Page 4 of The King's Pawn
I roll my eyes and slide into the seat beside him. “You’re early. Miracles actually do exist.”
He grins, leaning back in his chair with an ease that borders on arrogance. “Had time to kill. Figured I’d bless you with my presence the entire lecture this time.”
“Truly a blessing,” I deadpan, pulling my notebook and pens from my bag.
He winks and then faces the opposite direction to talk to the girl sitting next to him as if he hasn’t already tried to charm the entire left side of the hall with a single tilt of his head. He probably has. Arin is that type of guy, effortlessly magnetic in a way that should annoy me more but mostly just exhausts me.
Professor Ivanov begins exactly when the clock hits 8:30.
He never waits for stragglers. His opening slide flashes across the smart TV and within moments he’s droning on about supplycurves, elasticity graphs, and the theoretical underpinnings of commodity pricing cycles. His voice has the consistency of lukewarm tea with every note a monotonous and resigned sigh.
I fall into autopilot, my pen gliding in neat, slanted lines across my notebook despite the sea of laptops and tablets glowing around me. There’s something grounding about handwriting notes, something that makes the information stick even when I’m not truly present.
My phone vibrates against my thigh.
I don’t need to look to know who it is.
I suppress a sigh and pull it out, Yuri’s name flashing across the screen with another check-in. I angle my phone away from Arin’s wandering eyes, typing a short reply.
In class –A
The reply comes instantly.
Copy. –Y
I’m sliding my phone back toward my bag when my elbow bumps my water bottle. It tips sideways before I can grab it, then spills its entire contents across my notebook and my lap.
“Shit,” I hiss, jerking upright as cold water soaks through the fabric of my jeans.
“Language, Princess,” Arin murmurs beside me.
My head snaps toward him to give him a glare.
He gives me a sympathetic wince. “Need help?”
“No,” I mutter, rummaging through my bag until I find a wad of napkins I stuffed in there last time Irene and I were at the cafe on campus. “I’ve got it.”
As I dab at the water staining my notebook, he watches with a look that hovers somewhere between amusement and interest, the kind that makes me want to both shove him and hide under the desk. I’m never good with people giving me their full attention like that because it usually either means I’m going to be questioned or hassled with something to do with my father.
“You’re supposed to be paying attention.” I flick my gaze toward the front where Professor Ivanov is still mid-rant about marginal utility.
He shrugs. “I’m already ahead on all this stuff.”
Of course he is. People with a silver spoon in their mouth like him are practically born ahead.
Then again, so am I.
“But I heard you aced the midterm,” he adds casually. “Nice job. Made my score look like it was bell-curved.”
“Someone had to show you all what a passing grade looked like,” I reply, shaking droplets off the corner of my notebook onto the floor behind us.
He smirks. “Apparently. Thanks for taking one for the team.”
I exhale, amused despite myself.
His attention flicks toward the front of the room before returning to me. “Hey, there’s this party at my apartment Friday night. Think you should come?”
I freeze.
