Chapter 8 - Hola, dearest ex (2)

The blonde-haired guy chuckled. From his face, the way he talked and smiled, I guessed he was around my age. Or maybe younger by a few months. "My brother gets hangover quite often." Again, that accent. I felt like I've heard it before but I couldn't really pinpoint what it was. "I carry it around just in case he needs one."

I wished Steven would be that caring to carry Advil around for me. Knowing my brother, he was probably too drunk to care about himself, let alone anyone else.

"Hey, you're not from around here, are you?" I stood and tried my best to keep my feet steady on the ground. I took my bag off the bench and slung it over one shoulder. "I could hear an accent there."

"How rude of me." He held his hand out and smiled. "I'm Corbin and yeah, I'm Irish."

"I'm Autumn." I shook his hand and let it go.

"Nice name." He shoved it back into his pocket. "Been in the U.S. for a year yet still can't get over the accent. Mum and Dad are both Irish so unlike my brother, I'm 100% Irish man."

I was confused. "Wait, so your brother isn't 100% Irish, but both of your parents are Irish? Is he adopted?" I blamed a headache for my lack of ability in processing his words.

Corbin chuckled. "No. He's not adopted." He shook his head like he thought something was really funny. Probably a private joke. "His parents separated and then his dad married my mum and had me."

"I see." I nodded. I knew a thing or two about a broken family. My parents were on the verge of having divorced a few years ago. Now I was grateful that things worked out in the end. I was about to say goodbye to him when I remembered what he said earlier. "Wait, did you just tell me that your name is Corbin?"

He raised one brow, probably not sure why I asked, but he gave me a firm nod.

"Do you, by any chance, know Tyler Vincent?" I knew what people said, about having trust in your boyfriend, but given mine has been acting really strange, there was no harm in checking.

"Yeah. Tyler's a cool dude." He smiled. "We share all the same classes this semester. I heard he won the National Science Olympiad last year."

Okay. So he got the right Tyler, God knows how many Tyler Vincent in Columbia. "Aren't you supposed to go for the additional class?" Tyler had left roughly twenty minutes ago.

Corbin frowned. "What additional class?"

I had a really bad feeling about this but I asked anyway. "Chem 1403?"

"Professor McDermott's class," he nodded as he acknowledged the course. "But what additional class? It's the first week of school, we don't even get the basics done. The first week usually about the introduction and getting to know the course plan."

I knew it. "Oh, okay."

"So you're from D.C. too aye?" asked him as he started to walk towards the front gate. I walked closely beside him but not too close.

I swallowed the lump in my throats and struggled to keep my composure. "Yeah. We both were from the same school." The question was there, no matter how hard I tried to shove it to the back of my head. Why did he lie?

"So..." Corbin stole a glance at me. "Are you two together?"

I nodded. "Yeah. He's my boyfriend." We were finally got to the front gate. I turned to face him and forced my lips to smile. "Thanks for the Advil."

"Yeah." He returned my smile with one of his sweet smiles. "Anytime."

"Corbin! What took you so—"

Corbin groaned and I followed his gaze straight into a pair of grey eyes staring back at me. Phraser.

"If you're not a fan of waiting, you should lend me your car so I could drive myself," said Corbin, didn't bother to hide the annoyance in his tone. He turned to me with an apologetic look on his face. "Autumn, this is my brother—"

"Phraser." I finished his sentence before he had a chance. I waited for him to have another mood swing, swapping to the dark side and throwing insults at me, but all he did was stood there by his sleek black car, staring back at me with a charming smile plastered on his face.