Ritual: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 5)

by Kandi Steiner

  It’s a moment that should fill me with pride, but instead, I only feel dread. Because the moment Kade is out of my arms, Cassie’s in them.

  “You’re doing amazing!” she squeals, hugging me hard before she presses up on her toes to give me a kiss. Her soft brown eyes are bright and wide under the hanging lights spanning the massive length of the yard — a last-minute touch I’d added to make it feel like a backyard barbecue — and her hair is smooth and straight, angling at her chin in a way that makes me stare at her lips.

  “Thanks, babe,” I say, but I immediately release her.

  I don’t miss the way she frowns up at me, but luckily I don’t have to answer for my actions. Jess is next in line to congratulate me.

  “Not bad for an Alpha Sigma shindig,” she says, cocking one brow.

  “Is there a compliment hidden somewhere in there?”

  Kade shakes his head, clapping me on the shoulder. “Trust me, coming from this one?” He points a thumb at Jess. “That is a compliment. A high one.”

  She narrows her gaze at him, but then smiles, poking him hard in the ribs until he releases his hand on my shoulder and throws his arm around hers, instead. She crosses her arms like she’s annoyed, but I don’t miss the way she leans into him.

  I have no idea what the fuck those two are.

  They’ve been doing something close to seeing each other, and something equally as close to being mortal enemies, ever since the end of spring semester. But I’ve given up on trying to figure them out — especially since I have my own fish to fry.

  After a few more notes of congrats, conversation moves away from me, everyone falling back into what they were discussing before I showed up. One of the students we hired to walk around with red plastic cups of beer on fancy serving platters walks past us, and I snag a beer from them, draining half of it in one swallow.

  “Need some booze for those nerves, huh?” Cassie teases, threading her arms around me and looking up at me with her gorgeous eyes again. I usually love them, the way they always seem to find me, to light me on fire, to fill me up from the inside.

  Now, I just wonder what else they’re hiding.

  “Something like that,” I murmur.

  “Everything is perfect,” she says, looking around at the packed yard. It’s the same place we had the concert in prior years, but we’ve completely transformed it this time around. The lights strung high above us, criss-crossing the space between the fake plants on either side, make it feel like a private, exclusive event. We found clever ways to weave the casual in with the fancy, the backyard family feels with the black-tie event vibes. Music plays from the stage, where the next groups of karaoke singers are getting set up, and without a doubt, I know that everyone is having a blast. “It’s everything you wanted it to be and more.”

  She’s right.

  And yet, I’m counting down the minutes until it’s over, until I can be alone again.

  I sigh, chugging the last of my beer before trading it in for another. Cassie takes it away before I can drink too much.

  “Hey,” she says on a giggle, raising one eyebrow. “Maybe save the celebrating for after the event? You still have to get up there and emcee.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, snatching the beer back from her. I don’t mean to, but in the attempt, half of it splashes onto her shirt.

  She gasps, stepping back from me, shocked at first, but then laughing. “Jerk,” she says, shoving me playfully as she flicks the liquid off her hands. She even pegs me with a few droplets. “You’re lucky you’re cute. And that I happen to loooove you.”

  Cassie drags out the word love, long and sweet and adorable, coming in to cuddle me again regardless of the wetness of her shirt.

  My jaw clenches, heart stopping altogether when I look down at her. “Do you?”

  Her smile falls, brows tugging together. “Of course I do.” Then, her eyes search mine, her arms tightening where they hold me. “Adam, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

  I can’t help the smile that unleashes itself on my face, and it’s an evil one — one accented by a chesty, one-syllable laugh before I drain my beer again. I toss the red cup in the nearby trashcan, shaking my head as I peel Cassie off me.

  “I better get back up there.”

  She grabs my hand and pulls me back. “Adam,” she pleads. She doesn’t say anything else, but her eyes say everything her mouth isn’t.

  Talk to me.

  Don’t push me away.

  I love you.

  What’s wrong?

  I swallow, ripping my hand free from her grasp and shaking off the bad mood as I make my way back to the stage. Then, I finish the show, announce a final donation to our philanthropy that blows everyone out of the water, and high-five my brothers after an event well-done.

  And I text Cassie, telling her I need to stay back to clean up and to head out without me.

  I feel like shit, like an absolute fucking asshole.

  But I also feel validated.

  I don’t want to hurt her. It’s the last thing I want. But the truth is, she’s hurting me. She’s had her chance to tell me about Grayson — multiple times — and she hasn’t. And maybe I should just ask her about it, but if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think I should have to.

  If we’re together, if she’s my person and I’m hers… shouldn’t we be honest with each other, always? No matter what?

  That’s what’s on repeat in my mind as I help my brothers wrap up the event, as we celebrate well into the next morning, as I lie in bed hungover the next afternoon, with my eyes on the ceiling and the girl who’s driven me crazy for years the only thing on my mind.

  And the truth of what I’m feeling kills me.

  Cassie can say she loves me all she wants to.

  But until her actions line up with those words, I’m not sure I can believe them anymore.

  Bear,

  I’ve started this letter and torn it up a thousand times, it seems. I don’t think there are words to say what I need to say to you. I’ve tried and tried to find the right ones, but I always come up empty-handed.

