the sofa across from mine and stretched his arms across the back. “Did I ever stop?”
“Oh, please. You’ve been avoiding me for almost two weeks, and we both know it.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He graced me with the smallest of grins. “But it’s only because I was in a mood, and I didn’t want to subject you to it.”
“A mood” might have been a bit of an understatement, considering it was on my list of things to fix. But the fact that Hayle was here with me now was a good sign. Maybe I’d get to check him off sooner than expected.
“What are you working on?” he asked.
“French.” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Please tell me you’re an expert on the subject, because I could really use a tutor.”
“Sorry. I’m taking Mandarin.”
“Mandarin? Is that even offered at Harbor U?”
“Technically, no.” He shot me a cocky grin. “But I got special permission to take online courses from a foreign language institute.”
“Of course, you did.” Such an overachiever. “Well, if you know anyone who excels at French, send them my way. I suck at this class.”
“Have you tried Extra Credit?”
“I don’t think the professor offers it, but I guess I can ask.”
He laughed. “No, Extra Credit is the name of an app. You don’t know about it?”
“No...”
His expression brightened with excitement. “It’s genius. It allows struggling students to connect with other students who already took and aced a particular course. There are free and paid tutoring options, and you can either meet in person or use the private messaging feature to communicate.
“You can also connect with experts in different fields worldwide. For instance, I was writing a paper on the phenomenon of women being accused of being witches in the seventeenth century for a history class last year and reached out to a historian who specializes in the Salem witch trials. She was able to hook me up with all kinds of sources I never would have found on my own. Pretty cool, huh?”
I gaped at him. I didn’t know if I’d ever heard him string so many words together at one time. “You wrote a paper on witches?”
“Yeah. It’s a fascinating subject. The accusations rose from preconceived notions of the role of women in the community combined with rising tensions from a number of sources. I really enjoyed reading about it.”
Who was this animated guy, and what did he do with his typically apathetic attitude?
“Well, thanks. I’ll have to check out the app.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it. Cole Reid made a huge splash a couple of years ago when he launched it.”
“Who?”
His mouth dropped open. “You haven’t heard of Cole Reid either? The developer of the Strike dating app?”
“I mean, I’ve heard of Strike, but that’s about it.”
“He’s developed some of the most innovative apps of the last decade and is a true self-made millionaire, if not billionaire by now. Download the Queen of Hearts app too. It’s the best avatar creation app out there, and rumor is, it was inspired by his wife, Emma.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you have a man crush on this guy.”
Hayle laughed. “Yeah, because he’s freaking smart. I bet if you look up his picture online, you’ll have a real crush on him.”
I couldn’t resist grinning back at him. “I might have to take you up on that. Were you visiting Lily?” I asked. He wasn’t generally an outdoorsy guy. Which meant, if he’d been taking the trail that went past the gazebo, it was most likely because he’d gone to visit his mother.
I still found it hard to believe that Vincent had built his ex-wife a house on the property. He’d made sure he’d been granted full custody of all three of his sons. So, what had inspired him to keep the mother of only one of them close?
It was a puzzle, but undoubtedly the least important of the ones to be solved.
“Yeah.” Hayle lifted a hand to push that perpetually unruly lock of hair off his forehead. “She keeps insisting on having Tristin and Leo over for dinner, and I don’t know how to break it to her that it’ll never happen.”
I wanted to argue that it was possible, but after last night, I had to agree with him. Tristin wasn’t setting foot on Sharpe land unless flying monkeys kidnapped him and dumped him here. Or, maybe, if there was a wizard involved. But I didn’t see either happening.