Chapter 2

The black snake sat perfectly still in my hands, and Evan finally worked up the nerve to shuffle a little closer.

He was shaking the entire time. He sucked in a deep breath, and his voice trembled. "Summer, throw that snake out before it bites you!"

The comments section lost it.

[Like Blake would ever hurt his wife? Evan, worry about yourself! If Summer wasn't standing right there, Blake would've gone straight for your throat!]

[I mean, Evan's not totally wrong. Blake DOES want to bite Summer, but just not where Evan's thinking, hehe. Where exactly does Blake want to bite her? Well, so hard to guess.]

[At this point, let's agree that everything he does is hot. Deal? Deal.]

The black snake whipped its head toward Evan and glared at him, its crimson tongue flicking furiously with a sharp hiss.

Evan's legs buckled, and he dropped straight to his knees again.

I gave him a sympathetic look and said, "You should head home. I'll handle the snake. And if you ever need help with anything down the road, just come find me."

Evan lowered his head and murmured, "You've already done so much for me. I can't keep asking."

He looked up and spoke slowly, with quiet resolve. "I will pay you back. Every cent of it."

I tilted the corner of my lips and shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it. Worst case, I skip buying a purse this month."

Evan opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

[Summer is gorgeous and generous. Seriously though, when is it gonna be MY turn to be rich?]

[Evan already has zero confidence. Now the girl he's been crushing on just saw him at his absolute worst. No way he's confessing after that. Ugh.]

I froze for a second.

Evan had a crush on me?

But as far as I could remember, we barely even knew each other before all this.

Could one act of kindness really make him mistake gratitude for love?

That caught me even more off guard than Blake had.

Almost everyone at school knew Evan's family was poor.

And trouble always found those who could least afford it.

His grandmother had gone foraging up in the hills at her age, just trying to scrape together enough for his tuition. A few days ago, she slipped and fell, and she was still lying in the ICU.

After he set up a GoFundMe, many classmates chipped in on their own.

But I heard it still wasn't enough, so I covered the rest.

After Evan found out where the large donation had come from, he stopped me at the school gate and told me I could do whatever I wanted to him.

I had never been in a situation like this before, and I was a little stunned.

So I tested the waters cautiously and asked, "How about we find somewhere more private to talk about your family trauma?"

Evan's family situation was complicated, and I wanted to learn more about it to see if there was anything else I could do to help.

But I was also worried that discussing something so personal in public might make him uncomfortable, so I suggested we go somewhere else.

He went quiet for a few seconds and then nodded, though his expression looked oddly serious for some reason.

And that was how we somehow ended up at a hotel near campus, where I was fully prepared to spend the entire night listening to him talk through his family trauma.

Evan's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He stayed silent for a few seconds before he said in a low voice, "Thank you for covering my grandmother's hospital bills. From now on, if you ever need anything, you can come to me. Anytime."

Before he even finished, the little black snake coiled around my wrist, arched its body, and started hissing at him, its tongue flicking wildly.

I patted the snake on its head and said, "Stop it. Don't scare him."

Evan left, and the room was just the big black snake and me.

We stared each other down in total silence.

The comments floated across my vision again.

[Thank God Blake has been shifting back into snake form around Summer all these years. She's basically immune to the shock by now. Otherwise, I'd be seriously worried she'd faint on the spot.]

[Right? Every time Blake shifts back, he's as gentle as a puppy. Of course, Summer isn't scared. Honestly, if he were that sweet in human form, too, he probably would have won her over a long time ago.]

Holy crap!

I knew those snakes had something to do with Blake!

But I had still underestimated the situation.

I'd been calling him as mean as a snake this whole time as an insult.

It turned out it wasn't an insult. It was just a fact.

Luckily, I was a seasoned novel heroine who had seen plenty of wild plot twists, so it only took me about one second to accept the comments scrolling past my eyes.

But accepting that Blake and I were supposed to be the lead couple in a sweet romance? That was a much harder pill to swallow.

It wasn't that I was being prejudiced against his species or anything, but the main issue here was that this was a relationship between a human and an animal.

Everyone knew that kind of pairing rarely showed up in a clean, wholesome romance.

So what exactly was this setup building toward? I couldn't guess.

I was not even going to go there.

I was starting to sweat.

The comments popped up right on cue, as if confirming my suspicions.

[Wake up, Summer! Stop torturing us and just look at Blake! He's hot, loaded, and has one more dick than others! You two are gonna end up together anyway, so why not get to the fun part first?]

[When are they gonna start going at it?! I'M DYING HERE.]

I knew everyone was eager, but they needed to slow down.