  I guess I should just start by saying that I am sorry.

  But, God, that sounds so trite.

  I want to roll my eyes at those words. They aren’t enough. They don’t do justice to how I really feel, to how much I care for you, to how badly it kills me to know that I hurt you.

  They do nothing to explain what the choice I made did to me — long before you knew.

  So, I’m going to try to explain. I know most of this won’t make sense. Most of this won’t

  THE ALARM GOES OFF on my phone, a bright, cheerful jingle that signals it’s time for me to leave to head to group therapy. I silence it, and then stare at yet another unfinished letter to Clinton. There’s a pile of them in the waste bin next to my desk, and I crumple this one up into a ball and toss it in with the others.

  The letter is still in my mind as I drive to therapy. The little church it’s held in is off campus, just a short, ten-minute drive, but it’s long enough to let me mull over the fact that I’m never going to be able to write out what I want to say to Clinton.

  “You don’t need to send the letters,” my therapist had told me at our last session. “Just write them to the people you’ve hurt, and say what you’re too scared to say to them in person.”

  I’d thought the exercise was annoying and cliché at first, but then… it had worked.

  At least, sort of.

  I’d written a letter to Skyler, and while I didn’t give the letter to her, writing it helped me find the courage to talk to her. And now, we had finally taken a real, genuine step to putting everything that happened last semester behind us. I know we have a long way to go yet, but just having the conversation healed me in a way I couldn’t fully understand.

  Since then, I’ve written letters to my parents, to my unborn child, to my rapists, and to all of my closest friends — Jess, Lei, Cassie.

  But I can’t seem t
o write one for Bear.

  If I could have anything in the world, it would be to have my friendship with Bear again. The way we used to be. Before he knew.

  I’m still in a fog of thoughts when I make my way into therapy, and just like always, I bypass the donuts and the coffee and take my usual seat, pulling out a notebook and setting my purse in my lap.

  And when I look up, Gavin Lindberg is staring at me.

  The jolt of those electric blue eyes is enough to stop my next breath, and I stare back at him, unflinchingly, until Jackie asks everyone to find their seats and that we’re about to begin. It’s only at the sound of her voice that I finally blink, and with that blink, the rest of the room seems to come back to me in a whoosh.

  I clear my throat, looking from him to Jackie, instead, and I keep my focus on her or whoever is speaking for the rest of group session. I’m not in the mood to talk today, so I just sit quietly and listen, and smile, and nod, and think.

  And not look at Gavin Lindberg.

  “Alright, that wraps us up for today,” Jackie says after our breathing exercise. “Before you go, I want to leave you all with one last thought… this week, while you’re going about your normal routine, I want you to ask yourself what you miss about what you perceive as the old you. If anything comes to mind, write it down. You don’t have to do anything, not yet, I just want you to jot down anything that you used to do, or used to have, that you feel is lacking now.”

  I chew the inside of my cheek, already mentally noting a dozen things that I miss about the girl I used to be. I decide to write them down later, though — mostly because I’m already late to the Panhellenic meeting and I still need to set the house up for our KKB movie night.

  As I’m packing my notebook into my purse, a shadow steps between me and the overhead fluorescent light, and I pause, letting my eyes slowly crawl up to Gavin’s waiting face.

  I hadn’t noticed last week how tall he was, but as I stand, my eyes only coming to the base of his neck, I realize it. He’s very tall. And very lean. And very… dark. It isn’t just his hair or his clothes, but the way he stands, the hidden storm in his eyes, the lines in his face that somehow seem to hold more history than that of an old and tired man.

  His skin is a golden brown, almost olive, like he’s from the Mediterranean, and since he’s not wearing a hat this week, I can see that his hair is a deep, rustic brown. It’s short, but a little untidy, with ends sticking up here and there. And just like last week, he’s dressed in dark, distressed jeans and a black t-shirt that says Thy Art is Murder on it.

  “Hi,” he says when I shrug my purse over my shoulder.

  I swallow. “Hi.”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Oh,” I say, sweeping my hair behind one ear and over my shoulder.

  “Yeah. So… this is me. Apologizing.”

  “You’re doing great.”

  “I’m really very good. At practically everything. It’s a curse.”

  I smile, and a quiet moment passes between us, with him staring at me and me checking the time on my watch.

  “Seriously,” he says when I meet his gaze again, shoving his hands in his pockets like they’ll betray him if he leaves them dangling free. “Last week… I was a bit prickly. I didn’t want to be here, and I… I don’t really know why I attacked you like I did, but I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I assure him. “Really. I didn’t think it was an attack at all. And, I get it. I didn’t want to be here the first few times I came, either.”

  “And now?”

  At that, I sigh, shrugging a little as I look around the room at the fellow misfit toys. “Now, I worry less about what I want, and more about what I need.”

  When our eyes meet again, there’s an understanding there — one unlike any I’ve ever felt before. It’s the kind of universal tug at my heart, at my soul, that makes me feel like I’m tethered to a stranger. Like somehow, there’s a piece of me in them, and a piece of them in me.

