by Amber Heart
He sighed and pushed one hand through his hair. “I don’t want a zero on this. Want to meet at the coffee shop later today?”
“I can’t, I’m working.”
“Where do you work?”
“The coffee shop in the library.”
Dean was surprised. “I’ve never seen you there.”
She shrugged. “I’m usually in the back.”
“All right, what about tomorrow?”
“I’m working then too,” Leigh answered, pulling her phone from her pocket to look at her calendar. She wanted to make this easy for him, but she really did have a pretty full schedule.
“The coffee place closes at 9, we could meet after that.”
“No, I’m working at the pizza place tomorrow night so I’ll be there till eleven.” She scrolled through looking for free time.
Dean stared at her. “You have two jobs?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Sometimes I pick up shifts in a call center too.”
Leigh gathered her long hair in one hand and wrapped the rubber band she kept around her wrist around it, making a low ponytail. He liked her hair. It was a chestnut brown and it was nearly waist length. An image crossed his mind. Her hair curtaining them as she moved on top of him, leaning down for a kiss. He shook it away. What the hell was that about?
“I thought you were a full time student,” he said, mostly just for something to say.
She shrugged and pushed her phone down into her jacket pocket. “I am. Okay, listen. If you can come to my house on Wednesday night at 9:30, we can get some work done.”
“I guess that works,” he agreed, still turning over the idea of working two and a half jobs while doing a full load of classes. It was just barely possible that she was busier than him.
“All right. Text me before you come over and I’ll send you directions. I’ll try to get some research together so we can get started. I’ve got a few ideas.”
He looked at her warily. “What do you want me to do?”
She looked up, surprising him with a grin. “Show up, Dean. I want you to show up.”
****
Leigh opened the door before Dean even raised his hand to knock.
“You’re way too excited about this project,” he informed her.
“I have a picky roommate who doesn’t like noise after 9:00.” She inclined her head toward the hall and rolled her eyes good naturedly.
“She’d never make it in my dorm,” Dean said, following her through the hall. “Most of the guys don’t shut up till sunup.”
“That would explain why you don’t do so well in class.”
“Hey, I go to bed at the reasonable hour of 3 a.m.”
“Very responsible.” Leigh led him into the kitchen. “Want something to drink? I’ve got soda and...” She opened the fridge. “Um, water.”
“Why are you being so nice?”
Leigh laughed at the suspicion in his tone. “Because I’m actually a pretty nice person. We got off to a bad start, but I think we can turn it around.”
She was certainly going to do her best. She admittedly didn’t know much about college sports, but she’d done a little research in the slow moments at the coffee shop. Her dad had made some good points about the pressure Dean was under.
He accepted the glass she handed him. “Okay. Yeah, we’ll give it a shot.”
“Good. I think that the first thing we need to do is make a schedule.”
“What for?”
“For lots of things!” she said enthusiastically. “For working together, for working separately, for deadlines within the project itself, for final edits and proofreading...”
He couldn’t help but smile at the way her dark blue eyes lit up. “I’m guessing you have a schedule of your own?”
“Oh yeah.” She waved for him to follow her into the living room.
He sat down on the couch and watched while she pulled a bright blue notebook off of a shelf and plunked it down on the small coffee table between them. She knelt on the floor across from him.
“Here we go.”
Leigh flipped through the pages quickly, leaving him with an impression of many different colored inks and lots of doodling. She didn’t strike him as someone who sat around drawing flowers, but apparently she was. Flowers and arrows. He leaned closer.
“What is this? Your diary?”
“Bullet journal,” she said matter of factly, still flipping pages.
Dean reached out and put his finger on one of them. “Hang on. What’s this?”
Her face flushed. “Nothing. I was just practicing with that pen because it was new.”
He looked at the cerulean blue ink swirls. “Yeah, but it says Everleigh.” Dean saw the flush darken, staining her cheeks a deep strawberry red. “That’s your real name?”
She smacked his hand off of the notebook. “Anyway, here’s my schedule--”
He slid down onto the floor on his knees, leaning across the coffee table and grinning at her.
“Why does it bother you?”
“Why do you bother me?” she demanded in return.
“Mainly because you blush,” Dean said, unrepentant. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a good name. Kinda pretty.”
“I’m certainly glad to have your approval,” she said, but her sarcasm faltered slightly. He was still leaning close and her heart was starting to beat a little too quickly. “Will you please pay attention?”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Okay, explain the wonders of this bullet journal to me.”
