Page 80 of The Make-Up Test
Colin adjusted his glasses, failing to fight off a grin. “I should have learned by now not to be anywhere near you and projectiles. I’m pretty sure I still have a scar from that Scrabble tile.”
Allison turned to the consistency of warm, melted chocolate at the mention of that night. It had been almost a week, but the memories of his hands all over her, their bodies tangled together, were vivid enough to give her goose bumps. She wanted a reenactment. An adaptation. A reimagining.
Sliding a little closer, she rested a hand on his arm. He’d shucked his cardigan hours ago, and the sleeves of his plaid shirt were rolled up to his elbows. The pads of her fingers brushed along the muscles in hisforearm. Allison’s voice was husky and low as she insisted, “My target was the sink, I swear.”
“Your athletic skills are subpar.”
“I should try again. Practice makes perfect.” She smirked, pretending to aim at him this time, but Colin surprised her with a soft kiss. While she sunk into him, he wrestled the last of the dough away and lobbed it into the open trash bin.
“You play dirty,” Allison mumbled as they separated.
A shit-eating grin quirked his lips. “I’ll show you just how dirty later.”
To save face, she rolled her eyes (no one should fall for a line that corny), but Allison’s insides sparked. It was absurd how badly she wanted this man covered in flour with negligible flirting skills.
She cleared her throat. “Have you figured out what you’re going to present on for Wendy’s class?” They’d never get dinner done if she didn’t change the subject.
Colin had shifted his attention back to the pasta but his hands lay flat against the counter. “Why? Have you?” he asked.
Obviously. Allison had a new notebook upstairs with three pages worth of thoughts scribbled in it.
“I want to discuss the disruptive nature of beauty in chivalric texts.” She’d been developing this idea since her senior year at Brown, when she’d taken a course in medieval French romance. It fit perfectly with what she saw happening in “The Knight’s Tale,” and gave her a chance to delve a little deeper into her theory. She might already be on her way to a dissertation topic, years before she needed to be.
“Think about it. The excessive beauty of the main female character is always to blame for what happens to the knight that saves her.” The buzz of a good analysis bounced through her body, making her fidget. It was the same spike in adrenaline she got from a good scare. Or a truly spectacular kiss. “In other words, beauty’s a beast.” She grinned at her own pun.
“Wow.” Colin’s eyes had lost some of their focus. “You’ve got your entire argument worked out.”
“You don’t?” How had he not been thinking about this all semester? She needed to teach him the value of a good plan.
“I have some ideas, but I’m not sure what to pick.”
“Let’s hear them.” Allison straightened herself on the counter.
He hesitated for a moment, unsure, but then huffed out a breath. “Okay. Idea one. Masculinity and knighthood—heroic or toxic?”
Allison waved a hand, flicking the words away. “Been done a million times.”
“Right.” Colin pulled a mound of pasta dough toward him, his movements clipped and quick as he rolled it out.
She watched him, eyes narrowed. Even if he wasn’t widely read in the field, he had to know how passé that idea was. More than enough white dudes had already written books on the white dudes in medieval romances. “What’s number two?” She gave him a gentle nudge, relieved when he didn’t jerk away.
“The relationship between magic and religion.”
“What about it?”
“They seem similar somehow?”
“That’s not much of a thesis.”
His jaw tightened. “I guess.”
His knife strokes were heavy as he slit the flat dough into strips. The blade scraped against the counter with a shriek even Allison knew wasn’t good for the surface or the knife’s edge. “Clearly, I don’t have anything,” he muttered.
She caught his arm, holding him still. “You said you had three.”
“The last one sucks, too.”
“Tell me.”
