Page 14 of Between the Stacks

I exhaled. Seemed trust was also earned with her.Good.So, I did what any other professor would do, I counted off the reasons she could lean on me. “You’ve lost everything but what you could carry in your backpack. You’re far from home. You’re waiting for assistance from the school to buy what you need to replace your lost items. The least I can do is talk to your mother.”

She sniffed then glanced at her hands once more, picking at the soot under her nails. “Well, I suppose asking for help once won’t be a big deal.”

I chuckled softly as the doorbell rang. “That’s the spirit. Now, do you feel well enough to join us or would you rather eat in your room?”

Lyra squared her shoulders. “I’d like to join you for dinner. If there’s room for me, of course.”

“Of course,” I replied.

Lyra followed me down the stairs to the front door. Her steps hesitant and her breathing rough and a bit gaspy. I should have left her alone to study and rest, but the thought of her going to bed for a second night without eating, sat heavy with me. I couldn’t do that to her. The doorbell chimed again, and I rolled my eyes.

Impatient knuckleheads.

I glanced at Lyra before opening the door. I really hoped she didn’t pass out on us. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she replied, forcing a smile on her tremulous lips.

“That’s the spirit,” I whispered, pulling the door too, revealing Scott and Cole, the remaining members of my hairbrained idea. “Welcome, gentlemen. May I introduce to you Lyra Jenkins.”

Lyra

The smell of melted cheese,pepperoni and saucy goodness assailed me the minute Professor—Lowe answered the door. The two men standing on the other side, waiting for admittance into the house, knocked me for a loop. Lowe was right, I did know Scott. He sat three rows ahead of me, six seats in. He asked all the right questions and had a resonating voice that sent chills down my spine.

“This is Scott Ellison and Cole Farmer,” Lowe said, introducing them as he stepped aside to let them in.

Cole grinned. Next to Scott he was an equally handsome guy. Okay, no, that was wrong. He was hot. Together they probably melted panties all over campus. Their gazes locked with mine and it was as if time stopped. My ears took on a stuffed cotton quality, like when I had an earache as a child. Lowe stared at me then laughed before growing concerned.

Oh God, was I spacing out?

My heart pounded. The sensation of sucking air from a straw had me pressing my hand to my chest as the noise around us slammed back in. The whistle-wheeze I’d been dealing with off and on all day came roaring back. Damn it! Why now? They literally knocked the breath out of me. I held up my hand. “I’m fine. Just a bit... Out of breath.”

Lowe muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse about the hospital and laying into whoever discharged me. “Do you need your inhaler?”

“No,” I said, hating the roughness of my voice or how small I sounded. “I have a rescue inhaler, but that’s for emergencies only.”

“This is kind of an emergency,” Lowe retorted.

Not really. I could slow my breathing by taking shallow breaths, up to the point where it hurt, then exhale. No, I wouldn’t be inflating my lungs properly, but at that time, I didn’t give a damn. Bad enough I’d embarrassed myself in less than a minute after properly meeting Scott and Cole.

“Whoa,” Scott said, “it’s you. From last night.” He had the quintessential surfer boy aesthetic going for him. Tan skin, middle part under-cut hair that curled slightly with natural sun-kissed light-brown and dark-blond highlights, along with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. What ensnared my attention, however, were his sea glass-colored eyes. An uncanny shade of green with a hint of foam but also an aquatic blue. They held a wealth of mystery and maturity beyond his age.

“What Casanova over here is saying,” Cole said, “is we saw you getting triaged by the ambulance.” Cole nudged his glasses back into place as he dipped his head. His jet-black hair fell into his face, masking his appearance momentarily. Those steely-gray eyes saw everything though, even when he didn’t necessarily look at anyone. He had a natural pout to him and when he grinned, holy shit the way his cheeks hollowed, showing the cut of his jaw, damn, I thought that was FX makeup in the movies. Because no way anyone had such an incredibly sharp bone structure.

I was horribly wrong.

“Uh...” I rubbed my bicep, remembering the feel of the blood pressure cuff on my arm. “Not my finest moment.”

“Inhaling fire smoke is no joke,” Scott said, following Lowe into the kitchen. “It’s like smoking three to eleven cigarettes a day or something. Like, it depends on how long you’re exposed as to the quantity. Either way, it’s not good.”

Putting it that way, “Wow. Talk about chain smoking.” I coughed, hating the seal bark and scratchiness I had going on.

“You’re also the one who went to the hospital for the anaphylaxis due to your smoke inhalation.” Cole glanced over his shoulder as he dropped the pizzas on the butcher block island. “So, with the way your lungs reacted, it might be like smoking a pack of cigarettes. In less than an hour?”

About that. “Good thing I am never smoking.” I walked around the island to help, but the guys had everything out before I made it three steps. Made me wonder just how much time they spent here and if the college knew. Not that I’d rat Lowe out.

“We brought beer,” Scott said, removing the six-pack of beer bottles from a plain brown sack. “But we also knew you probably didn’t want to have a med interaction, so I got you a soda. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not even in the slightest.” I grabbed the twenty-ounce red labeled bottle off the counter along with a paper plate.

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