Page 37 of More Than Chemical
I glanced at his closet. “Do you have a hooded sweatshirt I can borrow?”
“I think so.” He walked to a bank of drawers, rifled through one, and tossed me a hoodie. “Are you cold?”
He didn’t get it. He didn’t get it at all.
I put the oversized garment on over my head and pulled the hood up and as far over my face as it would go. I stuffed my toiletry bag in the front pocket and my phone in my pants. “If I walk out of here without a disguise and someone sees me, not only will I be the brunt of everyone’s jokes, but people might figure out who I am.”
“I doubt it. For all they know, your last name is Blankin.”
I gave him a dead-on stare. “Remember what I told you. You have a reputation. When a person becomes associated with someone who has a reputation, people start gossiping, and they start asking questions.”
“Hmm.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Is it really that bad being Bianchini’s daughter?”
“Worse.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“Into the hallway?”
“Yeah.”
“No.” I wanted to scream. “I need you to stay right here.”
He set his coffee mug down and came to me. He lifted the hood away from my face and kissed me. It wasn’t like last night, when his kisses had sent me reeling. It was smooth, gentle, and sent rays of sunshine shooting through my heart.
He pulled the hood back down over my forehead. “Okay, soldier. Be brave, you’ll make it.”
A smile slipped across my face. I moved to the door, and just as I was about to turn the knob, someone pounded from the other side. “Dallas, wake up.”
I darted into his closet, my breath lodging in my throat, my pulse thundering in my ears.
The pounding started again, and Dallas opened the door with his coffee in hand. “Hi,” he said.
“Hey, bro. Thought we were going to play racquetball at the rec center this morning. Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Sorry, I overslept.”
“You got a chick in there?”
I buried myself behind Dallas’s hanging clothes.
“Nah.” Dallas cleared his throat. “But I am going to pass on playing.”
The guy chuckled. “I knew it. You do have a chick in there. Awesome, man. Totally awesome.”
My back slid down the wall, and I sat on a pair of shoes with my knees up.
“Sorry, dude,” Dallas said. “Wish it were so.”
“Whatever, man.”
Dallas shut the door. He turned on his overhead light and came to the closet.
He separated the hangers, and his face appeared above me. “Sorry about that.”
“And you don’t think you have a reputation problem?”
“That guy thinks everyone is sleeping with someone.” Dallas held out his hand.
