“All right, class,” Professor Hobb mutters, loud enough for us to hear. She pulls out some papers from her tote, making stacks and laying them across the front of her desk. “If you missed the first day of class please come up and grab the syllabus, along with some other papers.”
Olivia glances at me expectantly, knowing I missed the first day. I hop up from my seat to grab the papers—something I typically wouldn’t do if she wasn’t staring at me, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’ll lose them within the next couple of days anyway.
I make a slight show of grabbing the papers and taking them back to my desk, pretending to thoroughly glance over them to appease Olivia.
“Okay,” Professor Hobb addresses us as soon as everyone is in their seat and class is officially scheduled to start. “It looks like we have a full class today, so why don’t we do introductions since we skipped those last time?”
A low groan erupts from the class. I look over at Olivia to see her shoulders sagged and her lips slightly turned down into a scowl, also not thrilled.
I lean over and whisper to her, “I’ll introduce you if you introduce me?”
That causes a spark to twinkle in her eye, and one side of her mouth tugs up in a smile. “Deal.”
>> <<
“I didn’t know you were double-jointed,” I exclaim to Olivia, referring to the fun fact she’d mentioned when we had to list one about ourselves during our introductions. She even demonstrated her skill by bending her thumb all the way back to her wrist.
“Well, we just met, so we don’t really know anything about each other,” she states as we walk out of the building, our class over.
True, and I want to know more.
“Still, that’s sick, Liv,” I tease, feigning disgust and cringing at the thought of her twisting her fingers around in an unhumanlike way, imagining the pain it would cause if I even tried.
She shrugs, unaffected, a satisfied smirk on her face.
As we walk across campus, she opens up our English textbook, skimming through the pages.
“We have to read all of that?” I gawk, watching as Olivia rests the book on her forearm and uses her free hand to flip through the pages she bookmarked. Professor Hobb assigned us some poems to read and be prepared to discuss on Friday.
“It’s only five poems.” Olivia giggles, examining them.
“Yeah, but that one’s two pages long,” I retort, a slight whine in my voice, pointing to the text. “Aren’t poems only supposed to be a few lines?”
She chuckles, closing the textbook and hugging it to her chest. “They can be longer. It’s not that bad. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes total to read them all.”
“Still.” I huff, exasperated. “Who assigns homework during the first week of class?”
Olivia presses her lips together, trying to suppress a smile while giving me a sympathetic look, but I can detect the laughter dancing behind her eyes.
“Yo, Bronx!” I hear someone yell, and look to my right to spot Brennen walking our way.
“Hey, man,” I greet him with a bro handshake, and he falls into step with us. “What’s up?”
“You going to Kohan’s party tomorrow night?” he asks.
I let out a low curse. “I almost forgot about it. Yeah, I’ll be there. You wanna come?” I ask, turning to Olivia.
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, no. Thank you, though. Parties aren’t really my thing,” she admits nervously.
“You sure? It’s going to be fun,” Brennen tries to persuade her, leaning around me to talk to her directly.
“Oh, Olivia, this is Brennen. Brennen, Olivia,” I introduce them.
“Hi,” Olivia says, giving him a small smile and wave. “And, yeah, I’m sure.”
“Positive?” I press, slight hope that she might change her mind in my voice.
“Positive,” she confirms, and I feel myself deflate.
