Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“M-maybe you should ask for another roommate?” Chloe offered, knowing God had more important matters to attend to than a clarinet.
“I have,” Gia huffed. “There aren’t any available.”
“Stay with some friends,” Adalyn urged, dunking another nugget in sauce.
Their new lunch buddy’s face fell. “I would, but I actually haven’t made any here. This is my first semester. I’m from Tennessee.”
“That’s strange,” Lake said, swallowing a bite of her apple. “You don’t have an accent.”
“Speech therapy. Lisp,” Gia explained quickly before continuing on. “I worked two years to save my money so I could afford to come here.”
They listened as they ate their food. Chloe was just as interested as the rest of them.
“Why here?”
“My major is husbandry.”
Adalyn’s jaw dropped just as she was about to pop another nugget into her mouth. “You can major in how to get a husband?”
At first, Chloe wanted to laugh, but then she realized she didn’t know what the hell husbandry was.
“Husbandry is the study of crops and cattle,” Lake explained—she had family from Kentucky. “I just don’t know why you’d come to Missouri to study it when Tennes—”
“So, what’s your major?” Gia asked Adalyn.
“I’m winging it.” She shrugged, finally able to eat her nugget now that her jaw wasn’t on the floor. “Whatever Chloe is majoring in, I’m majoring in. She’s my ticket to graduating.”
Gia stared at Adalyn as if she didn’t know how to respond to that, so she looked toward Chloe. “What are you and Adalyn majoring in?”
“Pre-law,” Chloe answered.
“We are?” Adalyn’s mouth dropped back to the floor.
“You are?” Elle asked, searching her eyes to see if she was telling the truth.
“Since when?” Adalyn continued, still stunned.
Chloe fiddled with the cap of her OJ then finally confided in her friends, “I-I’ve been thinking of it for a while.” She was mumbling under her breath, but at least Lake understood why she’d want to be.
“That’ll come in handy.”
“How are you going to be a lawyer? You’re the most non-confrontational person I know.”
Chloe didn’t take any offense to Adalyn’s questioning, knowing it was an honest one and what she said was, in fact, true.
“I’m winging it.”
Elle glared at Adalyn then turned to give her best friend an encouraging smile. “I believe in you.”
Smiling back, she knew one thing to be true—you always have—but Chloe couldn’t miss that Adalyn was upset.
“What’s wrong?”
“Becoming a lawyer takes too long!” she cried, practically in tears.
Lake tried to get her BFF to cheer up. “You can just stay undecided with me, and we’ll take a bunch of different classes together again.”
Adalyn stared at her balefully, knowing she’d never graduate that way. The best thing that had happened to her grades was Chloe leaving Stanford to come to the university here with them.
“You could take English classes with me …” Elle offered.
Somehow, Adalyn managed to look even more upset. “Did you forget I had to take remedial English.”
“Oh.” Elle gave her a sympathetic glance. “Sorry. I forgot.”
Left with no other option, Adalyn turned her gaze back to Gia. “What’s your GPA?”
“Adalyn!” Lake’s elbow came out to hit her for being nosy.
“Uh …” Gia awkwardly laughed. “I have a 3.9.”
“Not bad.” Adalyn smiled brightly. “We should get to know each other better, maybe take some classes togeth—”
“What are you going to do with crops and cattle?” Lake hissed at her.
An unsure Gia started gathering her backpack and tray.
Not wanting to lose them their future lunch tables, Chloe stepped in. “S-she gets carried away sometimes.”
Elle rushed to speak before Gia could leave, too, knowing what her best friend was thinking. “Let’s exchange numbers. We go shopping or have movie nights with our other friends a couple of times a month. You’re welcome to come. I can text you the next time we all hang out together if you wanted to join?”
“Yeah, you should totally come hang out with us!” Lake agreed before she none-to-sneakily hit her bestie under the table, knowing the responsibility would fall on her to get her ass here early to grab a lunch table if Adalyn managed to fuck this up.
You could tell the lightbulb hadn’t gone off in her head that she was beginning to freak Gia out, but Adalyn smiled and nodded in agreement, at least able to figure out that was what Lake wanted her to do.
“I guess … it would be nice to have friends to hang out with off campus,” Gia finally agreed, giving them her number before she left. When she did, she gave Adalyn’s side of the table a wide berth.
“Did I miss something?” Adalyn asked in a hushed voice as she looked at them. “Why was she acting so weird?”
Lake loved Adalyn too much to tell her the truth. “She probably had to go to the bathroom.”
Chloe and Elle stared at each other, neither of them wanting to hurt her feelings, either.