Undeclared (9 page)

I felt his hand on my head as he turned my head to look at him. “Not knowing isn’t so bad. You’re young yet.”

I stuck my tongue out a little. “What are you, my dad?”

“Is that your kink? I haven’t had a girl ever call me Daddy before, but I’m open-minded.”

“‘Eww’ is the only response to that.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t tell if his flirting was just to cheer me up or lighten the mood, or if it was an invitation. I did know I didn’t want to talk about money or majors. “How is empire-building these days?”

“Slow, but I’ve got a plan.”

“Are you empire-building by yourself or with others?”

“Others right now,” Noah added. “Roommates.”

“How many roommates do you have?”

“Four.”

“Wow, and they all go to school here? Have I met any of them?” I was letting curiosity get the better of me.

“No, only Bo and I. Finn flips houses and works at his dad’s construction company, Adam plays in a band—although technically I think he lives off his trust fund—and Mal,” Noah paused, “I’m not sure what Mal does. ”

“That’s a lot of testosterone in one house.”

“Yeah, it can be fun, but also a pain in the ass.”

The mile walk along the campus was over before I realized it, and not once had Noah removed his hand from the back of my neck. He opened the door with one hand and placed a light pressure with his other to propel me forward. A huge clock over the reception desk declared it was nearly ten o’clock.

We sat ourselves in a booth and pulled out the slightly greasy menus that I hoped were tacky-feeling because of a cleaning compound and not something else. A waitress came over and took our orders. Noah ordered an egg white omelet with fresh vegetables and wheat toast, no butter. I ordered the number 2: eggs over easy, toast, and bacon.

“How did you come to live together?” I picked up the thread of our conversation. From across the booth, I felt Noah’s long legs stretch out next to mine, his jean-clad legs rubbing slightly against my bare leg.

“Bo and I went to the Americana bar down on Fifth one night.”

“Never been there,” I admitted. Lana and I stuck pretty close to campus. I wasn’t even sure I knew where Fifth was.

“I’ll take you sometime,” Noah said, nonchalantly presuming that we would be spending more time together. “Adam was in the band. He tried to crowd-surf an unfriendly crowd for some reason, and we ended up defending him. Not sure why, though. His music sucked that night.

“Ouch. What’s the band?”

“No band right now. He couldn’t play all summer, so they found a new guitar player. The band he was in was called Ten Speed.”

I made a face, and Noah laughed. “I know. I kept telling Adam that he couldn’t be in a band called Ten Speed and still hold his head up.”

The waitress brought our breakfast, and I watched Noah surreptitiously. I realized that I didn’t know until now whether he was right or left-handed. I knew a lot of other things about Noah, like that he and Bo had been friends since the seventh grade, when they got into a fight and were sent to detention together. Noah hated his father and loved tart things like Starbursts and Skittles, but he wasn’t much of a chocolate fan.

Four years of letters can make you think you knew someone really well. Sitting across from him for the first time watching him eat bland wheat toast, I wondered if my collection of facts stood for actual parts of the whole or simply random tidbits I could trot out if I was playing Noah Jackson Trivial Pursuit.

“What are you doing after breakfast?” Noah asked.

“I’m taking a picture of the Alpha Phis for a rush invitation.”

“Is that a regular photo or one of your special ones?”

“Well, it’s a miniature one, if that’s what you mean. It’s not like I invented the technique.”

“Are you going to show me how you do one of those?”

I shrugged slightly. “I guess, if you want.”

“I want.” He looked at me as if waiting for something.

“Like today?”

“Such an enthusiastic invitation.” He made a tsking sound. “Why yes, Grace, I’d love to come and be your assistant today.”

“I actually already have one—it’s Lana.”

“Isn’t she a member of that house?”

“Yes, but she’s a bad member who’s using me as an excuse to get out of her rush duties.”

“You know, if you weren’t doing it for them, they’d have to pay someone,” Noah said.

“Yeah but I’m happy to do it as a gift.”

“They think it’s good enough to put on their stuff.”

“I get that I can make money off of it. I just don’t want to.”

“I’m just trying to point out that what you do has value.”

