Page 73 of The Charlie Method

CHARLOTTE

Is this dumb jock bothering you?

IT’SWEDNESDAY MORNING, AND THERE’S A MINI DOUGHNUT ON MYdesk. It’s small and covered in white icing sugar.A lotof icing sugar.

I look from the doughnut to the blond Australian sitting two rows below me. As if sensing my gaze boring into him, Beckett twists in his chair and flashes a smile.

“Morning, sugar puff. I brought you a sweet treat.”

I wince. “Please don’t say the wordssweet treat.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s creepy coming out of your mouth.”

“Nah. You like the things that come out of my mouth.”

He winks at me.

I glare at him.

Will warned me yesterday that he would tell Beckett I’m their match, but I was hoping Ice Boy would have the courtesy of not bringing it up.

With stiff, jerky movements, I sink down and pull out my laptop case, wishing I chose an elective that doesn’t have lectures on back-to-back days and doing my best to ignore the “sweet treat” on my desk. It’s sitting on one of those lacy, white doily papers.

It looks delicious.

“Did you know they don’t actually sell the sugar puffs anymore in the student union?” Beckett says from his row. “I asked the girl why, and she said people were complaining it was too messy to eat.”

I ignore him. Then I stare at the doughnut again, and my traitorous stomach growls. There’s no way Beckett could have heard it, but his grin widens.

“Come on, eat it,” he taunts. “You know you want to.”

An internal battle commences, one side urging me not to waste a perfectly good doughnut, the other insisting I can’t give Beckett Dunne the satisfaction.

Hunger wins.

I snatch the doughnut and shove the entire thing in my mouth. I don’t even care that I look like a toddler with icing sugar all over my face.

Beckett lets out an amazed laugh. “Wow. I thought you would take a bite, not inhale it like a horse devouring a whole apple.”

“Charlotte?”

My head swings toward the aisle, where Agatha has just stopped in her tracks. My president stares at me in disbelief.

“This isn’t Delta Pi behavior. A lady eats her food, Charlotte. She doesn’t let her food eat her.”

I hear a snicker from Beckett’s chair.

Agatha turns to him and glares.

“Sorry,” I mumble through a mouthful of doughnut. “I have bad luck with pastries. Let me see if I have a napkin.”

“Please do.”

With an annoyed huff, Agatha continues down to the front row while I dig inside my bag and find an unused tissue. As she settles in her seat, she turns around to make sure I’m wiping my mouth.

I’m shoving the tissue back in my bag when Beckett’s shadow looms over me. “Did we teleport to a girls’ finishing school or something?” he says in amusement.

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