Page 14 of Bookworm
“But did you pass?”
Pressing her lips together, she bumped her elbow to his. “With flying colors.”
My heart squeezed. They had history.
More history than Adam and I did.
I wasn’t sure why that bothered me, but it did.
I guess a piece of me always thought that maybe I was the one who got away in Adam’s life. I was the unrequited love of his life… but seeing Jasmine? It was clear that it wasn’t me.
It was her.
I swallowed the lump of sawdust settling in my throat and forced a smile onto my face. It wasn’t her fault that she was gorgeous and smart and funny and charming.
I liked her. In another world, had she studied at Oxford or had I gone to Dartmouth, I bet we would have been friends.
Not just in another world. We could be friends now… even if we shared an ex-boyfriend.
Unless… maybe he’s not her ex. Maybe he’s hercurrentboyfriend.
It would explain why he looked so damn uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?
The thought lit my insides on fire. It was something I hadn’t even considered until this very moment.
“Well,” Adam said with an uncomfortable cough. “We should probably get started.”
Jasmine stepped back. “Yes, I will leave you to it! I have a class to get to, anyway. Adam, you’ll let me know about tonight?”
He nodded, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “I’ll text you.”
Grinning, she spun, starting to walk away with a wave at me over her shoulder. Her steps were graceful and lithe despite her thin, tall heels. “Bye Harper! It was so nice to meet you!”
When she was out of earshot, I forced a smile on my face and turned to Adam. “She seems nice.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Verbose as always.
“You’ve been friends since grad school?”
“Uh, yeah. She was assigned to me at orientation. Since I’d gone here for undergrad, I volunteered to give the school tours on the first day.”
“That’s a pretty good meet cute if I ever heard one,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“What?” he snapped, his gaze looking at me, blue eyes so bright they were like the center of a flame.
You heard me, I wanted to say… but didn’t.
He shook his head, clearly frazzled. “We’re not… I mean, we never… it just … it isn’t like that.”
Yep. I hit a nerve. It most certainlywaslike that… just clearly one-sided.
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry. I could just tell you two are close.”
“We are close,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we’recloseclose.”
Wow. It really was like being back in high school. Two grown ass adults who were dancing around the topic of sex and dating like blushing teenagers. So much so that Adam couldn’t even look me in the eyes and say: No, Harper. Jasmine and I have never had sex even though I clearly desperately want to get into her pants… or rather pencil skirt.
