Page 24 of Neo

He can’t mean with him.

“Yeah, with me.”

“Why?”

He leans his massive body into his hockey stick, which is planted into the ice.

“Because that’s what people do at lunchtime. They eat lunch. And I’m hungry.”

I take a long breath and remind myself that I can only blame myself for being in this position. I had zero business coming into the hockey rink, especially after bumping into him on campus. All I was supposed to do today was listen to my advisor’s recommendation and identify buildings, learn pathways, figure out where the cafeteria was and then go back home, but no, I had to step inside of the goddamn ice rink.

“Um, so, I really need to head back to the apartment.”

“To do what? Read?”

He says the word read like it’s some sort of crime and I can’t lie — I’m actually tired of studying Econ and wish I could just relax and read one of my shifter novels. Sometimes the key to retaining new information is to know when to walk away and allow it to marinate.

“I guess I could eat as long as it isn’t at some restaurant littered with Christmas decorations.”

Wait, what are you saying, idiot?

“That might be hard,” he says, offering me a rare crooked grin. “Christmas is in a week.”

“Then maybe I should–”

“Wait, Grinch,” he interrupts swiftly. “You’ve been on campus all day and I can’t have you going home hungry. I know just the spot. It’s Santa Claus free.”

“Will Vikki be okay with this?”

There, I’ve said it.

“I didn’t invite Vikki,” he says plainly, but I see some sort of playful light in his eyes as if he’s actually happy I asked about her.

“While this would be a perfectly innocent lunch between acquaintances, I just don’t want her getting the wrong idea.”

“I promise that there’s nothing innocent about me asking you to lunch. I’m asking you for all the wrong reasons.”

His cerulean blue eyes dance playfully as if this is all a game for him, almost as if he’s wishing for some sort of reaction from me. I try not to give him one. In fact, I don’t say anything in response at all because I’m trying to think of a polite way to get out of this.

“Subtlety is not one of my strengths,” he explains, reading my uncomfortable expression like an open book. “And there’s no one in my life that would have the right to have a problem with us eating a meal together.”

Neo’s explanation is obscure and isn’t exactly a firm no on whether Vikki would try to slit my throat if she discovers the two of us had lunch, but a girl’s got to eat, right?

Fifteen minutes later I find myself back in a familiar place, back at the freaking ice house where the kickback was the other night.

I cut my eyes at Neo like he’s grown two heads.

“You can’t be serious.”

violet

“You asked for Santa free,so here we are.”

“Um, I’m not having lunch with the entire hockey team.”

“You’re only having lunch with me.”

“Where? How?”

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