by Anna B. Doe
“That’s…” Yasmin starts, but no more words come out.
“Fucked the hell up?” Chloe suggests. There is no malice in her words, just plain facts.
Yasmin thinks about it for a moment and then nods. “That works.”
“I know.” I bury my face in my hands. “I don’t even blame him for hating me. Hell, sometimes I still hate myself. But I can’t change what happened, I wish I could, but I can’t. I apologized, he said he forgives me but…”
A soft hand lands on my shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “We all do stupid shit when we’re young,” Chloe says in a reassuring voice. “It’s just a part of growing up?”
“Yeah? What crazy thing did you do?” I tilt my head in challenge.
“Umm…”
I give her a few moments to think it through, but when nothing comes, I chuckle bitterly. “Right.”
Yasmin refills our shot glasses. “What Chloe is trying to say is that we all make mistakes. It’s not like you did it just for fun. That grade has been worrying you since the beginning of the school year and you had nationals to worry about. It’s normal that you were scared to come forward with the truth.”
I swirl the clear liquid around the cup. “It’s not good enough. He lost everything.”
“But so did you,” Yasmin says forcefully, making me look at her. There is the familiar burning in my eyes. I didn’t just tell them about what happened with Hayden, but about the accident too. It’s like when the words started to come out they all needed to be unleashed and there was nothing that could stop them from coming out. “And when you saw him you did the right thing and apologized. The rest is on him, the only thing you can do is move on.”
I look away. “I’m not sure I can.”
“What…”
Yasmin doesn’t get to finish because there is a loud knock on the door. We exchange a glance before turning our attention to the door.
“Who do you think it is?” Yasmin whispers.
I look down to check the time on my phone. I ordered tacos half an hour ago. “Probably delivery.”
Chloe frowns. “Shouldn’t they call you to come and pick it up downstairs?”
“It’s still early.” I shrug. “Maybe they let them in?”
I get off my bed and the room sways a little. I grip the nightstand to keep my balance, my tummy rolling uncomfortably.
Why didn’t I think to eat before we started drinking?
At this point, I wasn’t even sure I’ll be able to eat, much less actually keep the food down. I haven’t drunk in so long, I forgot the power a few shots of tequila have.
“She’s ordering so much delivery it’s unreal. I think they have her number saved in their contacts,” I hear Yasmin explain to Chloe and they both seem to find it extremely funny because they start laughing once again.
Slowly I cross the short distance toward the door just as there’s another knock. I pull open the door and come face to face with a hard chest. My hands shoot forward to steady myself.
How did it get so close?
The shirt is soft underneath my fingers and there are long fingers wrapped around my wrist. Thumb caresses the inside of my wrist. The small movement sending a jolt of electricity through my arm.
I look up, up, up.
Blink.
And blink once again because it can’t be true.
But it is.
“Hayden?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
HAYDEN
What the hell am I doing? I shouldn’t have come here, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I just couldn’t. No amount of working out or trying to busy my mind with homework could push Callie Stewart out of my mind.
The way she looked at me when I saw her today. Not once, but twice. The way those pink lips parted and I’m sure if I stood closer I could hear her soft gasp.
You said no more, the voice of reason reminds me. But do I listen? Do I turn and walk away like the devil’s at my feet? Of course not, instead I raise my hand and knock again.
I can hear more whispering from the other side which means Callie or her roommate have to be inside. Why are they not opening?
Just then, the door abruptly swings open. I barely get a glimpse of her blonde head before she face-plants in my chest. My hands shoot forward, landing on Callie’s shoulders to steady her.
Her palms brace against my chest, nails digging into my pecs and then her whole body turns rigid. Like she just realized what is happening.
Slowly, she lifts her head, peeking at me through her lashes.
Callie blinks. Once. Twice. And then… “Hayden?”
It’s clear she’s surprised to see me. I was equally as surprised when I found myself parked in front of her dorm. This is the last place I expected I’d go to when I left for a drive earlier. I’d probably opt for a run, but it was still raining.
“Callie.”
“You’re not the delivery guy.” A confused frown appears between her brows, and I have to fight the smile that tugs at my lips. She looks too cute, all flushed and confused like that.
Stop it, man.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to…” What for really? This was the last place I should be at, but apparently the one my subconscious led me to. “I came to see you.”
“You already saw me today,” Callie points out blankly and takes a step back. She sways a little on her feet, her hand holding onto the door frame in the last second before she loses her balance completely.
“Are you okay?” I observe her carefully. Something doesn’t seem right.
She waves her hand, like it’s nothing, and almost punches me in the process. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” I protest, paying attention to small details. Like the fact that her cheeks aren’t just dusted in pink but bright red, and her pupils are dilated, swallowing the dark blue of her irises. “Were you drinking?”
Callie looks at me for a second and then bursts out into giggles. “A little.”
My eyes narrow. “What is ‘a little’?”
