Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
CHARLIE:
And what are you going to do next?
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHARLOTTE
More like a Greek tragedy
THERE’S THIS HOCKEY GUY IN MY CLIMATE POLICY ELECTIVE WHO thinks he’s charming, but really, he’s just obnoxious and full of himself. His name is Beckett. Of course it’s Beckett.
And because the universe has a twisted sense of humor, we always arrive at the social sciences building at the same time. I swear he’s stalking me. Fine. Probably not. He probably likes showing up ten minutes early every Tuesday morning, same as me. If I weren’t in a toxic relationship with my schedule, I’d adjust my own habits and arrive fifteen minutes early or five minutes later. But I’m a ten-minutes-early girl, and no hockey player will ever make me compromise my principles.
Still, my least favorite part of the morning is reaching the limestone steps at the same time as him. The guy is more good-looking than he deserves to be, with blond hair, devilish gray eyes, and a broad frame always encased in denim and a black-and-silver hockey jacket.
He always flashes me a dimpled smile, and then, without fail, every single time I walk up, I’m ambushed with—
“Morning, sugar puff.”
Because one day, one fucking time, I ate a sugar puff.
And I haven’t even eaten one since! It was just a new pastry that the bakery in the student center had been advertising at the beginning of the semester. I kept walking by these signs with a picture of an oversize doughball shimmering with white sugar granules. It looked so delicious but horrifying at the same time, because it’s a literal sphere of dough and sugar the size of a baseball, and I needed to know why it existed. So I went inside, and I bought one. I bought a fucking sugar puff. I brought it with me to this building and walked to these steps, and I bit into it just as Mr. Hockey strode up. When he said hello, I could see how hard he was trying not to laugh at me, all the while feeling my entire face covered in sugar.
Something about his grin annoyed me, so I defensively blurted out, “It’s a sugar puff, okay?”
And to this day, I’ve hated him.
“Did you finish the carbon-pricing assignment?” he asks, his hair perfectly tousled like he just rolled out of bed looking like that.
“Yes.” I climb the steps, hoping he’ll get the hint, but he matches my pace.
“I sent mine in five minutes after midnight. You think she’ll still count it?”
He doesn’t sound overly concerned. I’m not concerned for him either. Our professor has the biggest crush on this guy. She makes googly eyes at him whenever she walks up to the lectern.
“You shouldn’t be submitting things at the last minute,” I tell him. “That’s a habit you need to break.” And I’m a massive hypocrite, because I turned my own paper in at 11:56 p.m.
But he doesn’t know that.
“Well, not everybody is as studious and punctual as you, sugar puff.”
“They could be if they made an effort, Ice Boy.”
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a nickname that bothers him as much as sugar puff bothers me, waiting to debut it at our next encounter. He has a faint Australian accent, so for a while, I was dipping into the Australia well. I’ve called him Dingo. Crikey. I tried Mr. Outback. Unfazed. So now I’ve moved on to hockey terminology.
Ice Boy is pretty lackluster. I accept this. I’m still workshopping.
“Kind of sounds like a superhero,” he says, thinking it over. “Ice Boy. I’m into it.”
“I’ll think of something else,” I grumble.
His phone vibrates in his hand as we approach the lecture hall. He checks the screen, then edges away from the doors. “See you in there.”
Ha. He wishes. The room has assigned seating by alphabetical order, which is a relief because it means I don’t have to sit with Agatha or our sorority sister Ciara. They’re in the front row with their B last names. As a K, I’m in the middle of the room, next to a redhead named Nikki Kepler.
I’m making my way to our row when a male voice says, “Hey, Char.”
I hide my reluctance and stop to greet Mitch. Of all the electives I could’ve picked this semester, I somehow wound up in a class with Ice Boy, Agatha, and my ex-boyfriend. It’s like the setup for a bad joke.
“Hey,” I answer, forcing a smile. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” He folds his arms against his chest, and while I suspect he’s trying to appear casual, the posture comes off combative.
For the past eight months, I’ve done my best to avoid conversing with him. Things didn’t end well between us, which makes every encounter with Mitch beyond awkward and often hostile.
This morning is no different.
I shift my feet as his dark eyes assess me. He’s lost a lot of weight since we were together, and he wasn’t exactly beefy before, so he’s giving off sickly Victorian prince now. What was that illness they were always coming down with back then? It was…consumption! Right. Mitch looks like he has that.