Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,69

at her watch, she realized it was time for lunch. “Are we doing lunch here or what?”

“Oh. Uh. I was planning on it,” he said. “I hate that walk when it’s like this outside.”

The weather wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t sunshine and warmth either.

Taylor slammed her book. “Sounds good to me. I’m starved.”

They’d only been at the little table for five minutes with their respective sandwiches when Greg looked up and saw trouble walk in like it owned the place. Oh, no. He ducked, but really, there was nowhere to hide. Unfortunately, Taylor noticed his vain attempt to disappear, and she turned only to find the three people she’d been trying to avoid since Sunday.

“Hey, guys,” Nelson said, stepping up. He put one hand on the table while the other arm was around Paige who looked ready to bolt, and next to her was Lauren. If Paige was in flight-mode, Lauren was clearly in fight-mode.

“Oh, h-hey.” Taylor raked her fingers through the top of her hair to send it cascading over her shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” Nelson said, his gaze only on Taylor. Greg didn’t blame him. She was rockin’ the casual-cool look today. However, the way she was looking at Nelson did all kinds of bad things to his belief that there was anything to whatever this was they were doing together. “You guys mind if we sit with you?”

“Oh. Uh,” Taylor said, and without so much as glancing at Greg, she scooted her chair to the side and pushed the other one out. “Don’t mind at all.”

It was easy to see that everyone knew how awkward this was, but Taylor was determined to fix this if that was even possible. She ate slowly so she wouldn’t be finished by the time the others got their food. When everyone was settled, she zeroed in on the one person who at least was semi-glad she was there.

“So, Nels, how’re classes? How was that studio thing last night?” Taylor asked.

She saw Paige’s gaze slip over to Nelson and there was a cut of anger on it. Nelson glanced at Paige, thought better of it, and dove into his sandwich.

“Good,” he said, nodding in Taylor’s general direction as he took a drink. “We’re doing this project for recording class. It’s just supposed to be like a minute of a song, but it’s got to have everything—guitar, keys, vocals. Patrick, one of the guys who’s already been through sound mixing, showed up, so that was majorly helpful.”

“I’ll bet,” Taylor said. “So, sound mixing? Studio work? That’s like a new thing, a new program or something?”

Nelson glanced again at Paige, and he looked positively trapped. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah. It is.”

“That’s so cool,” Taylor said. “Do you play or just do the mixing stuff?”

“Oh. Uh, I play too. Fill-ins mostly. Guitar, some piano.”

Taylor smiled. “No drums?”

He laughed. “No, no drums. Not yet anyway.”

“Give it time,” she said.

“We’ll see.”

By the time lunch was over and the others left, Greg felt sick to his stomach. The only good thing that could be said was that there were no actual punches thrown though gauging by Lauren’s expressions, that was actually a small miracle.

“You going back to the dorms?” Greg asked, gathering up his backpack.

“Oh,” Taylor said in something of surprise. “Uh, not planning on it. The less time I spend in that room, the better.”

“Oh,” he said in surprise.

“Were you going home?” she asked, and he couldn’t quite read what she wasn’t saying.

“Uh, actually I was thinking about going over to the student center until lab. It’s quieter over there.”

“Oh. Okay.” Only then did she seem unsteady. “You mind if I join you? I promise, I’ll let you work. Maybe we could look at the Chem stuff, get a jump on it, you know?”

Really, he knew the danger of this. He’d felt it all through lunch. Just seeing her look at Nelson like that… But he couldn’t do that to her, and he knew it. “Sure. Why not?”

They spent a couple of hours at the student center, and remarkably, Greg really did get a lot done. At four, they went to their respective science labs—him to Physics II, her to Chem II. Afterward, they met and grabbed some food at one of the dorm cafeterias. It wasn’t too bad actually. By the time seven rolled around, they were seated right next to each other in a room that housed at least 500 people, and many of the seats were filled. Thankfully, the earlier feelings he’d had at lunch