Beg You to Trust Me (Lindon U #2)(23)
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“You okay?” I ask, knowing she’s not.
“Yep.”
“Friends don’t lie to other friends,” I point out just as quietly as she answered. “But we’ll work on that too. We’ve got time. I’m determined to show you I’m not as much of an asshole as I’ve come off to be. Want to head back?”
Letting whatever is on her mind go for now seems to be the best option, because Skylar picks her gaze up and manages a tiny nod. We walk back in silence, even though the quiet is slowly eating at me.
Who the hell did she hook up with at the party that makes her look so…empty?
I tell myself friends like to know those things, but my conscious laughs at the ridiculous lie I tell myself.
Film class hits different from the back row because you can get away with more. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I don’t sit here. When I was eight, I was diagnosed with ADD and the medicine they gave me mellowed me out too much for comfort. Mom told the docs I was a zombie, a shell of myself, so they pulled me from them and tried other methods. I still struggle to pay attention to things and sitting front and center usually helps me stay on track.
But that’s not where my new brunette bombshell of a friend sits. She’s in the last row, six seats in. Blue backpack placed strategically in the seat next to her so nobody can claim it. Moveable desk trapping her inside the stiff theater seat, and a laptop resting on top of it that she types on to get every word Mr. NYU says.
Leg bouncing as the man up front drones on about the history of foreign film, I lean over the seat positioned between us and whisper, “Do you think he’s hot too?”
The look she gives me is comical, and I have to swallow my snort before I draw attention to us. Her response makes it harder. “Are you sure you’re not gay, Danny?”
Danny.
When is the last time someone called me that? My friends pull out Danny Boy once in a while to mess with me ever since my Ma and Grandma called me that after one of our games that they attended. But Danny coming out of Skylar’s mouth? I like it. Probably too much.
“Danny, huh?” I muse, tapping the end of my pen against my empty notebook. She stares at me fidgeting, watching my moving leg and pen, then the easy grin stretching my lips upward.
I can’t say anyone in my life has ever wondered about my sexuality before now. Ma spent my entire teenage years worried I’d knock someone up, while Grandma Meadow constantly warned me against getting into anything serious since I was moving away. When she told me to ‘have fun being young while women still wanted me and my body’ I think Ma tried glaring her to death. And good old Dad? Well, his opinion never mattered. He walked out on us when I was a pretty young, so I barely remember anything about him besides a few vague memories of him and Ma arguing about the money she inherited from generational wealth. Money from what is still fuzzy. Some old members of the family knew the right people and invested right, I guess. All I know is that we have it and I’ll get my inheritance when I’m 25.
Point is my family never thought I’d bat for the other team. Doubt they’d care if I did. Ma would probably be relieved. Even though we’ve gotten past the whole teen dad barrier, she now freaks about the college dad scenario. Once in a while her care packages include Trojan condoms, which the guys give me shit over if they snoop through my shit knowing there’s usually food in there they can steal too.
“Not gay,” I answer with an amused smile. My head tilts toward the rows of seats that primarily consist of twenty-something-year-olds who are on high alert every time the professor speaks. “How much you want to bet these girls are only here because they heard Pretty Boy was teaching the course?”
Her typing pauses as she contemplates her response before lifting a shoulder. “You don’t know that for sure. I’m here because I enjoy deconstructing the process of film making. I’m sure some of them are too.”
That’s a non-answer. “So, you agree he’s hot then?”
Closing her eyes for a minute before letting out a small breath, she opens to show those blue orbs full of exasperation. “Why do you care what I think about our professor? If this is you attempting to gossip about men I’m not interested in that. Especially not in the middle of a lecture. Or if the subject is the person teaching it. That’s…” Her lips twitch in distaste. “Kind of weird.”
She would totally bone him.
“Yeah, you do think so,” I decide for her, sitting back in my seat and studying the man whose pants are tighter than most men I know. That’s red flag number one. The fact his eyes linger on some of the girls in the front row a little longer than they do on the guys in the room is the second one. Plus, there’s the whole prejudice against jocks thing that makes him a total douche canoe. And he’s got chicken legs. No meat. I don’t know why that pisses me off, but it does.
I’m sure if Pretty Boy paid Skylar special attention like he does the girls who started showing up with a little more cleavage on display, she’d be batting those thick lashes his way and finding ways to stay after class like the rest of the other girls.
Would I stop her? I’d sure fucking try.
“Why does your face look so weird?” she asks, making me wipe away whatever expression is pinching my features.