A beat of silence fills the room, only disrupted by the running water in his sink and the occasional tap of his razor when he cleans it.
“I miss the dorm suites,” I mutter.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Who did you end up rooming with?”
Collins eyes refuse to meet mine in the mirror, making my curiosity heighten.
He’s not on any official sports, but the man has always been in the athletic dorms. I don’t find it curious until now.
“You do have a roommate, right?”
He shakes his head. “Just got lucky I guess.”
“Lucky, right,” I mumble, keeping my eyes on him while he rinses his face, shoves all of his stuff back into his shower bag, and bolts for the door.
Has the man always been so damn cagey?
Chapter 26
Rick
I spend hours in class unable to retain a single word that my professor says. I might as well have stayed in bed with Landon because my mind is with him the entire day.
Eventually, the longest day of classes ends, but I find myself lingering outside the visual arts building rather than hauling ass back to the dorm.
Instead of looking like a love-crazed psycho, I grab lunch from one of the fast-food places in the dining hall and sit out on the lawn to people watch.
I left Landon begging for more this morning, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed his mind throughout the course of the day after being given the opportunity to really think about what happened between the two of us last night.
He never put the brakes on, never said we were taking things too far, but I know in my gut that day is coming. It may not be today, but eventually, Landon is going to whisper the words no more.
It’ll probably be easy for him, the decision to just chalk all of this up to research. He’ll have his answers, no doubt this isn’t for him, and I’ll be expected to move on like it never happened.
It’s a bad idea. One I knew was a mistake from the start, but of course I didn’t let that stop me. If I go back to the room and he gives me that grin that lands us right back where we were last night, I know I’ll grin back and cover his body with mine. The ball is already rolling, so I guess there’s no point in taking a step back until he insists on it.
I grin at the sight of Lenny the Lemur, Lindell University’s mascot, as he strolls down the sidewalk, frowning when he bumps into a cheerleader. The mascot, in an overexaggerated way, puts both hands on his hips as she grabs ahold of the front of his costume.
I’m thinking there’s going to be drama but then all of a sudden music is streaming, an upbeat tempo both Lenny and the cheerleader begin dancing to. Before long, another pair of cheerleaders are there dancing, and then another two. In less than a minute, what seems like the entire cheer team is dancing with Lenny in a clearly choreographed routine.
Other students, all dressed in matching Lindell attire, are joining in.
My cheeks hurt from smiling as I watch this flash mob take place only ten yards from where I sit on the grass.
I fucking love this college.
I’m clapping along with other students, enjoying the show, when I spot Oakleigh with a professional-looking camera to her eye. I knew she had a level of school sprit from the night I met her at the bookstore during Welcome Night because she was wearing a Lindell t-shirt, but I never took her for the type to want to capture these moments.
“She’s not.”
I look at Joey as he approaches.
“She’s not, what?”
“She’s not on the school paper or anything like that. She’s obsessed with Lenny.”
Joey takes a seat beside me as we watch the rest of the event play out.
I keep my eyes on Oakleigh, noticing some truth to what Joey just revealed because she isn’t taking pictures of everyone. Her camera solely follows Lenny as he dances and does flips and somersaults. Whoever is in that fucking costume is one athletic motherfucker. He or she must also be burning up because it feels like a hundred degrees even in the shade of the tree I’m sitting by.
“I love this school,” Joey mutters on a sigh when Lenny picks up the original cheerleader’s books, handing them to her before walking away as if a five-minute performance didn’t just take place.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Do you think there’s a chance she’s dating the guy in the costume?”
I look to Joey. “No one knows who it is. What makes you think it’s a man? It could easily be a woman.”
His grin grows. “It’s a man. Maybe she figured it out. If not, isn’t it weird that she’s all goo-goo eyed over a fuzzy costume?”