The Ivy: Secrets by Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur Read Free Book Online

but maybe after we could go somewhere and talk. I really missed you, you know.”
    Callie froze. “You—you did?”
    “Yes, I did. And I do . . . miss you,” he said, smiling and taking a step forward. Leaning in, he propped his arm along the metal rack: no longer a real barrier absent of Lexi’s clothing, nothing separating them, save air.
    Callie could barely feel the dresses weighing down her left arm. She took a deep breath, and his scent—which smelled sweetly of cinnamon and autumn leaves and still lingered on the scarf she was wearing now and the fuzzy, oversized sweater she had no intention of returning anytime soon—washed over her. She sighed.
    Beep beep beep.
    “I—I missed a call,” she murmured, shifting the clothing in her arms so she could reach for her cell.
    M ISSED CALL
1 N EW T EXT M ESSAGE
F ROM A LEXIS T HORNDIKE
    C ALLIE, I HOPE YOU ’ RE ON YOUR
WAY AND THAT THERE WEREN ’ T ANY
PROBLEMS ! I’ D HATE TO HAVE TO DO
SOMETHING DRASTIC JUST BECAUSE I
GOT BORED WITH WAITING.
    “Crap,” Callie muttered. “I have to go.”
    “Wait,” Clint began, reaching out a hand as if to touch her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, ducking around him and heading for the door. “But I’m late—”
    “Well, can I at least call you later?” he said, beating her to the door and holding it open for her.
    “Uh—I—um—no. Okay? I just have to go,” she said. Slipping past him, she darted out into the cold, hoisting the dry cleaning into both arms and power walking as fast as possible.
    Clint watched her round the corner in the direction of the upperclassman river houses, a bemused expression on his face. Then he looked across Massachusetts Avenue at Wigglesworth, her freshman dormitory. Glancing back in the opposite direction where she had just disappeared, he slowly shook his head.
    On the plus side, I can cancel my Amazon order for arm weights, Callie thought, trudging up the stairs to the second floor of Wigglesworth. Her arms were really aching now. How it was possible for a bunch of fancy dresses to be heavier than a crate of bottled water was unclear but true nevertheless.
    It had grown dark outside in the time it had taken her to finish her COMP assignments for the day. Now, all she had left to do was:
    a) Write response paper about angry philosopher with unpronounceable last name
    b) Get started on real COMP assignments
    c) Go to the gym and fight angry 2Ls for a chance to run on the hamster wheels
    d) Eat something, preferably other than basement vending-machine food
    e) Unpack clothing and clean room
    f) Add all of the above to a written schedule of things to do before reading period
    g) Do none of the above and take a nap instead
    And the winner is . . . g! Hooray for responsible decision making! (Whoever decided that four-year-olds are the only species deserving of mandatory naptime was seriously misguided.) Then, there was always h , aka call Clint and tell him everything.
    At the top of the stairs she stopped and unwound Clint’s scarf from her neck. He had looked and smelled even better than she’d remembered. This staying-away business was going to be a lot harder than she expected—especially if she could run into him somewhere as random as the dry cleaner.
    She was halfway down the hall when she froze.
    Gregory had just stepped out of suite C 23, devil-may-care half smile on his face. He saw her a second later, and the smile faded into a grim line. He shut the door quickly behind him but made no move to come closer.
    Callie took a deep breath. Fortunately her hands were empty so there was nothing embarrassing to drop (like a box of underwear, for example), no way to humiliate herself as long as her lips remained glued together so she wouldn’t say something stupid or impulsively press them to his. . . .
    Keeping her feet planted, she forced herself to meet his gaze. His eyes still had the same effect on her, like that of the nightshade flower: blue, beautiful, but deadly