Romeo had section to go to for one of his theater classes, so we parted ways for the afternoon.

As I walked to my car, I half-expected Hunter to pop up out of nowhere and pressure me to go out with him again. Thankfully, he wasn’t around.

Unless he was watching me from the bushes with some of those infrared goggles that serial killers liked to use when stalking innocent college coeds.

Okay, wrong train of thought.

I walked across the gigantic parking lot.

Alone.

SAMANTHA

On the way to my car, my phone rang. It was Christos. “Hey, you!”

“Agápi mou! So good to hear your voice. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“You have?” I beamed.

“Of course. You are my everything. What else would I be thinking about?”

I sighed, “I love you, Christos.”

“I love you too. Hey, guess what?”

“You’re even more beautiful this evening than the last time I laid my eyes on your perfection?” He sounded like he was smiling, “No, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I found a job today!” I said.

“Sweet! I knew you would, Samantha. Doing what?”

“Working at the campus art museum at the cash register.”

“Congratulations! You’re diving right into the art world, and getting paid. Remember what I said about your parents not knowing about all the opportunities out there?”

“You were right,” I smiled.

“I think we should celebrate.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“You coming over to my grandfather’s house. I’ll make you dinner. All you’ll have to do is sit back and relax while you keep me company.”

“I think I can manage that.”

“Perfect. Get your fine ass over here.”

I dropped my cell phone in my purse and walked down the aisle in the parking lot toward where my VW was parked.

I sensed a car approaching me slowly from behind. I angled toward the side, giving the car plenty of room to pass. The driver honked the horn twice. What the hell? There was plenty of room for them to drive around me. Whatever. I kept walking.

The car pulled along beside.

“Hey, beautiful,” the driver said.

I’d spoken too soon.

Hunter Blakeley grinned from his convertible Porsche Boxster. He wore aviator sunglasses that looked like they were used in conjunction with his car to stalk innocent college coeds and coerce them into his clutches.

He wasn’t fooling me. I smirked at him.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?”

I raised my eyebrows skeptically. I was so not playing into his flirtatious game.

His arm rested casually on the steering wheel as his car rolled along beside me at two miles an hour. “I’m hurt, Sam. I thought we were friends.”

“I barely know you, Hunter.”

“That’s how friendships start. But we have to get past the barely stage before we get to the Blakeley stage.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please tell me you just made that up, because if you’ve used that line on women in the past, there’s zero chance we can be friends.”

He chuckled. “Then I’m in luck. I did in fact just make it up.”

I said nothing and kept walking. Where had I parked my car? Was it like ten miles from here? I sensed Hunter might even follow me all the way home, trying to wear me down the entire way.

Two could play at this game. I turned between two cars and crossed over to another aisle. I smiled at myself. The aisles were so long, it would take him forever to drive around.

Unless he floored it, whipped around the far end of the aisle, and drove down mine.

I sighed and kept walking as his car drove toward me.

When his car reached me, he stopped and smiled. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you all day.” He said it like it was no big deal. He was totally at ease. This was his sport, and Hunter Blakeley was a total player. I’m sure he’d Gold Medaled in it in London in 2012.

I kept walking.

He put the car in reverse and caught up with me, his car keeping pace with me going backward. “There you are,” he smiled, “almost lost you.”

“You’re going to hit something,” I said dryly.

“Nah, I’ve got my eye on the road.” He stared right at me.

“Not from where I’m standing.” I’d had enough of this. I crossed back over to the aisle I’d just left. I expected him to speed back down the way he’d came.

No, he simply put his car in park and left it idling where it stopped in the parking lot. He hopped over the door and trotted after me. He caught up quickly.

“Hunter, your car is still running, aren’t you worried someone’s going to take it?” I asked.

“Why? The most desirable thing in this parking lot is right here in front of me. I’d rather someone snatch my car instead of you.”

Groan. Was it time to shout rape? He was never going to quit.

