I’m not sure why I felt so claustrophobic inside. Maybe it’s because I’m going to miss it all, that I’m sad to be leaving it behind. I’m graduating soon, moving on, leaving the place I’ve called home for almost four years now. My life will consist of more work and less play, a natural progression.
Even so, I shake my head at myself, because it’s not like my life is ending when I leave college. If anything, it’s just beginning. I’ll have more freedom, no classes or homework, no fraternity events. I’ll be able to go wherever I want, do whatever I want. And, if I get the right job, I’ll actually have money to do shit with.
I’m still trying to figure out the source of my anxiety when a familiar head of short, blonde hair catches my eye down the street.
It’s just a glimmer of the fairy lights hanging over head at first, their glow reflecting in her golden locks. But then she turns, and laughs, her wide, brown eyes shining in the low light of the street.
Erin Xander.
My heart stops in my chest at the sight of her. I haven’t seen her since we got back from break. Truthfully, I wondered if I’d ever see her again after Friendsgiving last year. She graduated, and since she wouldn’t return any of my calls or texts, I had no idea if she stayed in the area or moved away.
But here she is, shining like the brightest star downtown.
With her arm linked in Gavin’s.
I hate that my fingers curl into fists at my sides at the sight of him, that my jaw tenses and my next breath is hotter than the one before it. All I want is to be happy for her, to see that smile on her face and be thankful that someone put it back after so many years of it being absent.
But something in my stomach sours every time I see them together, and I don’t know if that will ever change.
Gavin says something to Erin when they’re about two bars down from me, and she nods with a smile, blushing at the kiss he lays on her cheek before he disappears inside.
My feet are moving before I even make the conscious decision to go to her.
As soon as I take the first step, my heart is in my throat, and it stays there every inch of the way as I make my way toward her. The closer I get, the more I can see how freshly tanned her skin is, how her long lashes are painted black, her lips a crimson red. The dress she’s wearing is somehow both conservative and sexy, the hem of it flowing below her knees, but the V-neck cutting down deep enough to show her cleavage. Those legs of hers are emphasized by the high heels she’s wearing, and her hair is slightly curled, just enough of a wave to make it look like she might have just taken a toss in the sheets before coming out.
Maybe she had.
The thought makes me ill.
She’s blissfully unaware of me until I’m about ten feet away, and then her brown eyes catch on mine, and the smile on her face slips off like a runny egg.
I stop when there’s a foot left between us, and suddenly, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I open my mouth, close it again, shove my hands in my pockets and look down the street, clearing my throat. It takes me a long moment to look at her again, and when I do, she’s watching me like a nightmare that’s come to haunt her again.
I want to be the first one to speak, but I can’t.
“Bear,” she finally says, and my name is broken on her lips. So much so that she clears her throat, tucking her hair behind her ears before she crosses her arms over her chest. “What are you doing down here?”
“Some of the brothers carpooled out,” I answer stupidly. “Wanted a change of scenery.”
“Oh,” she says, and she tries to smile, but it falls flat.
Her eyes jet over to the door Gavin walked in, and I assume he either went to the bathroom or to get them a drink, since there’s an open container pass as long as you stay within the block.
Either way, my time alone with her is limited.
“You look good,” I say.
Again, stupidly.
“Oh, thank you,” she says with a blush, looking down at her dress.
“Get lots of time at the beach over break?”
She frowns, confused.
“You’re tan,” I comment. “More so than usual.”
So stupid.
“Ah,” she says. “Yes, actually, but not here. Um… Gavin and I, we… we took a trip.”
“Oh.”
“We went to the airport and just let two strangers pick our gate letter and number.”
At that, I balk genuinely. “Wow. That’s… that’s ballsy.”
She laughs, and the sound is so sweet, so familiar and yet such a distant memory I almost question if it’s real. “It’s okay. You can say what you really think — it was crazy. And very unlike me.” She pauses then, filling up with a fresh inhale. “And amazing in every possible way.”
My stomach twists with jealousy, but I shove the emotion down. “Where did you end up?”
“Ecuador, if you can believe it.”
“Wow,” I say with another bulging of eyes.
“I know! I know,” Erin says, shaking her head. “It was some city we’d never even heard of. Guayaquil? But some quick research while we waited to board and we found this gorgeous beach town. The water was so blue and beautiful, and there were giant turtles and exotic birds, and the music was… oh, and the food!”
She can barely contain her smile as she talks about the place, the name of which I miss because I’m too busy telling myself to smile like I mean it, and it takes all my effort to do so.
After a while, she falls silent again, and I know my time is running out. It’s now or never to say what I have to say.
“Erin, I’m really sorry about what happened at Friendsgiving.”
She winces like I’ve struck her. “It’s ok—”
“No.” I stop her, holding up a hand. “It’s not okay. I know it and so do you.”
She rolls her lips together, crossing her arms even tighter over her chest as she waits for me to continue.
“I was an asshole. I acted out of line and I’m sorry for it. I don’t blame you for ignoring my calls and my texts. I’d be pissed if I were you, too. But…”
Don’t you fucking get emotional, Bear.
