Page 114 of Trip Me Up

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SAM

One good thingabout moving in with your brother and sister-in-law is the access to disguises.Which I needed if I was going to stroll onto a campus where I’d been banned. For life.

Alicia had loaned me a pair of jeans. I had to cuff them at the bottom—curse her unnaturally long legs—and I missed the convenient pockets of my cargo pants. But not having a lot of items in your pockets is a good thing when you’re arrested, right?

Noah had let me borrow a gray zip-up hoodie that’d make me look like every other student on campus.

Jackson wasn’t there. In fact, he’d been away for about a week dealing with a disaster his best friend, Cooper, had caused. Which was odd because Jackson was usually the screw-up, not Cooper. Most of the time, Cooper had to swoop in to save my brother. Regardless, Alicia gave me one of Jackson’s ball caps with some sports team’s logo.

I tugged my ponytail through the gap in the back. “How do I look?”

“Like someone who goes to my school,” Noah said from the back seat of their giant SUV.

“Like you’re about to rob a bank,” Alicia said. “All you need is a pair of oversized sunglasses. I don’t understand why you had to change up your look.”

My rule-following sister-in-law was already pissed about the trouble I’d gotten her husband into, so I’d neglected to tell her I was about to sneak back onto campus. I stared at the console and mumbled, “I thought I needed a change.”

“You don’t need to change. He loves you just as you are or not at all. And don’t try what your brother did. No grand gestures. Just talk to him. Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you love him.”

Romance-obsessed Marlee had texted me a list of grand gesture ideas the day she’d helped me move. “Marlee wants me to wait for him outside his hotel. With a mariachi band. Or possibly a marching band? Autocorrect might’ve garbled it.”

Alicia tugged my hat up out of my eyes. “If you wanted to use your programming powers for good, you’d make an autocorrect that suggests things people actually want to say. But you’re not really hiring a band, are you? You’re just meeting him for coffee.” She pointed out the window at the café. Beyond the opposite window, across the street, was the university’s main entrance.

“Right.”

I’d called Qiana to grovel for forgiveness. She hadn’t been as angry as I’d thought she would. Though she’d made me promise to visit her as soon as I could leave the state. She still had her job, and she’d told me about Niall’s book talk at the university.

I planned to find him there. When we’d toured together, he’d always talked with a few readers after. And I couldn’t let the tiny complication of my lifetime campus ban get in the way of that, could I?

“Good luck,” Alicia said. “I know he’ll listen.”

I caught Noah’s scowl in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know why you have to talk to him. He’s being a jerk by not answering your texts.”

I turned in the seat to face him. “When you’ve done something bad and hurt someone, you have to ask for forgiveness. And then it’s up to them to choose to forgive you. So I have to ask. Like I asked you to forgive me for not telling you about the book.”

Noah traced a frayed spot on his jeans.

“You’ll call if you need a ride home, right?” Alicia asked.

“I’ll get a bus back. Don’t worry about it.”

“Sam.” Alicia flattened her lips. “The only place Valentine will sleep is the car. I spend my life in this tank your brother insisted we buy. I’ll pick you up, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.” I reached into the backseat for a fist-bump with Noah, and then I gently caressed Valentine’s little fingers, snug inside her car seat. She smacked her pink lips in her sleep.

I slid from the too-tall SUV to the sidewalk and waved them away. After they turned the corner, I crossed the street to the university. I tugged my cap down low over my eyes, pulled up the hood over it, and, head down, trudged to the library.

The people ambling toward the building weren’t scruffy students like me. They were older, possibly faculty members or university donors. The men wore suits or sport coats, and the women wore dresses. Not a pair of jeans like mine in sight. And no hoodies. Shit, I should’ve asked Qiana about the dress code.

A couple of university police stood just inside the library doors. They briefly scanned me as I walked inside, and I felt their gazes on me as I merged with the stream of people headed toward the auditorium. I sped up to walk behind an older couple, trying to look like the kid they’d dragged along to get some culture.

Fortunately, no one questioned me as I slid into a seat in the middle of the auditorium.

My heart skipped a beat when I spotted Niall’s russet hair at the front of the room. He bent over, listening to a shorter, dark-haired woman.Shit!He’d brought Gabriela. She’d never let me within six feet of him. How the hell was I going to talk to him?

The lights dimmed, and the doors shut behind me. I considered making a run for it and trying Marlee’s mariachi band idea back at his hotel. But just inside the door stood one of the university police officers. He hadn’t spotted me yet. I slouched in my seat, sweating in Noah’s hoodie, trapped like one of the rats in the biology laboratory next door.

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