Page 8 of Her Devil

“Ivy, say hello,” Tamsin says loudly and slowly next to my ear. She’s clearly already said it more than once if their gentle laughter is anything to go by. Here’s hoping it wasn’t as obvious where my mind went.

“Uh, hey. Sorry about that, my mind was… somewhere else. I’m Ivy, and you’ve clearly already been introduced to Tamsin. You guys are?”

“Jacob, Taylor, and Emmerson,” Tamsin explains, pointing out each one.

“Well, it’s nice to officially meet you.” I smile, dropping down into the chair and reaching for my notebook and pens.

“So, did you get everything moved in okay?” Jacob asks, turned in his seat, his forearm resting against the back and his attention fully on me.

There’s something easy in the way he smiles at me, despite the early hour and the frosty reception I gave him yesterday. Not that it stopped him from hitting on Tamsin, because she’s a gorgeous girl, so why wouldn’t he? I nod my reply, looking at Tamsin for some back-up, but she’s busy in discussion with one of the other guys, animatedly talking about who knows what.

“Did you?” I ask. “Get everything moved out, I mean.”

“Yeah—” he starts, but gets cut off by the lecturer storming in, the door slamming behind him.

“Some people think this is an easy start to the week,” he declares, his heavy bag landing on the desk with a thump. “It’s not. Books out.”

A whirring noise comes from above us as the projector springs to life, notes showing up almost immediately on the huge screen behind him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you came prepared, because we’re going to start as we mean to go on and hit the ground running. Are you ready?”

The stunned silence is clearly not what he expected as Jacob slides around in his seat, other people still logging in to their laptops or pulling books from their bags.Well, at least we weren’t late, I ponder. Imagine how much worse that would have been.

“Come on, people. Are you ready?” he asks animatedly.

The half murmur-come-mumble that comes back to him is apparently enough to appease, as I look at Tamsin with an amused smile. This is going to be an interesting way to start the week.

He’s not wrong, and he doesn’t hold anything back. The nearly two hours we’re there fly past and I’m left reeling and with a reading list half as long as my arm. Hopefully, they’ve got one or more of these in the library here.

“Well, that was…” Tamsin says, attempting to form words, her overwhelmed brain well and truly in need of more caffeine.

“Yeah,” I agree. No further explanation required, I totally get it.

“Are you ladies going to the mixer tonight?” the guy, Emmerson, I think, asks from the other side of Tamsin. “We might see you there if you are.”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” I reply, unsure because we haven’t talked about it yet. Yes, the other girls from our apartment said they’d be going, but we were going to see how today went and decide from there. But I guess the hot guys and their interest might sway that.

“Then absolutely.” Tamsin nods as he slides a stack of paper out, dropping them on his desk before putting his laptop away. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing at the dark flyers.

“We’re having a housewarming on Friday night,” the guy who held the door open says, picking out a couple and handing them over as the rest get stashed away. “You guys should come.”

“Yeah, it would be cool to see you there,” Jacob adds from my side as the guys climb out of the row, clearly waiting for Tamsin and me to be ready.

“Well, consider us there,” Tamsin says, plucking her bag from the back of her chair and sliding her arm through Jacob’s as she passes me. “I told you we were going to have some fun this year.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can accommodate that,” Taylor replies, following the two of them down the stairs.

“I’m not sure that we’re free,” I comment idly, thinking back to the invitation I left on the table and the fact I still haven’t mentioned it to Tamsin.

“You don’t have to make excuses, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Emmerson says, clearly picking up on my hesitation as he gestures for me to go down the stairs, waiting patiently. “There’ll be plenty of other opportunities, I’m sure.”

“Oh, no doubt.” I smile, knowing there’ll likely be plenty of parties around these first few weeks. “Is it not really your scene?” I ask, noting his lack of enthusiasm.

“Not usually,” he admits. “But it’s time for a change.”

“Fair enough.” I shrug, catching the hint of a black eye as we head out into the fluorescent lights of the corridor.

I don’t make any comment about it. Who knows what his life was like before he came here, and who am I to judge?

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