Chapter 55: 55 | My Required Reading Includes Two New Beauties

Jordan pushed through the heavy doors of Business Building 310 at 9:36 AM, six minutes late to Management 1A. His morning had been good. Great, even. Workout with Kyle and Leo. Confirmation text from Chloe. A plan to actually fix the mess he’d made.

Then he walked into the lecture hall and saw them.

Back row. Left side. Cameron Mitchell with his tongue down Eliza Hartwell’s throat.

Every good feeling drained out of Jordan’s body like someone pulled a plug.

Eliza’s blonde hair cascaded over Cameron’s arm. His hand cupped the back of her neck. She made a small sound that carried across the lecture hall, breathy and performative, designed to be heard.

Jordan’s stomach twisted.

He ducked his head immediately, angling his face toward the ground as he descended the stairs. Maybe if he didn’t look, they wouldn’t notice him. Maybe he could just disappear into a seat somewhere and survive the next hour without becoming a spectacle.

A spot opened up three rows from the back. Jordan slid toward it.

"Yo, that’s my seat."

A guy with a backwards cap and a Pacific Crest lacrosse hoodie gestured at the empty chair. His laptop bag sat on the desk.

"My bad."

Jordan backed away. His face burned. Of course he couldn’t even sit down without fucking something up.

The front row stretched out before him. Empty except for three students who’d probably been camping outside since dawn. Jordan walked down the rest of the stairs and dropped into a seat at the far right, as far from Cameron and Eliza as physically possible while remaining in the same room.

This was it. This was what every class would be like for the rest of the semester. Watching his ex make out with the guy who humiliated him in a parking lot. Listening to her breathy little sounds while he tried to learn about financial accounting.

Jordan pulled out his laptop. Opened it. Stared at the blank screen.

He could just leave. Drop this class. Take it next semester when Eliza and Cameron had moved on to torturing someone else. He’d wanted to make a real effort this time. Actually show up. Actually learn something. But if this was the cost, maybe it wasn’t worth it.

His finger hovered over the trackpad, ready to check the drop-add deadline.

The door behind the lectern opened.

Dr. Diana Ashford walked in.

Every thought in Jordan’s head evaporated.

She moved like she owned the room. Tailored navy blazer over a white silk blouse. Pencil skirt that ended just above the knee. Heels that clicked against the tile floor with authority. Her ash-blonde hair fell in a perfect bob that framed sharp cheekbones and gray eyes that swept across the lecture hall like a security camera.

"Good morning."

Her voice cut through the ambient noise. Not loud. Just clear. The kind of voice that made you sit up straighter without realizing it.

Jordan sat up straighter.

Dr. Ashford set her leather bag on the desk and pulled out a single folder. "I hope you all had a productive winter break. Given the state of your midterm grades last semester, I suspect most of you did not."

Someone in the back laughed nervously.

"That was not a joke."

The laughter died.

Jordan leaned forward. His laptop sat forgotten on the desk. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it.

Dr. Ashford opened the folder. "Today we’ll be discussing the basics of double-entry bookkeeping. This is fundamental. If you cannot master this concept, you will fail my class. If you fail my class, you will not graduate on time. If you do not graduate on time, you will disappoint your parents, waste their money, and enter the workforce two years behind your peers."

She looked up. "Any questions so far?"

Silence.

"Good."

She turned to the whiteboard and began writing in clean, efficient strokes. Her handwriting was perfect. Each letter precisely formed. No wasted movement.

Jordan pulled out a notebook. An actual paper notebook he’d bought at the campus bookstore along with new pens and highlighters. He opened it to the first page and started copying what she wrote.

The door to the lecture hall creaked open.

A girl stumbled in holding a Starbucks cup. Tall. Really tall, maybe five-eight without the heels she wasn’t wearing. Black jeans and an oversized cream sweater that somehow looked expensive despite covering everything. Long black hair pulled into a messy ponytail with a few strands falling around her face.

Dr. Ashford stopped writing. "You’re late."

"I know. I’m so sorry. The line at Starbucks was insane and I didn’t realize—"

"I don’t care about your coffee. Sit down."

The girl’s face flushed red. She hurried down the stairs toward the front row, her sneakers squeaking against the tile. The only open seat was directly next to Jordan.

She dropped into it with a thud. Her Starbucks cup wobbled. She caught it before it tipped, then set it carefully on the desk and pulled out a rose gold MacBook.

Jordan glanced over.

Then did a full double-take.

Holy shit.

Even when he’d been "dating" Eliza, he’d known there were great beauties on this campus. Women so beautiful and unobtainable that they had dedicated fan clubs. Instagram accounts tracking their daily outfits. Freshmen who would literally change their schedules just to walk past them between classes.

Alexis Van Der Berg was number one on that unofficial list.

The girl who just sat down next to him was number two.

Brooke Hastings.

Jordan had seen her exactly twice before. Once during freshman orientation when she’d walked across the quad and caused a minor traffic accident because three guys on bikes weren’t watching where they were going. Once at the library when she’d been studying alone at a table and Jordan had watched from behind a bookshelf like a complete creep for ten minutes before Kyle dragged him away.

Up close, she was somehow even more devastating.

Her face was soft. Round cheeks. Full lips. A small beauty mark just under the right corner of her mouth. But her eyes were what got him. Crimson red. Not contacts. Natural. Some rare genetic thing that made her look like she’d walked out of an anime.

She wore black-framed glasses that she pushed up her nose with one finger. Her cream sweater hung loose on her frame but couldn’t hide the fact that she was built like a fertility goddess. Curves that belonged on a museum statue. The kind of body that made the System’s proximity alerts go haywire.

Jordan’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out under the desk.

BEAUTY DETECTED: PROXIMITY ALERT

Target: Unknown

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