Dancing for the Lord The Academy - By Emily Goodman Page 0,51
started speaking a foreign language. Oh. She smiled at him—a dazzlingly bright smile that told him that no matter how difficult it might have been, telling her the truth had been the right thing to do. “I enjoy being around you, too,” she admitted shyly. “It’s nice…having another believer around.”
“Precious few of them around here.” Nick bent, gathering his things and tossing them haphazardly into his bag. He’d clean it out later…like after The Nutcracker was over. “I’m sorry,” he told her seriously. “I didn’t mean to blame you for any of this—because none of it is your fault.”
“Apology accepted.” She hesitated, but the look in his eyes was so wistful that she couldn’t do anything else: she leaned over and gave him a firm, reassuring hug. “You still want my company?” she asked as she pulled away.
Nick nodded, half relieved that his confession hadn’t scared her and half intrigued by her question.
“Want to go study for a few hours? I think we’ve done all the damage we can do in here today.” The offer was a genuine one; her eyes even sparkled as she gave it.
“That sounds…good,” Nick admitted slowly. “Very good, actually.” He tried for a smile. “I don’t guess you’d be willing to take it back to my place, let me ice my shoulder while we work?”
“There’s ice at my place, too,” she pointed out. “And I have a bigger stack of pillows than you do.” She grinned. “Not to mention the fact that I actually know where all of my textbooks are.”
“Oh, well, when you put it that way.” He hadn’t actually misplaced his. He knew where they were…mostly. It was just that his math book—always his weakest subject, and the one that he liked the least as a result—was under his bed.
Somewhere.
And now that Danni mentioned it, he didn’t particularly feel like digging for it, either. “Your place it is,” he informed her grandly.
The one thing that neither of them had taken into consideration—the thing that they had forgotten, as they teased one another and enjoyed each other’s company—was that Katarina was in Danni’s dorm. She had made herself scarce for the first week or so; and that scarcity had given them a false sense of security. They had gotten used to the fact that yes, she was around somewhere, but there was no reason for them to worry about her.
There was just one problem with that mentality: Katarina was feeling better. She had learned how to navigate on her crutches, and she was tired of sulking up in her room, playing the part of the injured princess and allowing anyone who was interested to wait on her hand and foot.
She was downstairs in the common room when they got there.
Danni, for the most part, ignored her. It was how she typically treated the other girl; thanks to Katarina’s injury, she was at least less inclined to spit bile at her every time she turned around, and Danni was doing her best to take advantage of that fact.
Unfortunately, for Nicholas to ignore Katarina would have been the height of rudeness. They had been partners for several months, and even developed a tentative friendship. If he walked by without acknowledging her, she would be insulted—and not only that, she would probably have a whole new set of nasty things to say about him in front of half of the Academy.
Bad enough that she had tried to trash his reputation when she got hurt. It would be worse if she went after him again now.
So he sighed, lifted a quick prayer for strength heavenward, and leaned in the doorway to the common room, making sure to prop his good shoulder against the wall and not the bad. “Hey, Katarina,” he said quietly. Caution made him keep his voice low; his determination to not make her angry again reminded him to use her full name, as he almost never did when speaking about her. “How are you feeling?”
She glared up at him. “Better—no thanks to you,” she said sourly. “What, is it too much effort to pick up a blasted telephone and call to see how your partner is? She doesn’t have any trouble with it.” She transferred her glower behind him, guessing that if he was there, Danni probably wasn’t far behind.
As it happened, she wasn’t—well, she was in the kitchen, retrieving an ice pack for Nick’s shoulder and letting Mrs. Baxter know that he was there. Unfortunately, she wasn’t close enough to come to his defense.