How did he remember this anyway? It had been over a week since we met at the party. Guys, especially guys like Eden King, didn’t remember someone like me.
I was just hot air to someone like him.
Every time I went out with Asiya and her other friends, I’d spend the entire evening watching them getting hit on while I was getting served pity drinks from the guy who wanted to impress the other girls. I wasn’t worth talking to, wasn’t worth looking at, and I certainly wasn’t worth remembering.
While I didn’t know much about Eden—didn’t care either—I knew that his family was… something. Very rich. Very known.
He was entitled, basically. Definitely not someone who wanted to be associated with me.
“So, Alana,” he spoke quietly, not to interrupt the class. He said my name with such gentleness, I’d never even known it was possible if he hadn’t just proved it to me. “Can I sit next to you?”
I nodded, still not bothering to look up again. “If you must.”
“Oh, she talks,” he snickered.
While I was sure he thought he was being funny, it wasn’t to me. I could take a joke… but if all your life you’d heard the same few words, it was getting annoying. Nonetheless, I chose not to let it get to me since Eden had no idea who I was and how little I appreciated being reminded that I was, in fact, able to speak.
He was moving beside me, taking out paper and pens and setting them down on the table. It finally made me lift my head.
As I looked at his writing material, my eyebrows drew together. “Do you always use paper and pens?”
Eden turned his head, his prominent smile drawing my attention to his lips until I forced myself to meet his eyes instead. “Mostly, yes.”
“Why?”
He reached for his pen, spinning it around. “Because it’s cooler.”
“Cooler?” My eyebrows raised. “How?”
“While everyone’s busy staring at their screens and risking their notes to be deleted by awful students who think we’re all competing against one another, or their laptops breaking down and leaving them without material to study, I have everything neatly packed in my notebooks,” he explained.
“Clouds exist,” I reminded him. “And you could lose your notebook.”
He laughed, though keeping it down. “Fine, you got me. I forgot my laptop at my sister’s place the other day. My schedule is pretty tight, so I haven’t gotten around to picking it up yet.”
“Oh.”
“She lives down in Staten Island, you know? So it’s a bit of a drive down there. I usually only ever see my family on the weekend, well, that’s if—” He stopped himself from talking. “I don’t think you care about any of that.”
My lips pressed into a line as I tried to refrain from smiling. “You and I don’t have that kind of relationship for me to care.”
“Oh, wow.” He nodded to himself a couple of times. “This was the part where you were supposed to disagree with me, Miss Alana. But alright. I guess you’re not my new best friend then.”
His new best friend?
“DeVille,” I corrected, mainly because I didn’t know what else to say or which part to react to.
“I’m not calling you The Devil.”
My eyes rolled. “No. Alana DeVille,” I said, emphasizing my last name and its pronunciation. “If you’re already usingMissto speak to me, might as well use my last name.”
Eden cocked his head at me, narrowing his eyes slightly. “I’m starting to understand why Asiya calls you The Devil.”
“Because of my last name.”
“Because you are, in fact, the devil,” he said. “I’m trying to be your friend here, Alana, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Oh. “Why?”