he turned his back and started talking to the blonde seated next to him.