The MORE Trilogy (6 page)

He heard her mumble, “Who’s there?” as he raced down the stairs.

The next morning was . . . well,
weird
, for lack of a better word. Ava had the frightening dream again and woke in the middle of the night with a gasp, the terror of the dream fading to a rather disconcerting feeling that someone had been in her room. She’d slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Lucy, and checked the doors and windows, but there was no sign of any disturbance. Still, she remained vaguely unsettled and the rest of the night slept in fits and starts, only sliding into REM sleep as the first light of dawn filtered through the windows.

Lucy was strange, too. After a night of singing Caleb’s praises and practically pushing Ava to jump his bones during their next tutoring session, Lucy said nothing. It was as if it never happened.

“You feeling okay?” Ava asked her as she got ready to head to the library to study, and Lucy sat on her bed, flipping through a magazine absently. “You’re awfully quiet this morning.”

Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I had too much to drink last night. I feel a little fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?”

“I didn’t think I was that drunk but, to be honest, I don’t remember much,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t even have a hangover, so I couldn’t have had
that
much.”

Ava slipped on her shoes. “You couldn’t stop talking about Caleb last night.”

“Caleb?”

“Caleb Foster? You ran into him at the bar.”

Lucy thought for a minute, eyes squinted in concentration. “Oh, yeah. I did see him.”

“Luce, you’re kind of freaking me out, here.”

Lucy finally smiled, shaking her head slightly. “I’m fine, really. But I won’t be hitting the bars again anytime soon.”

“Good, because you were about ready to marry me off to my physics tutor.”

Lucy snorted and stuck out her tongue.

“Seriously,” Ava joked, slipping into her coat. “You were putting together my dowry. I still can’t find my silver bracelet. And I think you had a goat around here somewhere.”

“Shut up!” Lucy flopped down on the bed. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

Ava laughed. “You sure you don’t want to come to the library with me? I thought you have an English paper you need to start.”

Lucy didn’t get up, choosing instead to pull a pillow over her face. “Maybe later,” she mumbled. “I think I need a nap.”

“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Ava called as she headed out the door.

Ava got about an hour of focused studying in before Lucy found her in her usual corner on the library’s third floor. She dumped her backpack on the table, yanking out her books and unceremoniously shoving aside some of Ava’s stray papers.

“Hey!”

Lucy ignored her protests, as well as her own books, and propped a chin on her fist with a wide grin. “Guess who called me.”

“Hmm?” Ava asked distractedly, jotting down a few notes on the Michelson-Morley experiment.
What in the world was luminiferous aether again?
She flipped to the glossary in the back of her text.

“. . . and then he said I could fly in his rocket to the moon.” Lucy slapped a hand down on the table, making Ava jump. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying,” she accused.

Ava blinked. “Sure I am. Someone called. He’s got a rocket.” At Lucy’s frown, she sighed. “I’m sorry, Luce. I’m just worried about this quiz, okay?”

“You worry too much. You know what they say about all work and no play.”

“That it’ll help me keep my scholarship?”

Lucy laughed. “Anyway,” she said, drawing out the word into about fifteen syllables. “As I was saying, Philippe asked me out to dinner.
Très bien
.” She kissed her fingers with a flourish.

Ava raised a brow. “You know, you don’t need to do that every time you say something in French.”

“But I like it.
C’est magnifique!
” Lucy kissed her fingers again. “And I need you to help me decide what to wear,
s’il vous plaît.
”

Ava groaned. “Luce . . .”

“Not now,” she added hurriedly. “But before you go to work. We can study, then go have lunch, and then you can help me pick out something to knock Philippe’s French socks off, okay? If things go well, I’ll nab a date for the party tomorrow night.” Lucy fixed a pleading look on her face. “C’mon. Don’t make me waste my Snow White costume. If you’re not going with me, you can at least help me lock up Philippe.”

Ava eyed her friend warily and sighed in resignation. “Fine, but you have to let me study until then.”

“I promise,” Lucy said, opening a book and pulling a pen from her bag. “I’ll be good until lunch.”

Ava made a noncommittal sound, turning back to her notes.

“When is lunch, by the way?”

Ava flopped down onto the table in defeat, her physics book cushioning the blow to her head. To her surprise, a masculine laugh drifted toward her.

“I don’t think you can absorb it that way.”

Ava looked up to find Caleb leaning against the table, a teasing grin on his face. “Caleb!” she sat up, quickly removing a post-it note stuck to her forehead. “What are you doing here?”

He hitched his backpack up on his shoulder. “Studying, same as you. Well, except I tend to try and
read
the material instead of sleeping on it.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” She glanced at Lucy, who was watching the two of them with a curious look on her face. “I was expressing my frustration.”

“You shouldn’t take it out on your physics book. What has it ever done to you?”

