Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)(11)

It didn’t even change when Lydia said she was funny.

And her thoughts were suddenly all Tate, saying the same thing.





Chapter 6


She wasn’t looking for him specifically among the crowd flooding into the lecture hall. But something did happen inside her when she spotted him. A kind of lightness, or a lifting of some heavy part of herself. He had listened to her. Everything was settling into a nice, normal routine. They were going about their daily lives in an ordinary manner, and they were doing it completely separately.

He sat in the fourth row like the first time, and she sat at the back. Only now there was no rising sense of dread. She didn’t keep her hand to herself when Harrison asked a question. She answered, without the background sound of someone snickering. And even when it felt as though he was looking at her, when she snuck a glance at him she only ever saw the back of his head.

He bent low over his notes, and his head occasionally lifted a little as he really listened to whatever Harrison was saying. Once or twice she actually caught him nodding, or doing a little staggered-looking half laugh over some ridiculous concept.

As if he loved it all now.

He loved it so much he was sometimes at the lectures early. She would come in with Lydia, still giggling over something ridiculous, and get the faint prickle that told her he was already there. Only now when it happened it didn’t make her want to cover herself up, or run and hide. There was nothing to hide from.

Everything was going to be super cool and totally fine from here on in.

Or it would have been, if it were not for the group project. The one that she was so excited for that she didn’t process it when Harrison started reading out the names. She would be working with Lydia—that was a given. They were going to watch ridiculously filthy movies together and laugh about bobbing butts and ogle Ewan McGregor’s penis.

And then she heard his name.

Followed by hers.

Distantly, like in a dream of being in class.

In a second she would realize she was naked—or worse.

“Miss Carmichael, do you have a problem with that assignment?”

Everyone was looking at her now. No—not just looking. Examining, as though she had become a new and baffling species. The girl who was not excited about being carried by Tate Sullivan. The creature who seemed horrified at the prospect of working with him. It made it difficult to do anything at all, even with Lydia urging her to say yes, yes I do have a f*cking problem.

Though she still didn’t expect the shake of her head to happen. Just one little accidental shake of her head and that was it. Harrison moved on to his next victim, leaving her in something she once had a nightmare about in ninth grade. Working with Tate. On a semester-long project.

About sex in cinema.

“Don’t worry, we can fix this. Just go to his office and talk to him privately about it. He would have to be Satan himself to not understand,” she heard Lydia whisper.

But the words seemed even further away than her name had when Harrison read it out.

“Right. Right. Yeah. You’re right.”

“I can come with you if you want.”

“No, that’s okay. That’s fine.”

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve been punched. In the face. With a small nuclear blast.”

“I’m sure,” she said, but soon came to regret that firmness in her voice. The steady nod that told Lydia it was okay for her to go in a different direction once they were outside. It only meant that she was on her own when she got to the tiny hallway outside Harrison’s door.

And saw that Tate was already waiting.

Of course he was—he probably had the same concerns as her. No matter how sorry he was or what he thought of being in the red and being wrong, he would never want to work in close quarters with her for the entire semester. In fact, him being sorry likely made the situation seem worse to him. Most likely he had calculated all the awkward conversations they would have to have and how far apart they would have to stand to keep her comfortable, and found it as unbearable as she did.

Even though his expression seemed to say something else.

Oh god. His expression was saying something else.

Then he held up his hands, as though to calm her.

And she knew.

“All right, Letty, I know that you’re probably thinking it’s way better if you do this project with that gal pal of yours, but wait, okay? I got reasons why this is gonna be fine.”

“Is that seriously why you’re here? To stop me asking Harrison to switch us?”

“Well…no. Not stop you exactly. Stop is a really strong word.”

“While I’m glad you’ve learned that—” she said, her voice briefly catching when she saw his wince. He winced, her mind hissed, before she forced herself to finish. “I still think it covers what’s happening here.”

“I just wanted to talk to you about it for a second. Just, like, hear me out.”

“I want to. I really do. But come on. You know I wasn’t born yesterday. This has all the hallmarks of some kind of trap or prank or joke at my expense.”

“How could it possibly be a trap or prank? He put people together based on…I don’t even know what he put people together based on. But it couldn’t have had anything to do with me.”

She searched his face, looking for the lie. Waiting for him to show some hint of bullshit, beneath those too-kind eyes and his spread hands and the obvious logic of what he was saying.