Her smile immediately fell away and the color drained out of her face as she stared at his phone. He watched her scan the story, saw the way she lingered over the three photos of them together, noticed the way the pulse at the side of her neck was jumping faster and faster. Until, in a blur of sudden action, she was shoving her books into her bag, pushing her chair back, and making a beeline for the stairs.
"Serena, wait!"
She didn't say anything, just shook her head, and he knew from the way she'd pulled her cap down even harder onto her head and tucked her chin into her chest as she jogged down the steps that she was horribly upset.
He followed right behind her and when they got down to the ground floor, he caught the concerned look from the woman behind the information desk right before he flew out the front door after Serena.
"Serena," he called again, but she didn't stop walking. And even though all she probably wanted to do was get away from him--from everyone--right now, he couldn't let her leave when she was this upset. Reaching out, he gripped her hand in his and made her stop and face him. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I wish the magazine hadn't written this story. I wish whoever took those pictures hadn't done it. And I know you still don't totally trust me, but you've got to know that I would never have tipped anyone off for this."
But when she didn't respond right away, he realized he couldn't force her to believe that he was on her side. Especially given the way things had begun between them at the frat party, when he'd been exactly the kind of scum she'd been trying to evade her entire life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
She'd been so happy to see him.
Ever since Friday night, Serena had been thinking about Sean, replaying their conversation on Palm Drive when he'd wanted to kiss her and she'd wanted to kiss him, too, but hadn't let either of them do it.
She'd been asking herself why she hadn't all weekend, why she'd felt compelled to hold him off, to take things so incredibly slow.
Now she remembered why.
Because no matter how much she wanted it to be, her life wasn't her own. It never had been, but she'd stupidly hoped going to college would be different. Plus, when her mother saw these pictures, she would automatically assume she was right about Serena chucking in her career for a boy.
What if she never forgives me even though none of this is true?
Even as she thought it, Serena tried not to dwell on the fact that she had, quite possibly, already started to fall for Sean Morrison.
For a moment, when he'd shown her the pictures on his phone, she'd thought she was going to start crying in front of him. But then, before she could shed so much as one single tear, anger pushed them away. Anger that she'd never let loose because she'd never felt like she had an alternative to the life she was living. But now? Now that she'd tasted freedom? Now that she'd finally met an amazing guy whose kisses had finally shown her what real passion felt like? Now that she'd found out what it was like to be taught by the most brilliant academic minds and had started to think that maybe, just maybe, she could be like them one day if she just worked hard enough and focused on following her dreams?
She couldn't stand the thought of having those dreams ripped away.
"Serena?" Sean still had her hand in his. "Are you angry with me?"
"No, I'm not angry with you. After what you told me about your brother Drew having a hard time dealing with his fame, I just can't see that you'd do that to someone else."
"Does this mean you've decided to trust me?"
She stared into his eyes, wondering if everything the story had said about his being the biggest player on campus was true. Trusting Sean Morrison might very well be the stupidest thing she could do. And yet, whenever she thought about his obvious love for his family, she couldn't quite make herself believe that he was a bad person.
No one bad would ever love his siblings, his parents, that much.
"Maybe."
The corner of his mouth quirked up the slightest little bit on one side. "Well, I guess that's better than a flat-out no."
"It's not you, it's me," she told him, even though it was a total cliche. "After we had pizza and talked on Friday, I thought maybe we could be friends, but now everyone will think we're more than that." They'd all think that she was precisely the slutty model they had assumed she would be based on some of her racier photo shoots.
"Who cares what everyone thinks?"
Being in the public eye for so long, she knew better than to think she could control what people thought of her. But when it came to what her mother thought--how could she possibly explain these pictures?
Of course, that was right when her phone rang. After quickly verifying that it was Genevieve, Serena turned off the ringer and shoved it back into her bag.
"Was that someone else from the press?"
He looked like he was a heartbeat from yanking the phone out of her bag and avenging her in any way he could. Yet again, she was struck by how surprisingly sweet he was. Especially since she'd never had anyone stick up for her before.
"It was my mom."
He looked confused. "But you didn't pick up."
"Like I said before, it's complicated."
Serena needed to be better prepared to figure out a way to explain things to her mother that wouldn't upset her more. At the same time, she also needed to make sure she didn't end up caving and agreeing to leave Stanford just to make Genevieve happy. Because somehow, some way, she hoped the two of them could find some middle ground. A place where Serena could thrive by following her dreams without leaving her mother disappointed and angry. Unfortunately, where that middle place was, she didn't yet have a clue.
"These pictures and what they wrote about us will really upset her."
"Can't you just explain how the pictures were taken totally out of context and that they made up the rest?"