“It
exists,
” she said with an exaggerated grimace. “And why are you studying on a Saturday, anyway? I thought one of the perks of being a genius was
not
having to study.”

He shrugged. “Research for Quantum Mechanics. We all have to put the nose to the grindstone occasionally.” With a smile, he turned to Lucy, holding out his hand. “Hi. I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Caleb? We met last night at the Palace?”

He seemed to be almost searching her features for some reason, and Ava felt a pang of . . .
something
at his interest in her friend. Not that she could blame him. Everybody loved Lucy.

Lucy hesitated only briefly before shaking his hand. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Nice to see you again.” Her eyes darted between them. “Did you two have plans?”

Ava’s cheeks heated as she remembered Lucy’s matchmaking from the night before—which was even more embarrassing now that she suspected Caleb might actually be interested in her roommate. “No. No plans,” she said quickly.

Caleb laughed. “Well, don’t sound so scandalized at the idea. You sure know how to stroke a guy’s ego.”

Ava took a deep breath. “Sorry.” She smiled. “I’m just a little tense about this quiz.”

“You need any help?” He started to pull out a chair.

“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to do that. Not on your own time.”

Caleb shrugged. “It’s no problem. Really.”

So for the next hour, he explained—or rather, re-explained—luminiferous aether, Avogadro’s Law, and the Peltier effect, and Ava tried to retain as much as possible. Lucy seemed focused on outlining her English paper, but popped into the discussion now and then—most pointedly when it got to be close to lunchtime.

“Please, tell her she needs to take a break from all of this,” she begged Caleb. “I need her to help me with my pre-date preparations.”

Ava watched him closely to see how he’d respond to the knowledge that Lucy already had a date for the evening, but he didn’t seem upset at all. Instead, he turned to Ava, trying to maintain a serious expression.

“You need to take a break from all of this,” he said, lips quirking.

“Tell her she’ll do fine,” Lucy added.

“You’ll do fine.”

“And she needs to help her best friend before she has a nervous breakdown.”

“You need to help your friend.”

“And she needs to loan me her cute, black boots with the buckles.”

Caleb laughed, and at that moment, his cell phone beeped with a text. “Sorry,” he said to Lucy as he quickly read the message. “You’re on your own with that one.”

Lucy stuck out her tongue. “Spoilsport.”

“I’ve got to run,” he said, pocketing his phone as he stood and shouldered his backpack. “Lucy, good luck on your date. Ava, good luck on your test. If you need any more help, you’ve got my number.”

“Thanks, Caleb.” Ava watched him until he disappeared behind the stacks, then noticed Lucy’s raised eyebrows as she turned her attention back to their table.

“What?” She busied herself flipping through her notebook.

“What do you mean, ‘What?’ What is going on with you two?”

“Nothing’s going on. I told you. He’s my tutor.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why he was so eager to
toot
you on his own time.”

“Toot?” Ava snorted. “Nice. Besides, I think that was more about you than me.” Ava fought to keep the note of resentment out of her voice, unsure of why it was there in the first place.

“Oh, that had nothing to do with me, sweetie. That was all you.” At Ava’s doubtful look, she rolled her eyes. “You know my gaydar is on the fritz, but my lustometer is working just fine, and that boy lusts for you.”

“He does not!”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe not
lust,
but I’m getting a definite
like
vibe. He’s interested.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe, but that has nothing to do with this.”

“Luce—”

“Av!” Lucy leaned over the table. “Explore the evidence. One—” She held up a finger. “He offered to help you out with your studying on his own time.”

“You said that already,” Ava muttered. “He’s a good tutor. Devoted to his job.”

“Two.” Lucy held up another finger, ignoring Ava’s protests. “He’s completely focused on you. I mean, it’s like he’s trying to look right into your soul or something. It’s kind of disturbing, actually.”

Ava just shook her head. “You’re imagining things.”

Lucy sighed heavily. “Oh, yeah? Well, how about the fact that he
totally
lied about why he was here?”

Ava started slightly at that. “What do you mean, he lied?”

Lucy smirked, satisfied that she’d at least gained her friend’s attention. “Well, he said he was here researching quantum mechanics, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, Miss Observant, tell me why he’s on the third floor of the library—the
literature
floor, where you
always
study, I might add—when all the science-y stuff is up on five?”

Ava opened her mouth to offer a reasonable explanation, but couldn’t seem to think of one. Instead of admitting that, she shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, maybe he happened to see us here and wanted to say hi.”

Lucy gave her an indulgent smile. “No one can
happen
to see us back here in this corner. So he just
happened
to be wandering the stacks between the Renaissance poets and Shakespeare?” She waved randomly up the stacks as she spoke.

Ava frowned. “It could happen.”

“Sure it could.”

“Well, what are you saying? That he was looking for me? He didn’t show up until you did, so it makes more sense that he was looking for you.”