5. Radley

FIVE

RADLEY

"Oh my God, Rad, stop thinking about it. It's not a big deal you gave your number to a guy." Millie thrust a coffee into my hands, and I wrapped my cold fingers around the warm cupholder. "No, I'm wrong. It's a huge deal, and I'm proud of you. A bar and a guy's number in twelve hours. I'm going to run out of pride at this rate, and Doctor Jessops is going to find herself out of a job."

"Millie..."

"Kidding, I'm never going to run out of pride for you, Rad." She licked away the cream which had escaped through the lid of her coffee, because Millie always had to have extra cream, and at least today it wasn't all over her face. "If he doesn't call, that's not a big deal. But he will call. There's nothing to regret, so wipe that look off your face, please."

Big surprise, I regretted it.

Though I was undecided if I regretted it because I shouldn't have done it in the first place, or because he hadn't called yet. Or, or because he was an athlete and probably had girls throwing their number at him on an hourly basis.

I gave my number to a baseball player. The media would love that if they ever found out.

Before I could stop it, the telltale signs of a cringe flurried down my spine and my shoulders shuddered violently as I shrunk into my jacket.

Yep. Cringe.

I blew the steam off my coffee until it became a drinkable temperature, and took a giant gulp. Given the level of anxiety raging through me this morning, I probably shouldn't add caffeine to the mix, but eh , them's the breaks.

It was that, or fall asleep in class.

"You don't know that."

"No one takes down four secret agents, and then doesn't call."

"He didn't take them down," I replied through another gulp.

"He tried to, and it's the thought that counts." She slurped up a mouthful of cream and burst out laughing. "I still can't decide what was funnier; the look on Jake's face or seeing Ace Watson on the ground. Do you think he's okay?"

I grinned, though I was still cringing too much for me to find it as funny as she did, even though the image of four enormous major league baseball players laying on the ground would stick with me forever, especially given how pissed they were. I couldn't blame them; I'd be pissed too, particularly if I was Ace .

"I knew there was something familiar, but he was too hot for me to focus on what it was."

The cringe met a quiver of hot waves crashing over my skin as the image of Lux Weston reappeared in my head, and it wasn't just those hazel eyes, as piercing as if they'd been lasers, or his perfectly formed lips that I hadn't stopped thinking about – it was the scent of him that seemed to be wedged in my brain.

Even last night when I'd finally made it back to the dorm and gotten into bed, I could smell him on me as I stripped off my shirt and changed into PJs.

More impossible, I could still smell it after my morning shower.

It was hot. He was hot. I hadn't admitted to anyone, even Millie, that I'd spent the rest of the evening stalking him on Google, and scrolling his social media.

Because… cringe.

What had I learned? Surprisingly, very little.

Very, very little.

I knew for a fact there were far more social media accounts and stories dedicated to me, not that I ever looked. If I did, I'd never want to get out of bed, but I knew they were there. One time I happened to glimpse a Secret Service report Jake was carrying, dedicated solely to mentions of me on the internet, and cried for the rest of the week.

But Lux Weston, aside from a very enthusiastic fan base, and a significant number of sports journalists hailing him as one of the best center fields of this generation, seemed to be… anonymous.

And from someone who craved anonymity, I was intrigued.

I hadn't chosen my life, yet for reasons I was still to understand, people had a vested interest in my daily comings and goings. Lux on the other hand, was interesting. He was exceptionally talented, dedicated and… I couldn't find a shred of information about him that wasn't baseball related.

He'd managed to find himself at the pinnacle of his career, and somehow had stayed private all at the same time.

"Take them off the field and they become unrecognizable," Millie added as she put her cup on the table, snatching a napkin from the dispenser and wiping her sticky cream covered fingers. "They look different without a ball in their hands."

"Do you think anyone knows?" I asked, trying not to focus on the girl who'd been staring at me since she walked in and joined the line.

She nudged her friend and they both turned around. I did what I always did, and smiled. At least this time they smiled back like normal humans, instead of whipping around and pretending they hadn't been caught.

"About last night?" She shook her head, looping her arms through her backpack. "Nope. There was no one else around to see, and there's no way those boys are going to be broadcasting they got their asses kicked by the Secret Service."

"Yeah, you're right."

I waited until she looked ready to leave, and my eyes caught Ethan's who'd been standing by the entrance of the campus coffee shop. He opened the door as we approached, allowing another girl to walk through first, her bright blonde ponytail swinging behind her.

She stopped right in front of me, her eyes flaring in surprise. "I love your sneakers," she spluttered.

I looked down at the Air Jordans I was wearing, the exact shade of pink as my nails. "Oh, thank you."

Millie also looked at my feet then back at the girl, calling after her as she scurried off to join her friends at a table. "They're mine!"

"I thought what's yours is mine," I grinned at her as we walked outside, catching Ethan before he could move ahead of us to ask him the one question I'd been dreading the answer to. "Hey, does my mom know about last night?"

