Moving in Reverse Read Free Page A

really was.
    I said good-bye to Darby and opened
the heavy glass doors to our student center, squinting down to
check my watch. It was only seven o’clock. I had plenty of time to
study.
    I pulled open the double doors,
mentally outlining the work I had to get through in the next few
hours. Walking through the entryway, I squeezed into a crowded
elevator and hit the button for the eighth floor.
    Everything in New York was vertical —
people built up, not out, so while our student center was enormous,
especially by New York standards, it never felt that way. Always a
little bit crowded, a little bit cramped. I didn’t really mind — at
the very least, you were guaranteed to see someone you
knew.
    Walking over to one of the
dining-hall-run cafes, I stood in line behind some upperclassmen I
didn’t recognize, listening to snippets of their conversations as
they discussed a party that weekend. I ordered a drink, eyeing a
tray of biscotti that would probably end up tasting like cardboard.
As if I hadn’t already eaten enough sugar today to last me the rest
of the month.
    I smiled at the girl behind the
counter, a pretty brunette in a ponytail, as she handed me my
coffee wrapped in a slip of cardboard. “Careful,” she warned,
grinning at someone behind me. “It’s hot.”
    I felt Blake’s arms around me just as
I started to turn around, catching me from behind and almost
spilling the coffee all over the counter.
    “ Not the best time to
sneak up on me,” I said, my lips forming an involuntary smile.
“Unless you’re trying to put me in the hospital.”
    “ Please,” Blake grinned,
handing his student ID to the girl to pay for my drink. “The coffee
here is never that hot.”
    I gripped my own ID in protest and
then sighed, surrendering to the whirlwind that was Blake Parker,
and put it back into my bag. I held the coffee to my mouth, sipping
the spilled drops off the lid.
    “ Case,” his face turned
serious, looking at me with an alarmed expression.
    I looked back at him nervously.
“What?”
    “ Just curious,” he said,
taking a step back and looking me up and down. His face broke into
a sarcastic grin. “What, exactly, are you wearing?”
    I snorted my sip of coffee,
remembering the monstrosity of an outfit Darby had dressed me in.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I glared at him,
blushing.
    “ Did you decide to spend
the weekend in the Hamptons?” he grinned. “Because it would have
been nice if you’d invited me along.”
    “ I don’t want to talk
about it,” I repeated, trying to push the image of pink-frosted
cupcakes out of my head. “It was Darby’s idea.”
    Blake brushed a lock of brown hair out
of his eyes, looking down at me as we moved away from the café
line. His eyes were the brightest blue I’d ever seen on a person in
real life, and tonight they were sparkling with excitement that
didn’t bode well for the evening of studying I’d
planned.
    “ What’s up?” I asked him,
wondering if he’d come looking for me or if we’d just ended up by
luck in the same place at the same moment. It wouldn’t have been
the first time.
    “ Fall Guy are playing at
Irving Place tonight — you want to go?”
    I looked at Blake, trying not to sigh.
Sometimes it was frustrating to explain to him that I actually
needed to study on a regular basis — unlike him, it seemed. He’d
already read most of the books we’d been assigned for our class
together, a lot of them more than once.
    “ Haven’t you?” he’d asked
me, wide-eyed, as he looked over our syllabus for the semester. I
knew from experience that lying to Blake got me into more trouble
than it was worth. Even if it was sometimes tempting in the moment
to keep up his pedestal version of me. “A few,” I’d stretched the
truth a little. A white lie.
    “ Just come for an hour,”
he grinned at me, running his fingers up my arm and making me
shiver. “It’ll be fun — you met Nate, remember? In
Vermont?”
    I remembered