“Got it.” I picked up my toast and bit down hard.

“So, are you seeing anyone?” Noah asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“What?” I choked in surprise on my toast and swallowed an unchewed piece in order to avoid spitting it all out on the table.

“Seeing someone. Dating. Hooking up. Hanging out?”

I wished I could say that I had found someone really wonderful, and that he’d come all the way to Central for nothing. I didn’t think my old line about being a cranky cat spinster was going to work for me here. Instead, I asked him, “Are you?”

“Nope. And I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Since like when?” He was sharing, so I might as well take advantage. I ignored the rest of my breakfast. I was hungry for information. What had he been doing for the last couple of years?

“Since high school.”

I sat back, stunned. He hadn’t dated anyone since high school. That seemed preposterous, and I told him so. “I don’t believe you.”

He wasn’t offended by this, but instead gave me a half smile that hinted at something more. “Truth. Ask Bo.”

He pulled out his phone and shoved it toward me. Handing someone your phone was like giving them the Pulp Fiction briefcase. You couldn’t take it and not look inside. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready to view the contents of his phone, no matter how tempting. With great effort, I pushed the phone away.

“Like no dates, hookups, hangouts at all?”

“Like no serious girlfriend since high school. It’s not easy to maintain a relationship while deployed, and I didn’t have anyone I cared about enough to make that effort before I left.”

“You wrote to me for four years,” I pointed out.

“I can make an effort when I want to.” He looked at me like this was important, but I couldn’t get past the idea that Noah hadn’t dated anyone seriously since high school.

“But since you’ve been out?” I pressed.

“Not everyone can just get into Central, Grace. I was busy studying, taking practice tests, and trying to make myself into an interesting candidate for admission. Girls were the last things on my mind.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed his almost spotless plate away. “But you haven’t answered my question.”

I didn’t want to make it seem like I was sitting around waiting for him, even though I had been. In a moment of panic and stupidity, I lied.

“I’m not dating anyone, but…” I paused intentionally, and took a sip of my Diet Coke. “I’m interested in someone.”

Noah’s eyebrows raised.

“Who is this lucky guy?”

“Ah… Mike Walsh.” Mike was actually the two-year crush of a different library co-worker, Sarah. She was always looking at him with puppy dog eyes when she thought no one was watching.

“Is he a frat guy? Jock? What?”

“He’s my student supervisor at the library.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“What do you mean?”

“You like him, but you aren’t dating.”

The thing with making up stories is that people always wanted details. I rubbed my suddenly sweaty palms together and tried channeling Sarah. What would she say? “I like him, but he’s never asked me out.”

“Isn’t this the 21st Century?” Noah threw my own words back in my face.” Why are you waiting?”

“I don’t think he’s interested.” Good lord, what was with the inquisition? I felt my cheeks heat up. Lana would know immediately that I was lying. I didn’t know how intuitive Noah was, but I dropped my gaze to my half-eaten breakfast to avoid looking at him in the eye.

“How do you know? I think you girls assume that guys are mind readers. Or impervious to rejection.”

I thought about this. Why didn’t Sarah just ask Mike out? It was obvious to everyone in the library that she liked him.

“I thought I had made it pretty clear,” I muttered.

“Call him now and ask him to a movie.”

“Now? My cellphone is dead.”

“Use mine.” He gestured toward his phone still lying face up on the table.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know what his phone number is.” I had it programmed into my phone, but I never called him. I never had occasion to.

“Lame, Grace. You like this guy but you don’t know his digits?” That did sound bad. But other than for a few people, I didn’t memorize phone numbers. Your phone did that for you.

“Where is he right now?” Noah pressed.

“Um, I have no idea.” I didn’t know what Mike did on the weekends. Other than our occasional, Thursday night, after-work get-togethers, I didn’t hang out with him. I hung out with Lana and her crew, which usually meant sorority and fraternity people. Mike was GDI—Goddamn Independent.

“You’ve had a crush on a guy you’ve worked with for the past year and you don’t know his phone number or how he spends his R&R time?” Noah looked at me skeptically. I shrank back into my side of the booth. I promised myself that I would never lie again. I wanted to throw up my hands in surrender and confess all.

