“Oh, come on,” I teased from behind her, already following. “It’s just a little perspiration.”
And then, I swooped in, wrapping my arms around her and hugging her to my chest as I spun her around. She squealed, laughing and flailing until I finally relented and set her feet back on solid ground.
“Why are you so sweaty?” she asked on a laugh. “And why are you here?”
“I just finished playing basketball out at the courts. And I go to school here. Which, I guess that makes two of us now,” I added, holding up the envelope from Campus Housing.
She snatched it from my grip and flipped through the contents, holding out her hand for the keys, next.
“I didn’t know you went here,” she said, but her blush betrayed her.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s okay that you’re stalking me, B. Maybe I kind of like it.”
“You wish,” she replied, nose still in the papers. “Seriously though, you were supposed to be at UC. What happened?”
“Remember my uncle I told you about? The one who had connections at a university in California?”
She nodded, and I spread my arms open wide as if to gesture to the campus as a whole.
“You’re looking at the same university my dad and uncle graduated from, both with their degrees in Accounting. At first, my application was waitlisted, but my uncle knows a few of the guys on the Admissions Board, and he worked some magic.”
“And now here you are,” she said, peeking up at me through her lashes. I loved that feeling of having her eyes on me, of knowing her stomach was in knots being this close to me again.
“Here I am,” I repeated.
She shook her head, dipping her gaze back to the envelope. Every cell in my being buzzed with her near, the unyielding brightness of all the possibilities blinding me.
“So, you made it to California after all,” I mused.
She looked up then, her eyes mischievous and alluring. I wasn’t even sure she knew when she did that, when she looked at me in a way that made my balls tingle and my mouth dry with the urge to touch her. She played innocent, but her gaze told me something else.
“I guess I did,” she breathed.
We were selfish in that next moment, eyes devouring each other, and I was already planning the rest of our day, the rest of our night, the rest of our lives. A million images flashed before me — campus bonfire parties, late nights studying in the library, early mornings surfing the waves, lazy afternoons tangled in the sheets…
But it was all wiped away in an instant because my roommate appeared out of nowhere, grabbing B from behind and spinning her around just the same way I had.
My first instinct was to punch him, hard, right in the nose. It was a guttural response, one I couldn’t control if I tried, and as soon as he dropped her back to the ground, I surged forward with the intent to do just that.
Until he spoke.
“Oh my God, I almost forgot how beautiful you are,” Ethan said.
Then, he dipped her back like a fucking prince in a movie, kissing her the way I’d always dreamed of doing.
My stomach dropped at the sight, at the way she melted for him, the way he looked at her like she was his world once she was upright again. His hands framed her face, revering her, and they smiled at each other like they were in love.
I was going to be sick.
I cleared my throat when they didn’t stop the stupid love-sick stare after a long pause, and that seemed to jerk Ethan back to the present moment. He perked up, tucking B under his arm like he’d done it a hundred times before.
Like he owned her.
My fists curled at my sides.
“And I see you met my roommate!”
B’s eyes widened, and she turned to me with a dozen questions dancing in her gaze, but I just clenched my jaw and slowly put the sickening pieces together.
Ethan had gone to Florida for the summer. He told me he met a girl. He told me he was in love. He told me she was coming here. He told me he’d found his First Lady — since the prick wanted to be President one day.
He told me all about her.
But he never told me her name.
“Jamie is your roommate?” B squeaked.
“Yeah,” he answered, pointing his finger between the two of us. “Y’all know each other?”
All those possibilities I’d fantasized about disappeared into a wisp of smoke, and I felt it — the stone I hardened into in that moment as I answered, “We went to high school together.”
B swallowed. “Yeah. He dated my best friend back in the day.”
The words best friend gutted me, and I ground my teeth together.
“Huh!” Ethan mused, grin still in place. “What a small world!”
My nose flared as I looked at B, at Ethan, at where their hands were weaved together. And I realized I was quite literally going to be sick.
“I was just heading back to the dorm to shower,” I said. “I’ll see you later, Ethan.”
“Later, bro.”
I allowed myself one final glance at B, and then I jogged off, retrieving my basketball from under the bench before I ran the rest of the way across campus to our dorm.
When I got there, I ran straight to the toilet and surrendered my lunch.
Along with every dream I’d had of B ever being mine.
• • •
To my credit, I did try to stay away from B after that.
I knew from experience that my moral compass went haywire in the presence of that girl, so I made sure to be out of the dorm when she was there with Ethan, and I occupied my time with other girls, trying to pretend like they could fill the void B left in me.
It wasn’t until that party when B showed up in her tiny, hot pink swimsuit with her breasts pushed up to her fucking chin that I realized I didn’t want to stay away — and I had to find a way to be with her without ruining my friendship with Ethan.
So, I decided I would be her friend.
I could be just her friend, I told myself. I could hang out with her without crossing any lines, without putting her in a sticky situation with her boyfriend, without torturing myself. The fact that I truly believed this makes me laugh now, but at the time, I convinced myself thoroughly enough that I started calling her to hang out.
And when she tried to ignore me, I showed up after her shift at work and decided I wouldn’t take no for an answer.
You know how that day went, the way it felt to have her in my passenger seat again as we drove around San Diego. I introduced her to the city, all the while reveling in the way it felt to just be with her again.
This is worth it, I realized. I’ll take her in any way I can.
I thought, maybe, I really could drop my infatuation with her and settle just being her friend. But when we were in the snake garden at UC San Diego, that ridiculous attempt at lying to myself was shattered.
I still remember the way she looked in that moment, the two of us shielded by high bushes and flowers as she flushed at the mere mention of the word sex. It had started off with me just teasing her about her romance books, but then, teasing transformed into carnal need.
I had to know what got her off, what made her unravel.
More than that — I had to know how Ethan was failing her, if only for my own selfish pleasure.
“He’s fine. Good…” she said, not able to look at me as she finally conceded to my plea for her to tell me how Ethan was in the sack. “I just, I wish it was more… exciting. He’s so sweet, gentle, and that’s nice but…”