Page 3 of Mine To Hunt

Prof. Kingsley nods, pushing off the desk with a smile. "Spot on, as always. Though if you'd been paying attention, you'd know I just said the same thing ten minutes ago."

The class laughs, a ripple of easy sound, and my face burns hotter. He waves a hand. "Just a reminder. Daydreaming's great for inspiration, but not so much for my lectures. Alright, let's pick up on page 147."

Maddie leans in as he turns back to the board, her whisper hot against my ear. "Ree, what the hell? You were totally gone. Like, zombie mode."

I force a grin, shrugging it off even as embarrassment coils tight in my chest. "I just zoned out. Won't happen again."

Madeline Helen Montclair, aka Maddie studies me for a beat longer, like she doesn’t buy it. We’ve been friends since my second semester of uni, bonded over a shared elective neither of us actually cared about and a mutual hatred for early morning classes.

She’s blonde, effortlessly beautiful in a way she pretends not to notice, all sharp smiles and confidence. People assume she’s soft because of it. They’re wrong. Push her, corner her, mess with someone she cares about, and she’ll absolutely kick your ass without blinking.

Class drags for another twenty minutes, notes blurring on my pages, but I keep my eyes forward this time. When the bell chimes, Maddie slings her bag over her shoulder and hooks her arm through mine. We spill out into the hallway with the crowd, the echo of footsteps bouncing off the stone walls. It's after two, and my stomach's already rumbling.

“Okay, spill.” Maddie says as we weave toward the quad. Her blonde waves bounce with every step, and there’s that determined set to her jaw. Which means she absolutely will not drop this.

“What happened back there? You looked like you were solving world hunger or something.”

I shrug, kicking at a loose pebble on the path. “Nothing happened.”

“Uh-huh.” She bumps her shoulder into mine. “Prof. Kingsley doesn’t call on people unless he knows they’ll nail it. And you were just… staring into space. Total la-la land.”

“I said it’s nothing, Mads.”

The quad opens up ahead of us, trees bare against the winter sky, students cutting across the grass, but my mind’s still replaying the moment in class.

“Just tired.” I mutter. “Late-night writing.”

Maddie snorts. “Tired? You?”

I glance at her.

“Miss I-thrive-on-three-hours-of-sleep?” She continues, giving me a pointed look. “Yeah, not buying it.”

“Seriously, it’s fine.”

“Ree,” she says, dragging out my name, “we’ve been friends forever. I know when you’re bullshitting.”

I open my mouth to dodge again but a voice cuts in from behind us. “Ladies! Wait up.”

We both turn as footsteps jog closer.

“Don’t tell me I’m late for the post-class gossip sesh.” There's Al, jogging to catch up with that lopsided grin of his.

Dominic Alaric Hawthorne. Sculpture Major, king of turning clay into chaos. His hair's a mess, dusted with what I swear is plaster from his studio, and his backpack sags like it's fullof bricks. He falls into step on my other side, sandwiching me between him and Maddie.

“What’s the drama?” Al asks, falling into step beside us, his eyes flicking between our faces. “You two look like you just plotted a heist.”

Maddie rolls her eyes but grins. “Not us. Ree.”

“Oh?” Al raises a brow.

“She zoned out hard in Kingsley’s class.” Maddie continues. “Like, full space cadet mode.”

I groan quietly.

“He asked her about unreliable narrators,” Maddie says, pointing at me, “and she just sat there blinking at him like her brain left the building.”

“I didn’t.”