"I hope so. I just need to think about how I'm going to do that." Of course, the problem with waiting was that it would only give her mother more time to fuel her flames of fury over the recent decisions Serena had made. In her frustration, she didn't think before saying, "It was all so normal. We walked like normal people. We talked like normal people. We had pizza like normal people. And now--" She looked down at his phone. "--this."
"You keep talking about wanting to be normal." He looked confused. "But I don't get why would you want to be anything other than as extraordinary as you are?"
She wished she'd learned enough in her English classes already to have the right words to explain things to him. To her mom, too. When she didn't answer him because she didn't know how, she could read his frustration loud and clear. She expected him to keep hammering away at her until she explained why she was such a freak.
But instead of pressuring her, he simply said, "If you want normal, I'll give you normal."
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, and her surprise at his offer--one that showed he already understood so much more about her than anyone else ever had--made her momentarily speechless.
"As soon as I get back to my frat house, I'm going to set everyone straight about us so that they know this story is bogus and that we're just friends. I'll make sure they spread the word."
"That's great," and he was too, "but we couldn't even go get pizza together without it making the national news."
"You said you were starting to trust me, right?" When she nodded, he said, "So now how about you let me actually be your friend."
She wanted so badly to take everything he was offering at face value, but what if her mother was right? What if all men did was use and lie and hurt?
"Why would you want to do this for me?"
"In the past year, since we found out my mom was sick, it's been..." He swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. "It's been pretty rough." He brought his gaze back to hers and held her spellbound in his green depths. "But when I'm with you, I forget to feel bad."
Everything he said was so sweet, and so heartfelt, that as all her fears temporarily fell away, s
he couldn't keep from saying, "When I'm with you, I forget about all the craziness, too."
He grinned at her. "Does this mean you're going to let me show you what it's like to be a normal college student?"
Maybe she was being crazy to open herself up to him like this, but her heart was whirling and twirling around inside her chest too fast for her to do anything but smile back at him and say, "Yes."
As they stood there smiling at each other outside the library, amazingly, what she felt between them was as powerful as his kiss had been at the party. Only, this time she wanted to be the one to pull him against her so that she could kiss him.
The thought had barely passed through her brain when his expression suddenly heated and his gaze dropped to her lips. She could almost taste his mouth on hers when he drew back.
"You weren't done in the library, were you?"
Swallowing her disappointment, she said, "Not quite."
"How about I walk you back inside?"
"Okay," she agreed, before she decided to be brave and add, "but only if you'll take me down to the photo archives and show me around first."
When he'd mentioned his interest in the archives to her upstairs, she'd been more than a little surprised--though if anyone should know better than to take someone at face value, it should be her. Sure, Sean Morrison was a sizzling hot baseball player and frat boy. But just because that was all he normally let people see, didn't mean that was all there was to him.
And the truth was she was so drawn to him that when he let her in, even just that little bit, she couldn't help but want to see more of the real Sean.
Only, when his eyes immediately filled with grief at the mere mention of the archives, she belatedly realized that she'd pushed in exactly the wrong place. He looked that same way every time he spoke of his mother, and she felt her own heart swell beneath her breastbone in empathy with his pain.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, desperately wishing she'd never opened her big mouth in the first place. "You don't have to show me anything. I can go take a look by myself some other time."
But instead of agreeing that they should forget all about it, he squeezed her hand tighter and said, "Actually, I want to take you down there."
"Are you sure?"
His eyes met hers, dark and serious and sweet all at the same time. "You're trusting me to give you normal, so I'm going to trust you with this."
Yet again, she felt the intense pull toward him that had been there right from the very first moment they'd met on the dance floor. It would be the easiest thing in the world to kiss him, but at the same time it wouldn't be right. Not yet. Not when they were still getting to know each other, just starting to trust each other.
He was silent as they began to walk back toward the library and she didn't push him to tell her about the last time he'd been into the archives. Not when it already felt like he'd given her so much of himself just by agreeing to take her there.
How much deeper would he let her go?
As the question bounced around inside her head, she was shocked to realize that she was, for the very first time in her life, actually starting to lower her walls around a guy. The fact that it was coming on the heels of a tabloid story about the two of them...well, maybe that was crazy. But then, so was the fact that she knew she'd pull it up on her phone later, if only to study the pictures of the two of them together more closely.
She needed to know--had he been looking at her only with desire? Or had there been emotion there, too?
The library had been her own special hideout for the past three weeks. But as Sean held the door open for her and they headed back inside together, it felt perfectly natural. Just as it had when he'd interrupted her reading upstairs, like she'd simply been waiting for him to show up.
He spoke softly to the woman behind the desk. A moment later, she was pulling a set of keys out of a drawer and leading them to the elevator.
"We normally ask you to make an appointment to view the archives," the woman told them as they stepped into the elevator, "but it's quiet enough today that I can make an exception. I can spare about twenty minutes right now, but if you'll make an appointment for a future day, you can stay for up to an hour."
