Read Online Holiday Fling by Victoria H. Smith - Free Book Online

lives just that much more miserable.”
    Piper let out a long sigh, scraping at the last bit of coffee grounds from the bottom of her cup. “Well, it is what it is, A. We’ve just got to figure out what to do about it.”
    What were we going to do? Out of habit, my hand went to where my moonstone necklace usually rested. With the jewelry’s long chain, that location was at the midpoint of my waist. My fingers came up empty, reminding me the keepsake was no longer there to bring me comfort.
    Piper, eyeing my motion over her clinking, grabbed my hand. “It’s okay, A. We’ll get it fixed. Why don’t you try searching for some options for our schedule? That’ll take your mind off things.” She smiled.
    When Piper wasn’t wrapped up in the chaos of life, she always knew just what to say to ease my anxious tendencies.
    Taking her advice, I whipped out my laptop from my messenger bag and attempted to do a little damage control. The familiar sounds of clicking and the whirl of a tired computer fan filled the air with its music. The stupid thing booted up about as fast as it took the Egyptians to build the pyramids.
    That was one bad thing about being on my own: having to be completely reliant on financial aid. Between my school expenses, rent, and gas, there never seemed to be much left over for keeping up with the latest technology. I guessed I could always borrow Piper’s if mine decided to crap-out entirely. Her parents practically shipped her a new one every other week. “A fine replacement for their love,” she said.
    I clicked on my favorites icon and the familiar school website materialized on my thirteen-inch screen. It really astounded me sometimes how overly complicated and ridiculous the school website was. I mean, did I really need to know about the elevator repair going on in the student union, or an up-to-minute account of the weather, as if it was a play-by-play of the World Series? Sometimes I felt like I needed a map and a decoder pin just to figure out where the class registration button was on the damn page.
    I clicked around a bit and found some potential options for us. “Looks like there are a couple of spots open in Earth Science 419.” The class wasn’t my first choice, but it was a science elective we both still needed. Come to think of it, Zoology, the class we were currently in, wasn’t my first choice, either. But Piper and I both thought it’d be interesting to take, so we figured why not.
    Piper pulled out her polka-dot compact and applied her signature, deep purple eye shadow. Now didn’t seem like the time for this, but Piper always believed she needed to be date-ready for whoever would be vying for her attention that day. After a few seconds of this, she met my annoyed gaze as I waited very impatiently for a response.
    “Who’s teaching it?” she asked, cleaning up the lines of her lids.
    “Looks like … Alfred Pondensky.”
    She froze. “ Ohhh , no, no, no. He smells like cheese, and he always gives me that look.”
    Oh, God, really with this? “What ‘look’ would that be?” I widened my eyes and opened my mouth, imitating the face she made in her mirror.
    Piper smacked my arm, hitting my elbow off the table. I tried to contain my smirk.
    “Stop being a brat, and you know what I mean. The look . The one professors give you when they’re thinking about what they have at home and realizing you’re something they’ll never, ever have. It’s like they’re constipated, or something.” The way she crossed her eyes made her look like a pregnant woman rounding her twentieth hour of labor.
    I couldn’t really say I’d ever seen that look. And envisioning it on Pondensky, with his leathery skin and paper thin lips, made me just about vomit what I’d eaten of my brownie.
    “The female professors do it, too,” she continued, pointing her eye-shadow wand at me. “Except, with them, it’s because when they’re looking at you, they’re thinking about what they looked at