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“Fair point. I’m sorry.” And he does look a little sorry as he rakes a hand through his hair, confirming my theory: Miles, whoever he is, is a fiddler.
“And besides. I have this.” I retrieve my trusty red canister and hold it up. I swear I’m going to end up spraying myself in the face.
“Please don’t wave that thing around,” he says, and he has a point there, so I drop it into my bag. “Where are you heading?”
“A party. You?”
“Meeting a friend.”
It’s gotten chilly, and I pull my sweater tighter. The drama building is on our right, the business school on our left. If we’re heading off campus on the same path, then we’re kind of forced to walk together.
“So, did you switch out of physics?” he asks just when the silence is moments from becoming unbearable. He’s fiddling again, this time with the smart watch on his wrist.
“Not yet. I had to fill out a form, and now I guess I pray to the gods of people who don’t do the assigned reading that it’s approved.”
“Ah. Those gods. I think they’re usually pretty busy preventing those people from being called on in class, but hopefully they’ll find the time to help you.”
His sense of humor catches me off guard. “Speaking of being called on in class,” I say, “you aren’t going to apologize for what happened in physics today?”
“Refresh my memory.”
I stop walking. “Seriously? You raised your hand and told the professor you wanted to hear what I had to say about the study of physics. On the first day. And for some reason, the professor listened to you!”
Miles blinks, like maybe I really did need to refresh his memory, but come on—it happened only hours ago. Something that may be regret passes over his face, his brows scrunching, and he relents. “You’re right. That was shitty of me, and I’m sorry. It’s been… a weird week.”
Maybe it’s the shock of a man admitting he did something wrong, but I might actually forgive him. I’d probably have found some other way of humiliating myself if he hadn’t sped the process along.
Though he doesn’t elaborate on his weird week, I let out a resigned breath. Fine, he can walk with me. No, not with me—next to me.
I check the map on my phone as we hit the first intersection at the campus entrance, the one with the giant bronze W. We cross the street together, though I have to hoof it to keep up with his longer strides. I will not lose my power-walking title.
“Where does your friend live?” I ask.
Another scratch at his wrist. “Couple blocks away.”
And yet he doesn’t veer from my path, even as we reach the house with the husky statues in front.
I stop.
He stops.
We both turn to go up the walk.
“I thought you said you were meeting a friend,” I say.
“I am. At a party.”
As melodramatically as I can, I thrust out my arms, gesturing for him to go in front of me, and after a moment’s hesitation, he does. Of course we wound up at the same party. Of course the universe would find this hilarious.
“You two together?” the guy at the door asks as Miles approaches, craning his neck to get a look at me. I wonder if bouncer is a job for someone very high or very low in the frat hierarchy. “We’re trying to keep things balanced—we don’t want more guys than girls. I can’t let you in unless you’re with her.”
Miles gives me a pleading look, and I don’t know what he’s doing here, if one of these frat bros is his friend or if he just wants to get smashed after a “weird week.” I also don’t want to get into this bullshit binary gender ratio.
“He’s with me.” The guy steps back, allowing us to pass. “You owe me,” I hiss at Miles as we make our way inside.
“I’ll be your physics tutor,” he says with this little quirk of a smile. A parenthesis sliced in half.
And with that, he blessedly disappears into the crowd.
