Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(57)
I stayed one step ahead of Dev in this weird, everexpanding personal space dance I’d been doing since January. I hesitated, then picked a seat in one of the center rows. Dev followed me, dropping into the seat next to mine. I had to keep reminding myself not to read into anything, and that this was just Dev being his normal, friendly self. He would do the same to Em or any of the other girls in school.
Dev propped his feet up on the back of the seat in front of him. “At least I’m a requested delinquent. Beggars can’t be choosers, bookworm.” I sat my book on the armrest while digging in my bag for a pen, and he picked it up. “What are you reading now?”
Fear shot through me. I tried to pull it out of his hands, but he twisted so I’d practically have to crawl onto his lap to take the book back.
“Hiding. You wouldn’t like it, it’s nothing like the Sentinel series.” It wasn’t like I’d never recommend this series to a guy, but my brain kept bouncing back to what I knew was after that bookmark.
Dev flipped over the dust cover-less hardcover and studied the spine. “I dunno, you have pretty good taste in books.” Then, his fingers moved to the edge of the cover. Even without the help of my makeshift bookmark, I knew right to where the book would fall open. When you reread a scene a million times, the permanent crease in the binding is impossible to fix.
I fought to keep my tone light, not like I was trying to stave off imminent disaster. “No, really, this has no action or anything. It’s not your type of book.” I prayed that it would open to another scene, any other scene.
His eyes scanned the page and I fought to keep myself from sinking through the wood laminate of the chair in shame as his lips quirked up into a wide grin.
“No action, huh?” He propped the book up, reading from it in a voice that made me want to move to a different country where the sound couldn’t dance across my skin. “‘His lips whisper along my jawline and I gasp just before they skim my cheek and brush against mine. I melt into his arms, my hands reaching…’” Dev looked up at me, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “Phoebe Martins, I didn’t know you were into,” he searched for the word, “scandalous books.”
Forget landing in his lap—I lunged, but he held me back with one hand while holding the book out of my reach with his other hand. He read for another second, then turned to look at me with smirk.
“Wow. This author needs a thesaurus. She used ‘sigh’ three times in the same paragraph.” He wiggled the book at me while making a tsking sound. “Definitely looks like a lot of ‘action’ to me.”
“Oh, shut up,” I mumbled, this time succeeding in prying my book from his hands and shoving it none-toogently into my bag. “I read Sentinel Twenty. That’s no different than the scene between Sentinel and Guide.” I narrowed my eyes at him like Marissa when she convinced Dan to stop the exorcism, but that didn’t make the amused look on his face go away.
“I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a part where Guide pressed against Sentinel, ‘feeling every inch of him.’” He said with air quotes. “What do you think that means, exactly?”
Damn, he had seen that line. I ducked my head and hoped my hair would swing forward to hide my burning cheeks, but instead ended up pretending I was picking at something on my jeans when it didn’t. “I…” Thankfully, at that moment, Mr. Cooper and a few teachers I didn’t recognize stood up at the front of the room and called for us to quiet down. Saved by the teachers.
“I’m sure all of you know by now that you have been selected to be counselors at the sixth grade camp in a little over a month. This camp offers a wonderful chance to prepare these now fifth graders for their transition to sixth grade and middle school in the fall.” Mr. Cooper looked around the auditorium and I took the time to do the same. Counting Dev and me, there were about twenty of us. Some of the glitterati sat near the front and outdoor club members were parked in a clump near the middle, sharing a bag of what was probably granola. All juniors, and half of them I wouldn’t trust to watch each other, much less groups of eleven year olds. “Thank you all for offering to be role models for five days. We’ve already spoken with all of your teachers to ensure that you will be able to make up the course work from the week you will be missing.” A groan came from some of the people in the lower rows. “All of you knew that was part of the bargain when you signed up, right?”
One of the heads up front looked familiar and, as he turned to say something to the person behind him, I caught Kris’ profile. Dev and my attempts to avoid him combined with the only other swoonworthy guy in the school? This was bad.
Dev leaned onto our shared armrest. “’Strong hands running down my back,’” he said out of the corner of his mouth. Damn, the jerk had some sort of photographic memory.
I sunk lower into my seat, sneaking a glance to the front of the classroom. If Kris heard that, I would melt into a puddle of one-hundred-percent mortified goo. “Shh, they’ll hear you. Delinquent.” Our row shook with his silent laughter.
Mr. Cooper ignored the drama playing up in our rows, looking instead at the groaners. “Obviously, you should know that this isn’t an excuse to slack off from school for a week. You will each be responsible for a cabin of about eight to twelve students and will be paired with a cabin of the opposite sex for meals and events. You and your partner counselor will also be asked to run the camp team-building challenges throughout the week and to assist in some of the camp activities based on your skill sets and certifications. For example, Marcus will man the rock climbing wall,” one of the guys up front high-fived another, “and Phoebe,” I froze at my name, “is running the archery field.”