Page 59 of Trust Me Always

My attention snaps up, and she crosses her arms, cocking her head at me.

“Really?” she deadpans.

My hands lift into the air in the universal sign forI didn’t do itwhen I oh so clearly did, and she groans and laughs at the same time.

“Can we get down to business please?” She fights a smile. “I only have an hour.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I take my own things out, and we start on our assignment, breaking the questions in half and swapping answers.

It only takes thirty minutes to get through it, so we move to the section review, only pausing when she starts to grunt and grumble.

“I hate this class.” She sighs, finishing off her bottle of water and taking mine.

“I hate most of my classes, but we still gotta pass them.”

“You mean,Ihave to pass them. You’ll be drafted at the end of the year, along with Mason and Chase, and leave us girls here like peasants, all alone while you go play for some big, bad pro team.” She smiles then. “OMG, you’ll be the second boyfriend I’ve had to leave me to become a pro athlete.” She laughs good-naturedly, but there’s a little something in her voice she can’t hide—a small edge of sorrow maybe.

It’s not for me, of course, but the real boyfriend she had freshman year. Now that I think about it, I’m not so sure I realized he was her boyfriend. Guess I figured they were just seeing each other a bit. I wonder how serious they were.

I’m about to ask when she beats me to speak.

“Unless I dump you before you can dump me,” she jokes, stretching those long legs out until her heels are balancing on my knees. “That way, I don’t look like the girl who was left behind when you climb that ladder.”

“I, um…” I clear my throat, scratching the back of my neck. “Yeah, I don’t…I mean I’m not…” I just stop talking, not wanting to get into that.

Cameron eyes me closely, pausing a moment, and I wonder if she’s going to call me out, make me say what I didn’t mean to start saying in the first place, but instead, a small smile covers her lips, and she looks to her phone with a sigh.

“I have to go. Are you hanging here a bit or want to walk out with me?”

“Nah, I’m going to go check on Chase. Coach asked to see him after practice again last week, but he still hasn’t told us what it was about. Any ideas of a bet I can make him to force him to talk?”

“One that I would give up to you and not save for my own future benefit?” She smirks. “Negative.”

“Brat.”

“You love me.”

“Uh-huh.” I glance at my phone, pulling up a text from Mason and firing one off real fast before turning my attention back to Cameron. “Make sure you spend some time going over those sections this weekend. I have a group project for my finance class on Sunday that’s going to kill, so I might be brain fried after that.”

“Wait.” She frowns. “The test is next Monday?”

“Girl, do you pay attention to that poor woman at all?”

“I try really, really hard not to.”

I laugh at that, gaining a few glares from around the room.

“She’s so annoying,” Cameron whines. “How do I know what to memorize if she doesn’t give us the questions?”

“You’re not supposed to be memorizing. You’re supposed to be learning.”

“And you’re supposed to be helping me study so I can pass this class, but so far I’ve had to do all the readings my damn self.”

“What?” I gape. “Girl, I have worked over every section with you since week one. What do you want me to do, read it to you?”

She gasps, smiling as her brows jump.

“For real?” I grin. “You want me to read it to you?”

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