Page 95 of Out of Bounds

"You’ve gotplentyof dresses to pick from. One of them is bound to work." Zariah patted my leg with sympathy and pulled open the door. "Don’t do anything stupid. Calm down the hormones. Test the waters a little before you throw yourself to the sharks."

"Don’t just jump in?" I asked, watching the video of Ryan sprinting through the park for the third time.

"No."

"So, Ishouldn’tsend him a sexy nude right now?"

"No."

I sighed. "Not even alittlebit of nipple action?"

"Be strong. Don’t scare our repairman away," she warned me before closing the door.

37

Ryan

A Complete HR Violation

Half an hour before we were required to be physically present at the alumni night, I stared down at the receptionist for Kassie’s apartment complex. I tried to figure out if I’d heard him correctly.

"I’m…not allowed upstairs?"

"Yes." The receptionist gave a brisk shake of his head and returned to the phone in a hushed whisper, like we weren’t the only two people in the lobby. "Yes…six-foot-two. Brown hair. He’s got flowers. What kind?"

He held down the phone and craned his neck.

"Roses. Red. Yes, probably the first thing he saw at the grocery store."

Grocery store?

They were a two-hundred-dollar bouquet from an off-campus florist with aBird Pantsstuffed character, one of the hornbill characters. I’d even scheduled the damn flowers out two weeks in advance, just to make sure—goddammit, none of that mattered.

What mattered was the fact that it was the alumni night and the clock ticked closer to seven. I wasn’t going to sit in the waiting room, twiddling my thumbs when we had shit to do.

"I need to go upstairs," I repeated for the hundredth time.

The receptionist ignored me. "Do you girls want me to call the police?"

"Thewhat?"

"No police? Just make him stay? I suppose." With a click, the phone call ended and the receptionist tapped the desk. "You have not been granted access to the elevator, sir."

"We’re going to be late."

"Sir—"

"Dammit, we’re going to be late."

"Sir, I’msimplyrelaying amessage."

"You’ve got to be kidding me," I muttered under my breath and took a seat in a patchy chair.

The headache pounded behind my temple. Long minutes passed and I scrolled through Kassie’s accounts before the bell over the door chimed. Zariah burst through withGianna'spizza boxes. Her face lit up the second she saw me.

I pushed from the chair.

"Oh, no. I’m not here to let you up. But thank you for the pizza money!"

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