Good lord.
I bite my lip and look away, hoping no one caught me staring.
Yep. Time for this girl to go home.
CHAPTER FIVE
So much forgetting away from those eyelashes. Leo has insisted on walking me back to my dorm. He moseys beside me, hands in his front pockets and his gaze on the sky. Meanwhile, my eyes are darting all around us, looking for spies in the bushes. I remind myself that everyone at O-Chi is passed out by now and the bars downtown are closed. But still, if anyone catches me out with a strange guy when I said I was going home with a headache, I’ll have some serious explaining to do.
“What did you tell him?” Leo asks.
“Tell who?”
“The boyfriend. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
I sigh. “I told him I didn’t feel well and that I just wanted to go back to my room and go to bed.”
“Why didn’t you just tell him the truth?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I admit. “I know it sounds lame, but sometimes, with some people, it’s easier to lie than to try and explain.”
Leo nods thoughtfully and we walk in silence for a minute or twomore, turning off Main Street and entering the back side of campus. Maples in full autumn color line the path on one side.
I yank a bright yellow leaf off a low-hanging branch. “Did you really go to Oxford?”
“I did.”
“What was it like?”
He gets a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s traveling back there in his mind. “Like a whole other world.”
I twirl the maple leaf by the stem. “What did you study there?”
“The Elizabethan period, mostly.”
“Hence the fascination with the Lost Colony?”
His smile is bashful. “It might have something to do with it.”
I picture him poring over sixteenth century manuscripts and visiting historic sites, and it makes me crazy jealous.
“How about you?” he asks. “You said you’re an English major, but what’s your special area of interest?”
“Well, I’m only a sophomore, so I haven’t been able to specialize much yet, but—” Do I tell him what I’ve been considering? Most of the people I know would say I’ve gone off the deep end, but I have a feeling Leo won’t.
“But—?”
“I think I might minor in women’s studies.” Because no matter what I read in my literature classes, my brain always zeros in on the female characters. And more often than not, I get pissed off at how they’re portrayed.
“Now that would be interesting,” Leo agrees. “And you’d never run out of material to study.”
No, I wouldn’t, indeed.
I toss my leaf into the bushes. “Why did you invite me tonight?”
Leo startles at my abruptness, but he quickly recovers. “I told you, I thought you might like to do something different.”
“Avery didn’t like me.”
