Deep Surrendering: Episode Ten Read Online Free PDF Page B

she returned.
    “You too, my love.”
    Classes went by as they usually did and soon it was time to meet Chase again. I was having reservations about seeing him today, seeing as how we’d just seen each other last night. Was it too much? But we’d be studying. We weren’t going on a date.
    I beat him to our table at the library and spread my books out so he wouldn’t have any delusions about what I was going to be doing.
    “Hey,” a voice said behind me. I was in the process of getting some pens out and I dropped them all over the floor in surprise.
    “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Chase said, bending down to gather them up. I grabbed a few. God, I had a lot of pens in my purse.
    “No worries,” I said as he handed the pens back to me. I put all of them back in purse, except for two.
    “Well, I’m starting this off right, aren’t I?” he said, sitting down directly across from me this time.
    “All you need to do now is spill hot coffee in my lap.” We smiled at each other and I compared the feeling I got from that with the effect Fin had on me. They were just… different. Fin was like a hurricane. This was more like a gentle rain, washing over me.
    “I’ll see what I can do. So, how was your day?” he asked as he started pulling out his books and notebooks and a laptop.
    “Pretty good,” I said as he brought out some tomes that looked like you could use them to bludgeon someone to death. “Got enough books there?”
    “Apparently, law requires a lot of really heavy books. Did you know that?” he said with pretend shock.
    “Noooo, I had no idea. You should have gone into something lighter. Like advertising.” We both laughed.
    “That’s kind of terrible. But true. I had a gen ed class with a girl who was in advertising and she asked me how to spell Canada once,” he said and I winced.
    “That sounds about right.” He smiled at me again and turned his laptop on.
    “So, let’s say we work for two hours and then take a coffee break?” he said.
    “Sounds perfect.”
    I knew, given the same situation, only with Fin in Chase’s place, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my work. But Chase was unobtrusive and quiet. The only sound he made was the turn of a page or his fingers quietly clacking on the keyboard. He didn’t make much noise in general, which was what made him nearly the perfect study partner. He didn’t sigh, or chew on his pen, or jiggle his foot or anything like that. In fact, he was so still that at the end of the two hours he’d barely moved.
    He’d said I was studious, but damn. Chase took the focus cake.
    I finished at exactly the two hour mark, closed my book and rubbed my eyes. I’d gotten out of the studying habit lately, so my eyes weren’t used to staring at print for long stretches. Chase looked up at me and then at the clock.
    “Damn, two hours already?” He stretched his arms above his head and both his shoulders popped.
    “You were really focused there,” I said.
    “Yeah, I was actually doing some research for mock trial and it was interesting. We’re arguing about assisted suicide. I always find it easier to focus when something or someone is particularly interesting.” Somehow I didn’t think he was talking about assisted suicide anymore.
    Chase stared at me and I had to look away from those dark eyes. They were quite something.
    “Coffee?” he said, blinking and breaking the connection.
    “Absolutely. But you’ll let me pay this time.” He laughed, causing a few people to glare from nearby tables. Chase just gave them a sheepish smile and packed his things up again. Charming. He was charming in a sweet way. Not like Fin.
    I really had to stop comparing Chase to Fin. They weren’t the same and it wasn’t even a fair comparison. I wasn’t dating Chase and I didn’t plan to. Right now he was a friend, if even that. I hadn’t even known him for 24 hours yet.
    “It was a nice try,” he said as we walked to the café. “But there’s no way I’d let