“Yes.” I smile against the warm column of his neck, breathing in his familiar masculine scent. “I didn’t appeal the plagiarism paper at Brown because I thought nobody would believe that I didn’t intentionally cheat. But I should have done it. I didn’t deserve to fail—I deserved extra help.” I steel my jaw. “Because I have a learning disorder.”
I tip my head to find Fitz gazing at me with pride in his eyes.
“I’m not stupid,” I tell him, and for once, my inner critic remains silent. “I just learn differently. I worked my ass off on that midterm, and maybe there were a few run-on sentences and a paragraph or two that I could’ve rearranged. And fine, there was one spelling error—but come on, do you expect me to believe that not a single other person in the class had so much as a typo?” I jut my chin. “I’m appealing this shit.”
“Damn right you are. Laurie can eat a dick.”
“Damn right he can.” I run my fingers over the stubble dotting his strong jaw. “Thank you for making me feel better about all this.”
“Hey, it’s my job as your boyfriend to make you feel better.” Fitz’s lips brush over mine in a reassuring kiss. “Don’t worry, babe. You’re going to appeal the grade, and the college will overturn it because it’ll be clear that Laurie is a vengeful asshole. It’s going to be fine.” He kisses me again. “I promise.”
31
Fitz
Due to a scheduling conflict with the Arbor House, our venue in Hastings, tomorrow’s junior fashion show will now be held at 7 p.m., rather than 9 p.m. We apologize to ticketholders for any inconvenience this may cause.
“Can. You. Frigging. Believe. This.”
Rage twists Summer’s beautiful features into something dark and primal. She looks as if she’s prepared to drive to Erik Laurie’s home and strangle him with her bare hands.
I don’t blame her.
“A scheduling conflict?” she screeches. “The day before the event? He did this on purpose. He’s trying to fuck me, literally and figuratively”
I don’t laugh, because I’m furious on her behalf. When she’d emailed Laurie reminding him that half her models won’t be available until this earlier show is well underway, she’d gotten a cold response stating that she’d simply have to redo the independent study next year.
Which is a slap in the face after she’d worked her ass off all semester.
“Are you sure he knew that Rex and the guys wouldn’t be available until eight?”
“He knew,” she says tightly. “I mentioned it several times during our check-ins. He wanted me to open the show, and I told him I’d prefer a later slot to give the football guys time to regroup after their retreat. Plus, it’s a lot of pressure to go first.”
“Can you go over his head?” I ask.
“To who? My academic advisor? Richmond can’t stand me. And he’s in love with Laurie.”
“Maybe he’ll see reason. It’s not like you didn’t do any of the work. You still have six models.”
“I told all this to Laurie,” she reminds me. She tosses me her phone.
I read over their email exchange again. After his rude reply, Summer pleaded her case, saying she has six models ready to walk in the show, and asking if she could simply not show the men’s line. Laurie tells her that either all twelve models need to be there, or none of them. He once again reiterates that she will need to repeat the independent study.
Spiteful bastard.
“What am I going to do?” Her expression is dismayed, but she’s not crying, which tells me she hasn’t admitted defeat yet.
“There’s gotta be a solution. You talked to Rex—there’s no way they can make it back early?”
“Nope. Coach Deluca has them on lockdown. Apparently this hippie-dippie retreat is in the middle of the woods, miles from civilization. The bus doesn’t collect them until five. They’ll get back a couple hours after that.”
I think it over. “Okay. So we’ve got six dude bathing suits.”
“Eight. Rex and Lockett were going to walk twice.”
“But you only need six bodies.”
“Yes, but…” She shakes her head in frustration. “The suits are tailored for these bodies. That’s why we had fittings.”
“But,” I counter, “we have their measurements, and I’m sure we could find guys who generally fit those measurements.”
“Where are you going with this?”
Yeah, where are you going with this? a little voice squawks.
I exhale slowly. “We’ll do it.”
Her brows soar. “We?”
“Well, they,” I amend. “I’m going to recruit my teammates.” I’m already swiping my phone off my desk. “Hollis will definitely be on board, you know what a showoff he is. Hunter—” I stop. No, Hunter’s out. He’s barely spoken a word to us in weeks. “Nate, I can see saying yes.” I scroll through my messages list. “We need someone a bit slimmer to replace Lockett.”
“Jesse!” Summer suggests.
“If Katie lets him.” I bypass Jesse’s name and search for his girlfriend’s. “Know what? I’ll just text Katie directly. She wears the pants in that relationship.”