by Payton Reed
Dalton curled his lip slightly. “I’m not making any promises.” He stepped closer, putting his arm around her waist again. “I want you, and you want me. Why don’t you just admit that, and we can get it out of our systems? Or if it doesn’t get it out of our systems, then maybe we end up doing something crazy, like being happy together.”
“I’m not giving up Lex or Jonas or…” She trailed off, thinking better of mentioning Kip. She didn’t want Dalton to report him for inappropriate behavior, though they’d hardly done anything. She wasn’t certain she could trust him, though she felt she could trust Lex and Jonas, even with Lex having rejected her.
Wrenching away from him, she shook her head and started running. Dalton didn’t call her back, but she could imagine he was wearing a triumphant expression. He must feel like he was on the verge of winning. The scary thing was, she couldn’t pretend there wasn’t any truth to that.
She tried to push him from her mind as she went to Dorm A and up to Lex’s floor. She saw a few familiar faces in the fourth-floor rec room, including Wills. She approached him, struggling to hide her distaste, since she’d never warmed up to him and vice versa. “Is Lex in your room?”
Wills shook his head. He was looking at his phone and didn’t bother to look up.
With a sigh of impatience, she put her hand in front of the screen.
“Hey, what’s your problem?” he snapped as he looked up.
“I’m trying to get your attention. Is Lex in your room?”
“No, and he doesn’t want to see anyone, anyway.” Wills managed to glance up just long enough to meet her gaze and tell her that. He was back to looking at his phone a millisecond later.
She was certain he was lying, especially with the part at the end about Lex not wanting to see anyone, but she couldn’t force him to tell her the truth, and she wasn’t going to try to sneak past the resident advisor’s room to see if she could get Lex to come out and talk to her.
She was going to have to accept defeat for the day, but she wasn’t giving up. She just needed Lex to listen to her, to keep an open mind, and maybe she could fix this before it was irreparably broken. She clung to that hope as she returned to her dorm, struggling not to cry.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Willow
Willow tried several times the next day to get Lex alone, but he was obviously and pointedly ignoring her. The one time she was almost successful outside the dining hall, he put up a hand and turned the opposite direction. She could have chased after him, but what was the use? He clearly wasn’t ready to talk to her. He might never want to speak to her again.
The thought left her breathless, but not in a good way. Her chest ached, and she rubbed the spot where it hurt. Seeing Dalton and Malone, along with their friends, coming toward her, she turned and went the opposite direction. She decided she had no appetite for lunch, and while she briefly toyed with the idea of joining Jonas, she was afraid to two days in a row. Instead, she went for a walk.
Her thoughts were on anything but the lovely scenery around her as she walked from the school. She made her way past the lake and down a path she hadn’t explored yet. After going through an overgrowth of trees that shaded the walkway, she emerged into a clearing. Immediately, she realized these must be the cottages used by the staff.
They were all small and quaint, built from stone with gabled roofs. They would have been perfect for any time period between the 1700s and the early 1900s. She hesitated for a moment before starting to turn around. As she did so, a flash at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned back. She grimaced when she saw Suzanne exiting one of the cottages, but then she got a little tingle of excitement.
Kip had said his cottage was near Suzanne’s, and there were only three possibilities around hers. She was still depressed about Lex, but she couldn’t help a little blip of excitement now that she roughly knew where Kip lived.
She turned and rushed away, telling herself she wouldn’t actually use her newfound knowledge. She didn’t want to get Kip in trouble, and he had pointedly not told her where he lived. She told herself she would respect that, even as she started wondering if she could sneak out of her dorm later that night.
When she returned to school, she went to Suzanne’s math class, being the first to arrive. Fortunately, other students trickled in before Suzanne arrived, sparing her from being stuck with the professor alone.
Dalton took the seat behind her, and she groaned when he picked up her braid, gently tugging. It wasn’t the same kind of hairpulling he’d done the first time he sat behind her in math, and it was making hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She shivered slightly, especially when his hand moved from her braid to her neck, his fingers stroking lightly.
With a concentrated effort, she shook her head and scooted forward a couple of inches as Suzanne entered the classroom. Dalton didn’t have a chance to follow, to her relief.
Suzanne began immediately and as had become her routine, she practically had Willow stationed at the blackboard. Surely, everyone else had noticed how Suzanne singled her out, and it certainly wasn’t in a good way. No one complained though, probably relieved they didn’t have to be the one to work the problem in front of everyone.
The first three went well, but the fourth one was stumping her. When she got to the third step, she sighed and went back to start over again. After two attempts, she turned to Suzanne and issued words she’d never spoken to her before. “I don’t understand this one.”
Suzanne was grinning gleefully, clearly enjoying Willow’s lack of comprehension. “You should be careful. You’d hate not to graduate.” Suzanne’s tone revealed she’d love to see that happen.
Willow rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I’m in danger of failing because I don’t get this one compared to all the many, many problems you’ve had me work in the past.”
Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing,” said Willow, striving to hold her temper. “I’m just pointing out that I’ve done many problems for you, and this is the first one I haven’t been able to solve. I’m sure I’ll pick it up though.”
Suzanne looked like she was on the verge of screaming for a moment, but then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Who can solve this problem?”
“I can,” said Dalton as he lifted a hand.
“Then come up, Mr. Westerly. Sit down, Munroe.” She smirked in satisfaction at Willow, who turned to leave.
Before she could walk away from the blackboard, Dalton stood in front of her. He blocked her path, forcing her to turn back. He stood far too close to her, especially in front of the class, as he started working the problem with her pinned between him and the chalkboard.
She tried to wiggle away, and he pressed a hand firmly to her hip, keeping her against him. She didn’t miss the hard length of his erection poking into her hip as he worked the problem, and she briefly wondered how he had enough blood flow to his brain to comprehend the equation.
“This is where you went wrong,” he said near her ear, breath wafting against her neck. “You forgot to work this step. Exponents before multiplication, right?”
She let out a shaky breath as she nodded. “Of course.” There was a slight stutter to her words that she hoped no one else noticed.
Dalton finished it and stepped back. She breathed a sigh of relief and darted away from him, returning quickly to her desk while Suzanne praised Dalton. She made it sound like he’d solved all the problems in the universe. The woman certainly never praised Willow that way when she got equations correct. Not that she expected her to. Suzanne clearly hated her and was jealous of her, and Willow took a small measure of satisfaction from knowing that jealousy was justified. Kip wanted her, not Suzanne.
She ducked out of class as soon as she could afterward, wanting to avoid the whispers and stares. That he had stood so close to her hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Willow had enough to deal with without gossip. She hoped people interpreted it
as he was finally getting over his resentment of having her there, rather than recognizing there was certainly an element of attraction to his interaction.
She rushed to her next class, hoping she could get Lex to sit with her. She took a seat at the table, eyes on the door. She waited eagerly for him to appear, but when he did, he glanced briefly at her before meaningfully sitting on the other side of the room. Her stomach dropped, and she barely noticed when Beth took a seat beside her.
“What’s going on?” asked Beth.
She blinked and looked up. “Huh?”
Beth waved over the table where Lex sat, and the other seat was occupied by a pretty blonde girl whose name Willow had forgotten, if she’d ever known it. “You usually sit with Lex, and I sit with Lauren.”
Willow shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. We had a fight, I guess you could say.”
“Is it because of the rumors?”
“What rumors?” asked Willow carefully.
“I just heard in the hallway on my way here that Dalton was all over you in math class. Surely, Lex doesn’t believe that?”
With a groan, Willow laid her head on the table, barely resisting the urge to pound her forehead against it a few times to see if that could bring some clarity. “For goodness’ sake, it just happened last period. How the hell do people spread stuff so fast?”
Beth gasped. “It’s true?” She looked shocked when Willow turned her head to look up at her. “I thought you and Lex were…” She shrugged. “And doesn’t Dalton hate you?”
“Probably as much as I hate him.” A funny little squiggly feeling in her stomach when she said it told her that wasn’t entirely true. Dalton still wasn’t her favorite person, but she no longer hated him. It was hard to do so when she wanted him and had shared such intimacy with him.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t think that’s the problem. Lex and I argued last night.” Technically, it was about Dalton, but she wasn’t going to share that even with Beth, who was a friend, though not as close a friend as Octavia. She couldn’t even imagine telling Octavia what was going on, and they’d gotten pretty close.
“Well, you know gossip. If there’s no substance to it—”
Willow snorted. “It’ll still circulate if it’s juicy enough. All he did was stand behind me to work a math problem and explain to me where I went wrong. There was nothing suggestive or scandalous about it.” Except when he stood close enough to breathe onto her neck, and he’d been aroused as he stood behind her. Other than that, there was nothing to gossip about. Yeah, right?
“It’ll die down. Once people see there’s no truth, it really will stop circulating. And if that’s not what Lex was upset about, I’m sure you guys will make up. You’re obviously good friends, and I thought you were more.” There was definitely a question in her tone.
Willow chose not to answer, not wanting to discuss her love life with anyone at the moment. When it came to Lex, she wasn’t even certain she could call it a love life anymore. She still cared deeply about him, but she wasn’t sure how much he cared about her. Right now, he was angry and likely fueling feelings of hatred toward her rather than trying to find a way to forgive her and move on. She had to let him have the time he needed, though the thought was heartbreaking—especially if it led to him hating her.
Finally, school ended for the day, and she hid in her dorm room to study. If she hadn’t been starving after having skipped lunch, she would have stayed there all evening. Finally, she got brave enough to leave her dorm toward the end of dining hall hours. Fortunately, she was able to slip in and out with only seeing Beth, who was serving some hot dishes this evening. She took her tray with her to her room and holed up there.
