Claire (Hart University Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and I’d been full of plans to paint my room and put up some framed pictures. But preseason practice had started the next day, and once I got caught up in football I never got around to painting… or much of anything else.
    The walls weren’t terrible, but they hadn’t been painted for a while and the off-white color had darkened over the years. There were also paler patches where a previous owner had hung pictures. I’d put up a few posters over some of those spots, but since I’d used Scotch tape instead of frames and picture-hanging hardware, I hadn’t exactly classed up the joint.
    The posters weren’t too bad—meaning, they weren’t porn stills like the ones Delford had in his room. Not that I can’t ogle naked women with the best of them, but I wouldn’t put that shit on my walls. I stuck mostly to sports, music, and Deadpool.
    There were water stains on the ceiling and on the floor around the radiator. The wood floors themselves weren’t bad—a little uneven, maybe—but they were covered with more dirty laundry than I remembered being there.
    “It’s a little, uh, messy,” I said, moving past Claire and kicking some of the clothes out of the way.
    “That’s okay,” Claire said, looking over to her right—where the bed was.
    I’d had a decent amount of alcohol that night but nothing epic, and the last drink I’d had was more than an hour ago. Sobriety shivered through me like an electric charge, followed by a different kind of inebriation.
    Claire was in my room.
    God knew I’d imagined her here a hundred times. But in all those fantasies, she was here for sex. The fantasies usually started with me tearing off her clothes or her tearing off mine, depending on my mood, and ended with the two of us in my bed, our naked bodies tangled together in blissful post-sex slumber.
    But tonight wasn’t going to end that way. Because Andre was right—if something happened between me and Claire right now, I’d only be her rebound.
    We spoke at the same time.
    “Okay, so—”
    “Ted is really—”
    We both stopped. Then I asked: “Ted is really what?”
    Claire put her arms around her waist and started to walk, slowly, around my room.
    “Neat. Like, OCD neat. It drives me crazy.”
    This was the other thing Andre had warned me about. Claire obviously wanted to talk about Ted. But if I let myself get sucked into that, wouldn’t it be a deep dive into the friendzone?
    I backed up and put my hand on the doorknob. “I should go back downstairs,” I said. “I’m supposed to be cohosting this thing, right? And you should try to get some sleep.”
    Claire sat down on the edge of my bed. The mattress barely gave at all, even though it squeaked and groaned every time I sat on it.
    “Okay.”
    That was all she said. But her blue eyes turned bright, and then she blinked hard and looked down at her feet.
    It felt like someone reached into my chest and yanked out my heart.
    It was one of those deals where time seems to slow, giving you a chance to make an important decision.
    For some reason I thought of my mom and stepdad. And once I did that, it was over.
    Sometimes it sucks to have the two most decent, unselfish people in the world as your parents.
    “Unless you need to talk or something.”
    She looked up again, and this time the tears leaked out. She used the back of her hand to wipe them away. “That would be great. I mean, if you don’t mind. I just…” She hugged herself again, and her voice got so soft I could barely hear her. “I just feel so lonely.”
    My heart squeezed in my chest again. “I don’t mind.”
    She kicked off her sandals and moved up to the head of the bed, leaning back against my pillows and wrapping her arms around her knees. She looked pensive, and I knew I was about to hear a lot more about Ted than I’d ever wanted to.
    I went over to my desk, spun the chair around, and sat with my arms folded along the back.
    Then I took a deep breath and prepared to be noble.
    “So,