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Matt lifted an eyebrow. He and Marie exchanged a look before he sat up in his chair. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” I gave Marie another sheepish grin. “This is really good orange juice.”

She just frowned at me.

Matt coughed, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll come with you today.”

I looked at him. “Huh?”

“Today. School. You’re going in to reenroll, right? Talk to them. I’d imagine there’d need to be some form of meeting, since they gave you extended leave from your studies.” He shrugged, picking up his coffee. “I’ll go with you. Team Batt.” He winked, taking a sip.

Marie was looking between the two of us. “I agree with that idea. Matt will go with you. Team Batt…”

Matt just laughed. “You’ve no clue what that means.”

She went past him to the kitchen, and as she did, she raised her hand, making a motion like she was going to smack the backof his head. She didn’t actually hit him, but Matt followed her, turning his head so he could see her. Noting her implication, he just chuckled, and then he called out, “Fitzy!”

Fitz, my bodyguard-slash-driver, stepped in from the other hallway. “I heard.”

Matt narrowed his eyes at my security guard, raising his coffee again. “I’m assuming you know what to do.”

The subtext was to let Kash know my decision and probably to set in motion letting whoever else needed to know about my reentry into school, but I kept quiet about my other plans. For those, I figured it worked out best if Matt was the one coming with me, and not Kash himself.

“Okay.” Matt saluted me with his coffee, right before he finished drinking it. “Meet you out front in twenty minutes?”

I nodded, reaching for and then downing my orange juice as he got up, going to his room.

Itwasreally good orange juice.

NINE

Bailey

Turns out, it was a Wednesday and smack in the first week of February, so that meant classes were a go. That also meant my advisor thought I was nuts. She said it herself. Ms. Wells shook her head but went to work on her computer. “Okay. Are you sure you want to take last semester’s finals this week, and then also try to catch up?”

“Yes.”

I was firm. I was adamant.

She stopped typing and looked over my shoulder to where Matt was standing. He shuffled over, coming to sit next to me. He shrugged, shaking his head, and folded his arms over his chest. “She woke up with a mission today. Don’t look at me to talk sense into her. She’s the genius, not me.”

“Have you—Was this run by your, er, Mr. Colello?”

I flushed. “I don’t need permission from my boyfriend to start school again.”

“I called him and he wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. He said if she wants to learn, let her learn,” Matt said, as if I hadn’t spoken.

I heard another tone in his voice and slid my eyes sideways, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was firmly locked on my advisor’s and the two seemed to be reading each other’s minds. She confirmed this a second later. “Uh-huh. I see.”

Typing it up, she handed me a note to take down to the registrar’s office, and after we did that, I was reenrolled. Classes started tomorrow. Which, crap, I didn’t have my books. But going through my list, I saw that only two required a textbook. The rest were online, and I smacked Matt’s chest as we were walking through campus. “We gotta run by the school store fast.”

Matt grunted, his chest deflating a second. “Ouch. You hit hard, woman. And what are you talking about?” He took my class list out of my hands, reading it. “MIS 545 Operations Management. MIS 516 Security Risk Management.” He read my other two classes and frowned, absentmindedly rubbing where I’d hit him. “Just the titles of your courses give me a migraine. I don’t get how you, Cy, and Dad are into this, and that you guys almost salivate over it.” He handed the paper back to me. “You guys are super nerds. Not just nerds;supernerds.”

I snatched it away. “Well, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got super nerd powers of your own, just haven’t found ’em yet.”

Matt threw his head back and laughed. “You serious?”

I frowned.


Tags: Tijan The Insiders Trilogy Romance