She shrugs and sways again, losing the grip she has on the frame. Her shoulder crashes into it before I get a chance to wrap my arms around her and get her on her feet.
“Yasmin was pouring them. If you want to blame somebody, blame her.”
I look up, and sure enough, Yasmin and another chic, the one from our Spanish class, are both sitting on Yasmin’s bed staring at us. A half-finished bottle of tequila between them.
Jesus Christ.
“Hey!” Yasmin protests. “You didn’t complain when you were downing the shots.”
“I wanted to forget,” she murmurs softly, so softly I’m not sure if they heard her. But I did.
I just want it to stop. I need it all to go away.
That pang I felt in my chest the first time she said those words to me returns in full swing.
“Come on, you need to go to bed.” I push her inside.
“But the delivery…”
Callie tries to turn around, like the delivery guy will appear out of nowhere. “You don’t want to eat anything right now, trust me, you’ll be thanking me later.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but Yasmin stops her. “I’ll go down and see what’s going on.”
“Fine,” reluctantly she agrees.
Yasmin grabs the other girl’s hand and tugs her behind. Soon enough the two of them are gone, leaving me alone with Callie.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Fine.”
There it is again. That word. Fine. I still remember the times when my mom would say she was ‘fine’ when she was anything but.
Suddenly she turns around, moving out of my reach. My arms fall down to my sides. “Why are you here Hayden?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“You didn’t want to talk before,” she points out.
“Callie, I…” I run my fingers through my hair, not knowing what to say
. I hadn’t planned on coming here, but at the same time, I couldn’t stay away. It’s like there is an invisible pull between us that’s bringing us back together. Over and over again it makes our paths cross.
“You can go.”
“What?”
“I get it, okay? You don’t want to talk to me. Not that I can blame you. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either. I’ll stay out of your way as much as possible and we don’t…”
“Callie…”
“Seriously, it’s fine.”
I move closer, my hands cupping her cheeks and forcing her to look at me. “Go out with me.”
She gasps audibly, and I’m not sure who’s more surprised by my words, she or I.
“What?”
“Go out with me,” I repeat, this time more determined than before.
“Why?”
Why? Isn’t that a million-dollar question?
“Because I want you to. Fuck, Callie.” I lick my lips, my throat dry. “I tried, I really did. I tried getting you out of my mind. I hope that everything that happened the other day would help me move past what happened back then. That saying I forgive you would help me move on, but it doesn’t.”
“It doesn’t?” She blinks, confused.
I shake my head no. “I still want you. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.” I let my thumb brush over the arch of her lip. So soft. Just like I remember. God, how I want to kiss her.
Callie shudders in my arms. “Hayden.”
“I do want you. So go out with me.”
“Now?”
“Not now,” I chuckle. “Another day. Preferably when you’re not drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” she protests, pursing her lips. The need to kiss her grows even stronger, but I won’t do it.
“Sure thing. Let’s put you to bed.”
Taking a deep breath in, I move back, putting so much needed distance between us. This time she doesn’t try to resist me when I lead her to her bed. She’s already wearing a pair of leggings, a sweater, and some fuzzy socks, so I just open the comforters and help her lay down.
Callie sighs happily when her head falls on the pillow, her eyelids already heavy. Pulling the covers over her, I tuck her in.
I’m about to leave when her soft whisper stops me. “Did you really mean it?”
“What?”
“Date.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it.”
“You liked me back then.”
A lump forms in my throat. No matter what happens between us starting today, thinking about high school will never be easy. Still, I force the admission out. “I did.”
“And I broke your heart.”
I simply nod, not sure where she’s going with this. Not knowing what to say. She’s drunk. Tomorrow, she probably won’t even remember half of this conversation.
“I liked you too, only I was too big of a coward to even think it, much less admit it,” Callie whispers. Not even realizing what her words have done to me, this time when her eyelids fall, she doesn’t open them.
Chapter Thirty-Five
CALLIE
“Wake up, sunshine.”
Somebody shakes me, making my stomach roll and pounding in my head intensify. I try to open my mouth to tell whoever’s doing that to fuck off, but they’re so dry just an unintelligible, groggily sound comes out.
“Your phone’s been going off for a while. I guess you have a class to get to?”
Yasmin. She’s the one who’s trying to wake me up by making boat—eh, bed—rock. Or maybe she’s just shaking me.
“Don’t wanna,” I finally manage to rasp, pulling the covers over my head. Sweet darkness envelops me completely and I finally manage to breathe. Now if only the pounding would stop.
“I don’t think college works that way.”
“Don’t care. My head is about to explode and my mouth feels like I ate sand.”
“Ehh, tequila has a way of doing that to a person.” The bed squeaks when she sits down next to me. “Did you take some ibuprofen last night?”
Tequila? Ibuprofen? What the…
“Callie?”