She woke with an uncomfortable ache in her neck and realized she had fallen asleep while sitting at her desk. She sat up slowly, stretching quietly. A glance at the window revealed it must be late, and she could hear Isis snoring softly across the room. She looked at the clock on her desk and gasped quietly when she saw it was after one a.m.
She’d slept for several hours, likely because she hadn’t been able to sleep well the previous night after her argument with Lex. She stretched again before getting to her feet and realized she wasn’t at all sleepy. It seemed unlikely that she’d get back to sleep at this point. A quick look confirmed she’d finished the rest of her homework before falling asleep, so that offered no way to occupy herself.
She considered working ahead but discarded the idea. Her brain wasn’t into it. Instead, she took a novel and moved to her bed, opening the page to where she’d left off on “Tess Of The d’Urbervilles.” It was a catch-up read for Kip’s class, but it wasn’t holding her attention. With a sigh, she set it aside after a few minutes.
She laid on her back and stared at the ceiling for a bit longer, trying to talk herself out of what she wanted to do. Every cell in her body was urging her to go to Kip’s place and spend some time with him. She knew that was a bad idea. It was reckless and foolish. If she got caught sneaking out, she’d probably be suspended or expelled. If she got caught in his cottage, he’d be fired, and she’d certainly be expelled.
Telling herself she wasn’t actually going to do it, she sat up and grabbed her shoes. Carrying them in her hand, she tiptoed out of the dorm room after verifying she had her keycard in her pocket. She’d changed into comfortable sweats and a T-shirt after class, so she was able to move unrestricted.
She tiptoed down the hallway, pausing when one of the boards squeaked under her foot. She’d never noticed it doing that before, but that was probably because there was always a low level of noise in the dorms—except at one a.m., apparently.
After she froze and counted to ten, and there was no sign of Edna’s door opening, she resumed tiptoeing again. Willow swore she held her breath the whole time she slipped past Edna’s door. There were no telltale squeaking boards to reveal her presence, and she managed to get to the landing. At that point, she let out a heavy exhalation as she started down the stairs.
Going down the stairs was a relatively simple matter, since she didn’t get off at the second-floor landing. The first floor proved little challenge for her, since the Resident Advisor’s room was farther down the hallway. She slipped past the main floor rec room, relieved to find no one there, and outside into the night before she paused to put on her shoes.
Glancing around from the alcove of the stairs, she looked out at the grounds and saw no sign of life. She wasn’t certain what she’d been expecting. Armed guards with sniffer dogs? Of course not. This was a respectable establishment that didn’t require constant policing of its well-heeled students. She snorted at the thought, doubting she was the first girl who’d ever sneaked out of her dorm to visit a teacher.
Her stomach clenched with fear and excitement when she started running. She didn’t scamper or dash. She flat-out ran like those imaginary sniffer dogs were chasing her. She didn’t stop until she was far enough away from the school buildings that she didn’t think she’d be seen. Then she rested against a tree for a moment as she caught her breath before heading down the path to the staff cottages.
It was a kind of creepy passing under the canopy of trees that provided shade during the daytime. She jumped and barely bit back a scream when an owl hooted behind her. She shot a furtive glare in its direction, muttering a curse as she walked on.
She emerged into the clearing where the cottages were a moment later, and then her detective work began. She knew Suzanne’s, so she just had to figure out to whom the other cottages belonged. Fortunately, there were quaint mailboxes right in front of each cottage, and they were all labeled with the instructors’ last names. Kip’s cottage was kitty-corner to Suzanne’s, and she felt sorry for him having to live so close to the harpy.
Now that she had reached his cottage, it took a surprising amount of courage to walk the rest of the way toward the front door. Was he going to be happy to see her, or would he be angry? Would he let her come in, or would he send her away? There was o
nly one way to find out, but she decided to detour to the back door instead, since his front step provided too good of a view for Suzanne if she happened to look out her patio door.
She slipped around to the back, finding a similar sliding glass patio door set in the antiquated stone like the one at Suzanne’s cottage. With a deep breath for courage, she knocked lightly. Willow held her breath as she waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. With a grimace at the noise, she knocked a little harder. She wanted him to be able to hear her, but she didn’t want other people in other cottages to overhear her knocking.
She was about to give up, knowing she couldn’t knock any louder, when she saw a light flip on. It must have been farther in the recesses of the cottage, since it only provided dim illumination, but it was enough for her to see Kip coming. He went straight to his front door and opened it, looking around for a moment and shrugging before closing it.
She knocked lightly again on the patio door, and he stiffened before turning her direction. There wasn’t enough light to read his expression until he reached the door, but when he did, he was clearly upset. “What are you doing here?” he asked softly but with clear censure.
She shrugged. “I wanted to see you.”
Kip rubbed his eyes. “This is a really bad idea.”
She was about to offer to leave, to suggest they forget the whole thing, when he slid the door open wider and stepped back. She held her breath for a moment before she crossed the threshold. She knew he was right. This was a terrible idea, yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from entering his home, just as she’d been unable to resist the urge to slip out to start with to find him.
Chapter Thirty
Willow
