Page 23 of The Romance Rivalry

After first questioning the professor’s choice to make a semester-long assignment, one that relies on another individual as much as yourself, and then wondering how the universe could be so cruel to put Aiden Jeon on my campus, in my class, and suddenly partnered with me, I finally set about trying to do anything to get out of it. I looked around the room, but there was no one partnerless. I asked the team in front of us if they’d consider trading, but they politelyshook their heads and declined. I then told Aiden I’d rather fail the class than work with him, and he just laughed... helaughed... and then grabbed my phone, programmed his number into it, and called himself so he’d have my number, too... all without my permission. He clearly doesn’t take consent seriously. And that was just the first day.

After having had multiple interactions with him over the course of the past week, none of which could even possibly be construed as friendly, I’m stuck in an impossible situation. So, after receiving the text to meet him at the library—no, he didn’t ask me... he told me—I just responded with a thumbs-up and counted down the hours till my impending doom.

The time has come.

I’ve decided to put in as little effort as possible. That includes in how I present myself. Although even choosing an “I don’t care about you at all” outfit took an embarrassingly long amount of time.

The AC hits me the moment I open the door to the school’s Central Library. My choice would have been one of the smaller libraries, but Aiden insisted the vibe at Central was perfect. It’s large and overcrowded. Perfect for an attention-seeker like him. Whatever.

I find him exactly where he said he’d be, on the second floor near the Poetry section. I don’t read poetry. I can’t participate in a conversation about poems or contribute anythingabout the poets and what they mean by their purple prose and rhyme. My heart picks up the pace and a familiar tingling sensation creeps up the back of my neck as if they’re watching me—the poets, or maybe just the scholars of the poets—waiting to tell me I can’t sit here, that I don’t belong.

But then I spot Aiden’s long neck and floppy hair, sitting alone at a long table of workstations, head down in a book. And the sight is oddly comforting.

He raises his head as if sensing my presence and the right side of his mouth lifts a tiny bit in an all-too-confident grin. My cheeks heat immediately. Did someone suddenly shut off the AC in this place?

“Hey, you made it,” he says. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I told you I’d be here.” Of course Aiden has to make me feel like I’m unreliable, or hard to deal with, or in the wrong, or like I don’t know what I’m talking about.

“Uh, you didn’t text back so...”

“I sent you a thumbs-up.”

He looks down at his phone and his brow furrows a bit. “I don’t see that message,” he says, raising his eyes back up to mine.

“I didn’t send the emoji, I sent you a reaction to your message.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I sometimes have trouble reading stuff like that.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He lifts a shoulder, shrugging off my question.

“You know, you don’t always have to lead with the teeth,” he says.

It’s a phrase I’m not familiar with, but I can guess what he’s saying. I would normally say sorry, like I always do no matter what someone’s confronted me with. But I’m feeling just defensive and stubborn enough to stop myself.

“Whatever. Let’s get to work,” I say hurriedly. I take the seat across from Aiden at the very large library desk. There is a divider that runs along the center of the long wooden table. After I take out my laptop, my notebook, and a pen, I finally look up to see Aiden standing, looking down at me.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

I look down at my stuff, then to my left, then my right, wondering what I’m missing. “Uh, getting my stuff out?”

“Yeah, but how are we gonna discuss our project if you sit there, across from me, with this partition between us?”

“Where else am I gonna sit?”

It’s his turn to look to his left and then to his right. There are empty seats on either side of him. And, as I suddenly notice, no partitions on the sides of each workstation.

I sit there wondering what to do next. But apparently this takes too long for the impatient Aiden Jeon, who already has his stuff all stacked in his arms. He places it down at the spot next to me, plopping himself into the chair.

“What is all that?” I ask.

“Just some books. I grabbed a bunch in case we need them.”

“But we haven’t even discussed the project, the scope, what our focus will be, or basically anything about it,” I say. I don’t know if I’m more upset that he took the liberty of choosing titles without my input or that I didn’t think to get the head start myself and choose some books for us. “Did you just assume I wouldn’t have an opinion on which titles we’d focus on?”

He has the decency to look slightly embarrassed by this at least. He swallows and my eyes track his Adam’s apple. Prominent. Not that I find that incredibly attractive at all.

---