Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,149

paper for cinema class yet. It’s due tomorrow night.”

“Oh, saying that, I finished mine. I can edit yours when you’re done if you want.”

“Did you miss the part about it’s not even written yet?” he asked, and Taylor heard the stress in his voice.

“Eh,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It’s only 8:30. You used to knock out papers in an hour back in high school. I’m sure some of those you wrote at midnight.”

“Yeah, when I was young and dumb.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re old. Twenty-one is hardly over the hill.”

“Maybe not, but it sure feels like it.”

Although she really wanted to study the psychology stuff, Taylor dutifully got out her Stats while Greg sat on the floor, his laptop on the coffee table as he checked his notes and typed things in. All was quiet, though there were three of them in the room. Without being obvious, Taylor let her gaze slide up to the two of them. This was so much better than the dorms.

“What year was Leopold from?” Greg asked, flipping back and forth in his notes.

“1876,” Taylor said as she dropped her gaze back to her own work. “Albany, New York,” she said in answer to the question he hadn’t even asked yet.

“K. Thanks.”

“Yep.”

It was honestly a good thing that Taylor and Nelson were in the room with him, or Greg would surely have given up long before his paper was finished. As it was, the clock had gone well past ten before he raised his hands in victory. “Done.”

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Taylor said.

He put his head back on the couch and ran his hands down his face. “Says you.”

“Here.” She put her hands out past his shoulder for the laptop. “Gimmee.”

Carefully he handed it back to her. When it was gone and he let himself relax, he realized he wasn’t kidding. Exhaustion was waiting on the other side of the breath as he pulled himself up to the couch and settled there to watch her work her magic. He didn’t know how she did that—taking what he had said and making it sing, but he’d watched her do it many times over the years. His gaze slipped up to her, and he let himself think that it was nice to have her here, where she was safe. The thought tugged his eyelids down, and with no reason not to, he slid off into oblivion.

Taylor was truly impressed. His writing had gotten much better even from the economics paper she had read the semester before, but definitely since high school. She changed two words and added three commas. “See, I told you…” However, when she turned to him, she found him breathing peacefully, slowly, rhythmically. “Greg?”

In the chair, Nelson looked up and shook his head with a laugh. “Wow, that didn’t take long.”

“Greg?” Taylor said again, softer. “Hey.” Reaching over, she touched his arm and rubbed there gently. “Greg?”

“Wh…? Huh?” He came awake, shook his head, and squinted. Quickly he sat up. “Yeah? What?”

She smiled at him. Maybe studying for the other test tonight wasn’t such a good idea. “Your paper’s done.”

“Oh, really. Already?” He accepted the laptop back as he shook his head to get himself to wake back up. “How bad was it?”

“Pretty good actually. Made me want to watch all three movies again just for the fun of it.”

“Huh. Wow. Okay. But not tonight.”

Taylor laughed. “Do you have anything else you need to get done?”

Next to her, Greg hit save and print before yawning again. “Some Poli Sci that’s due Friday night.”

“How long’s that going to take?”

He yawned again and stretched long and hard. “I don’t know, like 30 minutes?”

“Okay. Well, why don’t you work on that? I’ll stay up and read some and make sure you don’t fall asleep.”

“You don’t have to.”

“If I don’t, will you get it done?”

“Probably not.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Here, hand me that thing, and I’m going to print some stuff off right quick.”

He handed it to her. “Take all the time you need.”

“Not going to take two minutes,” she said. “Don’t you dare go to sleep.”

Settling down in the cushions, he closed his eyes, and truly it looked like even that was enough to have him in dreamland.

Nelson looked over. “Too late.”

Chapter 21

Thankfully, Greg was much more awake on Wednesday. They spent the day first in class, then tangling with the housing department. There still wasn’t a room to be found, but at least now they were “working on it.”