Page 109 of Out of Bounds

Shit.

“If a resident isn’t approving you to go upstairs, you have two minutes before I call the police.”

“Goddammit,” I swore under my breath and nodded to him. “I’m going. I’m leaving.”

“Leave a little faster.”

Me, the presentable guy, debated over it for a long moment before I threw up my middle finger and drove out of the unloading zone for Roman Forest.

42

Kassie

The Christmas Question

Okay. Ryan didn’t want to have sex.

Cool - no worries. It wasn’t knocking around in the back of my head at all. Not during Ryan’s football practices in the early morning or my classes, or even the long, long,longshifts at the graphic design department. Not at all.

I sat at my desk and finished up another layer of the animation project when the text came through.

Mr. Intense:CLEO’S OFFICE

Kassie:Now?

Mr. Intense:YES

Mr. Intense:THANK YOU

Hell must’ve froze over, I couldn’t remember the last time Ryan had texted me a command, followed by himthankingme.Something must’ve gone right in one of the hundreds of things he had to do today.

A little grin lifted up on my lips and I started to ask about it.

That’s a low bar, Kassie.

He probably says thank you to everybody already.

The smile melted away and I gazed down at the phone. Yeah, Ryan probably thanked fifty thousand people a day, and kissed their babies, and signed their autographs. Him saying it to me wasn’t special. Me, his coworker. His coworker who couldn’t stop threatening annoying people on campus when they harassed her about a potential loss against KYU. His brash coworker that definitely made his job harder.

I sighed and pushed up from the desk.

Off to my real obligation, the six-foot-two football player with the piercing dark eyes and the jawline I loved sketching in my sketchbook and the hands—thehands.

"I’ve got to stop thinking about that boy’s hands," I muttered and spotted Cleo down the hall. She stood next to a woman I didn’t recognize. I gave a mock salute to Cleo. "Commander, I’m here to march and dig trenches."

"You’re actually here to discuss the KYU viewing party," Cleo replied, amused.

"A brain-intensive activity, I don’t know if I’m prepared."

Cleo snickered but I didn’t get enough time to enjoy the last couple seconds of the joke. The woman next to Cleo turned around and her eyes lit up the moment she saw me.

At first, I thought she was one of the bazillion of people that trailed after Coach Lawson everywhere he went but that wasn’t right. I’d never seen her before. Which was weird because there was something so…familiar about her. The dark curls, peppered with silver, and the smile. The few seconds where the smile was just half a smile before it changed to an overjoyed one…I knew that smile. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

"Kassandra," she gushed and hurried up to me.

Before I could tell heads from tails, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and squeezed tightly.

"Oh—uh—" I stumbled to the side, surprised. "I’m—Kassie—"

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