Dear Professor(28)

“I didn’t take it, Bella!” Jenna yelled, waving her finger in Bella’s face.

“I can’t live like this!” Bella’s fingers dove into her wet hair, and she tugged them right through to the ends.

“Wait… What did you do?” I asked Jenna, stepping out of my room.

She turned to me, her eyes blazing. “Someone lost her fucking hairbrush and thinks I stole it!”

“You asked to borrow it because you lost yours and never gave it back!” Bella protested.

“I put it on your desk!”

“I think you’re lying!”

I think I have a headache. Good God.

You wouldn’t believe that the three of us were best friends the way they bicker.

“I saw her do it,” I said, interrupting them. “I needed to get my hairspray back and was in her room when she took your brush into your room.”

Bella paused then tucked her hair behind her ear. “You did?” she questioned, turning to face me.

I nodded slowly. “Yep.”

She bit down on her bottom lip. It looked comical because her top lip was painted in bright red, but the bottom was pale. It was as if she’d realized she didn’t have the brush halfway through doing her lips.

“Sorry, Jen,” she muttered. “Does anyone have a brush I can borrow? I don’t have classes this morning and I’m due on in forty-five minutes.”

“Sure.” I backed up a couple of steps, grabbed my spare brush, and threw it across the hall to her.

She caught it expertly and held it up. “Thanks. Nobody wants me to do a show looking like an electrocuted hamster.”

I silently concurred. I’d seen that more than enough times. Her short hair tended to go out, and that shade of brown, which needed a touch-up at the salon, made her look a little like she was a lion or something. She didn’t say anything else as she backed into her room with a sheepish look on her face.

The second the door shut, Jenna turned to me. Her bottom lip was drawn into her mouth, her top teeth sunk into it. “Thanks,” she lisped.

“You’re welcome. Just shove the brush under her bed next time she leaves or something. I don’t want a five-foot-nothing elf on my ass for covering yours.” I grinned and walked back into my room.

No sooner had I shut the door than my phone vibrated on my desk.

I hesitated.

What if that was him? What if he wanted me tonight?

Tingles broke out over my skin, and instantly, I berated myself. What was the point? He’d made it abundantly clear yesterday that sex was not going to happen.

And why was I so damn annoyed about that? Ugh… I was a goddamn ping-pong ball flitting between hatred and desire. What I needed was a manicure or retail therapy or something.

I grabbed my phone and sighed in relief when I saw that the message was from Jake.

Jake: Keaton is a fuckhole. Come help me study?

Darcy: What makes you think I don’t have plans?#p#分页标题#e#

Jake: Because I know Webster called in sick and canceled all his classes today.

Fuck. Sometimes having a best friend who knew your schedule wasn’t the best thing in the world.

Darcy: All right. Meet you in the library in twenty minutes?

Jake: Fucking library.





I was still giggling to myself as I pulled up in the parking lot of the library. As good as the campus one was, the one in the center of town was my preferred one. It was quieter and bigger, and I wasn’t likely to run into anyone who wanted to talk to me.

Besides, this way, I figured I could get some research of my own done. I was still determined to take all of Jordan Keaton’s stones and turn them over so I could reveal their secrets. I knew there had to be something—and what better place to start than the library?

I grabbed my purse and, after I’d spotted Jake’s car a few spaces away from mine, entered the old building. The smell of books assaulted my sense almost immediately, and I was powerless against the deep exhale as the musty, papery small filled my nostrils.

Those who claimed heaven didn’t exist had never smelled a good book.

“If you sniff any harder, you’re going to get high,” Jake muttered as I dropped into the chair opposite him.

I grinned as I set my purse on the table. “I’m a nerd. I can’t help it.”

“Remind me to buy you geek glasses for Christmas. You can use them for your work.” He smirked.

I shot him a dark look. “Do you want my help or not?”

His mouth flattened into a thin line. “Don’t joke about it, Darce. It’s driving me crazy. I was in his office this morning, and he told me that, if I don’t get this essay right this time, then he’s kicking me out of class.”