Saving Ever After (Ever After #4) by Stephanie Hoffman McManus Page A

there. It was
possible she had another bag in her car. I turned my attention back to my game,
readying for another match.
    An hour passed and I
hadn’t seen or heard from Mia since she disappeared down the hall. Maybe it
wouldn’t be so bad having her here if she stayed shut up in the room studying
the whole time. Although, I still had my doubts about the excuse she’d given
for being here.
    I got up to go raid the
kitchen for food, and found a couple of pizzas in the freezer. I started to
take one out and then realized Mia might be hungry as well. I went looking for
her to ask, and found her in the same guest room she’d occupied the very first
time she’d stayed here.
    It was the room across
from mine and for some reason that I couldn’t even explain, it bothered me that
she would be sleeping just across the hall from me. I would have preferred if
she’d claimed one of the rooms upstairs. It would be so much easier to ignore
her presence if she wasn’t right across the hall from me, and everything in me
was telling me to keep my distance from her.
    The door to her room
wasn’t shut all the way, so when I rapped my knuckles against the wood, it fell
open, exposing Mia sitting on the bed, seemingly just staring at the wall until
she looked over at me. There were no books spread out on the bed, no computer
open on the desk, nothing to indicate that she’d been doing . . . well
anything. The small suitcase lay empty at the foot of the bed, so I knew she’d
already put away its contents.
    “You don’t have a
backpack,” I said.
    “Huh?”
    “How are you supposed to
study if you didn’t bring any books or a computer?”
    “Maybe I planned to use
the computer in the media room, or maybe I’m taking philosophy and I’m just
supposed to be thinking about the meaning of life.”
    “Are you taking
philosophy, Mia?”
    “No,” she answered,
looking away.
    “Have you just been
sitting in here the whole time?”
    She shrugged.
    “What are you really
doing here, Mia?”
    She remained quiet for a
minute before looking over to meet my questioning gaze. “It’s Parents’
Weekend,” she admitted softly. “Since mine couldn’t be bothered to show up, I
just didn’t really feel like hanging around the campus with all the other
freshmen and their families.” She averted her eyes, but I could tell she was
embarrassed about sharing that.
    My chest tightened for a
moment, and ignoring her presence here suddenly didn’t seem possible. “You
hungry?” I asked her. Her brow furrowed slightly, but she nodded her head. “I
was just about to cook some pizzas. You don’t have to stay cooped up in here.
Why don’t you come out and we can eat and watch Tv or something.”
    “Okay,” she said,
seeming relieved, and then she hopped up off the bed and followed me out toward
the living room. I made a detour into the kitchen to throw the pizzas in the
oven before joining her. Surprisingly, she was on the couch with my controller
in her hand, looking through my game stats.
    “You play?” I asked her
doubtfully.
    “Well enough to kick
your ass if you’ve got another controller,” she grinned up at me. Her cockiness
caught me off guard for a moment before I laughed.
    “Oh, you’re on.” I
retrieved a second controller and handed it to her, taking mine back. I got it
set up for multiplayer, almost feeling bad for how I was about to slaughter
her. I wasn’t one to go easy on someone, not even a girl, especially not after
she’d talked smack.
    Fifteen minutes later, I
was sitting on the couch in stunned silence, holding my controller and
wondering what the fuck had just happened.
    “It’s okay, don’t feel
bad Chris. You did pretty well. You almost had me there at the end,” she smiled
patronizingly and patted my back while I just glared back at her. She hadn’t
just won, she’d annihilated me. More than once, and she was lying when she said
I almost had her at the end.
    “Who the fuck are you?”
I asked her