Love Story(27)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Then again, what did I really know about Hunter? I felt such a strong connection with him because our lives for the past six years had been intertwined. But we weren’t friends. And this connection I felt with him

maybe I’d made that up, too. After all, I was a novelist.

“He’s going to see that fortune-teller from his second story,” I suggested. This I really didn’t believe. I wanted Summer to reassure me.

She rolled her eyes. “Hunter Allen is not having sex with a fortune-teller. He is entertaining the men in the class, fascinating the women, and egging you on. Do you hear yourself and how you have been egged on? You are thoroughly eggy right now. You’re like a freaking omelet.” She bounced up from my bed and went back into her room.

A few minutes passed in which I did not get any homework done at all. I could hear her paging quietly through a book. Finally I heard the mattress creek on Jřrdis’s side of the room. A pillow thudded to the floor. Then I could hear Hunter and Summer talking.

Summer: “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Hunter: “Jesus. Sorry.”

Summer: “You shouldn’t cut out faces for Jřrdis when you’re so tired. You left way too thick a border around them. She’s going to get you.”

Hunter, after a yawn: “She needs a thicker border so she can overlap them when she glues them to the canvas. She hasn’t thought this through.”

Summer: “I’m just warning you.”

Hunter: “Thanks for the warning.”

The conversation ended, and after several moments of silence I realized I was straining my ears to hear them through the wall instead of reading history. I bent my head to my book.

“Hey,” Hunter said, looming over me.

I let out some kind of strangled squeal, and my book and laptop went flying in different directions.

“Sorry, sorry,” he soothed me, holding both hands up to calm me down. “I forgot how easily you startle.”

“What’s the matter?” Summer stuck her head through the door. “What’d you do to her?”

“She startles easily.” Hunter sounded the tiniest bit miffed. “It was an accident.”

Summer gave me an uneasy look, then winked at me and disappeared.

I took deep breaths and winced at my hard, fast heartbeat. Accepting the laptop Hunter retrieved from the floor for me, and then the history book, I managed, “I didn’t hear you cross the room. What are you, a ninja?”

“Maybe.” As he sat on the foot of my bed, his rakish smile made me suspect his next story for Gabe’s class would be a ninja hook-up. But it was so hard to stay defensive when he paired the smile with sleepy blue eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep out there. I thought you would come out and talk to me in your belly-dancing costume.” He nodded to the sad pool of green gauze that had fallen from its hook in the corner.

I thought what he meant by this was, I put my hands all over that girl in the shower and then wrote a story about doing her. I also wrote a story about doing a fortune-teller. So I don’t see why in the world you did not come into Jřrdis’s room and flirt with me. This seemed to be what he was implying, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I have a lot of homework,” I said.

“And I have a proposition.”

“’Kay,” I said warily. I tried to keep my tone flat, but I was dying to know what it was.

“I promised you I wouldn’t tell Gabe about the

” He opened his hand on his thigh. This meant embarrassing stable-boy story. He went on, “But I told you I couldn’t vouch for Brian or Manohar.”

“Oh, no,” I whispered.

“Listen.” He put his hand on my ankle. “Brian won’t say anything. He likes you, and he likes Summer, and Summer has worked hard on him. But Manohar needs a favor.”

I nodded for him to go on, hoping I would be able to hear him over the blood throbbing in my ears. Being startled had only half the effect on my pulse of Hunter’s hand on my ankle.

“Manohar’s rushing a fraternity,” Hunter said. “Some of the older and very influential brothers have a trip to Belmont Park planned for tomorrow. It would help Manohar get in their good graces if he brought along a horse-racing insider.”

I frowned at him. “You want me to handicap the races for them? Aren’t you going? You could do it.”

“Not like you can,” he said. “I was interested in the training side, and I liked to predict which colts would train well, but during the races I wasn’t watching. I was in the stable, currycombing.” He squeezed my ankle hard, and I wondered whether this was unconscious. “You were the one in the stands, taking notes on the big picture.”

I could have argued with him. He knew as well as I did that horse racing was unpredictable. Even though I could probably make educated guesses about winning horses better than most people, I’d never imagined using my knowledge to place bets at Belmont Park through a partner of legal age. If I’d thought I could make any money that way, I wouldn’t have been working at the coffee shop.

But if I argued this point, I’d be arguing myself out of a promise of silence from Manohar. So I said, “Great!”

“One of the guys is borrowing a limo from his dad’s business,” Hunter said. “He’ll pick us up in front of the dorm at noon.” He looked at his hand on my ankle as if he hadn’t realized it was there. He jerked it away and stood.

I almost forgot to ask, “Can I bring Summer?”

“Of course,” he said in a tone that told me he’d been expecting this question.

Summer popped her head into the room again. “Where are we going?”

“Hunter!” Jřrdis boomed from her bedroom. “What have you been doing with these borders? I told you not to cut so large a border!”

Hunter gave me a conspiratorial smile that said we both understood Jřrdis and her tendency to overexcitement about cutting. I did not share the smile with him, but I didn’t have to. Hunter could make me feel that camaraderie with him even when I didn’t want to.

“Sweet dreams, Erin.” He went out to placate Jřrdis.

AT NOON THE NEXT DAY, SUMMER and I walked down the stairs in front of the dorm and into a gaggle of six boys. Several of them said, “Nice hat.”

I wore a wide-brimmed velvet hat my grandmother had bought me for the fall meet at Churchill Downs last year. I needed it this cool, bright afternoon. I didn’t need any more freckles. And, okay, maybe I wanted to flaunt to Hunter that I still had an iota of fashion sense. I’d dressed in a heathered green cashmere sweater and a tan suede skirt to go with the hat. I made the boys look like servants in comparison—except, of course, Hunter, who had anticipated that I would dress up for a horse race, even in New York. He wore khakis and a blazer. With his blond hair styled just so and mussed a little by the breeze, he looked like his father owned the country club.

“Thanks,” I said. “Nice car.” NIEWIAROWSKI & SONS FUNERAL HOME—GO OUT IN STYLE was painted on the door of the limo in careful gold cursive.