He took a deep breath and I was suddenly very relieved to not hear him wheeze, reminding me where we are and what had happened.
A bit overwhelmed, I willed myself not to cry and instead patted his arm through the bars of the bed in what I hoped communicated my relief over the allergy thing. But as I pulled my hand away, he grasped it, his fingers twining between mine.
“I don’t want to wait until after Thanksgiving” he said, staring into my eyes.
I shook my head but didn’t struggle against him and let him have my hand. “We have to. If it’s meant to be it will work out. If you really like me, it will be worth the wait.”
He sighed and arched his neck, looking at the ceiling and taking a few deep breaths. He cursed, the muttered swear muffled in the mask.
I squeezed his fingers.
He leveled his head and looked at me, his blue eyes intense under his crazy long lashes. “I don’t want to get my stuff sorted out. I don’t want to waste more time by not being with you. In case it’s not obvious, I really like you, Brooklyn. I think I’ve liked you from the second I bashed into you on move-in day when you thought I was Will, some random guy.”
“You’re still Will, some random guy,” I said, smiling as my heart pounded in my chest because it was like he knew those first days when we met and I didn’t know he was with Emmie were special, pure. Like he was all mine then. “I still think of you that way sometimes.”
“No one calls me Will.”
“Why is that?”
He shrugged. “I guess my parents do, but no one here. I’ve always been Dave. Willmont’s a dorky name,” he said with a smirk. “I mean, William I could live with. Or even Wilson. But Willmont?” he pulled a face, making me laugh.
“I like it. Will is a great name.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, rubbing his thumb over my fingers. “I’ll let you call me Will sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?”
His eyes got sleepy-looking, like they had just before he’d leaned in and kissed me back in the parking lot. “Yeah. Just sometimes. When it’s you and me alone, because when you look at me like that, I feel like the opposite of a dork.”
My heart fluttered in my chest as he touched my hand and looked at me that way, causing the tiny fissure in my resolve to grow a bit wider and deeper. I suddenly had the urge to ask him about that time in Emmie’s bed and what he’d been thinking when he’d realized it was me.
Do not think about that now, the rational part of my brain yelled. Stick with the Thanksgiving plan. That’s the best thing you can do.
Forget that. Ask him. Get him to admit how he was desperate to kiss you when he realized it was you, said the part of me that wanted to get up on the bed with him, take off that mask and kiss him again (something I would never do since I still feared my shrimpy spit).
His chest rose and fell with his breath and it seemed like his rate of breathing had increased. “Are you okay? Want me to get the nurse?” I said, glancing at the monitor beside him with its squiggly lines that meant nothing to me.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Your breathing...”
“It’s you. You’re doing that to me,” he said, looking into my eyes.
“Stop it,” I whispered, taking my hand from his. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m fine, Brooklyn. It has nothing to do with the allergy and everything to do with you.”
My resolve almost cracked in two right then, and I realized it was my last chance. I disentangled my hand from his and stood up, stepping back out of his reach. “I can’t do this. I won’t do this to Emmie and I won’t do it to either of us. Please.”
He closed his eyes and swore again.
“I should go,” I said, backing toward the door before I lost myself and touched him again. “I’ll be out in the waiting room. Chelly and I are going to take you back to campus when they discharge you.”
He clenched his jaw and nodded.
Before either of us could say anything else, I practically sprinted out of the room.
~ ♥ ~
When I got to the waiting room, my brother was there, sitting next to Chelly, exactly as I would have expected. He had his back to me, so before he realized I was there, I gave Chelly a pointed look that said, “You didn’t tell him about how I caused Dave’s allergic reaction, right?”
And she gave me a discreet shake of her head back. Thank God.
“Hey,” I said to him by way of greeting as I sat down next to him. “Thanks for meeting us,” though I wasn’t sure what exactly I had to be thankful for; it hadn’t been my idea for him to come.
Robert turned to look at me. “The dean said he wanted me to drive you back to campus after you take whatshisname back.”
“Dave,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Daaaaaave....” He drew out Dave’s name and raised his eyebrows.
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Oh, Nothing. So, did you want to stop at the gift shop on the way to get some toothpaste and a toothbrush?”
I covered my mouth with my hand. “Do I have bad breath?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, shrugging again. “I figured you’d want to get the last traces of shrimp out of your mouth before you kiss your boyfriend goodbye.”
My face practically lit on fire. “What?” I glanced at Chelly. “I thought you didn’t tell him.”
She blinked at me and then looked at Robert. “When did I say that?”
“Two seconds ago when I gave you that look, asking you if you’d told him and you shook your head no.”
She threw her head back, taking a big breath. “Ohhhhhh. Noooooo, I thought you were asking me if I’d hooked up with your brother here. And I haven’t.” She gave my brother one of her thousand watt smiles. “Yet.”
Robert coughed and made a gurgling noise.
Good, I hope you choke on it, I thought.
Chelly patted his back, not missing a beat. “But yeah, I totally told him about you and Dave,” she said, nodding. Then she cocked her head. “Why? Was I not supposed to?”
