I wanted to give myself another minute to pout, but I forced my butt out of bed. The sooner I went to class, work, and my routine, the sooner spring break would get there. Hopefully. After getting showered and dressed, I sent Jesse a quick Don’t fall asleep in the cow pies. Miss you. Love you more. text, I banged on Alex’s bedroom door—I doubled as my roommate’s alarm clock—before I unlocked my bike from the handrail just outside, and I was on my way. Jesse had worked his monthly magic on my bike. He must have replaced the brakes, too, because the lightest tap practically stopped me.
The ride to school only took about ten minutes, but on mornings like that, when the sky seemed to release a month’s worth of rain in an hour, the ride felt a lot longer. Most days I was able to ignore the constant drizzle. No one complained about all the lush greenery, so I’d never understood why they threw such a fit about the rain that made it so green. Nothing beautiful had gotten that way without a little ugliness taking place behind the scenes.
When I pulled up to the art building, I don’t think a single part of me was dry—my underwear included—but that didn’t stop me from racing inside once I’d locked up my bike. I was so drenched, I sloshed—I actually sloshed—toward my first class. I don’t think a single head didn’t turn when I sloshed by. Most days, I didn’t envy the kids who drove to school. That wasn’t one of those days.
Art History of the Renaissance was my first class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Most history classes in high school had put me to sleep, but art history was totally different. It was a good-sized class, but the professor knew every one of our first names. As the T.A., Jax was available for regular study groups and test cram sessions.
I knew I was a few minutes late and prayed Professor Murray wouldn’t issue his standard quip of Nice of you to join us, Mr. or Mrs. such-and-such before I scurried into a seat. When I eased the door open and took a tentative step inside, it looked like I was off the hook. No Professor Murray in one of his crazy bow-ties. Not one of the hundred students hunched into their seats. No one except for me . . . and someone who was neither a student nor a professor.
After Saturday night, he was someone I was not looking forward to seeing quite yet.
“Didn’t you get the email?” Jax called to me from his desk. It looked like he was grading papers.
“What email? The one about you being an ass**le?” Yeah, I was definitely not over it yet. “Because I definitely got that one.”
He gave me that smug grin of his. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s gotten that email. But I was referring to the one about Professor Murray canceling class due to having a bad case of the flu.”
“Well, I hadn’t experienced your ass**le ways up until Saturday night. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and I now see the error of my ways.” Those probably weren’t wise words to aim at the man responsible for grading plenty of my papers, but I didn’t care. If my G.P.A. took a dip, so be it. Telling him off was worth it.
“I am who I am. I make no excuses. I make no apologies.” Jax dropped his pen and rose from his seat. An expression I wasn’t used to seeing on his face settled into place before he sighed. “I don’t make apologies save for one exception.”
I waited a minute for him to expound on that “one exception” thing, but my patience ran out. “I’m on pins and needles, Jax.”
His eyes lifted to mine. A classroom separated us, but the look in them made me squirm. Too much intensity. “You. You’re the one exception.”
Those words did little to reassure me I was just misinterpreting his expression. “Do I want to know why?” I didn’t really think so.
He shrugged. “Because you gave me the benefit of the doubt. You’re the one exception because no one before you gave me that privilege.” That was a bit too . . . deep for a Monday morning. “I’m sorry, Rowen. I was an ass**le the other night, and even though some would argue that’s my steady state, I try not to direct my ass**le-ery your way.”
As apologies go, it was a pretty good one, but I was having a tough time not laughing. “‘Asshole-ery’?” I repeated, walking toward the front of the classroom. Well, sloshing toward the front of the classroom. “Where the hell did you pick up that gem?”
“The powers that be deemed ass**le unfitting of someone of my level, so they created a whole new word just for me. Pretty special, right?”
He’d apologized, that heavy look in his eyes was gone, and he was back to exchanging witty banter with me. We were good.
“You’re special, all right.” I stopped a few feet in front of him and bit my tongue to keep from teasing him about his outfit. Jax’s motto wasn’t just to dress to impress; he dressed to overwhelm. He wore slim-fit trousers, a tweed vest, and a checked skinny tie. His dark hair was meticulously styled, and not in the messy-I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-but-really-spent-a-half-hour-on-my-hair style. His hair was styled like a modernized version of Elvis’s pompadour. Jax’s skin was imperfection free, his nails never had dirt under them, and his dark eyes were ringed with a thick set of dark lashes. He was easy on the eyes—as dozens of girls who’d woken up next to him could attest to—but he wasn’t what you’d call my cup of tea. I had a type, and Jax wasn’t it.
Jesse was my type.
“Shit, Rowen. You’re creating a lake.” Jax took a few steps back, giving his shiny black boots a concerned look.