“Savannah! Darling.” She’s the first to break eye contact when a middle-aged woman with a warm smile stands in front of our table. “I’m so glad you finally ended up in one of my classes.”
The girl—Savannah, stands with an equally warm expression, her smile showing off a set of dimples in her cheeks that match the woman across from her. She reaches over the table, embracing the woman—who I’m assuming is our professor—in a tight hug. “Me too.”
The professor and Savannah might have oddly similar features, with their matching dimples, bronzed glowing skin, and dark brown eyes, but where Savannah covers her body in neutral tones, her friend has more of an eclectic style. Bird feathers hang from her ears, silver and turquoise rings lace each of her fingers, and she wears a mix of animal, ocean wave, and colorful striped prints.
They engage in a short conversation, where one of her decorative hands holds Savannah’s cheek, and the gleam in her eyes never leaves.
I spin a pen through my fingers, rotating it over my thumb a few times before the professor heads down the stairs.
“Friend of yours?” I ask as Savannah sits back in her seat.
“Jealous?”
I grin, leaning back in my seat, holding my pen between my teeth.
“Good morning! I’m Professor Diaz, and welcome to Entertainment Journalism.” She beams. “Now, I know it’s early, but I have such a love and passion for teaching this course, so forgive me for my cheerfulness, but I amsolooking forward to this semester.”
I crane my neck, looking over at the woman next to me, and suddenly, so am I.
4
savannah
“You couldn’t wait for me?”
I bite into my perfectly cooked steak and grilled cheese, ignoring my brother’s judgmental scolding.
“I did wait,” I mumble around a mouthful of food. “You were just late.”
Leo shucks off his jacket and plops down in the booth across from me. “Damn, Mini. What are you preparing for? War? Chill out.”
He’s not wrong. I’m shoveling this food in my mouth like it’s my full-time job. To be fair, itismy favorite restaurant, but I’m probably famished from the way I Usain Bolted my ass out of class this morning.
“Where’s Dad?” he asks, looking around the diner.
“He texted me right before I was about to pick him up and said to go on without him.” I take a drink of my water, clearing my throat. “He said he was having a meeting with one of his players and their dad or something. I don’t know.” I shrug.
I love my dad but I’ve always made it a point to keep his business and my life separate. Once he starts talking about the team, I start tuning him out.
“Weird.” Leo reaches across the table, snatching a french fry off my plate just as the waitress comes to take his order.
He doesn’t need to look at the menu and she knows it. She just needs to confirm if he wants water or Coke with his lunch today.
Leo goes to a school three hours away from Linden Creek. Once a week, my dad and I meet him at Midway Diner, and once a week, he gets to flirt with the waitress.
“Did you start your class with Aunt Lo today?”
Ugh.For a moment there, I had forgotten that the class I was most excited about this semester had been tainted by Linden Creek’s golden boy. It might be petty of me, but I am who I am, and I’m someone who wants nothing to do with Noah Kingston or his team. I break off the end of a fry before nodding and popping it into my mouth.
“And?”
“It was fine.”
When he doesn’t respond, I look up at him and his dark eyebrows furrow the same way mine do. “What the hell is up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, normally you run your yapper nonstop at lunch, and now all of a sudden you’re Silent Susan over there.”