“This is how my week looks,” she said and he moved around to sit beside her.
“Your week looks like a fucking rainbow,” he said.
“Orange is for class time, red is for my shifts at the pizza place, green is the coffee house, purple is for studying, gray is for sleep, and blue is free time.”
There wasn’t very much blue. There wasn’t a whole lot of gray either.
“Okay...” Dean said. “So when are we supposed to get together?”
She smiled at him. “It’s easy! Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights after 9:30 are free, and the weekends from 11 to 3.”
“I’m not even awake at 11 on weekends,” Dean protested.
“So then we’ll plan on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing then,” Leigh said smoothly. “What color do you want to be?”
Dean’s lips parted. “You played me,” he said, a trace of admiration in his voice.
“Just a little,” she admitted. “What do you think? I’ve got brown and yellow.”
“Yellow.” He took a drink of his soda, shaking his head. “I’ll get you back, Everleigh.”
She made a face. “Come on. Don’t let that be a thing.”
He grinned now that he was back on top. “I’ll keep it just between us, I promise.”
She remembered wondering why girls were practically breaking their necks to spend time with him. She got it now. That crooked smile was sinfully hot. “How about you let me make you a schedule,” she asked, determined to keep them on the right track. “I bet I can find you some free time.”
“Bull,” he said flatly. “It’s always something.”
“If I can find free time for me, I can find it for you.” Maybe if she straightened out his life, he’d be less of a pain to work with. More honey.
“Okay, go for it.”
She grabbed a pen. “Tell me about a typical Monday.”
“I guess I get up around 10:30,” he said. “My first class is at 11.”
“And you usually get to class at what time?” Leigh asked pointedly.
He pushed his hand through his dark blonde hair and gave a half laugh. “11:15.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“Practice.”
“For how long?”
“About 3 hours.”
She wrote something down and they went through the rest of his week. When they were done, Leigh began to color code. Then she frowned.
“Are you sure you’re
right about all this practice time?”
Dean lay back, stretching out on the floor and putting his hands behind his head. “Yeah, why?”
“Because this is like a full time job.” She checked her math again. “Actually, a little more. You’re practicing or doing something football related for close to 50 hours a week.”
He shrugged, his shirt coming up to display several inches of flat stomach and a pleasingly neat line of dark hair leading down into his jeans. She jerked her gaze away before he caught her looking.
“Sounds about right,” he said languidly. “Why is that weird?”
“Because college athletes aren’t supposed to work longer than 20 hours,” she replied.
Dean laughed but then he noticed that she was serious. He sat up smoothly. “Okay, technically, I only play for 20 hours.” He pointed to certain areas of the schedule. “See these? The gym time and all that other stuff doesn’t count toward the total.”
“But that’s...”
“Just the way it is,” he said. “So? Where are my massive amounts of free time?”
“I never promised anything massive,” she argued. “But your free time is right here.” She turned the paper toward him so that he could read all of it.
Dean grabbed it and stared at the blue areas. “Holy shit, you found some.”
“Yep,” she said smugly. “I told you. Now you can date all the cheerleaders you want and still finish this project.” Why had she said that? She didn’t care who he dated.
“I don’t usually date cheerleaders,” he said, still studying the paper. “I see them enough as it is. And hang on. What’s this?” He pointed to one of the gray blocks. “Why am I getting up so early?”
“Because then you can go to the gym before class.”
He groaned. “No way.”
Leigh shrugged. “It’s a better use of your time. No one else is there, so you won’t have to wait for machines.”
He paused for a moment and then raised his eyebrows. “That actually makes sense.”
“I do that from time to time,” she assured him. “So? Will you try it?”
This pause was longer, but eventually he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll give it a shot. It can’t hurt.”
The prospect of having time when all he had to do was what he wanted to do was nice. He could finally reacquaint himself with his game system. Or maybe just get some extra sleep.
Leigh smiled happily. “Thanks. I think you’ll really like it.”
Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, well. We’ll see.” That smile really was killer. It lit up her whole face, especially those dark eyes. He folded the paper and pushed it into his back pocket. “Hey, who watches all the horror flicks?”
“Me.” Leigh began gathering her pens. “My dad got me started on them.”
“You’ve got a halfway decent collection.”
