Chapter3-Spotlight
1175 Words
Evelyn's POV
My brain decided to replay the last thirty seconds in a loop.
“You got the partner you wanted.”
Max was obviously been joking.
But the issue now was Luca didn’t react.
“You’ve been quiet for three minutes.”
I looked at Chloe.
“Don’t tell me you counted.”
I looked away.
“Oh, this is serious.”
“It’s not serious.”
“Evelyn.”
“Stop saying my name like that,” I sighed.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to uncover a state secret.”
“You’re hiding something,” Chloe gasped.
We crossed the street and I managed to make it six whole steps before Chloe spoke again.
“Did hockey boy say something?”
“No.”
“Did hockey boy do something?”
“No.”
“Hockey boy has a name you know.”
This is what happens when you became friends with someone you met in your first year of university.
They would have collected enough information to become genuinely dangerous.
Chloe’s eyes widened.
“Oh my God.”
There it was.
The face she made whenever she believed she solved a mystery.
“What happened after I left?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You hesitated.”
She practically bounced beside me.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
I stopped walking and Chloe stopped too.
“Fine.”
“Nothing happened.”
“That isn’t how stories work.”
I resumed walking.
Mostly because standing still wasn’t helping.
“I dropped my pen.”
“And?”
“And I went back for it.”
“And?”
“And I overheard something.”
Chloe’s entire body froze.
Not metaphorically.
She actually froze..
I kept walking while she hurried to catch up.
“What did you hear?”
I regretted opening my mouth already.
“A conversation.”
“Between who?”
“Luca and one of his teammates.” I looked straight ahead.
Maybe if I don’t make eye contact, this conversation would disappear. It didn’t.
“What did they say, Evelyn?”
“His friend told him he got the partner he wanted.”
“Oh, that’s bad”
Chloe pointed at me.
“It’s not bad.”
“It’s suspicious.”
“It’s not suspicious.”
“That is THE definition of suspicious.”
She’s right.
It is.
Luca barely knew me.
So why did it sound like he did.
The moment I stepped into my room, my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
I stared at it for a second.
Then I opened it.
Luca: We should probably start the project.
Of course it was him.
A second message appeared.
Luca: Unless your color coded notebook has already finished it.
Me: Library. Thirty minutes.
Me: Be there.
Luca: Yes, ma’am
I regretted agreeing already.
Thirty minutes later, I spotted him across one of the study tables near the back of the library.
I hadn’t even sat down yet and he was already taking up too much space.
“You came.”
“You told me to.”
“That doesn’t guarantee compliance.”
I pulled out my laptop.
“Let’s focus.”
“You say that every time we talk.”
“Because every time we talk, you make it necessary.”
I opened a document before he could respond.
“Our presentation is on community leadership.”
I expected the next hour to be painful.
Mostly because Luca seemed allergic to structure.
What I didn’t expect was for him to be good.
Annoyingly good.
Every idea I threw out, he improved.
Every point I made, he expanded.
Whenever the conversation stalled, he somehow found a way to keep it moving.
We finished outlining the presentation and we were twenty minutes ahead of schedule.
Twenty whole minutes.
That has never happened.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m trying to figure out if you’ve secretly done this before.”
“Done what?”
“Convinced people you’re not incompetent.”
“You thought I was incompetent?” he laughed
“I thought you were a hockey player.”
“That’s rude.”
“That’s accurate.”
Talking to him was easy.
We disagreed constantly.
Yet arguing with him never felt like work.
He was funny.
I preferred my enemies to be annoying.
My laptop chimed but I ignored it.
A second later, Luca’s phone and mine buzzed simultaneously.
We looked at each other.
“Either we’re extremely popular,” Luca said, “or something went wrong.”
“I vote for the second option.”
My phone lit up with a text from Chloe.
LOOK AT i********:.
A second message followed.
RIGHT NOW.
The Hawthorne Student Partnership account had posted photos from orientation.
And there, sitting three slides in, was a picture of me and Luca.
I don’t even remember it being taken.
The caption read:
Meet this year’s fellowship partnerships..
“Oh, that’s great,” I said flatly.
Luca leaned over.
“Could be worse.”
“Why would you say that before checking the comments?”
“Fair point.”
I opened them.
The first one wasn’t terrible.
The second wasn’t either.
The third one made me wish I had stopped reading.
“Isn’t she the girl who roasted hockey players at orientation?”
Below it:
LMAOOO THEY PAIRED HER WITH LUCA
Another:
This should be interesting.
Then:
Wait. Isn’t that Ethan Hart’s sister?
“What does that mean?”
Luca’s attention shifted from his laptop to his phone.
He was joking earlier and now he wasn’t.
I watched his eyes move down the screen.
Then he stopped.
Something in his expression changed.
“Luca?”
He didn’t answer.
But his thumb paused over his phone screen.
I looked down at my own phone to go through the comments again.
I probably missed something.
“What are they talking about?”
I moved forward.
“What comment did you see?”
His phone screen went dark.
He locked it.
“Nothing.
“That’s not true.”
“You should stop reading comments.”
“You should stop avoiding my question.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Something was definitely wrong.
I didn’t know what.
But I knew it had something to do with those comments.
And it had something to do with me.
Or maybe Ethan.
“What does my brother have to do with any of this?”
Luca’s eyes looked towards mine and it made me wish I didn't ask.
He exhaled like he was debating something and when he finally spoke he said.
“Nothing.”
I chuckled.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
His eyes dropped to the phone in his hand.
Then back to me.
There was no amusement there at all.
“Your brother’s going to hate this.”
“What?”
Luca was already gathering his things.
“Luca.”
“Luca?!”
He just swung his backpack over one shoulder and walked away.
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