Free Soft Shock by Nicole Green Page A

even a week ago? The days seemed to drag on forever lately. Ever since Sunday.
    Lil nudged his
arm with hers, bringing him back to Earth. “Are you going to ask her?”
    Owen looked
around, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “Huh?”
    Lil gave him a
funny look and nodded in Marci’s direction. “Are you going to ask if you can
stay for class?”
    “Oh.” Owen gave
a little laugh of relief. For a moment, he’d thought his feelings had been
written all over his face, that he’d been incredibly and tragically obvious.
“Oh yeah. Sure.”
    Owen walked up
to Marci, sure she hadn’t noticed him yet as she was
involved in the conversation she was having with one of her students. He
cleared his throat and called her name. Marci turned to face him. Shock rippled
over her face before she replaced it with a smile. “What are you doing here?”
    “I’m in
Professor Ming’s philosophy class, and I missed my regular section on Monday.”
He watched her beautiful brown face for changes as he spoke, but she betrayed
nothing. “I was wondering if I could sit in on your section tonight.”
    “Sure,” she
said smoothly. “Who’s your regular TA?”
    “Brian Smith,”
he said.
    She nodded and
scribbled something down on a piece of paper. “I’ll email him and let him know
you came tonight,” she said.
    He scratched
the back of his neck, a little uncomfortable at the
way she’d phrased that. Especially with the way his thoughts had gone South
since he walked in the classroom and saw her standing there, looking collected
and beautiful as always even on a rainy, cold night like this one. She shook
her corkscrew curls away from her face and flashed a smile at him that caught
him off-guard. “Ready?”
    “Huh?” He
unzipped his North Face. It was too hot in this stuffy classroom.
    “Class is about
to start.” She looked at a point behind him, and he followed her gaze to a
clock on the wall at the back of the room.
    “Yeah. Sorry.”
He stumbled to the table in the center of the classroom and took a seat next to
Lil.
    “So
everything’s okay with you sitting in?” Lil asked.
    “Yep. Just
fine.” Owen busied himself with pulling books out of his bag and finding a
clean sheet of paper in his ratty philosophy notebook.
    Lil tapped her
fingers on the edge of her laptop. “What were you guys talking about up there
for all that time? Do you know each other or something?”
    “Something.”
Owen looked up and gave Lil his best attempt at a smile.
    Her blonde
eyebrows knitted together. “Really? How?”
    “Uhm, it’s a
long story. Too long considering class is about to start. I’ll tell you another
time.”
    “On the ride
back to your place?”
    “Or some other
time.”
    “Over coffee at
Java Time? Soon? I feel like I never see you anymore.”
    “We’ll talk
about it after class,” Owen said.
    #
    Camille,
Dante’s friend from class who wanted to meet Owen, was huge in personality even
if slight in frame. When he saw her out in front of the restaurant where they
were meeting for dinner Friday night, he knew her immediately even though he’d
never seen her before. Based on their brief conversation to set up the date and
Dante’s description of her, he knew it must be her right away.
    She wore a
miniscule black dress despite the freezing temperature and towering black heels
that made an impressive advance on Owen’s height of six feet four. Her shiny black
hair cascaded over her bare, olive-toned shoulders and arms. Her Italian
ancestry was clear in her sharp Mediterranean features. She was a beautiful
woman—at least on the outside. Still, something was missing. The same
thing that had clouded his vision the night he met Brynn at The Hops was
clouding it now.
    Camille walked
up to him like they were old friends and nearly shouted, “Owen!” and wrapped
her arms around him in a hug. He was soon to learn that this was her regular
voice. As she would later tell him, growing up in a house with six brothers