Page 40 of Burning Embers
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Save me a seat?” I flash Ethan a nervous smile.
His face brightens. “Of course.”
“You have first hour with her?” Emery looks as if he’s cracking a tooth with how tightly his jaw is clenched. “So you guys must’ve had a lot of time to go over your class schedules, huh?”
There’s an accusation in his tone that I can’t understand.
Ethan obviously does, though, because his face flames with what looks like shame.
“Emery…” he begins, his voice pleading.
Emery ignores him.
“Let me see your schedule,” he says to me. When I simply stare at him, he pushes out his lips in a pout and bats his eyelashes. “Pretty, pretty please?”
“With a cherry on top?” I say, but I’m already pulling out my schedule and handing it to him.
He surprises the shit out of me by grabbing out his phone and snapping a picture of it before shoving his cell back into his pocket.
“I’ll text you the classes we have together. Now I just need your number…” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and I can’t help but laugh.
Why do I have a feeling thatthisis the real Emery? Not the broody man he seems to transform into whenever he talks to Ethan. But someone who’s carefree and silly, if not a little flirty.
“Is this your way of getting every girl’s number?” But fuck me, I can’t help but recite it to him, watching his ringed fingers move across his phone’s screen.
“Do you plan to steal my top-secret strategy for your own gain?” he asks seriously, not bothering to glance up from his phone.
“Maybe…”
Emery’s smile abruptly fades as if something just occurred to him, and he turns towards Ethan with a quirked brow.
“Does Ashton and Reid also know herschedule…?” His lips pinch.
“No.” Ethan’s teeth grind together. “Not yet. I was planning on giving them her”—he flicks his gaze to me—“scheduleat lunch.”
“Interesting.” Emery’s eyes narrow before he focuses on me. A smile once again stamps itself onto his handsome face. “From just a glance, I know for sure we have lunch together, so if I don’t see you earlier, then I’ll see you then.”
“You also have second period with her,” Ethan points out. When Emery glares at him for speaking, Ethan flushes red and takes a step away. “You might have more, but I don’t remember.”
“Okay, okay. Text me your schedule or whatever. But I need to get to the office, and you guys need to get to class.”
“So bossy.” Emery places a hand over his chest in mock offense. “Is this how it’s going to be when we enter a relationship?”
Those damn butterflies return with a vengeance, and I have to take pesticide to them to stop the irrational fluttery sensation in my stomach.
“What relationship?”
“The one where you fall desperately in love with me.” He winks, and a burst of heat shoots down my spine.
I snort and roll my eyes, already stepping past him in the direction of the office. I don’t bother to turn around as I call over my shoulder, “Maybe it’s the one whereyoufall desperately in love withme.”
I could be mistaken—I probably am—but I could’ve sworn I heard Emery mutter, “Probably,” under his breath.
But when I turn around, all I see are the twins’ backs.
Heading in opposite directions of each other without a word of goodbye.
Fourteen