Page 9 of Trust Me

“Dean’s bigger.”

Brooks hung his head, laughing softly. When he looked up, he perched his chin on his hand and looked back and forth between us. “Dean’s a teddy bear.”

Dean scoffed. “Bullshit.”

“I bet you tuck a girl in at night and make sure she has water on the nightstand. Then you big-spoon her and snarl at anyone who threatens her.”

Tilian hummed. “Sounds sweet to me.”

“It is. Just saying, that’s how Dean is.”

I cocked my head. “What about me?”

“You wanna be tucked in and big-spooned.”

My lips curved upward as I tapped my fingers on the desk. “I might have to crawl in your bed, Brooks, cause you strike me as the cuddling type.”

“Sure, but I’m just as likely to handcuff you to the headboard.”

“Dean it is, then. When are you free, big guy?”

He snorted but didn’t look up from his phone. I peeked at it and saw that he was scrolling through a job-hunting app. That sounded just about as unsavory as eating another container of rancid yogurt.

I’d been at my job for five years, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not until I graduated, at least. My boss, Marty, was awesome, and the people who came in regularly always checked in to see how I was doing. Of all the places in my life, it was one of the few where I felt like I was a part of something.

“Well, I can start brainstorming questions for the survey,” I offered. Since I was studying psychology and our project was on the college’s mental health resources, it seemed fitting.

“Dope,” Brooks said. “Tilian, since you aren’t gonna talk to people, you can compile information about what Harmon currently offers so we have our baseline. Dean, what are you good at?”

He rolled his lips a couple of times as he thought about it. “I’ve already been looking into the research about what programs are actually helpful on campuses. I can put together an ideal, then we can compare it with what the college already has, combined with the results of our surveys.”

“Love a man who’s prepared. We good to go?”

We all agreed, then Brooks got to his feet and flashed us a peace sign before he headed out.

Such a strange dude.

Other people were shuffling out too, so I got my stuff together. “It might be beneficial for us to work on our parts together,” I suggested, glancing at Dean briefly. “They sort of go hand in hand.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

His easy response surprised me. Deciding to keep the momentum going, I set my phone in front of him.

“Let me get your number and we can figure it out.”

He added his contact information, then passed it back to me. I lightly tapped his bicep with my fist before I left, ignoring the way he pursed his lips. I’d barely sat in my car when my phone buzzed. It made me pause with my key halfway in the ignition.

Dean: Hey, I got your number from Brooks. He said you have a room to rent. Can we talk about it sometime this week if it’s still up for grabs?

I stared at the message with my mouth open. It was kind of odd for him to text me now. Why didn’t he just say something about it in class?

I probably would have mentioned it if I’d known he was the one Brooks was talking about this morning. If Dean seemed fine with the idea, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. He was willing to consider rooming with me, which meant he couldn’t despise me that much.

Oh, God, I needed to clean. I hadn’t thought about it before, but now that Dean freaking Kennedy was going to be looking at the place, I felt self-conscious. I didn’t want to give him a reason to go back to looking at me like I was an alien.

I turned on my anime fight scene playlist and took a breath.

“Set your heart ablaze, Oli,” I said as I pulled out of the lot.

It was all going to work out.