Holding on to Hope by Sid Love Page B

stopped her action when she heard him say that. She stared at him for a moment, deep into her own thoughts, trying to contemplate how much exactly that he remembered. Brad caught her staring and offered her a cute smile.
    She slowly set her cup on the counter. “So what did you do yesterday?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
    “Nothing much.” He shrugged. “After attending classes, I headed back to the dorms and went straight to bed.”
    “Hmm.” Leslie studied him. “What did you do on Valentine’s Day?”
    Brad narrowed his eyes at her. “You must really enjoy having me admit that my love life is nonexistent. Yesterday, your boyfriend was rubbing it in my face about how romantic your Valentine’s Day was! And all I did was stay in my dorm room, watching Casablanca .”
    Leslie gave him a hesitant smile but didn’t comment any further. She knew that was what he had done last year.
    It proved, though, that Kol had successfully compelled him into forgetting everything that had happened in the last couple of days. They couldn’t test his memories to make sure last night, as Brad had passed out soon after the compelling was done. There were no more headaches after that, and the bleeding had also ceased. Leslie had requested Kol to glamour her boyfriend too because she simply didn’t believe Pat would understand any of this. It was better to keep him out of the loop. So with Ian’s help, she took the two boys back to their dorm room.
    As Leslie took in the pleasing aroma of the coffee, she thought back to that moment the night before when she had almost wanted to ask Kol to wipe her memories as well. She wasn’t sure she could live with so many bad memories. Something unimaginable had happened in the past two days. Coming to know of species existing in this world that were only heard of in books and movies, she wondered what more secrets there were that she didn’t know of. With thoughts like those coursing through her mind, her life seemed to be filled with too much mystery for her liking. Living with a constant fear of running into some blood-sucking monsters wasn’t living at all.
    “Who are you looking at?” she asked Brad with a teasing smile.
    While she was thinking about monsters and vampires, Leslie had noticed her friend constantly glancing over her shoulder at someone behind her. She knew the flirty look he was giving at that moment, and she was certain it had to be a hot piece of meat he was checking out. So she turned to look.
    “Oh!”
    “That hot guy in the suit sitting over there,” he whispered, leaning closer to her. “I caught him staring at me more than once now.” Leslie could pick up the excitement in his voice.
    She hadn’t expected to see Ronan that morning, even though it made perfect sense that he would come to see Brad. Guilt washed over his face as soon as he noticed her looking. He quickly stood up, left his coffee, and put some cash on the table before he hurried out.
    “Do you know him?” Brad asked her. Leslie turned to find him looking perplexed. “Is he gay?”
    “Yeah,” She smiled slightly. “Listen, I’m going to be right back.”
    “But—”
    “Take care of my purse. I won’t be long. I promise,” Leslie said to him and rushed out of the coffee shop to find Ronan. She turned her head to look down both sides of the street to figure out which direction he went. She spotted him across the street, walking aimlessly with his head down.
    She took off behind him.
    “Ronan!” she called out. The brunet frantically turned around and looked at her. “Wait up!” He did as he was told. When she caught up with him, she was so out of breath she could hardly utter a word. So she held her finger up, asking him to give her a minute. “Phew! I should do that more often.”
    “Look, I wasn’t stalking Brad, I swear. I simply wanted to make sure he was okay,” Ronan babbled out nervously.
    “I know, I know.” Leslie gave her head a shake. “I am not angry,