For three weeks, Serena had said little more than hello and good-bye to the people who worked at the library because she'd been afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. But now that it looked like connecting with Sean might not be a mistake, did she really need to be so careful all the time? Besides, how much worse could things get, considering there were already photos circulating of her and Sean?
Granted, she really wasn't looking forward to returning her mother's call...but she wouldn't think of that right now, would just shove it down deep where she was used to shoving things she didn't want to face.
"I'm Serena. I should have introduced myself to you earlier."
She was pleased when the woman shook her hand and smiled. "My name is Janice. And it's always nice to see a student who enjoys being in the library as much as I do."
The elevator doors opened and Janice stepped out to unlock the door to the archival rooms. Serena was about to follow her when she realized Sean hadn't yet moved from where he was standing, his eyes clouded as if he were somewhere else entirely.
She put a hand on his arm, gently bringing him back to the present. "We don't have to do this today."
She watched as he forcefully shook away the darkness. "You know how you feel about the Bronte sisters? That's Ansel Adams for me. They have a few of his early Yosemite prints down here. Have you ever seen his work up close?"
"No, only in magazines and coffee-table books."
He put his hand on the small of her back to direct her toward the photos. "Get ready to experience pure genius."
"These three rooms house the main photo archives," Janice told them. "We are very lucky that the man who started the photography program at the university in the early seventies was not only a friend of Ansel Adams's, but also collected his work from the very beginning. Obviously, please don't touch anything or take any flash photography. I will be in the far room using the computer if you need me to answer any questions during the next twenty minutes."
Serena was immediately drawn to a majestic black-and-white photo of a waterfall cascading over a rocky cliff. She'd spent much of her life with photographers, and had a deep respect for them, but there was no question that these were more than just photos. They were works of art.
"Adams wanted his photographs to feel like watercolor paintings," Sean explained. "He was also passionate about the environment."
"There's so much clarity and depth to his pictures. It's amazing."
"I know," Sean agreed. "He pioneered something called the Zone System. It's why the exposure and contrast are so perfect."
She loved learning new things like this. Ansel Adams had just jumped up her list of people to research while here in the library. But at the same time, she was responding to more than just technique.
"It's almost like his photographs are vibrating with energy," she said, not letting herself overthink everything, even if what she was going to say might sound a little nuts. "I feel like I can hear the sound of the falls crashing just by looking at the picture."
As she spoke, she could feel Sean's gaze on her, rather than the photograph. He didn't even need to touch her to make her skin feel warm all over.
Finally, he turned back to the photo and said, "That's exactly how his photographs have always made me feel. Six months ago, I stood in Yosemite, right where he did, to try to capture it the way he did." His voice suddenly sounded a little raw again and she sensed his trip to Yosemite had something to do with his mother. "It was a good hiking trip, anyway."
"You love it, don't you?" Knowing that he was going out on a limb by bringing her down here made it easier for her to step out onto one with him, too. "Not just taking pictures, but aiming for something big. Something that will touch people the way his photos do?"
"The last t
ime I was here, I was with my mother. She--" He stopped, his expression full of such grief it broke Serena's heart. "It was right before she was diagnosed. She hadn't been feeling well and had a pretty bad headache that day, but she didn't let it stop her from coming with me. I went to Yosemite for her, to try to take this picture, to try to bring her back here again somehow."
She didn't say anything, couldn't have found the words even if she'd tried. All she could do was reach for his hand and hold tightly to him.
"She asked me to frame one of the shots and hang it on the wall facing her hospital bed. She said it made her feel good, and happy, every time she looked at it."
It wasn't enough anymore just to hold his hand, she needed to put her arms around him, too. But before she could, he took a step back.
"We've only got a few more minutes. I should show you a few other things before we leave."
She knew what he was doing, that he'd gone as deep as he could just now, had shared as much as he was able, and that if he didn't pull back he'd risk breaking apart. Fortunately, though, instead of letting her go completely, he kept holding her hand as he brought her to the other side of the room and shared what he knew about Ansel Adams's other framed photos on the walls.
And as she soaked up his passion and knowledge, she realized that maybe she didn't need to study the pictures of the two of them online to know what he was feeling for her, after all.
Not when the way he was holding her hand told her so much already.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They had just thanked Janice for taking them down to the archives when the alarm on Serena's phone beeped. She couldn't believe she'd almost forgotten about her appointment with her professor. It was just that so much had happened between Friday when she'd left his classroom and this afternoon...all of it centering around Sean Morrison and her growing feelings for him.
"I have to go," she told Sean. "I have a meeting with one of my professors in the English building."
"I've got a class in that direction, too. Mind if I walk with you?"
"That would be great."
As they headed out of the library and toward the English building, her bag across his shoulder along with his own, he said, "Any chance I can convince you to give me your number so that I don't have to hunt you down in the library the next time I want to see you?"