Straddles. The word sounds indecent coming from her full lips, drawing an image in my head of straddling my hips, my bed—my face.
Her eyes narrow a fraction as though she knows exactly how dirty my thoughts have turned, questioning if I’m a creep or a perv. I should probably admit I’d be willing to be either—both—but thoughts of Katie’s warning and returning to the dorm without spending a single damn night here have those thoughts coming to an abrupt end. “Right, which is why I’m not asking about your cats but instead about how you sleep with any cat and a case of knives, considering cats turn into untrustworthy assholes the second you fall asleep.”
Humor flashes in her eyes, but she continues to hold back her smile like a best-kept secret. “Maybe you give off a vibe that makes them not trust you…”
When Mila and I bantered for the better part of last year, innuendos weren’t just laced in our words, they were the damn tracks of our conversation, blatant and clear, but I leave my conversation with Hadley clean as a G-rated film as I grin conspiratorially. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”
She tilts her head. “From what I hear, science club keeps you pretty busy.”
Confusion has me squinting for half a second before her joke catches me, making me lose the game as I smile first. A genuine smile. Nearly instantly, she follows, and though I’d guess it’s muted, it still feels like a win, albeit, short-lived because the second hit of silence spreads like a virus, fast and unrelenting. I haven’t worked at being friends with someone of the opposite sex in so damn long I can’t remember the steps, a testament to my busy as hell schedule more than my character, but I’m sure she’ll assume I’m a total dick if I admit this to her.
“Are you a sophomore? Junior?”
“Sophomore,” she says. “And you’re a…”
“Junior.”
She nods. “I didn’t realize you and Katie were so close in age.”
I swallow the questions her words unveil about what my sister’s shared about me. “Thirteen months.”
Her eyes round again. “Wow. So you’re Irish twins? That’s what it’s called right?” Her brow lowers and her teeth graze her bottom lip, an expression that could be made into posters that every guy would give his car to own. “Or is thirteen months too long? Is it less than a year?”
I nod. “Close enough.”
Hadley nods as well, that silence beginning to stretch between us again. She takes a step back, small, but enough to gain my attention. Girls usually lean closer and find excuses to touch me, clear indications that they’re into me, inviting attention, or more. Hadley’s re-establishing the boundary lines.
Once again, I’m caught wondering if Katie sent her a similar warning.
“Do you need help?” she asks, pointing in the direction of the front door. “Bringing your stuff inside?”
“I don’t have anything interesting like a knife collection or a dozen cats.”
“Ten,” she says, setting her bag down.
“Ten,” I lament. “I thought you had to get a textbook?”
She shrugs as she keeps my stare. “I still might.”
I bark out a laugh unsure if it’s her honesty or humor that garners the reaction, possibly both. She smiles coyly, then turns before the air grows stale again and crosses the formal living room that is nearly empty, used as a hall to reach the kitchen and dining room.
The sun is bright and round in the sky, warning me I have to be at practice soon. I’m eyeing the clouds in the distance, waging if they’re storm clouds or benign shade when Hadley gasps and jumps back, nearly running into me. She shudders and wipes a hand across her forehead and then the front of her shirt before she shudders again, head to toe.
“You good?”
She looks over her shoulder at me, eyes growing wide as though she forgot I was here. Pink stains her cheeks and her mouth falls open a fraction before she purses her lips and laughs nervously—a forced habit rather than a reaction. “I forgot how big the spiders here are.” She points at a web that stretches from a window to one of the shrubs in the yard, a garden spider nearly eye-level with her that’s the size of my palm.
“He’s harmless,” I tell her. “We have a ton of zipper spiders in Indiana.”
Hadley shakes her head. “I’ll take your word on it being harmless. That’s a knife fight I’d show up with a blowtorch to.”
“Where are you from?”
“Vegas.”
“Vegas?”
She gives me an unreadable expression, a flash of what I think is contempt as she waits for me to tag more words to my question.