Page 12 of Love Legacy

“Are you free right now? I’ve got about an hour or so before my next class.”

“I was going to study at the Kappa house, but I can always study later. Let’s do it.”

He grins, standing up straight. We walk to the door of the lecture hall, Elijah holding the door open for me. “Well, thank you.”

We take the ten-minute walk from the business program building to the coffee shop at the center of campus to make small talk about our classes. Turns out, Elijah is a double majorin marketing and business analytics. He is majoring in business to prepare to take over his father’s company. The position is his without the degree, but he wants to make sure he won’t run the company into the ground. We have a lot of similarities in that sense.

We reach the busy coffee shop, squeezing into the small space. Elijah gets in the line to save our spot while I walk up to the counter, trying to get a better look at the menu.

I scan the list of unique drink names, trying to find something tea-based that looks interesting, when I spot a familiar name—Earth Matcha. That is Sage’s favorite. She swears it’s one of their best specialty drinks. And it’s coffee-free.

I walk back to Elijah, pleased to see that the line has advanced a bit. Once we reach the register, we order an Earth Matcha for me and a boring iced coffee with a splash of cream for him.

We grab our drinks, heading outside to sit on a bench across the street at the Student Center.

“So you moved from Alabama, right?”

I shake my head. “Georgia.”

“Georgia! I knew it was one of those deep south states. Why’d you move up to New York? That’s a big change.”

“It is. I was kicked out of my old school. I needed one willing to offer me a full scholarship as a transfer student, and Pinebrook University was the only school that would.”

“Whoa, kicked out? What did you do? No, don’t tell me. I bet I can figure it out.” He thinks for a few minutes, observing me. I smirk, knowing there’s no way he’ll guess correctly.

“I got it. You’re secretly a pyro. You ‘accidentally’ set fire to the science building. Bunsen burner accident.”

I laugh. “What about me screams pyromaniac? Or makes you think that I’ve ever used a Bunsen burner? I’m a business major.”

Elijah laughs with me. “Well, we all have to take an intro science course for core foundations credits. Who knows, maybe yours was a chemistry class?”

“Nope. I took a botany course. I like flowers.” I say, being careful not to reveal too much.

“So, no to the firebug charge?”

I shake my head. “Definitely not, Big Guy,” I say, bumping him with my shoulder.

“Well then, tell me, Sunny, what did you do to get kicked out of school?”

I look around dramatically, feigning like I’m about to share a big secret. Then I lean in to whisper in Elijah’s ear. “I was caught studying in my ex-boyfriend’s dorm room. With the door open.”

Elijah’s eyes go wide, and then he freezes, his brow furrowed in confusion. I can almost hear his brain short-circuiting as he tries to process what I just told him. “What?” is all he manages to get out.

I laugh as he tries and fails to make sense of it all. “I was kicked out of High Valley University. We were not allowed anywhere but the common rooms of opposite-sex dorms. I wasn’t allowed to be in his room. And they gave me a choice: apologize and go through counseling, or leave.”

“And you told them to fuck off and came here?”

“Something like that, yeah,” I say softly.

“And your boyfriend? What did he do?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I say, emphasizingex.

“He decided to go through with the punishment. Tried to tell me that I should just go along with it as well. Since that was the ‘godly woman’ thing to do. To stand by my man and submit to his guidance.” I roll my eyes, annoyed by the memory.

“Brutal. So I guess that means you’re back on the market?”

“I don’t know if I was ever really off. Josiah and I were essentially an arranged marriage. Our parents’ plan was for us toget married when we graduated. They were grooming us to take over the church’s operations.”