“I need to see you.” His words have the knot in my chest loosening, a breath whooshing out.
I look around the frat party. “I’m outside the Omega house. We are—were,” I amend, “celebrating. I can be at your place in half an hour.”
He hangs up and I’m left standing, my jaw on the concrete walkway.
I glance across the road and do a double take.
His car is there.
“What the hell are you doing?” Adam demands, appearing out of nowhere.
I spin to face him. “You were right. There are some mistakes you can’t take back. And there are others I’d make again, exactly the same way.”
I toss his phone at him. He lunges for it, twisting and falling onto his injured arm.
I don’t stick around.
Sawyer buzzes the driver’s window down and I sprint across the street to meet him. His hair is wild around his face, and there are dark circles under his eyes. His firm mouth is pursed but his eyes leap when they lock with mine, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Get in.”
Adrenaline surges through me and I round the hood, one last look over my shoulder at the party. A dozen people are standing on the lawn staring and pointing. Adam is slack-jawed on the ground.
“Hope your day was better than mine,” Sawyer says as I shift inside.
I lower my window, adjusting the passenger side mirror. “Everyone accused me of sleeping with my professor to get ahead.”
“And did you?”
I reach for lip gloss in my bag, slick it on, then recap the gloss and tuck it away. “Not to get ahead.”
“Then why?”
He accelerates down the street, the Mercedes tearing down the road in a combination of power and elegance.
“Because every second I’m not with him, life’s not as good as it could be.”
Sawyer exhales heavily and I glance over at his profile. If there’s a more beautiful man in the world, I’ve never met him. I’m getting high on his scent and our proximity.
But his next words halt all thoughts of making up with him.
“You gave the fifty-thousand dollars from my father to Russell’s engineering department.”
I play with the strap on my bag, my stomach tightening. “Surprise…?”
“It was impulsive and doing it behind my back was duplicitous.”
“I can’t tell which one you’re mad about.”
“Both,” he grits out.
“It was me making a decision for myself. I wasn’t about to lose this project,” I go on as familiar neighborhoods pass.
When we get to his place, my attention is captured by the SOLD sign on the lawn. “What’s with the sign?”
“Accepted an offer this morning.”
Wow.
“Where will you live when you come back after the winter break…” I trail off, because I’m an idiot.
Of all the times I wanted to be mature, to make my own decisions and think about my future, I never understood what that meant. Not really.
But he does.
“You’re not coming back.”
His dark eyes search mine. “No.”
My stomach falls through my feet, the earth tilting.
I want to be sick. Or to scream. Or to rewind until the second before I saw that awful sign, when the world was crashing down but we still had each other.
I’m out the door before he can grab me.
“Olivia…”
I head up the walk to the steps, not sure where I’m going, but standing still is impossible.
My knees give out and I sink to the sturdy porch, the one Sawyer built with his bare hands this fall.
He silently sits next to me and pulls me into his arms.
“When do you leave?”
“Next week.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I hate that I can’t think about existing without him. I hate that he made me into a person who wants more out of life, and now he’s walking away and I don’t know where to find that.
He lifts my chin, cupping my face in his large hands and forcing my watery gaze to his. “Come to New York with me.”
Disbelief slams into me. I search his face, because there’s no way he said that. “Are you serious?”
“Transfer schools. You have good grades, we can get you into NYU. Hell, maybe even Columbia. None of this will follow you.”
My lungs expand until I think I might burst. Like a dream, the future paints itself behind my eyes. “You’re actually crazy.”
“We’ll start over. We can get a place in the city. Bring Captain Jack and every one of those damned fish. We’ll find somewhere for you to dance. Tell me you want to.”
“I want to,” I whisper. “More than anything.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to wake up without you.”
He drags me into his lap and traps my mouth with his.
He’s heat and fire and the acceptance and admiration I’ve craved my entire life.
I thought once I experienced those feelings, my desire would fade.
Instead, it gets stronger.
I want to be wanted.
I need to be needed.
Not some perfect version of myself, but this real, raw one.
But I’d be leaving my friends.
My school.
The Stars competition…
I lock the thoughts away and kiss him back.
27
Sawyer
“We’re gonna miss you around here,” says Daniel as I finish packing up my father’s things in boxes for Goodwill.
A few items are tagged in separate piles to be sent to his academic colleagues.
“You’ll get over it. People leave.”
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.” Daniel claps me on the back. “Stay in touch, yeah? Or I’ll come to the city and hunt your ass down.”
There’s a knock on the door, and he pushes it wide to reveal Betty.
“I thought you might like something of him to remember.” I step back and gesture to a pile of items on the hall table next to the bowl of apples. “These were from his office. Favorite books. Cufflinks. I don’t know what would make you think of him.”
She beams. “That’s sweet of you. I don’t need things to remember. He’s in my heart.”
I turn that over as I cross to the fish tank.
The team borrowed it for their demo, and it’s not centered back on the table. I kneel down and adjust it, finding a piece of tape on the bottom.
For Olivia Barclay.
“He wanted her to have them,” I murmur.
“What’s that?”
I shake my head.
Captain Jack lurks near the back in his favorite patch of seaweed. Bright clownfish dot the clear water.
It’s going to be a pain in the ass to ship to New York, but we’ll figure it out. I’m sure as hell bringing it because it makes Olivia smile.
And she makes me smile.
I still can’t believe she’s coming with me. Russell U might be cutting me loose, but I don’t need them.
A shape on top of the water, a few inches length, grabs my attention.
A single blue fish.
Belly up.
My stomach turns. It must have happened after the students took the tank to campus for their presentation.