Page 21 of Lethal in Pink

I arrive at 7:53 for an 8:00 start. Early enough to claim my territory, late enough to avoid the pre-class small talk that I would rather not endure on my first day back.

Penelope and I had an amazing time on “vacation”, in Nepal, though, I spent a good chunk of my cut on a bunch of bullshit I guess I shouldn’t have, but I’m also not sorry about.

Oops.

My pastel pink cashmere cardigan is soft and perfectly fitted, worn over a white pleated tennis skirt that hits mid-thigh. My blush ballet flats make almost no sound against the linoleum, which I consider a personal victory, because a woman who moves quietly is a woman who controls the room before anyone realizes she has entered it.

The look is very intentional. Very cutesy. Very…demure.

The front-left seat is my seat.

Not like, officially my seat. There are no nameplates, no assigned seating, no binding contract signed in blood on university letterhead, but I did scout this room last week during break, when campus was a ghost town. I decided then that it shall be mine.

I round the corner and cross the threshold, my purse swaying gently against my hip, and then I see him and come to a full stop.

There is a man in my seat.

Not my seat, technically. The seat beside my seat. But the distinction feels academic when his legs are spread so wide they’ve established what appears to be a territorial beachhead on my side of the desk.

I clock him in fragments, his dark hair that’s slightly too long, his sharp jaw, and his expressive, almond shaped espresso eyes currently aimed at his phone screen, dark and focused, the kind of eyes that probably make most girls blush.

Good thing I’m not most girls.

He’s wearing a fitted black shirt, beige pants with a black belt sporting a silver buckle, glasses that frame his features so well they look like they were made by god herself—the kind of pieces that whisper money rather than shout it.

I file his attractiveness under annoying and irrelevant and slide into my seat.

His knees. His knees are practically in my fucking zip code.

How rude.

I give it approximately four full seconds of watching his knee occupy airspace that by all rights of academic possession should belong to me before I turn to him with the flat, pleasant tone reserved for people who annoy me.

“You’re too close.”

He doesn’t look up from his phone. Doesn’t shift his posture. Doesn’t acknowledge that I have spoken at all except for the single syllable that emerges from somewhere behind the screen.

“Move.”

The word lands between us like something with mass. Not hostile, exactly. More like bored. The verbal equivalent of swatting a fly without opening your eyes.

My jaw tightens. The muscle twitches once, a small involuntary betrayal that I immediately resent.

“You move.”

Now he looks up.

“I was here first,” he says, and there’s an accent there, unmistakable and it makes my traitorous heart do a little flippy-flip inside my chest.

Fuck him for that.

“I sat down. The seat is occupied. The seat is mine.” he continues.

“Respectfully, you’re occupying space that isn’t yours.” I say, sweet as frosting. “And encroachment has consequences.”

One eyebrow of his lifts a millimeter. “Consequences,” he repeats, a ghost of a smile touching the corner of his mouth.

I let my smile sharpen by one degree. “I’m sorry, did I stutter?”