The Wrong Kind of Right

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A Name Everyone Knows

The whispers did not stop once class began. If anything, they grew louder, weaving through the lecture hall in hushed bursts that Sophie could not quite decipher but understood perfectly all the same. Something about the guy from the parking lot had turned an ordinary economics lecture into an event, and Sophie had no idea why.

She tried to focus on the professor’s introduction to supply and demand curves, but her attention kept drifting toward the back row, where the boy in question had settled beside a friend with an easy grin and a habit of leaning back in his chair like the classroom belonged to him.

“Psst.”

Sophie turned. The girl beside her, blonde and wide eyed, was practically vibrating with excitement.

“Do you know who that is?” the girl whispered.

“No idea.”

“That’s Nathaniel Calloway.”

The name meant absolutely nothing to Sophie, though judging by the reverence in the girl’s voice, it was supposed to mean quite a lot.

“Calloway,” Sophie repeated slowly. “Like the Calloway Group?”

“Like the Calloway Group,” the girl confirmed, nodding as though this explained everything. “Hotels. Resorts. Half the buildings downtown. His family basically owns this side of the country.”

Sophie glanced back toward the boy, now murmuring something to his friend that made them both laugh quietly. It was strange, watching someone attract that much attention without seeming to notice it at all, or perhaps noticing it so thoroughly that he had simply stopped caring.

She turned back to her notebook, determined not to think about him for the rest of the lecture.

She lasted almost the full fifty minutes.

By the time class ended, students filed out in loud clusters, comparing schedules and complaining about the professor’s rapid pace. Sophie gathered her things quickly, eager to find her next building before getting lost all over again, when a voice behind her made her pause.

“You survived.”

She turned to find Nathaniel Calloway standing a few feet away, hands tucked casually into his pockets, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“Excuse me?”

“The parking lot. This morning.” His mouth curved into that same easy smile from earlier. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it to class in one piece.”

“I was fine.”

“You looked terrified.”

“I looked annoyed,” Sophie corrected. “There’s a difference.”

He tilted his head, studying her the way someone might study an unfamiliar puzzle. “Fair enough. I’m Nate, by the way.”

“I know. Apparently everyone knows.”

Something flickered across his expression, there and gone so quickly Sophie almost missed it. “Apparently.”

“Sophie,” she offered, mostly because it felt strange not to.

“Sophie,” he repeated, as though testing how it sounded. “No last name?”

“You didn’t give me yours either. Someone else did that for you.”

A short laugh escaped him, genuine and a little surprised, as though her answer hadn’t been what he expected. “That’s the first time in a long while someone’s introduced themselves to me without mentioning it first.”

Sophie shifted her bag onto her shoulder, unsure what to make of the comment. “Should I be impressed?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“Not particularly.”

His smile widened, and for reasons she could not fully explain, Sophie found herself fighting the urge to smile back.

“I should get to my next class,” she said instead, stepping past him before the conversation could stretch any longer than it already had.

“See you around, Sophie Reyes.”

She paused mid step. “I never told you my last name.”

Nate’s grey eyes held hers for a beat too long. “No,” he agreed. “You didn’t.”

Before she could ask how he knew it anyway, he had already turned and walked off toward his next class, leaving her standing there with a strange knot forming in her stomach.

By lunchtime, Sophie had successfully gotten lost twice, walked into the wrong building once, and asked a groundskeeper for directions to the library, which turned out to be directly behind her the entire time. Priya found the entire ordeal hilarious when Sophie recounted it over lunch in the dining hall.

“You asked a groundskeeper,” Priya repeated, wheezing with laughter. “A groundskeeper, Sophie.”

“He looked helpful.”

“He was pruning a bush.”

“He still had a face. Faces can give directions.”

Priya wiped tears from the corners of her eyes, still laughing as they carried their trays toward an empty table near the windows. The dining hall buzzed with noise, hundreds of students crowded around tables, trays clattering, laughter rising and falling in waves.

“Okay, but forget the groundskeeper,” Priya said once they sat down. “Tell me about this parking lot thing you mentioned earlier. You said someone almost hit you with a car.”

Sophie hesitated. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“You brought it up unprompted. It’s a big deal.”

“It really wasn’t.”

Priya narrowed her eyes, clearly unconvinced, though before she could press further, her expression suddenly shifted, focused on something over Sophie’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Priya said quietly. “Never mind. I think I understand the big deal now.”

Sophie frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t turn around.”

