Loud: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Male Romance) by Claire Adams Page B

last semester's schedule and thinking my chemistry class was in the
west wing when it was, instead, in the east wing!
    I was going to be about fifteen minutes late for my
first class.
    Perfect. Just when I was trying to turn things around,
here I was about to stroll into class fifteen minutes late and make a terrible
first impression. I really couldn't think of a shittier way to start off the
new semester. Out of instinct, I turned and started back toward the east wing.
After a few steps, I stopped in my tracks. My mind raced as I tried to decide if
I should just turn around and leave, pretend I'd been sick. That would look
slightly better than arriving late, right?
    But if I did that, I'd miss out on a wealth of really
important stuff. It was crucial to be at the first class if I wanted to get a
good grip on what the class would be like for the rest of the semester.
    No. As awful as it would be, I knew I needed to suck
it up and walk in fifteen minutes late. I just had to hope I could talk to the
professor after class and explain my mistake. Maybe she’d be reasonable about
it. No matter the outcome, there was only one thing I could do at the moment.
    I took off at a fast jog and ran across down hallway
after hallway until I reached the east wing. After I bolted up the stairs, I
rounded the first corner and stopped in front of the door I should have entered
fifteen minutes before. As I expected, it was closed and looking more than a
little intimidating. With a lump in my throat, I walked to it and pushed it
open slowly, fully expecting the class to fall silent, followed by me getting
embarrassingly reprimanded for being late by the professor in front of
everyone.
    I breathed a quietly audible sigh of relief. She was
writing on the board and almost every student was scribbling notes in notebooks
or on iPads and tablets. I saw an available seat a few paces away from me, near
the door in the back row. Without even scanning for any other seats, I dashed
over and plonked my ass down, just as the professor turned around from the
board to continue with her lecture.
    Breathing hard from the run across campus, I leaned
back in the chair, silently thanking every deity I could think of that I hadn't
been busted for walking in late. The class was huge, so the professor
thankfully didn't even notice there was now an extra body in the room.
    I slid my backpack to the floor, opened it, and got my
tablet out so I could start taking notes, too. That’s when I looked at the
person sitting in front of me and I almost fell off my chair.
    Brooke .
    My heart started racing and I fumbled with my tablet,
which dropped to the floor and clattered noisily. That got everyone's
attention, you know…the attention I’d been trying to avoid. Everyone turned
their heads to investigate the sound — including Brooke, who looked right into
my eyes as she turned around.
    I have no idea what emotions ran through her mind when
our eyes locked, but I imagined it was a cocktail similar to that which ran
through my own head: surprise, shock, confusion, and definitely attraction.
    I was even more surprised to see her cheeks turn a
gorgeous shade of red to match what it felt my own face was doing. That’s
right, I blushed. Something I almost never do. Brooke hurriedly averted
her eyes from mine and turned around without saying or doing anything else.
    She didn't look at me again for the rest of the class
and I tried to keep my mind off of her while I took notes and did my best to
pay attention — which was almost impossible with her lush, flowing hair and the
delicate curve of her exposed shoulders mere inches from me. But, as if that
wasn’t enough, the real kicker came at the end of the lesson.
    The professor wrapped up her lesson by addressing the
class.
    “As you all know, we're going to be doing a lot of
practical lab work this semester,” she started. “And, that means that every
student in here is going to have to have a lab partner. Now, what I don't