Page 28 of Change Your Play

“Questions about Marrs?” Cleo paused while a few of her colleagues walked by. The two of us fell silent, waiting for them to leave.

Fuck, move faster.

Finally, she shifted back to me. “Miles, this isn’t—”

“A campus tour?” I suggested.

Her voice dropped to a low whisper. “I can’t go to your apartment.”

“I wasn’t thinking that. We can stay strictly on campus.”

“Strictly campus?” She shot another look behind her and straightened her blazer. In a louder voice, she nodded. “Um, Mr. Locke, as a representative of Marrs, I would be happy to oblige.”

I forced down the grin. “Thank you. I was hoping we could touch on a few—”

Cleo jerked up, eyes wide.

“—topics,” I smirked. “To get a firm understanding between us.”

“Stop that.”

I tried to hide the grin, but I couldn’t stop it.

“Coach Lawson talked to me this morning,” Cleo murmured out of the side of her lips, but she didn’t need to do that.

We were at the beginning of summer. The KYU campus was mostly cleared out anyway. Only a handful of students remained.

“He thought KYU might be trying to swipe me.”

I made a noise at the back of my throat. Really, I couldn’t let myself think about that. The idea of Cleo transferring over to KYU was too good to be true. I knew she’d never leave Marrs. But imagining her only a few minutes’ walk away at all times, ortangled up in the blankets of my bed, was so sweet, it was better than a fantasy.

“You wouldn’t even think about it, would you?”

The guilty look on Cleo’s face sent a pang through my heart. Slowly, she shook her head. “I was getting set up as a higher intern when Lawson joined. He switched everything up, tripled my salary, and set me in my current department himself. I owe him a lot. And I…I couldn’t leave my Marrs family.”

I could be your family.

But I had to be content with what I could get. If I showed her how truly obsessed I was with her, she could leave.

I had to be content with the scraps.

Cleo paused in front of the library. “We’re going here?”

“Yep. Only an hour break, no arcade today.” I held the door of the library open for her. “I realized you were right.”

“Which time?”

I grinned. “Why don’t I know more about my campus? So I asked around the football players and they said the view from up here is insane.”

“Is it?” She slipped past me, and I got a full look at that ass in one of those tight skirts she wore.

“It’s a good view,” I said. “But I can think of a better one.”

She leaned back and smacked me on the shoulder.

My heart squeezed. It could be so easy with the two of us. If she’d just let mehaveher. My fingers twitched to grab her waist, but I controlled myself long enough to step to the front desk.

“Oooo!” The librarian took a long look at me through spectacles. “What can I do to—uh—assist you today?”

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