Amanda looked at Marco and Tabitha, confused. She was trying to figure out exactly when they decided they liked each other. Between Saturday night when they first met and now, there wasn’t a lot of time.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Amanda told them as she slowly started to walk back out of the room.
Tabitha jumped up quickly out of Marco’s lap and pulled her back into the room.
“No, it’s fine. Marco was just leaving. Weren’t you,” Tabitha said as she tilted her head toward the door.
“Yeah, actually, I need to get back to campus before my next class. Bye,” Marco said before he escaped from the room.
After the door closed, Amanda turned to look at Tabitha.
“Wow, would you look at the time? I better start getting ready for my first class of the day.”
Tabitha tried to grab her clothes and wash bag to head down to the bathroom before Amanda could stop her. But she was mistaken.
“Oh no, you don’t. You need to fill me in on what exactly I just walked in on,” Amanda told her as she pulled her back to Tabitha’s bed and sat her down. Amanda pulled up the chair and leaned in, ready to listen.
Tabitha just stared at her and didn’t say anything. When she realized that Amanda wasn’t going to budge on this, she rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. it was nothing. It was just a kiss. That’s it.”
Amanda laughed.
“That was more than just a kiss, please. You were on his lap straddling him.”
Tabitha smiled in her head. Yeah, she was, and he was a good kisser too. She wondered when she would be able to continue what they had started.
Amanda waved her hand over Tabitha’s glazed-over face.
“Hey!”
Tabitha shook off her daydream.
“What? Oh, sorry. We just got caught up in the moment.” Tabitha was still trying to play it off that it was nothing, but deep down, she knew she wasn’t fooling Amanda.
“Okay, let’s start at the beginning. How did Marco know where we lived and why was he here?”
Oh yeah. The true reason he was here was not that she was his mate. But for the fact that he overhead Calvin talking about a bet and getting Amanda beneath him.
Tabitha shrugged. “Maybe Hudson told him where we lived. I don’t know. All I know I that I woke up to someone knocking at our door, and when I opened it, he was standing there.”
“Okay, but why? Was he looking for you?”
Tabitha had to really think about how she wanted to answer that question. If she admitted that he was looking for there, then she would have to admit things she wasn’t sure that she was ready to admit. And if she said was ready to admit it. And if she said that he wasn’t looking for her, then Amanda is going to ask why he was there then. She didn’t want to tell her about Calvin just yet. They had a class with him tomorrow, and she wanted to see how he acted toward Amanda. But she wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself for very long. Her heart was starting to feel really guilty about all the lies that she has had to do in order to keep the calm around her dorm and her friendship with Amanda. It was getting harder every day for her, keeping stuff from Amanda. She wanted to tell Amanda the truth and let her in on the secret. But she knew that this was Hudson’s secret to share, and he would tell her when he thought she was good and ready.
“I guess he was here to see both of us and wanted to check to make sure that we were okay when he heard about the attack.” Tabitha shrugged.
Amanda nodded.
“Then what happened?”
“We started talking, and I guess he’s pretty cute. With that dark hair and chocolate eyes. The next thing I knew he was pulling me onto his lap, and we started to kiss.” Tabitha blushed.
Amanda smiled.
“Marco is a really nice guy. I hope something does start between the two of you.”
“Thanks,” Tabitha said as she got up from her bed and started to walk past Amanda when she caught a scent that she was surprised she hadn’t caught before.
Tabitha stepped back and looked at Amanda.
“Did you go to class today?”
Amanda nodded. “Yeah, why?”
Tabitha shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just I caught a weird smell when I passed you. I was just curious.”
Tabitha pulled her shirt out and tried to smell herself. “Do I smell bad? Hudson was nice to me when I first got to class this morning, but by the time class was over, he walked out and didn’t say a thing to me.”
Oh no.
“Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Where did you go before you went to class this morning?”
Amanda let out a sigh before she told Tabitha about her morning.
“I was on my way to the café to get my morning usual when I ran into Deak.”
“Who’s Deak?”
Amanda looked at Tabitha like she had two heads.
“You don’t know who Deak is?” Amanda asked.
Tabitha shook her head and then rolled her eyes before she said, “Will you just tell me who he is.”
“He’s one of the students on campus. He’s super tall, like taller than Hudson tall.”
Wow, that’s pretty tall, Tabitha thought.
“He has long dirty blond hair that he ties up and dark blue eyes,” Amanda said with a giggle.
Tabitha looked at her with a raised brow.
“Sorry, all the girls think he’s dreamy. Anyways, he asked if he could walk with me to the cafe and then walked me to class.”
Tabitha jumped up and grabbed her clothes again. “You know, it’s probably nothing. I’m sure that Hudson is just trying to respect the fact that you asked to be just friends. I’ve really got to go and get ready for class. How about we meet up later?”
“Kimmy wanted to go and grab dinner later; do you want to join us?”
“Yep, that sounds good. Text me the details, and I’ll catch up with you then.”
Tabitha left shortly after.
Amanda sat there still confused. All the pieces to this puzzle were not adding up. She was still surprised to catch Marco and Tabitha making out in their dorm. And she didn’t understand what was the smell that she couldn’t. Tabitha did warn her when they first met that she was sensitive to smells, but she hadn’t realized it would be this much. And this whole thing with Hudson. She just wanted things to be normal between them. She let out a huff as she got up from the chair and walked over to her bed. She grabbed his sweatshirt before she lied down and held it up to her nose. She was surprised that it still had a strong scent on it and that it had a calming effect on her. She turned onto her side and wrapped her arms around it. She closed her eyes as she held onto his sweatshirt, letting the calm take over, and fell asleep.