Page 35 of Infatuated as They Come
Leaning in closer, I kept my eyes locked to his. “He was what?”
“He found out I was coming to Columbia too and got a little excited. Kept saying I should ask you out and stuff. Between you and me, Holly, I don’t think he likes your boyfriend all that much.”
I blinked at him as I took in those words, already itching to call my dad and scream at him for doing something so audacious. “He told you to ask me out?”
“Yeah, a couple times.”
“Well, I am very much taken and in love, so that was a pointless endeavor.”
“So this Sawyer guy’s the reason you rejected me?”
“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I think I would have rejected you even if I didn’t have him,” I said. Nate was everything I was supposed to want and love. Polished, clean cut, more money in his bank account than everyone on campus put together—professors included. Triple that amount and it’d still be chump change, but that didn’t allure me to him even in the slightest bit. My dad didn’t realize that setting me up with a guy like Nate was also setting me up for a lifetime of boredom and misery.
He pressed his hands to his chest. “I’m heartbroken, Holly. Just joking, I’m happy for you. I gotta meet this guy if he’s making your dad this worked up.”
“My dad hasn’t exactly been happy or supportive of my relationship. But when you meet Sawyer, you’ll see that he’s worried for no reason.”
“He’s studying here? Your dad said he didn’t want to study.”
“He’s not a student. He’s an artist. And he’s really, really good. You shouldsee his paintings, they’re all beautiful.”
“He’s doing art full time?”
“No, he’s working as a mechanic right now. You know, until things pick up for him, and they will.”
“Wait, really? My car’s been giving me trouble lately. You think he can fix it?”
I thought about the question for a moment. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good idea having Sawyer and Nate in the same room. “Um, I’ll ask him about that.”
“Cool, thanks. I really wanna meet him. Your dad wouldn’t shut up about him whenever we played golf together. Guy’s gotta be the devil.”
“He is not the devil. He’s my dad’s version of the devil, but he’s always been a bit of a drama queen.”
Nate laughed, waving a lazy hand at my gym bag. “Were you at the gym?”
“Hm?” I followed his hand. “Oh, no. I just had my first cheer meeting. I had to pick up my new uniform.”
“Oh, you’re still cheering? There’s a game in a couple weeks, right?”
“Yeah, first game of the season. It’s been a while since I cheered, so hopefully I don’t make an idiot of myself.”
“You won’t. I’ll try and come check it out. Maybe I can talk to your boyfriend about my car then.” He gave my shoulder a soft squeeze. “Hey, I’m gonna be late to class, but I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”
I watched Nate run over to Holloway Hall, sending me one final wave over his shoulder, and then it was my turn to take a left so I could attend my first ever lecture of the semester.
Nate was the kind of guy that everyone expected me to fall for. Preppy, wealthy, clean cut—been there, done that, absolute disaster. Nate was nice enough, but he sort of disappeared into a sea of rich guys I had been around my whole life. Everywhere I went, they were all the same.
Sawyer was different. He gave me the kind of love I couldn’t ever find in anyone else. It was pure and solid, the kind I was so lucky to find, because that threat of old money traditions always hung heavy over my head. Thatboring trap that I was expected to fall for: marry rich, stay rich, die rich.
But it was better with Sawyer in every possible way. There were no flashy, shallow gestures with him. No superficial moments that existed just to impress an even more superficial world around us.
My dad was stupid for thinking I’d ever give that up.
I shook those thoughts away, getting to my Media Ethics lecture with a good few minutes to spare. It ended up being an ever so slightly long and draining hour, but I bumped into some other students who were planning on writing for the student newspaper, and after class, we all headed off to meet up with the editor—Caroline—who asked to see some samples of our work. If I was lucky, I’d be given a chance to contribute to The Daily Post.
A couple of classes and one lunch break with the girls from the cheer team later, and I was back at home after a mostly drama free first day—besides an eye roll inducing phone call with my dad where I told him to never try and set me up with another guy ever again. I got started on dinner, wondering how work was going for Sawyer. He was good at fixing stuff, so I knew adapting to that part wouldn’t be hard for him, but as I got started on cutting some onions, all I could think about was how hard he worked all the damn time. He wouldn’t stop and I knew why. He didn’t want to rely on me.
