“I had fun early in the night too,” she says, then mutters, “Before I opened my stupid mouth.”
“But honestly,” she continues. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same. We can go back to being friends. I just thought you should know and that maybe it would help explain my mental breakdown.”
I thought I was decent at noticing when girls were into me, but I swear I never had any indication that Reagan saw me any differently than the rest of the guys. No, that’s not true. There was one moment, a year ago where I thought maybe there was something between us, but nothing ever came of it.
“Do you want to hang out or something?” I’m fumbling this badly, but my brain is still slow to let this sink in. Reagan likes me.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” She smiles so that one of her dimples shows.
“Right, yeah. I meant outside of the dining hall. Not that this isn’t romantic.”
“I promised Dakota I’d go watch her play spikeball tonight.”
When a pang of disappointment hits at hearing she has plans, I realize that I may be more into this than I even realized.
“Then I guess dining hall date it is.”
Dinner goes way too fast and before I know it, we’re heading back to the apartment complex so she can get ready to meet up with Dakota.
Reagan’s somewhere between the talkative and outgoing girl she was last night and the quiet one I’ve known over the years, and I’m wondering if this is her—the version I never got to see.
I take her hand and walk her to her door across from mine. “What do you say, can I take you on a real first date another night?”
“I’d like that,” she says and then bites her bottom lip. “Are you sure? I don’t want to talk you out of it, but you were just telling me a couple of nights ago that you weren’t in a good place for dating.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I knew you liked me. This changes everything.” I squeeze her hand and force myself to take a step back. “Later, Reagan.”
Ginny and Heath are in the living room cuddled up on the couch when I walk into the apartment.
“Dr. Scott!” Heath calls.
“How was it?” Ginny asks. “Did you get Rea’s problem solved?”
“Yes,” I say and check her expression.
She’s wearing this big, uncontained smile. Wait a minute.
“You knew!” I shake my finger at her. Of course, she knew. She and Reagan are close. I can’t believe she kept it from me. If your own sister won’t tell you when the hottest girl on campus is into you, who will?
“She told you then? Really?” Ginny sits up and her grin gets somehow bigger. “Ahh, I thought she’d chicken out again.”
“Yeah.” I drop into a chair. “Some sister you are, keeping something like that from me.”
“I’m a great sister, but I’m also a great friend. So…?”
“So?” Heath and I ask at the same time.
“Are you into her?” Her face pales. “Oh my gosh, do I need to go over there with ice cream and wine? If you broke her heart—”
“Chill. I admit I was surprised, but yeah, I think she’s awesome. We’re gonna go out. Good to see whose side you’re on though, sis.”
“I’d bring you ice cream and wine, too, if someone broke your heart. Back to last night, was it really that bad? She was petrified that she’d ruined everything for you with the fake fiancée thing.”
“Wait,” Heath says. “What fake fiancée thing?”
“I’ll fill you in later,” she promises.
I shake my head. “No way. The exact opposite. You should have seen her working the room. Even my hard-ass professors loved her. Oh, and get this, she knows Janine.”
“The chick that’s always making you look bad?” Heath asks.
“I’ve only ever heard you refer to her as kiss-ass Janine,” Ginny says.
Heath snorts a laugh. “He’s always complaining about her note-taking and showing up early, then turns around and yells at us at practice for forgetting shit or being late.”
“She takes notes and then emails them to the entire class. It’s a tad much,” I defend myself.
“Sounds nice,” Ginny says. “I wish someone took notes for me.”
“She’s fine. We’re different, and that’s totally cool, but she’s the type of student people want to give scholarships to, and I need them to give it to me instead.”
Ginny nods her understanding. “I get it. So, Reagan crushed it. Did you?”
“They’re waiting to see our midterm grades, and they want us to give a speech at the scholarship banquet before they decide. Which means I have a month to keep making them all believe I’m the better candidate.”
“Okay, now that we’re through the boring stuff, tell me more about Reagan. How did she tell you? What did she say?” Ginny squeals at the end of her barrage of questions. “Gah, I wish I’d been there!”
“We could have been if you hadn’t made us sit somewhere else,” Heath points out.
I stand to head to my room. The excitement I had after spending time with Reagan is wearing off and in its place is that same uneasy feeling about the scholarship and a speech being the deciding factor. It needs to be amazing. Especially if I have to tell Dr. Salco that I’m not engaged. “I think I’ll let her tell you the story, if she wants.”
“Oh, she wants.” She throws the blanket off her and tries to stand, but Heath wraps both arms around her waist.
“You can ask her tomorrow. If you go over there now, I won’t get you back until late.”
“She’s headed out anyway,” I say.
Ginny sinks back into Heath. “Fine. If we’re going to make out, though, we should get a move on it. I need to go to sleep early.”
“Too much information,” I say as I go into my room and shut the door. I’m glad my sister is happy, but knowing she’s having sex on the other side of the apartment is a definite overshare.
I change into sweats and fall onto my bed with my phone and call Reagan.
She answers on the third ring. Her face fills the screen. “Hi.” She’s back to sounding and looking timid. “I’m just about to head out.”
“This won’t take long. I just realized you didn’t actually say yes when I asked you out earlier, so I’m calling to ask again. We’re flying to Colorado in the morning for the game, but I’ll be back sometime in the afternoon the next day. Will you go out with me Sunday night?”
She laughs and the sound hits my chest. “Yes, I will go out with you.”
“Good. Also, I wanted to warn you that Ginny knows you told me.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, no. Is she on her way over? I have to meet Dakota in ten minutes.”
“No, lucky for you, and unlucky for me, Heath had other plans for them tonight. Did everyone know except me?” I prop my head up with an arm behind my neck.
“I’m not sure. Ginny knew first because I wanted to make sure she was okay with it if I decided to tell you.”