I might have only caught a glimpse of his abs for about five seconds, but they had been tattooed to my brain forever.
Putting his arms through the other two arm holes, Colton smoothed down the T-shirt on his torso. As if he could sense my attention on him, Colton swerved his head in my direction, his eyes meeting mine. He fully caught me in the act of shamelessly gawking at him shirtless and watching him put a T-shirt on.
Fuck.
A playful smile made its way to his lips. ‘Like what you see?’ he teased me.
Without giving it a second thought, I just verbalized the first thing that came to my mind.
‘Very much,’ I blurted out and willed myself to walk at a normal pace as I stepped into the women’s bathroom.
Once I was inside and the coast was clear, I finally let myself freak out.
‘What just happened?’ I muttered to myself. Bringing my hands to my cheeks as they start to heat up. ‘What did I just do?’
Was I flirting? Was that flirting? Did that evenqualifyas flirting?
Normally, I wouldn’t have been so bold to say something like that. Maybe it was just the spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, my mind temporarily malfunctioning after being caught like that.
As I paced back and forth in the bathroom—my brain going a mile a minute on how to deal with the consequences of what had just happened—it occurred to me that freaking out wasn’t necessary. While I never thought I would run into Colton, I knew there was a slight chance I would.
At least it didn’t happen at a place I frequently went to; that day was just a rare occurrence. In the grand scheme of things, we probably wouldn’t ever see each other again, logically. Colton and I didn’t have mutual friends—at least, none that I was aware of—and we were studying different things on different sides of campus.
And even if we were to bump into each other again, he probably would’ve already forgotten about the whole thing by then. I was freaking out over nothing.
Reassuring myself of this fact, I splashed my face with some water from the sink beforefinallygoing into one of the stalls.
By the time I reached the entrance to meet up with Lily and Claudia, Nina was already there with them. My backpack was slung over one of her shoulders.
‘Finally,’ Nina exclaimed once she saw me coming. Her eyes narrowed in question when she noticed the flush on my face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘What? Yeah, I’m fine. Are we leaving?’ I answered, reclaiming my bag from her. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Nina replied. ‘And yes, we’re leaving. What are your thoughts on Thai for dinner?’
‘Thai sounds perfect to me,’ I said and that was the end of it.
There are moments in life that you just want to keep to yourself and as we sat in the Thai restaurant catching up with one another, I realizedthe incidentwas one of them. I didn’t particularly understand why. All three of them were well aware of my silly crush on Colton, so I knew they would’ve loved to hear this little story.
But for some reason, even with the numerous opportunities to bring it up during dinner, I just didn’t. I had decided to keep this small interaction with Colton to myself.
As I tucked the memory into my mind, I reminded myself that was all it could be. A memory. Anything further would mean tempting the curse, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Time went by, withthe incidentbeing my only interaction with Colton, and real life proving that it was just a coincidental encounter rather than what fiction would claim a fated one.
But of course, just when I thought the curse’s claws were starting to loosen their hold on me, it had only just begun working its magic.
Chapter Two
My legs were folded as I sat in my favourite spot at the campus coffee shop with a book in my hands. The weather was taking a turn from the sunny morning. The rain had only started getting heavier after the tiny drops that fell half an hour ago. A tiny flash of lightning appeared, quickly followed by the soft sound of thunder.
It was perfect.
In certain circumstances.
Not when you realize you got carried away by the book you’re reading to the point where you were going to be late for class.
‘Shit,’ I cursed out. Quickly but gently, I shoved the book into my backpack and rummaged through it to find my umbrella.
