The volume of the music suddenly spikes, rattling the glass in the window. With a sigh of reluctance, Connor takes my hand and mumbles, “I’m sorry. We’d better go downstairs. Ty’s going to bring the cops here if I don’t go put a leash on him.”
I feel my shoulders sag with relief, my face stretching out into a contented grin as we leave his room, knowing that I’m getting the time that I need. Until I see Ashton’s bedroom door closed and a red sock hanging on the doorknob. I remember Reagan talking about “the code.”
“I thought Dana went home.”
Connor shakes his head, looking over his shoulder at me with a knowing stare. “She did.”
CHAPTER NINE
Games
Students trickle into the cold lecture hall for the Monday mid-morning class as I make my way down to the front. The entire first row is empty but I don’t care, picking a seat near the professor’s podium, my stomach a bundle of nerves as I anticipate a semester of difficulty. I briefly considered dropping this English lit course out of spite, seeing as Dr. Stayner was adamant that I do things based on what I want—not on what others want—and this is clearly what someone other than me wants.
Everyone assumes I’m a genius and grades just fall onto my lap because I ace the hard classes like calculus and physics. It’s true that those grades come easier to me than they do to most. The material is straightforward, black and white, right and wrong. I’m all about the clear-cut choices.
Subjects like philosophy, and history, and the English lit class that I’m about to begin, though . . . they just don’t make sense to me. If there’s a formula to find a right answer, I can nail it. But in classes like these, all I see are degrees of rightness and wrongness, and I’ve had to work hard to uncover those. In the end, I always get my A—I’ve never received anything but an A in anything, including gym—but those grades certainly never fell into my lap.
The door to the side of the chalkboard opens and a graying man in a black turtleneck and wire-rimmed glasses enters, carrying a stack of books and papers to the desk at the front. I smile. Finally, one thing that’s consistent with how I always pictured Princeton to be.
“Hey, Irish.”
The Ivy League’s walking contradiction takes the seat right next to me. His tall frame fills out his space and encroaches on some of mine.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss, turning to see Ashton in dark jeans and a sky blue shirt. I’m starting to recognize it as his typical style—flawless but careless. And he can pull it off, too, because he has a body that would make leopard-print tights look hot.
Sitting up straight in his chair, he looks around the room. “This is Professor Dalton’s English lit class, right?”
“I know what class this is!” I bark, and then temper my tone, catching the professor’s eyes flicker up at us from his podium. “Why are you here?”
“I’m a student and I’m here to take his class,” he answers slowly, his expression somber. “Some of us are here for a serious education, Irish. Not just to party.”
I glare at him, fighting the urge to punch him in the face again. There’s a mischievous twinkle in his eye, which is quickly followed by the crooked smile I’ve come to know as Ashton’s trademark flirt move. One that obviously worked on me when I was drunk but will definitely not work on me when I’m sober and annoyed.
“You’re a senior.”
“You seem to know a lot about me, Irish.”
Gritting my teeth, I simply stare at him, waiting for his answer. Finally he shrugs, making a display of opening up his notebook and clicking his pen a few times. “Had a course to burn and this one was open.”
“Bullshit!” The word bursts out of my mouth before I can stop it. This time the professor looks up from his notes to stare at us directly, and I feel my cheeks burn under the scrutiny. When he looks down, I turn back to Ashton.
“Relax, Irish. At least you know one person in the room now.”
He has a point, I think, as I look around at a sea of unfamiliar faces. “And I suppose you’re going to sit beside me every single class?”
“I don’t know. You seem like an angry student. I’m not sure I want the prof associating me with you.”
I shift away from him intentionally, earning a derisive snort. “So the fact that you saw my schedule has nothing to do with picking this course?” I ask.
“What? You think I’m taking this just because you’re in it? Why would I do that?” There’s a playful quirk in his brow.
Good question. But I still know it plain in my gut: he’s here because I am. I just don’t know why. “How’d you get in, anyway? I thought there was a wait list for this.”
I see his fingers running back and forth over that worn leather band around his wrist. “I know one of the ladies in the registrar’s office.”
“Perhaps the one you had over on Saturday night?” I blurt out, the image of that stupid red sock still burning in my mind, reconfirming how wrong he is.
He pauses and then turns to look at me, cocking his head. “Are you jealous, Irish?”