  After a minute, Gavin nods, and then without another word, he brushes past me and toward the door.

  I stand for a second, face screwing up in a bit of confusion at the abrupt exit. But when I shake my head and turn to head for the door myself, I nearly run into Gavin where he’s stopped and turned around.

  I manage to put the brakes on before I run straight into his chest, but we’re still a little too close for two people who just met when he looks down the crooked bridge of his nose at me and asks, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

  My eyes shoot open wide.

  “Next week,” he says when I don’t answer. “After group. We can go wherever you want, unless it’s Italian or Indian food because I hate both.”

  I bite my lip against the laugh that comes from me then, because it’s both unexpected and absolutely lovely. I forgot what it feels like, to laugh like that, to feel joy fizzing in your chest like champagne bubbles.

  At the sight of my smile, the side of Gavin’s lips tug up, too, until he’s wearing a shy smirk that somehow fits him perfectly.

  “Sure,” I say.

  I debate offering him my number, but I don’t have the chance. As soon as I agree, his smile ticks up a bit more, and then he nods at me, turns, and rushes out the door.

  And I stand there in his dust, still a little sad from earlier, a little confused from our interaction, and a little something else, too.

  Though I can’t quite put my finger on what.

  IF YOU WOULD HAVE told me ten months ago that I would be sitting next to Grayson Anderson, listening to him play a new song, without wanting to strangle him and spit in his eye — I would have told you you were crazy.

  Almost a year later, and I can still close my eyes and see him outside of semi-formal last year, talking to Malik, admitting that he had been screwing some girl named Alexis while we’d been dating.

  While I’d been falling in love with him.

  While I’d been trusting him.

  While I’d been thinking about giving myself to him fully.

  And once I had, he’d apparently told that girl to kick rocks — but that didn’t change the fact that all the time I was dedicating to him, he was giving to someone else.

  He’d cheated on me. He’d broken my heart. And I’d sworn I’d never forgive him.

  But here I am, sitting next to him on the bench outside the science building, listening to him strum on his guitar and watching strands of his long hair fall out of the bun at the nape of his neck, into his face.

  For the first couple weeks of class, I dutifully ignored him. Unfortunately for me, we were assigned lab partners during week three — which made it impossible to ignore him any further, unless I wanted to fail Genetics.

  And I don’t fail anything.

  Still, I wasn’t keen on the idea, and only conceded after Professor Drumm said I didn’t have a prayer in changing partners, anyway.

  Grayson asked me for forgiveness. He asked me for friendship.

  And damn it if that doesn’t hit some super soft bruise inside me that I didn’t even realize existed.

  Something I learned from my older sister is that holding onto a grudge, or something that hurt you, is useless. Giving anyone or anything that power only strips you of it and holds you back.

  So, when Grayson poured his heart out, trying to get me to understand that he was in a bad place, I listened. When he told me his parents were already on his ass to change his major back then, at the same time his music career was taking off, I could see the internal struggle he must have been facing. And when he promised me he never meant to hurt me, and that if he could take it all back, he would — I believed him.

  I don’t have to forgive him, and I told him that much. But he asked for a chance for a friendship, and because I don’t know how to stay mad at people who hurt me, I’m giving him one.

  Or at least, I’m trying.

  “That was really good,” I say when he finishes the last note of the song. “Are you going
to record it?”

  Grayson sweeps his hair back off his face, something of a grin on his lips. “No more recording for me. I just do it for fun.”

  It’s the middle of October, which should mean boots and scarves and pumpkin-spiced lattes — but in South Florida, it just feels like Summer Part Two. It’s fifteen minutes until noon and I’m already sweating, my thighs sticking to the bench we’re sitting on.

  “Why? Just because you changed your major doesn’t mean you can’t still focus on your music.”

  “It does when I’m already behind in credits, and science might as well be another language to me,” he argues. Then, he nudges me where I sit beside him on the bench. “Unlike you, brainiac.”

  “So that’s what happened here — you bribed the professor to be my lab partner so you could pass, huh?”

  “Damn it, you caught me.”

  Something in my stomach twisted at that, because the last time I caught him, it’d nearly killed me.

  Grayson must have noticed the shift in me, because he set his guitar to the side, crossing his ankle over the opposite knee. “I didn’t notice when we were dating just how smart you are,” he says. “But I was so far up my own ass, I guess, that I didn’t really see much at all.”

  I nod, because though it didn’t feel like it back then, I look back on the time we dated now and see just how wrapped up I was in him. It was always me going to his shows, his place, hanging with his friends. Sure, he came to sorority events after I begged him to, but for the most part, I was happy to lose myself in who he was and not talk about me at all.

  With Adam, it’s the complete opposite.

  He always builds me up, asks me about my classes, about my dreams. It’s not just the here and now that he’s fascinated with, but who I want to be next year, or in five years, or for the rest of my life.

  It’s like he knows he’s going to be there with me, and he’s so sure in that fact that he’s determined to find out where he fits in my picture so he can step into the role fully.

  My heart pinches the more I think about him, because as confident as I was at the beginning of the semester about us, something has changed in the last few weeks.