Free Easy by Tammara Webber

smiled, his light
eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, and I tried not to swoon visibly. “I
see. Turnabout is fair play. How ’bout you give me yours?”
    I arched a brow at
him. “Why? Do you need help in economics?”
    He bit his lip in
earnest that time, stifling a laugh. “Hardly. What makes you think that?”
    I frowned. Could I
be attracted to a guy who cared so little about doing well in class? “I guess
it’s not my business.”
    He leaned his chin
into the palm of his hand. The tips of his fingers were tinged with gray, probably
from drawing with that pencil sitting over his ear. “I appreciate your concern,
but I want your number for reasons completely unrelated to economics.”
    I picked up my
phone and found his number, and sent him a text that said: Hi.
    “Dude, you’re in my seat.” Benji’s tone was matter-of-fact, but unperturbed.
    Lucas’s phone vibrated in his hand, and he smiled as my text popped up, giving him my number.
“Thanks.” He unfolded himself from the chair and addressed Benji. “Sorry, man.”
    “No prob.” Benji
was one of the most easygoing people I’d ever met. His attitude said slacker ,
but I’d gotten a look at the midterm crammed into his notebook—he’d made a high
B, and for all his talk about skipping class and sleeping in, he’d yet to miss
one. After Lucas sauntered back to his seat, Benji leaned over the edge of his
desktop, closer than Lucas had. “So what was that about?” His eyebrows
rocked up and down and I tried not to grin.
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, fluttering my lashes in my best Southern belle impersonation.
    “Careful, little
lady,” he drawled. “That fella seems a bit dangerous.” He shook a too-long curl
out of his eyes, smiling. “Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of
danger.”
    My lips pinched into half a smile. “True.”
    I congratulated
myself for taking a singular peek over my shoulder, halfway through the
fifty-minute class. Lucas wasn’t looking at me, so I couldn’t help staring.
Pencil in hand, he was sketching intently, first shading and then carefully smearing
with his thumb. His dark hair fell around his face as he concentrated on his
work, the lecture and the classroom disregarded as though he was alone in his
room. I imagined him sitting on his bed, knees up, pad balanced on his thighs.
I wondered what he was sketching. Or who.
    He glanced up and caught my gaze. Held it.
    His mouth pulled
into that ghost of a smile and he stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders,
returning my stare. Glancing at the pad, he tapped the end of his pencil
against it and sprawled back in his seat, lashes fanning down as he examined
his work.
    Dr. Heller finished
the chart he was free-handing onto the whiteboard, and the lecture resumed. Lucas
tucked the pencil over his ear and picked up a pen. Before shifting his
attention to our professor, he smiled at me again, and a jolt of excitement shot
through me.
    At the end of
class, a different girl than last week intercepted him on his way out the door,
and I bolted without a backward look. My adrenaline kicked in, my body sensing
my need to escape and giving wings to it. Glancing over my shoulder, I ducked
through the side exit and slowed down, feeling silly. Erin and Maggie insisted
that I should elude his grasp for a few days more, and make him pursue me—but
he wasn’t going to literally give chase.
    I texted Erin that
I’d be getting crap coffee in the cafeteria before my afternoon class instead
of going by the Starbucks. She texted back: GENIUS. I’ll meet you there. Sisters in solidarity and all that shit.
     
    ***
    By the end of art history, I was
beginning to doubt Erin’s notion that Lucas wanted to play this game. Maybe he
wasn’t a dog. Or I wasn’t a cat. Or I was just really bad at this. I sighed,
stuffing my phone into my bag. I’d clicked it to check for a message at least
thirty times during class.
    I’d always disparaged
the