*FREE WITH PAID BONUS CHAPTER*After being dumped by her boyfriend, Elodie Shepherd resigns herself to loving her older brother's best friend from afar, just like she always has, even though he only sees her as his best friend's immature kid sister.
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The proofs from the photoshoot were in my email inbox, but I was too scared to open them and see what they looked like.
Part of me was terrified that they'd show everything I was trying to hide with Matthew--our longing looks, too-intense stares, and passion heated chemistry zapping between the two of us was almost too much to bear in person, let alone having the proof of that connection splashed across the magazines, but it was already too far gone for me to stop anything.
It was happening.
The article was coming out at noon, and I couldn't decide if I was relieved or terrified--most likely a combination of both.
Matthew had continuously called and texted since the photoshoot since we weren't able to see each other in person, and every message grew just the smallest bit dirtier.
I was in the middle of blushing my ass off because of said dirty text when Dorian knocked his elbow into mine during class--a sure sign that I had not been paying any attention to the lesson whatsoever.
Considering it was an early morning class, I didn't have to worry about the news article dropping and be around for the fallout with Ben, his football buddies, and my two guy best friends around to witness the damage that it would cause.
"You're being called on by the professor," Dorian whispered into my ear after leaning in close, and when my eyes skipped forward to the lanky male in his late forties looking at me with an expectant look on his features, I wanted to immediately disappear because of the embarrassment of the next question I'd have to ask.
"I'm sorry, what was the question?"
"We were talking about the scientific method, the stage of the hypothesis more accurately. Do you think the hypothesis is more of a proposed explanation of an event or finding, or rather an observation?"
You know that feeling when you just know in your gut that everyone is looking at you, thinking about you, or talking about you behind your back?
As every single phone went off in the large auditorium lecture hall at almost the exact same time, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
"The, um, the hypothesis is an observation," I stated, stuttering because of the heads all whipping toward me, far too interested in the answer to a question from the professor.
Then, the whispers started, the pointing, the slacked, open mouth stares, and then Dorian checked his own phone beside me, Lan doing the same, and the pure unabated pain and betrayal shining back at me through Dorian's eyes was enough to cut me to shreds right in front of him.
"Eyes on me, folks. That's right, a hypothesis is an observation! We save the explanation for the end, which...oh, oh wow."
The professor had stopped mid speech as he glanced to his opened iPad on the podium close beside him.
