Not wanting to be an overachiever, I moved toward the back of the room and slipped into the last seat in the second row.
Other students entered the room a short time later, taking seats all around the classroom until every desk was filled.
An older professor walked in and dropped his briefcase loudly on the front desk, purposely grabbing all of our attention. He handed out papers to the first person in each row, which they passed back to us, then addressed the class. “I’m Professor Irons. This is History 356, aka History through Film. If you’re in the wrong place, this is your one chance to escape.”
The girl in the desk beside mine grabbed her bag and hurried out of the room, nearly knocking over the guy stepping through the door at the same time.
“Whoa,” he laughed as she hurried off. “The class that bad?” he called after her.
Everyone around me snickered as he stepped into the classroom, his cool swagger and easy smile an attention grabber. He eyed the room for an available seat, spotting the only one beside me. His blue eyes cut to mine, narrowing upon contact.
Frat boy.
Visible annoyance swept over his features, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I did to him to elicit such disdain. He walked down the first aisle and slouched into the last seat next to me, his long legs extending into the aisle.
I tried to focus on the professor and his lecture on the depiction of historical battles in films, but the pull to look beside me clawed at my sanity. What had I done to this guy? I hadn’t even seen him inside the party. Had he really been that concerned that I might risk getting their party broken up?
As much as I hated to admit it, the darkness outside the frat house hadn’t done the asshole justice. He was hot as hell. All built and stylish without even trying. And those lips, so perfect and full. Now I understood what people meant when they used a cupid’s bow to describe someone’s lips. Such a waste of hotness on someone so evil.
Professor Irons played a clip of a war in an old black and white movie I’d never heard of, pointing out the accuracy of the soldiers’ formation as they stormed an enemy field.
Unable to stop myself, I looked to frat boy and whispered, “What’s your problem?”
He turned to look at me with that same angry scowl I saw the night of the party. “What?”
“I’m not whoever you think I am.”
He rolled his eyes.
Asshole. “Well, there’s gotta be a reason you’re such a jerk.”
He scoffed before his blue eyes focused back on the movie, just in time to see the soldier on screen get impaled with a bayonet.
Oh, the irony.
“Perfection,” Professor Irons said as he turned off the clip, flipped on the light, and dismissed us with the promise of an upcoming project.
I slipped my laptop into my bag and stood up. Frat boy had already left. Good riddance.
The remainder of my day was a lot less eventful, as frat boy wasn’t in any of my other classes. I stopped by a campus coffee shop, grabbed a coffee and bagel, and sat at a table in the back. In no rush to get back to the dorm, I pulled out my laptop and typed the first paragraph of my essay for my Women and Literature course.
“Hey,” Chantel said, appearing out of nowhere. “How was your first day?”
“Oh, hey. Good.”
She smiled, not a hair out of place on her head as usual, whereas I’d been up since seven thirty and had a nest for a ponytail.
“How were your classes?” I asked her.
“My first class starts at two.”
“Note to self. No eight o’clock classes for me next semester.”
She smiled. “Well, I just wanted to say hey when I spotted you back here. And to make sure you weren’t avoiding me.”
“No,” I assured her. “I just find I work better with a little noise.”
She winked. “I was just kidding. Maybe we can grab dinner tonight.”
“Sure. That sounds great.”
***
A few hours later, I entered the code on our door and it unlocked. I pushed it open and stumbled back a couple steps when I found frat boy sprawled out on my bed. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Ummm,” Chantel said.
My eyes shot to her standing in front of the mirror on our closet door.
“He’s with me.”
My face fell, a hundred thoughts playing through my mind.
“This is Chase,” Chantel said. “Didn’t I introduce you at the party?”
I removed my backpack and placed it on my desk chair. “Nope.” I glanced to him, unmoving on my bed. “Do you mind?”
“Chase, that’s Sophia’s bed,” Chantel said, urging him to move with her tone of voice.
He didn’t. “You don’t mind me laying here, do you Sophia?” he asked, his voice all deep and smooth, knowing full well I wanted his ass off my bed and out of my room.
“Actually, I do. I’ve always been taught frat boys carry STDs.”
Chantel laughed. Chase didn’t.
“Sophia’s a history major just like you,” Chantel informed him.
He didn’t respond, just stared me with those blue eyes, all cold and narrowed.
“I’m ready,” she said, turning and walking toward the door. “Let’s go.”
He swung his legs off my bed and stood, his towering figure imposing in our small space. He was nauseatingly good looking. His T-shirt stretched across his sculpted chest, and the sleeves molded around his muscular biceps. He was definitely an athlete.
Chantel pulled open the door. “See you later, Sophia.”
“Don’t catch anything,” I called as Chase followed her into the hallway without giving me another look.
The door clicked shut behind them. I stared at the door for a long time, my mind reeling.
Frat Boy was Chantel’s man.
I needed that thought to settle for a bit. But it didn’t make any sense. Why did the sight of me elicit such a cold reaction in him? Did Chantel not like me? Had I ruined her plan to have a single room this year? Had he planned to stay over every night and now he couldn’t?
What the hell?
This was definitely not the start to the year I’d been hoping for.
CHAPTER THREE
I found myself wandering Baker Hall the following day searching for room 500. It didn’t help that the room numbers didn’t go in any certain order, jumping from 520 to 505.
“Sophia?”
I spun around to find Valerie walking toward me. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail really showing her dark eyes and heart-shaped face. “Hey.”
“You look lost.”
“It’s that obvious?”
She laughed. “Where are you headed?”
I held up the schedule on my phone. “Room 500.”
“That’s a lecture hall. It’s down there at the end.”
I sighed. “Thanks. You don’t happen to be in Art History, do you?”
She shook her head. “Already took it. Let me know if you have Professor Barnes, and I’ll share my notes from last year.”
“Thanks.”
A large group passed by, heading to the lecture hall.
“I better go get a seat.”
“Okay,” she said. “Do you wanna grab dinner tonight? I can stop by on my way to the dining hall.”