He shook his head, trying to keep his face serious. "It's been logged, but we haven't submitted it in our daily report."

"And are you going to?"

One small compensation of being trailed by Secret Service – it was against protocol for them to report on any day-to-day behavior of their protectee – meaning my mom wasn't permitted to know about anything, unless I told her. One loophole of that, however, was any type of incident or physical altercation.

Millie and I stared at him, waiting for an answer. Ethan was the hardest of my detail to read, so when he still hadn't answered after five seconds, I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny.

"Yes," he said finally, "but… Jake hasn't named the guys. He's written them up as frat boys."

My entire chest deflated in relief until I received a swift nudge in the ribs from Millie.

"Lucky save! If she finds out you've been hanging out with the Lions, you'll be back in D.C. faster than one of Ace Watson's pitches."

"Tell me about it." I could almost imagine it happening, being summoned to the Oval Office to explain myself. "Ethan, she won't find out, will she?"

He shook his head. "If she does, it won't be from our team. Jake and I spoke to the guys after you left, and we agreed it wouldn't add anything to the report if we named them, for many reasons," he added.

I gave a silent prayer to anyone listening, though this time I wasn't sure what was worse – the headlines from the media, or my mom finding out.

Since I was a kid, our family had functioned around sports. Both my parents had been born and raised in Philadelphia, therefore, in the winter we supported the Eagles, and in the summer, it was the Phillies. There was no negotiation; it's how it had always been.

A running joke from the Presidential election campaign was that it had followed the calendar of the Phillies. My mom had seen them play away games fourteen times while she'd been on the road.

For Opening Day this year, she'd been asked to perform the ceremonial throw for the Lions at Phillies game. "This is what I really became President for," she'd said and winked at me before she took to the field.

She'd had her aides out for a week on the White House lawn practicing her pitch. I think she'd been more excited to step onto the field at Citizen's Bank Park than the night she'd won the election, especially when the Lions crumbled, and we watched our team smash home run after home run.

The first day of the football season a few weeks ago was the last time we'd been together as a family before I headed to Columbia. We'd stuck with our years' long tradition of celebrating it with friends, including Millie, her mom, and her brothers, albeit this year was spent at Camp David. The boys had painted their faces, yelled at the screen until they were hoarse, then celebrated the win against the Patriots by drinking all night until they passed out.

It had been the first normal day I'd had all year.

"It's kind of romantic, don't you think?" Millie asked. Her smirk served as a warning that she was about to cause trouble. "Ethan, what do you think? Radley getting saved by Lux Weston because he thought Jake was a creeper is romantic, right?"

She dodged my hand right before I could slap it over her mouth. "Millie! Shut up. Ethan, you don't have to walk with us anymore. Sorry."

He chuckled quietly. "Anytime, Radley. We have your back."

"Thank you… hey, did you pull the short straw for class today?"

His dimples popped with a grin; he really was cute when he smiled, and I wasn't the only one holding that opinion based on the girls checking him out when he walked ahead of us. "Yeah. And if you want a good seat we need to move quicker because Jake's there, and he said it's filling up."

Millie escaped my clutches to look at him. "And… what else did he say?"

"That he couldn't understand why anyone would be getting to a Shakespeare class before they needed to." Ethan's grin widened as he let out a chuckle, while Millie snorted.

"Can't believe you asked that," I hissed, after Ethan quickened his steps to give us some space and move out of earshot.

"What? There's no way Jake wasn't going to complain about a Shakespeare class."

"No," I shook my head, "not that. About Lux Weston being romantic, or whatever point you were trying to make. Actually, what point were you trying to make?"

"That Lux taking on Jake was romantic, even if he did get it disastrously wrong. I wanted a boy's opinion." She shrugged, hooking her thumbs through her backpack straps as it slid off her shoulder.

I turned, and scowled. "What does that mean?"

"He thought he was saving you from a creeper. No one's ever done that before."

"Because I come with built-in protection. No one needs to."

She sighed, like she was having to point out the obvious. Only it wasn't obvious, to me at least. "I know that, and you know that, but Lux didn't know that. He tried to help you, hence the romance, and we could all use a little romance."

Romance aside, it was true, he did try and save me, kind of. Twice, if I counted the guys at the bar who'd had their phone removed. Millie was right that no one had ever done that before, not that anyone ever had the opportunity to.

She was still riding the Lux Weston bandwagon, counting each separate point on her fingers. "Three, he didn't back down in front of Jake and the guys. Didn't seem to care about them at all, or the fact they were armed. All the boys we've had trouble with over the past week have looked like they're about to shit themselves when they get caught."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything." She shrugged, again, annoyingly. "I dunno. It was hot. And he'll call you. If I recall, he was extremely confident about getting your number."

