It was always you

Chapter 6

By the time I made it to Rhea, she had ordered us both coffees and was five minutes deep into flirting with a broad shouldered guy I vaguely recognised.

Catching Rhea's eyes, I pointed back to the door. Want me to disappear?

She scrunched her nose. No.

A head tilt, you sure?

She grinned and so I shrugged, walking over without so much as blinking at our uninvited guest.

"Nat," a greeting, a warning, "Here is your coffee."

I took it as I slid into the booth besides her, glancing over to her friend as she introduced us.

"This is Theo, we have socio together."

The guy staring at her cleavage clearly would much rather have chemistry together with her.

"Hey Theo. So, tell me honestly, is Professor Lawrence really the mayhem Rhea tells us or is she exaggerating?"

He finally meets my gaze before letting out a groan, "Whatever she has said, make it worse. That woman is a menace. I thought socio would be an easy A but she is ensuring I sit out on the field this season."

"Field?"

"Football."

Ah. The carelessly arrogant posturing finally made sense.

"Theo is actually on the same team as your friend," Rhea added, wiggling her brows at me at the word friend.

"Which friend?"

"The guy you were talking to on your way in."

Of course Rhea had caught that. She wasn't just any gossip. She was a gossip with the skills to back her self proclaimed title of Gossip Queen.Sometimes I wondered if she secretly ran an establishment of spies a la Gossip girl style, the way she always knew all that was happening on our campus.

"You mean Aaron?" But even as she was nodding, I had another question lined up. "He plays football?"

Here my friend paused, dramatic as Rhea is, the open mouthed wide eyed gaping was too much even for her. "You are kidding right?"

"About what?"

She seemed to search my face for something. But whatever she found only made her sigh, "Three months into school and you really don't know who is the one football player everyone here worships?"

Our conversation had even pulled Theo's gaze from Rhea('s cleavage) to us, "Are we talking about me?"

Rhea hushed him with a flutter of her manicured hand. "So the name Aaron Barkeley means nothing to you?

"Barkeley?" Theo pushed, but my focus was completely on Rhea.

"Nothing more than the fact that it clearly means something to you."

"Urgh. Only you Nat would be getting up close and personal with the best starting QB this college has seen in a decade without even knowing who he was."

"Shi-. She doesn't know about Barkelely?" Theo asked, loud enough for the whole cafe to hear, but my mind was still digesting this new information, slotting it into what I already knew of Aaron.

And honestly? It made sense. The way he carried himself, almost like he owned this place. The specks of self assuredness in his demeanour like he was a man who played for winning. A star athlete through and through, with the kind of arrogance I'd only seen in football players before.

And maybe that would explain my instant attraction. Apparently I'd a type.
It was exceptionally performing QB1s.

Rhea was still shaking her head with a mix of disbelief and jaded awe.