“Okay, story checks out.”
“Any other questions, Hiller?” he asks. I follow him out into the hallway.
“Does the two fifty a month include gas, electric, and Internet?”
“No. We divide that up and…”
Baker continues to speak, but I’m completely distracted.
Because the unseen falsetto singer has just emerged from the shower and into the hallway. He’s standing stock still, just looking.
It’s his eyes that bore into me more than anything else.
Their deep blue color is the same as they were in high school.
Everything else about Colin West is different now.
More manly.
He’s got more scruff, more muscles, the hair on top of his head has gotten thicker and darker.
And unfortunately for me, he’s impossibly sexy.
I mean, the level of sexy no woman should even consider because you just know it’s going to come with a whole lot of baggage. I can already see the volume of his unanswered texts to thirsty women emanating off of him.
And he’s completely on display right now, dripping wet from his shower, just a white towel wrapped around his lower half.
Colin’s aqua green eyes fix on mine, amplifying the chill I feel running through me. I reciprocate his glare.
“Oh, hey, Colin,” Baker says, noticing him. “Remember Charlotte, from Galesburg High? She’s my age. Perhaps you two can meet properly once you get some clothes on.”
It hits me that Baker might know about Colin and my romance since he went to Galesburg High School with us. Or maybe he was one of the few people in school that paid no attention whatsoever to gossip. He seems to have an overly aloof personality.
Colin flexes his jaw and I feel his eyes examining me from head to toe. I curse the fact that his expression still apparently has the ability to leave me speechless.
Not to mention, can cause a flood of warmth in my body.
“Don’t worry about that, Baker.” He winks. “It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.”
He looks between us, a mask of confusion on his face. “You’ve seen each other naked?”
My face turns bright red. “He’s exaggerating.”
Colin just smiles.
“Let’s head downstairs,” I say. “No further questions.”
“Duly noted. So, what do you think? Are you going to take it?” Baker asks.
When I get home later that day, Mom and Davin are gone, so I make some mac and cheese and give my girlfriend Faith a call. Faith and I were suitemates together starting sophomore year, and she’s one of my best friends at school. For our senior year, Faith is living with my other girlfriend Alex in a two-bedroom apartment on campus, since I was planning to move in with my boyfriend.
Until that fell through.
“Charlotte!” Faith says in her always-enthusiastic manner. “We’re almost moved in. What are you up to tonight? Do you want to hang out? You and Jacob can meet us somewhere.”
“Well…I was going to text you a couple of weeks ago, but I figured you were busy. But Jacob and I broke up.”
The truth is I’d been in a funk the last couple of weeks and was finding it difficult to text anyone the news. I kept thinking maybe he would change his mind.
“What?!”
“Yeah, right as I was about to move in, he said he was having second thoughts about living together senior year. Some nonsense about moving too fast. And, well, here I am…dumped and homeless.”
I stir the mac and cheese, and the homey, delicious scent of the stuff wafts into my nostrils.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Faith asks.
“I didn’t want to bug you. I knew you were busy with the drive up here from home. What is it, eight hours?”
“That wouldn’t have mattered, Charlotte! Bless your heart. Tell me about it! Are you doing okay?”
“Well, we hadn’t had sex in over a month. I thought I felt us drifting apart a little bit. But I figured we would love each other and stick it out.” Saying this now, I realize it’s the truth. “I felt like we were together because, well, we just were and that things would work out the way they should. Maybe I was more embarrassed than anything, that he got to be the one to break it off—and that I was alone now…that’s the other thing. Not that I’m afraid to be alone or have issues with that, but now I’m one of those ‘single’ girls on campus, and on top of it all, it’s during my senior year!”
“This is going to be a transition for you, but keep your head up. You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Faith.”
“Not to change the subject—we can talk all you want about the breakup—but where are you going to live now?”
“Funny you should mention that. I just went and looked at a place off-campus with three guys.”
“You could stand to live with three guys?! No. Come crash on our couch. You can be my bunk buddy. We’ll figure something out.”
I chuckle. “That’s super sweet of you, but I’m not sure if that’s the best idea. Isn’t your apartment pretty cramped?”
“We’ll make it work.”
I sigh. “Well, here’s the thing. The location of the house is perfect. But there’s just one catch.”
“What’s that?””
“You know the guy I told you about from high school?”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“The one who was a year older than me, went to Saint Simeon College. He played football there.”
“Ohhh. The first-kiss guy?”
My stomach drops just considering the fact that I had actually let him be my first kiss.
And he was more than just a kiss. But I’m just going to leave that little detail out for now. It’s too embarrassing, and I don’t want to get into it.
“Yes. The first-kiss guy.”
“What about him?”
“Well, he’s kind of living in that house.”
“And you think you’d want to make out with him again?”
“Oh no. God, no.”
I just want him to kiss me everywhere on my body.
“Charlotte,” she says, and I can hear the suspicion in her voice. “Are you telling me the truth?”
I clear my throat. “Okay, I might consider kissing him if it happened to happen.”
“Oh, right. You know, if you stumbled and tripped and ended up touching his lips.”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t pursue it. But wouldn’t that complicate matters if I’m living in a house with them?”
“Sure would. And I think that sounds like a lot of fun.”
I turn off the burner for the mac and cheese. “Faith, I called you because I thought you’d be the rational one.”
“Yeah, well, post-engagement Faith is all about living your life to the fullest.”
“Oh?”
Faith had a long engagement that she broke off last summer. She’d been dating a guy since high school, whom her parents had wanted her to be with, and she finally worked up the nerve to break it off.
“Yeah. Be like me, for instance. I had an affair with someone this summer.”
“He was married?”