But it’s useless. My throat nearly closes on itself as I try to fight back the tears stinging the corner of my eyes, and I still a breath before I continue.
“Look, I don’t have an excuse, other than I had my own shit going on. But it doesn’t matter. All that does is that I’m genuinely sorry that I hurt you.” I find her gaze then, and when I see her eyebrows pinched together as she watches me struggle with my emotion, I nearly fall apart. “And I’m glad to see you happy, Erin. I truly am. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
She sucks in a stiff breath, and I don’t miss the glossing of her own eyes. “Bear…”
Behind her, I see Gavin in the bar, making his way through the crowd and back out to the street.
“I just wanted you to know,” I say with a sniff, and then I turn and bolt without another word, steering myself back toward the bar where my brothers are. I don’t look over my shoulder to see if Erin is watching me leave, or if Gavin is giving her a kiss now that he’s reunited with her, or if they’re walking hand in hand in the opposite direction.
I can’t do anything but forge on.
And as I reach the bar again, ducking inside and welcoming the greeting of smoke and music, I have the most disturbing moment of clarity.
I finally understand why I feel tethered to this place, why it feels impossible to leave.
It’s not PSU that’s keeping me here. It’s not my brothers or the parties or the nostalgia of being a college kid. It’s not the bars or the three-story gym on campus or the mostly responsibility-free lifestyle.
It’s her.
And now that I see it, I know one thing for sure.
I can’t leave here.
Not yet.
And not without her.
“WHAT IS IT?”
“Open it and find out.”
I
stare at the giant box Gavin just took out of his car and sat between us in the parking lot, questioning its safety with an arched brow. Other people from therapy are still filing out to their own cars around us, and Gavin tips an imaginary hat at them when they stare at the box with just as much confusion as I am.
“I don’t like surprises.”
“It’s not a surprise,” he says on a laugh. “It’s a gift. Open it.”
I should be used to this kind of behavior from Gavin. I mean, if him suggesting that we take a spontaneous trip where we let strangers pick our destination hadn’t proved that already, I’m not sure what would. Still, my stomach is a mess of butterflies as I stare at the gift.
I roll my lips together, slowly inching closer to the box. It’s obnoxiously big, so much so that it barely fit in the back seat of Gavin’s car, and it’s fire-engine red with a bright pink bow on top.
I slip my fingers under the bow first, untying it and letting it fall open to expose the top lid of the box. And when I remove it, I scream.
A cannon of confetti and glitter bursts when I remove the top, making a loud pop sound as a flurry of red, pink, purple, and white rains down around me. Gavin is laughing uncontrollably as I try desperately not to have a heart attack, and I throw the box lid directly at him, disappointed when he catches it easily.
“Jerk!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, still fighting off laughter. “I didn’t know it would be so explosive.”
That sends him into another riot of laughter, and though I’m starting to laugh, too, I beat my tiny fists on his chest until he drops the box lid and wraps his arm around me.
“Did you look inside?”
“I didn’t have to. The insides jumped out at me!”
He chuckles, nodding toward the box as he shifts me in his arms so I can see.
Inside, there’s a fluffy teddy bear with soft beige fur and a red heart clasped between its paws. There are also at least three boxes of chocolate, a bottle of champagne, and a giant cartoon-drawn card that says will you be my Valentine?
“Valentine’s Day?” I ask, giving Gavin a pointed look when I turn in his arms once more. I thread my hands behind his neck. “You’re joking, right? You don’t strike me as a man who buys into a consumer-driven, romantic holiday.”
“Oh, I absolutely loathe the holiday,” he agrees with a grin. “But I happen to really like you.”
I smile. “Is that so?”
“It is. So you see, I’m in a conundrum, because where I would usually spend the holiday playing video games or making fun of couples posting on social media, this year…” He pulls me in closer, his endless blue-green eyes sparkling in the low light from the parking lot streetlamps. “I’d rather be disgustingly cute and couple-y with you.”
“What if I also hate Valentine’s Day?”
“We can have an anti-Valentine’s Day.”
“And that would entail…”
“Watching John Tucker Must Die and pigging out on our favorite snacks in our sweatpants. No candles, no roses, no romance. Just trashy movies, trashy food, and trashy conversation.”
I laugh, playing with his hair where it meets the nape of his neck. “You’ve got this all planned out.”
“So, are you in?”
His eyes fall to my lips, and when he bites his, desire rolls through me in a drastic heat wave.
Our trip only lasted ten days, but it was magical in every way. Sure, there was the anxiety of not knowing what to pack, of flying to a country I barely knew anything about, let alone had ever visited before, but overall, it was the most exhilarating trip of my life.
We flew into Ecuador without a single thing planned, using our time in the airports to book a last-minute hotel and car. We decided to drive out to a little beach town called Montañita, and the next ten days were filled with perfectly warm days and cool, pleasant nights. We lounged on the beach, danced in the sand to hypnotic local music, ate some of the best food of my life with spices and flavors I’d never experienced, and talked about everything — our past, our present, what we wanted in our future.
And through it all, Gavin never pushed me past where I was comfortable.
