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Indeed, David Simpson is the best-looking Steel if you’re looking for classically handsome.
And I am.
I lean in and kiss his cheek. “Let’s just get me to school. Then you’ll kiss me goodbye, and we’ll see each other next weekend. We have a date. I think I may be ready to say it then.”
“You say it whenever you’re ready, Maddie. I won’t rush you.”
He starts the truck then, and we drive to my dorm room. Luckily, the vacant single is on the first floor, so we don’t have to drag things upstairs or into an elevator.
The room is sparse and very small, but it has all the necessities. A bed, a dresser, a closet, and a desk. The walls of course are white cement blocks, and I don’t have my own bathroom. I’ll have to use the one down the hallway. But at least the floors aren’t coed in this building, so I won’t have to worry about running into a guy in a towel.
I voice this to Dave, and he says, “Damn right you won’t. If you had guys on your floor, I’d have something to say about that.”
I shake my head, but I can’t help a small smile. I am both slightly annoyed and slightly touched by his sentiment.
He helps me get moved in and stays while I put the linens on my bed and get my clothes in the closet and in the dresser.
“I have to go to the bookstore,” I say. “I start classes tomorrow, and I have to pick up my books.”
“Why didn’t you just order them online?”
“Because I decided to do this like three days ago. I’ll pick them up at the bookstore. You want to come along?”
He kisses my lips slightly. “I think I’m going to let you get settled in. I’ll go home. I’m needed there. Dad and I have a lot to do right now. But I’ll see you Saturday. I’ll text you with the details.” He kisses me once again and then trails his finger over my cheek. “I do love you, Maddie Pike.”
Then, without waiting for me to reply, he turns and leaves.
My alarm goes off at six thirty the next morning.
The numbnuts that I am, I signed up for an eight o’clock class. I have only one more general requirement that I need to get my degree, and this was the only time that I could get my science requirement and still fit in all the other classes I wanted.
So I’m off to biology, something I’m not even remotely interested in, at eight o’clock in the freaking morning.
After biology, I have poetry and then Spanish.
That’s all for today.
Tomorrow, I have another English course—creative writing—and then watercolor.
I already have my fine arts requirements on my transcript, but I’ve always wanted to try watercolor.
I don’t expect to be any good at it, but who cares? It’s time to try new things and figure out what I was put on this earth to do.
I am only twenty-two, so if I don’t know what to do with my life, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Just because my siblings all knew doesn’t mean I have to know. Rory didn’t even get it right the first time.
Biology class is finally done, but then I have to go to a lab before poetry class to make up what I missed the first few weeks of classes.
I walk in, and the only other student in the lab is a tall man with brown hair and light-green eyes. He looks up at me and smiles. “You must be Madeline Pike.”
“Guilty,” I say. “Call me Maddie. And you are?”
“I’m Dr. Carmen’s lab assistant, Grayson George.” He holds out his hand. “I’m here to get you up to speed.”
“That’s kind of you, but you don’t have to. I’m perfectly capable of doing the work on my own.”
“Dr. Carmen asked me to do it”—he eyes me up and down—“I’m pretty glad she did.”
My cheeks warm. And I find myself…
