CHAPTERTHREE
Lennox loved playing poker. Any game where you could have a losing hand and still win big was his kind of game. His whole life had been an ongoing game of poker, a shit hand dealt to him from the start. But right now, watching Auden and O’Neal chat over burgers was as entertaining a poker game as he’d ever watched.
Auden was being Hometown Auden, the guy Lennox had first met when they’d gotten paired together as roommates. The rich kid from the small southern enclave. The upstanding young man who’d been bred to be exceedingly polite, God-fearing, and people-pleasing. Lennox was well aware that this side of Auden still existed when he went back home, but it was fascinating watching it in action.
Auden was trying to act like some kind of big brother, telling O’Neal the easiest routes to get to her classes, the best dining hall, explaining where the nearest church was—because, of course, he assumed sweet, sheltered O’Neal would want to be nowhere else on her Sunday mornings. Lennox had his doubts that someone who would sever a relationship with her family and give up all that old money to be here was looking to recreate the same life she’d had at home, but he didn’t interrupt. He’d promised Auden he’d be good.
He definitely didn’t want O’Neal bringing back info to Auden’s sister. If Lennox did anything to jeopardize Auden’s relationship with his family, Aud would never forgive him for that. Despite the differences he had with them, Auden loved his family and had a whole life waiting for him in his father’s company when he got out of school. Blowing that up meant blowing up his future. Part of Lennox wished he’d do that. Then Auden wouldn’t be leaving here at the end of this school year, but that wasn’t his call to make.
He had a sneaking suspicion that Auden thought these years were just an experimental college phase and that when they were done, he’d return to where he came from, get a job, find a girl, and do the marriage, kids, and mansion thing his people did. Lennox pushed away the grim thought. They still had this year to have fun. Lennox still had time to prove to Auden that who he was here was who he was at his core.
And as he watched Auden laugh at something O’Neal said, he began to wonder if this pretty freshman could help with that. Her being here put Auden squarely straddling the border between his two lives. O’Neal might be the tipping point that made Auden fall to one side or the other. Based on the way Auden was looking at O’Neal right now, no one else would be able to tell that the guy wasn’t thinking the most wholesome of thoughts. Auden was good at poker too. But Lennox knew his friend’s tells. Auden’s jaw kept flexing, and his fingers were curling and uncurling against the tabletop, like he was doing everything he could not to reach out and touch her in some way.
Lennox was riveted, watching his normally calm and collected friend struggle. This girl tugged on some string in Auden that hereallydidn’t want tugged, some part of himself he didn’t want to admit he had. The part of him that saw O’Neal’s sweetness and naïveté and wanted toruinit. To tear at it with his teeth.
Auden didn’t want to admit that he was one of those guys all the people in O’Neal’s life had warned her about.
Lennox had no such qualms. “How old are you, O’Neal?”
Her head turned his way, her blue eyes a little startled. Auden sent him a look that could’ve burned a fresh tattoo into Lennox’s skin.
“Nineteen,” she answered. “Why?”
He smiled his best innocent smile. “Just curious. Some freshmen come in at seventeen. It can restrict which clubs and bars around campus you can get into. Wanted to make a note for future reference in case you ever come out with us.”
“Oh,” she said, shifting in her chair, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. “I don’t know if I’ll be going to any clubs or bars, but yeah, nineteen. Had to repeat kindergarten, so I’m always a year older than my classmates.”
“Ah, those ABCs can be tough,” he said with a nod.
“O’Neal didn’t fail it,” Auden said, clearly annoyed.
Lennox lifted his palms. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s fine.” She had tucked her hands beneath the table and glanced at Auden. “My mom died when I was five. I missed a lot of school days that year.”
Lennox frowned, taking in O’Neal’s wary expression and feeling like a jackass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I lost my mom young too. It sucks.”
Her gaze flicked upward, meeting his, the unveiled empathy there catching him off guard. “I’m sorry for your loss, too, then. And yeah, it does. It sucks a lot.”
She held the eye contact for a beat, and he found himself wanting to ask more questions. He’d been aware that O’Neal was beautiful from the start. He’d noted it, but lots of people were beautiful. Beautiful could be boring. He was more attracted to complicated. But something in her eyes belied the pretty, naïve church girl role he’d assigned to her in his head. There was depth in that gaze—pain, weariness, sadness. An old soul.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
“Sure.” A self-conscious smile touched her lips. “Sorry, didn’t mean for lunch to take a dark turn.” She sent Auden an affectionate look. “But thanks for defending my reputation. Can’t have anyone thinking I didn’t get straight As one year.”
Auden winced. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay. I’m used to everyone knowing my family history back home. I’m hoping for a clean slate here.” She glanced at Lennox. “But Lennox doesn’t look like a gossip.”
Lennox leaned back in his chair and smirked, opening his arms. “I am a human vault.”
“He is,” Auden agreed. “He’s nosy as hell, so don’t feel obligated to answer anything you don’t want to, but he won’t be telling anyone else your business.”
O’Neal took a sip of her iced tea and gave Lennox an evaluating look. “Good to know.”
They finished up lunch, talk returning to casual things, and before Lennox knew it, they were dropping O’Neal back at her dorm.
“You sure you don’t need anything else?” Auden asked, leaning out the driver’s side window as O’Neal rounded the front of the car.