Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
“Camden,” I said, taking her hand gently and squeezing. “Are you from here?”
“Sort of,” she said. “You?”
“Murdock,” I said. “I was just wondering if you tend to stick around much. Maybe you and I could head back up to the bar sometime and have a drink just the two of us.”
“What, no penis necklaces?” she asked with a laugh, and I threw my head back to laugh with her.
“Only if it’s your normal jewelry,” I said.
“God no,” she laughed. “My best friend is getting married.”
“I figured,” I said. “The bride.”
“The bride,” she laughed. “Yes, I would love to meet you at the bar sometime.”
“Great,” I said. “How about I give you a text and we meet up this weekend?”
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “What’s your number? I’ll text you mine.”
We exchanged numbers, and she shifted, throwing her backpack on her shoulder.
“I’ll let you get to class,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “I look forward to hearing from you.”
With that, she walked off, and I damn near skipped to the commons.
4
KRISTEN
The next morning, I got started on my lecture class with a smile on my face. That felt silly and a little ridiculous, considering all Camden and I had done was talk the day before and make somewhat nebulous plans to go out to the bar together again. But I hadn't been able to get him out of my mind since. He was so gorgeous and his sweet, funny personality only made him more attractive.
It had been a long time since I'd dated anyone, and it was giving me a little flutter in my stomach to think about going back to the bar with him. I wouldn't necessarily say the way we’d met was him sweeping me off my feet, and I wasn't going to take a Brianne-sized leap into saying it was going to be a fun story to tell our grandchildren or anything, but I was looking forward to spending more time with him.
Besides, I couldn't help but notice how many times our paths seemed to cross. It was like something was trying to push us toward each other.
I could explain away him coming up to the bar at the same time I did. After all, that was kind of the point of being in that establishment, and he might have noticed I'd been standing there waiting for the bartender to actually tend to me for a while. I could also make the argument that he, along with the vast majority of the other patrons at the bar, noticed my bachelorette party wrangling efforts and had come to my rescue with his dancing ruse on purpose.
But I didn't expect to see him on campus. It wasn't as easy to explain running into him in the hallway, and then again in front of the building. And then now as he slipped in through the back door of the lecture hall and hurried to a seat.
Wait. What?
I blinked, thinking maybe I'd just had Camden on my mind so much I'd managed to convince my brain I was seeing him. There was no reason he should be walking into my classroom. I hadn't mentioned I was a professor, and I definitely hadn't told him my schedule.
Yet, there he was. When I opened my eyes again, he was just settling into a seat and managed to knock several things off of the desk of the person beside him. Not only was he sneaking into my class late, but he was causing a major disruption while doing it. Why the hell was he there?
I realized I'd been standing there staring at him rather than continuing the lecture I'd started. The class had started to shift around in that uncomfortable way college-age kids tended to do when they weren't sure what they were supposed to do next and thought perhaps they were missing something.
I shook my head to try to jostle myself back into the moment so I could keep going with the lecture, an uneasy, eerie feeling started settling along my spine. Maybe it wasn't just fun coincidences that we were both on campus at the same time. After all, he was considerably older than the rest of the students starting up the spring semester.
Maybe he hadn't just happened to be walking down the same hallway or hanging out in front of the same building. Now that he was sitting in the back of the lecture hall, having arrived late, it was seeming more like Camden had arranged these run-ins intentionally. Was he stalking me?
I didn't want to call any attention to the awkward situation and forced myself to get back to the lecture. Fortunately for me and my current mindset, I did essentially the same lecture at the beginning of every semester where I explained the syllabus. I had it down to a science and could rattle it off with little thought. Throughout the class, I made a point not to look at Camden. I hadn't gotten much of a reaction from him when I first noticed him, and I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was affecting me.