Page 31 of Ruthless Edge

"What does that mean?"

I look at him. Owen Bennett is objectively attractive, not model attractive, but attractive after you spend enough time with him. He's smart. He's kind. He's one of two people in our entire seminar who gives feedback that's actually useful instead of just supportive. He's planning to do his graduate work in counseling, like most psychology majors, which I know because we've talked about it extensively, and he's going to be good at it.

"It means you could ask out basically anyone," I say.

"I'm asking you out."

"Why?"

He tilts his head slightly. "You want a list?"

"That would actually be helpful."

Owen laughs again. "Okay. You're the smartest person in our seminar. You argue with the professor when she's wrong and you're always right. You have this way of cutting straight to the thing everyone else is dancing around, which is terrifying and also the most interesting thing about you. You made a joke about object relations theory three weeks ago that I'm still thinking about." He pauses. "Also you're really pretty, which I kept almost saying every time we’re studying, and then felt weird about it because we were discussing clinical frameworks."

I don't know what to do with any of this information.

"So," he says. "Friday night. I'll come up with something better than a movie, I promise. I'll pick you up at five."

"You don't know where I live."

"Text me your address."

I look at my notebook. I look at him. I do a quick internal review of every reason this is a strange idea, and the review produces almost nothing useful, which is either reassuring or suspicious.

"Okay," I say.

"Yeah?"

"Friday. Five o'clock."

He smiles, and it's the kind of smile that doesn't have any subtext in it, which is its own strange experience. "Good," he says. "I’m going to surprise you with what we’re doing. Don’t try to guess."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were absolutely going to."

He's right, I was going to. "I'll try not to."

We pack up our things side by side, and somewhere in the middle of it I realize I'm smiling, which is not something I thought I would do tonight. Owen holds the door and we walk out into the hallway and say goodnight at the stairs, and I take the long way across campus instead of the short one because the night is clear and cold and I need to think about what just happened.

Owen Bennett asked me on a date.

I said yes.

I'm still processing this when I reach the lawn where Sienna, Rory, and Paige have apparently been the last few hours, spread across two blankets under the big oak with the remains of what looks like a very delicious late-dinner picnic around them. The second Paige sees my face, she sits up straight.

"Something happened," she says, with an excited expression.

"Nothing happened."

"Emma."

“It doesn’t involve my brother, does it?” Rory asks, which is rare for Rory. I believe she practically made a blood pact as a kid to never get involved with her brothers and any of her friends, if they got romantically involved with each other. I haven’t asked, but I suspect she’s had to stick to that pact more than a few times with Knox.

“No,” I say.

“Thank God,” she mutters.