Then, after a deep sigh, I clench shut my eyes and hand the phone back to him, looking away.
I dread his reaction so much. I don’t know why, but I feel like this little factoid about me could ruin everything. Sure, he wanted to know more about me, but maybe he’ll change his mind now. That, or things will start to get weird.
After too long a moment, I dare to open my eyes, peering at him. He seems to either still be reading, or rereading my mini-novel. After a second, he looks up, letting the phone drop to his lap.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt right away. “I wasn’t trying to lie to anyone. I just wanted to start fresh. I just—”
“Start fresh,” he echoes in a slurred murmur. “I wish … I wish I could start fresh.”
His words fall on the ears of all those misgivings inside me, rousing them. What isn’t Clayton telling me? What life, if any, do all those stupid rumors have? Why won’t anyone be upfront with me, least of all Clayton himself? I wish he would just volunteer the information, the same way I just did. Please, Clayton, don’t make me drag it out of you.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he says to me, his dark eyes locking with my worried ones. “Our secret.” Then he makes a fist and taps the thumb-side of it to his lips twice.
I repeat the sign back to him. “Secret?” I murmur.
“Secret,” he confirms.
I smile appreciatively, despite the worry that’s still doing somersaults in my belly.
“So,” he mumbles, “you’re … famous?”
I snort. “My mother is. Maybe my sister someday. Not me. I’m nothing. I’m nobody.”
“No,” he says, frowning. “You’re Dessie Lebeau.”
“Desdemona,” I say, overpronouncing the name. “That’s my full name.”
“Desermona,” he repeats slowly, though the word is shapeless in his mouth, the vowels bleeding together.
I type it quickly into his phone, then show it to him. “Desdemona,” I repeat when his eyes return to my lips. “Shakespeare’s Desdemona. From Othello.”
“Shakespeare, right,” he says, following.
“They named my sister Celia,” I go on. “You know, after Shakespeare’s As You Like It. So she’s named after a woman who falls in love and has a happy ending, and I’m named after a woman who’s smothered to death with a pillow. But, you know, of course I am.”
Though his eyes hover at my lips, I get the feeling he didn’t catch all that. He seems to be getting sleepy, or else the alcohol’s doing its number on him. The way he studies my lips, it makes me feel like he wants to kiss me again.
I’m one hundred percent positive that I would let him, and one hundred percent positive that it would lead to a second round of couch-wrestling that I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have the strength to resist.
“I should go,” I murmur to him.
At my words, the tiniest pinch of frustration runs across his face. Then, he lifts his head and says, “You sure?”
“It’s late,” I say, not bothering with checking the time; I’m sure it’s hardly even eleven o’clock yet. “I have lines to learn before Monday. Like, a lot of them.”
He doesn’t seem to follow what I’m saying. Now, the frustration in his face seems far less easy to hide. The alcohol is betraying him, showing all those truer feelings that he keeps trying to keep out of my view.
“I gotta go,” I repeat.
“Don’t go,” he mumbles, hardly intelligible.
“Sorry.” I push myself off the couch.
He’s on his feet as fast as I am, though his knee hits the coffee table in his effort of getting up and the shot glasses clatter loudly. “You sure?”
That would be his second time asking. And no, I’m not sure. In fact, I do want to stay. I want to tackle him to the floor as well. I want to eat this man alive.
“Yes,” I say instead.
“Can I walk you back to your dorm?” he murmurs suddenly, his voice strained.
Between him getting jumped today and Victoria’s warning my first day here, I give him a quick nod, and that seems to wash away all the frustration in his eyes.
We cross the campus in silence. No ninjas jump out from behind bushes, and no ski-mask-wearing thugs emerge from around corners with guns. I was reluctant for a moment before we left his apartment, judging whether or not he was drunk or just “a little buzzed”, but as we stroll across the disconcertingly unpopulated campus at night, I find myself incredibly thankful to have him walking by my side. I couldn’t have a better escort than Clayton Watts, who does not look like someone you would want to mess with.