Chapter 22 (1/2)

I text Noah that I love him and decide to take a catnap before I begin my studies. I pull out my planner and check my work one more time, I can surely fit in a twenty-minute nap.

Not even ten minutes into my nap, there’s a knock at the door. Figuring Steph must have forgotten her key, I groggily pull the door open.

Of course it isn’t her. It’s Hardin.

“Steph isn’t back yet,” I say and walk back to my bed, leaving the door open for him. I’m a little surprised he even bothered to knock, since I know Steph gave him an extra key as backup for herself. I will have to talk to her about that.

“I can wait,” he says and plops down on Steph’s bed.

“Suit yourself.” I groan, ignoring his chuckle as I pull the blanket over my body and close my eyes. Or rather, trying to ignore it. There is no way I am going to be able to sleep knowing that Hardin is in my room, but I would rather pretend-sleep than face the awkward, rude talk we are bound to have. I try to ignore the sound of him gently tapping the headboard of her bed until my alarm goes off.

“Going somewhere?” he asks and I roll my eyes even though he can’t see me.

“No, I was taking a twenty-minute nap,” I tell him and sit up.

“You set an alarm to make sure your nap is only twenty minutes?” he says, amused.

“Yeah, I do. So what’s it to you, anyway?” I grab my books and lay them out neatly, in order of my class schedule, and stack the notes for each class on top of them.

“Are you OCD or something?”

“No, Hardin. Not everyone’s crazy because they just like things a certain way. There’s nothing wrong with being organized,” I snap.

And he laughs, of course. I refuse to look at him, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see him pushing up off the bed.

Please don’t come over here. Please don’t come . . .

And then he’s standing over me, looking down at where I sit on my bed. He grabs my Literature notes and turns them over a couple of times exaggeratedly like he’s staring at a rare artifact. I reach up for them but—like the annoying jerk he is—he lifts them higher, so I stand and swipe at them. But he tosses them in the air and they fall to the ground in a scattered mess.