Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(23)

Now?



What about now?



I'm waiting



I text him back.



Meet me in the library in half an hour. I must go to the pit stop.



The Pit Stop is a small market store in the dining hall across the street. There are a number of restaurants there, but none to my liking. Or perhaps they would be, if I'd ever bothered to try them.

I still don't know what Sbarro is.

In the minimarket, I find a can of tuna, a box of crackers, a small fried apple pie, a quart of milk, and an orange. I also find Jason buying a hand-held basket full of protein and granola bars sufficient to feed a small army, and a half gallon of chocolate milk of his own.

He looks at my selection and raises an eyebrow.

"Canned tuna?"

I set it neatly on the counter and go back to pick up a chilled packet of mayonnaise and a spork. A curious utensil. I make my purchase and walk to the library.

Jason rushes to catch up to me, carrying his enormous meal stuffed into a bag that strains at the sides to fit it all. "Let's eat."

"I said I will study with you. Not eat with you."

"We'll eat and study."

"You are trying to make this a date."

"Food makes it a date?"

"Food makes it a date," I decree.

"The calendar makes it a date, baby. Come on, I'm hungry as hell and I like watching you eat."

"We cannot eat in the library, whether we wish it or no."

"You can eat in the study nooks. Come on, live a little. Let's eat in the library."

"I know what you want to eat in the library."

"You know," he says, smirking at me, "you're the one that keeps making innuendos, not me. Then again, you are carrying a can of tuna. That one's too easy."

"I will eat with you in the study nook if you shut up. But it is still not a date."

"Fine with me. Come on, I just need to feed the beast."

We cross the street and walk back up to the Parkman Library, and take the elevator up to the second floor. The study nooks are small rooms lined with couches set up around a table. After I sit down and Jason sits a foot away, Bjorn and Thorlief squeeze in and both fold their arms, staring at him.

"I can't work with them in here," Jason says. "They throw off the feng shui of the whole room."

"He's not going to touch me," I tell them.

"Nope," he agrees.

"If he touches me I'll scream and you'll break his legs," I tell them.

Thorlief gives me a peculiar look I can’t read, and leads Bjorn away.

"Yep," he agrees. "Wait, what?"

I give him a sharp smile and spread a napkin on the table, then open my pocketknife and use the can-opener attachment on the tuna. I drop the wet lid neatly in my now-empty bag, squeeze out the mayonnaise, and mix it into the meat with my spork.

"Are you seriously going to eat tuna out of a can with mayonnaise on it?"

"I like fish."

"It's not even cold. Why do they even sell that in the minimart?"

I shrug and eat small bites from the can, then peel my orange.

When I dip a segment of the fruit in the tuna and pop it in my mouth, Jason makes a disgusted noise, as if he's about to spit out his Super Protein XXXTreme Power Bar 9000.

It actually said that on the label.

He stares in horror. "What are you doing?"

"You don't eat fruit with fish?"

"No!"

I shrug. "I do." I pop the next piece in my mouth, but salt it first.

Jason looks at me as though I have two heads.

"Does this mean you no longer find me attractive?"

"Sugar Buns, I could watch you eat an orange all day. Even if you do put tuna salad on it. Shitty tuna salad. You know tuna salad has onions, right?"

"I don't like onions," I sneer, then wash down my meal with half of my milk carton.

Jason eats his energy bars so fast they seem to disappear as soon as he peels back the wrapper, all the while chugging his chocolate milk.

"You keep looking at the bottle," he says, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm.

"I have never had chocolate milk."

He gapes at me. "Are you sure you're not really an alien?"

I snatch the bottle from him and take it in both hands, and tip it back.

I lower it slowly, swirling the sweet milk in my mouth. I have never tasted such a complex flavor before, so many notes, though the sweetness nearly overwhelms it.

"You're looking at that bottle like you want to take it home."

"I'm more likely to take the bottle home than I am you."

"You're breaking my heart."

"I don't think it's your heart that pines for me."

"Oh it does. The other part gets wood for you."

I roll my eyes. "That was almost clever."

"Thanks. Come sit on my lap and we'll talk about the Gospel of Wealth." He pats his knee.

I start to blush.

Stop it, Anastasia.

"Are you forgetting I threatened to have your arms broken?"

"It was my legs, and you only said that so you could get me alone and ravish me."