Leigh raised one eyebrow as she closed her notebook. “Excuse me? It’s better than halfway decent. It’s flawless.”
“Nah, too many old ones.”
Leigh joined him on her knees in front of the shelves he’d turned to stare at. “Without the old ones, there wouldn’t be new ones.”
“I think horror would be just fine without all this black and white bullshit.”
Leigh shook her head. “I can’t believe it. Are you actually saying that you’re unfamiliar with Hitchcock? With Roman Polanski? With Tod Browning?”
“I mean...I know who they are. At least those first two. But those movies are never gonna compare to the new stuff. Not with the special effects we’ve got now.”
Leigh snorted. “You should give them a try sometime. I bet they’d have you sleeping with a nightlight.”
Dean laughed. “Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do with all that free time you found me.”
“You have to know the roots to truly appreciate horror,” Leigh asserted.
“I’ll get on that. Can I borrow this one?” He held up one of the newer movies. “I missed it in theaters.”
Leigh looked from him to the disc. “I don’t know...”
“Come on. You know where to find me. And we’ll be together three nights a week for the next month.”
“Five weeks,” she corrected. “Okay. But you have to watch one classic for every new one you borrow.”
“You’re a tough woman, you know that?”
“Do we have a deal or don’t we?”
He stood up and pulled her to her feet. Then he shook the hand he still held. “Sounds good to me. See you Friday night. Everleigh.”
Leigh smacked him on the arm. “Get out of my house.”
With a grin, he did.
Chapter 5
Three weeks later, Leigh was at her kitchen table reading through an article Dean had found on the need for early intervention in mental health. It was a good one, well written but still easy enough for a layman to understand. Most of the research he’d found was good, actually.
She rubbed her eyes as she began highlighting important points in the article and making notes of what they could use for their project. She’d barely slept the night before. She’d needed to take on a few extra shifts at both jobs, which led to less time to study. And that led to less time to sleep.
Leigh was eyeing the coffee pot and weighing the need for caffeine against having to actually get out of her seat when the idea hit her. She’d felt from the beginning that their project was missing something. Now she thought that she knew.
She grabbed the phone to text Dean and then remembered that he was in class. She glanced at the time. By the time she got to the science building, he’d be almost done. She really didn’t want to text it to him. She wanted to be able to explain the idea fully and defend it if necessary.
Excitement over the idea was enough to get her up and moving. She slung on a jacket and headed out the door.
As she rounded the corner and started up the hall to his classroom, she saw him outside the door. Leigh was on the verge of calling to him excitedly when she noticed that he was on the phone. She stepped closer, intending to tap him on the shoulder and let him know that she’d be waiting outside, but then she heard him speak.
“No,” he said, and this was the first time that he hadn’t sounded completely confident since she’d met him. “I mean, it wasn’t a great game, but we still won.”
He’d played two nights ago and everyone had been tense. From what she’d seen while she worked at the pizza shop, it had been a rough one and it had come down to the wire. Both teams had played messily, but the Tigers had been victorious in the end.
“I know,” he said, his shoulders hunching. “I have been.”
There was a long pause and Leigh wondered if maybe she should walk away. She chewed her thumbnail. She’d wait a few more minutes.
“I’m not,” Dean said. “I haven’t seen her in a few months.”
There was another pause and then he said, “No. Just school. I mean, I’ve still got classes to go to and a project to turn in...” He broke off and listened. “I--” Another pause, this one longer. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’ll do better. Okay. Bye.”
He shoved his phone into his jeans pocket and then rubbed the back of his neck. When he turned around, she saw that he looked exhausted.
“Um, hi,” Leigh said. “I wasn’t trying to listen in...”
Dean shrugged. “It’s fine.” He looked into the biology class. They were almost done. He was seriously done. “Want to get some coffee? Or were you going to work?”
“No, I’m off today.” Leigh fell into step with him, slightly surprised at the invitation. They’d been getting along pretty well during their meetings, but they hadn’t spent any extra time together. When he didn’t speak again, she ventured a question. “I really wasn’t trying to overhear you, but is everything okay?”
He pushed open the coffee shop door and stepped to the side so she could walk in. “Just great.”
“Sorry,” Leigh said, recognizing from the clipped tone that he really didn’t wa
nt to talk about it. “I know it’s none of my--”
“Gonna get those guys blocked next time, Harper?”