Inevitable Detour (Inevitability Book 1)(2)

So, yeah, forget about sex. That’s my motto. I’ll stick with sugar-laden goodies for now. Like cupcakes. Haven made a batch to celebrate our surviving finals week. Her homemade buttercream frosting is far better than sex any day. Not to mention it’s more orgasm-inducing than the thirty seconds that had me asking, “What? That’s it? Why bother?”

I sigh. I need to get back to the apartment and hit up those awesome cupcakes. But my feet are far from moving. I can’t believe I daydreamed away five whole minutes. Or maybe it’s been ten.

Retrieving my phone from my purse, I send Haven a quick text: Leaving Byers Hall. Don’t eat all the cupcakes.

A few seconds later, she texts back: Oops. I got hungry and ate the rest for dinner. Sorry.

Bitch, I reply.

Whore, is her response.

I call her a bitch again and laugh. She’s laughing too. I’m sure of it. Haven knows my texts are sent with love. She is so not a bitch, and I would never think such a thing for real. Nor do I suspect she sees me as a whore. I am far from it, as established. Well, unless we’re talking sugar. Then, I’m a full-blown slut.

Haven sends another text. Just kidding, Es. I didn’t eat all the cupcakes. I know you love them, so I left the rest for you.

Aww, Haven is the best. You’re super sweet, I text back, and then I start down the hallway. Finally.

As I amble along, I think of how Haven is definitely one of the better parts of my life. Throughout the course of the past three years, we’ve become best friends. We met at a freshman orientation. It was an early one, held during the spring prior to matriculation. We sat next to each other and clicked immediately, which is kind of amusing, since we’re so different from one another. Somehow, though, we just work. Bottom line, I love Haven, and I’d do anything for her. She’s certainly done some selfless things for me, no doubt about that. As a result, we’re close, thicker than thieves some say. I tease Haven all the time; tell her she’s my sister from another mother. Since her own mom passed away years ago, she usually replies that she’d let my mom adopt her. But then she adds the qualifier, “that is, if she wasn’t so damn overbearing.”

Understatement of the year.

Just the other day, after I received a call from my mom—she was checking in on my studying—Haven joked, “If your mom took me in she’d probably insist I change my major from theater to business.”

“She probably would,” I agreed.

It’s true. My mother means well, as does my dad, but both my parents have a tendency to focus on practicality. And to the Mr. and Mrs. Brant, practicality means majoring in business.

“It’s always smart to major in something marketable,” Dad likes to say.

“Like business, honey,” Mom always adds with a smile. “You’re making smart choices, Essa.”

Too bad they’re not my choices.

Wishing I was more like Haven, who answers to no one, I round the corner and run smack dab into one of Haven’s acting professors. To my dismay, it’s the shitty professor who broke my friend’s heart two weeks ago.

“Hi, Essa,” Professor Walsh says cordially while pretending to step out of my path.

He remains in the way, of course. Still, I manage to slip around him. He nonetheless stays with me, turning and watching me the whole time.

Ugh. It is so hard not to snipe, “Get the hell out of my face, you f*cking douche bag.”

Since I lack the courage to say such a thing, I hold my tongue.

But when Professor Walsh reaches out and touches my arm, halting my progress, I twist from his grasp and snap, “Really?” I raise both brows and take a step back. “Please tell me you did not just lay your hand on me.”

“Now, now,” Douche Bag Walsh says in a sickly, patronizing tone. “There’s no need for such a venomous retort. I don’t know what Haven has told you—”

“Try everything,” I interrupt.

Haven and her thirty-five-year-old professor had a three-month fling. It was all hot and heavy, not to mention illicit as hell, until he ended it in a not-so-nice way.

Concern fills the professor’s light-brown eyes as he taps his foot and stares at me. It’s not concern for the girl whose heart he’s broken. It’s purely concern for his own ass. Oh, the trouble he could get into for f*cking one of his students.

“Don’t worry,” I say, just to get him to stop staring and, hopefully, go away. “Haven won’t let me go to the disciplinary board, and God knows she’ll never do it herself, so your secret is safe.”

The professor, more confident as soon as he hears I plan to keep my mouth shut, lazily brushes back a lock of wispy, dirty-blond hair that’s fallen to his forehead. He’s boyishly handsome, and this is a move he’s obviously perfected.

Too bad it does absolutely nothing for me.

Undeterred, he says in a low voice, “Everything that happened between me and Haven Shaw was consensual. She’s twenty-two years old, Miss Brant. Last time I checked that makes her an adult.”

I feel like screaming in his smug face. “You were her freaking professor, prick. Not only did you violate school policy, but you violated her when you let her fall in love with you and then callously walked away.”

But there’s no point in lashing out. Haven is still hung up on the guy, shady though he is. She doesn’t want him to get into any trouble. And someone might hear me if I start going off in defense of my friend. The halls are empty, but many of the classrooms are full.