Fortunately, I saw my VW a short distance away.

Hunter kept pace with me. “I’ll just walk you to your car. Keep an eye on you.”

I stopped and faced him. “Hunter, I don’t want you to walk me to my car. Can you please just go get your car before you get a ticket or something?”

“I don’t care about getting a ticket. I only care about you.”

Why did that nauseate me? “Hunter, please leave.”

He smiled, completely undeterred. I had a moment to notice that he was amazingly handsome. But I didn’t really care. He would find someone else, I was sure. I turned on my heel and continued to my VW.

“All right,” he said casually as he caught up to me again. “No worries. I’ll see you in class next time.”

I was so surprised, I almost stopped, but managed to keep moving. “Huh? We have a different model every time.”

“Not in Bittinger’s class. She hired me to work the entire term.”

My eyes goggled. I made a vomit face as I thought about how the next ten weeks with Hunter and Marjorie going at me in sculpting class were going to drive me nuts.

Thankfully, I made it to my VW. I slipped inside before Hunter could propose marriage.

In my rearview mirror, I watched him wave at me as I drove off.

At least he didn’t sprint to his Porsche and stalk me all the way to Christos’ place.

As far as I knew, that was.

Double groan!

SAMANTHA

Christos made me dinner, as promised. We sat at his kitchen table chatting long after we finished eating dinner. I didn’t notice the time until it was late, and made my way home. Christos couldn’t come with me because he had plenty of extra work to do around the studio with all the new demand for his paintings. That was okay because I still had homework and a job search to contend with.

I guessed our Honeymoon was over.

Whatever. I still loved Christos with all my heart.

I hit the books the minute I got in the door at my apartment. When my eyes were swimming from pouring over my History and Sociology readings two hours later, I decided it was time to close my books and take a break. I needed a moment to regroup, but I immediately felt the lurching pull of my crumbling financial situation.

With a pathetic groan, I opened my web browser and checked some of the job websites. Doing a search based on location, I discovered that, surprise, the very first jobs on the list were for accounting positions.

My lips curled as I imagined both my parents clasping their hands together while smiling innocently at me with “we told you so” looks all over their faces.

Screw them. I wasn’t giving up. I tried searching by job type rather than location. Maybe I’d find something that way. When the list came up, I scrolled down it further and further. And further.

Almost every single job was somehow related to moving money around or computers. I took a moment to lean back, raise both my middle fingers, and launched both birds at my monitor.

But I still wasn’t giving up. I did notice several jobs for long-haul truckers. Maybe I could do that? Wasn’t there something sexy about a woman who drove a big rig and had dinner at truck stops nation wide? Some of those truck stops even had showers for the truckers. How awesome was that?

Uhhhh, no.

Besides, I needed something part time. And it turned out, most of the jobs were full time.

I did find one company that wanted to hire tutors for high school students. The subject they most needed, and for which I was best qualified, was math. Groan.

“We told you so,” rang through my mind.

I dropped my head back against my couch, grabbed the nearest pillow, squished my face into it, and screamed.

That felt good.

I did it again.

I lowered my pillow and sighed.

As much as I hated to do it, I filled out the online application for math tutors. Couldn’t the tutoring company have been seeking art tutors instead? Not that I was qualified, but why did it have to be math?

We told you so!

:-)

SHUT UP!!!!!!

I filled in the fields asking for my ACT and SAT scores were. Thanks to my parents, I’d taken both, and scored well on both.

After filling out all the remaining information, I clicked SUBMIT and prayed that my age and inexperience would put me at the bottom of the application pile.

I spent another hour combing through job listings. There were absolutely zero jobs related to art.

We told you so!

:-D

A knot had formed in my stomach over the course of the hour. I started to wonder if my parents were right. Based on the jobs I’d found online, it sure seemed that way. But I reminded myself that I did have the museum job. That was art. And Christos’ whole family made money selling art. Heck, I’d made $150 on my crayon painting.