Page 10 of Defend Me

“I have a chapter to finish and if I hit that too hard, it’ll never get done.”

It was the opposite for me, but I didn’t feel the need to say that. Not knowing what else to do, I smiled at him before he turned around.

Brooks returned to his place beside his friends and immediately struck up a conversation. They looked content together, like their relationship was easy, not shallow. At first glance, they were a bit of an odd group, but I didn’t like to judge a book by its cover.

Someone below howled like a wolf. I wrinkled my nose as I watched the overly boisterous quarterback sprint back to the field. He vaulted over the railing and basically tackled another guy. The blonde guy’s boyfriend gripped his hair and tipped his head back to kiss him, then joined his friend in a slightly less insane manner.

Awkward. That was my cue to dip, so I shoved my book and notepad back into my messenger bag, then made my way across to the other side so I could bypass them on the way down.

I wondered what it was like to be that free in your own skin. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was in any way. I was just all too aware of the eyes around me. Who the hell wanted to draw that much attention to themselves?

Not me.

*****

“Tilian!”

I literally just walked out of my dorm, for fuck’s sake.

With a deep breath, I turned to look at Dean. He was jogging down the hall with a bright smile. It made my own lips tug upward a little.

He was a football player, which generally wouldn’t be my crowd, but he didn’t make it his life. I didn’t even hear him talk about it often and there was a lot more to him than people actually thought. We’d been smoking together for a couple of years and he was the type who got to talking.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You got anything I can buy?”

I pursed my lips and looked around. “I’m not a dealer, Dean.”

“Yeah, but you can go to the dispensary and I can’t.”

“Half the people on campus can.”

He huffed. “Maybe I can get Linc to do it. If I can ever catch him outside of his apartment.”

“Good luck with that.”

When I turned to leave, he grabbed onto my arm. “You were talking to Brooks during practice.”

I raised a brow. “And?”

“Nothing. He’s just a dick and I wouldn’t want you to get caught up in whatever his deal is.”

“Why’s he a dick?” I ventured, trying not to betray how interested I was in the answer.

Dean released me and scowled. “He slept with my girlfriend last semester. Well, more than slept with her. It went on for, like, a month or something. He said he didn’t know we were together, but I just don’t know if I believe that.”

I couldn’t see Brooks doing that if he knew, but then again, I’d only talked to the guy once. Plenty of people seemed nice when in reality, they were assholes. Or they kept bodies in their basement.

“Well, we’re not friends,” I said. “We just sit next to each other in Pritchard’s class.”

“Oh, right. Forgot he was in there.”

“You hate the guy that much, but you forgot he’s in a class with you?”

“Guess so. I’ll see you around, okay?” He started walking backward and pointed at me. “We should hang out soon.”

I nodded noncommittally. Dean was pretty cool and he was one of the few people I talked to on campus. I did have friends, but most of them graduated last year, one transferred, and another just sort of ghosted. It made things quiet this year, which had its perks and its downfalls.

---