I just stared at my friend wondering if she ever had a thought that didn’t fall out of her mouth.
“No,” I said, seething. “You were not supposed to tell him.”
“Oops,” she said and then turned to Robert. “My bad. Maybe you could forget I told you?”
“Nope,” he said, not even pretending to look guilty about it, which matched her expression.
Awesome. Then it got better.
My brother spoke. “I thought you had something going on with that coach of yours, B. What’s up with that? You’re not two-timing him are you?”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Chelly’s head snap toward me. “What’s this now? Sexy Coach Brady?” she made a face. “And here, I thought you weren’t into him. Though now that I think of your little conversation from before, it makes total sense.” She turned to my brother. “Your little sister is definitely playing the field. I don’t know about you, being her big brother and all, but personally, I approve.”
Robert frowned and opened his mouth, but I beat him to it.
“Nothing is happening. And we are so not having this conversation,” I said through clenched teeth, disbelieving Chelly’s complete lack of mouth filter. “Brady...Coach Fleming is faculty and there’s nothing going on, despite my brother’s ridiculous theories based on nothing other than two seconds worth of observation and a lifetime of wanting to torture me.”
“Two seconds is enough,” Chelly said, turning to Robert. “Don’t you think?”
“Totally,” he said, nodding.
“Ugh!” I got up and stormed away to the other side of the waiting room.
After a few long moments of my wishing I was an only child, Robert got up and came over to sit beside me. “Not interested,” I said, in case he wasn’t done talking about my love life, because I certainly was.
“We were just teasing, B,” he said. “You h
ave to admit, it’s kind of funny. The shrimp thing, I mean.”
I glared at him.
“Okay,” he said, putting his palms up toward me. “So it’s too soon. You’ll think it’s funny someday.”
“Today is not that day,” I said.
“Obviously. But he is okay, right?” he asked in a serious tone.
I exhaled, forcing my shoulders to relax. “Yeah. He’ll be fine. It was pretty scary, though.”
He slid his arm across my shoulders and I leaned into him, suddenly very comforted by my brother’s presence. We sat like that for a few minutes while I thought about the crazy day it had been and how exhausted I now was. Finally, I swiped a tear away and mentally pulled myself together. “He should be able to go soon and then we can take him back.”
“I didn’t know you had your license,” he said, giving me a squeeze.
Oh. Right. “Uh, well, technically I don’t.”
He leaned away from me, taking his arm away. “What do you mean?”
“I took lessons, but didn’t actually do the exam.”
“So you don’t have a license.”
I shook my head. “Not technically, no,” I said again.
“How did you think you could drive him back?”
“I got him here, didn’t I?” I said defensively. Which was stupid because obviously I shouldn’t be driving. But still, I was a capable driver and likely would have passed the exam; I just hadn’t had the opportunity to take it yet.
“While he was in the throes of a full on allergic reaction?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so that was an emergency and you probably saved his life. Not taking into account that you gave him that reaction,” he added in an amused tone that made me want to punch the smirk off his face. “But you can’t drive his car now. If something happened, you’d be screwed. His parents would sue you for sure and you’d get charged.”
He held up his hand when I opened my mouth, effectively cutting me off. “No, I can’t let you drive his car. Oy, Seychelles?” he said in a raised voice.
Chelly turned from the rugby game on TV. “Yeah?”
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Yep,” she said over her shoulder and then turned to give him a once-over. “Why, you want me to take you somewhere?”
“Is she for real?” he asked me quietly.
“Unfortunately yes. Please don’t get sucked in, she will have you for breakfast.”
“That is not a deterrent, little sister,” he said under his breath, his eyes not leaving her.
Gross. “You are staff, Robert. You. Can’t. Date. Students,” I said, enunciating every syllable to make sure he understood.
“Well, I’m not actually getting paid, so...”
I rolled my eyes, but he had already turned back to Chelly. “How about you drive my car back to Rosewood and I’ll take Dave back to Westwood?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “What’s it worth to you?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up into a smile making me suddenly feel like I needed to take a shower. That, coupled with the thought that I was better off not seeing Dave again made me suddenly want to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. “Okay, you two. Gross. You know what? I think Chelly driving your car back to campus is a grand idea. In fact, why don’t we go right now?”
Robert frowned. “You’re going to leave me here on my own?”
“Brooklyn?”
I turned to face Dr. Richmond, my heart suddenly banging around in my chest. “Oh. Hi. Everything okay?”
She smiled. “Fine. He’s just getting dressed and then he’ll be ready to go.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “And I’ll make sure he carries that EpiPen.”
“Shrimpy spit,” I heard muttered over my shoulder but chose to ignore it, though my reddening cheeks didn’t.
The doctor smiled at us and then left. “There you go,” I said to my brother. “He’ll be out in a few. Give us your keys.”
“I don’t even know what this guy looks like,” he said, but dug his keys out of his pocket and held them out.
“Gorgeous,” Chelly said, taking the keys from my brother’s fingers. “He looks like Zac Efron—you can’t miss him.”
