Anyone else, I’d find it funny. But Spencer says it so crossly, so mockingly, that I want to throw the rest of the contents in my coffee mug on him.
I won’t do that. He deserves the cold. And this coffee is too good to waste.
So I turn back to ignoring him, finishing my drink because I need something to cheer me.
“Worked out this morning,” Spencer says, to my shock. “And someone locked the house before they left.”
He doesn’t explain this to me. No, he says it to the glasses-wearing guy approaching our bench in a green parka.
“I said I was sorry,” Grayson says. He peels off a scarf and gloves and tosses them to Spencer. To me, he says, “Hey, Kennedy.”
Gray explains the whole situation, probably because he knows Spencer won’t. That earlier this morning, after Spencer and Morris left to train at the campus rec center, Gray, being the last one to leave Main Desire, had locked up behind him. It wasn’t until he reached the front door, and Morris had already driven away after dropping him off, that Spencer realized his keys were still inside the house. Morris couldn’t turn back, or else he’d be late picking Natalie up for their first course of the day. Levi was already on campus by then, sketching Rylie in the nude art class they share this semester.
Spencer wraps the scarf around his neck. The three of us begin walking as Grayson finishes the story and launches into an anecdote about the class he’d just come from, where a student’s computer had frozen on a loud ad for an escort service in the city. I listen, pretending I’m not aware of Spencer lagging behind us.
Here’s one more reason I can’t avoid Spencer Armstrong. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he and I share a class together. By itself, that’s fine. In a one-hundred-person biology lecture, it’s not like I’m forced to attend class with him. A one-hundred-person biology lecture in which he and I share a mutual friend, on the other hand…
Suffice to say, the first day of class when I’d walked in to see Gray waving me over, Spencer sitting on his other side, I hadn’t been what you’d call ecstatic. Apprehensive, maybe. Vexed, most certainly.
Gray asks after my newspaper meeting, and I tell him about being pulled from the Valentine’s Day article in favor of a new assignment.
“You’re an engineering major,” I say when we reach the door to the earth science building. “What do you think of the new construction?”
“It’s about time.” He holds the door open for me. “The old building hasn’t been updated since the eighties, and it shows. I once found a closet stocked with only floppy discs.”
I tap my boots against the step leading inside to shed any lingering slush. Something bumps into me from behind. I’m blocking Spencer from entering. His breath rumbles in a low, impatient growl. A shiver shoots down my spine. I jump out of the way.
Our little group carries down the corridor to the lecture hall with a crowd of other students. Gray goes on about the old engineering building, but I don’t pay attention, though the journalist in me says I should get an engineering student’s perspective for my article.
No, the sex-starved strumpet in me has taken over instead. And she recalls where last I’d heard a very similar, throaty sound from Spencer.
I tamp her down. Lock her in a box. Throw her in the vast ocean of memories I’d like to forget.
Leaving room only for the journalist. The one who reminds me that there’s another newspaper assignment I need to work on. One I’ve put off far too long.
So when Grayson disappears into the lecture hall, I stop Spencer from following him. He halts, looking down at my fingers pinching at his sleeve. I let go, and that scowl darts up to my face.
“We need to meet for your Leopard Leap questions,” I tell him.
Because Spencer’s the only one I haven’t interviewed yet. I’ve held off scheduling it, due to the fact it doesn’t take longer than a minute before he insults me, or I’m tempted to throw some form of liquid on him.
Other students file into the lecture hall. Class will start in a few minutes, so I hope he hurries up and tells me when he’s available.
He doesn’t. Spencer narrows his gaze. Shoves his hands in his pockets. And tells me, “Fuck no.”
He moves to join the rest of the class. I step in his way. We stare each other down.
“You need to do the interview,” I give him my best cold stare and cross my arms, though my thick coat makes it less intimidating than I’d intended.
“No, I don’t. It’s a bunch of gossip—”
“It’s a time-honored tradition!”
“It’s shit.”
“The rest of the team’s finished theirs—”
“So you don’t need mine.”
But he’s wrong. As much as I don’t like him, the rest of Lakewood does. Spencer Armstrong is a frequent trending subject during football season. Aside from Morris, the quarterback, and Levi, master of victory dances and scandalous shenanigans, Spencer is the most popular player for the Leopards. Based on playing skills alone, even I have to grudgingly admit his are the best. If I turn in the rest of my assignment without his interview, Brook will assume I’m slacking. Or worse, that my recent heartbreak has prompted a sudden onset of amnesia. Forget about the Valentine’s Day article. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t hand all my features to Melissa and force me to write up the campus police beat.
He tries to move again. I won’t let him get away. So I use my secret weapon. The M-word. “Do I need to get Morris involved?”
Spencer halts, shoulders tense.
I have my roommates to thank for that nifty trick. According to Rylie, and backed by Natalie, Spencer does whatever Spencer wants. Unless his team captain would