Naturally, Sophie turned around immediately.

A group of students had just entered the dining hall, and at the center of them, unmistakably, stood Nate. He laughed at something one of his friends said, utterly at ease amid the attention that seemed to follow him wherever he went. Several girls nearby watched him with open interest, including one striking blonde whose gaze lingered a beat longer than the others.

Sophie turned back around quickly.

“That’s the guy from the parking lot,” she admitted.

Priya’s jaw dropped. “That’s Nathaniel Calloway. You almost got hit by Nathaniel Calloway’s car.”

“When you say it like that it sounds worse.”

“It is worse. Do you know how many people would trade limbs for that kind of near death experience?”

Sophie rolled her eyes, though her gaze drifted back toward him despite her best efforts not to. As if sensing it, Nate glanced up at exactly that moment, his eyes finding hers across the crowded room.

For a second, neither of them looked away.

Then he smiled, small and knowing, before one of his friends said something that pulled his attention elsewhere.

Priya practically vibrated with excitement. “Okay, that was not nothing.”

“It was nothing.”

“Sophie.”

“It was literally nothing, Priya.”

“Your face is doing a thing.”

“My face is not doing anything.”

“It’s doing the thing.”

Sophie groaned and buried her face in her hands, ignoring Priya’s triumphant laughter beside her. She had known this girl for less than twenty four hours and already felt completely transparent under her scrutiny.

The rest of lunch passed with Priya inventing increasingly ridiculous theories about fate and parking lots, most of which Sophie refused to dignify with a response. By the time they parted ways for afternoon classes, Sophie had almost managed to convince herself the whole encounter meant nothing at all.

Almost.

Her final class of the day let out later than expected, the professor lingering well past the scheduled time to finish a point about market equilibrium that nobody in the room seemed particularly invested in. By the time Sophie stepped outside, the golden afternoon light had begun slipping toward evening, painting long shadows across the courtyard.

She pulled out her phone to check the time and nearly walked directly into someone for the second time that day.

“We really need to stop meeting like this.”

Sophie looked up to find Nate standing in front of her, an amused expression settling easily onto his features, as though running into her had become some sort of personal entertainment.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” she accused.

“I promise I’m not.”

“You appeared out of nowhere. Twice.”

“Coincidence.”

“That’s a very convenient coincidence.”

He laughed, the sound warmer than she expected, and for a moment the easy confidence he wore like armor seemed to slip, revealing something a little more genuine underneath.

“How was the rest of your day?” he asked. “Better than the parking lot incident, I hope.”

“Marginally.”

“Only marginally?”

“I got lost twice and asked a groundskeeper for directions.”

Nate’s eyebrows lifted, clearly fighting back a laugh. “That’s impressively bad.”

“Thank you. I try.”

They fell into step together without either of them quite deciding to, walking slowly across the courtyard as the late afternoon crowd thinned around them. The conversation moved easily from there, drifting between classes, professors, and campus traditions Sophie had not yet learned, each exchange lighter and more comfortable than the last.

It should not have felt this easy. She barely knew him. Yet somehow, standing there talking to Nathaniel Calloway felt less like navigating a stranger and more like continuing something that had already begun without her realizing it.

“Can I ask you something?” Nate said eventually, his tone shifting just slightly.

“That depends on the question.”

“Fair.” He studied her for a moment. “Most people react differently once they hear my last name. You didn’t.”

Sophie considered the observation carefully. “Should I have?”

“Most people do.”

“I don’t know much about your family,” she admitted. “Should that worry me?”

Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone so quickly she nearly missed it. “Maybe a little.”

Before she could ask what he meant, a phone buzzed somewhere nearby. Nate glanced down at his own screen, his expression shifting into something unreadable.

“I have to go,” he said, though his tone suggested reluctance. “But I’ll see you around, Sophie Reyes.”

“You keep saying that like it’s a promise.”

“Maybe it is.”

He walked off before she could respond, leaving her standing in the courtyard with the sun sinking lower behind the campus buildings and a strange, unfamiliar warmth blooming quietly in her chest.

That evening, back in her dorm room, Sophie’s phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number. Assuming it was some kind of campus notification, she opened it without much thought.

The message contained no greeting, no explanation.

Only five words.

Stay away from Nathaniel Calloway.

Sophie stared at the screen, her pulse quickening as the warmth from earlier drained away completely. Whoever had sent it clearly knew

exactly who she had been talking to, and exactly how to make sure she understood the warning was not a joke.