Page 13 of Bookworm
Only, his eyes didn’t find mine. He was staring perpendicular to me, focused on a brunette woman with wildly curly hair approaching him. Her ass twitched with each step from within her skin-tight pencil skirt and sky high heels.
I looked down at my chunky heeled brown penny loafers and light blue button down cotton shirt that was tucked into wide-legged trouser pants.
I loved this outfit. It was comfortable and cute and professional.
But suddenly, beside a pencil skirt, I felt frumpy. Like the tired librarian I was.
Whereas she was the librarian you find in pornos. The kind that men fantasize about spanking them with a riding crop instead of charging late fees.
And based on the flirty smile and way she touched Adam’s elbow, I knew who she wanted her leading man to be.
But that doesn’t mean he wants her, I thought.
Sheepishly, Adam’s hand went to the back of his pink neck.
At the sight of that, My heart bottomed out to my stomach.
I knew Adam’s tells. I knew them intimately. Even if I hadn’t seen him in seven years, I knew that flush of pink that reddened the tips of his ears and back of his neck. I knew the nervous way he rubbed the back of his neck and remembered how he would lick his lips just before he would press them to mine.
While he might have refined his workout routine and added bulk and muscles to his teenage form, he was still the same Adam.
And he liked this girl.
Or at least, he had at one point liked her.
Hot, salty tears spiked in my eyes and I immediately dropped my gaze to my coffee cup in my tight knuckled grip. The white plastic lid had a bit of caramel covered coffee staining the edges, as well as the pink of my lipstick smeared against the opening from where I’d taken my first few sips.
Get it together, Harper. He’s not yours. He hasn’t been yours in years.
And if he and pencil skirt were an item? It had absolutely nothing to do with me.
With a deep breath, I swallowed the emotion that had been rising like a soon-to-erupt volcano. Pressed those lava tears down into the abyss of my body, burying them with all the other forgotten emotions I refused to let myself feel.
Steadying myself, rolling my shoulders back, I crossed the remaining steps toward where Adam and pencil skirt were talking—or rather,flirting.
“Good morning!” I chirped, my voice a little too loud and shrill for a library setting.
I winced as the few students sitting around all jumped, looking up from their books at me.
Gritting my teeth, I whispered, “Sorry,” to a particularly scowly girl beside us with a molecular engineering book open in front of her.
Adam’s smile eased, turning to look at me. “Morning, Harper,” he said, not nearly as loud or tense as me. “This is Jasmine. She teaches ethics and history in the law department.”
Dammit. Hotandsmart. I was really hoping she’d be a vapid dummy. But of course, this was Dartmouth. There were no dummies within the walls.
“Hi, Jasmine.” I smiled and offered her my hand.
Her grin revealed a set of dazzling, white teeth and she took my hands firmly and warmly in hers. “Harper,” she said. “It’s so nice to meet you! It sounds like you came to us just in time. You’re a lifesaver.”
Dammit, she wassweet,too.
Her eyes went wide and she pointed at my coffee cup. “And you found Jimmy on your first day!” she exclaimed, excited. Laughing, she leaned into Adam, her long, delicate fingers gently finding his elbow. “Remember when we went on that mission to find the strongest coffee possible?”
He gave an uncomfortable chuckle, his eyes drifting between Jasmine and me. “Oh, yeah.Heh.”
“And Jimmy’s was it?” I asked, assuming that was the name of the guy running the coffee cart where I had grabbed this from on my way in.
“Oh, yes. By a long shot. We were in finals hell week—Adam for his graduate degree, me in law school. And after we’d pulled an all-nighter studying… we decided at six a.m. that instead of sleeping for two hours, we would spend those hours finding the strongest coffee possible on campus. Wired and exhausted, we ran from kiosk to cafe to cafeteria trying every coffee possible. Jimmy’s was the last. With bloodshot eyes and completely jittery from being so exhausted and wired, we went to our classes, hands literally shaking as we took our exams.”
