a complete freaking asshole the rest of the time.
And I hated him for it.
“How many do you have written?” he whispered.
I startled, as if he’d overheard my mind’s ramblings. I took a second to pull my thoughts together, then glanced to my notebook. “Six.”
“Six?”
“Do you have more?”
He shook his head.
I sighed. “The point of having a partner is to share information. We can compare our notes at the end.”
He yanked my notebook from my hands.
“You’re seriously the rudest guy I’ve ever met.”
He held his palm to his chest. “Should I be honored?”
I pressed my lips together, hating that he used my own line on me—again. “You can have my answers, but we still need to write the paper together.”
“I have something every day this week. This needs to get done tonight.”
“We have class at eight,” I said, noting it was nearing ten.
He handed me back my notebook. “Yeah, well, we need to get this done tonight. You better type fast.”
Rude and bossy.
The film ended an hour later. As the credits rolled, I pulled out my laptop and opened a blank document.
“Just add me to the doc and we can do every other paragraph,” he said.
“Fine. But let’s brainstorm a direction and we’ll type as we talk.”
For the next two hours, we shared ideas, combined them, and shockingly composed a hell of a paper. Though I’d never say it out loud, Chase was a lot smarter than I expected.
“I’m not sure how they did things at your old school, but you need to submit essays through the university portal,” he said.
“Done.” I sent it off to the professor through the portal. “We had that in Maine, too.”
He gathered his stuff. “Why’d you transfer here, anyway?”
Surprised by the personal question, I shrugged. “I wanted to be closer to home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Chantel didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head as he slung his backpack over his back. “We don’t do a whole lot of talking.”
Of course, they didn’t. “I’m from Cedarville. It’s a small town about forty-five minutes from here.”
He nodded.
The urge to ask where he was from came over me, but I refrained for fear of the evil Chase rearing his ugly head.
He pushed himself to his feet. “You ready?”
I gathered my bag as he ejected the movie and brought it back to the desk, dropping it in the returns box.
He met me at the door, surprising me by opening it and holding it for me. We journeyed through the now-deserted sixth floor toward the elevator. The elevator eventually arrived, and we stepped in, closed alone inside once again. I shuffled my feet, maintaining a comfortable distance between us. I hated that I could hear his steady breathing, and that damn cologne had followed me, taunting me with its freshness.
The elevator stopped on the main floor and the doors opened. Relieved to be free of the closed-in space, I walked toward the exit. We stepped outside and descended the steps together. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said.
“Fuck that.”
My brows shot up.
“You’re not walking back to the dorms alone.”
“I’m not?”
He shook his head, taking off in the direction of my dorm.
“I’m fine,” I said, following after him. “I’ve got mace and a phone.”
He stopped and spun toward me, anger brewing in his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you make a habit of putting yourself in unsafe situations for a reason?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The scene at the frat house.”
I threw my hands out to my sides. “The scene you made?”
He dragged his hands through his hair. “Stop trusting people you don’t know. It’s like you’re hell bent on throwing yourself into the lion’s den.”
My face scrunched. Lion’s den? “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re too trusting.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not even your friend. So, you need to stop telling me what to do.”
He ground his teeth together and his jaw ticked.
“I’ll take that ticking in your jaw as you understanding.” I spun away from him and hurried toward the path that led to my dorm, leaving him in the dark. I didn’t turn around, though the sound of snapping branches along the path gave me pause numerous time. But my need to prove I was strong urged me on.
When I finally spotted the light at the front of my dorm, I breathed a sigh of relief. I reached the door and scanned my I.D. card. The door unlocked and I stepped inside. Once I stood safely alone in the front foyer, I