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Another residential leader came through, but he was more angry than anything. "If you’re going to have your residents come and interrupt our event to make some sort of statement, Ms. Fontaine, this is out of the question. It’s rude to your other presenters, to have them marching in like—"
"She didn’t ask them to come after everybody," June retorted.
"What?"
Slowly, I nodded. My voice was tiny. "I didn’t tell them to come. I mean…I told my floor but that’s eighteen people."
Both of the residential leaders took long looks at each other and turned back to me. The woman from the freshmen dorms shrugged her shoulders. "Beggars can’t be choosers, Robert."
"I…" He frowned. "Don’t do it again."
"Piper." June grabbed my shoulders and steered me towards the stage. "You’re almost on. So, what do you think? I can call campus security right now. Adam doesn’t have to be here."
If I wanted to, all I needed to do was tell June and they’d escort Adam out in front of everybody. If anything, it’d send a message. And that would be the end between me and the Marrs Manwhore. But I gazed out at the audience, out at the boy with the reddish-brown hair, who’d helped me with my heels all those years ago and my heart beat painfully in my chest.
"No…" I swallowed. "I want him here."
"They’re giving you the signal," June assured me and disappeared back into the shadows. "We’ll be right here when you’re done, okay?"
"Okay," I whispered and polite applause finished up the last presentation.
This was it. This was the point where I was supposed to walk up to the stage and take the clicker from the presenter but my legs didn’t work right. I stumbled forward and caught myself, taking tepid steps up to the spotlight, in front of all of those people.
"Up next we have…" The presenter paused. "Piper Fontaine with Athletes and Student Culture."
A roar of applause overfilled my senses and my throat locked up. Regardless, I made my way to the presenter and took the clicker from his hand, tightening my fist around it until my knuckles were white. And then…the microphone.
Speak.
There was a sea of faces in front of me, all obscured in the lighting, and my breathing hitched up while I tried to focus on one thing. And the only thing that made me feel brave enough to keep going. Adam, calmly nodded in front of me, encouraging me to continue.
111
Adam
Nice Touch
There are a lot of things that can be overwhelming in this life but I never felt pride like that, hitting me in waves during the presentation, metaphorically knocking me on my ass. That was my ice princess. My girl swinging it out of the ballpark, my girl riding through the ten-minute presentation with everything she had.
I’d been cocky, I’d been arrogant, and I’d never known any other type of pride. Sitting in those hard fucking seats, I discovered that pride could be born out of love.
And every time she hit her mark, I nodded along with her.
My ice princess killed that shit.
After the presentation, I hung around back with the bouquet of flowers, waiting. I’d done enough peacocking with her. Now, I wanted her to have this moment alone. I’d wait on the sidelines and once she was ready, I needed to talk to her.
"You owe me one, dude," a senior tennis player joked.
"You hit my car with a scooter, dude," I countered, irritated. "Last year. If you want to talk about owing people, hit up my mechanic. I’m sure he’d love the tip."
He muttered an apology and the rest of the smiles of the guys around me vanished. Every single person in the room had done something stupid at one of my parties. When I was a host, I had to deal with everybody’s shit. This was them paying up.
Kassie and Ryan walked up to me. Ryan threw me a grin. "I’ll have to get some of those pictures from the presentation. She had some great ones of you."
"I have copies," I confirmed, eyes flickering back to the crowds up front.
"And the flowers?" Kassie nodded, impressed. "Nice touch."