“He might be at the library,” I said. I didn’t know Mike’s work schedule, but he was often at the library either working or hanging out.

“On a Saturday morning?” Noah looked at his watch. “At eleven o’clock?”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m your friend,” Noah replied and placed his forearms on the table, leaning closer to me. “I want to help you out. Isn’t that what friends do?”

“I’ve never had a male friend before,” I admitted. “I don’t know.”

“Just pretend I’m one of your girlfriends, then.”

“Riiight.” Because that would be so easy to do.

“Let’s go to the library.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you have anything to do today?” I tried to think of an excuse to get out of this, but saying you had to study two weeks into the new year wasn’t ever believable. Laundry, though, was a good excuse. Everyone had to do laundry. But before I could trot out my excuse, Noah was standing up ignoring my question.

I dug in my pocket and pulled out my debit card. I placed it on top of the wallet carrier that the waitress had dropped off earlier when she cleared our plates. Noah took out his wallet and threw down a couple of bills to cover the total plus a big tip. He stuck my card in his pocket.

“Hey, that’s my card.”

“Don’t make me hurt you, Grace.” He fended off my attempts to grab my card back. “I’ll return your card when we get to the library.”

“But I wanted to pay,” I said. “That’s what friends do. They pay their share.”

“You can buy next time,” Noah said and pushed me forward and out the door.

The library was on the south end of the campus, near the diner. It was a quick walk over, and I didn’t have time to think up any other plausible reason we should go back to the apartment. Noah’s long legs were eating up the pavement, and I felt like a tiny Chihuahua trying to keep up.

“Are we racing?” I asked.

“Sorry.” Noah slowed down. “Not used to walking with anyone as short as you.”

“I’m not short. I’m above average height for a female.” For some reason, Noah’s lack of experience walking around with shorter people was kind of pleasant. It fit in with his earlier confession that he hadn’t dated any one seriously since high school. Or maybe it just meant he dated really tall women.

We walked into the library, and a girl I didn’t know too well was manning the desk. I thought her name was Molly or Marie or Maria or something.

“Hi, Grace,” she said. I winced inwardly, feeling like a tool for not knowing her name when she knew mine. Faces, I could remember. Names, not so much.

“Hi. Is Mike around today?”

“Actually, yeah, he just came in and was going down toward Periodicals.”

“Great,” I said. I was batting negative one thousand today.

I walked slowly down the stairs but didn’t dawdle at the door. I knew I should’ve introduced Noah, but since I didn’t remember her name, I left one embarrassment to head to another.

“Not going to introduce me?” Noah whispered.

“I don’t remember her name,” I admitted.

“Ouch,” he laughed.

“Next time I pause, introduce yourself,” I instructed.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, trying to sound obedient but failing. I could practically hear his smile through the words.

We walked downstairs, turning left toward Periodicals, and sure enough Mike was there, leaning on the desk, flirting with some girl wearing a sorority T-shirt. Her Greek letters were appliquéd in white on the back of her pink tee.

“That’s Mike,” I pointed out.

Noah stopped and turned toward me. Then looked back at Mike, disbelieving. Mike tossed his hair out of his eyes. Once and then again. “Mike.” It was a disbelieving sound.

“What’s wrong with Mike?” I asked, faking my indignation. Mike was decent-looking, but he had long bangs and was constantly flipping them out of his face. You couldn’t talk with him for more than five minutes without a head toss.

He was on the thin side, which was another negative strike against him. You never date a guy who can wear skinnier jeans than you. I glanced furtively at Noah’s thighs. While Noah wasn’t heavy, he was big enough that I knew he wouldn’t be wearing my pants, ever.

Noah just shook his head at me and walked forward toward the pair. “Hey, Mike Walsh, right? Didn’t you come to my house out at the Woodlands before school started?” Mike turned toward Noah and stuck out his hand.

“Dude, yes, it was awesome. You’re Noah Jackson right? You fight?” Mike made a little move, like he was ducking and avoiding a fake punch.

“Right. I hear you work with my friend, Grace.”

Mike peered around Noah, and I gave him a limp wave and a weak smile.