Dream of You by Lauren Gilley Page A

exercise.”
                  There was nothing like a backward compliment. Jordan kept his face neutral. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
                  Her smile told him she knew he was playing dumb on purpose. “Please.” She was most definitely blushing. “You have zero percent body fat.” Her face looked like it was racing toward magenta, her grin trembling with embarrassment as she faced forward.
                  Jordan grinned as he watched her try to beat back her flush, and he should have taken a cue from her. Then he might not have walked right into a student loaded down with yellow bags from the school bookstore.
                  They collided with a sound like big horn sheep ramming their heads together and Jordan felt the breath get knocked out of him in a rush. Books and bags fell to the concrete and Jordan lost his stopwatch. The student was a hulking Lurch of a guy who threw a mile long shadow across the sidewalk, and for one perilous moment that could have turned mortifying, Jordan thought he was going to do an ass-plant as he struggled to regain his balance.
                  “Are you okay?” Ellie asked once she’d helped gather the student’s belongings and they’d seen him on his way.
                  Jordan glanced over and saw the laughter bubbling behind her eyes. Her mouth twitched. “Major ego contusions, but yeah.”
                  A laugh burst out of her and it was the throaty, happy punch of sound of a woman, and not the nervous twittering of a little girl. It made him feel better, on multiple fronts.
                  “Shit.” He massaged his shoulder. “That was like running into a goddamn wall.”
                  Ellie had been overtaken by a case of the giggles, a hand pressed to her side. “Your face!” she gasped. “You should have seen your face when he hit you!”
                  “That funny, huh?” he asked, but chuckled.
                  “It was like - ” She pressed her palm to her cheek and rolled her eyes back in her head.
                  “That bad?”
                  “Maybe worse.”
                  Jordan laughed, and then realized it had been a matter of years since a girl besides his little sister had pried one out of him.
                  “Okay,” Ellie said as she took a deep breath and the chuckles died away. “You getting injured isn’t going to add time onto my walk, is it?”
                  “Injured?” he feigned insult.
                  “Is it?”
                  “No.”
                  They picked up the pace again, Jordan taking long, but slow strides to keep even with her. She wasn’t a slouch, but she was a head shorter than him and there was no making up for length of leg.
    The campus was relatively quiet. Students were enjoying the early evening sun on benches and sprawled across the grass, but it wasn’t a bustling time of day and the only traffic here off the streets was of the golf cart variety.
                  “What made you late for class?” Jordan asked thinking that, if nothing else, he ought to have an explanation for his inappropriate afternoon stroll with a student.
                  There was a fine mist of excitement lacing the air she sucked in before she launched into an explanation. “One of my English profs asked me if I could log some time in the writing center. I was a little afraid he’d change his mind, so I went upstairs to talk to the head of the department about it. I know I should have come straight to class,” she said like she thought she was in trouble, “but I was hoping that since you and I, well…” She trailed off and the color came back into her cheeks.
                  “Oh,” he said, a touch surprised. “I thought you were