Page 77 of Wrong For Me

Leo

For the next few days, I do my best to avoid Rose. You would think it would be easy. The conference is big, with multiple panels and workshops taking place during each time block. It shouldn’t require too much luck to miss each other.

But that’s not what happens. Somehow we end up in the same rooms for nearly every panel. Which means I spend most of my time at the conference trying not to watch her—and failing. I don’t know what it is that makes her so damn captivating to me that I can’t even concentrate on my work.

Okay, I do—the girl is stunning. And she’s really damn sexy when she’s engrossed in something academic, her whole attention captured by the speaker. I can just see the wheels in her head spinning and I find myself dying to ask her what she thinks about everything we’re hearing. When she’s really concentrating on something, she has a habit of playing with the ends of her hair, making me wish that I was the one touching those silky strands.

It doesn’t help my blood pressure when I realize that Rose has made friends. Just about everyone else here is at the conference to make contacts, to network, to help advance their career. Not Rose, apparently. By the end of the first morning she’s already attracted a little group, and they’re always hanging around her. There’s the sweater vest asshole from the keynote mixer, a tiny pixie-like girl with a severe purple hairstyle that I assume is an undergrad student, another, quieter woman who seems to be about our age, and a trust fund douchebag from Harvard that I met on the first night and have done my best to avoid ever since.

They sit together at practically every panel, eat their meals together, spend time in the bar at the end of the evening. One of them, the purple-haired girl, I think, has called Rose several times while she’s been in our room. Because apparently they’re all good enough friends—after two freaking days—to exchange phone numbers. As someone who has rarely had the inclination—or ability—to make friends easily, I’m pretty baffled by the speed at which they’ve all grouped up.

But maybe that’s just Rose. There’s certainly something about her that seems to draw people in. God knows she’s done it to me.

I’d been relieved when she traded her tiny shorts for black leggings to sleep in the second night, but somehow those turned out even harder to ignore. Skin-tight leggings and Rose Ransome are a dangerous combination. We haven’t had any more late-night talks—like a giant coward, I spend most of my time in our room with headphones on and my face buried in a book. But it’s just a ruse. It’s impossible not to be completely aware of everything she does whenever she’s within ten feet of me. Laying in the dark in our room, listening to her breathing only inches away, is torture.

I’m turning into a giant creep, apparently, because I’m clearly obsessed with Rose Ransome.

If I was hoping for a reprieve from thinking about her, I don’t find it. The last full day of the conference is capped off by an awards ceremony where we’ll all be expected to dress up and clap politely while some of the most boring people in the world give mind numbing speeches—never let it be said academics don’t know how to party. I would skip it entirely if it wasn’t for the dinner and drinks portion of the evening—a good opportunity to mingle. Richard Meeks, the insufferable self-help author I met the first day, promised to introduce me to Dr. Williamson tonight, and there’s no way I’m missing the opportunity to improve my chance for that fellowship.

All thoughts of networking and Williamson go right out of my head when I walk out of the bathroom in my suit.

“Fuck,” I mutter, mouth immediately going dry at the sight of her. There’s a mirror over the room’s small desk, and Rose is leaning towards it, sliding something pale and shiny over her lips. Her hair is up and I feel suddenly crazy with the desire to run my lips up her long, smooth neck.

And her dress. Her damn dress.

I don’t know much about fashion, don’t have any idea about fabrics or cuts. What I do know is that the gauzy, flowered dress somehow looks exactly like Rose, just fancied up. The neckline dips down in a v, not scandalously low, but deep enough to show her delicate collarbone, a hint of the space between her breasts. It’s cinched in at the waist before swishing down around her legs and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more than to pull her in close, to flex my fingers on the dip of her waist, to drift my hands down lower and get a feel of what the flowy material covers.

“Leo?” she asks, a note of uncertainty in her voice, and I tear my gaze away from her body to see that she’s watching me in the mirror. “Everything okay?”

I don’t even consider lying to her. “You look…” my voice sounds like gravel so I clear it and try again. “You look amazing, Rose.”

She seems surprised for a moment before her expression shifts to a smile. She ducks her head a little, and I want to groan. How is she always so damn cute and ridiculously sexy at the same time?

“You do, too,” she says. “You…you’re wearing a suit.”

“Uh, yeah.” I look down at myself. Is my suit not up to her standards? I don’t know shit about labels, but even I know this is a pretty expensive garment. In fact, it might just be the most expensive thing I own, probably even including my shitty car. It was a graduation present from Bodhi’s parents when we’d gotten our bachelor degrees. I’d been mortified for them to spend money on me, of course, but they insisted that I’d need a good suit for interviews. Plus, they’d had it tailored already, so it couldn’t be returned.

It made me feel better when I found out they’d leased Bodhi a car. But only a little.

“I’ve never seen you in a suit,” Rose says.

“Of course you haven’t,” I say, frowning. She’s acting kind of weird. “I’m not going to be the douchebag TA who wears a suit to lectures.”

She shakes her head, seeming almost dazed. “You look…it looks good on you. Really good.”

I stare at her. Is it possible she’s as affected by the sight of me as I am by her? That thought fills me with a nice warm buzz all the same, like the way I’d felt when I caught her watching me take off my sweater times ten.

“We should probably head down there,” I say. Before I do something really stupid like throw her on my bed.

Rose makes a face similar to that of a kid who’s just been presented with a plate of broccoli.

“You okay there, champ?”

She nods, but her face doesn’t soften at all. “I’m fine. Not very good at the small talk thing.”

I laugh, assuming she’s joking. I’ve seen the way she’s had everyone eating out of her hands since the first day. “Sure.”

Her cheeks redden. “I’m not. I’m too…shy, I guess.”