Free Definitely, Maybe in Love by Ophelia London Page A

choosing to continue the argument instead of focusing on how looking at his smile made me want to lick my lips. “You’ve got a finance degree, you come from money and drive a sports car. You voted Republican, didn’t you?”
    His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is that a crime?”
    “I wish,” I muttered, turning to a clean page of my notebook.
    “Wow,” he said, deadpan. “Anything else about me you’d like to get off your chest?”
    Suddenly, everything Alex told me came flooding into my brain. How Knightly had been jealous, judgmental, accusatory, and then Alex was suddenly expelled from high school. The memory of what Knightly had said about me at the party—what I’d heard him say—was also front and center in my mind. And how he’d yelled at the movers to not touch his precious car, and how he hadn’t spoken one word to Julia.
    He may have been helping me out of a pretty huge bind, but I wasn’t about to trust him, despite the way he was watching me with that almost-smile, and the way one stray lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead, begging for my fingers to push it back then continue running through his hair.
    I had to ignore that and remember the rest.
    He was all I had. I knew I had to play nice, so I smiled as pleasantly as possible and sat back. “Nope, I’m all done.” I glanced at his computer with my outline on the screen. “Now it’s your turn. What do you really think?”
    He angled his laptop so the screen was facing me. Aside from Professor Masen’s last assignment, I’d never seen so many red strike-throughs.
    This was going to be a very long semester.

Part II
    Winter
    “I had never loved anyone before…so I naturally thought that it was not in my nature to love. But it has always seemed to me that it must be heavenly to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly… And I would have allowed myself to be worshipped, and given infinite tenderness in return.” From The Scarlet Pimpernel

Chapter 9
    As I came down the creaky attic stair from my bedroom, I ran into Anabel leaving Julia’s room.
    “Oh, hey Springer,” she said, trying to display an innocent expression, which made me instantly suspicious.
    “What were you doing in there?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” she said, glancing into Julia’s room. “Just having a chat. Girl stuff. Have a nice Thanksgiving!” She waved her fingers and walked away. Little chats with Anabel usually included requests to borrow a pair of shoes you’d never see again, or unsolicited, unorthodox dating advice. When it came to Julia, neither was a good idea.
    I rounded the corner and entered her room.
    “Ready to go?” Julia asked, smiling brightly.
    “Almost,” I replied, giving her a quick assessment. I’d have to ask her later what she and Anabel were discussing.
    Two suitcases were open on the foot of her bed. The rest of the mattress was covered with separated stacks of clothes laid out in uniformed organization. Julia was singing to herself, methodically folding a white sweater. “You’re packed, right?” she asked.
    I groaned as an answer, adjusting one ear bud as some very appropriate angry chick rock lulled in my ear.
    With midterm exams over, we were now well into the meat of the winter quarter. Papers, research projects, advisory teams. Madness ahead. I’d dropped my three jobs to concentrate on school. Now was the time to focus, the big push to the end.
    It was the first time I’d stepped foot in Julia’s bedroom in weeks. Despite the various piles of clothing, it was immaculate. Even with her mind intertwined with her heart, she was still as orderly as ever. I did notice that the calendar on her pink wall had not yet been turned from October to November, even though we were more than half-way through the month.
    “Planning on staying forever?” I asked, eyeing the enormous pile of clothes in her suitcase.
    “I wish.” She smiled wistfully.
    I scooted over a pair of red jeans so I could sit. “This is going to be the