“Oh goodie,” my brother said drily as we left him there in the hospital waiting room. “Straight back to campus, you two,” he said in a raised voice that sounded a lot like my father’s, then added, “I mean it!” when Chelly waved at him over her shoulder.
Corn Dogs
Chelly wanted to stop for some food, since we hadn’t eaten since the shrimp way earlier, but I was exhausted and though I was hungry too, I just wanted to get back to campus. And knowing my brother, even though his car was basically a piece of junk, he would not like us driving around in it and he’d specifically told us to go straight back.
Not to mention that we still had to check in with the dean and if she found out we were out driving around, she would be none too pleased.
“Let’s just head back,” I said as we got into Robert’s car.
Chelly gave out a big sigh. “You are no fun. Live a little.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I almost killed a man today. And after you told my brother about that, I almost killed you.”
She smirked as she slid the key into the ignition slot. “He didn’t care. He thought it was funny. He’s nice, by the way,” she said and then laughed when she looked at me. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not interested. It was just flirting.”
I wondered why she wasn’t interested, since Robert was (if I was being objective, which I could be, in private, despite what I’d said to my friends before) good looking and definitely charming, but I figured questioning a good thing was a bad idea. Life would be way more complicated if she dated him. It was enough keeping him away from Emmie.
“It wasn’t funny,” I said, getting back to the situation with Dave, although the corner of my mouth kicked up. Maybe it was the exhaustion talking, but all of a sudden it did seem a tiny bit funny. “Fine, okay, it’s a little funny. But you can’t go around blurting out stuff like that. Especially to my brother.”
“Or Emmie,” she said helpfully.
“Exactly.”
Chelly pulled out of the parking garage to the street. That it was already dark out made the day feel even longer. “You’re going to talk to her, though, right?”
“I’m going to have to. But I’m still not a hundred percent on dating him. I told him we’d have to cool it until after Thanksgiving and if we still felt the same after that...”
She glanced over at me, nodding. “That’s a great idea.”
“I don’t want to be his rebound girl. He says he likes me for me, but I have to think the thing with Emmie is still too fresh, right?”
“Absolutely,” Chelly agreed. “And you need to be sure you’re not going to be fooling around with your coach.”
“There is nothing going on with him,” I said.
She glanced over again. “Sure?”
I ticked off the reasons on my fingers, “He’s faculty.”
“Sort of,” Chelly countered.
“He’s training for the Olympics.”
“With a busted leg.”
“He’s the dean’s son.”
“WHAT?” The car swerved, narrowly missing a mailbox before Chelly straightened out.
“Pay attention to the road!” I yelled.
“Don’t drop drama bombs! She hollered back.
“Fine. Yes, he’s her son. No one is supposed to know, though. Can you please maybe keep a secret?”
She exhaled, keeping her eyes on the road and her hands at ten and two. “Fine. But oh my God, Brooklyn.”
“I know. So yeah, there are many reasons why nothing is going on with me and him. And anyway, I like Dave. I’ve liked him from that first day. I couldn’t talk about it for obvious reasons, but I really liked him.”
For about the first time ever, Chelly was quiet for a lon
g time. Long enough that after several minutes I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What?” I finally asked. “What are you thinking about?”
“Honestly?” she said, looking at me. “A steak burrito. I’m starving.”
I rolled my eyes.
“But before that, I was thinking about you and which guy is better for you. I mean, I haven’t known you that long, but you’re a great girl and any guy would be lucky to have you.”
“I...thank you,” I said quietly, a little embarrassed at her compliments, especially when I thought that exact thing about her. “So which guy do you think?”
I held my breath as she tapped her thumbs against the top of the steering wheel. “I really don’t know.”
“That’s helpful.”
She barked out a laugh. “I wasn’t trying to be helpful. Dave and Coach Brady—and Jared for that matter—are great guys. But it’s about who you want. Who turns your crank? That’s who you need to be with. Obviously that’s not Jared, since you broke up with him, so is it Dave or the coach?”
I shook my head. “I can’t be with Brady even if it was him.”
“What if you took away all the obstacles?”
“I really don’t know. I like them both for different reasons.”
“You like them both because they are both smoking hot.” She took her right hand off the wheel to fan herself, making me laugh.
“They are both hot, I’ll give you that. But they’re totally different guys. Brady’s intense and serious and he loves horses and you should see him ride.” It was my turn to fan my face.
“I have seen him in those pants, that boy is a danger to ovaries everywhere.”
I snorted. “But Dave is sweet and funny and also sexy as anything.”
“Which one is the better kisser?”
“Hmm,” I said, thinking about it.
“So you have kissed your coach.”
“What? You...how? Aw crap,” I stuttered out, realizing way too late that she’d just totally baited me into admitting I’d kissed Brady.
“Busted. So, who was better?”
“That’s hard to say. One was interrupted by Celia at the dance and the other was interrupted by anaphylaxis. Neither were ideal situations.”
Reading Between the Lines Page 14