“Thanks, Jess. Love you! Be back later!” I called over my shoulder as I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.

When I stepped into the lobby of our dorm, I could see Kane through the glass doors just outside leaning against a lamppost. He was talking on his cell phone. I took a minute to just look at him, he seemed to be enjoying the conversation he was having. The smile on his face was evidence of that. He threw his head back, as if he was laughing at whatever the person on the other end was saying, and I couldn’t help but wonder who he was talking to. Could it be one of the many girls that were supposedly seen leaving his apartment at all hours of the night?

What the hell, Kelsey? What does it even matter to you? You’re just going out for coffee!

Shaking the weird jealousy-induced thoughts from my head, I pushed open the door and stepped outside. When Kane looked up and saw me coming, he turned his head as if to throw this voice in the other direction. If that was his attempt, he failed because I could clearly hear him tell the person on the other end of the call that he would come over later that night.

Well, so much for wondering whom he was talking to. Homeboy hasn’t even had coffee with me yet, and is already setting up his plans for after. Figures.

“Hey, you ready?” He pushed off the lamppost and walked my way. His smile still plastered across his face. Those must be some great plans he had for later.

“Yeah, Jessi was, uh … using the room so I had to wait for her to um, well, finish before I could get in,” I stammered.

He let out a low chuckle, “Yeah, I kind of heard about it.”

I looked up at him and cocked my eyebrow. He had heard?

The questioning look on my face made him continue. “While I was waiting for you, Landon came out. He told me that he had been up to see Jessi and that you would be down in a minute.”

Ah yes, Landon. I didn’t think about him.

“So, you wanna get out of here? The coffee shop is just around the corner and its nice out so I thought it would be a good afternoon for a walk.”

“Sounds perfect.”

We walked about a block from the campus to a very small, but quaint, coffee shop. We placed our orders, and then found a nice quiet table off in the corner by itself. That was probably for the best. I was going to question him about the things Nate had told me, and I wasn’t exactly sure how it would go. He could get totally offended and go off on me for all I knew. Hell, now that I was thinking about it, if things were reversed, I would probably be offended if he were to be asking me personal questions that I … I mean he, had no business asking. But I had to do this. I had to know what kind of person I was being drawn to. I had never had someone get to me the way he does. Never had I been hung up on someone like I was him. This was all so new to me and I needed to be sure that if nothing else, I could have a friendship with Kane. That he wasn’t out to bang the new quiet college girl.

Before I could even grab hold of my chair, Kane reached around me and pulled it out just like he had done at lunch earlier that day. He stepped back a little so I could sit down before he gently pushed it back in, and then walked around the table and took the seat in front of me.

I lightly blew into my cup to cool the coffee down a bit, but honestly, I was merely stalling. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to start this conversation. I mean how exactly does one tell someone else that they are not just a warm body? That they are not interested in being a quick lay and then being cool to pass them on campus without so much as a hello? I sucked in the boy department. Maybe I should have pumped Jessi for some tips before I ran off and agreed to set myself up for disaster.

Sensing my awkwardness, Kane cleared his throat and began to speak, “So, how did you feel about your first day as a college student?”

“It was okay.” I shrugged and sat my coffee down on the table. “You better not have been lying about Professor Hanson either. That lady looks like she means business. I was right to only worry about her. Her syllabus is crazy hard, and I’m not going to lie, she kind of scares me just a little bit.”

He laughed and took a drink of his coffee. “Believe me, I wouldn’t lie to you. The woman is a softy and she really does care about helping you further your education. Unlike some of the other no-nonsense professors, she gets that sometimes things happen in life that you have no control over, and she will work with you on getting extensions and sometimes a little extra credit if you’re behind. The woman is a godsend. She helped me out big time when I had her. I wasn’t having the best year when I had taken her class. In all honesty, she probably should have failed my punk ass but she never gave up on me.’

He sat his cup down on the table and stared at the cardboard sleeve around it. I could tell he was lost in his own thoughts. Maybe about whatever had been going on with him that year that would cause him to fall so far behind like he had—but I wasn’t going to press it. I had my own secrets that I wasn’t willing to share just yet, so I was in no position to ask about his.

“So, anyway,” I started. Might as well get this over with. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid. “You have quite the rep around here, ya know.” I tried to make my tone light so that I wouldn’t come off as a judgmental bitch.

“Is that so?” He leaned back in his chair and casually draped one arm over the back.

I cleared my throat before I began again, “Seems to be. I hear you are quite popular with the ladies.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he stared straight into my eyes.

“I could only guess the person you might have heard that from; but yes, I can’t lie, I have done some pretty terrible things in my past. I used a lot of innocent girls and treated them a hell of a lot worse than they deserved. But I can assure you that I have grown a lot in the past year or so. I’m not the same person I used to be. But none of these assholes around here believe it.”

His stare was so intense. As if he wanted more than anything for me to believe him.

Looking back down at my cup, I shrugged. “It’s not really of my business, Kane.”

“Then why even ask?”

His statement made me look up at him. I wanted to be honest with him because he’d been honest with me. Letting me know that in his past he wasn’t a real stand-up guy, and may have used some girls in the process, couldn’t have been easy. But I couldn’t be one hundred percent truthful with him. I couldn’t tell him that I have zero experience with guys and the pull I felt toward him scared the living daylight out of me. That his abundant amount of experience with women had me ready to run scared for the hills. So instead, I settled for as close to the truth as I could get and prayed that it was enough.




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