She plopped next to me. “First, you have to approach this with no fear. Seriously, they can smell fear. It totally puts them off the scent.”
I frowned. “Off the scent? That’s so…” I tried to think of a more suitable word than aaauugh, but my brain hadn’t booted up yet.
“That’s so true, you mean? Look—guys are dogs. Women have known this since the beginning of time. Guys don’t want to be chased; they chase. So if you’re going to catch one, you have to know how to make him chase you.”
I squinted at her. Archaic, sexist, demeaning my brain declared, filling in for aaauugh, too late. This viewpoint shouldn’t have surprised me—I’d heard her say these sorts of things before. I just never considered those off-the-cuff remarks to be part of a creed.
I chugged half of the OJ before commenting. “You’re serious about this.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “This is where I don’t say ‘as a heart attack,’ right?”
***
Go time.
I took a deep breath. I had three minutes until class started. Erin said I needed one minute, no more than two. “But two is pushing it,” she insisted, “because then you look too interested. One is better.”
I slid into the seat next to him, but perched on the edge, making it obvious that I had no intention of remaining. His eyes snapped to mine immediately, dark brows disappearing into that messy hair falling over his forehead. His eyes were almost colorless. I’d never seen anyone with eyes so light.
He was definitely startled by my appearance next to him. Good, according to Erin and Maggie.
“Hey,” I said, a subtle smile on my lips, hoping I appeared somewhere between interested and indifferent. According to Erin and Maggie, that impression was a vital part of the strategy.
“Hey.” He opened his econ text, concealing the open sketchbook in front of him. Before he obscured it, I caught a detailed illustration of the venerated old oak tree in the center of campus and the ornamental wrought iron fence surrounding it.
I swallowed. Interested and indifferent. “So, it just occurred to me that I don’t remember your name from the other night. Too many margaritas, I guess.”
He wet his lips and stared at me a moment before answering, and I blinked, wondering if he was purposefully making my loosely-sustained indifference more challenging to maintain. “It’s Lucas. And I don’t think I gave it.”
In the next moment, Dr. Heller entered noisily near the podium, catching his handled case in the door. An audible, “Dammit,” echoed through the lecture hall, thanks to the planned acoustics of the room. Lucas and I smiled at each other as our fellow classmates tittered.
“So… you, um, called me Jackie, before?” I said, and his head tilted slightly. “I actually go by Jacqueline. Now.”
His brows drew down slightly. “Okay.”
I cleared my throat and stood—surprising him again, judging by his expression. “Nice to meet you, Lucas.” I smiled again before turning away and darting to my assigned seat.
Keeping my attention on the lecture and defying the compulsion to peek over my shoulder was excruciating. I was sure I felt Lucas’s eyes boring into the back of my head. Like an out-of-reach itch, the sensation nettled me for fifty minutes straight, and it took herculean effort to refrain from turning around. Unknowingly, Benji helped by making distracting observations on Dr. Heller, like tallying the number of times he said, “Uuummm,” during the lecture with marks at the top of his notebook, and pointing out the fact that our professor was sporting one navy and one brown sock.
Instead of lingering at the end of class to see what Lucas would do (speak to me or ignore me?), instead of waiting for Kennedy to leave (funny, I’d paid scant attention to him for the past hour—that was a first), I swung my backpack onto my shoulder and practically sprinted from the room without looking at either of them. Emerging from the side door into the crisp fall air, I sucked in a deep breath. Agenda: Spanish class, lunch, Starbucks.
Erin: How’d OBBP go?
Me: Got him to tell me his name. Went back to my seat. Didn’t look at him again.
Erin: Perfect. Meet you after next class for more strategizing before coffee. ;)
***
When Erin and I joined the line at the Starbucks, I didn’t see Lucas.
“Rats.” She craned her neck, making sure he wasn’t one of the people behind the counter. “He was here last Monday, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but his work schedule is probably unpredictable.”
She elbowed me lightly. “Not so much. That’s him there, right?”
He came through a door to the back with an industrial-sized bag of coffee. My physical reaction to him was unnerving. It was as though my insides all clenched up at the sight of him, and when they unwound, everything restarted at once—my heart rate accelerating, lungs pumping air, brainwaves running amok.
“Ooh, J, he’s got ink, too,” Erin murmured appreciatively. “Just when I didn’t think he could get any hotter...”
My eyes fell to his forearms, flexing as he sliced the bag open. Tattooed designs wrapped around his wrists, contiguous symbols and script running up both arms and disappearing into the sleeves of the gray knit shirt, which were shoved above his elbows. I’d never seen him without his sleeves pulled to the wrists. Even Saturday night, he’d worn long sleeves—a faded black button-down, open over a white t-shirt.
I’d never been attracted to guys with tattoos. The notion of needles injecting ink under the skin and the confidence of making permanent imprints of words and symbols was foreign to me. Now, I wondered how far the tattoos spread—just the sleeves of his arms? His back? His chest?