In the past few minutes he’d shown me more emotion than I’d seen in nearly three weeks, and while it was emotions like distaste and irritation, I would take what I could get with the stoic alpha.
Linking my arm through his, I tugged him towards the door, ignoring Kailey who was clearly gawking at us as we passed by. “Older people go back to school all the time, Rhodes, now when we go to the next class you need to act like a normal human being and actually interact with our new classmates.”
“Our new classmates? I’m not a student.”
“You are now,” I told him with a bright smile as we stepped into the Quad again. “Congratulations, Rhodes, you’ve just signed up for four years of photography classes with yours truly. I hope you like cameras.”
“Great,” the alpha said, clearly unenthused as I dragged him in the general direction of our next class.
Maybe having Rhodes be my school shadow wasn’t such a bad thing after all. At least I got to see all these new expressions he was making and maybe if I was quick I’d be able to snap photographic evidence of them too.
Two days later and I was in my morning photography class when Kailey seemed to finally gather the courage to talk to me again.
I was more experienced with the camera equipment than the rest of the class, so the professor was already letting me set up to get my lighting test shots of the vase of flowers sitting on a stool in front of me while he explained the basics to the rest of the class.
Rhodes was standing in the small group of students surrounding the professor as she spoke looking like he was only half-listening to her.
After our little dress-up session he’d at least made an attempt to blend in more and my classes had all gone smoothly after that. He even opened up a spiral bound notebook to doodle in while I listened in my other classes.
He still didn’t quite look like the other college students and they all gave him a wide berth of space whenever he walked anywhere, but at the very least they were now slowly starting to introduce themselves to me.
“Hey,” Kailey said as she approached, her own camera around her neck. “I just wanted to apologize for the other day, my mom always says I know how to put my foot in my mouth like it’s an Olympic sport.”
“It’s all right,” I assured her, even though my feelings were still a little bit sensitive from being reminded about my sickness. It felt like every time I tried to forget about it and move on with my life someone, or something dragged me right back into it again.
Like the text on my phone from Dr. Stedmeyer about my six-month checkup. I hadn’t told Rhodes about it yet and I hadn’t had a chance to even try and tell Edison about it because my lovely husband was still MIA.
When I’d asked Rhodes about it at dinner all I was told was that Edison was busy putting out fires. Whatever the hell that meant.
“It isn’t, I just kind of got ahead of myself,” Kailey insisted. “I promise in the future to be good.”
“In the future?”
The girl’s cheeks filled with color. “Yeah, I figure that you look like you need a class study-buddy and lord knows I do. I thought photography would be a fun extra class for my lower divisions. Point at some trees, click a button, and voila! Easy A. But no it’s like actual rocket science and I’m an engineering major.”
The way Kailey talked was like she was trying to fit as many words as she could into an incredibly short amount of time and it was punctuated by her sucking in a deep, ragged breath in at the end. “So—on that very long note—do you want to be friends?”
She held her hand out to me and I stared at it for a moment, trying to decide if it was worth it to agree.
I hadn’t had friends since my junior year of high school, and while they’d been good enough at the time, they’d all slowly stopped visiting me when they realized that my stay in the hospital was going to be far longer than just a couple of weeks.
After that, as I started losing weight and my hair, my parents forbade anyone but family to visit so my only human contact was with Romey and our nanny.
Reminding myself that I was here to finally get the college experience, I hesitantly reached out and took her hand.
“Friends,” I agreed.
Kailey looked down to our joined hands and at the wedding ring sparkling on my finger. Her blue eyes widened. “Are you married? Is it to Mr. Scary-but-Hot over there? I thought he was your security.”
“Rhodes is not my husband,” I hurried to tell her, secretly wishing I’d taken my rings off before coming to school today. It wasn’t like I could hide my marriage to Edison forever and I was sure there was bound to be news articles about it at some point.
On the surface, like most of the other heads of the Five Families, Edison was a successful businessman, so his wedding to the daughter of the mayor was definitely not something that could be kept under wraps forever.
“But you are married? That’s so cool!” Kailey gushed, holding my hand up closer to see my ring. “He must be rich because damn this is some rock.”
Gently pulling my hand from hers, I glanced over at Rhodes who looked to be trying to glare a hole in the side of my new friend’s head as it seemed like her voice was carrying over to the little group he was standing in.
“You said you needed help with your composition and set up, right?” I asked, hurrying to change the subject.
Kailey looked back over at her station which she hadn’t even started putting together. “Desperately, if you walk me through it like I’m five, I may just understand you and owe you forever.”
“I think I can manage that,” I told her, my insides a little bit warm at finally making my first friend at school.
An hour and a half later and I was walking arm-in-arm with Kailey as we headed to our next class. Even though the class was mainly taught with digital cameras, the professor had offered extra credit for anyone who wanted to process some old university film from the archives and I’d jumped at the chance to see the campus darkrooms for the first time.
It had been ages since I’d touched photography film—not since I was in my photography classes in high school—but I could always appreciate how therapeutic it was to work on processing film for hours on end.
Working in the darkroom later would also give me a chance to avoid the conversation about my checkup appointment with Rhodes a little bit longer.
“I can’t believe you actually want to process all of that film. It’s extra credit in a lower division class, Perrie,” Kailey said as she eyeballed the reusable bag full of rolls of film. “I know you’re a visual arts major and all, but is it really worth it?”
I shrugged, already used to Kailey’s blunt way of speaking after spending the last couple of hours with her. “What can I say? I’m a kiss ass.”
That made the other girl laugh, her eyes going over our shoulders to where Rhodes was following at a close clip. “Does he always follow you this closely?”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I nodded. “This is actually him giving me some breathing room.”