I sighed. "That was at the bar and before he found out who I was. He didn't ask after the fight; I gave it freely. He probably has numbers thrown at him on an hourly basis."

It was one of the louder thoughts I'd had during the night. I'd been awake for hours listening to the voices in my head remind me over and over of what I'd done, and demonize every choice I'd ever made. One thought had rolled into another until hundreds and hundreds rattled against my skull, resulting in a pounding that was getting worse.

It was currently too loud to decipher anything coherent.

"Radley! Stop overthinking!" Millie snapped, though her annoyed expression immediately softened when she looked at me. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I shrugged. "Nothing. You're right, I'm overthinking. I just wish…"

"What?" she asked, halting our stride and pulling me off the path. "You wish what?"

I glanced up into her clear brown eyes, always so warm and comforting. "Same as always – that my life was different, easier. That I could do normal things without having a meltdown. That I was braver. That I could be one of those girls who gives their number out just for fun, and not care about what happens after."

"You will, Radley. You're getting there." Millie pulled me into a hug, the way she always did when I was on the verge of a spiral. She held me until my nervous system relaxed and I could breathe. "When's your appointment with Doctor Jessops this week?"

"Tomorrow."

"She's going to say you've done an amazing job this week, that you've claimed some of your independence back – which is exactly why we're here." She stepped back with a grin and held her hand out for a slap. "Come on, or we will be late for class."

I spied Jake waiting by the large sculpture of Rodin's The Thinker , outside Philosophy Hall, where most of our classes were held. His eagle eye was trained on the hordes of students exiting out of the large ornate black doors, setting off for their next class or scurrying to the library. Several groups were standing on the pathways around the enormous brick building, and Millie and I slipped in unnoticed behind Ethan. We hurried down the hallway to where our class on Shakespeare and His Time was being held.

Professor Hawkes was perched on the edge of her desk as we filed into the auditorium behind a group of girls from Hartley Hall, who I recognized from most of our other classes. The familiarity of seeing the same faces day in day out was a surprising comfort, because it meant I was no longer a novelty. The ones who looked my way now smiled and said hi instead of gawking and falling over themselves to sit near to me.

Millie took the steps to the fourth row then shuffled down a few seats. It was far enough away from the front that we didn't look like brown-nosers, but near enough to the door that we could make a quick exit. I'd already spotted Meg on the back row, and Ethan took a seat next to the main door.

I dropped down next to Millie, who was now struggling with the zipper on her backpack and grumbling quietly, as I pulled my laptop from mine. Both of us were too preoccupied to notice anything in front of us until the girl next to me leaned forward to a guy on the row directly in front of us.

"Put your phone away, dickhead. Everyone can see what you're doing." She reached out and smacked him around the head, which had him dropping his phone on the floor in shock and letting out a loud yelp. "How did you get good enough grades to get into this school? Moron."

My entire body curled into the seat, and if I could have folded myself in half, I would have. While most of the students around us were too busy getting ready for class to pay more than three seconds of attention to what was happening, students weren't the only ones in here.

Professor Hawkes walked up the steps until she was standing at the end of our row, holding her hand out. If I had to guess, she was in her early thirties, though she was glaring at the guy in front with the same steely look in her eye that my mom had when she was mad.

The look no one messed with.

"I'll take that, Mr. Kerchinsky, and perhaps you'd feel more comfortable sitting there for the remainder of the semester." Professor Hawkes pointed to the seat on the row directly in front of her desk.

"Um… no, I'm good here, thanks," Kerchinsky spluttered, his face turning a very healthy fire-engine red while he handed his phone over.

"It wasn't a request. Move your ass down there or you can find a new course to take, though I've heard they're all full."

Professor Hawkes marched back to her desk and waited. Kerchinsky shoved everything back into his backpack and stormed to the front, his lip curled in an impressive snarl.

"Bye-bye," Millie waved to him as he left the row, the girl next to me let out a loud giggle.

"Thanks for that," I whispered to her.

"No sweat. Us girls got to stick together. Sorry this is happening; it must really suck. They'll get bored soon. I'm Delaney."

"Yeah, hope so." I forced a smile and shook her outstretched hand. "I'm Radley. This is Millie."

"Hey," she nodded over.

"Anyone else want to join Mr. Kerchinsky?" Professor Hawkes called out.

No one said a word.

"Good. And let this be fair warning: I understand the fraternities are going through their pledge processes, but none of it is to take place in here. I will not tell you again. Moving forward, your phone is to be dropped in the lockbox by the door at the beginning of every class."

A loud groan echoed off the walls, though thankfully no one looked at me. I shrunk down in my seat all the same.

"Good, now, laptops away. I want your full attention. Today we're going to be focusing on the notions of romance, and how Shakespeare portrayed it throughout his works. What does romance mean to you?"

I could almost feel Millie crowing next to me.

I definitely felt the elbow digging in my side as she whispered, "Hot boys saving the day."