His DayLily

Chapter 61

Her eyes glinted and as if she were the termites in your walls you could never really get rid of unless you called in an exterminator, she said, "We can join you! We always have lunch on the quad."

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a groan. Thankfully though, a discordance of footsteps from the other end of the hall saved me from coming up with a friendly, but not so subtle excuse to let her down but when I saw who it was, I was suddenly not so grateful anymore.

Good Lord, could a girl ever catch a break?

Edrian and a handful of his hockey friends paused at the ten or so people hogging the library entrance. His eyes found mine almost instantly and he must've read the uneasiness on my expression, because his face hardened.

I recognised a few of the guys from afar: Ivan, Josh and Luke. They scanned their gaze over the hallway that might as well have been a mouse trap for me and donned varying expressions of confusion, irritation and exasperation.

My heart picked up pace as they got closer, and I unknowingly hugged my laptop closer to my chest. Edrian muttered something to Ivan I couldn't hear and then he parted the crowd like the Red Sea to get to me. A lump of emotion lodged in my throat and a fierce longing throbbed through my veins, taking up every available space in my body.

He didn't say anything. He just reached into his bag and handed me a red daylily and a cup with the campus cafe logo on it. I didn't take it. Edrian's nostrils flared but he gently wrapped his fingers around my wrist to push the cup and flower into my hand. Tingles danced across my skin.

I watched him stare at me a little longer, as if he were burning every inch of my face into memory before he stepped back and walked into the library. My eyes followed him through the doors and down the aisle until he vanished around the corner. Luke offered me a small smile, and Josh a wink as they moved past to trail Edrian.

I loosed a small breath and faced the onlookers again. Their phone cameras greeted me, and I knew that small interaction would be all over the internet within the next hour.

Ivan lumbered over to me then and slung an arm over my shoulder.

"Hey, Grey. I thought you were going to the lab with me today? You know, for that extra credit thing I need."

He gave me a purposeful look. I gave him a grateful one in return.

"Oh yeah. I totally forgot about that."

Miranda watched us with narrowed eyes but when Ivan flashed her a charming grin, she melted into a puddle of goo.

"Sorry, folks. Her Royal Highness has plans with me. Maybe you can catch her another time," he paused and then with a turbulence that turned the words into a demand, he said, "Or never."

My lips pursed to contain a smile and when Ivan steered me through the slim gap between two wide-eyed girls, they didn't try to stop him. We walked a little ways further down the hall, their eyes following us until we reached a hidden cleft that diverged into an alcove. It was secluded enough that if they were to walk past, they wouldn't see us.

"Thank you," I said once we stopped walking. "I thought I was going to have to pretend to read a bunch of gibberish while they stared at me for two hours."

He chuckled and dropped his arm back to his side.

"Are you kidding? They looked like they were ready to eat you."

"I'm pretty sure they were."

I sat down on one end of the wooden bench pushed against the wall while Ivan kept an eye out at the edge of the alcove. My fingers twiddled with the daylily stem. It was bare. There were no thorns and I leaned down to bury my nose into the petals.