Love Story(8)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Manohar’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. All the guys in the class moaned, “Oooooooooooh!”

Except Brian, who raised his hand and said, “Um, no, that would be me.”

And except Hunter. I was fairly certain Hunter hadn’t joined the moaning. I dared not turn my head to look at him. My face burned with anger at Manohar, and shame that he’d made me lose my cool and attack him with a joke worthy of my grandmother’s stables, and worry about what Hunter would say.

I read Gabe’s lips rather than heard him. “We never discussed what kind of writing was acceptable for this class.”

The students hushed themselves as if he’d stood up and banged his fist on the table, even though he’d spoken in his usual soft voice, like he was out having coffee with one of us and telling us about catching a wave in the Pacific. Now there was a little murmur of question: What had Gabe said? Had he said something about Erin’s kind of writing? But nobody wanted to be the one to admit they hadn’t been paying attention. After all, it was only our second class.

“To Erin’s point,” Gabe said, “there is no genre specified. I hope each of you will feel free to explore the kinds of stories that move you, and to hone your craft for your own purposes. To that end,” he turned to Manohar, “our critiques of each other’s work need to be constructive.” He turned to me, and I tried not to shrink back. “And we need to respond to those critiques in a manner that leaves the floor open to honest communication.”

The air was thick with tension, all eyes on me. If this had been high school, I would have sat there in silence and mortification.

But you know what? One year of age—I won’t say maturity, considering how I’d just lost my temper, but at least age—had changed me. And the publishing internship was a carrot held just beyond my lips, motivating me. Gabe had been taking notes the whole time Manohar and I argued. I should have been more careful about what I said in front of him. I had written a story about Hunter and I didn’t know whether he was going to blow my cover.

So I forced a smile and said, “Gabe, I’m truly sorry. I see now how I sounded, and I promise I’ll do better next time. It’s hard to be one of the first!”

He nodded, and Summer and some of the other girls laughed nervously. Manohar sneered down at my story.

I wrote INTERNSHIP in block letters in my notebook, as a reminder.

“Brian?” Gabe prompted. “What did you think of Erin’s story?”

“I enjoyed it,” Brian said. “That was some stable boy.”

I swallowed and did not look at Hunter and doodled curlicues around INTERNSHIP.

The girl next to Brian said the first line of my story was the funniest thing she’d ever read. Beside her sat Kyle, the guy who’d written about the wolf. He said my first line ruined my whole story for him. The next two people made similarly contradictory and therefore useless comments, and then came Hunter.

But Gabe skipped right over Hunter to give him more time to read, and asked for commentary from Isabelle.

The remaining girls said they liked my story. The remaining guys did not. I didn’t care anymore. My debut as a New York author was ruined already. Now I was only concerned with whether they’d noticed that the stable boy I’d written about was actually the stable boy sitting at the end of this very table. An uncanny likeness, they would say! An amazingly accurate description! Obviously written by someone infatuated with Hunter Allen!

But slowly I realized that nobody would figure out this story was about him. Nobody would suspect me of putting a character in my story who, one class period later, randomly showed up in the class. They wouldn’t even know we knew each other.

Unless he told them.

Summer took her turn, rushing to my defense with such enthusiasm that it was clear she was speaking as my roommate, not as a fellow writer. “Oh, and one more thing.” She looked straight at Manohar. “Nipple!”

The class laughed. I grinned at Summer and she beamed back at me. At that moment I loved her very much and almost forgave her for the brouhaha over my clothes earlier.

“Hunter, what did you think?” Gabe asked.

Everyone in the room looked at Hunter expectantly.

I looked down.

“Oh, I shouldn’t comment,” Hunter said, one side of his mouth curved up in a charming smile and one dimple showing.

I did not actually see this because I was staring down at David thumbing Rebecca’s nipple. I did not have to see Hunter’s charming smile to know it was there.

He went on, “I haven’t had a chance to read it closely enough.”

“You commented on the first two stories,” Brian pointed out.

“They were shorter,” Hunter said.

“This was a long story,” Isabelle affirmed. “I nearly had a heart attack when I saw it in the library. It’s thirteen pages long. For me, writing five is like pulling teeth.”

Through the general murmur of approval that ensued about the wondrous length of “Almost a Lady,” Manohar spoke to me across the table. “Congratulations. You have written a very long story.”

I shot him the bird.

Gabe grabbed my hand, lowered it gently to the table, and patted it twice without looking at me. He cleared his throat. The class quieted, and he prompted again, “Hunter?”

Hunter had been talking to Isabelle. Now he glanced up at Gabe, then turned his shoulders deliberately to me and met my gaze. He smiled.

I had known Hunter for a long time. This wasn’t his charming devil-may-care smile. It was tight and false.

He would never deliberately show it, but I suspected he was furious with me.

“Erin,” he said, “I am from Long Island, but I’ve spent some time around Churchill Downs, in Louisville, and I’ve been to parties with horse people. You’ve captured that experience perfectly.”

Isabelle said, “Her story’s set in the eighteen hundreds.”

Hunter nodded, eyes still on me. “The parties haven’t changed.”

“All right, Erin,” Gabe murmured. “It’s finally your turn to talk.”

I opened my lips. I’d had so much to say in defense of my story thirty seconds before. But I could not think of a single retort with Hunter watching me through those clear blue eyes, wearing that tight smile. He had never been to a race party as far as I knew. The closest he’d come was the night of the Derby last May, when he whistled to me from the yard and handed me my music player and earbuds, which I’d left on the shelf in the stable office. Now he was reminding me that my horse farm was his now. My horses, my house, my parties. Over the summer he’d probably thrown the parties himself.

I looked down and drew fireworks exploding out of internship. “I said everything I wanted to say when I spoke out of turn.”

“You’re sure?” Gabe asked me. “Going once, going twice

”

I bit my lip and nodded.