Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,190

in and sitting next to him.

“Morning,” Greg mumbled more out of sleep deprivation than annoyance, though by the sound of it, it could have gone either way.

She frowned at him, not bothering with her supplies. “Okay, so I’m guessing by the sound of that you didn’t get your paper finished this morning?”

“You’re guessing right.”

With a nod, she started pulling out her things. “That’s what I was afraid of. Okay, well, after class we’ll go to the house. I’ll make us some lunch, and you can just hit the books the rest of the day. I can edit the paper when it’s finished. What else do you have to get done?”

He felt bad for dragging her along on this impossible mission. “You don’t have to…”

However, she slammed her notebook on the desk and stared at him. “You’re really going to argue with me?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, when we get home…”

They had exactly five-and-a-half hours from the time Chemistry let out until they were both scheduled to be back in labs again. Taylor used the walk home to tease out of him all the things he had to get done. Even to her, it looked like a mountain, but she wasn’t about to give him the slightest hint that she was worried he might not get it all done.

“Paper’s first,” she said when they walked in. “You sit there and get that done. I’ll make lunch.” She knew he wanted to argue, but she didn’t give him the chance. “Leftovers or sandwiches?”

He tossed his backpack to the coffee table and sat on the couch in a slump. “Sandwiches.”

“Got it. Now get to work.”

The rest of the afternoon, they sat in the living room. When he was working on his stuff, she got out her laptop, put in the little earbuds and turned on Hauser and his lovely senorita mix-list as she studied a little for stats and finished up her chem lab assignment. Every so often she would glance over at him to make sure he was still working. He was, and she marveled a little at that. It was like with an army arrayed against him ready to take him down, he just didn’t give up unless he was so exhausted, he just laid where he fell.

She was impressed by that more than she would ever have thought possible. He was so different than the other guys she’d been with. Not that she was with him-with him, but still… Life wasn’t about parties and games with him. He was going somewhere. Somewhere good. And he was working his butt off to get there.

“Okay, that’s done,” he said, and her gaze came up to him.

“Great. What’s next?”

He sat back and folded his hands on his stomach before sitting back up and rubbing his hands down his face. “The poli sci test is due by Friday at midnight.”

“You’re working Friday, right?”

“Yep.”

Counting up the hours between now and Friday midnight, she ran out of them really fast.

“Can you take the test now? Are you ready for it?”

“I probably need to look over the review,” he said with a long sigh. “The professor said that would really help.”

“How long is the test?”

“Fifty questions and I have an hour and a half to do it.”

Taylor nodded, counted up the time again. “You’d be done by three-thirty. I say you do it now, get one more thing off the list.”

He blew out a hard breath. “Does this ever get any easier?”

“Might help if you didn’t take 16 hours and try to work like a madman at the same time.”

“That’s an option?” he asked, and it sounded like he really meant it.

Leaning forward, Taylor took out the other earbud and looked at him. “Not that it’s any of my business, but why do you do that? I mean, what are you going so hard for?”

Greg shrugged. “Guess I’m just trying not to be a disappointment.”

That drew her face into a frown. “That’s kind of harsh.”

He shrugged again. “It’s called the truth.” With a breath, he tapped on the laptop keys. “I’d better get started if I’m going to get this done.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she put the earbud back in, but the word stayed with her the rest of the afternoon.

“In many ways, all forms of art are ways to be let into the creator’s dreams,” Professor Leigh said Wednesday night when they had made it to cinema. In all honesty, Greg was grateful for Taylor’s persistent badgering.

On his own, he would never have gotten so much done. They hadn’t