I push the covers down, wincing when the brightness of the day blinds me temporarily. What time is it anyway?
“What happened last night?”
Those chocolate eyes grow the size of saucepans. “You don’t remember?”
A chill runs down my spine. “What?”
“At all?”
“What happened Yasmin?” Now I’m sitting in the bed, covers pooling in my lap, and bile rising in my throat. Damn, I’m never drinking tequila ever again.
“We were drinking yesterday. Chloe, you, and I. You told us about what happened with Hayden, and then he came.”
“What?” Hayden was here? Why? And what the hell happened? I try to recall last night, but the only thing that comes from it is more headache.
“You thought it was the delivery guy, but nope.” She laughs at my stupefied face. “Hayden was standing on the other side of the door.”
“What did he say?”
Yasmin makes a face. “He said he came to see you, at which you pointed out he already saw you. It was really confusing.”
Mortified, I bury my face in my hands. How much can one person embarrass herself? If that person is me? Way too fucking much.
“Ehh, there is more.” Yasmin scrapes over her lip, looking anywhere but at me. This can’t be good.
“What more?” I barely dare to peek through my fingers. What more could there be?
“We might have left you guys alone for a bit. When I came back you were already asleep and he was gone.”
Great, just what I needed. God only knows what I told him while we were alone. Might as well jump out the window now.
The alarm buzzes again. Sighing, I grab the phone off the nightstand. It says eight-thirteen a.m.
Shit. Physical therapy.
I jump out of my bed so suddenly I almost face-plant with the floor. “I have to go because if I’m late I’m pretty sure my PT will murder me.”
“Good luck with that.”
I look down at my clothes, the same ones I wore yesterday. It’ll have to be good enough. Grabbing my trusty ball cap, I shove it on my head, grab my backpack, and run.
“Do you always hide or does it just come naturally?”
I turn around abruptly, pressing my hand to my wildly beating heart. “God, you scared the shit out of me.”
Hayden chuckles, pulling the chair next to mine out and taking a seat. “Sorry.”
My eyes narrow as I look at him. “You don’t sound sorry.”
“Maybe not.” He shrugs, slides his backpack to his lap, and starts going through the stuff inside.
My gaze is glued to him as he goes on about his business like he hasn’t witnessed my drunk ass less than twenty-four hours ago. I shift in my seat, brushing the sweaty palms against the sides of my legs. “What are you doing here?” I ask through the lump in my throat.
I’m still not sure what exactly happened, or what was said, but something must have because yesterday he ignored me and now we were what? Study buddies?
“What do you mean?” He lifts his head, deep green eyes looking at me. “I’m here to study?”
It sounds more like a question than a fact.
I take him in, his hair is darker, ends slightly curling like he just took a shower. His clean scent reaches my nose and I can’t resist inhaling more of it. More of him.
My heart is beating in a steady, although slightly accelerated rhythm that has all to do with the person sitting next to me.
“What are you doing here, here?” I point at the chair he’s sitting at.
“I told you, I’m studying,” he repeats, making sure to pronounce every syllable.
“Are you stalking me, Hayden?” Pulling the last item from the bag, he leans his elbows on the desk and looks at me.
“I might have stopped at the coffee shop after practice, and Yasmin might have told me where to find
you when you weren’t there. Does that count as stalking?”
“What were you doing in the coffee shop?” I shot back instantly, a frown between my brows deepening.
“Looking for you?”
“Why? You could have texted.”
“I don’t have your phone number.”
“You could have asked Nixon to give it to you.” Hayden makes a face at that like he ate something sour.
“I’m not going to ask Nixon for your number to remind you of a date you promised me.”
A pen I was holding falls out of my hand. Did I hear him right? “D-Date?”
My heart kicks up a notch, palms turning sweaty. What the hell is he talking about?
He chuckles, completely oblivious to the turmoil his words caused inside of me. “Figured you won’t remember.”
“Date?” I ask once again, just to make sure I understood him correctly.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“We don’t like each other,” I protest weakly which only makes him chuckle harder, although he tries to rein it in as not to disturb other students around us.
Hayden shakes his head. “That isn’t what you said last night.”
“What did I say last night?” God, how much did I have to drink? I’m going to kill Yasmin and whatever’s left of that tequila is going down the drain as soon as I get back to the room. I don’t even want to hear the T-word from now on.
“You really don’t remember?” That makes him laugh, like a full-on belly laugh in the middle of the library. A few loud shhh and glares are shot our way, but only when the librarian looks at us like she’ll pull out some torturing devices does he stop.
“Hayden,” I hiss, leaning closer. “Tell me.”
His eyes shot down to my lips before they return to mine, only now they’re a shade darker, his voice huskier. “Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s more fun that way.”
“What did I say?” I demand. If I don’t find out soon, I’ll turn nuts from all the possibilities my mind will conjunct.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“But…” His finger presses against my lips stopping any protest that I wanted to throw his way.