I’d be lying if I said we didn’t spend plenty of nights wrapped up in each other, touching and exploring. But we never went all the way. I wasn’t quite ready.
But now, I think I am.
And what better time to give myself to Gavin fully than Valentine’s Day, even an anti-one?
“I’m in,” I answer, and then I press up on my toes to kiss him and seal the deal.
Later that night, back at the condo Jess, Ashlei, and I moved into together after I got back from my trip, I take a long, hot shower and join the girls on the couch for popcorn and reality TV. I don’t even make it through one episode before I’m yawning and debating how early is too early to go to bed. I’ve got class bright and early in the morning, and if I’ve learned anything after just the first two weeks of law school, it’s that there isn’t enough sleep in the world to get me through it.
I somehow manage to make it to nine before I peel myself off the couch and tell the girls goodnight. I brush my teeth and wash my face and sigh with relief when I climb into bed.
Until my phone starts vibrating so hard it nearly falls off the bedside table.
I roll over and snatch it before it does, and then I freeze.
It’s Bear.
I swallow, debating if I should answer. I ran into him downtown over the weekend, and seeing him for the first time in nearly a month knocked the breath clean out of me. He finally apologized for Friendsgiving — mostly because I couldn’t ignore him when he practically ambushed me in the middle of the street — and while I wanted to still be angry with him, one look at the remorse on his face, at the pain I knew he was in, and the last thing I could be was mad.
Shaking my head, I press the green phone button on my screen and put the phone on speaker, lying back and resting it on my chest.
“Hello?”
There’s a shuffling of noise, and then a breathless Bear. “You answered.”
And I can’t help it.
I smile.
“Indeed, I did.” I pause, swallowing down the nerves threading like a yarn ball in my throat. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah.” A breath. “Well, no, not exactly.”
I frown. “What’s going on?”
“I just… I’ve been thinking a lot since I saw you downtown.”
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “Okay…”
“God, now that I have you on the phone, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Jesus, Bear, you’re going to give me a heart attack if you don’t just spit it out.”
I think I hear a soft laugh, but then the line goes silent.
“Okay, well… here’s the truth of it.” Another pause. A swallow. “I don’t want to lose you, Erin.”
I can’t explain what those words do to me, how they hit me hard in the chest and steal my next breath, make me pop up straight in bed, make me grip my phone like a lifeline.
“I know we have both… we’ve put each other through…” He inhales a long breath, lets it go, and I know that he’s wishing for the right words to come to him.
I also know from the past that it’s impossible, because I’ve tried to find the right words to say to him more times than I can count.
“Can we please start over? I know that’s asking a lot, to try to erase and forget everything… but… I don’t want to just go on with my life and pretend like I don’t want you in it.”
I sigh, sinking back into my pillows as I scrub a hand back through my still-damp hair. “I don’t want to forget,” I finally croak out.
Bear is silent for a long moment before he says simply, “Oh…”
Silence.
“Well, I’m sorry I called so late,” he finally says. “I’ll let you get some—”
“I don’t want to forget because everything we’ve been through has made
us who we are,” I finish. “I know it hasn’t all been easy. I’ve hurt you, you’ve hurt me, but…” I swallow, and then say it again. “I don’t want to forget. I don’t think I could forget,” I add. “Could you?”
“No,” he answers, honestly and quickly. “No, I don’t think I ever could.”
“Then I don’t think starting over is an option,” I say, playing with the lace hem of my sheets. “But… I don’t think that means we can’t be friends.”
A relieved exhale comes from the other end of the line. “That’s all I want, Erin. Just give me the chance to right my wrongs, and we can move forward together.”
I smile. “I like the sound of that.”
“So, friends?”
“Friends.”
“Perfect,” he says. And even though I can’t see him, I can picture his bright, wide smile when he adds, “I’ll have bracelets made.”
I bark out a laugh. “I think you’d need more of a necklace to fit around your beastly wrist.”
“And more of a ring to fit around your tiny one.”
We both chuckle at that, and then the line falls quiet, and I’m suddenly aware of how hard my heart is thumping in my chest.
“Goodnight, Bear.”
“Goodnight, Erin.”
THE CLICKING OF HIGH heels on a marble floor is one of my favorite sounds of all time.
There’s just something about that click, clack, click, clack that makes me feel powerful as fuck when I strut my ass through the office at Ball & Pen.
The new Ball & Pen.
In downtown Miami.
Where I’m the HBIC — Head Bitch in Charge.
Okay, so that’s not technically my title, but it might as well be. Celeste Landers, whom I met at the Okay, Cool Southeast Advertising Conference afterparty last year, was quick to snatch me up when she heard I’d left Okay, Cool.
Fortunately, she didn’t know the exact reason why I had left — no one did — which was about all the mercy I was receiving from Brandon since our breakup.
The thought of him still makes my stomach drop, even in my new bougie office with a view of Bayshore. I was honored to be hired by Mrs. Landers to essentially head the expansion of Ball & Pen with the new Miami office, and I’m already securing high-end clients for us left and right. When it comes to events, especially in the corporate and technology spaces, I’m confident there’s no one better than me.
Hazed: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 6) Page 4