Read Book Boyfriend (Someday #5) for Free Online Page B

this is a study group. You can feel free to accept the fact that the studying part of this is out the window and we’re just hanging out.”
    “I just like to keep my options open,” I protested. “We always meet up in your guys’ room because you have one of the super suites and it’s so much more comfortable. But that means that, if we did suddenly decide to study, you’d all be prepared. And I wouldn’t. And I really like to be prepared.”
    “Agreed,” Brandy said solemnly.
    “This whole ‘preparedness is next to Godliness’ philosophy must be a library-employee thing,” Sandy blithely observed. “Now, let’s stop talking about boring old books and talk about what we really all gathered here tonight to hear about: Sebastian. Freaking. Winters.”
    This whole line of questioning really made me feel put on the spot. After all, even the talking (and making out) in Grandma Trudy’s backyard yesterday hadn’t completely rid me of the sensation of waiting for the other shoe to drop where Sebastian was concerned. I still felt like, at any moment, I was going to wake up and find out that this had all been an extremely pleasant but singularly unrealistic dream. Talking about it with Brandy had just seemed like chatter. Talking about it with all of these girls? That would make it real. And real was scary.
    “I don’t really know what there is to talk about,” I hedged, pulling my legs up in the chair and tucking them underneath me.
    “Classic evasion,” Evelyn noted.
    A theater major, she wanted to be a classically-trained New York theater actress. She made it her business to study body language and connect it with the internal story that it told. After all, she’d pointed out, if she wanted to be able to embody other people on stage, to understand and portray their motivations and their emotional landscapes, she had to be able to interpret what those landscapes were by observing them. She had to pay attention. And she had gotten unnervingly good at it.
    I sat up straighter, attempting to make my face and my demeanor as blank as possible so that she couldn’t read me. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said in as neutral a voice as I could manage.
    All of the girls burst out laughing. I looked around, my brows furrowed. What was so funny?
    Finally, Cat took pity on me and said, “Sorry, Michelle. It’s just that we’ve all tried that ‘blank slate’ routine with Evelyn at one point or another. Trust us. It doesn’t work.”
    Evelyn nodded slightly, her eyes narrowing as let her laser-focused gaze travel up and down the length of me. “The flat, monotonous tone. The shrug. The going-for-blasé-but-not-quite-getting-there face. The downward rounding of the shoulders as the legs are tucked out of sight. Yep. All of these conspire to indicate that someone is trying to deflect attention. To hide. And what that tells me is”—she smiled wickedly—“this is someone who has something to hide.”
    I shook my head and buried my face in my hands.
    Evelyn gave a what-did-I-tell-ya shrug. “Wow. Do I even need to comment on the literal hiding of the facial expression?”
    I looked up at the girls. My cheeks were flaming, which wasn’t part of my normal MO. Then again, being this far out of my comfort zone wasn’t part of my normal MO, either. So, who knew how I would usually react when put in this kind of situation? I couldn’t ever remember having been in one before. When it came to positions in the social structure, center of attention was not my go-to place.
    Cat, the sweetest and most nurturing one in the group, immediately rushed to my defense when she saw my face. “Okay, guys. I think that’s enough. If Michelle doesn’t want to talk about Sebastian, then she shouldn’t have to.”
    I smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Cat. I appreciate it. It was super sweet of you to stick up for me. But I’ll be honest. Even as you’re defending me, I can hear the disappointment in your tone underneath the