Forever Could Be Ours

Chapter 32. | Don't Touch Her

ALEXANDER

One day, I'm going to choke Tristan Holden in his sleep. Slowly and deliberately I'll wrap my hand around his throat, then punch him in the crotch, forcing him to wake up with a gasp of air, only to realize I'm holding his last breath.

Is it brutally concerning and borders on psychopathy? Most definitely, but it ensures he won't persuade me into stupid decisions like opening up a conversation with Cassie Bentley ever again.

I met Cassie at orientation three years ago. A typo on our orientation packet led us to the wrong faculty, followed by an intense sprint through campus to get to our correct locations – hers at the Faculty of Science and mine at Education and Social Work.

I never understood why I didn't push through with her back then.

I certainly do now.

Hidden beneath the innocent exterior of cute giggles and shy demeanor hides an understimulated parrot. Cassie talks, a lot. So much so that I wonder if she was a professional diver in her previous life because it can't be humanly possible to talk for five minutes without breathing once.

I don't think she carries herself as a braggart on purpose. She's just too caught up in her interests and achievements to notice she's not leaving room for anyone else in the conversation. She hasn't been talking about anything else but her research methods since the moment I planted my ass on the clammy leather couch.

I've tried to put on my best act of interest, I really have, but she can drone on about the most mundane topics, completely unaware that I'm struggling to stay engaged.

Despite my efforts to feign interest with occasional nods and humming responses, I've been more busy tracing the rim of my beer bottle and trying to see if my thumb fits in the opening without getting stuck.

Tristan will be paying for this. I bet he's chuckling somewhere evilly, secretly enjoying my misery.

"—I mean, isn't it amazing?"

A loud pop echoes over the music as I release my thumb from the bottle opening. It's not her question that finally motivates me to look up. It's the way her knee brushes mine as she scoots closer. The third time to be exact, one too many to be purely coincidental.

"What?" I shift away from her with a confused hum.

I know it's all my fault. I was the one engaging in conversation. She's the one pushing it into something else, despite my subtle rejecting hints. To make things worse, being the conflict-clouded person I am, I've agreed to play pool with her friends later.

"I said, isn't the program amazing?" Cassie repeats without a trace of insult, teeth digging into the flesh of her lower lip to contain her excitement.

"Yes, I agree." I nod, pinching my brows. Was it a shark program? No, wait. It was bees. Bees. She's writing about bees for her biological midterm.

The Macallan has already lost its strength to get me through the night.

Cassie smiles excitedly, completely unbothered by my lack of interest. "I was thinking of writing it as my topic for my upcoming project but it needs more quantitative studies."

"Quantitative studies are indeed essential for analyzing important data." I sound like a robot repeating data sheets.

"Of course it's essential." Her voice raises an octave. "Followed by a visit at the institute for..."

My thumb finds the rim of my beer again, absently tracing it as Cassie's voice blends in with the music. The dance crowd is going wild to an old Kelly Clarkson classic, with familiar and unfamiliar faces blending into the multicolors projected from the disco lights.